This anthology of unknown American violin sonatas - the first of a series - reveals music of astonishing craftsmanship and energy. All three composers - Henry Holden Huss, Henry Schoenefeld and Rossetter Gleason Cole, born less than ten years apart - went to Germany to study before returning to enrich American musical life at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The sheer confidence of their writing in these sonatas, for both violin and piano, in a bold Brahmsian style indicates how much more fine music still has to be discovered, in the output of these three men and from their 'lost generation' of American composers more generally.

The Amelio Trio, which won the German Music Competition in 2024 and is currently taking the world's stages by storm, has been chosen as one of the ECHO Rising Stars of the season 2026/27. In collaboration with Deutschlandfunk, the German Music Council, and GENUIN, the young piano trio now presents a seamlessly crafted album: The trios by Charles Ives, Ludwig van Beethoven, Ursula Mamlok, and Johannes Brahms flow into one another, forming a musical bridge that spans centuries and continents. Birke Bertelsmeier's "vertrautes angezogensein" (familiar attire), composed especially for this album, recapitulates all the previous works and brings the journey full circle - chamber music at it's highest level!

Christmas simply wouldn't be Christmas without the iconic voices of The Sixteen providing a soundtrack to the season. Celebrated for collections that provide an alternative to the customary festive offerings, this new album from the world-renown choir is no exception. No other festival in the Christian year has inspired so many composers and such a variety of musical styles as Christmas. The Wise Men and the Star features a veritable cornucopia of yuletide music from the premieres of three new works to traditional carols including Away in a manger and In the bleak midwinter, and modern classics such as Eric Whitacre's Lux aurumque and Mykola Leontovich's Carol of the bells. This new album promises something for everyone.

As a Japanese cellist, Michiaki Ueno wishes to introduce the world to the remarkable body of music composed in his homeland. At first glance, this might seem like a conventional statement - something anyone might say. Yet, when we consider his background, the words take on a different weight. Born in Paraguay (1995) and raised in Spain during his early years, Michiaki Ueno was captivated at the age of four by a video of Yo-Yo Ma. He received his first cello as a Christmas gift when he was five - marking the beginning of his musical journey. For someone like Ueno, Japan was both his homeland and a distant, unfamiliar place. "I never really thought deeply about Japanese culture," he reflects. "When Europeans spoke kindly about Japan, I was embarrassed to realize how little I actually knew." As he matured, Ueno found himself increasingly compelled to confront and contemplate his cultural identity. Unlike those who grow up immersed in Japan and take it's environment for granted, Ueno approached it as something external something to be consciously examined, understood, and deliberately chosen. It is perhaps through the very act of performing works by Japanese composers that he engages in this thoughtful process of selection.

Star-violinist Christian Tetzlaff, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor John Storgards present in this album two major British violin concertos written between a century, in 1910 and 2005. Elgar's passionate violin concerto, completed in 1910, is a classical-romantic violin concerto in three movements. This huge and highly emotional work was in the wake of modernism neglected for several decades before entering into standard concerto repertoire. Here Christian Tetzlaff follows the model of the early recordings of Elgar's concerto with substantially quicker tempos compared to most modern recordings, and having a great influence on the impact of the piece. Ades' violin concerto 'Concentric Paths', is already a modern classic and no doubt one of the most important concertos written during this century. With it's very demanding violin part the work has all the elements of a true concerto, allowing the soloist to sing with his instrument. The beauty of this music lies that everything is written so clearly.

Lux Stellarum (Light of the Stars) is a short requiem for choir and organ, written for Zach Ullery, Andrew Dewar, and the choir of the American Cathedral, Paris. Along with texts by Marjorie Pickthall and John Donne, Lux Stellarum interpolates a number of biblical passages about stars and the universe.

Paul Ben-Haim ranks among those leading Israeli composers from his generation. Born Paul Frankenburger in Munich he studied composition with Friedrich Klose and served as an assistant conductor to both Bruno Walter and Hans Knappertsbusch. His extensive catalogue comprises works in all the primary genres apart from opera. Music for or with cello features prominently throughout Ben-Haim's output. Following emigration, he increasingly advocated a specifically Jewish national expression while his own compositions favoured a late-Romantic vein redolent of - though by no means indebted (unlike other contemporaries) to - Ernest Bloch and frequently informed by Middle-Eastern overtones.

While Pygmalion, Rameau's emblematic work, reveals the passion of a sculptor in love with his creation, Pierre Iso's Zemide reveals the gentle tyranny of Love, weaving an allegory in which even the fiercest hearts yield to it's power. Like Galatea awakening under Pygmalion's gaze, this vibrant programme of Baroque passion comes to life under the inspired direction of Reinoud Van Mechelen, offering a spectacle where music and sentiment intertwine in dazzling symphonies.

For her first project at Cypres, young Belgian pianist Cassandre Marfin thinks big and has come up with Jusqu'a la nuit, a triptych devoted to chromesthesia, one of the many forms of synesthesia known to date. Synesthesia refers to the general alliance of two senses within the brain of an individual. Chromesthesia, on the other hand, refers specifically to the association between colours and sounds. Each volume of this trilogy is dedicated to a primary colour: blue, yellow and red. This first volume focuses on blue, which is undoubtedly the colour most present in music and the one most appreciated in the Western world. According to Cassandre Marfin, it evokes the world of night and dreams, something intangible and indefinite. It is a source of multiple representations in our imaginations. Through a skilfully conceived programme, the pianist associates this colour with ideas, metaphors and compositional systems that allow us to form our own personal impression of blue.

The three works on this recording bear witness to the changes that took place at the dawn of musical modernism. The reappraisal and reinterpretation of traditional musical genres and innovations led to new ways of organising and addressing the harmonic, melodic, timbral and rhythmic elements of music. Polish composer Karol Szymanowski developed a highly personal musical language that prioritises tone colour, an approach that is perfectly suited to the triptych Mythes, inspired by legends from ancient Greece. Here he developed a new mode of expression, a fusion of the violin and the piano into a single entity with the use of extended violin techniques. The Hungarian Bela Bartok assimilated Szymanowski's contribution and composed his two sonatas for violin and piano in quick succession at the beginning of the 1920s. These two works, as daring as they are demanding, skilfully blend the influence of contemporary composers such as Debussy and Schoenberg with elements of Central European folklore. Frank Peter Zimmermann, whose recent recording dedicated to Bartok's two Rhapsodies and Stravinsky's Violin Concerto (BIS-2657) has received international critical acclaim, performs these landmark works with pianist Dmytro Choni, his regular partner since 2023.

Led by it's Director Matthew Martin, The Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, joins forces with the Academy of Ancient Music in Michael Haydn's rarely heard masterpieces: the Requiem and Missa Sancti Hieronymi. The four soloists are all ex-choral scholars of Caius Choir, showcasing the distinguished musical tradition of this student group. Unjustly neglected, Joseph Haydn's younger brother was a talented composer in his own right. Written after the death of his infant daughter and his patron, the deeply emotional Requiem is a masterpiece that combines complex colourful textures and forms with imaginative orchestration and vocal writing. Mozart was a great admirer and it is thought that Haydn's Requiem formed the prototype for his own better known masterpiece. In contrast, the later Missa Sancti Hieronymi is lighter and more optimistic. Unusually scored for oboes, bassoons, trombones and continuo (with no upper strings), it exudes transparency and joyful energy. This recording will undoubtedly put these neglected works back into mainstream repertoire.

Internationally celebrated as both a soloist and conductor, Florian Krumpock has more than proven his outstanding capability in the international concert scene. "Forget Lang Lang and Arcadi Volodos. There are highly virtuoso keyboard tigers in Austria too", was the verdict of the daily newspaper "Die Presse" on the pianist's solo debut at the Vienna Konzerthaus. On this album, Florian Krumpock presents two of Robert Schumann's seminal works Fantasiestucke, Op. 12 and Symphonic etudes, Op. 13 both deeply intertwined with his great love and future wife, Clara Wieck. The album's title, "Between Eusebius and Florestan", alludes to the alter egos Schumann frequently invoked during this period: opposing personas that profoundly influenced his work as both a music critic and a composer. This recording of the Symphonic etudes includes five posthumously published variations, with the finale drawn from Schumann's 1852 revised version.

The final volume in a new groundbreaking and much-praised complete symphony cycle of Ferdinand Ries' (1784-1838) symphonies by the Tapiola Sinfonietta and conductor Janne Nisonen includes the composer's two final statements in the symphony genre. Like most of his symphonies, also Ries' Symphony No. 6 was premiered in London in 1822. His 7th Symphony, written a decade later, remained in the shadows and was published only in 2004. Both works, however, are full of discoveries.

Pier Paolo Scattolin's eclectic compositional style, which developed in parallel with his assiduous activity as a choir conductor, reaches an important stage in this discographic production with a sacred and spiritual character, in contrast to his last CD Suoni e rime sparse published in 2021 and centred on profane poetic inspiration. Indeed, it is all sacred themes (both historical and original) that form the backbone of these 5 meditations, which see the executive use of a great variety of instruments and ensembles, with the inclusion of timbral peculiarities provided by harmonic singing and Tibetan bells. The Euridice Choir of Bologna in it's various ensembles is once again the protagonist of the vocal parts, flanked by the Circe ensemble and exceptional soloists to whom the author dedicates first performances, both recordings and concerts.

On Lines and Traces of Desire, composer Mischa-Salkind Pearl collaborates with cimbalom artist Nicholas Tolle on this collection of solo, duo, and ensemble works for the beguiling stringed percussion instrument. These mystical, reflective pieces celebrate the cimbalom's resonant qualities, and honor the eminent composer Gyorgy Kurtag, whose music provided Tolle the inspiration to dedicate himself to the instrument.