This third album of Arianna Savall and Petter Udland Johansen with their ensemble Hirundo Maris on Carpe Diem Records is a musical journey along coasts and oceans, an ode to seafarers and travelers from ancient and modern times, to their lives, hopes and dreams. The windrose points into all cardinal points, encompassing all different cultures and places on earth in it's movement. At the same time, it can be a symbol for the inner travels of the human soul which may aim into all different directions and places throughout life. In this sense, the songs on this album connect inner and outer journeying through music and poetry, just as countries and people are connected through oceans, currents, and winds.

Solo Hardanger fiddle album; Norwegian Folk inspired new compositions, Nordic trance world music.

Toyohiko Satoh, one of the most important lute players of the last century, plays the largely unknown late works of French baroque composer and lutenist Robert De Visée, guitar teacher to the King Luis XIV. Satoh plays on an original lute made by Laurentius Greiff in 1610, which gives this recording a very distinct sound and atmosphere.

On her debut album, Japanese violinist Keiko Yamaguchi plays a selection of sonatas for violin and guitar from the "Centone di Sonate per Violino e Chitarra" of Niccole Paganini. Accompanied by guitarist Rosario Conte on a 19th C. romantic guitar, she gives Paganini's music a special and intimate touch.

This is a collection of polyphonic music from late medieval sources around the turn of the 15th century.

For most period-instrument bands, improvisation means judiciously adding ornaments. But in works by Strozzi, Cabezon, Attaingnant, Monteverdi and others, the recorder player Vicente Parrilla and his superb Seville-based ensemble More Hispano elaborate freely and inventively on the composers' melodies and classic dance rhythms, much as a virtuoso jazz band would do with standards. Alvaro Garrido's vigorous percussion underpinnings have a world-music quality that suits these works, and Raquel Andueza, a soprano, sings with an earthy, almost vibrato-free tone. -New York Times, 2011 Music Gift Guide, Allan Kozinn.

Cradle of Conceits

Van Eyck: Engels Liedt - Works for Recorder solo

The Uncertainty Principle is a journey into the mystical musical world of Russian composer Alexandre Danilevski, where music and instruments from the middle-ages to modern day meet and create an unexpectedly beautiful soundscape. On this recording, Danilvski's own ensemble Syntagma interprets two of his works for mixed ensemble and voice, while the Flanders Recorder Quartet plays his "Antiphones" and cellist Larissa Groeneveld presents "Revelation", a concerto for cello solo.

La Beata Olanda: John Come Kiss Me Now

Kurofune

Mélodies d'ailleurs is the first album collaboration of Swiss soprano Viviane Hasler and her long-time friend and musical partner Maren Gamper. For this album, the two artists selected French songs from the turn of the 19th Century, known as the "fin de siècle" in France and beyond. Works by Claude Debussy, Ernest Chausson, Cécile Chaminade, and Reynaldo Hahn are being contrasted by three songs of contemporary German composer Wolfgang Rihm, creating a concept album that is much more than just an anthology of romantic piano songs. Viviane Hasler's interpretation is fresh and tangible, never overboarding or romanticizing, yet staying true and honest to the emotions of the original compositions. Pianist Maren Gamper, always searching for that perfect moment between the notes, creates an intimate yet deeply supportive soundscape for the voice. Recorded at the big hall of the orchestra house in Kriens, Switzerland, this album strives to open a little window in time, leaping into memories of a bygone past while connecting them to the living present.

Mystical chants between the visible and the invisible: The great ancient mystery chants of Spain and Norway. Ensemble Hirundo Maris presents the enigmatic chants of the Middle Ages, Spain's El cant de la Sibil.la and Norway's Draumkvedet. Both convey profound, apocalyptic visions of the world's end and the dawn of a new era, traditionally sung on Christmas night. This album evokes the mysteries of winter, blurring the boundaries to the otherworld, transporting the listener to mystical realms.

Exquisite Delight awaits the listener on Viktor Töpelmann’s new solo album with viol music by Carl Friedrich Abel, Franz Xaver Hammer und Andreas Lidl. Virtuoso Allegros, sentimental Adagios and dancing Minuets come to life in Viktor Töpelmann’s interpretation of sonatas and solo music from this last bloom of viol music in the late 18th century. He plays an original bass viol by Barak Norman (London 1722) and he is accompanied by the cellist Gerhart Darmstadt.

On this album, lutenist Toyohiko Satoh takes on one of the most famous and enigmatic works of French baroque lute literature: The collection "La Rhétorique des Dieux" published by Denis Gaultier (1603-1672). Satoh's interpretation is entirely committed to the profound simplicity and clarity of this music, which for him carries the spirit of Japanese Zen and only begins to shine not through virtuosity and emotion but, on the contrary, by engaging with the emptiness between the sounds, with the simple playing of what is.