Dark Currents is the third full-length recording by Splinter Reeds, the West Coast's premier reed quintet featuring Kyle Bruckmann (English horn), Bill Kalinkos, Nicki Roman, Jeff Anderle (bass clarinet) and Dana Jessen. The album opens with Michael Gordon's majestic "Tall Grass," which cascades upwards into undulating waves of melody before spreading outward on a moody canvas that surges with tension and emotion. By contrast, Paula Mathussen's "Antenna Studies" combines ambient soundscapes and found sounds, while the musicians quietly tease their instruments with breath control and percussive pad strikes as a somber melodic figure gradually begins to take shape. Taken together, these two 20-minute performances propel the listener forward on an ever-changing journey, by turns hypnotic, ecstatic, surreal and spooky, that tests the pre-conceived boundaries of modern chamber music.

Carpathian Tales is a project of the artist's heart that has been formed over two years. It represents a musical dedication to her second home Romania - full of personal stories and compositions that capture the spirit of the country and paint a multi-faceted picture of the Carpathians. Each piece is accompanied by it's own story. All works combine the unmistakable energy of folk themes, pure emotionality and show a varied spectrum from melancholy to dancing virtuosity. These are special arrangements and first recordings that come together on this album. For this album, Lelie Cristea also went in search of works that would be equal in beauty and character to the pieces by Enescu and Porumbescu. She herself was surprised by the musical treasures she found and her expectations were far exceeded. All the works are united by their expressive character, which is characterised by folk themes and a wide spectrum of colours. Sensual ballads give way to virtuoso character pieces that joyfully invite you to dance. What always attracts one almost magically is the emotional depth of the compositions. It is up to the performer and, of course, the listener to allow this completely and to immerse themselves in the respective work. Then the pulse of the works begins to connect with your own, and the journey begins. With Carpathian Tales and further planned concept albums, Lelie Cristea fulfils her wish to record and capture special works from classical, film and salon music in exclusive arrangements.

- An original and highly enjoyable program of works for bassoon and piano by romantic composers: the bassoon sonata Op. 9 by Gustav Schreck (1849-1918), the bassoon sonata by Anton Reicha (1770-1836), the Grande Sonate by Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870) and the brilliant Introduction & Polonaise by Jules Demersseman (1833-1866). - Strongly melodious music of great beauty, a valuable homage to that neglected but highly expressive and versatile wind instrument, the bassoon! - Played by Paolo Carlini, bassoon and Fabrizio Datteri, piano. Paolo Carlini is one of the foremost bassoon players of his generation, he recorded extensively as a soloist for labels Sony Classical, CPO, CHANDOS, Brilliant Classics, Stradivarius, Naxos, Tactus, EMA Records.

This third release marks the end of the recording of all the orchestral works written by Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz over the course of her not exactly long life. And once again, the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Lukasz Borowicz unfolds a representative range that extends from the phenomenal artist's early neoclassical works to her late phase, in which tonal innovations were at the forefront of her creative work, without losing the indispensable communication with the audience. As a world premiere recording, this album contains the composer's first symphony, while the early Polish Overture and the late In una parte, with which Grazyna Bacewicz created a final "sonoristic" marvel in 1967, two years before her death, can also be heard as concert hall rarities.

A Western is Michael Gordon's extended musing inspired by the legendary 1950s film High Noon, starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. It's about the Wild West, the way of the gun, classic American TV fantasies, and of course the good guys versus the bad guys. Caroline Shaw's How to fold the wind is a mesmerizing choral work that expands on the vocal acrobatics the composer has explored with her Grammy-winning ensemble Roomful of Teeth. The piece is inspired by Japanese origami, using speech, inhaled notes, wordless melodies and innovative vocal effects to fold individual voices together into a complex whole. Released together as a "split album" on CD, the two works mirror each other in a compelling array of contrasts and similarities. Each was recorded by one of Denmark's premier vocal ensembles - A Western by Theatre of Voices, How to fold the wind by Ars Nova Copenhagen - with each performance conducted by Paul Hillier. And although the lyrical forms of each piece couldn't be more strikingly different, somehow they elevate each other into a revelatory listening experience that expands the scope of modern choral music.

His ninth solo album on Signum Records, Alessio Bax combines exceptional lyricism and insight with consummate technique and is without a doubt "among the most remarkable young pianists now before the public" (Gramophone). Here he presents an album of works for dancing, including tangos and waltzes spanning three centuries. Featuring composers such as J S Bach, Manuel de Falla and Franz Liszt a variety of cultures are showcased in this album for solo piano, and features contributions to an arrangement by Bax himself.

A follow up to their album Vivaldi X2, this new offering from baroque specialists Las Serenissima combines further double concerti by Antonio Vivaldi with works for violin, cello, oboe, recorder and continuo. The previous album received rave reviews including Recording of the Month from BBC Music Magazine. These are some of Vivaldi's most colourful and joyful works, and with director Adrian Chandler at the helm listeners can look forward to further baroque excellence from this dynamic ensemble.

Choirs of spirits, wild passions, unshakeable loyalty, a gruesome act of murder, and the eternal triumph of love over death - these are the thoroughly familiar ingredients of the libretto that Ethel Smyth wrote (in German) for her one-act opera Der Wald (The Forest). The music, however, is anything but gruesome. Echoes of Robert Schumann, some striking reminiscences of Richard Wagner, and, particularly in the prologue, an unmistakable touch of Art Nouveau carry the drama. It had it's premiere at the Berlin Court Opera on 9 April 1902. It was subsequently staged at the Royal Opera House in London and presented with triumphant success at the Met in New York in March 1903. There were standing ovations and a veritable sea of flowers for the 44-year-old Englishwoman, who was the first woman to conquer the classical music temple on Broadway with her work. Talent can achieve anything.

With their new album, the Berlin Baroque Soloists take us again (also available Cremona I HC22084) to Cremona, one of the important Italian centers of violin making and technical developments in the 16th/17th centuries. Composers were only too happy to make use of the many innovations, as they opened up unimagined possibilities for them to add additional colors and accents to their musical art. This wonderful recording gives a lasting impression of how different these can be. Reinhard Goebel and his Berlin Baroque Soloists find exactly the right tone for each of the recorded concerti. Pizzicato

Soulima Stravinsky was the third child of Igor and Yekaterina Stravinsky. His career in music encompassed performing as a recitalist and concerto soloist, particularly noted for interpretations of his father's music, musicology, education, and composition. Soulima's performing career was slowly expanded with achievements as a transcriber, editor, author, and composer, although in the later endeavour his work was inevitably overshadowed by his father's towering reputation. Soulima had a particular gift for composing music for children. He made two visits to the Nimbus Studios, in 1975 to record these performances of his father's music, and in 1977 to record his own music for children. This is the first release of these fine performances, fascinating not least for their specific historic significance. © Adrian Farmer

SOMM Recordings presents an intriguing pairing of chamber works that share the unusual and expressive instrumentation of piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass: Johann Nepomuk Hummel's 'Military' Quintet in C major and Franz Schubert's Piano Quintet in A major, his Trout Quintet. Extraordinarily, this is a first recording of Hummel's 'Military' Quintet.' It is an amazing find by the virtuoso double-bass player Leon Bosch, Artistic Director of the mixed-instrument chamber ensemble I Musicanti, with whom he performs here. They're joined by Peter Donohoe, laureate of the Tchaikovsky Competition and acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time. Johann Nepomuk Hummel's gift as a composer was matched by his excellence as a pianist. A child prodigy, Hummel was taught and housed by Mozart for two years, and he studied further with Clementi, Haydn, Albrechtsberger, and Salieri. Hummel's mastery as a pianist and his compositional personality, admired by Liszt, shine through in his two piano septets featuring winds, brass, and strings, which he also arranged for a combination not uncommon at the time of piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. It was in October 1829, nearly a year after Schubert's death, that Hummel completed his 'Military' Piano Septet No. 2. For publication in Vienna the following year, he also prepared a piano quintet version, again arranged for that ensemble of piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. The Septet's scoring-for piano, flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, cello, and double bass- already included four of the five of those instruments, so in effect the alternate version redistributes the wind and brass parts among four strings with added viola. It is this version that receives it's premiere recording on this release. Franz Schubert's Trout Quintet came about during a walking holiday in the Alps in 1819, when he made the acquaintance of Sylvester Paumgartner, an amateur cellist who promoted chamber concerts in his home. He greatly admired Schubert's lied, Die Forelle ("The Trout"), and he commissioned a set of variations based on the song's melody. At the time, Paumgartner had brought together a group of musicians to perform Hummel's Piano Quintet in E flat minor-the arrangement Hummel made of his first piano septet-and suggested that Schubert write his new variations for that same quintet ensemble of pianist, violinist, violist, cellist, and double bass player. Schubert being Schubert, he not only composed a set of five variations on Die Forelle, but he created a five-movement quintet that featured the variations as the fourth movement of a work that has become one of the most renowned and beloved in the chamber repertoire. It is Schubert's first mature chamber work. He was twenty-two years old.

A rather unique piano trio The repertoire for piano trios is plentiful and varied. Composers such as Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven preferred to write for piano, violin, and cello. The repertoire for the combination of piano and two saxophones is rather limited in comparison. This is mainly to do with the fact that the instrument was first developed around 1840 by Antoine Joseph Sax, who opened a workshop in Paris in 1842 and built saxophones in seven different sizes. His patron, Hector Berlioz, was one of the first to incorporate the instrument into his orchestral compositions, and Jules Massenet used it prominently in his opera Werther in 1892, but the saxophone became more popular in French military music and, of course, in jazz, where it has been used as a solo instrument since around 1920.

Francisco Mignone was a leading figure in the Brazilian music scene of the 20th century, with a free-flowing style and gift for melody that instantly communicated with audiences. He was part of the first generation of modernist Brazilian composers that included Villa-Lobos and Guarnieri. Mignone's two early unnumbered sonatas emulate the French influence of Faure and Debussy, but it was not until the 1960s that he returned to the genre. The First and Second Sonatas share a fragmented, experimental character that juxtapose varying forms of tonality and metre, while the Third Sonata features national rhythmic and melodic elements. These sonatas represent some of the most significant works for violin and piano to come from Brazil.

The Puerto Rican pianist JESÚS MARÍA SANROMÁ (1902-1984) came to the USA to study and subsequently built his career there. He had a very wide repertoire and gave the US premieres of many contemporary works, including Ravel's G major Concerto, but was equally at home in the classics or Gershwin. He had a long association with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and their summer festival brand, the 'Pops', resulting in the series of concertos reproduced here. All are conducted by Arthur Fiedler (1894-1979), who led the 'Pops' for an astonishing 50 years from 1930. Their Gershwin Rhapsody was a huge hit, and the MacDowell and Paderewski were first recordings. We have filled out the set with Sanromá's first recording of a selection of dances by Juan Morel Campos, his 19th-century Puerto Rican fellow countryman.

Giovanni Sollima is an internationally renowned cellist and one of the most frequently performed Italian composers in the world today. His original BaRock Cello project gave new readings to Rock pieces in the intimate setting of a solo performance, matching these to little-known 17th- and 18th-century Italian composers. These improbable contrasts and surprising connections are now extended further back to their musical roots in Folk & BaRock Cello. In this Sollima takes up the tonal colours and rhythmic grooves of archaic songs from a diversity of countries and blends the common features shared by all music, whether it is globally iconic, nationally popular, or long lost amidst the dusty manuscripts of time.

Albert Roussel’s chamber works are relatively unknown, yet he composed a significant body of masterful works. The majestic Violin Sonata No. 1 and the dynamic neo-Classical Violin Sonata No. 2 are coupled with the String Trio, Roussel’s last completed work. Violinist David Bowlin and pianist Tony Cho are both highly regarded soloists and faculty members of Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, where the album was recorded.

REVIEW:

All three chamber music works are characterized by skillful craftsmanship. The First Sonata is the most extensive of all Roussel's chamber music works and is markedly serious. The Second Violin Sonata is only about half as long, but just as determined. The String Trio, his last completed work, is a striking example of his late style.

The musicians offer the works with an extremely positive commitment that immediately engages the listener. Each of the three pieces has its own character that makes it unmistakable and the performers bring this out skillfully. They form lively narratives in tones that breathe life into the largely unknown in a delightful way. In terms of design, they explore the music in all directions and know how to integrate the details into the overall picture, creating a cohesive form from the first to the last note. We can be grateful that they have taken on the works in such a convincing way.

-- Pizzicato

Franscisco Mignone was a leading figure in the Brazilian music scene during the 20th century. The concertos and concertinos heard here all share a Brazilian nationalist idiom. Neil Thompson and Giancarlo Guerrero conduct the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra with featured soloists Ovanir Buosi, Alexandre Silverio, Emmanuele Baldini and Fabio Zanon. Includes two world premiere recordings.