For his tenth Avie release, Daniel-Ben Pienaar advocates for the little-known French composer Gaspard Le Roux, by re-imagining his exquisite "Piece de clavessin" from 1705 (his only publication) for it's first ever recording on the modern piano. By turns pleasing, witty, brilliant and affecting, the complete collection makes for a diverting and balanced recital. For his tenth Avie release, Daniel-Ben Pienaar advocates for the little-known French composer Gaspard Le Roux, by re-imagining his exquisite "Piece de clavessin" from 1705 (his only publication) for it's first ever recording on the modern piano. By turns pleasing, witty, brilliant and affecting, the complete collection makes for a diverting and balanced recital.

SOMM Recordings is thrilled to collaborate once again with the Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman piano duo following their highly praised six-volume recording of the nine symphonies by Beethoven arranged for piano duet by Xaver Scharwenka-about which International Piano says, "These readings afford unmitigated pleasure... The articulation and voicing of the players persuades us into thinking we're in the middle of an unleashed virtuoso orchestra." Now, these award-winning South African-born artists present music for two pianos and piano duet from their adopted country, highlighting works by Gustav Holst and Edward Elgar. In the early 1910s, Holst became interested in astrology, and he conceived the idea of a suite for orchestra based on the solar system's individual planets. Originally, he composed�The Planets on the piano, using the instrument in his newly-built, sound-proofed room in the music wing at St Paul's Girls School as well as the piano at his home in Thaxted. This version for four hands, two pianos was scored by two of his colleagues at St Paul's, Vally Lasker and Nora Day, who acted as amanuenses, because Holst suffered intermittently from painful neuritis in his right hand. Following the resounding success of the orchestrated version of The Planets, the original piano duet score was overlooked, though it was eventually published separately in 1949-51. In 1979, Holst's daughter, Imogen, reissued the complete two-piano arrangement in one volume, and Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman perform this version here. Elgar's renown was such that, at the height of his fame, several established musicians were commissioned by publishers to make piano transcriptions of his orchestral music. This was no mean feat, given that Elgar's scores are scrupulously marked as to how he wanted every phrase-sometimes even every bar or note within that phrase-to be played. It was the composer, arranger, and conductor, Otto Singer II, who made the transcription for piano four-hands of Elgar's 1905 Introduction and Allegro, scored originally for solo string quartet and string orchestra. Singer's insight and skill are evident in techniques like transferring string double-stopping to spread keyboard chords, and his piano four-hands version is admirably true to Elgar's evolving contrapuntal and harmonic ideas. In Victorian England, the marriage of a tradesman's son to the daughter of a Major-General in the British Army, who was eight years his senior, might not have appeared a perfect match. Yet, the marriage of Edward Elgar and Caroline Alice Roberts turned out to be a love-match. In 1888, as a wedding present, Edward presented to Carice, as he called her, Salut d'Amour. This enduring melody has inspired numerous arrangements for widely varying instrumental combinations, including this one for piano duet.

A bundled release will have some risks and side effects compared to successive releases of a series of works. Here one can proceed cautiously from album to album, preparing oneself for what is to come and comparing the new material with alternative recordings. In contrast, the 'complete package' demands exclusive listening, which may result in astonishing discoveries and entirely new insights - as Lena Neudauer and Paul Rivinius demonstrate here with their Beethoven violin sonatas. How much Schubert and Schumann are not hidden in these works? Where does the "Rage over a lost penny" come into play? Is swing really a child of the 20th century? Why does a precise, light accent balance out every rough one? After more than four hours of music, the duo has painted a conclusive portrait. Those who wish may make comparisons

On February 1, 2025, Ivan Repusic, chief conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra, directed Boris Papandopulo's 1942 Croatian Mass for soloists and a cappella choir in Munich's Prinzregententheater with the Bavarian Radio Chorus. BR-KLASSIK is now presenting this outstanding interpretation of the impressive sacred composition on CD as a live recording. The Croatian composer and conductor Boris Papandopulo (1906-1991) worked as a choirmaster, conductor and opera director in Split, Rijeka, Zagreb and Sarajevo. He created more than 400 compositions, spanning almost every genre. Although of Greek origin, Papandopulo was deeply rooted in the Croatian musical tradition, and his broad stylistic spectrum extended to neo-classicism, jazz, pop and folk music. His works combine elements of Croatian folk music with twelve-tone music and demand a high level of virtuosity. Papandopulo completed his training in Zagreb and at the New Conservatory in Vienna, spending the majority of his life in Croatia. The Croatian Mass is a sacred work in the spirit and style of centuries-old Croatian vocal music as well as being a practical choral composition. It is composed without orchestral or organ accompaniment, as Croatian choral music is almost exclusively sung a cappella. Papandopulo composed the mass for the First Croatian Choral Society Kolo, which he directed from 1928 to 1934 and again from 1938 to 1946. He completed his Croatian Mass in 1938, and it premiered in Zagreb on April 1, 1942, performed by the Croatian Choral Society Kolo under the composer's direction. Although the Croatian translation of the Roman Catholic liturgy gives the work a certain national flavour, the piece is primarily influenced by the tradition of old Dalmatian church hymns. Composed in a polyphonic style, it's syllabic and diatonic text settings are generally characteristic of Croatian vocal music.

The composer, violinist and conductor, Hugo Alfven (1872-1960), is a kind of national composer in Sweden. His tonal language is very much romantic nationalism and his period of glory ranges from the late 1890s until the mid-1920s. He was active in all imaginable genres, such as symphonic works, chamber music, choirs, solo instruments, and his many songs are still widely performed today. Several songs are available in different arrangements, partly for voice and piano, partly with orchestra in different settings. The great majority of the orchestral song versions presented on this album are first recordings, performed by a dream team of singers: Kerstin Avemo and Sabina Bisholt, sopranos; Tobias Westman, tenor; Karl-Magnus Fredriksson, baritone. The Goteborg Opera Orchestra is conducted by one of Sweden's foremost conductors, Patrik Ringborg.

Following his recent heroic Met debut as Hermann in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, Arsen Soghomonyan makes his solo recording debut for Delos. A fast-rising figure in the dramatic repertoire, the Armenian tenor has enjoyed success at major opera houses such as Bayerische Staatsoper, Teatro di San Carlo, Bolshoi Theatre and Staatsoper Wien. In his album Bridges of Voice and Soul, Arsen lends his powerful voice to some of the greatest Italian arias; "Nessun dorma" and "E lucevan le stelle" by Puccini, Verdi's "Niun mi tema" and "Vesti la giubba" by Leoncavallo are some of the delights that comprise this operatic feast, enlivened by the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra and conductor Constantine Orbelian.

The deliciously erotic aspects of the text of the Song of Solomon inspired a great many composers during the 17th century, although it remains curious that even the strictest Lutheran composers could not resist setting it to music. The majority of Hammerschmidt's pieces on this text are written for soprano or tenor voices; these obviously represent the two protagonists, the beloved and the lover. This programme is built around these works, creating an entertainment - a small sacred opera -in which evocations of love or sensual dialogues are framed by dances and instrumental pieces. Works by Andreas Hammerschmidt, Johann Vierdanck, Dieterich Buxtehude, Thomas Strutz and others.

Edward Cowie is one of the most notable voices in contemporary music and considered by many to be the "leading contemporary composer of music that is related to the natural world" (Fanfare). A remarkable polymath, Cowie is renowned as a composer, visual artist, and natural scientist. Because They Have Songs is the fourth in Cowie's epic series of duo-works featuring cycles of stunning 'sonic portraits' of birds he has encountered on his travels across the world, exploring the relationships between the bird singers, and where and how they sing. It follows three highly acclaimed releases featuring birds of the UK (Bird Portraits MSV 28619), Australia (Where Song Was Born MSV 28620) and the US (Where the Wood Thrush Forever Sings MEX 77104), each highlighting 24 distinct bird species. This latest release, the fifteenth to feature his music on the Metier label, is devoted to 24 avian wonders of Africa. The title of the album is taken from a traditional African text which says, "Why do birds sing? Because they have songs". Edward Cowie went on safari to remote parts of Botswana, across dense bush and open plains where giraffe, wildebeest, zebra and antelope roam, through vast wetlands, majestic rivers and lakes, and shrub-dotted deserts. On his journey he sketched what he saw (included in the album booklet) and transcribed the natural sounds of insects, the noises of animals in movement, and the magnificent and powerful voices of African birds in all their moods and colours. The result is a vibrant and awe-inspiring interweaving of not only the sounds of singing creatures but also the rich environment in which they sing. The album has revelatory performances from Gerard McChrystal, justly hailed as a "magician" on saxophone, partnered with Richard Shaw's superb craftsmanship on piano, a comprehensive coupling of technique and imagination. Cowie's earlier albums in the bird song sonic portrait series received resounding praise worldwide and are poised to become iconic chamber masterpieces on the global stage: "You may well be thinking 'but Messiaen has already done it'. But Cowie's approach is gentler, almost more loving." -MusicWeb "imaginative, captivating and really very moving" -The Strad "Cowie is an endlessly inventive composer and this is a treat" -BBC Music Magazine

As the founding father of Finnish music, Jean Sibelius is the measure of all things to such an extent that an outside observer may easily miss the abundance of talented masters who also practiced the art of composition quite successfully in the land of a thousand lakes. One of them was Erkki Melartin. Not ten years younger than the composer of Finlandia, he also left us a significant oeuvre that repeatedly begs a comparison to his older colleague - of course, it is a comparison whose results are subject to debate. To be fair, we can discover a phrase here or there that reminds us of Sibelius; occasionally, some of Mahler's vocabulary may have sneaked in as well; but the persona whose legacy is six mighty symphonies has blazed his own independent trail away from the Romantic tradition, leading us relentlessly to an unheard cosmos.

Metier 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. The result is a broad view of Finnish's extensive output of piano music in relation to romantic aesthetics. The album is released in anticipation of the Metier label's upcoming celebrations of Michael Finnissy's 80th birthday in 2026. Finnissy's four-book cycle of Verdi Transcriptions re-imagines 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 colour 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 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 ass "Finnissy's David Bailey, each note shaded to perfection, structures translucently and sharply lit, defining sonic images of our time."

Donizetti's Don Pasquale is one of a triumvirate of 19th-century Italian opere buffe - L'elisir d'amore and Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia being the others - that continue to enchant the world's stages. Don Pasquale represents the high point of the opera buffa tradition, employing figures taken from commedia dell'arte - the blustering old man, his lovesick nephew, the wily widow and the scheming doctor - and brings new life to the genre in this beautifully constructed comic opera full of cabalettas, cadenzas and coloratura, gently tinged with melancholy. This production employs a new critical edition of the work and stars the seasoned baritone Roberto de Candia in the central role, alongside Giulia Mazzola as Norina.

SOMM Recordings is immensely proud to present newly restored releases of Siegfried Wagner (1869-1930) conducting the music of his father, Richard Wagner (1813-1883). These recordings of the younger Wagner leading the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, the Berlin State Opera Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra were made soon after the introduction of the electrical recording process in April 1925. The painstaking audio restoration of these recordings by long-time SOMM collaborator, Lani Spahr, has been so expertly and stunningly achieved that it is difficult to believe they come from a century ago. Siegfried Wagner was named for the young hero in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle and immortalized in the Siegfried Idyll, included on this release. He was born to Richard Wagner and his future wife, Cosima (nee�Liszt), on 6 June 1869. Although Siegfried considered following a profession outside music (and, as a youth, studied architecture in Berlin and in Karlsruhe), it was inevitable that he would follow a career in music given the lineage of both his parents and his grandfather, Franz Liszt. In addition to receiving instruction in music from Liszt, the thirteen-year-old Siegfried began his advanced musical studies in Frankfurt with Engelbert Humperdinck, a true disciple of Richard Wagner. Siegfried became an assistant at Bayreuth in 1892, immersing himself in his father's music under the strong influence of Cosima Wagner and the conductor Hans Richter. In 1895, he made his debut at Bayreuth conducting a complete Ring cycle. The debut was a considerable artistic success, and Siegfried's future as the true guardian of the Wagner inheritance was assured, as he took a greater share in the direction of the Bayreuth Festival. With Cosima's full endorsement, Siegfried assumed the general directorship from his mother in 1908. Siegfried's busy professional life was devoted in the main to Bayreuth in the 1920s, but it was also during this time that he began a recording career devoted almost exclusively to his father's and his own works. Apart from his evident qualities as a conductor of his father's music-heard here in the recorded legacy he left of his performances at Bayreuth and in Berlin and London-he was equally keen to establish himself as a composer. The first of his twelve completed operas, Der Barenhauter (Bearskin) inspired by the German fairytale, met with public and critical acclaim when it was produced in 1899. The acoustic recording of the overture is heard here. Among the Richard Wagner works conducted by Siegfried Wagner on this historic release are well-known selections from Das Rheingold and Die Walkure from the Ring Cycle. Also included are a suite from Parsifal and selections from Tannhauser, Lohengrin, and Tristan und Isolde.

Donizetti's Don Pasquale is one of a triumvirate of 19th-century Italian opere buffe - L'elisir d'amore and Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia being the others - that continue to enchant the world's stages. Don Pasquale represents the high point of the opera buffa tradition, employing figures taken from commedia dell'arte - the blustering old man, his lovesick nephew, the wily widow and the scheming doctor - and brings new life to the genre in this beautifully constructed comic opera full of cabalettas, cadenzas and coloratura, gently tinged with melancholy. This production employs a new critical edition of the work and stars the seasoned baritone Roberto de Candia in the central role, alongside Giulia Mazzola as Norina.

On the path to true faith and it's practice to please God, there have been regular heated debates over the role of music. Reactionaries repeatedly closed the lid on excessive cheer. This was also the case in the Netherlands of the 17th century. The reformist spirit of the Frenchman John Calvin led to an almost complete ban of music during worship services, despite the fact that the psalms of David ("Sing unto the Lord") provide unassailable proof to the contrary. Shortly before 1600, the great Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck discovered how these psalms could be, and were permitted to be, set to new music. The "Orpheus of Amsterdam" succeeded in transforming imposed restrictions into acoustic wonders. Our small selection of psalms, alternating with several organ works, proves once again the victory of the spirit over heavy subject matter

This Ondine debut album by the award-winning Lithuanian mezzo-soprano Justina Gringyte, one of the foremost rising stars of the opera world, and pianist Malcolm Martineau is her first solo album and the complete recording of Georges Bizet's (1838-1875) long-forgotten masterpiece, Vingt Melodies (20 Songs), Op. 21. Year 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of the death of Bizet, one of the greatest French composers of all time. During his short career of little more than twenty years Bizet composed a substantial quantity of music, including 15 operas. Bizet has been compared with Mozart in his sensitivity to the human voice and understanding of it's expressive potential. Several of Bizet's operas predate his twenty songs Opus 21, written between 1854 and 1872. Anyone new to these songs, a collection including many masterpieces, may wonder how music of such consistent quality could be so neglected! Clearly, they must be ranked among Bizet's most representative works.