Mixing iconic choral works with music by some of today's most exciting composers, this varied programme is centred around themes of rest. Joel Thompson's virtuosic new work is a particular highlight: written in 15 parts, A Prayer for Deliverance perfectly showcases Tenebrae's core values of passion and precision. The second half features Herbert Howells' Requiem - surely one of the most moving works in the English choral repertoire. Associated with the untimely death of Howells' young son Michael, the work remained unknown until it was finally published just three years before Howells' own death in 1983.

The three Bartok concertos - Tomas Vrana's exciting debut Bartok as an uncompromising individualist, Bartok as an architect, Bartok as a poet - that could be a simplified characterisation of his three piano concertos; three works that capture in a surprisingly fitting way the stages of the composer's life, from the discovery of his own musical language to refinement and finally his acceptance of the difficult end to his life's journey. The calm and peaceful mood of the most frequently played Third Piano Concerto contrasts strikingly with the relentlessly tempestuous struggle of the First and the lively vitality of the Second. To this day, however, extreme technical difficulty hinders the more frequent performing of these works. The playing of the young piano virtuoso Tomas Vrana, joined on the recording by the Janacek Philharmonic Ostrava and the Hungarian conductor Gabor Kali, definitely goes well beyond mere technical mastery in the works. His debut received high praise from Jean-Efflam Bavouzet: "Apart from it being quite rare to see a pianist so dedicated to such difficult pieces, it is even less common to see a young musician mastering them with such musical intelligence and deep knowledge of the orchestra score coupled with a great sense of rhythm and a masterful technique!" Tomas Vrana also exhibited similar sensitivity and mastery in his use of language - he accompanied his recording with an interesting text for the CD booklet.

Born in Chile, Claudio Arrau (1903-1991) was one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, an artist who was totally serious about his role in life, a man completely dedicated to the music of the great composers who shared his insights and understanding of their work with his public. Where other famous pianists play the piano for excitement, power or display, Arrau plays to probe, to divine, to interpret. Says Arrau, 'An interpreter must give his blood to the work interpreted.' Arrau is definitely not onesided or without spiritual grandeur. Having won particular fame as a great Beethoven interpreter, he is no less celebrated for his Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Brahms and Debussy. Among the famed peers of his generation, it is a range without equal. Located on the campus of Ambassador College in Pasadena, California, the 1262 seat Ambassador Auditorium was a major West Coast concert hall between 1974 and 1995 presenting around 2500 concerts, and attracted the greatest instrumentalists and orchestras. role in the musical life of our ensemble. It's musical complexity and the depth of expression which Mozart achieves through only three voices are seemingly miraculous: it is one of those pieces which constantly rewards rehearsal. One simply never gets tired of playing it! When the opportunity to record this masterpiece arose, we were faced with the challenge of what to play alongside it. Our dear friend Rob Fokkens had written two short movements for string trio which seemed to fit beautifully with Mozart's music: Rob's translucent harmonic and rhythmic style offers unique expressive possibilities. The chance to commission the great Julian Joseph was not to be missed, and his work, Bring it!, wonderfully demonstrates his brilliance and lyricism, and the subtly of his harmonic language. We sincerely hope you enjoy listening to the music on this album as much as we loved preparing it! to Islamic Iberia or the Al-Andalusian era of Spain between the 8th-15th centuries. Yet the fi rst men? on of Flamenco by name is not un? l 1774, where it appears in an epistolary novel, Cartas Marruecas, by the playwright and soldier, Jose de Cadalso y Vazquez. In collabora? on with soparno Victoria Couper, kanun player, Konstan? nos Glynos, and oud/Flamenco guitarist, Ignacio Lusardi Monteverde, this album seeks to explore this ques? on by tracing the infl uences on Flamenco through Arabic music alongside Sephardic song and the Spanish composers of the late-16th to 18th centuries. What happened in these intervening centuries?

This programme focuses on fantasy and pleasure, with three symphonies punctuated by lightness and wit. In addition to ten photos by Magnum photographer Cristina Garcia Rodero, a literary text that appears exclusively on the vinyl edition of the series provides a continuation of the musical experience. Philippe Claudel, President of the Academie Goncourt, here focuses on the pleasure and sensuality of a fleeting youthful encounter: "The third movement of the symphony accompanies us towards the taut velvet of the great lime trees. We are no longer walking through life. We tread upon a dream. And music gives this dream the profundity of legend. [...] I experience my own mythology in this May evening. We lie on the lawn. Our eyes search for each other in the darkness. Our pupils are stars cast into the lofty skies of May. I am not fifteen. I am no longer fifteen. This does not mean anything. Time does not exist."

It was in Stuttgart that Distler first discovered Eduard Morike. He was fascinated by the lyric poetry of the Swabian poet. In the foreword to the Choral Song Book, he emphasized that the "rhythmic power and freedom of movement", "the objectivity of the poetic content, suggestive of old folk song", but also the "ardent subjectivity and stead-fast/ self-reliant character" drew him to Morike. The present recording offers, in it's selection of movements for mixed choir, women's and men's choirs, a cross-section of all the various compositional techniques and stylistic devices which Distler was able to combine so brilliantly.