Rosanne Philippens dreamt at length about forming an ensemble of Dutch top musicians to record the Haydn violin concertos and the arrangement of the Stravinsky Divertimento in a play & direct setting. Empty corona diaries suddenly presented a short-term opportunity, and The Vondel Strings was born. "I have often performed Haydn and Stravinsky in combination, and although at first sight you might not associate one with the other, I do believe they form a fine pair." Preparations for the present album have offered us much lightness in the dark months of the corona crisis.

With this recording of the Third Symphony, the GRAMMY winning combination of Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra completes their Brahms Symphonies Cycle on Channel Classics. The recording commenced one day prior to Hungary closing its borders on September 1st, 2020. Engineer/Producer Jared Sacks had just arrived from The Netherlands. Despite the lockdown, the venue remained accessible, and the recording could be completed. It is coupled here with the Serenade No.2.

Anna Fedorova's Shaping Chopin features the music that made her feel less lonely in 2020, and will hopefully bring some consolation and joy to you as well. The album’s cover art was created by Marcelle Schoenmaker during a live concert.

“Chopin’s music had an important place in my life from early childhood," says Fedorova, "and I worked extensively on various pieces with my parents, who were my teachers at that time in Kiev. While we were separated for a long time, I felt closer to them through his music. Practicing certain waltzes or nocturnes seemed to transport me in time and space and reflected the current mood with their dreaminess and melancholy.

When the opportunity to record a new album spontaneously arose, I immediately thought about the music of Chopin. I selected various Waltzes, Nocturnes and Mazurkas, and added the Fantaisie Impromptu, as they cover a wide spectrum of emotions, moods, and colors. It’s incredible how Chopin can express himself so intensely and so deeply in a piece which lasts just a few minutes. He always manages to create a captivating atmosphere and a unique dreamworld. While performing Chopin’s miniatures it feels like diving into a living painting, artistically shaping its unique story, colors, and characters with music.”

Bassoonist Andrea Bressan (Principal; Budapest Festival Orchestra) and violinist Giovanni Guzzo (Concertmaster; Camerata Salzburg & Guest Concertmaster; London Symphony Orchestra) have teamed up to record new - or never played - repertoire for bassoon and violin. Great friends and highly respected musicians, Andrea Bressan and Giovanni Guzzo play works from a specific geographical area and a specific historical period. Composers Niccolò Paganini and Alessandro Rolla were also good friends and played concerts as a Violino and Viola duo. There are only two recordings of the Tre Duetti Concertanti per violino e fagotto by Paganini, while Rolla’s Concertino a tre was never even recorded before! The idea behind including short pieces from Paganini’s Divertimenti Carnevaleschi is to alternate emotional moments and keep listeners active and involved throughout. Reflecting on playing Italian repertoire, Andrea Bressan tells us: “In many bars and moments of these compositions I found the sounds, the smells and the beautiful light of my country and of my sunny youth.”

Repertoire includes:

Old Time Religion (arr. M. Hogan for mixed choir)

Witness (arr. F.H. Johnson for voice and piano)

Steal away (arr. H.T. Burleigh for voice and piano)

Little David, Play On Your Harp (arr. H.T. Burleigh for voice and piano)

Deep River (arr. H.T. Burleigh for voice and piano)

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child (arr. H.T. Burleigh for voice and piano)

Live a-Humble (arr. M. Hogan for voice and piano)

Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen (arr. H.T. Burleigh for voice and piano)

Were You There?

There's a Man Goin’ Round (arr. M. Hogan for choir)

I don't feel no ways tired (arr. M. Hogan for voice and piano)

Heaven (arr. M. Hogan for choir)

Oh, What A Beatiful City! (arr. E. Boatner for voice and piano)

This Little Light of Mine (arr. M. Hogan for voice)

Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit (arr. M. Hogan for choir)

Give Me Jesus (arr. M. Hogan for voice and piano)

This album presents some of the all-time “classics” of the classical trumpet repertoire. After much deliberation on how, when, what and why, trumpeter Omar Tomasoni explains that two specific events convinced him that now was the time to make the recording: the birth of his son Siebe and the pandemic. The program includes Brandt’s Concertpieces Nos. 1 & 2, Françaix’s Sonatine for Trumpet, Enescu’s Legend for Trumpet & Piano, and Honegger’s Intrada performed by Omar Tomasoni and pianist Jeroen Bal. For a newly commissioned piece by Rob Goorhuis, entitled Canzoni, they are joined by saxophone player Femke IJlstra. The album is concluded by Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, arranged for trumpet & piano by Timofei Dokschitzer. In Omar Tomasoni’s personal note in the booklet he writes: “I want this album to be a testimony to the artist I am today. (...) A big thank you to Rob Goorhuis for accepting my invitation to compose an original piece. His Canzoni went beyond my expectations.” Omar Tomasoni is Principal Trumpet of the Concertgebouworkest in Amsterdam. He is also a trumpet professor at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Jeroen Bal is the pianist of the Concertgebouworkest.

Tchaikovsky: Serenade; Arensky: String Quartet No.2 Tchaikovsky's Serenade is one of the most beautiful works ever written for string ensemble, and it has been frequently performed by Amsterdam Sinfonietta since it's establishment in 1988. Arensky wrote his String Quartet No.2 in memory of Tchaikovsky, with whom he was friends. Arensky's homage overflows with melancholy and dark tone colors. The middle movement, based on a song by Tchaikovsky, was later arranged by Arensky for string orchestra. Amsterdam Sinfonietta took upon itself to arrange and perform the entire quartet. In Tchaikovsky's footsteps, Arensky made use here of religious chant and motifs from Russian folk music.

The Ragazze Quartet contribute not only the sonority of four string instruments, but also the energy of four musicians, who at the same time, connect with the music and the singer. The challenge, was to remain faithful to Schubert while fully exploiting the extra possibilities offered by this instrumentation. The four members of the quartet have immersed themselves in the texts, and in collaboration with arranger Wim ten Have, have taken care to create a score perfectly suited to the baritone Martijn Cornet and themselves.

This program showcases the broad stylistic spectrum of Dutch music. Spanning a period of more than fifty years, it focuses on the double bass. Contemporary composers Louis Andriessen, Hans Kox, Martijn Padding and Michel van der Aa have all enriched the double bass repertoire. In their works, the instrument takes the solo role in a concerto with orchestra, is heard in a small ensemble and even on it's own. Andriessen, the best known Dutch composer today, wrote his Elegy for Cello or Double Bass and Piano in 1950, while Kox's Four Studies for Double Bass Solo dates from 1988. The most recent pieces on this recording are Reports from the Low Country by Padding and For the time being by Michel Van der Aa. Everything here is played with virtuosity and style by Rick Stotijn.

Paganini's success as a violin virtuoso was naturally only partly based on the fantastical, mysterious and demonic atmosphere that surrounded him. What his professional admirers captivated most of all was his unparalleled playing technique. The best impression of his musical and technical accomplishment can be gained from his most talkedabout work, the 24 Caprices opus 1 (1817), which were modelled on the similarly named pieces by Pietro Locatelli (1733). To this day the 24 Caprices are still considered the bible of violin technique. Ning Feng, First Prize winner at the 2006 International Violin Competition Premio Paganini, gives us a fresh take on his 2017 Samuel Zygmuntowicz violin, and concludes the program with the remarkable Caprice d'Adieu.

Marie Stockmarr Becker and Ilaria Macedonio offer a fresh and different - yet historically informed - perspective on the three sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord by J.S. Bach. Their rather uncommon instrumentation, explores these sonatas in their historical context and considers the fact that violists in Bach's time had very little sonata repertoire, and for this reason possibly 'borrowed' repertoire from the viol. The three sonatas for viola da gamba are particularly adapted to the viola da braccio with almost no changes in terms of octavations or arrangements.

Rachel Podger, "the unsurpassed British glory of the baroque violin" (The Times), and Grammy award-winning pianist Christopher Glynn recorded Beethoven's Sonatas for Violin and Piano Nos. 1, 5 and 10. Following the critically acclaimed Mozart/Jones Sonatas Fragment Completions (2021), this Beethoven album marks Podger & Glynn's second release together. Reading about Ludwig van Beethoven as a performer usually brings up the inevitable stories about his characteristic and idiosyncratic piano playing in Vienna. But delving further into his early years in Bonn, we read that, as a musician at the court of the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, he was active as both organist and viola player. And when he left for Vienna in 1792 he was advised to take violin lessons with Ignaz Schuppanzigh. Beethoven's profound understanding of both the violin and the piano, and ability to combine them with astonishing invention and originality, is heard in ten sonatas. Three of which are performed on this new album.

This is the first recording on Channel Classics with the Italian based MIB Ensemble. Comprising the best players from the top orchestras of Italy, the ensemble felt the need to create their own ensemble to fill the gap in repertoire and concert possibilities for wind instruments.

Though considered ‘Tafelmusik’ – music for special occasions and street music – the Mozart Serenade is anything but a polite little piece of entertainment. Rather, it is a serious, sometimes threatening eight-part composition full of chromaticism, dramatic leaps, and intricacies.

Thomas Oliemans writes: “I have had French chansons in my head for as long as I can remember: on a scratchy car radio or a cassette player, in the back seat for hours on end on the way to the Vendée or Dordogne, or softly issuing from a gramophone record in my father’s study below my bedroom, probably a compilation such as Vive La France or Jean Ferrat sings Aragon. When I started to learn the piano and got into the habit of singing along, it was obviously French chansons that I picked up by ear and sang entirely phonetically. Julien Clerc with his franglais of This Melody, and Brel with his La chanson des vieux amants. The French teachers at my secondary school put me in for the Concours de la Chanson, which I promptly (and nearly by accident) won. And all of a sudden, the path opened up for me to become a professional singer or pianist, or at any rate a musician. It led me primarily into the world of classical singing, in opera, lied and oratorio, in which I felt there was much to discover for my further development. But the chanson was never far away. Indeed, at almost each stage of my musical development it appeared to grow with me.”