The chamber music of Anton Arensky (1861-1906) embodies a happy and inspired synthesis of two contrasting sound-worlds: the peculiarly Russian language of Rimsky-Korsakov and the ‘Mighty Handful’, and that of Western-European accents exemplified in the sphere of chamber music by Brahms, but filtered through Tchaikovsky’s West-leaning approach. It’s Mendelssohn who comes to mind in the vernal surge of energy that opens the First Piano Trio which is Arensky’s best-known work beyond his piano music. The sombre third-movement elegy is a tribute to the cellist Davidoff, and accordingly opens with a soulful cello melody, before an impassioned finale banishes all introspection. Composed over a decade later in 1905, the Second Trio replaces such youthful energy for a more concise and refined harmonic idiom that even brings to mind Gabriel Fauré at points such as the polished, elusive second-movement Romance. After a delightfully capricious Scherzo full of subtle rhythmic shifts and conversational hesitations, the Second Trio concludes with an expansive set of variations on a noble theme in Tchaikovskian vein. Formed in 2016, the Carducci Trio has already won praise for its accomplished performances of Russian music in particular, having recently made a tour of China and given London performances at the Royal Albert Hall (Elgar Room) and Academy of St Martin in the Fields. This is the Trio’s debut recording.

A delightful collection of English songs from the 17th century, constructed around the major influence of the four seasons, and showcasing the great enthusiasm for music, particularly amateur music making, that took place during this era.

During the Commonwealth of England (c.1640–1660), music disappeared almost entirely from religious and court occasions. The use of instruments and music in churches was banned, and organs were destroyed by order of the regime – so the public turned to village and tavern musicians, country dances and new musical clubs for music making. Coinciding with the decline of the Elizabethan madrigal, folk music and settings of the famous poets of the day were popular; similarly, keyboard variations on dance tunes and romantic songs for voice and lute were all the rage, and this continued into the years of the Restoration under Charles II. The monarch’s influence can be detected in the French style of some of the later works, featuring oboe and large groups of strings.

This outpouring of inspired music is captured perfectly in this new collection, performed with insight and sensitivity by Ensemble Le Tendre Amour. Composers featured include Purcell, Playford, Morley, Croft, Lawes, Byrd, Eccles, Ravenscroft and, of course, many anonymous works. From bucolic country music to sophisticated pieces for a gentrified city audience, the music provides a vivid soundtrack to life in the turbulent world of 17th century England.

OTHER INFORMATION:
• Recording made in June 2011.
• Includes extensive booklet notes and complete sung texts.

REVIEWS:

"What an enchanting promenade through a musical garden – full of colour – a splendid sound - lively and high-spirited dances, not to mention the tender rendition of gentle love songs. Also truly splendid were the seven soloists of the ensemble, especially heard were: Sébastien Perrin (traverso), Adriana Alcaide (violin), and Nina Akerblom Nielsen (soprano). The result: an enchanting excursion to a baroque garden, glorious!" - Niederösterreichisches Nachrichten, St. Pölten, Austria.

"Closing the 10th Samobor music festival this year was a performance by early music ensemble Le Tendre Amour from Barcelona with the program “All in a Garden Green,” which caused great audience approval in the Samobor Franciscan church. Various combinations of instrumentation, a creative selection of repertoire, refined performance, and passionately dedicated members of this specialized ensemble, opened a rich array of emotional and spiritual nuances of beautiful music to the listener. The ensemble was as rich and inexhaustible as the interesting artistic periods themselves." - Radio Samobor, Croatia.

There are two themes to this recording: the time-honored genre of the folia, and an instrument made for and played by the greatest guitarist of the 20th century, Andres Segovia. With his determination to expand the repertoire of guitar music and extend the instrument beyond its associations with his native Spain, Segovia commissioned three works played here by Javier Somoza: the Variations à travers les siècles by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Variaciones y Fuga sobre la Folia de España by Ponce and a set of Four Short Pieces by Frank Martin. Segovia eventually decided that Martin’s idiom was too dissonant for his taste and so never played them, but the pieces have since become classics of the mid-20th-century repertoire alongside works by Britten and Henze. As their titles suggest, however, the other two works have a conscious relationship with the history of the guitar and its repertoire, developed from the lute and vihuela of previous centuries. Ponce only partially fulfilled Segovia’s request for ‘a series of brilliant variations on the Folias de España theme […] in the Classical Italian style of the 18th century.’ What resulted was a monumental, thoroughly eclectic work definitely not in 18th-century style. Segovia, again, decided to adapt the piece for his own ends but Somoza has returned to the original. Meanwhile Castelnuovo-Tedesco, in his first work for the guitar, also consciously embraced eclecticism in a series of different idioms: a stylized chaconne reminiscent of early music; a free variation, a waltz, and a foxtrot. There is one more modern work on the album – the dazzling Tiento by Maurice Ohana that also looks back to 18th-century Spanish idiom – which functions as a pivot between the ages. Two examples of the folia theme-and-variation form by Santiago de Murcia date from roughly 1730; and to open, Somoza travels back in time to the tientos of 16th-century Spain with three brief works by Alonso Mudarra. ‘A Guitar for Segovia’ is both an absorbing journey through the history of guitar music and an important record of a Segovia instrument: a significant addition to the expansive library of guitar music on Brilliant Classics.

The guitar is not the first instrument one associates with the towering figure of Beethoven, but he did know and appreciate the instrument, and even wrote some chamber music pieces for it.

This imaginative recital of chamber music by Beethoven takes its inspiration from the Romantic poem of the album title which describes the kind of unattainable love to which Beethoven was throughout his adult life susceptible, and from which he appears himself to have drawn creative energy. His own setting of Adelaide (the text of which appears in the booklet in both Matthisson's original and in English translation) was arranged by the 19th-century guitarist-composer Nicholas Coste; it introduces not only the playful Op.8 Serenade, perhaps the most obvious contender among Beethoven's music for a transcription of the piano part to the piano, but movements from two of his string quartets and even the funeral march from his Piano Sonata Op.26, transcribed for guitar solo or duo and played here on instruments of the period by a young and dynamic ensemble of European musicians, led by Izhar Elias, who have already released acclaimed recordings on Brilliant Classics, including guitar music in memory of Debussy (9246), spectacular transcriptions of Rossini arias (93902) and a sparkling survey of 17th-century music from the Spanish territories (94352). Elias himself plays a selection of guitars on this recording, by Guadagnini and Stauffer père et fils, including a rare terz model, which is smaller than the regular model and tuned a minor third higher to produce a more brilliant and penetrating sound in company with other instruments.

Other information:
- New recording made in April 2013.
- This original and appealing programme presents works of Beethoven in chamber music arrangements with guitar, written by contemporaries, a practice that was quite common in the period, playing its role in the popularisation of the music.
Eminent guitarist Izhar Elias plays on several period instruments, including a rare "terz" instrument, smaller in size and tuned a minor third higher in order to achieve a more brilliant sound. He is joined by violin, viola and another guitar, according to the setting of the arrangements.
- Unique album concept.
- Extensive booklet notes written by the artist.

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948) is a composer difficult to classify. A child of his time he kept aloof from the innovations of the modernists and dodecaphony. As son of a German father and a noble-born Venetian mother he was born in Venice and went to study in Munich. He became famous as an opera composer. His style is romantic, tinged with impressionism and the odd neoclassical hint. His aim was to create a “universal beauty” in his works, where no rules apply, but only a feeling of well-being and sensuousness. This new recording is a new instalment of the recording project of the complete Chamber Music by Wolf Ferrari. Presented here are the Piano Quintet, a masterpiece of Brahmsian proportions and impact, the Cello Sonata, full of nostalgic Italianate lyricism, and the Duo for Violin and Cello, a forceful dialogue full of wit and lightness.

Played by the Guadagnini Quartet, Amedeo Cicchese (cello) and pianist Costantino Catena, who is the binding force in this recording project of considerable importance.

Bach’s music is often described as indestructible, in the sense that no matter how it is performed, or in whichever arrangement, its essential spirit survives. Therefore transcriptions of the Master’s works are common, today as they were in Bach’s time (Bach (1685-1750) himself was an ardent transcriber!). This new recording presents instrumental works by Bach transcribed for and played on the modern guitar. The selection includes works written originally for lute BWV 996, 997 and 998, and the Sonata BWV 1003 and Partita BWV 1004, originally written for solo violin. Arcady Ivannikov is one of Russia’s leading guitarists, a key figure in the popularization of his instrument in his home country, having organized numerous concerts and festivals.

The Habsburg Empire was a unique melting pot of cultural currents at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries. Similar to the French court, the emperors in Vienna sought to distinguish themselves through music. In contrast to Versailles, however, there had already been a strong affinity to Italian music here. Coupled with the influences from the Bohemian region and the many travel movements across the Alps, this led to a marked flourishing of musical life in eastern Central Europe.

This original concept program present works by Caldara, Bonporti, Händel, Biber, Ziani, and Muffat, a mix of Cantatas on secular texts and instrumental sonatas, all bearing witness of the extraordinary high musical level of the period.

The Arava Ensemble (Arava is Hebrew for willow, but also of wilderness) consist of soprano, violin, cello and harpsichord, performing vocal and instrumental music in their concerts with creative explanations. They were awarded first prize as well as the audience award at the International Competition for Concert Explanation and Presentation in Frankfurt. They have performed at Resonanzen Festival in the Konzerthaus, Vienna and at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music. They have been musical ambassadors for UNESCO City of Music, Hanover, Germany at the international Día de la Música in Seville, Spain.

Transcription has always been a widespread musical practice, following the desire to arrange pieces originally written for an instrumental and/or vocal ensemble for an instrument like the organ or harpsichord or, later, the piano. The eighteenth century was a very fertile period for transcriptions, reaching its pinnacle among Johann Sebastian Bach’s circle. The transcriptions Bach (1685-1750) made during his time in Weimar both for organ (three concertos by Vivaldi and two by Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar) and an astonishing 14 for harpsichord (by various Italian composers) are of great artistic value. However, Bach also adapted his own works originally written for instruments or voices, ‘appropriating’ them for the keyboard. These included the first movement of his Trio Sonata No. 4, taken from the sinfonia from the cantata Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes BWV 76 (for oboe d’amore, viola da gamba and basso continuo) and the Schübler chorales, which started off life as arias in various cantatas.

The aim of this recording is to offer a series of transcriptions that were originally written for instruments other than the organ. The transcribers include Bach himself, contemporaries of him, two 19th century composers: Alexandre Guilmant and Robert Schaab, a pupil of Mendelssohn, ending with the present organist, Stefano Molardi himself.

Stefano Molardi is a “renaissance man”, organist, harpsichordist, scholar, historian and writer. He recorded extensively: the complete organ works by J.S. Bach, organ works by Bach family members, complete organ works by Kuhnau and other repertoire. His playing is clear, crisp, free and rhythmically vibrant. His recordings received 5 star reviews in the international classical magazines. Played on the Johann Nepomuk Holzhey (1797) organ at the Neresheim Abbey, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, the specifications of which are included in the booklet.

The start of an exciting new project: the recording of the complete violin sonatas by Dussek!

Johann Ladislaus Dussek (1760-1812) was born in rural Bohemia. He led a restless life, travelling Europe as a keyboard virtuoso and settling in several European capitals, notably Paris and London, where he became a fashionable pianist and teacher. His close connection to piano manufacturer Broadwood resulted in important innovations, notably the extension of the keyboard to 6 octaves.

Dussek’s style is rich, harmonically expressive and pianistically challenging, Classicism on the brink of Early Romanticism. Carl Friedrich Cramer writes in the “Magazin der Musik” in 1783: "These sonatas are the only ones of their kind. Rich in new thoughts and traces of the author's great musical genius. Very brilliant, and appropriate to the instrument. The accompaniment of the violin is so artificially combined with the piano part that both instruments are kept in constant attention; so that these sonatas require a violin player who is just as skilled as a piano player."

Played by Julia Huber (violin), a prizewinner of the Locatelli Competition Amsterdam, and concertmaster of L'Orfeo Baroque Orchestra Linz and La Stagione Frankfurt. Miriam Altmann studied piano, fortepiano and harpsichord, she specializes in the Early Classical repertoire and recorded works by Gyrowetz. Both musicians play period instruments.

Johann Gottfried Müthel (1728 – 1788) was the last pupil of the great Johann Sebastian Bach. He was present at the master’s deathbed, and he performed the funeral services, taking over the duties of the deceased Cantor. Mühtel’s music (“full of novelty, taste and grace” according to the great art historian and traveller Charles Burney) is of a wide variety, and written mainly for the keyboard (organ and harpsichord). Müthel’s music can be traced stylistically to the empfindsamer Stil or ‘sentimental style’, which blended passages rich in emotional nuance and strong harmonic contrasts with use of rhetoric and counterpoint and sparkling improvisational techniques.

This new recording presents solo sonatas and duets for two keyboards by Müthel, highly original works which show that Müthel was an excellent keyboard player and improviser. Played by Anna Clemente and Giacomo Benedetti, two keyboard players who won their spurs in the performance of hidden gems of the Baroque and (Early) Classical Period, on the basis of the Historically Informed Performance Practice.

Born in the context of the popular devotion of the peoples of the Mediterranean during the late Middle Ages, the spiritual lauda became well established in the central part of Italy, where a strong oral tradition is still preserved today. They were originally monodic compositions in the vernacular, based on the style of the Occitan troubadours (12th to 14th century), with a regular rhythm and simple melodic form, which could be sung by anyone with or without instrumental accompaniment.

Francisco Soto was born in Langa de Duero, in the present-day province of Soria, Spain, in 1534. He trained musically as a puer cantor in the Cathedral of El Burgo de Osma before leaving for Rome and being admitted in 1562 as a cantor in the Pontifical Musical Chapel, today commonly known as the Sistine Chapel Choir. He was the first castrato to join the choir. He served in Rome as a falsettist soprano for 49 years, until 1611, 5 years of which were spent as maestro uno inter pares of the Cappella Musicale Pontificia, between 1606 and 1611. This recording presents 20 Laudi, collected from the 5 books of Laudi, published in Rome between 1583 and 1598, written in daring polyphonic arrangements by Soto de Langa.

Heinrich and Carl Baermann, father and son, count among the most famous and influential clarinet players of music history. Heinrich Baermann (1784-1847) was solo clarinet player at the court of Prince Louis Ferdinand von Preußen, later he moved to the court of Munich of King Maximilian I, which boasted one of the best orchestras of the time. His son Carl (1810-1885) succeeded him. Carl wrote the “Vollständige Clarinett Schule”, a 5-volume treatise and teaching manual, still considered to be the basis of clarinet playing and teaching. Both father and son Baermann composed extensively for their instrument, and this new recording presents their works, highly accomplished music bringing out all the qualities of their beloved reed instrument the clarinet. This recording brings together several first recordings, works by father and son: several “Theme and variations”, a Divertimento and a Fantasie Brilliante, all bringing out the full potential of the sonorities of the clarinet, while the piano is by no mean a mere accompaniment but on an equal level with the soloist in richness and diversity. Wonderful performance by Italian clarinet player Dario Zingales, sought-after soloist, a member of the famous Bläserphilharmonie Mozarteum, and teacher at the Mozarteum Salzburg. This release is the successor of the artist’s first recording of father and son Baermann, issued on Brilliant Classics, which received 5-star reviews.

Angelo Gilardino (born 1941) is one of the most important guitar composers of the last half century. His unique style is a blend of the old and new, folk art and contemporary music, from Mozart to Messiaen, all his works are illuminated by a warm and Mediterranean glow, a feeling of humanity and love for life. This new recording brings together Gilardino’s works inspired by Spain: the important and substantial Sonata Guadalquivir, a selection from the Transcendental Studies, and the touching Colloqio con Andrés Segovia. The musical and historical roots of this beautiful music are deep in Spain and its culture, delving from the profound heart of the guitar sound: obscure and at the same time crystalline, penetrating and elusive, from the innermost of Man’s soul. Played with affection and dedication by Antonio Rugolo, a winner of several international guitar competitions. He recorded 5 solo albums and recorded for Brilliant Classics guitar duos by Lhoyer.

The 18th-century Dutch Republic served as a magnet attracting musicians across Europe. It was one of the wealthiest of European countries. Celebrities such as Handel and Mozart may have passed through only briefly, but others such as Locatelli made a permanent home in the republic and introduced many foreign musical languages to local composers. Hence, in this unique collection, we find a remarkable diversity of style, from Wassenaer's post-Corellian concerti grossi to the more galant music of Albertus Groneman. Meanwhile Willem de Fesch and Pieter Hellendaal moved to England and never returned to their homeland. Hellendaal's 'grand concertos' are likewise Italian in style, though cast in a ripieno idiom whereas de Fesch's concertos draw on his expertise as a solo violinist, rooted as much in the heritage of Vivaldi as Corelli. Most of the concertos on album 4 were composed by foreign arrivals: itinerant musicians such as the German-born Johann Christian Schickhardt and Anton Wilhelm Solnitz of Bohemian origins. The performances here, made in the 1990s and early 2000s and originally issued on the Dutch NM Classics label, enjoy a lively but not doctrinaire appreciation of historically informed style. Although the Combattimento Consort uses modern instruments, they play them implementing the techniques that van Wassenaer and Ricciotti would have known. The sound the players generate is therefore old and new, and should offend neither camp in the current round of period-instrument wars. Musica ad Rhenum, familiar from their considerable Brilliant Classics catalogue, play on instruments of the era or copies thereof. They are renowned among the most stylish of Dutch early-music groups. "The interpretations brim with verve and lucidity... de Vriend and his compatriots execute these works with excellent definition, a fine sense of shape and balance, and musical intelligence." (Fanfare)

The seven Lachrimae Pavan of 1604 are widely held to mark not only the high point of Dowland’s work but the entire genre of viol consort music. Dowland takes a lamenting pavan that he had written some years earlier and develops its theme into a cycle which takes the listener through different states of tearfulness, from loneliness to despair through hope to love and finally joy – the ‘true tears’ of the final pavan. In its contrapuntal mastery and its ingenuity in the treatment of a single theme, the Lachrimae cycle stands alongside The Art of Fugue composed by J.S. Bach a century and a half later. Most recordings of the Lachrimae use the standard instrumentation of a consort of viols, ranging from treble to bass and accompanied by a lute. For his second recording of the cycle, however, the Italian violist Cristiano Contadin has boldly created a broken consort performance which mixes the recorder and also early violin and viola in with the uniquely grainy timbre of the viols. Such an instrumentation exploits the long association of the recorder with music of lamentation, and makes a historical connection with, for example, the cantatas of Bach. Contadin explains with a booklet essay that his aim in performance is to recover the ‘passionate’ nature of this music as Dowland envisaged it in his own written preface to the score, and indeed there is nothing dry or constricted about the performance he directs from the treble viol. Now, with three generations of period performance research and practice under their belts, musicians are beginning to play this music with the kind of freedom and spontaneity and emotion they would accord (in other ways) to Brahms, and this new recording deserves comparison with the most distinguished accounts from the recent past.