Bernhard Romberg (1767-1841), a German composer much admired by Beethoven, was a great innovator in the cello technique. His Sonatas for harp and cello op.5 are a rare example of music for such combination of instruments. The musical material is distributed evenly between the two instruments. The writing, for its time, is to be considered at the limit of virtuosity.

Two classical masterworks arranged for Cello Quintet. The Ying Quartet and Zuill Bailey have been collaborating for years to bring listeners the popular standards. With this release, they hope to explore repertoire beyond the common and reimagine works as their own. This release includes a world-premiere recording of the Schumann arrangement, Cello Concerto in A Minor.

Very often discussions regarding the composer Christoph Graupner (1683-1760) places him in comparison with J.S. Bach. If one has heard of Graupner, it is usually the bit of trivia that he was offered the Leipzig Thomaskirche cantor position before Bach. Of particular interest, however, is the vastness of extant material Graupner composed. There are scores for over 1,400 of Graupner’s church cantatas. Forty-seven of these are for solo bass voice with a variety of instrumental pairings. One can assume that the majority of these works were written for the bass (and composer) Gottfried Grünewald (1665-1739), whom Graupner knew in Leipzig and with whom he worked at the opera in Hamburg. Grünewald served as the vice-capellmeister in Darmstadt under Graupner from 1713 until his death. In addition to the forty-seven solo bass cantatas, Graupner also wrote seventeen duet cantatas for soprano and bass. Alongside the staggering number of cantatas, Graupner composed a wealth of instrumental music including keyboard works, more than 100 sinfonias, and a canon with 5,626 inversions.

The sheer volume of this relatively unexplored repertoire is thrilling but also overwhelming, making categorization of Graupner’s overall musical style problematic. This recording, featuring cantatas and instrumental works composed between 1720 and 1745, offers the listener an introduction to Gaupner and an important, if small, piece in the larger puzzle that is Graupner’s life and work. It premieres Graupner to a wider music world largely ignorant of this talented and nearly unknown Baroque composer by baritone Michael Hix, Chair of the Department of Music at the University of New Mexico, praised by critics for his “expressive voice” and “commanding stage presence”, and whose research has brought Christoph Graupner to light through this album.

Sonate a Quattro are the brilliant compositions from Italian composer Gioachino Rossini, written during the summer of 1804 at the young age of 12. These works, at the time, were commonly performed by wind quartet and it wasn’t until 1954 when the original manuscripts were discovered in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. showing their original arrangement for string quartet. The world premiere recording of Rossini: 6 Sonate a Quattro features two of Canada’s most respected and beloved performers - Mark Fewer (violin), and Joel Quarrington (bass) - and two of North America’s rising stars - Yolanda Bruno (violin), and Julian Schwarz (cello) and produced by JUNO award-winning producer John D.S. Adams. These performances, from November 2017, were recorded in collaboration with the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance using the newly released (2014) Critical Edition published by the Fondazione Rossini Pesaro.

Clarinettist Bernhard Röthlisberger and pianist Benjamin Engeli return to the Musiques Suisses label and are joined by violinist Fióna Kraege and cellist Milena Umiglia, in an album of mostly world premiere recordings. The artists write: “The genesis of the present album is closely linked to that of the Swiss Clarinet Music album (Musiques Suisses NXMS 7002) that we recorded in the summer of 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, as a reaction to the lockdown. Further scores had come to light in the course of researching that project, which have hitherto been largely ignored. Five of these works, by Johann Carl Eschmann, Paul Juon, Richard Flury and Paul Müller-Zürich, are brought together here. What they all have in common, regardless of the dates of composition, which span a century, is that their musical idiom is deeply rooted in Romanticism and late Romanticism.”

REVIEW:

All of the works here share a musical idiom that is deeply rooted in Romanticism. The surprising harmonic turns of Eschmann's pieces are reminiscent of Schumann and Mendelssohn, while Juon (the trio is from 1901) has been described as "the missing link between Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky". Flury's trio was written in 1950 to mark the 25th anniversary of Radio Bern, and Müller-Zürich, one of the most significant figures in Swiss 20th-century mystical life, demonstrates the utmost technical refinement in his 1937 quartet.

-- Records International

Japanese musicians have often taken the connection between man and nature as their theme and award-winning composer Toshio Hosokawa stands strongly in that artistic lineage. His Horn Concerto ‘Moment of Blossoming’ imagines the solo instrument as a lotus flower and the orchestra as the cosmos. The theme of the blossoming lotus continues in the piano concerto Lotus under the moonlight and in the songful Chant for cello and orchestra, influenced by Shômyô singing (the ceremonial music of Japanese Buddhism). The Horn Concerto was co-commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam and London’s Barbican Centre.

“This Scordatura Album is the second In Memoriam album in honour of my son Dorian. It features two illustrious masterpieces written for cello in alternative, darker tunings: the Bach Suite with the top string lowered by a whole tone and the Kodály Sonata with the two bottom strings lowered by a semitone. Both pieces are fierce, resilient and profound and although painted in dark colours, they comfort us with their show of sheer musical power and luminous inventiveness.” Stark statement of repertoire filled with personal significance and universal beauty. Unparalleled preformance of Kodály's sonata for cello solo. Pieter combines intense energy and emotional connection in his interpretation of the pieces.

John Rutter writes: “Revisiting this 1993 Cambridge Singers recording, I realize I should never have withdrawn it from the Collegium catalogue – and all because of an obscure musicological question in my mind over a Gregorian chant, long since resolved. We assembled a stellar team of forty voices, offering a sumptuous programme of music for multiple choirs, with the dazzling Tallis 40-part motet as the centerpiece. Allegri’s Miserere, now a firmer audience favorite than ever, and the most magnificent of Bach’s six motets, Singet dem Herrn, are among the other choral masterpieces featured on an album that truly is a banquet of voices. For the first time, modern digital sound restoration has allowed the music to be heard in its full sonic splendor, and we are confident the album will once again take its place in the treasured family of Cambridge Singers recordings.”

The electrifying and long-standing collaborative partnership of Tasmin Little and Piers Lane returns to Chandos for this double-album featuring Schubert’s complete works for violin and piano, combined with the ‘Arpeggione’ Sonata and the Adagio in E flat for piano trio, all highly emotive masterpieces.They are joined by cellist Tim Hugh, ‘a musician with compelling insight into the creative urge behind the notes’ (The Times). Gramophone praised this duo’s album (CHAN 10749) for the artists’ ‘complete understanding and spontaneity’ and ‘moments of true musical virtuosity’.