The Early Recordings Vol. 2 features a number of Langgaard pioneers who presented piano, organ and vocal works in the period 1963-1974. In 1970, Noe�l Lee recorded the first LP of piano music by Langgaard; it is reissued here for the first time on CD. Organist Jorgen Ernst Hansen can be heard on Langgaard's Ribe Cathedral organ (1970). In the 1960s, Royal Theatre soloist, Bonna Sondberg recorded several songs and major vocal works for Danmarks Radio, a selection of which are released here for the first time. The album contains examples of the wide range of expression in Langgaard's music from 1909 to 1951.

The two composers heard on this album, Giovanni Gabrieli (1553-1612) and Giovanni Bonato (born in 1961) have more in common than their first names: both hail from the Veneto in north-east Italy - there is no documentation of Gabrieli's birth, but he was probably Venetian, and Bonato was born in nearby Schio. Their music, too, is conceived in terms of it's sound in space, with Gabrieli using the cori spezzati that sang from the opposing galleries of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, and Bonato employing cori spazzializati to build a spatial dimension into the music itself. Juxtaposed, their styles offer a striking contrast, with Gabrieli's bold declamations set against Bonato's shifting, timeless suspensions.

“I am really excited about our upcoming release of Aerial on Sono Luminus this year! The album was originally released in 2014 on Deutsche Grammophon and now the journey of the album continues with Sono Luminus in a remastered version by their very own Daniel Shores. The orchestra piece Aeriality is at the center of the album which also features Into Second Self, Ró, Tactility, Trajectories and Shades of Silence. It was quite a personal journey to record these pieces in Iceland, working with long time collaborators such as the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Caput Ensemble and Nordic Affect. It is such a joy to continue the collaboration with Sono Luminus that we have grown for many years now with releases of, now, all my portrait albums to date! The new release of Aerial will also feature percussion quartet Aura performed by the LA Percussion Quartet.” (Anna Þorvaldsdóttir)

REVIEW:

The Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir has emerged as one of the most talented Nordic composers in recent years. Her voice is quite different from that of other contemporary composers, and thankfully her orchestral music has become widely performed and recorded by the leading orchestras world-wide and acclaimed by reviewers and the musical public alike.

The opening work on this disc - Into-Second Self - is for seven brass instruments and percussion. It opens with rumbling, whistling effects as if we are in a dark threatening tunnel, creating an atmospheric roar of sound with the percussion generating what is like an ancient Celtic chant on the horns and trombones. This is heard in an unearthly harmony by evoking sounds of aircraft and loud thuds on the drums, a shimmering of bells becoming increasingly loud then settles into silence.

Written for flute, bass clarinet, piano, percussion, two violins, viola and cello, Rö, opens with a jangle on percussion and piano chords aided by the bass clarinet and the strings harmony. We hear sudden noises against the wind of the flute and bass clarinet with a hint of an idea on the wind against the loud disharmony on the percussion - all broken by a bagpipe-like noise and a twanging idea, all of which creates a world of mystery, yet is brought to a terrible halt with thuds on the keyboard before a slow descent into quiet.

Under the baton of Ilan Volkov, Aeriality opens with a loud chord from the orchestra offering exciting harmony, and the entry of the piano is heard against strings and woodwind babbling in a dynamic pulse - as if we are hearing the movement of great bodies in space, or on the earth - is this the cosmos? There is a constant flow of sound and dissonance with occasional noises and murmuring on the strings, growing steadily louder with roars from the brass and a shrill woodwind theme emerge together in a great potent idea leading to a low-pitched drone of noise against a twitter of woodwind invoking birds calling out in the wind, yet the sudden crashes on the percussion are like chains breaking against rocks then disappear into silence.

Tactility opens with a mysterious hovering sound on harp and percussion and a dull throbbing sound, yet the harp hints at Japanese music, interrupted by thuds on the drums, and a rustling sound pattering away in the background, then we hear the effect of the wind blowing against the window ending with an inflection on the harp.

Composed for piano and electronics, Trajectories opens with a stirring rise in noise and an enormous build in tension with chimes of momentous chords on the piano, lending the impression of ‘something trying to escape’, all in dreadful harmonies, dissonance and a ripple of piano chords repeated amid the chime of a clock, rippling and tapping on the keyboard and an all-powerful throbbing noise before suddenly dying away.

The composer uses an ensemble of baroque instruments for her Shades of Silence, which opens with high shrill notes on strings, creating an amazing acoustic effect enhanced by the pizzicato strings in rising and falling dissonance, of sharply brutal music on the harpsichord that strangely creates an almost magical effect.

Aura, the final piece here, written for four percussionists, starts with an eerie atmosphere of a strange whispering ringing on the percussion with a chiming xylophone and ringing tubular bells, creating an amazingly catatonic effect, against a rustling, loud throbbing noise ‘like whales in the sea.’ For anyone unaware of this young Icelandic composer, this disc will prove an enlightening experience, and can only whet one’s appetite for her more recent compositions. Thorvaldsdottir herself was responsible for the engineering on four of the seven recordings, adding another credit to her talents; the sound quality is splendidly ambient throughout.

-- MusicWeb International (Gregor Tassie)

Duarte’s Partita was completed in 1974. It’s a substantial work in four movements, using all original material. As in the Variations on a Theme of Štepan Rak he adopts a four-note motif, which may be heard forwards, backwards, inverted and stretched. Variations on an Italian Folk Song Op. 139 was written in 2000. It draws on the second movement, “Canzona”, of Duarte’s prior Suite piemontese, which was based on a combination of two tunes: Il testamento dell’avvelenato and Re Gilardin. This gentle theme is characterised by simple movements of a step or a fourth. The six variations all begin with this stepwise movement but they quickly gain individual characters. Valse lyrique (2000) is one of the three short dances Duarte wrote late in his career. The second theme, clearly derived from the first, includes some hemiolas as well as combined harmonics and natural notes. The central section features the melody in the bass. Valse en rondeau was written in 1997 for the American guitarist David Starobin. Duarte stated: “I decided to make reference to my origin as a jazz musician and to my interest in early music (the Rondeau form) and to exercise my unshakeable belief in melody.” The origin of the Variations on a Theme of Štepan Rak Op. 100 is unique. In 1984, Rak was staying with Duarte when Vladimir Mikulka performed a lunchtime concert in London. At the end of the concert, Mikulka announced that he was going to perform an unusual encore – a theme, but without variations that had yet to be written. Afterwards he announced that Rak, Koshkin and Duarte should exchange themes with each other to create six new variation works, and he presented Duarte with Rak’s theme on a piece of manuscript paper. Andres Segovia, a supreme Anglophile, married his third wife in Gibraltar (“under the British flag, on Spanish soil”), and their son was born in London. Duarte’s 3 Songs without Words for Carlos Andres were a present to the happy couple. Danza eccentrica (2000) was dedicated to the Italian guitarist Domenico Lafasciano with the note, “Here is your dance. It may not be what you expected, but it’s what I’ve written – not another ‘cloned’ rumba, tango, waltz or whatever, but something with more individual character.” The unexpected aspects include dissonant harmonies, bass notes which move in ¾ against the treble in 6/8 and sections more reminiscent of a hurdy-gurdy. The Italian guitarist Angelo Gilardino wrote to Duarte about his Fantasia and Fugue on Torre Bermeja Op. 30: “…the melodic and rhythmic feeling is of the sort to easily produce the fascination of the public”. The Torre Bermeja in question is the piano piece by Isaac Albeniz, Op. 92 No. 12. Although it carries Op. 62 (1974) on its cover, the little Prelude en arpèges was written in 1954/5 and intended as the first movement of a Harp Suite Op. 18 that was never completed.

Francesco Durante’s psalm settings stand out for their astoundingly modern contrapuntal tensions and expressive nuance. Coupled with Giovanni Salvatore’s uniquely inventive organ works, these world premiere recordings revive sacred works by a composer considered in his day to be ‘the greatest master of harmony in Italy’.

A unique collection of both piano solo and concertante pieces by the Boulanger sisters, inspiringly brought to life by the Dutch pianist Duco Burgers. Despite her tragically early demise from tuberculosis in 1918, aged just 25, Lili Boulanger has become almost a household name in classical music during the last generation, through her slender but exquisitely crafted works for choral, orchestral and chamber forces above all, exemplified by her Psalm settings and her tone-poems such as D'un soir triste. Her music for solo piano is less well known, but still distinctive, as Duco Burgers persuasively demonstrates in these new recordings of the Prelude in D, the Trois Morceaux and the Theme and Variations. The Prelude is a work of her prodigious teenage years, while the Trois Morceaux belong to the happiest period in her short life, while she was staying at the Villa Medici in Rome, having won the prestigious Prix de Rome. The Fantaisie affords a fascinating window on to the aesthetic ambitions of the 25-year-old Nadia Boulanger as a creator in her own right, years before she became the renowned facilitator of others' creativity as a teacher of composition, theory and technique. The model of Franck's Symphonic Variations may be evident in the form and scale of the 20-minute work, dating from 1912, but Nadia presents her own, high contrasts of tragic nobility and free-flowing fantasy within the piece. Darker still is Vers une vie nouvelle, a solo piece from 1918, brooding and powerful out of all proportion to it's brevity. In his booklet essay, Duco Burgers weaves together commentary on the life and work of the sisters, entwined but distinct threads of energy, creativity and tragedy shaped by the world around them.

After his brilliant take on the Partitas, the renowned Francesco Tristano now tackles Bach's English Suites in a double album that blends baroque mastery with striking modernity.

Ukrainian classical music is not even two centuries old, and for most of that time has had to contend with active attempts at suppression by a bullying neighbour. But Ukrainian composers have stood their ground, not least by taking inspiration from the folk-music that has long thrived in Ukraine's mountains and fields. In this first of a series of Postcards from Ukraine the Ukrainian-Australian violinist Markiyan Melnychenko presents a programme of largely unknown miniatures for violin and piano, all based on, or inspired by, that folk-culture. Alternately sparkling and soulful, these violin showpieces make the case for a more thorough examination of the riches still to be discovered in Ukraine's musical heritage.

Giovanni Battista Viotti composed 29 violin concertos, three sinfonie concertanti, a cello concerto, countless quartets, at least 20 trios for two violins and cello and an impressive array of violin duos, four of the latter recorded here. Described in contemporary reports as a generous and highly charismatic musician driven by idealistic zeal, he is now universally recognised as one of the greatest violinists of all time. In hindsight, it is clear that he and his vast oeuvre occupied a key historical position. He appeared at a pivotal moment between the end of the ancien regime and the start of the modern era: a period when, in social terms, music began to escape the courts and entertain the growing middle classes, laying the foundations for modern concert-going and the figure of the freelance musician. A period when various national traditions, both in terms of instruments and compositions, began to meet and influence each other with unprecedented dynamism, and when the formal rigour of Classicism gave way to the pathos of Romanticism. Viotti was at the heart of this time of dramatic change: the standard-bearer for a centuries-old Italian violin school that included Arcangelo Corelli, Antonio Vivaldi, Pietro Locatelli, Giuseppe Tartini and Viotti's teacher Gaetano Pugnani. He took this esteemed group's technical achievements away from the Baroque and Galant style into a new era, with the arrival of Niccol� Paganini just around the corner. He was admired by Mozart, inspired the virtuosity of Paganini's concertos, was central because of his years lived in London to the evolution of British musical life, and must surely be considered the most significant figure in the entire French violin school. Later violin giants Pierre Rode, Rodolphe Kreutzer and Pierre Baillot were all strongly influenced by his work Viotti's renowned cantabile style is echoed in the violin writing of both Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms and is amply represented in the four violin duos on this album. Other information: - Recorded November 2022, Cagliari, Italy - Booklet in English contains liner notes by Carlo Goldstein - Gianmaria Melis plays a 1745 Sanctus Seraphin; Fabrizio Falasca plays a 1727 J. Guarneri - The Italian liner notes are available for download at www. Brilliantclassics. com - Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755-1824) received his musical education from Gaetano Pugnani. He served for a short time at the Savoy Court in Turin but soon he spread his wings and travelled to Paris, where he was an instant success as a supreme violin virtuoso. He served for a time at the court of Versailles before he founded an opera house in Paris (The�tre de Monsieur). The French revolution urged him to go abroad and he settled in London, where he featured in the Hanover Square concert series and was active as a concert organizer and impresario, as well as one of the founders of the Philharmonic Society of London. - Viotti was an influential violin player and teacher. He composed violin concertos, string quartets, and other chamber music for strings. Based on the principles of the Viennese Classics it hints at more romantic feelings of times to come. - This new recording presents the duos for 2 violins, music of great charm, rich in melodies and brilliantly written for both instruments, which are fully equal to each other. - Played by Fabrizio Falasca and Gianmaria Melis, playing a 1727 Guerneri and a 1745 Sanctus Seraphin violin.

Paul Ben-Haim ranks among those leading Israeli composers from his generation. Born Paul Frankenburger in Munich he studied composition with Friedrich Klose and served as an assistant conductor to both Bruno Walter and Hans Knappertsbusch. His extensive catalogue comprises works in all the primary genres apart from opera. Music for or with cello features prominently throughout Ben-Haim's output. Following emigration, he increasingly advocated a specifically Jewish national expression while his own compositions favoured a late-Romantic vein redolent of - though by no means indebted (unlike other contemporaries) to - Ernest Bloch and frequently informed by Middle-Eastern overtones.

UBIQUE lives on the border between enigmatic lyricism and atmospheric distortion. Through a combination of sounds, pitches, and textural nuances, low deep drones envelop lyrical materials and harmonies that breathe in and out of focus throughout the progress of the piece. The flow of the music is primarily guided by continuous expansion and contraction - of various kinds and durations - as it streams with subtle interruptions and frictions but ever moving forward in the overall structure. The work is inspired by the notion of being everywhere at the same time, an enveloping omnipresence, while simultaneously focusing on details within the density of each particle, echoed in various forms of fragmentation and interruption and in the sustain of certain elements of a sound beyond their natural resonance - throughout the piece, sounds are both reduced to their smallest particles and their atmospheric presence expanded towards the infinite. As with my music generally, the inspiration is not something I am trying to describe through the music as such - it is a way to intuitively approach and work with the core energy, structure, atmosphere and material of the piece. UBIQUE is 45 minutes in duration and is written in 11 parts, for flutes, grand piano, 2 cellos and pre-constructed electronics. - Anna Thorvaldsdottir

The lasting fame of conductor Karl Böhm is based on qualities that were praised by listeners, musicians and critics throughout his long career: his discipline and meticulousness when rehearsing compositions as well as his modesty, his willingness to take second place to work and composer. After many years serving as principal conductor in several opera houses he left his administrative duties behind and embarked on an international career as an acclaimed guest, concert and opera conductor. He was regularly invited by the New York Met and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, to the festivals in Salzburg (as of 1938) and Bayreuth (as of 1962), he gave guest performances from Tokyo to Moscow, from Milan to Buenos Aires, and at the broadcasting corporations in Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt and Stuttgart where he was invited whenever there was something important to celebrate.

The Radio Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart (formerly known under a few different names and since 2016 merged with its sister from Baden-Baden and Freiburg to form the SWR Symphonieorchester) not only played in its home region, the Southwest of Germany, but toured extensively all over Europe. It has a catalogue of several hundreds of recordings and accompanied during its history many famous soloists. Branka Musulin was an extraordinary pianist who worked with some of the most important conductors of her time, among them Willem Mengelberg, Hermann Abendroth, Franz Konwitschny, Georg Solti and Sergiu Celibidache.

Sometimes, dreams come true. For Francesco Tristano, the dream was twofold: first a desire to project his art in the future by devoting himself to one of the most incontestably timeless figures in the history of music, Johann Sebastian Bach. This profound desire fuelled the creation of intothefuture, Francesco Tristano's very personal line of recordings, where sounds morph into an abstract and subtly poetic photographic imagery, which is found in the booklets. This first of these recordings, dedicated to the six Partitas (BWV 825 to BWV 830) is a perfect illustration of this concept. For this pianist from Luxembourg, this collection constituted the starting point of his patient exploration of Bach's work. In fact, it also represents the composer's supreme achievement in the genre of the keyboard dance suite. Also known as the "German suites", to differentiate them from the two collections of "English" (BWV 806 to BWV 811) and "French" (BWV 812 to BWV 817) suites, the 6 Partitas belong to the rare compositions that Bach had published during his lifetime, as the first part of the Clavier-ubung - from 1726 to 1730, then all six in 1731. Composed separately, probably one after the other, these six suites, an infinite kaleidoscope of moods, were to embody his plural and abundant art, in a supreme synthesis of the tastes of the time. With their lively tempos (Partita III, Fantasia; Partita I, Allemande; Partita V, Tempo di Minuetto; Partita VI, Corrente), their very lively phrasing (Partita I, Gigue; Partita II, Capriccio; Partita VI, Toccata; Partita II, Courante), the six Partitas according to Francesco Tristano, a musician with an inexhaustible vivacity of mind, celebrate life everywhere. This impression of a whirlwind, this sense of movement are irresistible! Once again, Francesco Tristano is here in a class of his own. 24 SEPTEMBRE 2024

In December 2017, in Fribourg, mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti met lutenist Vincent Fluckiger and multi-instrumentalist, engineer and producer Fred Chappuis. Under the guidance of director Wouter Van Looy, they created a fascinating show for performances at the Lucerne Theatre the following spring, which mixed the melancholic songs of John Dowland (1563-1626) with the sounds of electronic music. All three originally came from rock/metal/punk, and Wouter Van Looy would rekindle in each of them a profound desire to explore new horizons. Following the success of the Lucerne evenings, the mezzo-soprano engaged her two colleagues, now friends, a few months later in the pursuit of a common adventure, which was sealed in the idea of Melankh�lia: Dowland's captivating songs would now be joined by well-known pop songs rearranged in the same spirit, where the archlute or the modern electric guitar coexist with a Moog, percussion or a mellotron, enveloping the voice. Two eras speak to each other, and finally merge into each other. Several themes structure this intensely lyrical journey, carried by the lascivious voice of Marina Viotti: love and it's illusions, evoked in One by U2 as well as in Fairwell, Too Fair by Dowland, hopes (Die Not Before Thy Day by Dowland or Joga by Bjork) as well as death (Born to Die by Lana Del Rey preceded by In Darkness Let Me Dwell by Dowland) or redemption (Flow My Tears by Dowland). By infusing the spirit of her youth, these early years when she wrote texts and songs for her metal band, in her present, which sees her defending the most beautiful roles of the great lyric repertoire, Marina Viotti reveals a very intimate part of herself. More than a journey across the genres and over the centuries, "In Darkness Through the Light" is in fact the story of a life journey, a fight for life and against darkness. In the spring of 2019, the mezzo-soprano was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, of which she recovered completely. The shadows gone, Marina Viotti was able to confide her secret, with total openness. It is therefore this experience that informs "In Darkness Through the Light", a project that accompanied her healing process, and which became the album of her liberation.

Beyond Debussy and Ravel: the world of the French piano in all it's dazzling variety, and in critically acclaimed recent recordings. Beyond a sensitivity to tone colour, very little unifies this eclectic list of French composers, who flourished from the end of the Romantic era into our own time. To move from the deft sketches of Reynaldo Hahn's Le Rossignol eperdu, and the scented harmonies of Benjamin Godard's Op.58 cycle of 20 Pieces, to the introverted gloom of Les Heures dolented by Gabriel eduard Xavier Dupont and the four-movement Solitude by Louis Vierne, and from the dense, Wagnerian counterpoint of sonatas by Vincent D'Indy and Paul Dukas, to the restless but crystalline textures of the early Sonata by Henri Dutilleux, is to stop off at quite different stations on a map of creative work full of destinations as distinct as any to be found on the Paris Metro. Critics have recognised that each of the artists involved has invested intellectual energy as well as technical mastery in immersing themselves within these individual worlds and personalities. Mark Viner captures Chaminade the poet beyond and further than the salon composer of repute, as well as measuring up to Alkan at his most surprisingly charming in some of the Etudes Op.35. Emanuele Torquati lends a more romantic sensibility to Roussel than we tend to associate with him, while Sofia Andreoli shows that there is an impressionist side to Magnard beyond the densely worked chromaticism of his symphonies and cantatas.

Vivian Fung has long been a friend and admired composer of the Jasper String Quartet. The Quartet first performed one of her works in 2019, and we were immediately captivated by the visceral energy and impeccable craft of her writing. Vivian’s String Quartets Nos. 1–4 span 18 years of her career and reflect a remarkable journey of absorbing, integrating, and synthesizing a unique spectrum of influences into her compositional voice. Unwavering in all of the works is a fierce heart, instrumental fearlessness, and an amazing instinct for texture. We are incredibly grateful to have recorded these works with Vivian in the studio and for the growth we experienced in the process. – Jasper String Quartet

This album is a testimonial to my lifelong adoration of strings, dating back to my beginning cello studies as a middle school student. My cello teacher introduced me to a wide-ranging repertoire and opened up my sonic world with the sound of string quartets, concerti, and Baroque instruments. The string quartet format, in particular, has gripped my imagination since writing Pizzicato, which I originally wrote as a standalone work and later incorporated as the third movement of String Quartet No. 1 and continues to be one of my most performed pieces. Many thank yous to the Jasper String Quartet for their dedication to this CD project; to my husband, son, and parents for their support; and to everyone at Sono Luminus for producing this wonderful album. – Vivian Fung

Drawing from influences as disparate as the blues, jazz, Broadway, gospel, folksong and the wild west, the 'American vignettes' in this album merge popular idioms into a new canon of the repertoire for cello and piano, in a series of musical snapshots that are as varied as the men and women who composed them and yet all remain quintessentially American in spirit. The distinctive voices of six US composers, from the late twentieth and early 21st centuries, here come together to weave a virtuosic and colourful tapestry of Americana.

At over 80 years old, the ever agile and energetic HK Gruber has become an integral part of the music scene - not only in Austria. As a composer, chansonnier and music educator with constructive depth and his distinctive, ironical jokes, he reliably amazes, moves, and evokes laughter in his audiences, far removed from the contrived, mathematical, contemporary musical art. His genre-spanning works are audible, vibrant journeys through the incredible diversity of music history, thus shaping his own, entirely unmistakable style. In Frank Dupree and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, he finds his ideal partners, who skillfully realize this distinctive musical language.

Finally, a Shostakovich CD by the Asasello-Quartett! The internationally successful and award-winning ensemble has long been intensively engaged with the 15 works of the great Russian composer and is now embarking on a complete recording. The new GENUIN release of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Quartets Nos. 7 - 13 now kicks off the series. According to the booklet for the production, “Love, death and dearest people – these are the themes of the works heard on this double CD.” And the Asasello-Quartett spans the breadth of interpretation just as broadly as the variety of themes outlined here: with poignancy, elegance, and virtuosity – a whole world of its own!

The library of Bologna's Conservatory of Music contains a wide set of books about music, which are almost exclusively manuscripts. The library once belonged to the nobleman Antonio Puccetti (1792-1841), a native of Cingoli, a small town in Macerata located in the Marche region. It is indeed an aristocratic music library made up of works which range from the end of the 18th to mid 19th centuries. The interesting aspect of these works consists in the fact that they make up the bibliography of a nobleman who was not a collector but rather an amateur musician. The scores represent important documents about Puccetti's family private music performances within their own four walls, the so-called hausmusik, more intimate, which was different from the brighter salonmusik genre. The recording of these vocal and instrumental scores - including composers of the caliber of Ferdinando Carulli and Giovanni Paisiello - is entrusted to the young talents of ArsEmble, continuing the historical research that began with the rediscovery of composer Mario Bianchelli from Rimini (Tactus, tc 660201).

Giovanni Battista Viotti was a man of humble origins who studied with Gaetano Pugnani in the tradition of the Corelli school. By the age of 20 he was already an esteemed violinist, performing concerts in Geneva, Bern, Berlin and Saint Petersburg, and he eventually chose to settle in Paris. However, as a court musician for Marie Antoniette, he was forced to flee to London in 1792, where, a short while later, he was accused of spying on behalf of the Jacobins. He returned to Paris and was celebrated during the Restoration period, but eventually came back to London, where he died in poverty. Compositionally he serves as a bridge between the Classical period and the first signs of Romanticism, and he wrote an impressive 29 concertos for his own instrument, the violin. The 22nd, in A minor, shows his renowned compositional intelligence at it's peak. Brahms, by no means known for the generosity of his opinions, wrote in a letter to Clara Schumann: "This concerto... is a magnificent piece, of remarkable freedom in it's invention; it sounds as if [Viotti] were fantasising, and everything is masterfully conceived and executed". The work is divided into three movements: the first of these, an Allegro moderato, abandons the tradition of an energetic and virtuosic opening, and instead introduces a meditative, highly refined atmosphere. The cantabile violin theme soon evolves into a flourish that pre-empts the subsequent bright and complex dramatic beauty of the cadenza. Only the third movement, Agitato assai, is Classical in it's inspiration, featuring a nimble dialogue between soloist and orchestra, albeit with strong contrapuntal hints, while the vibrant central Adagio's echoes of Mozart are pulled in the direction of pre-Romantic angst. Luigi Maria Cherubini, perhaps best known today for his monumental Requiem, like Viotti suffered the consequences of being culturally close to an overthrown ancien r�gime, in his case that of Napoleon. The arrival of King Louis XVIII gave him respite, and indeed he became one of France's greatest musicians, despite his Italian origins. His Symphony in D major's four movements convey that "dual compositional nationality" right from the initial Moderato, straying at times into pomposity but with plenty of moments of progressive expressive intimacy. Cherubini was admired by Haydn, and even by the moody Beethoven, who appreciated the "dramaticism" of his work. The coupling on this album reflects a real-life acquaintance: Cherubini directed a theatre in Paris with Viotti for a period. The two were also both initiated into French masonic orders, joining the ranks of many other freemason musicians from Haydn and Mozart to Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. Both men were significant figures in the history of music, producing a wealth of content and materials yet to be fully explored.

Since it's inception in 2001, the Vivaldi Edition has explored the fantastic diversity of the work of the Prete Rosso. Presented by Giulio Prandi's Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri, this seventy-second volume is once again dedicated to sacred music. Two exceptional works, the Dixit Dominus, RV 807 and the Magnificat, RV 611, here frame rare motets such as Sanctorum meritis, RV 620 and Vos invito, barbarae faces, RV 811. Preserved at the Saxon State Library, the Dixit Dominus belonged to a lot ordered from a Venetian publisher in the mid-1750s by the Saxon court which, threatened by the Prussian army, had been forced to flee Dresden for Warsaw. Illustrating the highly pictorial text of Dixit Dominus, Vivaldi favours a lively and sparkling aesthetic, full of figurations. For example, pairs of repeated sixteenth notes depict the gentle lapping of a stream (De torrente in via bibet) while the impressive final fugue embodies the majesty of Christian communion. Also forged in an ingenious and hushed counterpoint, the second motet of this programme, Confitebor tibi, Domine, presents three solo voices, something rare for Vivaldi. Hymn from the liturgy of the martyrs, Sanctorum meritis, RV 620 then introduces Vos invito, barbarae faces, whose text enjoins the believer to fight against the forces of evil. This program finally offers the final version of the Magnificat in G minor (RV 611) in which the Red Priest specifically dedicated to a few singers of the Ospedale della Pieta certain sections, radically transformed since the first version of the 1710s. This results in little less ensemble parts, and more arias for the soloists, almost a foretaste of Classicism. Faithful to his quest for clarity and joy that had been highlighted by moving recordings devoted to Jommelli and Rossini, Giulio Prandi, for this first collaboration with the na�ve label, glorifies the luminous, aristocratic sobriety of Vivaldi. Unexpected and invigorating. 25 July 2024

Antonín Reicha and Sigismund Neukomm were contemporaries. Their time in Vienna, where both were students of Joseph Haydn, crossed from 1802–04, and from 1810 until the end of their lives both had their permanent residence in Paris. It is therefore easy to imagine that their paths crossed several times. In common was their striving to preserve the style of Viennese Classicism, fully expressed in the works presented here.

Antonín Reicha’s (1770–1836) Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet Op. 89 is typical of his balanced, classical style. Overall, the work reflects Reicha's affinity with opera. The harmonic turns are subordinated to the clarity of the vocal melody and the specifications of the form; everything has its place and its good order. Yet, in spite of this seemingly rigid formula there are surprising moments, for example the long syncopated melodic line at the beginning of the development in the first movement. The clarinet responds to the brash overture-like beginning of the opening theme with lyrically contrasting vocal garlands, whose motives are immediately imitated by the strings; an artfully counterpointing exchange between the instruments unfolds. What at first glance looks like the schematic application of well-learned compositional skill turns out on closer inspection (and repeated listening) to be a successful musical testimony to its time with many hidden and sophisticated ideas.

In Sigismund Neukomm’s (1778–1858) Clarinet Quintet Op. 8, published in 1809, one can hear his desire to manifest admiration for his ‘three-leaf clover’ of influences: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. In its entirety, Neukomm's Clarinet Quintet radiates more noble elegance than original innovation, and one can well imagine that this expression corresponded perfectly to the composer’s own attitude to life.

Good things always come in threes. There was once the Concerto in Italian style, BWV 971, reconfigured according to the by then modern disposition advocated in Italy at the beginning of the 18th century (anthology "Concerti italiani", 2004, OP30301). More recently, the Goldberg Variations, reimagined for a small string ensemble, crowned a fabulous apotheosis in the land of the variation ("Variations on Variations", OP30575). Here are now three completely original orchestral suites by Bach, a new fool's game organised by a tongue in the cheek Rinaldo Alessandrini, once again surrounded by his dear friends from the Concerto Italiano.

A surprising and refreshing journey which explores the confines of the repertoire for saxophone and piano, Walking the Dog unites two formidable virtuosos of the contemporary classical scene, the Austrian Andreas Mader and the German Joseph Moog.

Walking the Dog is a multifaceted work, an authentic melting-pot, a surprising witness to the richness of the international musical scene at the beginning of the 20th century. One would then encounter styles as diverse as the mambo, the merengue, the habanera, or the samba, or even fusions of these seemingly separate genres.

Andreas Mader and Joseph Moog open their recital with Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in the inspiring version of the Japanese Jun Nagao. Under their sensitive and incisive fingers, it becomes the spirit of Jazz itself, sparkling and fresh. The Suite of seven pieces adapted from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet pursues it in a trenchant and caustic way: the saxophone, part soprano part tenor, displays all its colours.

This programme also pays tribute to France – a well-deserved homage to the country where Adolf Sax fathered such a great family of instruments. Some works are iconic, such as Debussy's Rhapsody (in a new and impressive version by the saxophonist), Milhaud's Scaramouche, some less known, like the Two Pieces by Lili Boulanger, and we have a genuine rarity, the Five Exotic Dances, a brilliant and exciting suite of miniature compositions from 1961 by Jean Francaix. Andreas Mader and Joseph Moog conclude their journey by a return to the origins – New York – by giving us the little Promenade, under the title "Walking the Dog", that Gershwin composed for the film Shall We Dance with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

This is an absolutely thrilling album which arouses both curiosity and senses, a true revelation from this surprising duo. It is impossible to resist Andreas Mader's voluptuous saxophone interlocked into the golden piano playing of Joseph Moog.