Tine Thing Helseth is back with a new release – “Seraph” – this time together with Ensemble Allegria. Helseth and Allegria have had a close association for many years and have appeared together at the Bergen International Festival, the Northern Lights Festival in Tromsø, the Oslo Chamber Music Festival, and on the main stage at the Norwegian National Opera. This release features some familiar as well as lesser known works for trumpet and string orchestra by composers from Norway and abroad, with the first four written for this instrumentation, while the last three were arranged by Jarle Storløkken. In Tine’s own words: “Seraph” is an album I have wanted to record for a long time, both because of the repertoire and the ensemble I’m playing with. I studied together with these musicians and many are good friends I’ve known for a long time. This makes it all the more rewarding, fun and inspiring to play together!

This CD - significantly only the second CD dedicated exclusively to von Zieritz - presents a longitudinal section of her oeuvre. It begins with the Japanese Songs, written in 1919, here in the version for soprano and chamber orchestra from the 1980s. The centrepiece is Le Violon de la Mort, composed in 1953 for violin and piano and arranged for violin, piano and orchestra in 1957, as well as the trumpet double concerto of 1975, the final piece and, as it were, a satyr play. Like Hans Bethge's collection Die chinesische Flöte (The Chinese Flute) from 1907, the poetic model of the Japanese Songs belongs to the context of interest in exotic art of the fin de siècle. Gustav Mahler made Bethge's poems the basis for a large symphonic work; Grete von Zieritz took the opposite approach with the Japanese Songs. These are a kaleidoscopic sequence of the briefest miniatures. It would hardly be possible to do otherwise, since the Japanese models are not song texts in the European sense, but poetically condensed sayings that defy conventional song settings. Aphoristic brevity was the order of the day.

Hugely prolific as well as widely acclaimed, Kalevi Aho has composed 30 concertos to date. Many of them are available in recordings from BIS, and the present release features two works from the past decade. The Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra was commissioned for Jörgen van Rijen, who also performs it here. The concerto is actually Aho’s second concertante piece for the trombone – his Symphony No. 9 (1994) included a substantial and very virtuosic solo part for the instrument. In that work, and even more so in the concerto, the composer’s aim has been to extend the expressive and virtuosic possibilities of the trombone. Composed around the same time, the Trumpet Concerto is scored for the wind section of a medium-sized symphony orchestra, plus two saxophones, baritone horn and percussion. It was given its premiere by the same musicians that perform it here, the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins supporting its principal trumpet Alain De Rudder in what is often a surprisingly jazzy work.

Born in Debica on November 23, 1933, Krzysztof Penderecki studied composition with Artur Malawski and Stanislaw Wiechowicz at the State Higher School of Music in Krakow (1954-58). In 1959 three of his works won him the top prizes at the Young Composers’ Competition of the Polish Composers’ Union. A year later, he captured the attention of Western critics with Anaklasis, performed at the Donaueschingen Festival. Penderecki’s international position was consolidated in the 1960s thanks to such pieces as Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, the St. Luke Passion, and Dies irae. This release in the Polish Sinfonia luventus Orchestra's Penderecki series features his Concerto doppio per violin, viola, e orchestra (2012), his Concerto per pianoforte ed orchestra Resurrection (2001-2002 rev. 2007), and his Concertino per tromba e orchestra (2015).

Increasingly, Shostakovich's music is captivating people all over the world and appealing to their deepest emotions. Almost like no other, it bears witness to a traumatic political epoch while remaining a timeless expression of existential human feeling and experience. For me personally, said conductor Mariss Jansons, who died two years ago, "Shostakovich is one of the most serious and sincere composers of them all." Shostakovich's (first) piano concerto features impressive pianistic virtuosity, bold experimentation, satire, and caricatures of different musical styles. The composer wrote it in the summer of 1933, only a few weeks after the completion of his opera " Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk". He himself called it a "mocking challenge to the conservative-serious character of the classical concert attitude". This concerto in particular demonstrates the immense versatility and magnificent talent of the still carefree 26-year-old Shostakovich. He blends a wealth of musical thoughts and ideas into a colorful and fascinating kaleidoscope. Despite the wealth of different stimuli, the concerto does not seem chaotic or overloaded: the young composer effortlessly maintains the balance.

Shostakovich performed a similar balancing act between creative work and conformity to the state in his Ninth Symphony, which premiered on November 3, 1945. Instead of the expected heroic, regime-conformist orchestral thunder along the lines of his Seventh Symphony, the "Leningrad”, the music heard here was playful, without pathos, somewhat witty, full of allusions – yet something did not seem quite right. This musical conundrum, full of ironic refractions and caricatures of melodramatic and triumphant music, was recognized by the censors as a masquerade, yet one that was not easily decipherable. Shostakovich had mocked Stalin without the latter noticing.

This album is nothing short of a sensation: it shows Else Marie Pade (1924–2016) in a hitherto unknown role as an orchestral composer. Although these are only a few works, their artistic weight and the quality and integrity she brings to her orchestral works, provide ample reason to challenge her established image. With this album, it will be equally legitimate to label her as an 'acoustic' composer as it has been to call her an 'electronic' composer in the past.

For many years little or no information was available about the composer who had written the 19th century’s most interesting trumpet concerto in Romantic style. Born into a family of musicians near Dresden in 1870, Oskar Böhme studied in Germany and Hungary and then emigrated to Russia, where he even changed his nationality in order to improve his chances of a place in one of the great orchestras. Despite his efforts to perfect integration into Russian society, his German origins proved fateful when the Bolsheviks seized power.

With this album Matthias Höfs aims to shed light on a composer and musician that has been in the dark. He presents a rare recording – his third recording with The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen – with beautiful, expressive and romantic music.