Pianist Angela Brownridge made her concert debut at Wigmore Hall when she was only twelve years old. Since then she has toured the world, recorded three albums prior to this one, and has performed at the BOZAR Brussels, Konzerthaus Berlin, and Concertgebouw A’dam. Brownridge has been compared to some of the legends, including Rachmaninov and Cherkasky. The New York Times called her “one of the world’s finest pianists” and a “true genius… Her performances were passionate, rhapsodic, and totally compelling. She is a marvelously exciting artist, and a wonderfully assertive pianist with a strong sense of musical structure.” For this release, Brownridge has chosen staples in the piano repertoire, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas no.’s 3, 23, and 30. Her interpretation of no. 23, “Apassionata,” has garnered her critical accolades.

Korngold's Violin Concerto was completed in 1945. This is a beautiful, late Romantic work that harks back clearly to Korngold's earlier compositional style, when he was a younger man living in Vienna. But had he really turned his back on film music he was used to composing in America? Every movement of the Concerto is scattered with fragments from a range of his film scores. The Violin Concerto was a huge success at it's premiere, not least due to the performance by Jascha Heifetz as soloist. The 1950s, a period when Korngold's career and indeed his life were drawing to a close, were a most productive time for Leonard Bernstein. He was achieving major successes on Broadway with his musicals. The Serenade for violin, strings, harp and percussion had it's premiere in Venice in 1954. There were two factors behind the composition. He had accepted a commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation. Also, he had long been promising a new piece for his close friend, the violinist Isaac Stern. Both of these commitments coincided in the Serenade, an extremely lyrical, five-movement work, akin to the violin concerto.

At the dawn of the Renaissance the southern Dutch city of ’s-Hertogenbosch, with its abundance of churches and monasteries, was also referred to as “Little Rome”. Central to this religious scene was the Brotherhood of Our Illustrious Lady (Illustre Lieve Vrouwe Broederschap), founded in 1318. This devotional organization, which counted among its members the famous painter Hieronymus Bosch, invested considerably in recruiting and employing the best singers and organists for its chapel, which performed a wide variety of polyphonic music. No fewer than nine choir books with this repertoire are still preserved by the confraternity. After centuries of silence, this magnificent collection is finally sounding once again. With the five-year project The Den Bosch Choirbooks (2020-24), Cappella Pratensis, itself based in ’s-Hertogenbosch, is giving these manuscripts the attention they deserve. The project includes numerous concerts, workshops, publications, lectures and a series of five albums. This recording thus invites listeners to imagine themselves among the confraternity members gathered in their chapel in the church of St John the Evangelist in ’s-Hertogenbosch on a sunny spring day. It is May 6, the great feast of St John Before the Latin Gate that commemorates the attempted martyrdom of the Evangelist in 92 AD.

Without doubt, Linus Roth is a serious and thoughtful musician with a technical gift that allows him to be unfazed by even the most demanding writing. The Shostakovich gets a strongly individual and brooding reading; indeed, this is as fine a concerto recording as I have heard in recent times. The Tchaikovsky is just about as good. The sound is excellent. The orchestra surrounds the soloist without hemming him in, orchestral detail is weighty without being synthetically highlighted. The wide range of tone Roth draws from his "Dancla" Stradivarius is beautifully caught.

– MusicWeb International

A series of high-quality concerts launched the success story of the Isabelle van Keulen Ensemble, which has since become well established on international concert stages and festivals. The subsequent recording of three successful albums testifies to the success story, the vast repertoire, and the versatility of the ensemble. From the very beginning, the Isabelle van Keulen Ensemble has been dazzling its audiences through its depth of musical expression, its technical brilliance, and the simultaneous mixture of melancholy and severity which is so typical of the Tango Nuevo, pairing great joy in playing with intimacy.

“I wish to be a living work of art,” reads the famous comment made by Luisa Casati, the extravagant marchesa who drew everyone's attention to herself as a high society personality in the early 20th century and who inspired a number of leading artists to take up their writing pens, paintbrushes and cameras: Casati was the most prolifically portrayed woman of her age. She was both Muse and Maecenas who gathered an extensive coterie of famous artists around herself – an egregious set of people, some of whom were also her lovers. She led a split existence. On the one hand, she turned herself into a living work of art and organized grotesque parties as the backdrops to her own performances; on the other hand, she commissioned artists to immortalize her as a “piece of art” – and artists were queuing up at her door as she had enormous wealth at her fingertips to realize these whims. In the opera, Casati’s biography is compressed into a single party evening at her Venetian palazzo. Over seven scenes, we see a melange of events from the heroine’s life that actually occurred over many decades, to which the creators then added their own dreamed-up plot. Jeths’s palette as a composer has become ever richer and more dramatic as the years have passed. His spectrum ranges from attention to sound and color to a subtle use of harmonic tension. His musical language was originally more atonal, but he has always flirted with tonality. And now more than ever, his notes are at the service of the text, the theatrical impression and the beauty of the human voice. In his music, Jeths employs multiple references to existing music.

Bernard Haitink was born and educated in Amsterdam. His conducting career began at the Netherlands Radio where in 1957 he became the Chief Conductor of the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. The links between Bernard Haitink and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra have withstood the test of time, even when his career was taking him all over the world. One fine example of this was Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust in 1998, later issued on CD(CC 72517). He returned on 15 June 2019, when he gave his very last concert in Amsterdam, with Bruckner Symphony no. 7, a work that has always been especially dear to him.

Classical Music

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and yet cannot remain silent, wrote Victor Hugo in 1864. Half a century later, his words had never felt more pertinent. Every composer writing during World War I found a unique way, through their music, to describe and protest against the horrors that were tearing civilization apart. Created in the depth of morbidity, Debussy's parting musical gift is a subtle, dignified, and heroic celebration of youth and joie de vivre. A sense of patriotism in the war years links Debussy with the foremost Moravian composer of the day, Leos Janacek. Ottorino Respighi was only in his thirties when the war broke out. His 1917 Sonata for violin and piano is a work of Romance written in the time of hate, a reminder that the past and the future remain beacons of hope in desperate times. Commissioned for this recital programme to reflect on the centenary of The Great War from our own times, Kenneth Hesketh's Inscrizione, derivate, subtitled 'A lie to the Dying,' is a quasi-meditation on the dying man, his anxious thoughts and the spasms of his failing heart being weaved conspicuously into a narrative of disquieting melancholy. Foyle-Stsura Duo has been praised for "playing of compelling conviction," (The Daily Telegraph) and "astonishing mutual feeling, understanding and responsiveness." (Seen and Heard International)

Although the standard classical string octet repertoire includes giants such as Mendelssohn and Shostakovich - both of whom were advocates of the rich sound of this combination of instruments - forgotten compositions for string octet are still waiting to be rediscovered in the music archives. One such work is the rarely performed and, until now, previously unrecorded double quartet Novoselye (House-warming) by the Russian violinist and composer Nikolay Afanasyev (1821-1898). While hardly anyone knows his name today, that in no way detracts from the quality of his music. The double quartet Novoselye was premiered in St Petersburg in 1886. It is clearly a work by a talented composer with a vast knowledge of string instruments, one who is not averse to a polyphonic style. The composition is especially rich in musical innovation with an abundance of tuneful, folk-like melodies and a hint of melancholy, which lends an unmistakable Russianness to the slow movement. Add to this the vibrant Scherzo, and you have a composition that is festive, high-spirited and virtuosic, as well as melancholic and musically challenging. The octet was intended as a birthday present for the violinist and conductor Eduard Rietz (1802-1832), who certainly must have prized the virtuoso first violin part. All eight instruments are on an equal footing and work together in perfect harmony. Indeed, were a listener not to know that the work was scored for string octet, he or she might well think of a symphony orchestra. Mendelssohn himself called attention to this sound effect upon publishing this early work in 1832, remarking that all instruments were to play 'in the style of a symphony', taking into account all dynamic contrasts. The composer's nuanced, delicate compositional style and his Romantic, lyrical and tuneful melodies make the octet one of the most frequently performed works of it's kind.

Nino Gvetadze finally takes on Robert Schumann’s music, a repertoire we think she is especially fit to. She chose three great works from the golden years 1838-9. Three different works, but all with strong autobiographical connections. Nino is one of Challenge pivotal artists and this is her third release on Challenge, after the successful Chopin (CC 72768) and Scott (CC 72819). BBC Music Magazine: There's always a sense of a musing, meditative intelligence exploring their layers of meaning in the very act of playing, as if she is spontaneously creating the Music under her fingers.

The charm of this opera is in that it contains everything, like Cervantes’ Don Quixote: any life experience is within it. Love, hate, death, dream, despair, the innocent and the wicked play. Purcell’s awareness in portraying such opposite feelings is amazing as well as the room that he leaves to the conductor. So, here is why a new “Dido”: as an artist in love with this opera, Fabio Bonizzoni wants to deliver his reading. He wants to translate Purcell’s “sign” his own way, how much this opera is alive, lively, modern, contemporary. How Purcell’s genius was able to convey Dido’s despair and Aeneas’ cowardice and how much Purcell himself had fun in depicting the plot. Fabio Bonizzoni, one of the leading Italian harpsichordists and organists of his generation, graduated in organ, organ composition and harpsichord at the Royal Conservatorium in The Hague in Ton Koopman’s class. He frequently enjoys commitments as guest conductor: in recent times he has been invited by Capella Cracoviensis and Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra in Poland, by the Holland Bach Society in The Netherlands, and by the Orchestra Barroca de Sevilla.

An intriguing project, whose programme is based on Lieder and traditional songs arranged for two tenors and piano. Well-known father and son, Christoph & Julian Pregardien, present these gentle and thoughtful, improvisational and communicative arrangements for two voices. The conditions under which Schubert’s art of the song developed into a kaleidoscopically incandescent spectrum that crossed over genres and the institutionally set, historical boundaries disappear today as a rule under the pedestal that the late nineteenth century began to erect for the composer. The traces of improvisational practice were increasingly lost within a music culture that stylized the printed manuscript into a quasi sacred object. A particularly successful way of leading back to a fundamental impetus in Schubert’s art of the song is through an approach towards the songs that takes the moment of spontaneous performance seriously as a communicative act, without denying the work character of Schubert’s music. The idea of ‘one’ universal human voice seems to materialize with particular intensity in the commingling of two voices of similar timbre, which can permanently interchange and double their identity. Based on our knowledge for instance of the Schubertiade reminiscences of 1868, remembered and noted down by Moritz von Schwind, can we not imagine that the ‘Schubert singers’ Johann Michael Vogl and Karl von Schönstein might indeed have sung alternately (or even in unison)? This is an interesting project, with programme based on Schubert’s Lieder arranged for two tenors and piano.

This new release is a committing recital by young Dutch pianist, Camiel Boomsma, already praised by BBC Music Magazine for his previous release: “Camiel Boomsma plays beautifully”. Chopin’s Nocturnes and Schubert last Sonata emphasize Boomsma’s natural talent for a singing phrasing. Camiel Boomsma writes: “Musings signifies dreams, reveries, being immersed in thought. It’s the process that the composer experiences while writing the work and also what I experience when studying and performing this music. As I play, I try in turn to pass on this process, this quest for insight, to my audience. Despite the major differences in musical background, these two composers are remarkably close in spirit. The most important aspect here is their ability to create beautiful balanced melodies on the piano. They make the instrument sing more than anyone else.”

In today's world, one often perceives a division between art and academia, and composers and musicologists generally don't have much to say to one another. But that division has not always existed. Brahms himself was surrounded by a circle of academics who for him were also a source of animated comradeship. With some of them, Brahms would go on long walks outside Vienna and even on summer holidays.+ The men enjoyed long and sometimes loud, discussions about their shared obsessions, discoveries and findings. Brahms had these very discussions to thank for his lifelong interest in "early music". He even collaborated intensively on the critical editions of Couperin, Handel and Bach's sons and received interesting and useful advice form his friends. Since adopting a new artistic profile, The Hague Philharmonic is demonstrating more than ever that symphonic music can still be meaningful to large and diverse audiences in the 21st century. The ensemble performs regularly at various major concert halls around the world. Their ambitions are spreaheaded by a proactive education policy and are the driving force behind music education in the region.

Valentina Toth writes: “Although they were not musically trained, my parents taught me to love Bartok and Kodaly. I treasured their music from the time I was young, and only became acquainted with Dohnanyi’s work much later, when I came in contact with it by accident. It was romantic, virtuosic, and incredibly well written for the instrument. What more can you ask as a concert pianist? And although he may only seem rather less distinctly Hungarian than Bartok, many aspects of his country are reflected in his work. I remember when I was working on the Ruralia hungarica, my father recognized many of the melodies from the songs he had learned as a boy.” Dohnanyi wrote Ruralia hungarica in 1923 and gave it a real Hungarian touch by including a wide range of folk melodies in all movements. The Humoresken Op. 17 from 1907 date from when he taught in Berlin. They are basically romantic in nature and now and then reminiscent of Brahms’ piano music. As the name suggests, these are more or less light-hearted character pieces, in which he draws on musical forms from the eighteenth century.

Classical Music

This "meeting of titans" features Górecki's String Trio (1962), a rarely-recorded and performed work, alongside Korndorf 's String Trio (1986), a masterpiece of personal minimalism. And as far as we know, these are the only currently available recordings of both pieces!

Classical Music

Under the title I vanni occulti, ensemble Al Ayre Espanol, led by maestro Eduardo Lopez Banzo offers us it's personal vision of Handel's Sonatas Op. 2. The phrase comes from the oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno (The Triumph of Time and Dillusion, 1707). The reference to this aria is not anecdotal, because Sonata No. 1 in this Op. 2 contains references to this music- an aspect that, hardly surprisingly, constitutes a characteristic element of the composition technique of the maestro from Halle. Over the course of his life, Handel composed 20 trio sonatas, 12 of which were published in London in two different collections: six sonatas were published in 1733 as Op. 2 and another seven printed in 1739 as Op. 5. In a disguised allusion to the vanitas allegory and the fleeting passage of time, Al Ayre Espanol presents, just three years after it's recording of Op. 5, an introspective version of Op. 2, which completes and, at the same time, complements the group's first rendition of Handel's trio sonatas. The two recordings form a single project that offers the listener a passionate and impassioned, southern and Mediterranean version of this exquisite chamber music. This version is marked by the emergence, with particular expressive intensity, of the two aesthetic poles present in the chamber music universe of Handel: the most contained lyricism combined with the most explosive fury.

Austrian Baroque music takes center stage in the repertoire of this unusual Baroque ensemble. The ensemble Ars Antiqua Austria is dedicated to musicological research of Austrian Baroque composers. The abundance of rediscovered works led to several successful premiere recordings, including albums featuring the works of R. Weichlen, H.I.F. Biber, G. Arnold, F. J. Aumann, and more. In the words of conductor Gunar Letzbor: “It is almost impossible nowadays to perform Vivaldi’s music without any preconceptions, even if one engages with it only rarely. Vivaldi’s sound is ubiquitous… There is so much to discover amongst his works, away from mainstream sounds. This recording and its preparation: practicing in peace and quiet, trying out sounds, receiving and discarding ideas, taking in the texts, rediscovering melodies, and if possible, never listening to any Vivaldi recordings.”

Classical Music

This album is an all-too-rare recording of Mozart's Gran Partita in a contemporary arrangement for fortepiano, oboe and string trio. The arrangement, made by Christian Friedrich Gottlieb Schwencke, is a pure masterpiece for it's sonic effectiveness and for it's successful coherence in representing Mozart's ideas. Ewald Demeyere has taken part in many recordings and is principally interested in the influence of theories from the Baroque era and performing on period instruments.

Transcriptions for string quartet by the composer or someone else was common practice in Mozart's time. In that light this string-version of Mozart's Requiem is nothing special. What makes it special, is the circumstance of the original Requiem itself. It is known that Mozart left the majority of the work incomplete, and that on request of Mozart's widow, his pupil Süssmayer did the finishing job. Where one's work ends and the other's starts, no-one knows. This 'skeleton-version' of the Requiem, however, fully preserves the eloquence of Mozart's music and therefore perhaps proves that the Requiem contains more of the masters own composing than we can objectively establish. But incomplete as the Requiem is, Mozart's universal genius radiates through the notes in any version. And if anyone can bring the radiation to the surface in this version, no one better than the Kuijken Kwartet.

Classical Music