20th Century (1900–1970)
Modernism, serialism, neoclassicism. Stravinsky, Bartók, Shostakovich, Britten.
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The Music of George Lloyd
$16.99CDLyrita
Oct 03, 2025SRCD445 -
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Sibelius: Violin Concerto; Lemminkainen Suite
$20.99CDAlpha
Apr 24, 2026ALPHA1215 -
Blackbirds
$20.99CDAlpha
Apr 10, 2026ALPHA1213 -
Vsevolod Zavidov Plays Rachmaninoff
$20.99CDAlpha
Apr 24, 2026ALPHA1212 -
Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1; Hindemith: Violin Conce
$20.99CDFuga Libera
Dec 12, 2025FUG859 -
Denes Varjon plays Bela Bartok
$17.99CDCAvi-music
Jan 23, 2026AVI 4867979 -
Mahler: Symphony No. 7
$20.99CDAlpha
Apr 10, 2026ALPHA1206 -
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Mendelssohn: String Symphony No. 10; Widmann: Ikarische Klag
$20.99CDChannel Classics
Nov 14, 2025CCS49225 -
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Melodia Mediterranea - Folk Songs into Art Songs
Bartok: Viola Concerto (revised version); Duos (arr. P. Bart
Debussy, Poulenc & Stravinsky: Works for Cello & Piano / Stalheim, Hadland
Works for Cello and Piano by composers Igor Stravinsky, Francis Poulenc, and Claude Debussy, performed by Norwegian artists cellist Amalie Stalheim and pianist Christian Ihle Hadland.
Ravel: A Moune – Chamber Music with Violin / Tur Bonet, Testori, Goy
This is a ‘concept-album’ around Maurice Ravel and his special relation with Hélène Jourdan Mourhange, a dear friend and violinist nicknamed "Moune." The program is set-up in order to take the listener by the hand into Ravel’s musical world through a series of pieces which are gradually more deep and complex. The music is played on a 1935 Hautrive piano, while violin and cello are played on gut strings. The Tzigane is in the rare version for Luthéal (Pleyel, 1910), a period prepared piano with a distinct character. About Lina Tur Bonet, Diapason writes: “Impressive: Lina Tur Bonet’s discography aligns beautiful achievements’. Indeed her previous releases have already collected all European awards.
Shostakovich: 24 Preludes & Fugues, Op. 87 / Minnaar
After Bach's Goldberg Variations, which won him worldwide honors (including a Diapason d'Or from France's Diapason Magazine), Hannes Minnaar challenges and confronts what has become a 'classic' of the 20th century repertoire: Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues, composed in 1951. Here again, the qualities of his pianism, for which he is recognized as one of the leading musicians of our time, come under the spotlight: the diversity of touch and the suppleness between tension and tranquility to characterize every Prelude and Fugue, the precision of tone, the lack of any affectation, a natural finesse in phrasing and articulation, and a familiarity with the score going hand in hand with a freshness that conjures a sense of improvisation. Here we encounter a new landmark in the crowded field of interpretations of this wonderful music.
Prokofiev: Milestones, Vol. 2
Salonen: Cello Concerto; Ravel: Duo / Altstaedt, Kuusisto, Slobodeniouk, Rotterdam Philharmonic
Nicolas Altstaedt presents here his version of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s monumental Cello Concerto, originally composed for Yo-Yo Ma, and given its Finnish premiere by the Franco-German cellist under the composer’s direction. In partnership with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Dima Slobodeniouk, he reveals its full expressive dimension here: ‘The first movement opens with what, in my sketchbook, was called “Chaos to line”’, says Esa-Pekka Salonen. Chaos, a metaphorical comet, a rhythmic mantra with congas and bongos, a wild dance . . . Salonen goes on to say of the third movement: ‘I imagined the orchestra as some kind of gigantic lung, expanding and contracting first slowly, but accelerating to a point of mild hyperventilation which leads back to the dance-like material.’
The coupling is the famous ‘Duo Ravel’ (to give it the original title used at its premiere), which Nicolas Altstaedt and Pekka Kuusisto have been performing and refining ever since 2010, and which it was high time to record.
REVIEW:
After the “defining” opening of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Cello Concerto, the cello enters—soulful, almost tonal, and lyrical with long-lined modulations, as the orchestra holds the tonal-like center. In all three movements the orchestration reminds me of Ravel’s: delicate and transparent, whatever the size of the ensemble.
The second movement has a concave shape, with a strong cluttered opening from which the solo cello emerges, flowing to a mid-section dialogue with the alto flute, before bird-like twitters expand to a bed of seagull-like cries (are they string glissandos or electronic?) over growing strings and winds.
The music grows without a break into the kinetic, dance-like final movement. Salonen describes it as “lung music” that swells and exhales repeatedly, as light congas and bongos set the pace.
But what about the performers? I listened twice, and both times Altstaedt was so mesmerizing that I found it difficult to listen analytically. It’ll take more than a couple hearings for me to “own” the work, despite Altstaedt’s consuming magnetic draw. Slobodeniouk is his hand-in-glove partner. Each movement flows with integrity.
The exhilaration and esthetic pleasure Altsteadt and Kuusisto bring to Ravel's Duo Sonata as they respond is remarkable. The opening Allegro is flowing and lithe. In the tres vif scherzo, the duo grabs hold of the insane pulse; the “harmonic sound set” is somewhat like hearing The Rite of Spring for the first time...
Ravel had fears of the sonata “being assassinated by amateurs.” I’ve never heard it more alive than with Altsteadt-Kuusisto!
--Fanfare (Gil French)
Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps / Hausmann, Amatis Trio
Habbestad, Hindemith, Iberg & Lund / Trio Brax
Trio Brax is a chamber music ensemble based in Tromsø, Northern Norway, founded in 2015. In this first recording they showcase music by the three Norwegian composers; Kjell Habbestad, Håvard Lund, and Helge Iberg, as well as music by Paul Hindemith. With the unusual combination of viola, tenor saxophone, and piano, Trio Brax is an odd flower in the world of classical chamber music. The highlighting of two instruments that are not commonly identified as solistic is intriguing and offers a different palette to the listener.
Bacewicz: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4 / Borowicz, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln
The symphonic oeuvre of the Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz has never before been recorded in its entirety "from one source", so that the series beginning here represents a pioneering act. The Third Symphony for large symphony orchestra was written in early 1952 and the monumental and pathetic music shows a hitherto unknown face of the composer. One of its characteristics is the use of large instrumental blocks, although fragments also appear that hint at the lighter expressivity of the neoclassical tradition. It is a masterfully constructed work and the overt formal schemes of the Classical period are complemented by the subtle use of elements that were characteristic of music between the wars - in particular the timbres of the French tradition. Nevertheless, this work is not about setting new accents. The same applies to the Fourth Symphony. The orchestra of this work from 1953 is larger than in the previous symphony - among other things, English horn, E-flat and bass clarinet, contrabassoon and harp are now also called for. In both works, the composer achieved an excellent balance between the music of the past (form referring to tradition) and new sources of inspiration (folklore) as well as a new approach to traditional elements (rhythm). As a result, she managed to reconcile the autonomous, artistic qualities of her music with the expectations of the cultural policy of the time. We are very happy to have found congenial interpreters for this project, which sets new standards in the WDR Symphony Orchestra and the Polish conductor Lukasz Borowicz.
Ravel: Complete Works for Solo Piano
Andres Segovia Archive - Grand Finale
Balada para un loco (LP)
Sibelius: Orchestral Songs / Kielland, Popelka, Norwegian Radio Orchestra
“As my career has progressed, I have had the chance to make numerous recordings featuring a variety of repertoires, and I have always felt the desire to record the songs of Sibelius. A wonderful opportunity presented itself when the Norwegian Radio Orchestra with Chief Conductor Petr Popelka expressed its willingness to be part of such a recording. Virtually all Sibelius songs are written for voice and piano, but many of them seem as though made for orchestral sounds and instrumental subtlety. Therefore a number of his finest songs have fortunately been orchestrated, and it is these editions we have used for this recording. A few of the orchestrations were done by Sibelius himself, one by his contemporary, Simon Parmet (né Pergament), while several were orchestrated by his own son-in-law, conductor Jussi Jalas. This album presents orchestrated songs of Sibelius from four opus numbers: 17, 36, 37 and 38.” (Marianne Beate Kielland)
EXTASIS
The Music of George Lloyd
Piazzolla: Orchestral Works / Chiacchiaretta, Arlia, Calabria Philharmonic
It is largely due to Astor Piazzolla that the bandoneon has become inextricably linked to the languid, sensual art of the tango. His renewal of its traditions – the so-called Nuevo tango – is exemplified by Aconcagua, a concerto for bandoneon, string orchestra and timpani of vivid imagination and rapid changes of mood that embodies the milonga, the improvised song of the Argentine. The six accompanying pieces are among Piazzolla’s most famous and evocative – works of poignant melody, profound melancholy and complex, uplifting beauty.
Sibelius: Violin Concerto; Lemminkainen Suite
Strauss: Zwischen Himmel und Erde
Blackbirds
Vsevolod Zavidov Plays Rachmaninoff
Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1; Hindemith: Violin Conce
Ancerl conducts Mahler, Sibelius & Janacek
Denes Varjon plays Bela Bartok
Mahler: Symphony No. 7
20th Century Russian Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2
Shadow Dances - British Works for Flute / Walker, Watkins
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
Mendelssohn: String Symphony No. 10; Widmann: Ikarische Klag
pure
Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 / Scherchen
With Mitropoulos, Walter and Kempler, Hermann Scherchen was among the most constant promoters of Mahler’s music in the years in which the Bohemian musician was little considered. These interpretations of the First (1954) and Second (1958) Symphony, which we already proposed 15 years ago, deserve to be reprinted and known above all for the beauty of the sound and for the fact that every critical edition relating to Mahler refers to the art of Hermann Scherchen.
