This is Volume 4 in Centaur's integral edition of the Complete Pieces de Clavecin of Francois Couperin, performed on harpsichord by Mark Kroll. Mark Kroll has made a specialty of Couperin throughout his long and distinguished career. Mark Kroll has performed on four continents as a harpsichordist and fortepianist, in both solo recital and as a collaborative chamber musician. Highlights include an appearance as the official guest of the city of Barcelona; featured soloist in Germany’s Regensburg Early Music Festival, France’s Festival Ambronay and the Bordeaux Hummel Festival; two concerts for the Czech Republic’s Prague Spring Festival; and recitals at Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation, Rome’s Conservatorio Santa Caecilia and Associazione Musicale Romana, Poland’s Dni Bachowski, and Slovenija’s Radovljica Festival. This recording was made on a 1974 William Dowd harpsichord at Brooks Concert Hall, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, and a 1769 Pascal Taskin harpsichord in the private instrument collection of Marlowe A. Sigal, Newton Centre, Massachusetts.

Gary Schocker has composed some of the greatest works for flute of the past half-century. Included on this new release are his Sonatas for Flute and Piano Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9, performed by Leslie Neighbor Stroud. Leslie Neighbor Stroud, flute, received her Bachelor’s degree in Flute Performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Music where she was a student of Britton Johnson (National Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) and Timothy Day (San Francisco Symphony Orchestra). She has also studied with Lois Schaefer (Boston Symphony Orchestra), Walfrid Kujala (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) and Mark Sparks (St. Louis Symphony Orchestra) and baroque flute with Suzanne Stumpf (Musicians of the Old Post Road), as well as participating in the master classes of Gary Schocker, Julius Baker, Bonita Boyd and William Bennett. Leslie currently performs with the Pentangle Arts Orchestra, BarnArts Festival Orchestra, Pro Musica Vermont, Guilford Music Festival Orchestra, Cameo Baroque (a period instrument ensemble), Buttonwood Wind Quintet, the Richard Faith Ensemble, and the Sterling String Quartet. She has performed with New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, The Plymouth Philharmonic, New Bedford Festival Theater, the Tri-County Symphonic Band, the Buzzards Bay Musicfest, the Savannah Symphony Orchestra, the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the Peabody Wind Quintet, the Bellemore Ensemble of Baltimore, the Mozart Festival of Alameda, and the Trinity Chamber Concerts of California.

Noted for her wonderful integral recording of the complete Debussy works for solo piano, Larissa Dedova now brings us an equally wonderful recording of the complete solo piano works of Maurice Ravel. For over 30 years Larissa Dedova has appeared in solo and chamber recitals in concert halls throughout the world at such venues as Carnegie, New York, Kennedy Center, Washington DC, Great Hall of St. Petersburg Philharmonic, St. Petersburg, Sumida Triphony Hall, Tokyo, Teatro Ghione, Rome, and many more. As a soloist, she has played with famous orchestras, including St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Kiev Philharmonic, Orchestre de Chambre de Budapest, Moscow Philharmonic and Estonian State Symphony Orchestra, among many others. The lyricism, romanticism, and virtuosity of Ms. Dedova’s performances have brought her love and affection of audience and critical acclaim. Commenting on Ms. Dedova’s performance of the D-minor Brahms Concerto with Fairfax Symphony, the Washington Post described it as “performance that went straight to the heart of the music.” Larissa Dedova holds both Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts Degrees in Piano Performance from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory where she studied with Lev Oborin and Evgeny Malinin.

If you take stock of all the lieder composed by Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, Mahler, Strauss, Debussy, and of course, Schubert, you will note that the majority are slow, meditative, contemplative. Virtuosity is not an essential part of the equation in the lied genre, at least not in the sense of rapid vocal coloraturas or thundering piano passages. The song automatically comes with a text included, and this opens up another world entirely. This has musical implications as well. In Schubert’s case, a great poem whose verses convey a striking message is provided with a magnificently sensual musical frame that allows the text to exude a powerful influence on the listener. “Wandering,” or, better yet, “strolling” through nature is part of the very essence of the Romantic poet, with all his loneliness and longing. He contemplates nature, he listens to the silence, he describes inner emotional states. “Wandering” could also imply a sort of movement, but in Schubert’s lieder we are actually dealing with an individual subject who is moving, “wandering” through the time allotted to him on this earth. We are confronted with a series of snapshots, doubts, and fears. Whenever Schubert depicts the inner emotional state of the soul, he is always honest and truthful. This is Andre Schuen’s third album. His first two have been rave-reviewed all over the globe. Schuen counts as one of the young stars in the world of vocalists, and not only participates in the highest level of festivals, but also in the world’s biggest opera houses.

Alexander Krein was a Russian Jewish composer who lived and worked during the twentieth century. The piano works featured on this new release date from the early parts of his career. Also included are pieces by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, who was a Soviet composer of Polish-Jewish origin. The sonata included here was composed in 1955. The Ukrainian-born pianist Anastasia Seifetdinova has performed extensively in the United States and Europe. She has appeared in the Weill Recital Hall in New York City, the Bolshoy Hall of Moscow Conservatory and many European festivals. She was first prize winner of the International Piano Competitions in Rome and in Puigcerda, and received her musical education in Kiev at the Lysenko School of Music with V. Vorobyov, in Wurzburg at the Hochschule fur Musik with Silke-Thora Matthies and at the Hartt School of the University of Hartford with Oxana Yablonskaya. She is currently pursuing a Doctoral Degree in Hartford and is active as her teacher's assistant. She is a recipient of the Musical Club of Hartford's Evelyn Bonar Storrs Scholarship.

Jan Kraybill- Sonic Splendor! Her amazing pipe organ performances give new dimensions to beloved orchestral favorites. In the 19th and early 20th century, organists of exceptional artistic skill developed organ transcriptions of orchestral music into a true art form. Each of the works on this disc is spectacular in its original form. To create "The Orchestral Organ", we have chosen works of many different composers, adapted into organ transcriptions of the highest artistic order. These transcriptions are not intended for comparison with, or replacement of, the original orchestral versions. In presenting them we are offering fascinating new dimensions for these compositions, whether familiar or new to the listener. Within the pieces are a variety of tone colors and compositional details that exhibit the remarkable abilities of organist Jan Kraybill, and showcase the spectacular Julia Irene Kauffman Casavant Organ at the Kauffman Center’s Helzberg Hall in Kansas City.

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REVIEWS:

Kraybill's performance has a nice balance of verve and control. The overall impression is of joy and pleasure in the music, which flows from her understanding and touch. Her selections allow her to explore various moods and emotions, which is always quite pleasant. The progression of the album shows a sound sense of movement.

– Poaitive Feedback (David W. Robinson)

The recorded sound is thrilling. The Julia Irene Kauffman Casavant 102-rank organ at the Kauffman Center’s Helzberg Hall is big and brawny, the performances precise and committed, and the label has done their usual audiophile magic. The lower pipes of the organ are very deep, and will test your system.

– Audaud.com (Audiophile Audition)

Claudio Abbado (1933-2014) was one of the outstanding personalities in the history of the Berliner Philharmoniker. He made his debut with the orchestra in 1966 and was their chief conductor from 1990 to 2002. In May 2013, their unique partnership ended with Claudio Abbado's last concert with the orchestra – a “triumph”, in the words of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The programme included two of the most important works of musical Romanticism: Hector Berlioz's visionary Symphonie fantastique and Felix Mendelssohn's magical, shimmering music for A Midsummer Night's Dream. After the highly-praised first release of the concert, the edition is now available in a new, lower-priced version on 2 CDs/SACDs which can be played on any CD or SACD player. The hardcover digibook contains a booklet with many illustrations and extensive accompanying texts.

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REVIEW:

The Symphonie Fantastique is dark and youthfully overwrought in general, and it's marvelous. There are also many fine moments in the Mendelssohn, where Abbado did not let the work's overfamiliarity worry him in the least; the gossamer overture got the concert off to a strong start, and it never really declined. Strongly recommended.

– All Music Guide

In celebration of Claude Debussy's Centenary in 2018, the French pianist Vincent Larderet presents a recording of three masterpieces: Images (Book I), Pr�ludes (Book II), and the world premiere recording of Andr� Caplet's transcription of the Symphonic Fragments from Le Martyre de saint S�bastien, revised and completed by Vincent Larderet. Following three highly acclaimed recordings that won 23 awards worldwide and were nominated for the prestigious ICMA Award, ARS Produktion presents an 80-minute album by a pianist whose interpretations have been compared to legends of the piano such as Michelangeli, Arrau and Zimerman and who was praised for his "astonishing range of pianistic colours" (PIANO News, Germany). Mr. Larderet is the Artistic Director of the Piano au Musee Wurth international festival in France, and in 2014 was appointed "Honorable International Artist-In-Residence" of the Hong Kong Music and Performing School.

For the first volume of this series of seven albums, Gergely Ittzes has selected seven sonatas representative of the flute music of the 18th century. The works are played on modern flute but informed by authentic performance practice. Original obligato keyboard parts are played on piano while continuo realizations are performed on harpsichord. The players have aimed at an analytic, though spontaneous, rendition. Gergely Ittzes won several prizes and awards including the Aleksander Tansman International Competition of Musical Personalities. Alex Szilasi and Anthony Newman join Ittzes on the keyboards.

For L’Invisible, like his other two most recent operas Bernarda Alba’s House and Medea, Aribert Reimann has turned to a text of world literature, adapting it himself as his own librettist. With it, he returns to his “home” opera house the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Four of his stage works were commissioned by that opera house and the world premiere of his new, ninth opera was also given there. It was staged by Vasily Barkhatov, one of the most interesting Russian directors of his generation, who made his debut at the opera house on Bismarckstraße after having worked at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre and the Mariinski Theater in St. Petersburg. The premiere was conducted by the Principal Conductor himself, Donald Runnicles.

Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, which premiered at Lindenoper/ Berlin in 1925, is regarded as one of the key music compositions of the 20th century and an essential work in any connoisseur’s collection. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck, which was left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's play on May 5, 1914, and knew at once that he wanted to base an opera on it. From the fragments of unordered scenes left by Büchner, Berg selected fifteen to form a compact structure of three acts with five scenes each. He adapted the libretto himself. On this release, the Frankfurt Opera, under the baton of Sebastian Weigle, delivers a razor-sharp and exciting interpretation. With Audun Iversen and Claudia Mahnke in the main roles the recording shows an ideal cast.

With a terrific cast including Maria Bengtsson and Katharina Magiera, and under the baton of Sebastian Weigle, OehmsClassics and Opera Frankfurt bring back to live a nearly forgotten jewel of comic opera in the 19th century. After the premiere at the Viennese Karntnertortheater in 1847, Friedrich von Flotow's Martha or The fair at Richmond became for nearly half a century one of the most popular operas in Europe. Full of charming melodies and with a plot as hilarious as racy, the story of bored Lady Harriet Durham and her friend Nancy, who disguised themselves as Martha and Julia and travel to the servant's fair of Richmond, where they actually not only find a job, but also true love, is an enchanting example for the 1850's civic opera and also Friedrich von Flotow's wonderful light hearted music. After "Der Graf von Luxemburg" OehmsClassics is happy to continue the collaboration with Opera Frankfurt with this remarkable recording.

Born on 20 October 1957 in Jasienica, Andrzej Dziadek is a composer who, as one of few contemporary Polish artists, refers to the Romantic tradition. Andrzej Dziadek, after graduating from his studies under the supervision of J�zef Swider (Academy of Music in Katowice) and Francis Burt (Hochschule f�r Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna), developed a brilliant artistic activity, presenting his works at many prestigious festivals. The present album featuring the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice and the Polish Radio and Television Choir and Symphony Orchestra in Krak�w contains works created over the span of almost 30 years, which prompts the listener to reflect on a series of musical transformations that were gradually taking place in the composer's musical language.

Reminiscence of the Future, Sonatas for accordion is one of the few albums presenting original literature for a concert accordion. Among numerous emerging musical projects, it is certainly a unique one, showing the sound qualities of this instrument and extremely valuable works, until now undiscovered in the world of classical music. In each of them, it is the above-average dose of content that plays the supreme role. The programme content of each sonata is closely related to the fate of a given composer. What connects the composers present on this album is the experience of the hardships of creating in the authoritarian regime. Adam Maksymienko is one of the most prominent accordionists of the young generation, a laureate of numerous competitions, and an artist with considerable stage performance achievements even at such a young age.

Regarded as a luminous, elegant and extroverted artist, Judith Jáuregui has become one of today’s most captivating young pianists. She has already recorded works by diverse composers and periods: from Debussy, Liszt and Mompou to Albéniz, Granados and Falla or Scriabin. She now joins the catalogue of ARS PRODUKTION with an album that is her first live recording to be published and a repertoire to which she feels a special connection. Born in San Sebastian, Spain, she has been linked to different cultures since her childhood: with a Basque mother and a father who is Mexican by birth and French by adoption, Judith took her first musical steps in her hometown and would finish her studies in Munich, Germany, with the Russian maestro Vadim Suchanov.

A recording of the series devoted to Krzysztof Meyer 's works includes his latest chamber music. Born in 1943, the composer has worked out the original style of 56 years of creative work, combining modern means of expression and intellectualism with a traditionally understood narrative of music influencing the emotions of the listeners. Three sound performances on this album are excellent examples of this. The virtuoso piano quartet abounds in contrasts and changes, the atmospheric String Quartet falls on its background in a much quieter, expressive climax brings the Quintet to four saxophones and piano , unexpectedly reminiscent of the last Bach to chant. These works are, of course, performed by some of the finest ensembles and chamber musicians in Poland.

For music lovers, some numbers are inextricably linked to a particular composer or genre: with Beethoven, it is 32, the number of piano sonatas with opus numbers. Three sonatas in minor keys have been selected from opuses comprising several independent works by Tam�s �rdi, of whose playing Zolt�n Kocsis said: "His touch on the keyboard is far more sensitive than that of sighted people. In his playing, in certain dynamic ranges there is a sensitivity that for us is simply not possible. I would go so far as to say that this ability could be gauged as Chopinesque." Pianist Tam�s �rdi lost his eyesight as a result of an oxygen overdose in a defective incubator. His interest in music was discovered at a very young age. His teachers use a unique method called "the structural method" to teach Tam�s play the piano, whereby he virtually "recomposes" the music he is introduced to.

The present recording constitutes more than just a new version of the Vespers. It is the first recording of the Vespers in the alternative version proposed by the composer, without concertato instruments. It reveals the underlying matrix of the work we all know, the 'original version' to which Monteverdi added concertato instruments for use in large-scale performances. Respecting the structure of the Office of Vespers, Ludus Modalis has chosen to frame the psalms with the antiphons corresponding to a Marian ceremony. The interpretation proposed here is one influenced by the Renaissance tradition. It places the work in perspective in a musical world at the point of equilibrium between prima and seconda prattica, between the achievements of tradition and the contributions of modernity. Ludus Modalis is a professional ensemble of five to twelve singers formed around the tenor Bruno Boterf. The group focuses principally on polyphonic Renaissance and early Baroque repertoire, with incursions into contemporary music. Apart from the absence of a conductor in the standard sense, the ensemble's specificity and it's 'sound blend' are the fruits of thoroughgoing attention to the parameters of a cappella polyphony: the development of an intonation aimed towards achieving a clarity of harmonic intervals; the attention paid to the text on the basis of the declamation and historical pronunciation; and the richness of the sonority achieved through the use of a variety of vocal timbres and colors, as well as a subtle mix of female, male, and even children's voices.

The piano-ballade is Chopin's invention, and, at the same time, the most individual and poetic genre of romantic piano literature, the purest manifestation of the romantic aesthetic. The four Ballades, conceived at the peak of his compositional career, are telling their tales in quite unique formal designs, all different from one another. Chopin's free improvisations, (improvisations: "impromptu") were seemingly "piano pieces" without genre; individual pieces for performance, longer than the nocturnes but shorter than the ballades or scherzos. "His compositions were all but pale shadows of his improvisations,' wrote Georges Sand. The highly-regarded Hungarian-born pianist G�bor Farkas has, in the decade since winning the International Liszt Piano Competition in Weimar alongside the coveted Audience Prize in the same competition in 2009, come to be recognized internationally as a wholly exceptional artist.

Tatiana Chernichka writes of her new release: “The 24 Etudes of Frederic Chopin have a special place in the literature for the piano. These concert etudes are among the most difficult and most original of all works for the piano, and no pianist can resist coming to terms with at least several of them. The foundation of my journey as a pianist, as well as to my connection to the 24 etudes, was laid already before my birth. Born into a family of musicians from Novosibirsk, I represent the fifth generation of pianists. My mother, Olga Volchkova, was an outstanding pianist who studied under Heinrich Neuhaus and Yakov Zak at the Moscow Conservatory. Upon graduation, she was appointed to the faculty of the Conservatory in Novosibirsk, where she taught, lived, and became a mother. My mother was the first person in Novosibirsk to perform all 24 etudes in concert. In November 2014, I repeated this with a performance in the same concert hall, thus becoming the second person in my home town to play the etudes in concert. The recording of my [album] coincided with the 70th anniversary of my mother’s birth, and I wish to dedicate this recording to her memory.”

On this new release, Julia Rinderle presents a programme of music by Franz Schubert, the first composer in the history of music who considered composing, not performing, his first calling. Julia Rinderle, born in 1990 in Memmingen, studied in Hanover with Roland Krüger, at the Salzburg Mozarteum and in Vienna. She also attended numerous master classes (among others with Emanuel Ax and Paul Badura-Skoda). The young pianist fascinates her audience with strong stage presence and deeply felt playing. She is in high demand on concert stages across Europe and the United States. She released her debut album with works by Anselm Huttenbrenner in 2016.

I consider this recording of Dvorak's cello concerto the best I have ever made. And even though later on I recorded the concerto another seven times, it is the one that means the most to me. Throughout my life I have remained faithful to that which Vaclav Talich taught me.' - Rostropovich Supraphon returns to the most celebrated recording of the most frequently performed cello concerto and it's release, directly mastered in pure analogue, is a very special treat for lovers of the warm, rich vinyl sound. A delicacy for true connoisseurs!

The complete recording of Jacks’s Kingdom, the final opera by Otakar Ostrcil (1879-1935), a remarkable fairy-tale work with an antiwar message, is now being released on CD for the first time. It is based on L. N. Tolstoy’s short story about a land ruled by the good-natured Ivan (transformed in the opera into Honza, or Jack) who knows not what spite is. In his kingdom, soldiers do not wage wars, yet dance and love, all diseases are cured and people are happy. Honza brings to all the people the miraculous star of compassion, love and peace, possessing so great a power that it even cures the incurable Princess and prevails over the Devil himself. When the opera was premiered in Brno (1934) and subsequently presented in Prague, it gave rise to a conflict between Ostrcil and a part of Czech society. The reason why the work, in which Honza fights with the Devil, striving to conquer the world, became a sensation was that it was staged shortly after Adolf Hitler had seized power in Germany. In the wake of World War II, another four productions of Johnny’s Kingdom were created in Prague and Brno, with the most recent one receiving its premiere in 1959. The present release features the one and only studio recording of the opera, made in 1954 by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, with Ivo Žídek, Jaroslava Vymazalová and Premysl Kocí singing the lead roles. The album also contains a unique recording of Ostrcil’s Calvary, Op. 24, made in 1957 by the Czech Philharmonic, conducted by Václav Neumann.

Providing a platform for young artists has always been important to the label Ars produktion, next to helping them lay the groundwork for a music career. The young flutist Sofia de Salis, who enjoyed tuition among the most distinguished teachers and has already won numerous competitions, will certainly continue to achieve great success in the future.

The first half of the 18th century can be described as the last revival of the traverso flute before it fell into a slumber, from which it awakened again decades later named as "Bohmflote" (transverse flute). In this time a variety of magnificent, virtuosic chamber music by Diabelli, Carulli or Giuliani originated. On this record the works are impressively interpreted by Ensemble Consolazione. Ensemble Consolazione has existed in the current formation since 1995, and originally played twentieth-century literature for flute and guitar on modern isntruments. The two Czech musicians discovered their common interest in early music and historical instruments, and so the duo began with the historical performance of virtuoso "duo concertanti" from the early nineteenth century already during their studies at the Prague Conservatory. Since 2002, Ensemble Consolazione has played exclusively on original instruments or copies thereof, dedicated itself intensively to research on historical interpretation techniques, and resurrected forgotten repertoire for this formation from archives and library collections.