Variation5'' is the title of the wind quintet's eponymous debut album - and variation5 is an ensemble if five very different characters, musicians who as winners of first prize in the ARD Music Competition are united by one thing: rather than cling to traditional performance practice and repertoire, they create new and exciting programmes and present them in their own cheeky, youthful, laid-back manner. This first joint album of theirs gives the five musicians the chance to present modern 20th century classics for wind ensemble. They push atonal preconceptions to one side; the works are catchy and offer auditory variety as well as a relaxed balance of sound such as has rarely, if ever been heard before. The five wind musicians - Magali Mosnier, Ramon Ortega-Quer, Sebastian Manz, David Fernandez Alonso and Marc Trenel are anything but your typical ''classical-music nerds''. The assumption that a wind quintet represents an exceptionally difficult combination is one they can confidently debut: they are so well attuned to one another that their instruments fall into harmony with one another and sound, when played together, almost like an organ. That gives the ensemble a unique authority of its own.

Composer Tristan Murail is without doubt one of the most significant figures in European contemporary music circles, known best perhaps for his being a close follower of Messiaen (his teacher was Jeanne Loriod) and one of the prime instigators of the field of spectral music. Murail says this: ‘Early on, every young composer is confronted with an already existing musical universe. Should he accept it, play according to established and consensual rules, or instead, try to stretch or even break away from them?” His answer is generally, to develop new soundworlds arising out of the old and to concentrate not on the serialism fashionable when he was young, but the essential musical sound, investigating new playing techniques and creating a genre practically his own. Marilyn Nonken’s recording of his complete piano music, issued in 2005, remains one of the regular best sellers in the Metier catalog. This new album reflects on his encounters with Schumann and culminates in his re-interpretation of Kinderszenen where his restrained arrangement stays close (but not too close) to the original – it is also a first class set of performances by a stunning cellist. Marie Ythier is a remarkably fine cellist for whom this is the 5th album. She plays repertoire form all periods, but is particularly interested in new music. She has collaborated with many leading composers, holds several teaching posts and has received numerous prizes. Her playing is assured and deft, equally at home in the Romantic and the avant-garde.

During the late 18th century, compositions for string trio with a wind instrument were extremely popular in amateur circles; and in keeping with this highly fashionable trend, Mozart composed four quartets for flute and strings while on a tour of France and Germany with his mother. The 22-year-old composer had lately made the acquaintance of a solo flautist, Johann Baptist Wendling, who was in contact with a rich flute-playing patron. A handsome fee was offered for some concertos and quartets – more than Mozart’s annual salary as a court musician back at home in Salzburg – and so he set to work, completing the first quartet, K385, on Christmas Day 1777. The other works here may have been composed later – perhaps Mozart ran out of enthusiasm for the project – but they all count as examples of refined chamber music conceived for skilled amateur players and domestic consumption, While hardly as complex a showcase of Mozart’s compositional skills as the string quartets he dedicated to Haydn, all four quartets abounding in gentle wit and good humour, and written not as mini-concertos for flute and string trio but as chamber music for equal partners. Every now and then Mozart touches the sublime, as so often he could, such as the slow variation movement of K285b, which recalls the similar movement in the ‘Gran Partita’ wind serenade in its weightless gravity of expression. This new recording of the quartets offers a substantial bonus, in the shape of the Oboe Quartet K370 arranged for the ensemble at hand. The performances are led by the Italian flautist Andrea Manco, who in 2003, at just 20 years old, became principal flute of the Teatro Regio orchestra in Turin under the directorship of Gianandrea Noseda.

By the early 19th century, Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) had already become watchwords amongst classical composers and in the classical music world. Their compositions were widely known and highly appreciated from the onset of their careers and are worshipped among the best, even today. The quartets featured on the present album stand out even from the rich output of chamber music works of these two masters: they are characterized by exuberant energy, diverse colors and are full of imaginative musical ideas.

Compared with his immense vocal composition output (most of which remains to be rediscovered), the quantity of instrumental music composed by Alessandro Scarlatti would almost seem hardly worth the mention. + Yet the selected compositions on this double-disc set are immensely important, in that they allow immediate assessment of Scarlatti’s style, then nearing creative decline, which appears to be suspended between the glorious contrapuntal tradition and beautiful melodies that look decidedly towards the future. + Enrico Casazza leads the Accademia della Magnifica Comunità.

With her Navona debut I Close My Eyes In Order To See, accomplished Canadian flutist Sara Hahn demonstrates her exceptional sensitivity for emotional nuance coupled with great virtuosic capability, but most of all: the healing power of music itself. Hahn, currently the Principal Flutist for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, is rightly known for her refined and beautiful tone, and I Close My Eyes In Order To See indubitably attests to this. But extraordinarily, there is even more to Hahn's musicianship: An exquisite ability to get right into the heart of a composition. No doubt this is in part due to the highly personal selection of pieces: The album's eponymous opening track, I Close My Eyes To See, was dedicated to Hahn by composer Arthur Bachmann, written to commemorate her mother's hard (but eventually successful) battle with cancer. Indeed, the compositions of this album center around perhaps the greatest, and most universal, challenge of the human condition: overcoming Fate's hardships. In this spirit, the individual musical pieces represent emotions such as fear, sadness, the desire to bargain, and depression and anger are reached with the help of mental fortitude and spirituality – all culminating, inspiringly, in acceptance and optimism. Sara Hahn's interpretation of these wildly diverse sentiments is nothing short of riveting and, towards the album's cheerful conclusion, supremely uplifting. In this sublime feat, pianist Laura Loewen and alto flutist Sarah Gieck, who both accompany with fitting delicacy, add great musical depth. I Close My Eyes In Order To See is an aesthetic feast for the ears, no doubt; but its true strength lies in having encapsulated not only a timeless constant of the human experience – suffering – but also a viable, feasible way to overcome it.

Navona Live is proud to announce the release of INDIANA COLLECTANEA, which celebrates and preserves composer Michael G. Cunningham’s residency at Indiana University School of Music from 1969-1973. This live recording of Cunningham’s work comes on the heels of his acclaimed album ECUMENICAL SPIRIT from Navona Live earlier this year. This latest release captures a significant moment in time, when Cunningham’s work helped channel the talents of 30 burgeoning musicians. In INDIANA COLLECTANEA, Cunningham expands his palette beyond traditional tonality, painting with chromatic, timbral, and rhythmic nuances. The work opens with Prisms, a four-movement piece in which dense tone clusters shift and refract among the strings like a kaleidoscope. This is followed by Polyphonies, a wild-eyed percussion piece that manipulates instrumental timbres to an exhilarating effect. As the album progresses, each piece is a surprise to the listener’s ears, with its unique assortments of instruments and sounds jolting the audience into new appreciation. The frenetic horns at the start of Concertant are further evidence of this. The penultimate track, Scenario, is particularly inventive, opening with a prelude of ethereal bells. Each musician is assigned to multiple instruments, showcasing both their own skills and that of their composer. Lastly, the album ends with the dramatic Noetical Rounds, which concludes with a soft, descending glissando into oblivion. Despite the decades that have passed since the performances on INDIANA COLLECTANEA, each piece is as startlingly fresh as it was the day of its performance. Listen to hear this collection of talented musicians pushed to their utmost by the challenging and thoughtful compositions of Michael G. Cunningham.

Kalevi Aho is one of today’s most prolific composers of large-scale orchestral scores, including 17 symphonies and 32 concertos to date. Less well-known is the fact that he has also written chamber music, as well as an ever-expanding series of solo pieces – starting with Solo I for violin from 1975, the most recent in the series, for clavichord, is the 17th. Some of these pieces has originated as part of Aho’s preparations when composing a concerto for the instrument in question, while others have been written for competitions, including Solo III for flute and Solo IV for cello on the present release. This first volume of Solos gathers seven pieces in all, four of which have previously appeared as part of separate discs. Aho’s Solos share the characteristic that they pose great technical, interpretative and often also physical challenges to the performer. Most of those heard here are performed by the musicians for whom they were written, including Hiyoli Togawa (Solo XII), Piet Van Bockstal (Solo IX), Simon Reitmaier (Solo XIV) and Marie-Luise Neunecker (Solo X).

This twelfth release in the Toccata Classics exploration of the music of Ferenc Farkas (1905–2000) once again puts his chamber music with flute in the spotlight – here with an oboe chaser. As with previous albums in this series, the music highlights the characteristics that make Farkas’ music so appealing: catchy tunes, transparent textures, buoyant rhythms, a fondness for Baroque forms and a taste for the folk-music of his native Hungary that marks him out as a true successor to Bartók and Kodály. The works in this recording are all reworkings – by Farkas or the two soloists here – of music first written for different forces and now taking on a new lease of life.

Throughout his lifetime, Antonio Vivaldi – a composer of many lyric operas – penned an enormous corpus of works encompassing countless concertos, sonatas, and sacred music. In his concertos and chamber sonatas, Vivaldi reveals his wonderful melodic talent with both deep and elegant allure. The concertos and the sonata of Antonio Vivaldi offered here are seldom performed and recorded. Recorder virtuoso Maria Giovanna Fiorentino leads I Fiori Musicali. “(IFM is) of Europe’s leading baroque ensembles.” (Journées Baroques sur Vienne)

How would have Bach composed if he had had access to modern instrumentarium: a violin with Tourte’s bow that produces a higher volume of sound, a trumpet with an entire chromatic scale or a contemporary grand piano? Would he be inspired by the art of virtuosos of today, such as the Leipzig ensemble of Collegium Musicum, as he was known to have composed for distinguished artists? Would he forgive pop or computer game composers for using his music? How would he judge changes in the key of pieces, which played a vital role in the intellectual and emotional rendition of music according to Baroque rules? Or else, would he adjust to the vibe of our epoch and make use of samples instead of real performers? In any case, he would definitely appreciate the interpretations by Jaroslaw Nadrzycki, Krzysztof Kaczka and L’Appasionata, a Verona-based chamber orchestra. The energy that these young musicians display while playing Bach’s pieces would certainly match the composer’s spirit. If we observe Bach’s portraits for which he would pose in a dignified wig as we listen to his grand music, we might think that Bach was a placid and serious man. Yet not once did his contemporaries have to cope with his fits of anger or turbulent character; on the contrary, he must have also been high-spirited and humorous, which we may deduce from his numerous pieces.