Following the phenomenal success of the first Mozart y Mambo album, Sarah Willis returns to Cuba not only to record two more Mozart horn concertos but also to create a landmark original work that takes its place in Cuban music history. In Mozart y Mambo - Cuban Dances, Sarah commissions the very first Cuban horn concerto – calling on six young talented Cuban composers to each write an original dance for solo horn, strings, and percussion inspired by the most famous dance rhythms from across different regions of Cuba. Together with her beloved Havana Lyceum Orchestra conducted by José Antonio Méndez Padrón, Sarah takes us on a cross country musical road trip in this spectacular showcase of the roots and traditions of Cuba’s music and dance. Cuban Dances is Cuban music as it has never been heard before and a huge challenge for the horn player, not only technically but physically – “if you can’t dance it you can’t play it” she was told. So dance it she did! Mozart y Mambo - Cuban Dances is full of magic, energy, and passion, and Sarah’s love for Cuban music is evident in every track.

REVIEW:

Two years ago, Sarah Willis, a member of the Berlin Philharmonic since 2001 and the orchestra’s first female brass player, teamed up with musicians in Havana. The result was their joyful collaboration, Mozart y Mambo, in which she and the band played Mozart alongside traditional Cuban music. Now a second disc is out: Mozart y Mambo: Cuban Dances, with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra and conductor José Antonio Méndez Padrón.

Willis is the first-class soloist in Mozart’s Horn Concerto No 1 in D and No 2 in E flat. A seven-strong ensemble, enchantingly called Sarahbanda, perform Pa Pa Pa by Edgar Olivero, inspired by the Papageno/Papagena duet from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The fizzing Havana Lyceum Orchestra plays traditional Cuban dances, for solo horn, strings and percussion, with a difference: all have been commissioned by Willis, from six young Cuban composers. Enrique Lazaga (güiro), a member of the original Buena Vista Social Club, makes a guest appearance. With a suave rumba (with chirping cricket), bolero and cha-cha-cha – Sarahchá – this is perfect hot weather music.

This star player is put through her hornist paces and comes out dancing.

-- The Guardian

Endless hours of joy and wonder is how Angela Hewitt sums up the insights and rewards of playing and recording Mozart's piano sonatas, and a similar experience awaits listeners to these remarkable accounts, the first release in a complete cycle.

Ole Børud is a Norwegian songwriter, singer and musician. The son of Arnold Børud, Ole was a popular and well-traveled child and part of a family artists in the Christian music scene such as the group Børudgjengen and later with the Arnold B family. In the 1990s, Børud became a member of metal bands Schaliach and Extol. He was then featured on several recordings and tours with the latter before 2004 when he decided to put metal on the shelf and move back to his musical roots in soul, funk and pop. In addition to his solo career Børud has participated as a singer and guitarist on several albums and TV shows. He has also toured with the Norwegian artists Sofian, Torun Eriksen and Oslo Gospel Choir amongst many others. Soul Letters is his newest release.

This epic collection brings together all of Opus Arte's recordings from the Bayreuth Festival. Included are many of Wagner's much-admired operas which show how the mastery of composer, conductor, and performer can combine to create a true musical excellence. Wagner's epic four-opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen, is a work of extraordinary scale and is given an interpretation that is both thrilling and sensitive by the conductor Christian Thielemann and a cast of renowned Wagner interpreters. Thielemann also presents an incredible account of Der fliegende Holländerin a recording which secured his place as the world's greatest Wagner conductor. Klaus Florian Vogt is staggering in the title role of Lohengrin, with Andris Nelsons brings out the best in the festival chorus and orchestra. This recording of Tannhäuser, Wagner’s tale of the struggle between spiritual and profane love, and of redemption through love, was described by Opera Journal as 'outstanding’, whilst Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which tells a humorous tale about artistically inclined craftsmen, was described as ‘on an entirely new Wagnerian scale...” (The Washington Post). The set is completed by the critically acclaimed recording of Tristan und Isolde starring the leading Wagner exponents Robert Dean Smith and Iréne Theorin in the title roles.

As a child in Dresden, Germany, the German pianist Clemens Christian Poetzsch received his first piano lessons from his opera singer grandfather and was soon immersed in Bach, Schubert, and Clementi. But aged ten, a sheet music book of Frank Sinatra standards gifted to him by his father opened his ears to broader musical possibilities, and he was soon playing sing-along classics in the bar next door to his house. It was at that establishment, sitting at a piano which stood next to the kitchen, that Poetzsch first started improvising and messing around with song structures. Now, Poetzsch releases “Chasing Heisenberg”, the third and final album of this trilogy, and a full embrace of the random sparks of beauty that inspire him.

The album title, “Chasing Heisenberg”, is an ode to the German physicist and Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg, who in 1927 uncovered and formulated the uncertainty principle. The principle would state the impossibility of knowing both the location and velocity of an electron simultaneously and would become a fundamental quantum physics formula. Beyond its implications in the scientific realm, however, the uncertainty principle also touches on something far more existential - it mathematically proves that some things are simply beyond our reach - or unknowable. This incognito is, according to Poetzsch, at the heart of any artistic pursuit, not least his own. In “Chasing Heisenberg”, it seems as if the composer has stopped trying to solve the unsolvable; instead, he’s finally coming to terms with its mystery. While some degree of randomness and improvisation can be observed in all of Poetzsch’s work so far, Chasing Heisenberg is the composer’s most fluid expression of the themes. He turns to music where words fail, giving sound to the ineffable and unexplainable nature of his inspiration.

This album features French piano prodigy Michel Petrucciani in a solo recording from Silkeborg Church, 1990. MP was one of the most popular pianists in the 1990’s due to his extraordinary technique, his astounding musical outlook and extremely dynamic playing style. His music is simply timeless and magical, seemingly coming straight from his soul. As he is often quoted: “I’m not playing to your head, but to your soul. When I play, I’m like a bird flying over the landscape, and I can land anywhere.”

Recorded on June 23, 1990 at the Silkeborg Riverboat Jazz Festival in Denmark, this album is a tour de force that leads the listener through a series of the most iconic motifs in jazz, all of which are deconstructed and transformed by an outstanding craftsman and embellished along the way by a true master. And he also allows himself to insert unexpected twists and turns that are guaranteed to make the listener smile. Pay special attention to his small rhythmic and melodic tags, little hints for the well-trained ear. They reveal a musician who never grows complacent or takes himself too seriously. Here, the totality of MP’s talents are exhibited in an intimate setting, where he stuns the crowd with his inventive and blindingly rapid playing. The music emanating from the man simply grabs everybody’s attention. Arrangements by jazz legends like Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis gets the cheeky Petrucciani treatment with his rather audacious approach to ‘established’ jazz standards. MP had the ability to effortlessly travel through the history of jazz on his piano, fascinating his audience in the process. This church concert clearly displays why MP quickly developed into a truly exceptional member of the international jazz scene.

REVIEW:

A concert by Petrucciani is a complete piano listening experience where the full range of the instrument comes into play. He worked best as a soloist as he throws in ‘Jean Pierre’ from Miles Davis, pulls in ‘St Thomas’ from Sonny Rollins edits in Juan Tizol’s ‘Caravan’. All the execution and the improvisation are carried out at the speed of thought with the relentless rhythm. The dynamics are every bit as effective as the Basie band. All the time his work is exuberant, joyful, rhythmically propulsive, spontaneous, and full of passion with an unrelenting drive. This is an album that is a wonderful memory of a lost genius who had a blistering talent.

-- Jazz Views

2015 GRAMMY Award Winner: Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance

American new-music sextet eighth blackbird, which won Grammy Awards for each of its last three Cedille Records albums, continues to connect with genre-spanning, cutting-edge composers on FILAMENT, a CD of world-premiere recordings of works by Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, and Son Lux, plus a Philip Glass classic.

The ensemble’s album, FILAMENT, was produced by Dessner, a Brooklyn-based composer, guitarist, and member of the Grammy-nominated, Billboard-charting indie rock band The National. The 16-page CD booklet features original artwork, photography, and design by New York-based artist and architect Karl Jensen.

Premieres include Dessner’s Murder Ballades and Muhly’s Doublespeak, both written for eighth blackbird, and Son Lux’s To Love and This is my Line, a remix created from the album’s other tracks.

Dessner, on guitar, and Muhly, on organ, join eighth blackbird for a live-in-concert recording of Glass’s mesmerizing Two Pages at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

The album’s title, FILAMENT, is a metaphor for the fiber of friendship, collaboration, and mutual influence connecting the composers and performers on the album.

REVIEWS:

Eighth blackbird has proven themselves quite the new music ensemble, selecting their works carefully, and bringing to the public music that is challenging and memorable. This release is no exception. It’s called “Filament” because it attempts to link friends and collaborators, and to a lesser extent, their influence on one another. I might also title it “A Tribute to Minimalism”, because without the influence of this much-misaligned genre, this music would not exist. This is a glorious album in glorious sound, marred only by the short playing time. Conceptions this good deserve more—maybe a sequel? – Audiophile Edition (Steven Ritter)

An invisible “filament” connects the experimental, Chicago-based sextet Eighth Blackbird with their composer friends Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, Philip Glass and Ryan Lott, known by his stage name Son Lux. Dessner’s Murder Ballades reflect the violent, pulsating energy of their title. Muhly’s Doublespeak is a retro blast of fast-slow minimalism in homage to Philip Glass. Glass’s Two Pages takes a single line to zany extremes, and Lux’s short To Love and This Is My Line pull all together with electronic remixes from the rest of the album. Neatly done, with wit.

-- The Guardian (Fiona Maddocks)

A few months ago, Avishai Cohen was releasing his symphonic album “Two Roses”, a “once in a lifetime project", he said. After a successful release and more than a hundred reviews around the world – the Israeli composer, singer, and bass player returns to jazz with a dazzling new trio: Elchin Shirinov, still on the piano and, on drums, the arrival of the young and incredibly talented Roni Kaspi, who joined the band during the 2021 summer tour. This new album “Shifting Sands”, recorded in August 2021, re-engages with this very special alchemy that Cohen’s music provides: fresh and expansive melodic lines, diverse and sophisticated rhythms and a musical elegance that only he can achieve.

REVIEW:

Consistency and excellence are two of the most fundamental requisites for achieving an optimal career in music. The Israeli bassist and composer Avishai Cohen has maintained those standards for many years, and his new trio emerges with a powerful offering that should reinforce his status as a jazz-based titan. This formation enlists familiar, longtime collaborator Elchin Shirinov on piano with a relative newcomer and recent Berklee graduate, 21-year old drummer Roni Kaspi. The results of their initial collaboration are stirring from start to finish.

Cohen's confidence in his team and his material is apparent from how often he remains in the background. On the opening "Intertwined," Shirinov sets the tone and gets the first solo while Kaspi snaps across the rims and cymbal heads in lead-type notation. Cohen does not come to the fore until two songs later, on the relaxed "Dvash," the first of three solo-type interludes, then demonstrates his proficiency on the bow during "Chacha Rom." "Hitragut" is a sweet summer song that lands like a Central Park serenade. Many pieces follow a basic structure that begins with one or two sharply repeated patterns, rolls into transitional overlaps, then returns along the opening framework in a formula that fits the album's title theme perfectly.

One of the most impressive things about this this exceptional record is how much masterful mileage each member gets from a relatively small number of notes or beats. Top rank creativity, aptitude, and technique are some other things that make for musical success. There is an abundance of all that and more to be found in this new trio.

-- AllAboutJazz.com (Phillip Woolever)

Szymanowski: Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4

Alma opens a whole new door for pianist Yaron Herman. After ten albums, here he is, launching himself into the void and, for the first time, offering us an entirely improvised body of work, at once a staggering snapshot of the present and a rich mirror of his past. Let us recall that a knee injury forced Herman to end a promising basketball career. From the age of sixteen, he then devoted himself to music. Under the guidance of Opher Brayer, his training encouraged him to adopt a holistic vision in which the study of music is part of a whole that includes philosophy, psychology, and mathematics. For him, the piano is thus at the center of a more global reflection; it’s a travel companion to help decipher the mysteries of the world. This creative, prolific, and unconventional path is the framework for a fascinating and generous global reflection in his recently published book entitled Le Déclic Créatif.

We sometimes forget that at the dawn of music, up until the end of the 16th century, improvisation was at the heart of the practice. Later, composers from Bach to Chopin, from Beethoven to Messiaen, all created melodies and invented harmonies on the spot, which sometimes became the matrix of their masterpieces. This is the path that Herman followed when he walked through the studio door to record Alma. Without any planned script, he pushed himself to the edge of a form of letting go, listening to what the music had to say and opening doors to spaces still unknown to him.

Rigoletto is regarded as the first operatic masterpiece of Verdi’s mature artistic period. Its complex psychology identifies characters with different styles of music, and with an incredible variety of accents for a central figure conceived by the composer as ‘deformed and laughable, but actually passionate and full of love’. From the famous aria La donna è mobile, to the final horrific tragedy as the curse unfolds, the triumphant success of Rigoletto since its premiere in 1851 has endured to the present day. The work is set for modern stage here by Italian director Davide Livermore.

REVIEWS:

Camarena, a star of the bel canto repertoire, eschews the ‘bravado’ approach taken by many tenors and brings a beautiful light, silvery tone to the role of the Duke. His voice pairs perfectly with that of Enkeleda Kamani… Compelling, too, is Luca Salsi’s believable portrayal of Rigoletto.

-- BBC Music Magazine

The singers are very good: Luca Salsi reveals a subtle side to his art as Rigoletto and Javier Camarena is an ebullient but stylish Duke.

-- Opera Now

Maria Callas : The Studio Recitals Box set, Import, Original recording remastered - This outstanding collection of studio recitals provides fascinating insights into Maria Calla's career and her unique artistry and musicalitiy. Encompassing the core operatic repertoire for which she was most revered, as well as roles that she never sang on stage, these recitals demonstrate Callas's exceptional versatility - from bel canto to verismo, dramatic mad scenes to impeccably sung coloratura - and form an integral part of her recorded legacy. The great value of these recitals is magnified by the new transfers made at Abbey Road studios in 2014, using 24-bit 96kHz remastering. 14 discs

Recorded live in concert, Paavo Järvi created and conducted this thrilling programme of orchestral arrangements of chamber music works. The result is a world-class encounter between some of the most important names in music history. Works by Brahms, Shoenberg, Bach, and Webern are included. Currently in his third season as Music Director of Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Järvi and the orchestra have just returned from a very successful tour to China and. Previous tours have taken them to major European Festivals, including the BBC Proms, the Rheingau Musik Festival in Germany and the Robeco Summer series in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.

V?IN? RAITIO: FANTASIA POETICA

BRITTEN WAR REQUIEM

Decca signed an exclusive contract with the Wiener Oktett (Vienna Octet) in the summer of 1948 as a commercially motivated move: a sweetener to the deal that also poached the Philharmonic Orchestra from EMI. The ensemble had been formed only a year or so previously around the Boskovsky brothers, violinist Willi and clarinetist Alfred. Soon enough, audiences at home as well as in concert were enjoying the sound of a quintessentially Viennese ensemble, it's members drawn from the ranks of the Philharmonic, in Classical-era music that could have been written for them, starting with the Septet by Beethoven and the Octet by Schubert. The sweet, silvery tone of the Octet and the easy give-and-go of it's phrasing established the Octet as the latest in a line of distinguished Viennese chamber ensembles, from the Ros� Quartet of Mahler's era to the Barylli Quartet documented by the Westminster label. The Vienna Octet enjoyed the advantage of Decca's top-of-the-range engineering, and they continued to set down classic interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert through the course of the 1950s, for the new LP format and then for stereo. In 1956 their Decca albums began to reflect the diversity of their concert programs, with the Octet written for them by the Belgian composer Marcel Poot. While they continued to enjoy free-spirited partnerships on record with the likes of Clifford Curzon and the Viennese pianist Walter Panhofer in Schubert's 'Trout' Quintet, they also recorded lesser-known Romantics such as Spohr, Kreutzer and Berwald, and modern repertoire by Britten, Hindemith and Egon Wellesz. By the time of the Vienna Octet's final recording in November 1972, only two members of it's original lineup were left, including clarinetist Alfred Boskovsky, but critics and record buyers had continued to recognize that, especially in the central repertoire, an unselfconscious authenticity set the ensemble apart from it's rivals.

Apocalyptic walls of sound cascade around the Gothic vaults of Saint-Eustache in Paris as Stephen Layton and David Briggs unleash, respectively, the full power of a top-notch Trinity Choir and the mighty van den Heuvel organ of 1989.

Osmo Tapio R�ih�l�: Zensolence - Various / Zensolence embodies the auditory canvas of Osmo Tapio R�ih�l�, a synaesthetic composer who transforms the visual into the musical. For R�ih�l�, art forms transcend their mediums and speak a universal language through diverse expressions. His experience of colours, shapes and textures in music is reflected in this eclectic album, where the traditional meets the innovative. R�ih�l� draws inspiration from the abstract and translates it into a musical lexicon that is as diverse as it is distinctive. From chamber music with modern instrumentation to pieces that combine vocal narrative with electronic sounds, this album is a testament to artistic freedom and a refusal to be limited.

Chad Lawson - "Where We Are" / With Where We Are, Chad Lawson draws inspiration from the conversations and shared vulnerabilities of countless individuals who have found solace in his music and podcast during their most challenging times. The album represents a journey from solitude to solidarity - from individual experiences to shared realities. These songs form a musical sanctuary, crafted to meet you wherever you are in life and offer a gentle reprieve. Where We Are is more than an album; it's a call to unite, heal, and inspire a sense of community through music.

LIGHT & DARKNESS: WORKS FOR SAXOPHONE

RAFAL ZAPALA: FUTILITY

This is the fourth Romantic Piano Concerto album from Simon Callaghan, and that combination of talents which made his first three so successful- not least a flair for exploring the neglected byways of the Romantic repertoire, and the technique and musicianship to do them justice-proves just as compelling here.

One of the twentieth century's best-loved choral works, Durufl�'s Requiem-a magical synthesis of the old (plainsong) and the new (a harmonic language appropriate to it's time and place) - continues to cast it's potent spell over performers and listeners alike. This new recording from Stephen Layton and his Trinity forces fully deserves to be regarded as 'definitive'.

As a conductor, philosopher, mathematician and composer, Ernest Ansermet occupied an exceptional position in the world of music. At the frontier of modernity, he offered up recordings of music by several composers whom he counted among his friends: Debussy, Ravel, Roussel and Stravinsky but also Honegger, Frank Martin, Bart�k and Prokofiev - all of whom are represented in this collection of recordings made for Decca between 1929 and 1955. The collection opens with a recording of six of Handel's Op. 6 Concerti Grossi made with a specially formed band of London musicians, the 'Decca String Orchestra' in 1929, the year in which the label was founded. Ansermet returned to the studio to record for the label from 1946 and from then on became one of it's most frequently recorded conductors. Fortunately, the music of his friend Igor Stravinsky is strongly represented in this collection. Of other composers Ansermet knew personally, several landmark recordings of works by Maurice Ravel are significant. 1952 was a particularly busy year for the conductor and his Orchestre de la Suisse Romande - with recordings of Handel, Prokofiev as well as his famous interpretation of Debussy's "Pell�as et M�lisande". An orchestral version of Mussorgsky's two-minute "Gopak" was recorded as the last work in this collection. The stereo recording from 1955 was only available as a test pressing - this box presents it as a veritable world premiere.

The 'heavenly lengths' Schumann loved in late Schubert are as much in evidence in the sublime G major quartet as in the other large-scale works of Schubert's final years. The Takács Quartet's earlier Hyperion recordings of Schubert were hailed as 'near ideal' and 'superlative' and this new release is every bit as fine.