Multiple Grammy-winning Third Coast Percussion (TCP), praised by NPR for championing "borderless music" and "blurring musical boundaries, " celebrates it's 20th anniversary in 2025 with Standard Stoppages, an album inspired by pioneering conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp's idea of twisting standardized units, with works that redefine rhythmic structures and sonic possibilities. Reflecting on two decades-or a "score"-of music-making, the anniversary gives TCP the space to reflect on their many milestones, collaborations, and steps along the journey that have shaped their work over the years, inspiring the group to commission new works for the occasion. This diverse set of commissions makes for a colorful sonic palette of percussive ensemble works, ranging from Zakir Hussain's traditional Hindustani influence to Musekiwa Chingodza's Zimbabwean song to Jessie Montgomery's western contemporary approach. This project brings together both new and past collaborators; with commissioned works from Jlin and Zakir Hussain, alongside fresh contributions from Jessie Montgomery and Tigran Hamasyan. The late Zakir Hussain and the rich Hindustani and tabla traditions were strong sources of inspiration for Third Coast Percussion, most notably through the commissioned work Murmurs in Time. His unexpected passing between the album's recording and release moved TCP to dedicate this project to his memory and enduring legacy. Drawing from Duchamp's Three Standard Stoppages, TCP's 7th recording for Cedille Records invites reflection on the varying paths that lead to unique creative expressions, both for themselves and their collaborators. Standard Stoppages was produced and engineered by Judith Sherman, Colin Campbell, and Bill Maylone. Tracks 1-4 and 7-10 were recorded November 4-8, 2024, and tracks 5-6 October 1-2, 2024, at Narwhal Studios, Chicago, IL; Track 11 was recorded November 15, 2024, at Rax Trax, Chicago, IL.

Founded in 1841 under the participation of Constanze Mozart, the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg today enjoys the highest reputation worldwide for its lively and style-conscious Mozart interpretations. In numerous ways it connects the Viennese Classical period to the music of the 19th/20th and 21st centuries. The orchestras constant preoccupation with his core repertoire also shapes its approach to the music of later periods. Thus chamber-musical transparency, articulatory clarity and nuanced sonority are a trademark that makes the Mozarteum Orchestra special and recognizable, also when playing the music of other composers. The Mozarteumorchester Salzburg proves once again its unrivaled position as interpreters of the Mozart stylistic and uses the organ sonatas as a departure into other stylistic periods. It Includes two world premiere recordings of Henze‘s "Konzertmusik" and "Three Mozart Organ Sonatas".

The only collected survey of George Benjamin’s
piano music on record, from a Dutch pianist
who specialises in new music and has worked
closely with the composer.
Benjamin was an accomplished pianist as well
as composer from his early years, and it seems
natural in retrospect that his first published
work should be the Piano Sonata he composed
in 1977-8, as a prodigious student of Olivier
Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod. Certain harmonic
touches may mark the sonata out as the work
of ‘a Messiaen pupil’ but the unsettled, leaping
gestural sense of the piece is particular to
Benjamin. So much of Benjamin’s later music is
fascinatingly prefigured here, including a sense
of timing for a gradual accumulation of tension
(‘stormy eruptions’ and ‘savage violence’ in
the composer’s words) that marks out his first
major orchestral score, Ringed by the Flat
Horizon. Underlying that sense of timing is a
feeling for dramatic gesture which has found
its natural expression in a series of operas
written during the last 20 years.
Dedicated to Loriod, Sortilèges (1981) makes
clear its French heritage in the notes as well as
the title, while the three subsequent Studies
for piano, composed over the next four years,
find Benjamin working out intricate rhythmic
problems and their solutions. Even the
Relativity Rag takes a quirky, sideways look at
its superficially familiar material. The next
piano pieces had to wait until 2001, and the
Shadowlines which Benjamin wrote for PierreLaurent Aimard. This set of six canonic preludes
takes Benjamin’s inclination to distill and pare
back to a new level, while the piano writing
itself is richer and more unselfconsciously
informed by the heritage of piano literature.
Finally, there are the Piano Figures of 2004,
written for students of the piano and
accordingly pitched at a technically lower level
than the other pieces, but no less preoccupied
with the rhythmic games and sudden swerves
of thought that are hallmarks of his most
complex music. All these pieces have been
recorded, but never by the same pianist,
making Erik Bertsch’s new collection unique,
and indispensable for any collector of new
music.

Alinde Quintet - a new star in the chamber music heavens At the prestigious ARD Competition in Munich in 2024, the Alinde Quintet emerged as a dazzling new star on the chamber music scene. By that time, they had already earned several notable prizes in London, Copenhagen, and beyond. The players are closely associated with leading Czech and international orchestras, including the Czech Philharmonic, the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. On their debut album, the quintet presents the intimate "inscapes" of four composers. In the works of Haas and Shostakovich, the shadow of war and Nazi ideology casts a profound, even fatal shadow on their inscapes, while Shostakovich and Jan Novak also ran into conflict with Communist dictatorships. Yet all of the compositions reflect distinct personal inscapes, offering glimpses into the lives of their creators. Haas's imaginative quintet bears the unmistakable imprint of his teacher Leos Janacek, who had died just months before the work's completion. Shostakovich's Eighth String Quartet (arranged by Mark A. Popkin) serves as both autobiography and elegy - a dark, haunting inscape tinged with drama. In Peteris Vasks's composition, an ancient Latvian funeral song intertwines with virtuosic passages and aleatoric sections, evoking the heartrending loss of a kindred spirit. Like a contrasting colour on a canvas, the Concertino by Jan Novak brings the album infectious joy, playfulness, and jazzy rhythms, lending radiant colouring to the composer's inscape, which could not be obscured even by the dark clouds of Czechoslovakia's totalitarian regime of the 1950s. Throughout the album, the Alinde Quintet draws on the full spectrum of colours their instruments can offer, vividly painting each composer's inscape.

The Schumann Quartet dedicates its latest studio production "1923" to that year in which new musical paths were sought, found, or questioned, and at the same time, the birth of radio heralded a new age for composers and the dissemination of their works. The CD program combines selected quartet music by Paul Hindemith, Alban Berg, Erwin Schulhoff, and Leoš Janácek.

Alfred Schnittke's film music encapsulates almost everything that characterises the Russian composer's compositional style. A self-described polystylist, he began writing for film in the 1960s, penning 66 film scores between 1962 and 1984 for Soviet film companies. His method of drawing on the past was rejected by the avant-garde but embraced by filmgoers and concertgoers too. Volume six in this CD Edition of Schnittke's film music presents music from the film series "Little Tragedies" (1979) based on popular novels by Alexander Pushkin. After longtime research conductor Vladimir Jurowski also recorded all parts of the score which have been cancelled at the end for the final Film Version.

Carl Orff Carmina Burana Orfeon Pamplones Escolania de Nuestra Senora de los Desamparados Orquesta de Valencia Alexander Liebreich Sara Blanch, soprano Joaquin Asiain, tenor Andre Baleiro, baritone They are one of the most famous and frequently performed works of classical music: Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana". The Latin title refers to a collection of songs from Benediktbeuren dating from the 11th and 12th centuries with texts written in Middle Latin, Old French and Middle High German. Orff chose 24 of these songs, their topics ranging widely from the volatility of happiness and prosperity to the fleeting nature of life, from the joy of the return of spring to the pleasures and dangers of drunkenness, gluttony, gambling, and lust. In June 2024, at the Palau de la Música in Valencia, the Orquestra de Valencia, one of the great Spanish symphony orchestras, together with the leading local boys' choir as well as one of Spain's oldest choirs, Orfeon Pamplones, performed this epic work under the musical direction of Alexander Liebreich. They were joined by soloists Sara Blanch, Joaquin Asiain, and Andre Baleiro. The live recording of this lively and captivating concert evening is now available. Recorded live at the Palau de la Música, Valencia June 2024

The virtuosic Supraphon debut of Jan Schulmeister So far, the career of the Czech pianist Jan Schulmeister has been distinguished by victories at dozens of international competitions (including the 2019 Cesar Franck Piano Competition in Belgium, the 2021 North International Music Competition in Sweden, and the 2022 Manhattan International Competition in the USA), to which he added Third Prize at the prestigious Cliburn Junior Competition (Dallas, USA) in 2023 at 17 years of age. For his Supraphon debut, he has chosen works of the late 19th century by Russian composers, music that is firmly grounded in the national tradition but that often seeks out and remains open to stimuli from the surrounding world. The oldest of them, Mussorgsky, was a loner without any depth of academic training, but he greatly advanced the boundaries of musical expression. In Pictures at an Exhibition, he accompanies listeners at an imaginary exhibition of paintings by his late friend, the painter and architect Viktor Hartmann. Rachmaninoff wrote his lovely cycle of piano pieces Moments musicaux under time pressure while facing a profound existential and creative crisis. His classmate Scriabin, no less brilliant a pianist, chose the path of a visionary and an experimenter as a composer, as we can hear from an early opus he wrote for piano (at age 16), the Etude in C sharp minor, Op. 2, No. 1. His later Five Preludes, Op. 16 (1895) reflect the omnipresent Impressionism of Paris at the end of the century. In this repertoire, Jan Schulmeister can demonstrate all of his qualities - virtuosic technique and depth of musical feeling.

Special concerts reserved for subscribers. Due to the exceptional quality of the concerts and the limited offer, the average waiting time for subscribers is more than 10 years. With this series, these very special concerts are made available for the first time audiovisually to a wider audience worldwide. For this subscription concert, the Wiener Philharmoniker asked a long-time artistic companion to take the podium: more than 140 concerts and a multitude of celebrated recordings connect Christian Thielemann with the traditional Viennese orchestra. The live recording of his debut on the podium at the Vienna Musikverein almost 23 years ago promptly became a reference recording. On the programme then as now: Richard Strauss' monumental Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony). This work, often regarded as the final and climax of the "symphonic poem" genre, is juxtaposed with Arnold Schönberg's probably most famous tonal composition, the orchestral version of the string sextet Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night). Composed in 1899, this highly expressive work by the 25-year-old Schönberg reads, in retrospect, like a swan song to the 19th century. "Schönberg and Strauss rarely sound so grandiose." Kurier "A truly persuasive performance." The New York Times "The 'Alpine Symphony' under Thielemann has long been a Viennese legend." Die Presse Program: Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), op. 4 Richard Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony), op. 64

Special concerts reserved for subscribers. Due to the exceptional quality of the concerts and the limited offer, the average waiting time for subscribers is more than 10 years. With this series, these very special concerts are made available for the first time audiovisually to a wider audience worldwide. For this subscription concert, the Wiener Philharmoniker asked a long-time artistic companion to take the podium: more than 140 concerts and a multitude of celebrated recordings connect Christian Thielemann with the traditional Viennese orchestra. The live recording of his debut on the podium at the Vienna Musikverein almost 23 years ago promptly became a reference recording. On the programme then as now: Richard Strauss' monumental Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony). This work, often regarded as the final and climax of the "symphonic poem" genre, is juxtaposed with Arnold Schönberg's probably most famous tonal composition, the orchestral version of the string sextet Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night). Composed in 1899, this highly expressive work by the 25-year-old Schönberg reads, in retrospect, like a swan song to the 19th century. "Schönberg and Strauss rarely sound so grandiose." Kurier "A truly persuasive performance." The New York Times "The 'Alpine Symphony' under Thielemann has long been a Viennese legend." Die Presse Program: Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), op. 4 Richard Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony), op. 64

Krzysztof Penderecki’s works for (string) quartet neatly encapsulate the stylistic breadth and trace the development of Poland’s most important modern composer throughout his six-decade-long career. From the avantgarde rhythmical study that is Quartet No.1, via an ode to Webern, to the neo-romantic elder Penderecki’s Schubertian Clarinet Quartet, this collection covers all his chamber music for three and four strings, even the early neo-baroque outlier of his Three Pieces adapted from his film music for the steamy 1964 movie, The Saragossa Manuscript.

REVIEW:

From wild child of the experimental avant-garde to luscious neo-Romantic, Krzysztof Penderecki had an unusually profound stylistic transformation across his career. When his string quartets neatly encapsulate that trajectory, written as they were between 1960 and 2016, it’s no mean feat to pull off the entire cycle in consistently convincing and compelling fashion. Yet, that is what the Meccore Quartet has done here.

-- The Strad

Ferruccio Busoni (Empoli 1866 – Berlin 1924) died the same year as Puccini and was born when Puccini was a child, yet he was way more than an opera composer. While he lived several years in Trieste and some time in Bologna, he mainly lived abroad and spent the second half of his life in Berlin. Way more than a composer, he was a wide-ranging artist and musician, an acclaimed concert pianist and sought-after piano teacher, a learned reviser of piano music, and the author of many and varied pieces. Busoni was also an aesthete, an intellectual, a music reformer, and author of texts on musical topics. A child prodigy, he wrote the Symphonische Suite for orchestra at the age of 17.
Nicola Bignami and Lucija Majstorovic brilliantly face the arduous task of performing the two monumental and demanding sonatas for violin and piano that the composer wrote at twenty-four (first sonata) and at thirty-two (second sonata), in which the equal and dialogical relationship between the two instruments combines with a wealth of invention with respect for the great tradition.

Mark Viner’s survey of the complete solo piano music of Alkan continues to turn up discoveries and reveal previously little-known or misunderstood sides of a protean figure in late French romanticism. Viner himself regards Alkan as ‘the most enigmatic figure in the history of music as a whole’.

The sixth volume of his survey focuses not on the grand cycles which have won this series such uniformly glowing reviews, but on sketches and miniatures which demonstrate Alkan’s capacity to charm as well as astound and dazzle his listeners. All these pieces are further illuminated, as before, by his own comprehensive booklet notes. Several of them will be unfamiliar to all except the most dedicated of Alkan connoisseurs.

One of the better known pieces included here, the Toccatina Op. 75, can be counted among Alkan’s finest shorter pieces for the piano, demanding phenomenal dexterity and lightness of touch. At the other end of the expressive scale, Désir is a little fantasy, one of Alkan’s most homely-sounding miniatures, yet still colored by his characteristic use of the ninth.

The latest instalment in this popular series focuses on the life and music of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. Illustrated with some of Mussorgsky’s finest works the biographical narrative includes excerpts from Songs and Dances of Death; Boris Godunov; Night on Bald Mountain and Pictures at an Exhibition.

Théodore Géricault’s larger-than-life painting The Raft of the Medusa has stimulated a great many artists ever since its creation in 1819. Hans Werner Henze and his Librettist Ernst Schnabel were inspired by Géricault and wrote a political oratorio on the painting’s tragic historical subject in 1967. Notable for its harsh and bright sounds, tender depiction of suffering, scathing irony, and gripping dramaturgy, the agitation at the failed premiere lifted the work into the canon of great classical scandals.

1. A Pierre. Dell'azzurro silenzio, inquietum (1985) for contrabass ?ute in G, contrabass clarinet in B ?at and live electronics 2. Das atmende Klarsein, fragmente (1980/87) for bass flute, magnetic tape and live electronics 3. Musiche per Manzù (1969) for magnetic tape (acousmatic version) 4. Roberto Fabbriciani: A "Omaggio a Luigi Nono" (2006) for piccolo, tape and live electronics Roberto Fabbriciani, flutes, piccolo (1, 2, 4) Ulrich Krieger, double-bass clarinet (1) Alvise Vidolin, live electronics, sound direction Alessandro Fiordelmondo, live electronics assistant Luigi Nono (1924 -1990) was a great innovator in the use of spatialization of sound and experimentation with performance space, non-linear time and the collapsing between sound and silence. Beginning in 1959, he distanced himself from serial orthodoxy and the Ferienkurse compositional scene. His new works reflected a concern in political and cultural events and introduced the use of tape and electroacoustic technology. His compositional process was increasingly involved with specific performers, whom he chose for their tone and expressive characteristics. This trust reflects on Nono's interest in collaboration, developing the idea that traditional musical notation is limited and cannot reproduce the complexity of performance he reached with every performer. This recording represents one of Nono's most fruitful collaborations, the one he developed with flutist Roberto Fabbriciani during the 1980s. The track list presented here - selected by Fabbriciani and Alvise Vidolin - explores Nono's music as it is defined by space (and/or the acoustic space) rather than time - the auditory impression of a labyrinthine acoustic environment in which the works seem to ?oat on the threshold of sound and silence and seem to fluctuate from one place to another. The creative process of A Pierre. Dell'azzurro silenzio, inquietum (1985) took place during rehearsals for the ?rst performance of Prometeo. Tragedia dell'ascolto (Venice, 1984). Fabbriciani recalls suggesting to Nono that he should write a work, based on section VIII of Io, frammento dal Prometeo because he felt that the live electronic potential explored in that work had not been completely exploited. The interplay between flute, clarinet and live electronics and their timbral fusion or a continuum of timbre, are at the core of the compositional process. Once the live electronic manipulation of sound moves above the threshold of silence, the listener should no longer be able to detect whether a given sound heard was produced by one of the two performers or reproduced by electronic/digital equipment. Das Atmende Klarsein, fragmente is a reduced version of Nono's work for small choir, bass flute soloist and live electronics. It is the first composition of the 1980s which led to Prometeo and the first outcome of the intense collaboration between Fabbriciani and Nono. In the original piece, Nono composed two distinct worlds, one of choir, the other of bass flute. As they never perform together, the bass flute part later became a solo piece after undergoing changes, cuts and transformations with the various performances by Fabbriciani (this is typical of Nono's work in progress). Musiche per Manzù, for magnetic tape (1969), was created for a short documentary that shows the work that Italian sculptor Giacomo Manzù did to realize the bronze doors of St. Francis church in Rotterdam. Space and spatialization are only illusory in the original version of the work, which antedates Nono's live electronics research. But space is so deliberate here that this piece is suitable to live electronics interpretations. Alvise Vidolin re-interprets Musiche per Manzù using the original mono version published by Ricordi, with a multichannel 5.1 surround sound system. A "Omaggio a Luigi Nono"is Fabbriciani's tribute to his collaboration and friendship with Luigi Nono. The tape part has been recorded by Fabbriciani at the Experimental Studio of the Heinrich-Strobel Stiftung in Freiburg, the same studio where he worked with Nono in his important sound research for a decade. It contains the natural acoustic sounds of the piccolo. It explores this instrument and reflects Fabbriciani's research on extended yet simple sounds. A "Omaggio a Luigi Nono"is also an homage to the last years of their friendship, which culminated in the piece Post-praeludium n. 3 "BAAB-ARR". "We got as far as the Post-praeludium n. 3 "BAAB-ARR", structured on a single note with all it's possible universes. After the performance in the Kammersaal of the Berlin Philharmonie on 4th September 1988 Gigi [Luigi] smiled and said to me, "the next time I'll write less!" (Fabbriciani, 1999). The score is so non-existent and deprived of any meaningful indications to any flutists but Fabbriciani that the Committee for the Edition of the Works of Luigi Nono set up by Casa Ricordi has decided to withdraw it from the catalogue. A "Omaggio a Luigi Nono"by Fabbriciani reflects both his own research on extended techniques, and Nono's reduction to the essential nature of sound and music. The acoustic part interacts with the tape part made with prerecorded piccolo sounds. The assembling, mixing and spatialization of the recorded sounds is conceived by Alvise Vidolin. Liner notes by Laura Zattra.

Quatuor Danel, internationally celebrated for their interpretations of Shostakovich and Weinberg, present Sergei Prokofiev's rarely heard string quartets in a stunning new recording. Prokofiev composed only two quartets, yet these works reveal his genius in crafting masterpieces within a genre he rarely explored. The String Quartet No. 1 in B minor, Op. 50, was commissioned by the Library of Congress during Prokofiev's American tour in 1930. It's intricate textures and unconventional form, culminating in a poignant slow finale, showcase Prokofiev's unique voice and meticulous attention to detail. String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 92, composed during Prokofiev's wartime exile in the Caucasus, integrates Kabardinian folk themes into a vibrant, classical framework. It's lively dances and evocative melodies demonstrate his ability to merge folklore with sophisticated artistry. Completing the album is the Visions Fugitives, a series of fleeting miniatures originally written for piano and arranged for string quartet. This adaptation highlights Prokofiev's kaleidoscopic tonal palette and lyrical depth. Recorded in the Mendelssohn Hall of Leipzig's Gewandhaus in March 2024, this album offers a deeply immersive journey into Prokofiev's "closed world" - a magical blend of drama, intimacy, and innovation that defines his chamber music legacy.

This release brings together ALL of Morton Feldman’s compositions for cello and piano, including unpublished works and a first recording.

Together, these works tell the story of Feldman’s music. They span 35 years — over half his lifetime — from when he was searching for his voice as a student to when he was opening new doors in the last years of his life.

The album is bookended by two realizations of the graphic score “Durations 2” (1960), giving an opportunity to hear what the flexibility of graphic notation can bring.

The “Sonatina” (1946) is the earliest work here, and a first recording. Displaying the influence of Béla Bartók, Feldman wrote for the cello sound he loved without fully understanding the realities of playing the instrument. The resulting solo part is naively virtuosic and often even impossible to play. For this recording, Stephen Marotto keeps as close as possible to the written score, aiming to fulfill what Feldman heard in his mind’s ear.

By 1948, Feldman had been studying privately with the composer Stefan Wolpe for several years. The unpublished “Two Pieces,” from that year is a fluctuating music held together not by logic, but through its carefully poised gestures — what Wolpe called “shape.” While the emotional drama of this and other early works would soon disappear from Feldman’s music, it was above all the idea of “shape” that remained with him for the rest of his life.

In 1950, Feldman met John Cage, who shepherded him into the world of the New York avant-garde. The unpublished, compact “Composition for cello and piano” (1951) is a sudden breakthrough, yet it already contains the DNA of his very last works in its minimal material and blurred memories of sounds.

“For Stockhausen, Cage, Stravinsky, and Mary Sprinson” (1972) is an ephemeral, unpublished piece, a shard of music broken off from the main body of work Feldman was producing at the time. It consists of just two musical moments separated by silence — the same chord expressed in two different ways.

At almost 1 hour and 29 minutes, “Patterns in a Chromatic Field” (1981) is one of Feldman’s late, long-duration works, and it is perhaps the best known of the works recorded here.

Liner notes by Samuel Clay Birmaher.

Ryan Chan, the First Prize Winner in the 2024 National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance, sponsored by the American Guild of Organists, is featured on his debut release on the Pro Organo label, entitled "Paris Milieu." His all French program spans 3 centuries, with standard organ literature and virtuosic organ transcriptions, performed upon the new Juget-Sinclair pipe organ in the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Richmond, Virginia USA.

October 2024 marks the 80th anniversary of the death of composer Viktor Ullmann - an occasion to focus on his artistic legacy and his unshakeable belief in the power of art. As early as 1918, while stationed at the Italian front, Ullmann was intensively occupied with Rainer M. Rilke's "Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke" (The Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke). This work accompanied him all the way to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he created an impressive melodrama from it in 1944. The Austrian pianist Senka Brankovic and the actor Helmut Mooshammer present Cornet Rilke's experiences in the war against the Turks, in which he finally meets his death, as a complete original narrative with Ullmann's music, including the passages omitted from Rilke's text by Ullmann. Today, in a time of fragile social conditions, his work reminds us once again of the everlasting importance of art and humanity.

The double bass is the instrument through which I express myself in it's purest form. I feel that creating this album is my way of expressing gratitude to it. It is essential for me that everything has meaning. By taking the sonata form as the guiding thread for the album, I have meticulously assembled the pieces, as if they were a puzzle. Each of the works holds great significance for me, representing an important part of my relationship with music. The sonata is the structural form that has been widely used in European classical music since the mid-eighteenth century. Therefore, given that Johannes Brahms, especially his sonatas for violin and piano, has had the most significant impact on my musical life, I wanted to pay him a small tribute.

Under the title ODYSSEY, the French-Dutch violinist Cosima Soulez Lariviere and the Austrian pianist Philipp Scheucher lead us through a legendary world, as it were, beginning with Karol Szymanowski's "Myths" op. 30. The three movements "Arethusa", "Narcissus", "Dryads and Pan", which are strongly influenced by Impressionism, refer to motifs from Greek mythology and are considered a milestone in the duo repertoire for violin and piano due to their various innovative playing techniques. The following two-movement Sonata in E-flat major op. 11 No. 1 by Paul Hindemith is also influenced by Impressionism, although Hindemith's very specific, simple and "classical" musical language clearly shines through at all times. The Sonata for Violin and Piano by the American composer John Corigliano from 1962/63 captivates with it's diverse moods, which are underlined by impressively virtuoso as well as lyrical or complex rhythmic elements. The final piece is the breathtaking "Aria" by his compatriot Kevin Puts, described as a "master of polystyle", who has enjoyed great success in recent years with his latest opera "The Hours".

In 1907, Florent Schmitt composed music to accompany a ‘mimodrame’ danced by Loïe Fuller, La Tragédie de Salomé. His score is bursting with colour, energy, and voluptuousness – and also with oriental influences stemming from his travels to Morocco and Constantinople, where he discovered the howling dervishes. The final scene features the heart-rending ‘Chant d’Aïça’, an oriental melody sung by a soprano. This music, though bold and modern for the listeners of 1907, nonetheless aroused the admiration of another composer, Igor Stravinsky, to whom Schmitt dedicated the Symphonic Suite he subsequently derived from the work. However, Alain Altinoglu, at the helm of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra of which he has been Music Director since 2021, has chosen to record the original version of this landmark of early twentieth-century French music. The beautiful Chant élégiaque, in its 1911 version for cello and large orchestra, completes this programme.

In this, the final volume of his landmark survey of the piano works of Elisabeth Lutyens, pianist Martin Jones presents further world premiere recordings from this undeservedly neglected composer. Featuring works from across the span of Lutyen’s career, the earliest works to be included on this album are the short pieces Overture, Berceuse, Barcarolle and Dance Souvenance from 1944. The unpublished Holiday Diary from 1949, Helix from 1967, and Three Books of Bagatelles from 1979 complete the set.

Spanish percussionist Noè Rodrigo is one of the most talented musicians of his generation. Having performed all over Europe and the US at most major concert halls and festivals, he has premiered more than 50 pieces by composers of over 20 nationalities. His interpretations of the percussion “classics” have been described by critics and audiences as highly virtuosic, technically impeccable and musically complex while featuring a large palette of colours. With PARAULES, (Words) Rodrigo brings to life seven works by essential composers of the XXth Century: Xenakis, Sciarrino, Mantovani, Denisov, Spanish music never before recorded (Torres and Vallejo) alongside more recent pieces (Borzelli). Seventy minutes where the young artist is able to show a stunning versatility, embracing every aesthetic with intelligence and accuracy, aiming for unique interpretations. If in the beginning music was a verb, like singing, shortly after it became percussion: initially, doubling the prosody of the voice; later, introducing a growing range of rhythms and colours that have made it the most heterogeneous, surprising and multicultural of all the instrumental families. In Sciarrino’s words (PARAULES): 'a wooden percussion instrument can hardly sing, but at the same time I wonder if it cannot speak, shout, moan or murmur’.

One of Gubaidulina's special merits is that at the end of the 1970s she discovered the sound characteristics and expressive possibilities of the bayan, a button accordion that had previously only been popular as a folk music instrument in Russia, and established it as an instrument of contemporary music through numerous inspired compositions. She was supported and accompanied in this endeavour by bayan performers such as Friedrich Lips in Moscow and the Swiss Elsbeth Moser, who taught in Hanover. The creation of the Triple Concerto for violin, cello and bayan can be traced back to a suggestion by Elsbeth Moser. For the five movements of the duo composition Rejoice! For violin and cello (1981), Gubaidulina chose various quotations from the writings of the Ukrainian 'travelling philosopher' Grigori Skoworoda (1722-1794), who called for poverty and self-deepening as a prerequisite for finding God. The composer explained: "The theme of my work is the metaphorical representation of the transition to another reality, expressed through the juxtaposition of normal sound and harmonics." Due to the unmistakable religious references it was not possible to premiere the work until 1988 and the premiere took place in Finland.

Hardly any combination of instruments is more appealing than a string quartet and a clarinet; together they make a magical melange. The Hagen Quartet and Jörg Widmann have recorded Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, a 'work among friends', in this irresistible blend. Jörg Widmann, clarinettist and composer in equal measure, picks up on the omnipresent themes of 'floating, love, and chant' in Mozart's notes and creates a weighty counterpart to Mozart's popular work with his own clarinet quintet, which is available here in a world premiere recording.

Métier presents a landmark 4-disc box set from pianist Ian Pace in commanding performances of music by composer Michael Finnissy (b. 1946). Finnissy is widely regarded as one of Britain's most important living composers. Pace, one of the leading interpreters of Finnissy's work, presents an album focused around Finnissy's epic cycle for piano, The Verdi Transcriptions, alongside the second complete recording (after the composer's own) of the iconic English Country-Tunes, and works inspired by music of the late-18th and 19th centuries. The result is a broad view of Finnissy's extensive output of piano music in relation to Romantic aesthetics. The album is released in anticipation of the Métier label's upcoming celebrations of Michael Finnissy's 80th birthday in 2026. Finnissy's four-book cycle of Verdi Transcriptions reimagines Verdi's operas through a modern lens. As Finnissy states in his liner notes: "Transcribing sound into a written form (notation) involves making significant choices. The choices can color the ongoing exploration of that sound as 'composition.'" The result of those choices is a monumental, late-Romantic epic. Finnissy's English Country-Tunes has long been considered one of his signature and most technically demanding cycles. There is a similar line of composition through transcription as The Verdi Transcriptions, only in these works the source material is English folk music. Written in celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee, the work can also be seen as a commentary on the spirit of British patriotism at the time. Ian Pace's readings reflect decades of study: he first performed English Country-Tunes in the 1990s and has played Finnissy's complete piano oeuvre in cycles (1996 and 2016). The set includes extensive liner notes by both Pace and Finnissy, offering rare insight into the compositional ideas and performance choices behind these demanding works. In Pace's recording of Michael Finnissy's other epic piano cycle, The History of Photography in Sound (MSV 77501), BBC Music raved: "Pace's intimate acquaintance with the totality of History is apparent in his commanding performance... this is a magnificent achievement for both composer and performer," and Gramophone hailed Pace as "Finnissy's David Bailey, each note shaded to perfection, structures translucently and sharply lit, defining sonic images of our time." Incomparable virtuoso, called the Paganini of the harp, Félix Godefroid was also a composer and teacher. This recording, performed by Sophie Hallynck, highlights the composer's studies in high virtuosity. Designed for his own use and that of professionals, they partake of both "absolute music" - as with the deservedly famous Étude in B-Flat Minor, Op. 193 - and the character piece, picturesque or sentimental. These musical miniatures are pieces overflowing with musicality in a refined style, but they express a pedagogical program first and foremost. Godefroid conceived of his études as a true school for harpists. Each technical problem becomes the medium for a musical expression - an approach that gives these études exceptional richness and relevance. Often based on one of those melodies for which Godefroid had such a knack, each one is set apart by a strongly marked expressive character, ranging from laughter to tears, as well as by it's structure, rhythm, novel sonorities, and harmonic surprises not lacking in audacity. Sophie Hallynck has risen to the technical challenges specific to each étude while staying faithful to the spirit of the era, with the aspiration to achieve a subtle balance between virtuosity and expression. Her essential objective has always been to make technique live through music, without ever obscuring that emotion that emanates from it. Shostakovich composed music for film throughout his life, from his teenage years as a pianist accompanying silent films in Leningrad until the early 1970s. New Babylon provoked a political and artistic storm upon it's release in 1929 but remains one of Shostakovich's finest film scores, performed here complete and uncut. Popular favorites The Gadfly and Hamlet are heard in premiere recordings of the complete scores. Also included is the music for Alone, The Girlfriends, Love and Hate, and The Fall of Berlin in premiere recordings that have garnered international critical acclaim. "This composer of the New Complexity movement admires avant-jazz. He also digs 19th-century classics. So, when adapting Verdi, he does it via the spirit of Cecil Taylor. Near the midpoint of Finnissy's "La Traviata" potpourri, you'll find dense fireworks as well as tenderness deriving from a motif Verdi once assigned to Violetta." - Seth Colter Walls, NYT

Mauricio Kagel "a"

En reaction aux resonnances neo-classiques qui dominaient le paysage musical francais de l'apres Seconde Guerre mondiale, quelques compositeurs - emboitant le pas au groupe Jeune France (Messiaen, Jolivet...) - ambitionnerent de mettre en lumiere les grandes figures de la tradition moderne, Webern, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Berio et quelques autres. Pierre Boulez fut sans aucun doute le plus celebre representant de cette nouvelle orientation. Compositeur mondialement reconnu, pedagogue, initiateur et directeur de nombreuses institutions (Ircam), il fut egalement l'un des plus respectes meneurs d'orchestre, mettant sa baguette au service du repertoire de son temps. Christophe LOINTIER & Patrick FReMEAUX. In reaction to the neoclassical resonances that dominated the French musical landscape post-World War II, a few composers - following in the footsteps of the 'Jeune France' movement that included Messiaen and Jolivet - made efforts to throw light on the great figures of the modern tradition, namely Webern, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Berio and a few others. Pierre Boulez was no doubt the most famous of this new orientation's representatives, a world-renowned composer and teacher who initiated and directed numerous institutions such as the Ircam for example. He was also one of the most respected conductors to wield a baton over the repertoire of his day. Christophe LOINTIER & Patrick FReMEAUX