Transcribing musical works for other instruments or instrumentations has a long tradition in music history. Sometimes, the composers themselves wrote different versions of their works and often it is the musicians who adapt works for their own instruments. Even great composers have enjoyed arranging the works of their predecessors and have thus transported them into their time and era of music history and lent their own interpretations to them. Among those are Sergei Rachmaninoff, Franz Liszt, and Ignaz Friedman - all three great pianists and composers. Renowned Russian pianist Zlata Chochieva presents their transcriptions of the works of great composers such as Bach, Mendelssohn and Mahler on her new album "(re)creations".

Pulitzer Prize winner in Music, David Lang has scored the soundtrack for the new movie: (Untitled), an independent movie about a composer's life featuring actor Adam Goldberg. The movie opens on October 23rd. David Lang says, " Most of the time film music is in the background, setting the mood or advancing the story in a supporting role. This project was different. Because the leading character is a composer, it is a film as much about musical development as it is about character development."

During his Berlin visit in 1998, the Siberian sound shaman Spiridon Shishigin made recordings for his first solo CD, "Soul of Yakutia". Khomus - instrument of seduction with spiritual and healing effects. The area around Lake Baikal is not only the home of the Turks, of the Mongolian and Tartar people, but also the original home of the mouth harp. From here the instrument has spread almost all over the world. The Sakha people say that the khomus (mouth harp) has been their means of expression, central to their existence, for at least three thousand years.

Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing housed in tip-on jacket. Released as part of the Acoustic Sounds Series celebrating 70 years of Contemporary Records, saxophonist Art Pepper's classic big band album, + Eleven, features modern jazz classics by Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and more. First released in 1960 and recorded by legendary engineers Roy DuNann and Howard Holzer, this reissue features all-analog mastering from the original tapes by Bernie Grundman.

Norbert J. Schneider wrote his composition "... so lose im Raume" - in which he combines his sets of the "Duino Elegies" by Rainer Maria Rilke and his composition for the movie "Schlafes Bruder" [Brother of Sleep] - in the summer of 1995. In both works, mankind stands alone in the tension between love and God. In both, "childhood" is an important symbol. This recording derives a particular authenticity from the participation of the novelist Robert Schneider who not only creates a sympathetic atmosphere by reading from "Schlafes Bruder" [in German] between the movements of "... so lose im Raume" but also establishes important connections and is able to elicit curiosity about the further development of the musical process.

...Soul Movies... is a concept album by Italian pianist and composer Sebastian Di Bin, with Movies as an underlying idea. It features ten works by Di Bin himself, as well as his own arrangements for piano of works by Jerome Kern, Oscar Peterson, Freddie Mercury, and Stig Anderson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Benny Anderson. Sebastian di Bin was born in Udine (Italy) on 23/10/1981. He began studying piano at 7 years. In 2002 he graduated with highest marks at “Conservatory G. Rossini” in Pesaro (Italy). In 1993 he won the entrance competition at International Imola's Academy (Italy) of piano “Incontri col Maestro”, where he was trained by Maestri Franco Scala and Piero Rattalino. He also studied experimental composition with Maestro Di Bari. In year 2007 he gained the International Academy Diploma of High Perfectionism and in the following year the post-Diploma. Afterwards he studied composition with the compositor Remo Vinciguerra and wrote a book made of 15 of his own compositions. He finished his piano studies at the International Academy “Beniamino Gigli” in Recanati

In their second album for Willowhayne Records, Antiphon presents world premiere recordings of three choral works by Michael Walsh. Two are sacred and one secular: an unaccompanied Mass of the Holy Trinity, a full-scale Requiem Mass, and The Way of Love: a setting of five love poems by the First World War poet Rupert Brooke, scored for choir and strings. These works reflect the gentle character of the composer's style, steeped through nearly thirty years of singing in English Cathedrals. It is a happy coincidence that Exeter Cathedral is where Michael Walsh first sang in a Cathedral setting: in 1968, the choir of Allhallows school sang the D minor setting by Walmisley and Batten’s O sing joyfully there and he was hooked. After studying at Trinity College of Music in London, Michael settled in Chichester and was a member of the Cathedral Choir under John Birch and Alan Thurlow from 1972-1990. He sang for a further ten years in Portsmouth Cathedral Choir. From 1972 to present day, Michael has been involved as MD of several local choirs and orchestras, giving many concerts to raise money for charities.

Clare Lesser is a specialist in new vocal music and 'is blessed with a gorgeous voice and terrific technique' (Musical Pointers). Her previous releases have garnered great praise for her ability to cope with advanced technical requirements as well as being able to sing 'straight' with a most beautiful mellifluous tone and perfectly controlled vibrato. Husband David accompanies and also provides a major work on this program of lieder by some of our age's most inspired composers. Both Lessers teach at New York University in Abu Dhabi as well as performing, recording and doing much research. Heinz Holliger is perhaps best known as oboist and conductor but has a sizeable oeuvre including many song cycles, while Wolfgang Rihm is one of today's highest achievers in the art of lieder composition. Finnissy's work, on texts by Goethe, is an example of his vital contribution to the realm of modern vocal music.

This album is a stunning collection of modern works for choir, along with one Monteverdi work, performed beautifully by the University of Wisconsin Chamber Singers, conducted by Geoffrey Boers. The common thread that weaves all of these pieces together is the theme of light and the celestial world. The University of Washington Chamber Singers is a professional level choir consisting of graduate and advanced undergraduate music majors, as well as advanced musicians of majors from across the UW community. Established as the Madrigal Singers in the 1930’s under the direction of composer Gerald Kechley, the group gained recognition through its notable conductors Rodney Eichenberger and Joan Conlon. Acclaimed for its vocal prowess and artistic expression, the choir focuses on performing challenging repertoire of all periods with particular emphasis on performing art music of our time. Under the direction of Geoffrey Boers, the group has gained a national and international reputation with performances at the Canadian National Music Festival, the national conventions of Orff Kodaly Society, GALA, and College Music Society, regional conventions of ACDA and MENC, as well as four international tours to the Baltic countries and to Hungary. Most recently, the choir returned to the Baltic to participate in the Latvian National Song Festival during the summer of 2013.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Saxophonist and bass clarinetist Christoph Erb travels between Europe and Chicago, here in a trio setting with Chicago mainstays, pianist Jim Baker and drummer Frank Rosaly, for an intense and fierce album of collective improvisation captured live at their second-only encounter on the stage of the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago in 2014.

Can a performer make a composition sound better than it really is? Peter Serkin is one who surely can. He’s a marvellous pianist, and plays everything on this disc with an uncanny sensitivity to tone, nuance and overall shaping. He is also an enthusiastic champion of living composers. All these nine works were written for Serkin, seven for a 1989-90 recital tour consisting entirely of specially commissioned compositions. Other pieces by Peter Lieberson frame the present collection, while the work he wrote for the tour occupies the central position; this American composer has long been the pianist’s close friend. Breeze of Delight, from Lieberson’s Fantasy Pieces, works minor miracles with the sorts of gestures and harmonic language familiar from John Ireland. Other compositions – including some of Lieberson’s – still end up seeming more the result of craft and occasionally remarkable ingenuity exacted on tired, if generally dissonant, materials and borrowed forms than the product of compulsive invention: Oliver Knussen’s Variations, for example, or Alexander Goehr’s … in real time I, which gives the disc its title. Leon Kirchner’s often turbulent, cunning Interlude suggests the hand of an underrated master. But even in this case, the responsibility for turning prose into poetry could, as elsewhere, have really been Serkin’s astonishing talent.

Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 4 (out of 5)

-- Keith Potter, BBC Music Magazine

Jennifer Lim presents a quiet, introspective piano album with GENUIN: just in time for Valentine's Day, her recording of Romantic works such as Liszt's Liebestraum, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and Debussy's Clair de Lune is being released. Lim's transparent playing allows these classics to radiate from within, lending them contours so that the well-known works receive a new glow. Several nocturnes and a small, fine Andantino by Brahms round off a program that, according to the interpreter's wishes, allows us to travel "into the night" - Into it's magic, mysterious darkness. Having started to play the piano before the age of five, Korean-Canadian pianist Jennifer Lim made her first public appearance one year later and came into the spotlight when she captured the Grand Prize at the Korea Times National Music Competition at age eight. She studied privately with Jane Coop and Anton Kuerti in Canada, and with Peter Serkin at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was awarded the coveted Rachmaninoff/Festorazzi prize. She then completed her master's degree at The Juilliard School in New York City as a prot�g�e of the legendary pianist Bella Davidovich.

Pianist Sarah Bob is a passionate and trailblazing advocate of the music of our time who has introduced the music of dozens of living composers to the world. ‘…nobody move…’ is a collection of works by six award-winning composers whom Sarah commissioned for the Boston-based New Gallery Concert Series which she founded 20 years ago. Her exuberance and exactitude are common threads tying together the album’s diverse musical dialects, from Jonathan Bailey Holland’s evocative chord clusters in The Intimacy of Harmony to Curtis K. Hughes’ electro-acoustic Avoidance Tactics #1 and his varied suite of miniatures, vestibulations; from the late Lee Hyla’s energetic Solo Cadenzas from his large-scale orchestral work My Life on the Plains, lovingly arranged by Sarah Bob, to David Rakowski’s cheeky ‘Mind the Gap #18,’ tender ‘Wayo’ and edgy ‘Ghepardo;’ from Shaw Pong Liu’s powerful ‘Never Has Been Yet,’ which sets Langston Hughes’ poem ‘Let America Be America Again;’ to Randall Woolf’s fearlessly virtuosic title track. ‘…nobody move…’ is a striking album that ranges from in your face to contemplative moods, entertaining the ears of contemporary music lovers and novices alike.
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REVIEW:

Randall Woolf’s high-powered toccata is redolent of the encores with which Yvar Mikhashoff closed his recitals, while Jonathan Bailey Holland favours a more introspective and latterly hieratic expression. David Rakowski’s insinuating trio of preludes recalls Gershwin in its rhythmic verve if not melodic fecundity, whereas a suite of études drawn from Curtis K Hughes’s compendium Vestibulations focuses on miniatures at once pithy and tangible. As arranged by the pianist, Lee Hyla’s piece deftly elides between keening virtuosity and an affecting emotional poise. For the most part, though, this proves a stimulating overview of an enterprising project, with Sarah Bob a dextrous and charismatic exponent.

– Gramophone

Classical Music

The pieces featured on this release are joined by a common thread of one idea. Preludes Op. 23 by Sergei Rachmaninoff and the Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor by Gustav Mahler were created almost in the same period of time, in 1901-1903. Mahler wrote his Adagietto under the influence of passionate feelings toward Alma Schindler, who soon became his wife. On the other hand, Rachmaninoff composed his Preludes shortly after marrying Natalia Alexandrovna Satin. Chopin’s nocturns became a personification of passionate feelings. One could say it was women that were an indirect impulse for the creation of these works. +Edward Wolanin is a graduate of the Academy of Music in Warsaw. He is currently a professor of his alma mater, a prize-winner of numerous competitions, and now a member of jury of many of them. His great sensitivity is revealed in music and in contacts with others. He emanates with warmth and naturalness. This is how he is both in life and music.

Includes christmas carol(s) by various composers. Ensemble: The Swingle Singers.

George Lewis-cl, Jim Robinson-tmb, Lawrence Marrero-banjo, Sidney "Little Jim" Brown-brass+, 1943, 14 tracks.

Classical Music

French songs for children.

Classical Music

This audiobook version of "One Thousand and One Nights", the famous collection of medieval Arabic and Persian tales, is told by French actress Rachida Brakni. Featuring the famous Irakian oud player Fawzy Al-Aiedy. In French.

Classical Music

Classical Music

The lavishly produced audio biographies in the BR-KLASSIK WISSEN series tell the life stories of famous composers in an entertaining and amusing way. Who were Mozart, Mahler, and Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn? In what period were their works written? And how did their lives influence their music? This box set contains the ten audio biographies published to date by the music publicist J�rg Handstein. Great actors and actresses bring the past to life: Matthias Brandt, Martina Gedeck, Gert Heidenreich, Brigitte Hobmeier, Cornelius Obonya and many others. As the narrator, Udo Wachtveitl is the main voice of the series. Numerous musical examples as well as several complete works, recorded by leading musicians at an outstanding level, bring the composers' work to life. All quotations are from genuine sources - after all, what really happened is more exciting than all the anecdotes invented later. In this way, and captivatingly, well-founded knowledge becomes listening pleasure.

10 CDs + bonus CD. In a recording career spanning more than 30 years, almost exclusively on Deutsche Grammophon, Anne Sofie von Otter has created a discography of exceptional range and quality, performing works from an array of composers that includes Kurt Weill, Jacques Offenbach, John Dowland and even Elvis Costello. Celebrating her 60th birthday, DG present a box set of Anne Sofie von Otter: 10 Classic Albums plus a Bonus CD with selections from Handel's great opera Ariodante.

Giovanni Lorenzo Gregori (1663 - 1745), "Maestro di capella amenissimo, bravo sonatore di violino", worked predominantly in his hometown of Lucca. His main work, 10 Concerti Opus 2, is an almost visionary achievement, in particular because he expressly called for a powerful orchestral sonority. Each Concerto has it's own varied and multifaceted character. The solo passages of both violins are but short interludes. The accent is on the lively orchestral idiom and it's many surprises; previously unheard of combinations of string instruments are as thrilling as the transparent and lively dialogues within the orchestra. Alessandro Stradella (1644-1682) was constantly involved in love affairs and other incidents: the last ended in his murder on the Piazza Bianchi in Genoa. This did not deter from the quality of his compositions. In many ways his works still appear modern, thanks to his gift for combining different orchestral timbres and volumes, and involving the players in inspiring exchanges and mutual imitations.

These are not only renowned organs with splendid sound, but here as recorded by renowned sound engineers with great experience and success in organ recordings

In 2014, the Museum Kleines Klingental in Basel presented the exhibition "Hans Huber and Basel's musical life around 1900". In 2015, the exhibition provided the impetus for the founding of the concert series "Basel composes" at the Museum Kleines Klingental. The idea was to create a platform for chamber music by composers who were born, lived or worked in Basel. Since then, numerous ensembles have performed works by well-known, unknown and forgotten composers from Basel. At the centre of this anniversary recording are compositions by Hans Huber, which were the starting point of the concert series, played by Andrea Wiesli, who has been particularly committed to promoting Basel's musical culture in the Klingental with the Trio Fontane. On the occasion of the exhibition, a concert series was organised as part of the accompanying programme with music by Hans Huber, by composers who influenced his music or were his pupils and friends. To realise this chamber music series, the Museum Kleines Klingental, advised by the pianist Andrea Wiesli, decided to acquire a historical Bluthner grand piano from around 1875. The Museum Kleines Klingental is located in the founding building of the Klingental Dominican convent dating from 1274. In 1929, the Cantonal Monument Preservation Office moved into the former convent. It founded the Museum Kleines Klingental in 1939. The large refectory, the former convent kitchen, the small refectory as well as the "Schaffnei" and the roof truss from the construction period of 1274 are particularly impressive.