After two special years, this second edition of the Queen Elisabeth Competition dedicated to the Cello has rediscovered the fervor of the audience and the extraordinary enthusiasm created each year by this major musical event in Belgium and abroad. The 4 album box set with the best moments of the 2022 Cello Competition highlights the great diversity of the repertoire for this instrument, even if it is resolutely turned towards 20th century music, reflecting the performances offered by the candidates of this session. It opens with the masterful performance of Lutoslawski’s Concerto by the first laureate Hayoung Choi, followed by Jörg Widmann’s compulsory work by Marcel Johannes Kits (3rd Prize) and Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 1 performed by Yibai Chen (2nd Prize), all accompanied by the Brussels Philharmonic under the baton of Stéphane Denève. The second album takes us back more than two centuries, with Haydn’s Concertos performed by Marcel Johannes Kits and Bryan Cheng (6th Prize), in the company of the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie conducted by Vahan Mardirossian; then come two Boccherini sonatas by Oleksiy Shadrin (4th Prize) and Taeguk Mun, heard during the first round. Three great cello sonatas make up the 3rd disc: Shostakovich firstly with Petar Pejcic (5th Prize), Franck with Stéphanie Huang and Schubert’s Arpeggione with Jeremias Fliedl. We then return mainly to the 20th century to close this box set with a disc including in particular the sonatas of Britten (Hayoung Choi), Ligeti (Yibai Chen) and Schnittke (Oleksiy Shadrin). In a repertoire that will be new for some, the 12 laureates of this 2022 session present, thanks to their musical personalities, an original program which will allow you to find some of the most beautiful moments of this Queen Elisabeth Competition.

The second edition of the Queen Elisabeth Competition dedicated to the cello gives us an opportunity to re-immerse ourselves in the performances of four laureates during the very first session dedicated to this instrument, in 2017. This 4-album box set features recordings, most of which have never been previously released, from the first round, the semi-final, the final, as well as from the laureates’ concerts, each cellist including a concerto from the mainstream repertory in his program. On these releases we shall hear Victor Julien-Laferrière (1st Prize), Yuya Okamoto (2nd Prize), Santiago Cañón-Valencia (3rd Prize) and Ivan Karizna (5th Prize and Musiq3 & Canvas-Klaraprijs audience prizes).

This 4CD box set includes mostly unreleased performances of the First Prizes and winners of the audience prizes from the Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition in 2013 and 2016. You will find: Boris Giltburg (First Prize and Canvas-Klaraprijs 2013); Mateusz Borowiak (3rd Prize and Musiq3 Prize 2013); Lukáš Vondrácek (First Prize and Canvas-Klaraprijs 2016); and Alberto Ferro (6th Prize and Musiq3 Prize 2016). Four pianists with very different artistic personalities, each nonetheless having left his mark on two memorable piano sessions of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, and provided some magnificent musical moments to be found in this box set.

Anton Heiller (1923-1979) was by far the most influential figure to shape the significance that the 'king of instruments', the organ, achieved in Austria in the second half of the 20th century - a significance that continues undiminished today, decades after Heiller's death, and is passed on by his many students and their students in turn. In Heiller, the composer, the additional creative dimension can be heard and, provided one is able to do so, played. While there is, strictly speaking, no need for anniversaries to honor this outstanding personality, the 100th anniversary of Heiller's birth is a unique opportunity to present his works in a systematic manner, as is the case with this recording of his organ works. Its distinctive character has established Heiller's music firmly in the international repertoire, with sacred music occupying the most prominent place in the composer's oeuvre. His organ compositions also frequently refer to ecclesiastical themes.

For this complete recording of all 36 works, Ludwig Lusser, cathedral organist at St. Pölten, recorded the 24 works for solo organ, the ten works for choir and organ, and the two concertos for organ and orchestra on the cathedral's Metzler organ, starting in 2012, and working with conductor Otto Kargl (Domkantorei St. Pölten, Cappella Nova Graz), Simon Erasimus (Momentum Vocal Music), Norbert Matsch (Puellae Wilthinensis), and Peter Planyavsky (Niederösterreichisches Tonkünstlerorchester).

It is both comforting and gratifying that, contrary to current trends in dealing with deceased contemporary composers, Anton Heiller remains widely present today through his vital musical legacy.

Christophe Moyreau (1700-1774) was born and spent most of his life in Orléans. He became organist at Orléans Collégiale Saint-Aignan in February 1719 and at Orléans Cathedral in January 1738 and occupied this position until around 1772. In French music of his era (secular and also religious), an important place was reserved for the rhythms and structures of the dance. In 1753 Moyreau published his “Pièces de clavecin”, 124 pieces grouped in 6 books. The dances Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue, Rigaudon, Menuet are part of Suites, while these books also include concertos and sonatas. Some of the pieces bear titles (in the style of Couperin and Rameau) like La Flotante, Le Baccante, Le Jaloux, La Coquette, Le Preludant, L'Euridice, La Comique, L'Orphée and Le Caprice. Book 6, uniquely for French harpsichord music, consists of several three-movement keyboard simphonies written in Italian style.

Played by Fernando De Luca, one of Italy’s foremost harpsichord players, who recorded to great critical acclaim the complete keyboard works by Graupner, published by Brilliant Classics. The first-ever survey on record of the complete surviving output by a significant contemporary of Rameau: a missing piece in the jigsaw of the French Baroque.

ICA Classics, via its long-term contract with BBC Worldwide, are proud to release a fourth volume of the best-selling BBC Legends box, featuring 20 CDs of some of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Volume one was released in 2013 and comprised 20 CDs taken from the critically acclaimed BBC Legends catalogue which has been unavailable since 2010. The second volume was released in 2017 and is now out of print, while the third volume came out in late 2022. A beautifully packaged clamshell box with individual wallets for each main artist featuring full details of tracks, dates and venues.

Born in Nuremberg in 1564 within a musical family, Hassler received his formative musical instruction from his father and quickly developed into a keyboard player of formidable gifts: in the dedication to his 1591 Cantiones sacrae he noted that he was ‘from a tender age more talkative with the fingers than with the tongue’. In 1584 Hassler left Nuremberg to continue his education in Venice, becoming one of the first in a long line of German musicians who journeyed south of the Alps for study in Italian musical centers. While his motets and other vocal works were widely disseminated during his lifetime and have attracted recordings by period-instrument luminaries such as Philippe Herreweghe, his output for organ and harpsichord has received much less than its fair share of attention. Manuel Tomadin demonstrates that across its range there is no reason for music of this invention and lively originality to be hid under a bushel. In a 1593 portrait, Hassler is described as a ‘most esteemed organist’, and a single-manual chamber organ with pedal is prominently included in the frame. After moving back to Germany, taking a succession of prestigious posts in musical centers across central and southern Germany including his home city, he became known as an expert in organ design, and his own music for the instrument exploits every possible technical and coloristic refinement of the new instruments of his age.

On this set, Manuel Tomadin plays a collection of historically appropriate instruments in Italian churches, and the collection is highly attractive as a gallery of Italian organ-building in its own right. The formal weight of Hassler’s output falls on instrumental paraphrases and elaborations of the Magnificat hymn, complemented as in Frescobaldi with ornate and harmonically adventurous ricercars and more lyrical canzonas.

Born around 1570, Christian Erbach apparently pursued the career of a musician from his earliest years. By his early 30s he had taken over organist positions in Augsburg previously held by the better known Hans Leo Hassler (the subject of another unrivaled compendium by Manuel Tomadin on Brilliant Classics, 95331). Like Hassler, Erbach was evidently influenced as a composer by Italian and in particular Venetian flavors of polychoral and effervescent writing even in his instrumental output. The predominant forms in this set are toccatas, canzonas and ricercars, as well as instrumental ‘settings’ of the Magnificat and the Ordinary of the Mass for liturgical use. Erlebach himself must have been an organist of tremendous flourish and with an ear for liturgical theatre, to judge from the colorful array of textures he demands in his music. Both his music and his renown as a teacher exercised a formative influence over the next two generations of German organ music – from which eventually emerged its own dominant figure, Johann Sebastian Bach (who also looked over to the other side of the Alps for stylistic inspiration).

In an extensive booklet introduction to Erlebach’s life and works, the organist Manuel Tomadin makes available much research otherwise unavailable in English. He has chosen to make this comprehensive set on a selection of organs in northern Italy and Austria, all of them equipped with the registral possibilities to make the composer’s music sing in its own language, and several of them dating from Erlebach’s own time, based in Bologna, Mantova, Pistoia and farther afield. All the instruments are illustrated in the booklet with color photographs and a detailed registration plan, making the set invaluable for both organ buffs and any listener with a broader interest in the German Baroque.

The publication of this anniversary box set celebrating 60 years of Musiques Nouvelles, a true collector's item, brings the 30-year collection of Cypres to a close in the most beautiful way. The 45 masterpieces recorded here reflect the beautiful aesthetic plurality of the creative music composed in the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles during the decade 2012-2022. They are added to the 25 compositions of the previous box set released by Cypres in 2012 for the 50th anniversary of Musiques Nouvelles. These 12 albums constitute a shimmering and radiant sound showcase of musical creation through 70 composers whose works constitute an exceptional musical heritage testifying to the extraordinary vitality of creative music in French-speaking Belgium. Share our taste for exploration and let us invite you on a prodigious journey through 45 unique and hospitable soundscapes, 45 universes with subtle lights.