Three lovely but rarely performed cello concertos are featured on this new release. These works are among the earliest in the genre by German composers. Cellist Alexander Rubin is not only a multi-prize winning soloist, but also a respected conductor. He fills both roles on this recording. Musica Viva is one of the best-loved chamber orchestras in Russia. The musicians are known for their refined but unconventional programmes, where they frequently perform rare works.

The Richter Uzur Duo approaches the concert stage with effortless virtuosity, soulful musicality and self-effacing humor. Trained in two of the world's most lauded musical institutions — The Royal College of Music and The Moscow Conservatory, respectively — guitarist Brad Richter and cellist Viktor Uzur are consummate performers and accomplished composers, each having played around the globe to critical acclaim and international awards. Together, the Richter Uzur Duo combines elements of classical music, rock, indigenous American music and Eastern European folk, all played with a native sense of vernacular, integrity and charm, producing a sound that is all their own.

Mikis Theodorakis is a composer whose life and work are more closely connected with the vicissitudes of twentieth-century European political history than any other musician alive today. In calling his new album East Of The Aegean, Theodorakis harks back to his own origins – he was born on the island of Chios in the eastern Aegean Sea. In Jens Naumilkat and Henning Schmiedt, Theodorakis has found two musicians who are ideally suited for a sensitive interpretation of this work.

The Harmonious Society of Tickle-Fiddle Gentlemen takes its name from the original ensemble that gave London’s first public concerts, from 1678, and which continued to meet well into the middle of the eighteenth century. The members of the group are leading figures on the period instrument scene in the UK and Europe, offering programmes that draw on recent and original research. They have been described on BBC Radio 3 as ‘purveyors of exhilarating and uplifting music.’ The baroque ensemble here commits to record unjustly neglected concertos by Josef Guretzky, rich in Italian-influenced virtuosity and dynamism, yet highly innovative in the contrast of rhythms and forms. The album features the premiere recording of four of Guretzky’s nine cello concertos as well as Guretzky’s only surviving Violin Concerto. They are complemented by a contemporaneous keyboard fugue by another Czech master of the baroque era, Bohuslav Matej Cernohorsky.

Joseph-Marie-Clement Dall'Abaco (1710 - 1805) was an Italian/Flemish composer and cellist. Little is known about his life, but we do know that he travelled and performed as a cellist. He also wrote for cello, and these works clearly show his great mastery. Performing these pieces is Charles Rasmussen. Charlie Rasmussen enjoys an active career as both a modern and Baroque cellist and as a teacher at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. Mr. Rasmussen was previously on faculty at the Talent Education Suzuki School in Norwalk, CT where he taught private and group cello lessons, musicianship classes, and coached chamber ensembles. Mr. Rasmussen strives to help his students develop a lifelong passion for music and cello playing. Mr. Rasmussen holds a Masters of Music in Cello Performance from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro (UNCG), where he was a graduate assistant and studied with Dr. Alexander Ezerman. He also received a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Music Theory from UNCG. Before his studies at UNCG, Mr. Rasmussen graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of the Arts degree in music from Luther College where he studied with Dr. Eric Kutz. Mr. Rasmussen studied the Suzuki Method with Carol Tarr at the University of Denver, and he is trained to teach Books 1-10 through the Suzuki Association of the Americas.

The idea of the 'Jeux de Couleurs' recording came to us when we thought of combining Frits Celis' trio with one of the greatest works of the chamber music repertoire, Ravel’s Piano Trio, and an arrangement of Debussy's 'La mer' by Sally Beamish. Combining well - and lesser- known pieces, performing vast orchestral works in the smaller context of the piano trio, and searching for nuance and colours are recurrent themes in our musical choices. The painting that we have chosen for the cover of the CD, Paul Klee’s ‘Architektur der ebene’, expresses how we feel about the music and what we would like to communicate with it. As is the case with all of Klee’s paintings, it is very musically structured and features the use of motifs and an explosion of colour.

Paul Livingstone and Peter Jacobson offer soulful musical meditations on beauty and tranquility; helping the listener or yoga practitioner balance his or her inner world. Pete and Paul take inspiration from the Hindustani musical tradition and from Paul’s teacher and mentor Ravi Shankar who collaborated so eloquently with Yehudi Menuhin on violin and helped to popularize Hindustani music in the West. Pete and Paul also draw inspiration from American jazz improvisation. You may have heard Paul before on his several classical Hindustani or “ragajazz” crossover recordings, and Yarlung’s Sangam release in 2022.

Pete is a cello rock star, whom you may know from his tours and recordings with Rhye, Dr. Dre, Kamasi Washington and the West Coast Get Down, The Talking Strings, Quartetto Fantastico and Aux Cerna. You may also know him from film and television, including in The Walking Dead, Motherland and The Twighlight Zone. Paul and Pete have performed on GRAMMY-winning records by Ricky Kej, Ozomatli and Quetzal. Taos evokes magic, mystery, art, multiculturalism and majesty.

Home to the Tiwa-speaking Red Willow people of Taos Pueblo for more than a thousand years, Taos is also home to Spanish settlers from 1600, who founded the Spanish village of Taos in 1795. Taos offers breathtaking scenery, refreshing air and light and the magnificent smells of adobe earth, pinion and sagebrush. The area inspired some of the 20th Century’s most creative artists, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams and D.H. Lawrence. The native Red Willow people, the Tiwa Indians in Taos, practice a hybrid religion today, incorporating the conflicting tenants of their native religion with Roman Catholicism superimposed by the Spanish padres over hundreds of years. If one asks a devout Tiwa friend about the conflicts, he or she may shrug and may comment that one can follow both truths.

This ability for people in Taos to incorporate disparate theologies and world views will help us understand the multiple spiritual inspirations for the music on this recording. –Bob Attiyeh, producer

‘Settecento’ is the style of art, music and architecture that emerged in Italy in the early 18th century, celebrated here by La Serenissima and Adrian Chandler with a collection of works from that era. The works are grouped by the areas of Italy where each composer worked, including the Kingdom of Naples (Scarlatti, Mancini), Republic of Venice (Dall’Abaco, Vandini, Tartini & Vivaldi) and the Papal States / Bologna (Brescianello). The ensemble La Serenissima is recognized as the UK’s leading exponent of the music of 18th-century Venice and connected composers. Uniquely, the group’s entire repertoire is edited from manuscript or contemporary sources. It has become synonymous with virtuosity, dynamism and accessibility, uncovering new repertoire and making it available to all through live performance, recordings and educational initiatives.

Lyricism and obsessive patterns are finely realised by the RSNO, while conductor Marin Alsop shows a keen sensitivity to both scores and balances their rhetoric with the clean-edged clarity of their textures. In addition, her performance of the now-ubiquitous Adagio for Strings is a model of restraint, proving the saying that less equals more. Attractive sound, with a wide range and plenty of definition. - BBC Music Magazine

Max Reger’s oeuvre occupies a unique position between the centuries. His advanced compositional techniques made him one of the most frequently performed composers at the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen in Vienna and meant that he was held in great esteem by Arnold Schönberg. His affinity for Bach in his settings as well as in his choice of forms, architectonic techniques, and specific instrumentations was just as obvious as his grounding in Romanticism and his veneration for Beethoven and Brahms. Reger’s ties to the tradition – in this case to Mozart and Brahms – were the point of departure for his Clarinet Quintet in A major op. 146, a work radiating an ease that hardly seems to have been disturbed by the circumstances of a world war. The major tonality of the work is unusual in the chamber music from Reger’s late period and something it shares with the String Sextet op. 118. Apart from the sextet, after 1909 it is found only in the Flute Serenade in G major op. 141a and in the clarinet quintet. In contrast to these two other works, however, the sextet is of much greater complexity in formal design and material elaboration, which happens to be assigned to a very obvious thematic presentation. Even though Reger did not live to experience the publication and premiere of the clarinet quintet, the string sextet received a posthumous tribute inasmuch as the study score was immured in the base of Reger’s funerary monument in the Waldfriedhof in Munich on 11 May 1930.

Arctic Dreams is critically celebrated composer John Luther Adams's uniquely beautiful and magical seven-movement work for a quartet of voices and a quartet of strings, with layers of digital delay that create 32-part canonic textures. It is dedicated to the composers friend the late writer Barry Lopez, and titled after one of Lopez's greatest books. The work, like most of Adamss works, reflects the composers passion for natures elemental forces. Adams writes about the piece: As in several of my later string quartets, all the string sounds are produced by natural harmonics and open strings. The sung text is composed of the names of Arctic places, plants, birds, weather, and the seasons, in the languages of the Iñupiat and Gwichin peoples of Alaska. John Luther Adams's music has won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award and has been performed by such prominent ensembles as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Seattle Symphony, JACK Quartet, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Cold Blue Music has released eight recordings devoted to his work, including Lines Made by Walking, Everything That Rises, and The Wind in High Places. The performers: Synergy Vocals is a critically acclaimed vocal ensemble that has recorded music by Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, David Lang, Luciano Berio, John Adams, Arvo Pärt, and many others and performed with the Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco Symphonies and the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics. Their performances and recordings have been deemed amazing (New York Times); beautiful, haunting (Gramophone); and dazzling (The Observer). With Synergy is a quartet of notable string players: violinist Robin Lorentz, violist Ron Lawrence, cellist Michael Finckel, and bassist Robert Black.

Following the huge success of their recent album release 'Timelapse' (Jan 2021), Orchestra of the Swan presents Vivaldi Sleep, a project that was initiated by the orchestra during the first national lockdown of 2020. Eleven artists from a broad range of genres - including klezmer, folk, electronica and jazz - were invited to add a solo part in response to the orchestra's recording of the second movement of Autumn from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Guest artists recorded their solo parts at home and were given free rein to start prior to the orchestra's recording and continue after it had finished if they wished. Manipulation of the source material was also allowed. Formed in 1995, Orchestra of the Swan is a British chamber orchestra which, under the artistic direction of David Le Page, is passionate about audience inclusivity and blurring the lines between genres through it's adventurous and accessible programming. This album demonstrates this ethos exactly.

There is an Icelandic saying, “mergur málsins”, which directly translates to “the marrow of the matter,” and these Suites, to me, speak directly to the essence of being human. As for many cellists, these Suites have been my steady companion throughout my life with the cello, first as a vehicle to learn counterpoint, style, and harmony, then as material with which to explore personal expression and interpretation, and today they are a mirror, reflecting the deeper truth of the human experience, revealing more layers of meaning each time I come back to them.

As far as we know, these Suites were not written for the church, and by 1720, they were not written for people to actually dance to, but rather as forms with familiar rhythms and style. In contrast to the Violin Sonatas and Partitas which were written around the same time, the Cello Suites each have the same movement structure, which includes a Prelude and two pairs of dances (Allemande and Courante, Sarabande and Gigue) with an added “wildcard” of pairs of Menuets, Gavottes, or Bourées. Rather than hindering expression, this structure seems to enable more creativity to flow, as Bach pushes the boundaries of the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument with each succeeding Suite.

During the heart of the pandemic of 2020, I found comfort and refuge in these Suites. As I began to play them not just individually but as a set, an arch started to emerge, a true Hero’s journey: starting with the innocent 1st Suite in G major, the first taste of bitter disappointment in the d minor 2nd Suite, a renewed optimism in the 3rd Suite in C major, the bold and brash 4th Suite in Eb Major, the dark tragedy of the 5th Suite in C minor, and finally the glorious redemption of the 6th Suite in D Major. My hope in presenting these Suites without repeats is to more clearly illuminate this arch of their presented order so that we may more closely follow this universal storyline. - Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir

REVIEW:

Recordings of Bach’s six Cello Suites aren’t in short supply, so what does this latest new one have going for it? Icelandic-American cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir is known as a contemporary music specialist, returning here to what she describes as “mergur málsins” (“the marrow of the matter” in Icelandic), a constant companion throughout her musical life. Thorsteinsdóttir found solace in the suites during the pandemic and celebrated the 2020 summer solstice by playing each suite in a different church in Iceland’s remote Westfjords region. Thorsteinsdóttir views each work as part of a sequence, “a true hero’s journey” which takes the listener from innocence to redemption, tasting disappointment, optimism and tragedy along the way.

Knowing this isn’t a prerequisite for enjoying the performances, and Thorsteinsdóttir’s poised, lyrical playing makes this set a front runner among recent recordings.

-- The Arts Desk