Continuing his cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer releases Symphony No. 3, ‘Eroica’ paired with the Coriolan Overture. These warhorses of the symphonic repertoire showcase how Beethoven writes not only dramatically, but also profoundly lyrically. Fischer’s process of recording the cycle has been notably drawn out, having first insisted on performing and touring the music with his outstanding orchestra before committing to a studio recording. Previous releases feature Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7. They have been roundly praised, with The Guardian saying “the performance of the Seventh ranks, without question, among the greatest ever recorded. Utterly compelling.”

On Spiegel i'm Spiegel, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, the Netherlands Chamber Choir, Candida Thompson, Martina Batic, H�lya Keser and Tim Posner, perform a program of Baltic and English compositions, wherein space and time blur. The title of this album is from Arvo P�rt's meditative work of the same name, Spiegel i'm Spiegel, which is performed in two separate versions bookending the album, embracing the concept of the mirror. Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis mirrors the Renaissance in the 20th century, works by Estonian composers Veljo Tormis and Lepo Sumera have yet another spiritual essence, as shamanistic primal cries resound in Tormis' epic choir work Curse upon Iron, Latvian composer Peteris Vasks' Plainscapes evokes the vast expanses of the Baltic plains.

Award-winning Baroque violinist Rachel Podger takes the resurgence of the Arts in England post -1660 as the compelling inspiration for her new album, The Muses Restor’d. Adopting its title as its theme, Rachel and her vivacious Brecon Baroque take the listener on a journey of captivating violinled chamber music from Jacobean to Early Georgian England. Ranging from the gentle intimacy of consort idioms to the full-blown instrumental virtuosity of the evolving Baroque period, this album uncovers little known glories of English instrumental music and its influences. This refined and intimately chiselled chamber music celebrates a rich tradition where the violin joins a plethora of keyboards, lutes, viol and continuo cello reinstating these sonatas, fantasies, suites, grounds and popular tunes to the mainstream of English cultural life of the time. Together with four musicians from Brecon Baroque, Rachel Podger performs works by Handel, Lawes, Blow, Locke, Purcell, Schop, Jenkins, Baltzar and Jones.

“This oeuvre provides a deeply satisfying kaleidoscope of musical expression over a century of British
musical life."
- Rachel Podger

Ning Feng, together with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin conducted by Antony Hermus, releases the violin concertos of Johannes Brahms and Carl Goldmark. This pairing is particularly apt as these works were both written in 1877, and the composers were dear friends. In Goldmark's lyrical Violin Concerto, Ning Feng plays the original 5-minute cadenza which is seldom heard in it's entirety. Written only a few months after the Goldmark, Brahms' famous Violin Concerto in D, Op.77 needs little introduction. Ning Feng has long been associated with this concerto, having played it when he won First Prize in the International Paganini Competition 2006 as well as First Prize in the 2005 Michael Hill International Violin Competition.

"Flutist Ashley Solomon and Florilegium continue the Spohr Collection project with Volume 3. Ashley plays nine original exquisite 18th century flutes from Peter Spohr’s private collection, which can now be heard around the world for the first time. They are made from various materials including solid ivory, ebony and ivory, and boxwood and ivory. These historical instruments possess a beautiful and unique sound, making them most desirable to play.

This new recording explores repertoire from Italy, Germany and England written by composers including Vivaldi, Mozart, Clagget and Locatelli. Each work matches historically and geographically with the flute Ashley plays. Soprano Rowan Pierce joins them for two songs by Chilcot and Lampe."

On the 1710 Stradivarius known as the "Vieuxtemps, Hauser", violinist Ning Feng plays two monumental Russian violin concertos with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tung-Chieh Chuang. In the First Violin Concertos of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, the soloist is confronted with technical acrobatics and many contrasting moods, all of which Ning Feng navigates expertly and interprets in such a way that "the more you listen, the more you want to listen", as Gramophone put it.

The Orchestre National de Lyon and it's new musical director Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider have embarked on a collaboration with Channel Classics, which will involve several recordings combining the great works of the repertoire with lesser-known pieces. Recognised as one of the pre-eminent violinists of our time, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider has developed an international career as a conductor, now leading some of the world's greatest orchestras. On this album, Strauss & Ibert, violist Amihai Grosz and cellist Jian Wang take on the musical roles of Sancho Panza and Don Quixote in Strauss's virtuoso tone poem Don Quixote. The symphonic suite from Jaques Ibert's Le chevalier errant also depicts moments from Cervantes' Don Quixote, replete with scenes from the knight's adventures including the famous battle in The Windmills, the Dance of the Galley Slaves and various dances including a flamenco.

Internationally acclaimed flutist Ashley Solomon and period ensemble Florilegium present “Spohr Collection, Vol. 2”. Ashley Solomon: “The opportunity of playing original flutes from the 18th century is a rare occurrence. Whenever the chance presents itself, it must be seized immediately!”. On Solomon’s remarkable Spohr Collection, Vol. 1 (CCS43020), he set himself a challenge to record on 9 original flutes, mostly domestic chamber music, together with his colleagues from Florilegium. This new release, Spohr Collection, Vol. 2, features six flute concertos from the 18th century on six unique flutes; some made of ivory, various woods (boxwood and ebony), and one of porcelain and gold. Each instrument is matched with repertoire from the same period it was initially made and played in. This offers a unique insight into the world of the flute virtuoso in the 18th century. These concertos by Vivaldi, C.P.E. Bach, Quantz, Leclair, Blavet and Woodcock invite the listener to experience and enjoy the rich sound world that each of these original flutes conveys.

The album Solitude features music of Robert Schumann and Clara Schumann. Dutch violinist Niek Baar and American pianist Ben Kim tell us: “Robert Schumann brought us together as duo partners and as friends. His writing, obsessively swinging between fiery turmoil and tender longing, gave us a common language to communicate with one another”. On this recording, Robert Schumann's Violin Sonatas Nos. 2 & 3 are paired with Clara Schumann's 3 Romances, Op. 22. Listening to her romances, we note that Clara quotes Robert's Violin Sonata No. 1. This romantic gesture underlines the artistic bond between Clara and Robert Schumann.

Anna Fedorova and the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen under Modestas Pitrenas complete their critically acclaimed cycle of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos with this recording of his Third Piano Concerto. Anna Fedorova considers Rachmaninoff’s Third one of the grandest concertos ever written, stating "it has incredible compelling power and demands mobilization of all the physical, creative and emotional abilities from both soloist and orchestra. At the same time this composition is very romantic by its nature, sort of a lyrical confession of the composer”. BBC Music Magazine has given 5-star reviews to all previous Fedorova/Rachmaninoff recordings, noting that "Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova is a remarkable artist. The clear thinking and feeling behind these Rachmaninoff concerto interpretations are refreshing indeed”. As a post scriptum to this album, Anna Fedorova performs The Messenger for solo piano written by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. It is a musical meditation, a thought for her country and fellow Ukrainians, a message of light, peace and hope for the future.

Recorded in St John's Church West Norwood, London in March 2022, Florilegium release their 31st Channel Classics album: Haydn Symphonies Nos. 6, 7 and 8. This recording involves 18 members of Florilegium, the exact same number Haydn had at his disposal when he composed these symphonies shortly after arriving at Esterhazy in 1761. Haydn’s first symphonies for his new employer, Prince Paul Anton Esterházy, form a group of three entitled Morning, Noon and Night. Perhaps these were a result of the Prince’s suggestion that Haydn write something programmatic along the lines of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

As symphonies for a small chamber orchestra, all three exploit the solo skills of each of Florilegium’s principals, from flute to double bass, not to mention heroic horns as well as spectacular violin and cello solos, each vividly characterized in an almost operatic way. Florilegium's previous Haydn London Symphonies recording was hailed as "first rate" by BBC Music Magazine. Florilegium is one of Britain's most outstanding period instrument groups specializing in music from the 17th and 18th centuries. Many of their recordings have garnered international awards over the years.

Imagining how Bach himself might have transformed the Goldberg Variations for a chamber group, Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque present a pioneering new arrangement of the Goldberg Variations by Chad Kelly. Employing a variety of instrumental combinations from a typical Bach ensemble of single strings, oboe, flute, bassoon, and harpsichord, these newly-crafted Goldbergs illuminate exquisite responses to the various historical genres inherent in Bach’s scores.

This beloved masterpiece was composed through a period of personal tumult for Bach; two unsuccessful job applications, the premature death of his son Gottfried, and criticism of his music in a prominent Hamburg publication. Bach’s outpouring of beauty in the Goldberg Variations has long captured audience’s imaginations - Chad Kelly, Rachel Podger, and her fleet Brecon Baroque preserve the work’s exquisite intricacy whilst adding breadth, texture and color to its emotional backdrop. This revisioning of Bach’s Goldberg Variations is a perfect transformation of the work for the modern era.

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.

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.

Violinist Ning Feng is recognised internationally as an artist of great lyricism, innate musicality and stunning virtuosity. Together with pianist Zee Zee he presents the Sonatas for Violin and Piano by Johannes Brahms: Sonata No. 1 in G, Op. 78, Sonata No. 2 in A, Op. 100, and Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108. Ning Feng believes these sonatas for piano and violin to be the crown jewels of the repertoire, stating: "Ever since I first heard them on a recording, I fell in love with them. And after performing them myself many, many times over the past 20 years, I have learned to appreciate the beauty of the lyrical melodies even more and more deeply understand the musical philosophy of this great composer.”

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.”

Following his critically acclaimed interpretation of Bruckner's 7th Symphony, Iván Fischer leads his Budapest Festival Orchestration to the summit of 19th century symphonic music, with this new recording of the monumental, enigmatic, unfinished and deeply religious 9th Symphony of Anton Bruckner. The three completed movements are pervaded with angst and awareness of death. As in Mozart’s unfinished Requiem, the first movement is dominated by a dark D minor. The pounding rhythms of the scherzo seem to anticipate Stravinsky and Bartók, while the large leaps and piercing dissonances point towards the Second Viennese School of Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. The Adagio is Bruckner’s heartrending farewell to the world and to life. Although Bruckner died before he could write the huge fourth movement he had in mind, there is something satisfying and comforting in concluding with the Adagio.

With over 35 million views, Anna Fedorova's live performance of Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto is the most viewed classical concerto video on YouTube. We are proud to release the long-awaited studio recording of this beloved concerto, together with Rachmaninoff's 4th Piano Concerto. "Rachmaninoff wrote his 4th Piano Concerto nine years after emigrating, afterwards it was twice revised by the composer. It represents the change of the era, a farewell to the past and a dive into a quite terrifying future. The 2nd Concerto, however, represents rebirth and resurrection of the spirit, hope and light. Something we all need so much nowadays. I am very grateful to the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen, conductor Modestas Pitrenas and recording engineer Jared Sacks for the most inspiring days spent together in St. Gallen recording this album!" (Anna Fedorova) This album is the follow-up to Anna's 2020 release of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.1 with the same orchestra and conductor. Anna will complete her Rachmaninoff cycle with the release of the 3rd Piano Concerto in the spring of 2023.

The Baroque dream team of Rachel Podger and Kristian Bezuidenhout interpret the astonishing music of C.P.E. Bach’s Violin Sonatas in C Minor, B Minor, D Major and G Minor. The two early sonatas here from the 1730s resemble the older style of his father. Listening to these works, you can imagine J.S. Bach glancing over Emanuel's shoulders while he wrote them as a teenager at home in Leipzig. The later sonatas, written 30 to 50 years later, reveal an emancipated composer whose developed musical language embodies the 'Empfindsamer Stil', the directly emotional and rhetorical style characteristic of northern-german music of the time.

Rachel Podger writes: “It was wonderful to delve into the specific musical world that belongs to C.P.E. Bach for this recording with Kris. These violin sonatas are (quite unfortunately!) largely overshadowed by the classical Viennese sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven. Part of his genius is that he is full of surprises and unpredictable turns, and this was hugely enjoyable for me during the musical partnership with the wonderful Kristian Bezuidenhout.”

REVIEWS:

Rachel Podger and Kristian Bezuidenhout are performers of the highest level of technical polish, and I am especially impressed by Bezuidenhout’s imaginative and assertive pianism. Podger’s violin was built by the Genoese maker Antonio Pazarini (Pesarinius) in 1739. Excellent sound from Channel as usual.

-- American Record Guide

Across the later sonatas Kristian Bezuidenhout and Rachel Podger savor the qualities of coaxing, pleading, playfulness, and arresting quirkiness that signal their identification with the so-called Empfindsamer Stil. But nothing is ever cut and dried. The keyboard opening of the B minor Sonata, composed some three decades after its G minor cousin, sounds like a throwback to the teenage work. And, rich in Empfindsamer fingerprints, the Arioso with five variations proves to be a 1780 respray of an earlier work.

At one level, Bezuidenhout and Podger help to pinpoint the chronology, allotting a handsome-sounding copy of an 1805 Walther fortepiano to the later works and a Taskin-inspired harpsichord to the products of the 1730s. It’s just one example of the thoughtfulness with which they approach a set of performances that are as equally persuasive in the bustling, youthful incisiveness of the G minor and D major Sonatas, as in the pristinely-paced, probingly expressive whimsy of the Arioso. Their music-making is infectiously spontaneous yet tellingly ‘considered’ – seamless rapport and impeccably-judged articulation delighting in a stream of illuminating felicities. CPE Bach’s free-spirited sonatas have surely found their free-spirited match.

-- BBC Music Magazine

This is how it’s done, my friends. A completely scrumptious new release from the queen of the Baroque violin, Rachel Podger. In partnership with keyboardist Kristian Bezuidenhout, Rachel gives to us a bit over an hour of completely entrancing music by the often underestimated Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788), fifth child and second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach.

There should be nothing underestimated about these keyboard and violin sonatas. They are imaginative, innovative, sublime. Add to this the impeccable performances, with that breath of life Rachel delivers so well in all of her performances, the excellent partnership with Kristian Bezuidenhout, and the utterly delightful recording quality from Jared Sacks, and one has an album to savor again and again. It is a must listen recording.

There is pure joy in Podger's performances, one feels her connection with music, the composer, and her audience. Kristian Bezuidenhout is her perfect partner in these works, As with Podger, his playing is not tied to a metronome. He plays, as does she, with a degree of improvisational exploration that makes these works far more interesting than in many other hands.

Listening to them together, one feels their connection in this music. I was particularly struck by this in their excellent performance of the Sonata in C minor which fairly danced with barely contained energy in the final Presto movement – their timing together is exquisite.

The shift from harpsichord to fortepiano and back again adds great interest to the recital. With the change in instruments, the texture of the sound changes. The balance of the violin and the keyboard shifts. Hard to accomplish in a live performance, but a delightful gift across the breadth of this recording.

-- Paul Rushton of Positive Feedback

This program is a wonderful little treasure chest overflowing with musical gems for the viola, all composed in Holland in the twentieth century. Even more delightful is the thought that these pieces and their four composers abide in the twilight of Dutch musical life and seldom if ever come to the attention of soloists and orchestras. They spotlight a beautiful solo instrument – the viola – which is not exactly seen as the prima donna of the podium, and which usually occupies a modest place as a middle voice in the orchestra or string quartet. This is the first recording of the Concertino for viola and orchestra of Jan Koetsier.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

An album dedicated to the memory of Zappa by the group that he blessed.