'When I'm composing, not only have I to create music, I must also search for the best way of putting it across. It means being on the alert the whole time; writing - then criticizing what I've written - and if it won't do, scrap it and start again - more criticism - and so on until I've done everything within my power to make the music live and flow naturally'. These insights from Grace Williams into her approach to the compositional process show her strong desire to communicate fluently and sincerely with her listeners. Also evident from this quotation is her professionalism, technical integrity and formidable capacity for self-criticism. She held herself and her art to the highest standards, withdrawing and destroying scores which failed to live up to her ideals. It can be inferred from this that she regarded the works which survived elimination as worthy of her musical legacy.

With "Collateral Flow," Leipzig-based pianist Clemens Christian Poetzsch and German guitarist, percussionist, and composer Reentko Dirks present their first joint album for piano and guitar. This unique work combines the romantic and melancholic elements of Poetzsch's sensitive piano melodies with Dirks' romantic and soothing guitar sounds to create a captivating musical journey."La Bicicleta Roja" opens the collection as a heartfelt homage to the unforgettable moment of learning to ride a bike, symbolizing the transition from security to independence. "Tidewater" unfolds as a dialogue between the artists, comparable to the repetitive waves rolling comfortingly onto the beach, an image of movement and transformation."Pendulum" interweaves with the visual narrative of an abandoned house and the inevitable passage of time. The gentle tones of "Riverine" reflect the tranquillity of a morning riverbank, while "Kleines Silber" celebrates the harmonious fusion of piano and guitar."Reflexion" becomes a canvas for emotional and creative expressions, while "Veer" reaches a fascinating dimension with it's unique sound experiment between prepared guitar and piano."Collateral Flow" is an invitation to immerse yourself in the beauty of sound and emotion. Immerse yourself in this musical masterpiece

This 4 CD edition "Christmas Classics - From Saxony to the World" brings together four of the most successful Christmas albums from Saxony. These four legendary music productions from Saxony contain a range of classical Christmas music that could not be greater. It includes instrumental and vocal music and brings together outstanding artists and ensembles such as Peter Schreier and the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Thomanerchor Leipzig, the Vocal Concert Dresden under the musical direction of Peter Kopp, the famous trumpeter and conductor Ludwig Guttler and his brass ensemble.

Step into a world of musical elegance with this release featuring solo piano interpretations of the most famous compositions by J.S. Bach. This album is a celebration of Bach's genius, showcasing the intricate beauty and emotional power of his work through the expressive medium of solo piano. Performed by Tim Allhoff who has collaborated with an impressive array of musicians and ensembles, including Larry Grenadier, Jeff Ballard, Robbie Williams, Jules Buckley, Vision String Quartet, and many more, this collection promises to deliver a rich listening experience that bridges tradition and innovation. Each piece is thoughtfully crafted to highlight the depth and complexity of Bach's compositions, making them accessible and captivating for both seasoned listeners and newcomers alike.

Take time in the summer to think about the winter, country folk would say. That is just as true of CD albums compiled to celebrate the happiest days of the year. In this record-breaking sultry summer, Ludwig Guttler has been giving some thought to how to celebrate the 200th anniversary in 2018 of this global song appropriately. "It is one of the first carols I learned to play on the accordion, a present I was given for Christmas after my fifth birthday," recalls Ludwig Guttler, who remembers that when he was a child, everybody sang along. In fact it took him a long time to understand how anybody sitting in church could stay still to the sound of "Stille Nacht". In addition to the best recordings from his gigantic catalogue, there are also recordings that have not yet been publihed: Guttler has arranged "Silent Night, Holy Night!" for his brass ensemble, clad each of the six verses in an instrumental garb of it's own and recorded it in the summer in Zwettl in Austria.

Ailsa Dixon's chamber music emerges from the shadows in this landmark recording by The Villiers Quartet, with Lucy Cox and Charlie Draper (ondes Martenot). From the long-lost Scherzo, discovered in an attic after more than half a century to her thoughtful song cycle The Spirit of Love, Dixon's music combines lyrical lines, adventurous harmonies, and a spiritual undercurrent, brought to life here with vibrant intensity and finesse. This album highlights the power of music to revive overlooked voices, offering listeners a chance to experience the beauty and musical depth of a composer finally stepping into the light.

A rarely heard, fascinating solo instrument and an internationally multi-award-winning performer: on the new GENUIN album "From Keys to Strings", we are presented with an exciting combination! For her prizewinner production from the 2023 ARD Music Competition, harpist Tjasha Gafner has put together an unusual program in which she arranged works for her instrument. These are pieces that Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart originally wrote for keyboard - or, in the case of Johann Sebastian Bach, for lute (or a lute-harpsichord?). The clarity and transparency of both transcription and interpretation by this outstanding young harpist provide surprising insights and new listening experiences!

Delos is thrilled to announce a new collaboration with GRAMMY� Award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer. Famed for it's "accuracy of intonation, purity of blend, of color and swagger of style" (Boston Globe), the group makes it's label debut with Joy to the World. This new Christmas collection blends tradition with innovation, combining Renaissance motets and fresh arrangements of classic carols with contemporary compositions, including two new commissions from Joanna Marsh. Showcasing the ensemble's extraordinary ability to move seamlessly and expertly between styles, Chanticleer's first Delos release conjures a wintertime world of magic, light, and wonder.

With his eighth album MORLA, ECHO award winner Tim Allhoff shows curiosity, self confidence and a stylistic diversity that reflects his various musical influences. For many years he has been one of the most important pianists on the German scene. The magazine JAZZTHING calls him the "Piano Shooting Star of the Republic" and the SuDDEUTSCHE congratulates him, with this release, on his "ascent to the top class of solo pianists". In his new Album MORLA, Allhoff takes the opportunity to reflect on the origins and course of his artistic work as a pianist and composer; the resulting collection of compositions evokes a variety of contrasting moods, reminiscent of a photo album - an album that exhibits different stages of his artistic career and the melting pot of the musical genres that is Tim Allhoff.

In the 'glory days' of the 1970s recording industry (and, incidentally, the time of CRD Records' foundation), there was a rush to record the classical canon. Naturally, as a pioneering label, CRD was at the forefront of this trend and had the privilege to work with Paul on the complete piano works of Faure and Ravel, amongst others. Today, hidden corners of classical continue to be unearthed and we are encouraged to rethink genre boundaries as we elevate long-disregarded voices. Meanwhile, there is another important venture at play: the careful curation of a composer's works. This is the bent of this release. Frederic Mompou's piano works have been well-covered, not least by the maestro himself in his own performances recorded in Barcelona in 1974. So why record this repertoire again 50 years later? From our perspective, it is a fitting choice as we celebrate 50 years as a label championing classical repertoire through the performances of world-class artists. But there has to be something more than that. Such is the accessibility of music today and the desire to reach virality that we seem to have forgotten how, for it's originator, it could be a definitively private and intimate exploit. Paul invites us to listen to Mompou's' rehearsal of own'. He encourages us, as Mompou did from the outset, to listen for the silences and peer deeply into the shadows. In a world in which our attention is constantly divided, perhaps now more than ever such albums are needed. Emma Pauncefort & Tom Pauncefort

The Hamburg-born Ferdinand Thieriot (1838-1919) not only shared a teacher - Eduard Marxsen - with Brahms; both composers, who remained friends in later years, use a very similar musical language, one which is richly melodic and effortlessly contrapuntal. The musicologist Wilhelm Altmann wrote that 'Thieriot's chamber music is without exception noble and pure. He writes with perfect command of form and expression' - as the works on this fourth Toccata Classics volume prove, in their exquisite balance of depth and beauty, of Brahmsian richness and Schubertian spontaneity.

A unique recital on record of complementary bagatelles and sonatas from two distinct periods in Beethoven's life, in a new recording by a modern master pianist. Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy is 'a storyteller', remarked Jeremy Nicholas in his Gramophone review of the Chopin sonatas on Piano Classics. He went on to praise 'nigh-on ideal' playing in the Second Sonata: 'unforced, rhythmically buoyant [and] texturally translucent'. The German pianist now illuminates four works of Beethoven with the same qualities. The Sonata Op.31 No.3 and Bagatelles Op.33 both date from what would prove to be a transitional point in Beethoven's career, around the year 1802, as he was stretching his wings and his capabilities. They achieve striking and often sudden contrasts of expression within both expansive sonata-form structures and the miniature sketch-form of the bagatelle, which Beethoven effectively invented from scratch with this set. 'Schmitt-Leonardy's superb technical and musical command holds unflagging interest' through the variation sets of Brahms, according to Jed Distler in another Gramophone review. Such command is a prerequisite for addressing the late masterpieces of Beethoven, so often recorded, and to which Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy brings his own, individual musical intelligence. Twenty years elapsed between those earlier pieces and the Sonata Op.110, during which time Beethoven's thinking inevitably underwent a sea-change. By this point he was striving ever more keenly to achieve the expression of transcendence in music, and the Sonata's ineffable opening phrase seems to distil that search into an unforgettable gesture. The Sonata is also marked by the composer's intensifying preoccupation with Baroque-era counterpoint, which gives the most haunting life to the finale's semi-autobiographical narrative of vitality lost and regained. The Bagatelles Op.126 are trifles in name only, contemporary with the Ninth Symphony, sharing the Olympian humour of it's Scherzo and the span of the Diabelli Variations. Each one captures a mood as intense as it is fleeting. They are perhaps comparable in this way with the sonatas of Scarlatti, such as those played by Schmitt-Leonardy on another Piano Classics album: 'one the most intelligently programmed and distinctively played Scarlatti collections to cross my reviewer's desk in years.' (Gramophone)

Bridging Tradition and Innovation: This album redefines lute music by blending the instrument's rich historical sound with electronic textures. A Fusion of Acoustic and Electronic: Bergmuller merges the lute's intricate, classical tones with subtle electronic layers?. For both contemporary and classical music audiences.

The first time Margarita Hohenrieder heard the Finnish pianist Antti Siirala, she was a member of the jury for the International Beethoven Competition in Vienna in May 1997. Many years later, Antti Siirala was appointed Professor for Piano at the University of Music and Theatre Munich - a happy coincidence that gave both the opportunity to make music together. The very first time they played together, we sensed a special musical relationship: a similar ideal of sound and a very deliberate way of listening to one another. Embarking with a fellow-musician on an artistic journey - such as making Mozart sound convincing on modern instruments, searching for the right tempo, rhythm, vivid phrasing, thrilling dynamics - is a highly creative process and certainly an inexhaustible source of inspiration. As an exciting contrast to their Mozart interpretations, they offer the South American sounds and rhythms of the bandoneon and the typically wistful melodies of the tango Cristian en el Cafe Tortoni Buenos Aires by Francoise Choveaux - a quite different but equally stimulating challenge. Hohenrieder also was introduced to the great bandoneon player on our recording, Sebastien Innocenti, by Francoise Choveaux. Margarita Hohenrieder is always treading unusual paths. Together with her friend, the painter Bernd Zimmer, she holds creative performances: "2 left hands," in which Bernd Zimmer creates a picture with his left hand while Margarita Hohenrieder plays works exclusively for the left hand. The well-known jazz musician Ingfried Hoffmann, Hjalmar Hegi Ragnarsson from Iceland and Francoise Choveaux wrote compositions especially for this performance. The cover of this CD and the booklet feature the painting "Ast", 2022 by Bernd Zimmer. The tango "Cristian en el Tortoni Buenos Aires" is dedicated to Margarita Hohenrieder.

Tenor saxophonist Rich Perry returns with Dream, his 28th release on SteepleChase, reaffirming his place as one of the most introspective and lyrical voices in modern jazz. Joined by his long-standing quartet-Gary Versace (piano), Jay Anderson (bass), and John Riley (drums)-Perry crafts a set that is both timeless and deeply personal reflecting his evolving artistry and minimalist elegance. Critics have long praised Perry's "impeccable taste" and "subtle articulation" (JazzTimes), his "adventurous yet highly listenable" approach (All About Jazz), and his ability to "imbue each tune with intense feeling." Perry summarizes Dream as "a document of where I'm at right now... this is the kind of album I like to listen to.