A unique combination on record of chamber music by the Swiss composer, surveying the development of his voice and career through the medium of the flute. One of music's late starters, Martin grew up as the tenth child of a Swiss pastor and his wife, surrounded by the music of Bach and Mozart. Only once Ernest Ansermet had founded the Orchestra de la Suisse Romande in 1918 did the 28-year-old Martin begin to discover and become captivated by the sensuality of Debussy and Ravel, and this stylistic dichotomy continued to play out in his own music. Among the most polished and individual of his early works is the set of four love-sonnets composed in 1921 to poems by the 16th-century balladeer Pierre de Ronsard. Already the influence of modernism is apparent on the angular and even ascetic shape of Martin's melodic invention, and yet a gentle, atmospheric mood pervades the cycle; this, too, would become a hallmark of his sound-world. In 1939, Martin began what would become a series of instrumental ballades with the competition piece which is still his best-known work for flute. In the same year, he followed it up with a Ballade for alto saxophone which he then arranged for flute; both works are fine examples of Martin's ability to reconcile serialism with tonality. A neoclassical (or rather, neo-Baroque) spirit infuses the Sonata da Chiesa of 1940 with solemn, Protestant gravity, yet the flute part still sings with the lyricism of the early Sonnets. From after the war, the Trois Chants de Noel (1947) distil the mystery of Christmas into three brief settings of texts by the Swiss poet Albert Rudhardt (1894-1944). A trio of Minnelieder (1961) masterfully strips Martin's language to the bone in a distinctive 'late style', where flute and guitar support and punctuate the sung line with an archaically flavoured modernity. Almost all these works have attracted no more than one or two recordings, but gathered together by these expert Italian musicians, they paint a new and compelling portrait of Martin as a spiritually engaged modernist. - Frank Martin (1890-1974) was a Swiss composer, who lived for most of his life in The Netherlands. Hs oeuvre spans orchestral works, oratorios, and chamber music. Martin's style defies easy categorization, blending elements of neoclassicism, serialism, and Gregorian chant. His vocal works reflect his spiritual depth and musical mastery. - Frank Martin wrote a not a large but a significant number of works for flute, including the Ballade for flute and piano (1939), the Deuxieme Ballade for flute and piano (1939) and the Church Sonata for flute and organ (1941). Of these three, only the Ballade is an original work for flute, as the Deuxieme Ballade and the Church Sonata are the author's transcriptions of earlier scores. Also included in this new recording are works for soprano and instrumental ensemble, featuring flute, oboe, harp, viola and cello. - A fascinating collection of a highly original voice in 20th century music! - Played by Daniele Ruggieri, Monica Bacelli and several excellent Italian instrumentalists.

This album features two compositions by Jean Sibelius from different moments in the Finnish musician's life. The Impromptu Op.5 for string ensemble is an early work from 1894, in which Sibelius uses some thematic materials from his solo piano impromptus Nos. 5 and 6 from the Op.5 set. The Romance in C Op.42 (1903) was composed during a difficult phase in the composer's life caused by excessive alcohol consumption, which prompted him to leave Helsinki and move with his wife near to Lake Tuusula, where he could dedicate himself to composition far from the temptations of the Finnish capital. The piece is divided into short sections in which the melodic ideas arise from fragments of the octatonic, or diminished, scale of alternating whole and half steps supported by dissonant harmonies that add further tonal instability. Samuel Barber's typically inspired melodic vein emerges from the very beginning in his Serenade Op.1 for String Quartet or String Orchestra, dating from 1928. Featuring chromaticism's and dissonant passages, a duality is established between a first, rhythmic and impetuous thematic idea and a lyrical melody. The final movement brings greater serenity and joy through the choice of a major mode and the adoption of a graceful and leaping theme whose fragments pass in counterpoint between one voice and another. When Benjamin Britten composed his Simple Symphony Op.4 he was just 20 years old, and he describes the idea in an introduction to the score: 'This "Simple Symphony" is entirely based on material from works which the composer wrote between the ages of nine and twelve [.]. Although the development of these themes is in many places quite new, there are large stretches of the work which are taken bodily from the early pieces - save for the re-scoring for strings'. In effect, Britten extrapolates eight themes from his juvenile compositional production, associates two of them with each movement and creates a structural mix between the four movements of a Classical symphony, the dances of the Baroque suite and popular folklore. Da pacem Domine is a Gregorian style piece composed by Arvo Pärt in 2004 to commemorate the victims of the Madrid terrorist attacks on trains, which killed 192 people. Pärt first composed a version for four voices on the text of a Latin prayer. That atmosphere of contemplation is preserved in his subsequent edition for chamber orchestra. The modal composition, in D Dorian, conveys the feeling of a search for calmness, a request from man to God for peace in the wake of such a tragedy. Scattered appearances of B flat and the leading tone (C sharp) mitigate and add a piquancy to the modal atmosphere.

Following on the success of her acclaimed release, Donna Voce, award winning pianist Anna Shelest continues her exploration of works by women composer in Donna Voce Volume 2 - Women of Legend. Featured are Fanny Mendelssohn's monumental feat of imagination and virtuosity Das Jahr (The Year), Melanie "Mel" Bonis' suite of musical portraits Femmes de Legende (Women of Legend), and contemporary Ukrainian composer Olena Ilnytska's evocative Nocturne 1. Hailed by The New York Times as a pianist of a fiery sensibility and warm touch, Anna Shelest is an international award-winning pianist who has thrilled audiences throughout the world.

In this volume we discover how composers in England, Scotland, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries responded to the waves of jazz and syncopated dance music that had crossed the Atlantic and captivated European audiences. The album features a wide selection of famous and less well-known composers who each succeed in combining the authentic energising rhythms of foxtrots, tangos and shimmies with their own unique styles. Gottlieb Wallisch's seventh and final volume in this acclaimed series features many unknown gems and world premiere recordings. A digital EP of bonus tracks by Bliss, Schnitzler and Hijman (GP962DR) is also available for download and streaming.

With this album, Trio Fibonacci takes us on a journey through the meditative and deeply human universe of Ludovico Einaudi, a master of contemporary minimalism. His works, built around repetitive motifs and subtle harmonic variations, open up a space for contemplation and pure emotion. Many of the pieces presented here have been specially adapted by Trio Fibonacci for duo or trio, bringing new vibrancy and emotional depth to the music while remaining true to the spirit of the composer. With a total runtime of 71 minutes, Timeless Horizons guides listeners through Einaudi's most iconic pieces, including: "I Giorni" - a poignant elegy inspired by Malian folklore "Experience" - a powerful meditation on time and memory "Nuvole Bianche" - a serene and soothing classic "Una Mattina" - made famous by The Intouchables "Petricor" - evoking the scent of the earth after rain But there is much more: 13 pieces in total. The album blends Einaudi's signature repetitive motifs and subtle harmonic shifts with the Trio's expressive and fluid playing style. These arrangements offer a rare intimacy, drawing the listener into a world of silence, longing, and awakening. Trio Fibonacci made it's debut in 1998, with the press reporting that "to hear them is to enter into the world of miracles" (Le Devoir, Montreal).

Andrew Lloyd Webber is world-famous as the composer of the musicals Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, but his Requiem has also achieved international acclaim. Winner of a Grammy Award, this grand-sounding masterpiece of contemporary classical music, written in 1985, is dedicated to the memory of Webber's late father. The recording of a concert by the Munchner Rundfunkorchester on June 15, 2023, a tribute to the British composer who celebrated his 75th birthday in March 2023, is now presented on CD by BR-KLASSIK. This live recording from the Herz-Jesu Church in Munich features the Bavarian Radio Chorus accompanied by a select ensemble of soloists, under the baton of principal guest conductor Patrick Hahn. There was much surprise when Andrew Lloyd Webber presented his Requiem to the public in 1985. Although classical composers had repeatedly ventured into the spheres of the so-called "light muse", hardly any path led in the other direction - from musicals or operettas to the sublime heights of sacred music. The fact that a composer like Franz von Suppe also wrote a requiem as well as operettas is a rarity. Lloyd Webber's career in the "serious" genre, however, was laid in his cradle: his father, William Lloyd Webber (1914-1982), had worked his way up from humble beginnings to become one of the leading church musicians of his day. He encouraged the classical training of his sons Andrew (b. 1948) and Julian (b. 1951), an excellent cellist. Andrew found his niche in the entertainment industry. His song "Try it and see", written for the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest, was not yet a hit, but from a pop cantata he developed his first successful piece Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968), and from the concept album Jesus Christ Superstar, in which "Try it and see" also found a new home, he created the rock musical of the same name (1971). With Evita (1976), Cats (1981), Starlight Express (1984) and The Phantom of the Opera (1986), Lloyd Webber repeatedly demonstrated his flair for contemporary material that lent itself to a new kind of treatment and appealed to a wide audience. By the mid-1980s, he was the most commercially successful composer of musicals. As Requiem Masses had been abolished in Anglican England since the Reformation, the composer did not have to consider liturgical functionality or ecclesiastical suitability. Verdi had demonstrated that the texts of the Latin Requiem Mass provided an excellent model for grand opera. And Lloyd Webber found inspiration for the lyrical dimension with hit potential in composers such as Gabriel Faure. The texts of the Requiem were rearranged with a sense of dramaturgy. The repeated insertion of the pithy lines "Requiem aeternam" and "Dies irae" gave them a fundamental, leitmotif-like character. The theatrical potential of the sequence ("Dies irae") was expanded, as it had been with Verdi, into a kaleidoscope of human emotions in the face of death and the Last Judgement. In a poll conducted by BBC Radio 4 a few years ago, listeners voted Barber's Adagio for Strings the "saddest piece in the world". There is no doubt that it's broad musical lines have an elegiac, almost religious tone - something the composer himself emphasised in the choral version, written as an Agnus Dei. However, the Adagio's association with farewell and mourning was not intended by Barber, who conceived of his work as purely instrumental. It has however been used on repeated occasions to mark the deaths of prominent Americans, including Alfred Einstein, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. As funeral music, the Adagio has also been a feature of several films since the 1980s, and two lines of tradition have emerged. On the one hand, the Adagio is often associated with the death of a main character, as in the final transfiguration of the Elephant Man in David Lynch's film of the same name (1980) or, in a light-hearted alienation of the theme, in The Fabulous World of Amelie (2001), where the heroine imagines her own death being televised. On the other hand, the austere serenity of the Adagio is contrasted with images of violence and suffering, most emphatically in Oliver Stone's anti-war film Platoon (1986). All these traditions came together in the days after September 11, 2001, when Barber's Adagio was played over and over again by American radio and television stations - both as a tribute to the victims of the attacks and as a musical expression of American patriotism. Particularly memorable was the live performance on September 15, 2001, when the American conductor Leonard Slatkin conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Last Night of the Proms in London, leaving the hushed audience deeply moved. Thanks to it's melancholic yet comforting sound, the Adagio for Strings was often the piece of choice internationally during the Covid-19 pandemic to commemorate the many victims - online or "open air", on radio and television, and at concerts and other events.

According to The Telegraph 'Ingrid Fliter was born to play Chopin', such is her profound musicianship and affinity with the Polish composer. Here, the Gilmore Artist Award winner continues her highly acclaimed Chopin odyssey, which began over a decade ago, with the complete mazurkas. This, the first of two volumes to be released on Linn, includes the early Opp. 6 and 7, the Op. 24 as well as the later sets, Opp. 50, 59 and 63. The programme reflects on the composer's evolving style, from simple folk-inspired dances to brilliantly sophisticated, intimate works whose intricate counterpoint and harmonies often push the boundaries of the form and serve as a benchmark for the genre. Also included are some posthumous mazurkas which transverse Chopin's entire compositional career.

Guido Bardi, the son of the Duke of Florence, kneels before Bianca, the wife of the rich merchant Simone, and holds her hands. Simone, who has returned early from a business trip, then enters the room. The very beginning of Alexander Zemlinsky's one-act opera "A Florentine Tragedy", based on Oscar Wilde's play of the same name in the German translation by Max Meyerfeld, presents the conflict from which the tragedy arises. This stage work by the Austrian composer, who was forgotten for many decades, had its world premiere on January 30, 1917, in Stuttgart and was not performed again until 1977. This CD from BR-KLASSIK documents the Munich premiere on November 27, 2022, with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester conducted by Patrick Hahn, recorded live at the city’s Prinzregententheater.

With the "Florentine Tragedy", albeit rather belatedly, Zemlinsky followed the fashion for Renaissance and one-act works at the turn of the century. Richard Strauss had made his mark in that genre with "Salome" and "Elektra" – and the literary basis for the former had also been provided by Oscar Wilde. In the very first notes, seemingly aware of this similarity with Strauss’s work, Zemlinsky goes on the offensive with an "upbeat fanfare" – as the prelude to an orchestral introduction that can easily be interpreted as a musical representation of the main romantic relationship. At the transition to the actual stage action, however, Zemlinsky switches to a somber minor-key atmosphere. When Simone appears, the music already makes it clear that the plot cannot end otherwise than tragically. For whom, we do not yet know…

In the Munich premiere of Zemlinsky's "A Florentine Tragedy", Rachael Wilson (mezzo-soprano) sang the part of Bianca, Benjamin Bruns (tenor) was Prince Guido Bardi, and Christopher Maltman (baritone) portrayed the merchant Simone. The Münchner Rundfunkorchester performed under the young conductor Patrick Hahn. Last year, the 27-year-old Austrian – who since 2021 in Wuppertal has been the youngest Generalmusikdirektor in the German-speaking world – was engaged as the Münchner Rundfunkorchester’s Principal Guest Conductor.

Marcy Rosen and Diane Walsh present fresh readings of three masterpieces from the cello repertoire. Ms. Rosen studied Barber's cello sonata with Orlando Cole, who worked closely with Barber on the editing of the composition, later premiering the work with Barber at the piano at New York City's Town Hall in 1933.

Le temps des lilas is an ode to Romanticism, a love song and a nostalgic reflection on the bittersweet beauty of lost happiness. Dedicated to the music of Ernest Chausson, this album oscillates between passion and melancholy, wonder and nostalgia. The Concert Op. 21, a masterly work on the borderline between chamber music and orchestra, is carried by Pierre Fouchenneret's magnetic violin and David Violi's colorful piano. I Giardini also deliver a previously unpublished version of Poeme Op. 25, reworked for violin, piano and string quartet. The album closes with Pauline Buet's equally sensitive retelling of Chausson and Barbara's 'Temps des/du lilas', using cello in the former and singing voice in the latter. Barbara's song and Chausson's melody stand as a simple, timeless tribute to the magic of past moments and the fragility of human existence. Le temps des lilas is I Giardini's first full-length album for PENTATONE, following an already rich discography: Nuits (which has been awarded the prestigious Diapason d'Or), Bleu, Shaw and Faure, an EP released with PENTATONE in 2024.

Nordic Treasures with Katharina Sames and Mari Inoue curates landmarks of the "Nordic" - musical "snapshots" with individual influencing factors that are excitingly linked by a network of common roots. Apparent opposites interweave to form organic sound languages and merge into a colorful mosaic.

Shorena Tsintsabadze: For me, there is no more beautiful place in the world than Georgia. Everything in it is beautiful and unique. I owe the development of my personality and character to my roots, my family and my motherland, which I am always proud of. With this project, I would like to present the music of Georgian composers from different eras, from the 19th century to the present, in order to give an impression of how the compositional traditions changed and how Georgian classical music developed. Despite the extraordinary musicality of our people, cultural traditions, folklore and Orthodox singing date back to the 4th century BC. Classical music emerged quite late (the first opera and ballet theatre in Georgia was founded in 1851 and the first opera "?" - "Twilight" was not written until 1923 by Zakhari Paliashvili). The reason for such a late development of classical music is the constant struggle for survival and the endless wars from all sides. Georgia is a state with more than 3,000 years of history and during this time there has not been a single generation, including myself and the younger ones, that has not experienced the horrors of war. Despite all this, we not only survived the fighting, but also preserved our culture, the Georgian language and script. Today, when Georgia has received the status of a candidate country and we have never been so close to Europe, the fate of my country is once again in danger. We are forced to fight for our rights and defend the constitution of our country, which is attacked from time to time by certain forces both inside and outside the country's borders. I really hope and want to believe that we will defend the interests of our country and give it the opportunity to continue on it's path towards European integration in order to become a worthy member of the EU family. I think that this album is relevant in the context of recent events and trends in the world. I believe that more people want to get to know our culture, art and music, which my album will definitely contribute to.

Love is the common thread running through this first recorded recital by soprano Vannina Santoni; it's also an opportunity to look back over her fifteen-year career, through her leading roles, alongside her favourite musicians. With the help of the Orchestre National de Lille and Quebecois conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni, she places her sensual voice at the service of famous operatic arias featuring the amorous heroines of Gounod, Massenet, Puccini ('O mio babbino caro'), Catalini ('Ne andro' from La Wally) and Verdi (Desdemona's poignant 'Ave Maria' from Otello). The programme also includes a rare but sublime aria from Franco Alfano's Tolstoy-inspired opera Risurrezione (1904), as well as the magnificent 'Saint-Sulpice' duet from Massenet's Manon, with tenor Julien Dran. Finally, Vannina Santoni pays homage to her Corsican roots with a new orchestration of the lullaby 'O Ciucciarella' that Corsican mothers have sung to their children for generations.

This program, dedicated to the melodies of Ernest Chausson (1855-1899), celebrates the music of this worthy representative of the French mélodie style. Cyril ACHARD (guitar and adaptations) and Kevin Norwood (vocals), two musicians with diverse influences (jazz, classical, early music, etc.), share a predilection for musical expression in it's purest and most unadorned form. Their passion for the beautiful melodies and harmonic soaring characteristic of this bygone musical movement led them to pay tribute to the most enigmatic and misunderstood of all "melodists." As jazz musicians who practice improvisation and readily engage in reinterpretation, they find this program an ideal playground. The unique character of this duo is based on a work of adaptation, even "reinvention" in places, interspersed with improvised sections, allowing the listener to oscillate between two musical universes. Nostalgie du Ciel offers a unique take on the composer's melodies through this original arrangement for guitar and vocals. The album, recorded in an Alpine church, strives to recreate the natural acoustics of the setting, allowing the listener to perceive the sound as it was generated at the source.

Dr. Jerzy Kosmala, internationally acclaimed as a concert violist and pedagogue, has concertized throughout Europe, the former Soviet Union, Canada, North and South America, Asia, and South Africa, and has recordings on several record labels. He is a frequent guest artist and performer at the world's foremost festivals, International Viola Congresses, universities, and academies, and is a permanent jury member of virtually all of the most prestigious international competitions, including the Lionel Tertis, Geneva, Munich, Markneukirchen, Trapani, Primrose Viola Competition, Brahms Viola Competition, and the Concert Artist Guild International Competition in New York City.

In early summer 1929, after returning home from Germany, the Austrian Composer Ernst Krenek embarked on a twenty-day journey through the Austrian Alps, accompanied by his parents and his second wife, Berta. They covered the longer distances between the 14 stops by bus and train, from which they undertook their hikes and excursions. Their route took them from Vienna to Upper Styria, the Salzkammergut region, Carinthia, and East Tyrol, then back to Vienna via Lower Austria. On this journey, Krenek is not just a composer traveling, but rather a poet, stage designer, and philosopher tracing the spirit of the times in his homeland. Just a few days after returning to Vienna, he set to work and, while the impressions of the trip were still fresh, created the music and text for the song cycle almost simultaneously. The Austrian tenor Alexander Kaimbacher and Anna Sushon on piano present the resulting entertaining, often humorous "Reisebuch aus den osterreichischen Alpen" (Travel Book from the Austrian Alps).

The great cellist Jacqueline Du Pre would have been 80 years old on January 26, 2025, if illness had not taken her too early at the age of 42. This LP brings together Camille Saint-Saens' famous 1st Cello Concerto with Jackie's husband Daniel Barenboim at the baton, and Frederick Delius' rarer Cello Concerto, which perfectly fits with Du Pre's playing and sensitivity (this time accompanied by Sir Malcolm Sargent). Warner re-released on LP a few years ago the 1968 EMI studio recording of the Saint-Saens Concerto, also with Barenboim (but with the New Philharmonia Orchestra). The live recording on this new vinyl was made three years later, in 1971, with the Philadelphia Orchestra in it's city, and released on CD at the end of the 90s by Teldec. It is released here on vinyl for the first time.

With the 10 arias on Tormento d'amore, Ian Bostridge demonstrates the important place that the tenor voice held in Italian opera from the mid-17th to the mid-18th century - often thought of as the era of the castrato. At this time, there were two main centres of opera in Italy: Venice, where such composers as Cavalli, Vivaldi, Cesti, Stradella, Sartorio and Legrenzi were active, and Naples, home to Provenzale, Caresana, Vinci and Fago. In addition to arias - two of them in world premiere recordings - the album offers five instrumental sinfonie and a traditional Neapolitan song, 'Lu cardillo', or 'The Goldfinch', a songbird closely associated with Naples. Bostridge is partnered by conductor Antonio Florio and his ensemble Cappella Neapolitana.

2023 release. Roger Eno's second solo album for Deutsche Grammophon invites listeners to reflect on the nature of sound and silence. The Skies, They Shift Like Chords. Contains a dozen tracks that express nostalgia for something lost while projecting a sense of something timeless, like the renewal of the seasons or the rise and fall of the breath.