In between volumes of their series of Bach Cantatas, Masaaki Suzuki and the musicians of Bach Collegium Japan has taken the opportunity to record some of J.S. Bach's most well-loved works: the four orchestral suites. Termed 'Ouvertures' by Bach himself, they were composed at different times during the composer's life, and never intended to be regarded as a set. With his use of the word ouverture, Bach signalled that these works were so-called overture suites in the French tradition, with the bourées and gavottes that had become the greatest fashion of all over Europe as a consequence of the glorious reign of Louis XIV in Versailles. But as with everything Bach touched, he set his own stamp on the music, allowing Italian influences play in the non-dance movements and in the concerto-like structure of, for instance, the 'B minor suite' with its solistic flute part. 'Badinerie' and the rest of the suite is performed by flutist Liliko Maeda, member of the BJC and often noticed for her contributions in the Cantata cycle. Among the other members of the ensemble who get an opportunity to display their individual skills more openly than usual are Toshio Shimada (trumpet), Masamitsu San'nomiya (oboe) and Natsumi Wakamatsu (violin), while Masaaki Suzuki directs the proceedings from the harpsichord. With a playing time of some 99'45 minutes, the four suites are released in Surround Sound on two SACDS - but will be sold for the price of one disc. A wonderful opportunity to get further acquainted with a wonderful ensemble - while listening to wonderful music.

Having taken up the post of music director with the Colorado Symphony in 2013, Andrew Litton has chosen a highly fitting program for the orchestra's first recording on BIS: the Wild West, its folk music, traditions and legends loom large in Aaron Copland's ballet scores Billy the Kid and Rodeo. The two works were the result of the composer's search during the early 1930's for a new musical language. Copland himself described his reasons for this as follows: 'An entirely new public for music had grown up around the radio and the phonograph. It made no sense to ignore them and to continue writing as if they did not exist. I felt that it was worth the effort to see if I couldn’t say what I had to say in the simplest possible terms.’ In the two ballets, this new direction can be felt in the immediacy of the music, but also in Copland's use of cowboy tunes. A similar approach, but with Mexican themes, characterizes the slightly earlier El Salón México, inspired by a visit to a dance-hall in Mexico and the atmosphere he experienced there. Whereas these three works belong to the most popular in Copland's entire production, the opening piece, An Outdoor Overture, is something of a rarity – especially on disc. Composed in the same year as Billy the Kid, the overture was part of an educational campaign with the slogan 'American Music for American Youth' and its snappy rhythms and colorful orchestration will have made it as successful in its original purpose as it is here, as a curtain raiser. The Colorado Symphony is obviously enjoying itself in this all-American program, as is its conductor Andrew Litton, who joins the revelry as honky-tonk pianist in the Celebration section of Billy the Kid and the Ranch House Party in Rodeo, before bringing the disc to a rollicking end in that ballet’s closing section, Hoe-Down.

The Swedish recorder virtuoso Dan Laurin has demonstrated his remarkable versatility on some thirty recordings for BIS, ranging from a nine-disc set with 17th-century composer Jacob van Eyck's complete Der Fluyten Lust-hof to the recent Rock that Flute, with music for recorder and strings written in 2013 by the Dutch composer Chiel Meijering. During a recording career that stretches over almost 30 years, Laurin keeps returning to one particular set of works, however: the concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. Three of the works (the Concertos RV 441, 443 and 444) included on his latest release he has recorded more than once before, with ensembles such as the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble, Bach Collegium Japan and Arte dei Suonatori. For his latest 'take' on these favourites Laurin has joined forces with the young and vibrant Norwegian string ensemble 1B1 (shorthand for Ensemble Bjergsted 1). As he explains in his own liner notes for the present disc, he was inspired by his work on transcribing and performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: ‘A close reading of RV441 and RV443–445 reveals great similarities between these works and The Four Seasons: sudden changes of moods, turbulent emotions, burlesque whims mixed with sublime beauty and elegance… My aim here is to explore the recorder concertos with the same freedom and spontaneity that characterize the modern-day approach to the Seasons.’ Laurin’s recording of the Seasons has been called ‘undoubtedly the best transcription to date’ (Diapason) and ‘never hackneyed, but instead invigoratingly fresh and vibrant’ (Clarino), verdicts which can only fuel the expectations concerning this his latest version of the recorder concertos.

In 1878 Édouard Lalo wrote to the Spanish violin virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate: 'Your arrival in my life has been my greatest artistic opportunity... without you, I would have continued to write insignificant odds and ends'. The three works gathered here all spring from this arrival, beginning with the Violin Concerto, composed in 1873. The melodious and charming concerto held a great significance for the composer, who regarded it as his first work truly worthy of the name. In the eye of the public it was soon to be overshadowed, however. The première of Symphonie espagnole, in 1875, was followed by performances all over Europe, always in the expert hands of Sarasate. Neither a symphony nor a concerto, it is rather a five-movement suite in which the soloist and orchestra converse as equal partners. First in a long line of Spanish-themed works by French composers (including Bizet's Carmen, Chabrier's España, Debussy's Iberia and Ravel's Rhapsodie espagnole), it may be regarded as a composer's tribute to his violinist's country of origin. Three years later the Scandinavian accents of Fantaisie norvégienne were possibly the result of an encounter with the Norwegian composer and violinist Johan Svendsen. There is no doubt that Lalo was once more composing with Sarasate in mind, however. He wrote to the violinist: 'I believe that I have succeeded in being amusing without being common... Feel free to add violinistic devilishness if you like.' Whatever liberties Sarasate may have taken with the solo part, the première, conducted by Max Bruch, was again a great success. So great, in fact, that Lalo soon transformed it into a purely orchestral work, without soloist, giving it the title Rapsodie norvégienne. Standing in for Sarasate on the present disc is Jean-Jaques Kantorow, whose recording (on BIS-CD-1470) of Saint-Saëns' Third Violin Concerto - incidentally another work dedicated to Sarasate! - was nominated for both a Gramophone Award and a BBC Music Magazine Award in 2008. Here he receives fine support from the conductor Kees Bakels, his collaborator on the Saint-Saëns disc, and the Granada City Orchestra, of which he himself was the artistic director during the years 2004-2008.

If the wind quintet genre has its origins in the early 19th century, it was during the 20th that it came of age. The possibilities that the combination of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn offered in terms of sounds and musical character were exploited to the full by composers such as Carl Nielsen , Paul Hindemith and Darius Milhaud . Once the ensemble had become firmly established, it also became common practice to add instruments, or to vary the timbres in other ways. In his Septuor , Charles Kœchlin included not only an alto saxophone but also a cor anglais, the same instrument that Heitor Villa-Lobos replaced the (French) horn with in the Quintette en forme de Chôros . One of the most extreme cases in the literature, however, is Hans-Werner Henze 's L'autunno 'for five players of wind instruments', in which each player is required to perform on almost all the related instruments in the family of his main instrument, resulting in an instrumentarium ranging from piccolo flute to Wagner tuba and contrabassoon. Together with three other compositions, Henze's autumnal piece has lent its name to the discs included in this box set, the others being Printemps by Henri Tomasi , Samuel Barber 's Summer Music and Winter Songs , Brett Dean 's settings of five poems by E. E. Cummings for tenor and wind quintet. Individually released by the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet between 1992 and 2003, these four discs are here gathered into a full seasonal cycle: a catalogue of 20th-century music for wind quintet, performed by an ensemble that a reviewer in BBC Music Magazine has described as follows: ’Accustomed to working together with the world’s most gifted and demanding conductors, the five players distil all the discipline, versatility and musical characterisation that is demanded of them daily. They combine this with the mutual generosity and tangible sense of enjoyment of those just freed from the maestro’s yoke.’

Composed between 2010 and 2014, as commissions from orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony, the works recorded here testify to the widespread international interest in the music of the Swedish composer Anders Hillborg. Two purely orchestral works, Beast Sampler and Cold Heat, frame the brief and emotionally concentrated song O dessa ögon for soprano and strings, and demonstrate Hillborg's expert handling of the forces of the large symphony orchestra, often described by him as a 'sound animal'. They also illustrate one of his trademark compositional techniques, namely his use of a number of particular 'sonic objects' such as string glissandi, flutter-tongued flute counterpoint and dense textures of rapid and overlapping ascending scales. These, and many others, recur throughout his production in ever-changing contexts and new combinations. Sirens, the closing and culminating work on this disc, is also Hillborg’s largest work to date in terms of both scoring and duration, and its emotional depth is unmatched in his output. Inspired by the dangerous yet alluring sirens in Homer's Odyssey, Hillborg has constructed a score and libretto in which the sirens – two soprano soloists and a large mixed choir – with increasing desperation attempt to manipulate Ulysses. Performing this colourful programme is the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, one of Hillborg's faithful musical companions, joined by the sopranos Ida Falk Winland and Hannah Holgersson and two of Sweden's foremost choirs, the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir and the Swedish Radio Choir. As on a previous disc of Hillborg's music, the acclaimed Eleven Gates (BIS-1406), the performances are led by three different conductors: the eminent trio of Sakari Oramo, David Zinman and Esa-Pekka Salonen, dedicatees of the works they conduct here.