Twenty five years after their last recording of piano duets on Chandos, the Canadien pianists Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier return in a watershed collection of magnificently played duets by Rachmaninoff including the two suites and an arrangement for his Symphonic Dances. The Lortie/Mercier piano duo have known one another since their early teens, and have a considerable collaborative discography that showcases their affinity for the art of 4 hands and 2 pianos performances and repertoire.

This is a double-anniversary release, offering a rare collection of lively works to celebrate the ninetieth anniversary of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra as well as the eightieth birthday of its principal conductor, Neeme Järvi. Cheerful marches and dances here trace the career of Johann Strauss II as it manifested itself in his much acclaimed seasons in St Petersburg, at the ‘Russian summer’ concerts in the Vauxhall pavilion in Pavlovsk, where he appeared for eleven seasons (1856 – 65 and 1869), ten of them consecutively. It is an unmissable start to a year-long celebration for Neeme Jarvi that will include concerts, promotions, and subsequent album releases.

British pianist Imogen Cooper has studied with some of the finest in the piano world, including with Kathleen Long in London, with Jacques Fevrier and Yvonne Lefebure in Paris, and with Alfred Brendel, Jorg Demus and Paul Badura-Skoda in Vienna. She is widely recognized for her interpretations of Schubert and Schumann. This release follows her three very successful recordings of Schumann. For this album, Cooper has chosen some of the greatest works of Chopin. The album programme makes up an outstanding recital. Coopers virtuosity and emotional wisdom creates a new lense through which to view this frequently performed repertoire. Following this release, Imogen Cooper will embark on a world tour, performing recitals that will include the repertoire included here, and visiting several of Europe’s most prestigious venues before venturing to other continents.

Four years after a highly successful Bartok recording with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner here returns to the composer on SACD, with James Ehnes as solo violinist, and his Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. The central piece in this recording is the Concerto for Orchestra, the largest work that Bartok completed during the last five years of his life and described by the composer, in the program notes for its 1944 premiere, as ‘a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.’ It is joined by the Dance Suite, the immediate predecessor, among Bartok’s few works for full orchestra without a soloist, of the Concerto for Orchestra, though by more than two decades; and by the violin Rhapsodies, the colorful folk influences of which are revealed by James Ehnes, a specialist in the repertoire, who already has recorded the complete sonatas as well as the concertos for violin and for viola to critical acclaim.

During the 2015/2016 season, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra celebrates their 125th birthday. This two disc set includes the very best compiled recordings over a three decade span, including works by Wagner, Nielsen, Webern, Holst, and more. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra was originally founded in 1891 under the name the Scottish Orchestra. They have worked with the very best conductors, composers, and soloists, Aaron Copland, Luciano Pavarotti, and Richard Strauss to name a few.

Nearly all of Daniel Purcell’s surviving solo harpsichord music consists of arrangements, the only clear exception being the short Toccata, a brief essay in the style of the preludes from Henry Purcell’s harpsichord suites. The Suite is a simple but effective arrangement of movements from the composer’s own suite

Paul Watkins presents three enduring masterpieces of the chamber music repertoire, Johannes Brahms’s two cello sonatas and the Clarinet Trio. Joining Mr. Watkins are two musicians of the highest caliber, the pianist Ian Brown, his established duo partner, and clarinetist Michael Collins. Completed in 1865, the Cello Sonata No. 1 is somewhat reserved in character, with an elaborate fugal finale that pays homage to Bach. Some twenty years later, Brahms composed his more adventurous, expansive and extroverted Cello Sonata No. 2. The Clarinet Trio, op. 114 was written for clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, an artist who inspired Brahms to compose a series of works for the clarinet considered some of the supreme masterpieces in the instrument’s repertoire. “Perhaps no clarinetist around today is capable of floating a purer, smoother and more beautifully contoured melodic line than Michael Collins, and he is often heard at his best in [Brahms’s] four late masterpieces.” - BBC Music Magazine “Paul Watkins [is] unquestionably, in my opinion one of today’s foremost cellists.” - Fanfare

The Brodsky Quartet here turns to the sunshine, bright colors, and deep passions of the South, performing Latin-inspired music for string quartet by composers who all possessed a strong connection to the “South” -- whether the Mediterranean or South America. Favorites and rarities are arm-in-arm, from Paganini’s famed Capricci to chamber gems from composers we think of today only in regard to operatic works. The expert and passionate ministrations of the Brodsky Quartet bring these works to dazzling life.

REVIEW:

In the early 1730s Bach revised his E flat major Magnificat of 1723, transposing it to D major and omitting the interpolations peculiar to Christmas performances in Leipzig. (Recent research suggests such richly scored Latin Magnificats could be performed in Lutheran churches at some 15 annual festivals, not just the three – Xmas, Easter, Ascension – previously supposed.) The D major was apparently Bach’s preferred version and is the one commonly played today, as on this latest instalment of Masaaki Suzuki’s acclaimed survey of Bach’s sacred vocal music. Suzuki’s Magnificat, like his earlier Bach recordings, is sharply focused and performed with engaging conviction. My benchmark disc, by Philippe Herreweghe, grips with its palpable air of excitement. Suzuki’s reading is cooler, more nuanced and has a clearer acoustic; yet Herreweghe’s soloists retain a slight edge – few could match Barbara Schlick and oboist Marcel Penseele in rapt duet on ‘Quia respexit’. Herreweghe’s coupling is the splendid Cantata, BWV 80; Suzuki offers a trio of fascinating rareties. The Magnificat by Kuhnau, Bach’s predecessor at Leipzig, resembles Bach’s in instrumentation and division of text: it’s a lively, attractive piece, trumpets ringing out boldly in the bright opening chorus. Two shorter Magnificats by Bach’s Dresden-based contemporary Zelenka represent a very different and highly individual approach, the C major’s tripartite structure creating an almost concerto-like framework for soprano soloist. Suzuki’s excellent, scrupulous performances should provoke greater interest in Kuhnau’s and Zelenka’s church music – the latter’s Missa Dei Filii, by Tafelmusik/Frieder Bernius (DHM), is also highly recommended. Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5)

-- Graham Lock, BBC Music Magazine

Before a phrase from the Gran vals by Francisco Tárrega unexpectedly shot to international fame as the Nokia ringtone, his most celebrated pieces included the Capricho árabe, composed in 1892. The piece is inspired by the mixture of Muslim Castilian and Christian cultures which had always been a feature of the Valencia region where Tárrega grew up.

Tárrega’s friend and near-contemporary Isaac Albéniz was a virtuoso pianist who also played the guitar. Even though he evoked the guitar brilliantly on the piano, he never composed any music for the instrument. ‘Malagueña’ was first published in the collection España. Published in 1892 as ‘Prélude’, the piece widely known as ‘Asturias’ is also imbued with the spirit of southern Spain.

Federico Mompou’s Suite compostelana was commissioned by Andrés Segovia and was published in 1964, the same year as Segovia’s first recording of the piece.

The Italian guitarist and composer Carlo Domeniconi has drawn on several national traditions for his works, but has a particular interest in Turkish music which he has studied in depth. The Variationen über ein anatolisches Volkslied (Variations on an Anatolian Folksong) were composed in 1982 and are based on the song (türkü) ‘Uzun ince bir yoldayim’. Koyunbaba is a four-movement suite for guitar which started as an improvisation, and was then notated soon afterwards. The composer describes the score as ‘no more than a sketch’ and insists that players improvise in their performance – which Krzysztof Meisinger does to great effect with his additional ‘Invocazione’ at the start of the work.

REVIEW:

It’s a pity Mompou didn’t write more for the guitar. His only work for that instrument, the Suite compostelana, is a minor masterpiece, profound in its simplicity. It takes a player of Meisinger’s stature to pull off a successful performance, and here the Preludio, Cuna and Canción are especially well rendered.

-- Gramophone

For his second album for Chandos, the flute virtuoso Adam Walker explores the music of British composers with pianist Huw Watkins. Vaughan Williams’s Suite de ballet was commissioned by the French flute virtuoso Louis Fleury (who had given the première of Debussy’s Syrinx). The work uses eighteenth-century French dance forms, a common practice in ‘neo-classical’ composition. Bax’s Four Pieces rescue music from an abandoned ballet originally conceived for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Sir Lennox Berkeley’s Sonatina was originally written for treble recorder; James Galway’s championship of the piece made it a staple of the flute repertoire. Howard Fergusson’s Three Sketches were composed intermittently over a period of twenty years. The theme of the third piece is a Hindu melody, ‘Koyalinya bole ambuvan’ (Cuckoos sing in the mango tree). Sonatas by York Bowen and William Alwyn complete this varied and engaging program.

REVIEW:

Seventy-seven minutes of British music for flute and piano might at first glance seem like 40 minutes too much. But that ’s without taking on board the nimble and dazzling skills of flautist Adam Walker, or the individual strengths of the works presented...a new pleasure is never far away in this most accomplished recital, full of the sounds of spring.

-- BBC Music Magazine

The performers write: ‘Selecting the repertoire for our album Path to the Moon, we wanted to explore a number of possibilities for binding together a programme. To place different works alongside one another is a wonderful way of bringing out new and unusual qualities in each piece. William T. Horton’s fantastic image The Path to the Moon immediately inspired a flurry of ideas, including works on the subjects of both night and the moon, as well as pieces which invoke the exploratory nature of humankind’s voyage to the moon. Britten wrote his Sonata for Cello and Piano only two years after the first object made by humans had touched the surface of the moon, in 1959. Humans throughout history and from all cultures have been drawn to and taken inspiration from the moon and we have tried to reflect this in our eclectic choice of song repertoire: from Toru Takemitsu to Nina Simone and from Lili Boulanger to Florence Price. As we hope you will hear on this album, Walker’s Cello Sonata rings with echoes of the sound-worlds of blues and jazz and is infused with a beautiful lyricism. We really believe that Walker’s Cello Sonata deserves to become a staple of the chamber music repertoire and are absolutely thrilled to offer you a recording of it in the context of our own exploration of a path to the moon.’