Ssens Trio (pronounced "Essence") was established in 2014 by three musicians with a wealth of experience in the international music scene. The trio has appeared in concert with Geir Inge Lotsberg, Elvind Ringstad, Havard Gimse and Leif Ove Andsnes, among others. Their first album, "Beethoven: String Trio Op. 3 & Serenade Op. 8" received Pizzicato Magazine's "Supersonic Award" and a prestigious ICMA Awards nomination in 2018. Fanfare Magazine wrote: "With absolutely no hesitation I will say that it goes right to the top of my Beethoven String Trios list." (Jerry Dubins). And the following from a review in Pizzicato Magazine under the heading 'Beethoven With A Communicative Joy of Music Making:' "Their performance is brimming with the joy of playing together. An outstanding 'trialogue,' with each performer fully sensing the other. Through this interactive music-making, which in the Adagio and Minuet movements invokes a remarkably intimate mood, Beethoven's works gain in depth and sensuousness. And when one combines the sensitive playing with a wonderfully eloquent virtuosity, the way is clear for pure listening pleasure." (Alain Steffen)

For several decades, as solo harpsichordist and director of his ensemble Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini has been exploring not just the Italian repertoire that he is so passionate about, but also the works of Bach –as in his benchmark recording of the Brandenburg Concertos in 2005. In this new recording, Ales-sandrini has mounted a challenge to all currently available recordings of those four Orchestral Suites that Bach called ‘Overtures’, after their imposing opening movements. We don’t know when these dance suites were composed, nor where they were first performed, but they were certainly played in Leipzig at the time Bach was directing its celebrated Collegium Musicum. Here Alessandrini has once again sifted all available sources, putting the composer’s entire output under the microscope to identify the most authentic details of style and orchestration. The result is a subtle balance between Bach’s intricate contrapuntal writing and the spontaneity of his dances, with their French and Italian influences. Together with these majestic, festive, radiant works by J.S. Bach, Concerto Italiano presents two Overtures in the same instrumental mold by Johann Bernhard and Johann Ludwig Bach –two composer cousins with whom Johann Sebastian enjoyed lifelong ties of mutual friendship and esteem. During his Leipzig years he had their Overtures copied out, so he could perform them with the Collegium Musicum. Here then is a welcome opportunity to hear these two superb orchestral pieces in the contemporary context of Bach’s own music.

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REVIEW:

Fans of these players won’t need much encouragement to purchase this, indeed, it should act as a reminder that Concerto Italiano and Rinaldo Alessandrini haven’t gained their reputation without good reason.

The sound quality is very immediate, especially for the winds, but not tiring. The notes, which run to nine pages on the music, are erudite, tracing in detail the history of the JSB works and their connection to the Leipzig Collegium Musicum. – MusicWeb International

In 1917, French composers Louis Durey, Georges Auric, and Arthur Honegger formed the Nouveaux Jeunes under the aegis of Erik Satie which, in 1919, with the addition of Germaine Tailleferre, Francis Poulenc, and Darius Milhaud, became Les Six. Durey’s work has been relatively unexplored compared to his five colleagues. Pianist and Durey scholar Jocelyn Dueck’s efforts have gone a long way toward righting that historical imbalance. Along with several critically acclaimed vocalists, she presents here this wonderful collection of recordings of several of succinct and rich art songs, in performances from unpremiered manuscripts. Jocelyn Dueck is known for her new music interpretations on the New York City circuit, premiering and commissioning works by composere Eve Beglarian, Lisa Bielawa, Tom Cipullo, Corey Dargel, Matthew Schickele, Daniel Felsenfeld, Judd Greenstein, John Glover, Daron Hagen, Gabriel Kahane, Libby Larsen, and more. She was a collaborator on the Billboard Chart-topper Five Borough Songbook, as well as its newly released second volume in 2017. She has served on the faculties of the Manhatten School of Music, Julliard, NYU, and Mannes: The New School for Music.

SOMM Recordings' historic, enthusiastically reviewed survey of Sir Hubert Parry's 12 Sets of English Lyrics reaches it's end with a third revelatory volume. Volume III features pianist Andrew West and baritone Roderick Williams (both heard on Volumes I and II) and the return of soprano Sarah Fox (who appeared on Volume II). Composed between 1874 and shortly before Parry's death in 1918, the English Lyrics come from a time of immense change as old certainties gave way to new complexity and a global war that would utterly change Britain's standing in the world. Parry's riposte was the English Lyrics: a defiant assertion that English poetry was the equal of Germany's Lied and French m�lodies and arguably created the template for the development of the emerging English art-song. The texts of many of the 25 songs - including some of his finest - on this recording carry deeply personal meanings for Parry, his response to them as varied as mood dictates and all realized with consummate insight and craftsmanship. Settings of AP Graves, Julia Chatterton and Julian Sturgis are to the fore, although lyrics by Herbert Warner and the American poets Ralph Waldo Emerson and Langdon Elwyn Mitchell are also to be heard in a spell- binding conclusion to an acclaimed series. Parry's only setting of Christina Rossetti, 'My heart is like a singing bird,' is delightfully effusive, 'When the Sun's Great Orb,' Wagner-like in it's imagining of the end of days, 'The child and the twilight' vividly full of night-time fears. Reviewing Volume I, BBC Music Magazine praised the "many pleasurable moments in this richly enjoyable album" with Classical Ear summing it up as being "In a word: blissful". Of Volume II, Robert Hugill applauded "this enterprising and illuminating survey", while MusicWeb International said: "Lovers of English songs, and Parry in particular, should be in their element with this satisfying album on Somm".

Gaspare Spontini’s “Le Metamorfosi di Pasquale,” was premiered in Venice in 1802. This one-act farce, on a libretto by Giuseppe Foppa was to be his last work for the Italian stage. After its debut, in fact, the young composer moved on to Paris and then to Berlin and the score of this work was lost until 2016, when it was unearthed in the library of the Dukes of Ursel in Belgium. This 2-album release is a world premiere recording of a Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini di Jesi and Fondazione Teatro La Fenice di Venezia coproduction. Baurzham Anderzhanov stars in the title role, alongside other impressive soloists including Carlo Feola, Michela Antenucci, Daniele Adriani, and others.

The Czech Philharmonic Cimbalom Ensemble originated from a group of orchestra members who share passion for folk music and occasionally play it to give joy to themselves as well as their friends and supporters. They gradually started to perform in public- at a joint concert with Bobby McFerrin in Rudolfinum, at social events with orchestra attendees, and at other concerts in various places around the country. Their concert programs are unique- they usually combine folk music with classical music in their own arrangements. One of the paths chosen by the ensemble is the exploration of works by famous composers which were inspired by folk music. It comes as no surprise that each of the composers explored on this release has a different approach to folk and national music, and reflects it in their compositions in varying depth. These compositions have become a source of inspiration for many generations of musicians. The Czech Philharmonic Cimbalom Ensemble uses these scores as a launch pad, but strives to approach them with new ideas, invigorating the pieces and working with their own arrangements.

This release is dedicated to one of the most esteemed musical practices of the Renaissance: the art of accompanying the voice with the viola da gamba. Cantare alla viola (singing with a viol) is the name for this practice, which was quite common at the time. The art of this practice lies in the ability of the “viola” player to arrange and play madrigals to accompany one single voice, as a lutenist or vihuela player commonly does. Cantar alla Viola has careful selected some of the finest pieces of the Italian Renaissance in order to illustrate the intimate and skillful musical practice of Cantare alla viola. The pieces vary from the subtle and transparent trecento 2-voice ballades of Magister Piero and Andrea da Firenze played on the viella, to the exquisite and virtuous madrigals for one soprano by Luzzascho Luzasschi, accompanied by the viola da gamba. The Renaissance villanelle and 3-voice madrigals by Luca Marenzio and Costanzo Festa, are adapted for the polyphonic playing of two different bowed vihuelas. Solo pieces have been added to the release to show the instrumental practice on a bowed vihuela through arrangements of lute and keyboard pieces by composers such as Marco Antonio Cavazzoni or Francesco da Milano.

David Oistrakh Trio is an unofficial name for the trio organized in 1940 by David Oistrach with his long-time accompanist Lev Oborin (piano) and Sviatoslav Knushevitsky (cello). The ensemble of Moscow Conservatory professors had been performing until Knushevitsky passed away in 1963. Some critics cited the group as one of the greatest piano trios in the history and compared them with a legendary Alfred Cortot - Jacques Thibaud - Pablo Casals 1920-30s ensemble. The group recorded numerous Trios and Triple Concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Schubert, and Shostakovich for Columbia, Melodiya, Angel Records, Preiser Records and other labels. David Oistrakh Trio also collaborated with Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent. On this release, Urania Records presents recordings of Russian chamber masterpieces, made between the years 1950 and 1958.

First performed in French at the Paris Opera in 1867, Don Carlo is in many ways an amazingly innovative work. The opera seems to underline Verdi's shift from the Manichean division between good and evil, which had been a clear, structural element of his dramaturgy up to that point in his career. In this opera, Verdi assembles all his mainstay music theatre themes: power, with its honors and burdens; the contrasts of impossible love; the conflict between father and son; and an oppressed people demanding freedom. Verdi radically revised the score in 1883, using an Italian libretto and reducing the opera from five acts to four. The popularity of Don Carlo has grown unremittingly ever since, with today's critics almost unanimously recognizing it as one of Verdi's greatest masterpieces, an opera that continues to reveal new gems. Daniel Oren is fully in control on the podium, ensuring unanimity between orchestra and singers. The Maestro softens teh dark tones of the score, which are well reflected in the visuals, choosing instead to emphasize the various changes of mood.

“I have given every operetta the style demanded by the space and time in which it is set.” (Eduard Künneke. Driven by success, Künneke committed himself to the genre of the operetta in the 1920s and 1930s. The diversity of his many operettas reveals Künneke’s enormous adaptability to the stylistic currents of entertainment music at that time. He had most international success with Der Vetter aus Dingsda (1921), with which Künneke has almost exclusively been identified up to today. His successful operettas were even adapted for London and New York. Herz über Bord was premiered in 1935, initially at the Zurich Opera and was performed almost 500 times between 1935 and 1937, including in Dresden, Stuttgart, Stockholm and Berlin. The Berliner Zeitung noted: “Once again, we can listen to operetta music written by an artist, a man of taste. Every number has its own weight.”

We are very pleased to announce a new recording from MPR of music for string orchestra entitled 'Palace Premieres', with the Countess of Wessex's String Orchestra. The playlist consists of hitherto unrecorded music performed during Royal Investitures (where honors are bestowed by Her Majesty the Queen or by one of her close family) and includes works such as Suite: In Rural England by Thomas Dunhill, Shepherd's Delight by Alec Rowley, Pastoral Scene by Frederic Curzon, Fragment for Strings by Bertram Walton O'Donnell, Nocturne by WH Speer, In Georgian Days by Roger Quilter, Rivers of Devon Suite by Ernest Markham Lee and a number of beautiful light music arrangements for strings of folk songs. We have also included as a 'bonus' a suite of Seven Pieces by Giles Farnaby, arranged by Bantock. We recorded the latter only to discover that in fact it has already been recorded but only once to our knowledge and we decided that as it is such good material we just had to include it. The Countess of Wessex's String Orchestra is very sensitively directed by Major David Hammond, a truly fine musician. The orchestra consists of the best string players in the Army who are very fine and highly trained musicians. The quality of playing is really excellent and the performances committed. The album was recorded in the sumptuous acoustic of the Guards Chapel in London and the recording engineer is the legendary Tony Faulkner. Mike Purton was producer and editor and we recommend this recording to anyone who loves British music of a certain period (see above). Lee's 'Rivers of Devon' Suite is very Elgarian, Speer's little 'Nocturne' brings to mind Wagner’s 'Siegfried Idyll' and you can see from many of the titles that spirit of Rural Englandis frequently invoked. This recording has been made in collaboration with the Corps of Army Music Trust.

This new release is homage to a great Italian soprano, Daniela Dessì, who passed away last year, just one year after these performances at Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. This is a superb interpretation of this signature role of her long artistic career. Daniela Dessì was considered one of the world’s leading sopranos and a reference point for the Verdi, Puccini and Verismo repertoire. Thanks to the beauty of her voice, a strong technique and an intense dramatic talent, she was able to sing from Monteverdi to Prokofiev, performing in more than seventy different operas. This versatility has significantly been underlined when, in 2011, she was awarded with the Prize Belcanto “Celletti”, recognized as an “absolute soprano”. In this production of Umberto Giordano’s Fedora, she is joined by an all-star cast, including Fabio Armiliato and Daria Kovalenko.

Represented on this release are two Swedish composers from the late 19th century, who despite contemporary recognition usually do not count among the still enduring and current. Joseph Dente, after having taken the position as Master of the The Royal Court Orchestra, reached the highest rank a composer could then get in Sweden, when he in 1882 became teacher in composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. In the case of Bengt Wilhelm Hallberg it was certainly quite simply his daily activities in the "small town" Landskrona (in the southern province Skane) - he was not visible from the out-look of Stockholm, where "everything happened", and a few occasional successes in Copenhagen did not give any greater reputation further north. But above all, the opportunities to get their music noticed, performed and printed were extremely limited, particularly for those composers who wanted to write orchestral and chamber music - still there was only one single professional orchestra in Sweden, The Royal Court Orchestra. It is therefore hardly surprising that composers in symphonic format were comparatively few; both Hallberg and Dente remained "non-recurrent symphonists".

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The cast is the best we could possible want for Vivaldi nowadays: Ottavio Dantone's skilfull conducting brings the best out of this orchestral enchantment. Sara Mingardo brings her classy voice and remarkable stage presence to the role of the naive Statira. Delphine Galou’s bright tone and excellent agility combine with perfect diction. Roberta Mameli's crystal clear notes make of the role of Alinda a masterpiece of expressivity. Recorded in high definition, this production offers subtitles in Italian, German, English, French, Japanese, and Korean. Octavio Dantone is an Italian conductor and harpsichordist who is particularly noted for his performances of Baroque music. He has served as the Music Director of the Accademia Bizantina in Ravenna since 1996.

Five hundred years ago the Reformation occasioned an upsurge in the production of church music, and even today Luther’s powerful sacred hymns continue to be mainstays in Lutheran religious services. However, Luther’s fruitful juxtaposition of “transmitted” and “modern” music shows that he was also fond of drawing on songs from the “old church.” The Lutheran chorale masses recorded by Hermann Max with his Rheinische Kantorei on vinyl more than thirty years ago represent a special form within these parallel- or shared- relational worlds. Even then the MDG sound engineers used the latest digital technology for the recording. Along with the chorale masses by Christoph Bernhard, Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, and Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, Hermann Max presents three works that were highly modern during their times. Schein’s composed interpretations of his source texts ventured onto terrain normally reserved for theologians- at least in the old church. But this too is in the spirit of the Reformation: the “priesthood of all believers” can of course not be excluded from the musical sphere! And so this valuable new edition expands our view of Protestant church music, from a much too rarely considered but welcome perspective.

Luigi Boccherini’s contemporaries ranked him with Joseph Haydn, but during later times the high esteem enjoyed by his music faded – when everything of Italian origin that was not an opera was generally dismissed. The young musicians of Scala köln believe that it is high time to reopen Boccherini’s case and are now presenting the results of their new investigation: a delightful program demonstrating that Boccherini’s treasure trove holds more in store than just his famous Minuet. The musicians of Scala koln, led by the violinist Christoph Mayer and the oboist Monika Nielen, bring this music to the stage in fresh new interpretations that are historically informed and feature period instruments. The mixed instrumentation with winds and strings comes with a guarantee of richly varied listening pleasure- boredom is absolutely out of the question!

Andreas Späth was a clarinetist, a violinist, an organist, and a voice teacher as well as the city music director in Neuchâtel, the concertmaster of the Ducal Court Orchestra in Coburg, and an honorary member of the Swiss Music Society. His death at the ripe old age of eighty-five in 1876 marked the end of an active and richly varied musician’s life – so that it is hardly surprising that he wrote more than 150 compositions for a wide range of genres. Rita Karin Meier has explored Späth’s works for clarinet, his early main instrument, and teams up with the Galatea Quartet and Karl-Andreas Kolly for a long-overdue tribute to this composer who is entirely forgotten today.

The Nocturnes, the three Melodies, and the Elegy also very much reflect the character of romantic composition. The title of the last work in particular might mislead today’s listeners. Anything but melancholy and sorrowful, it tends more to the free form of a fantastic character piece and includes spirited polonaises. There is also more to the Melodies than the title might suggest; they are concertante duets elaborated with fine art. Meier, the principal clarinetist at the Zurich Opera, and Kolly present these works with wit and charm- in what is a highly rewarding discovery!

Suor Leonora d'Este (1515-1575), Lucrezia Borgia's daughter, was a princess, a nun, and a musician. She left little to illuminate her history, but an obscure book of motets may at least help us understand her musical life: the Musica quinque vocum motteta materna lingua vocata, published in Venice in 1543. The book is anonymous, but it contains clues to its origins that lead us to the door of Leonora d'Este's home, the convent of Corpus Domini in Ferrara, perhaps even suggesting that she was its unidentified composer. The music here is the earliest published polyphony for nuns. This recording by Musica Secreta and Celestial Sirens allows it to be heard for the first time through carefully researched performances.

Thomas Tallis was active across the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. He famously mastered all forms, old and new, as dictated by the changing religious landscape in 16th-century England. He died in 1585, very ancient and celebrated, and today is acknowledged widely as the Father of English Church Music. This is a recording that not only demonstrates his consummate skills in many genres, but also features new discoveries. Among these is the first recording of an early version of his grand six-part Gaude gloriosa dei mater, but with words by none other than Henry VIII’s last wife, Queen Katherine Parr. These works are excellently presented by Alamire and Fretwork- both experts in the early music field.

Un mari à la porte ( A Husband at the Door) is a one-act operetta which was recorded at the Teatro del Maggio in occasion of the 200th anniversary of Offenbach’s birth. Premiered in 1859, this rarely performed work is a most amusing comedy of errors, which is the typical frameset that the composer used to represent and mock the quirks and vices of the French society of his times. The action takes place in Susanne’s bedroom, on her wedding night. She is in company of her friend Rosita, with whom she complains about having just found out about her husband’s bad character, that she decides to punish and leave outside the door. Rosita tries to soothe her naive friend and eventually leaves. While alone, the bride realizes that there’s a man hidden under the bed. It’s Florestan Ducroquet, a young and penniless musician, who had broken into the room falling from the chimney, while escaping from the fury of a jealous husband. Rosita joins the pair in the room as Henry, the groom, is waiting outside the door pleading to come in, yet thinking the two friends are pulling a prank on him. Finally the intruder manages to flee from the window, seconds after having proposed to Rosita. Order is restored and love triumphs over all. This carefree play of allusions and misunderstandings is accompanied by the brilliant music of Offenbach that moves gracefully to the rhythm of dance: polka, mazurka and especially waltz. The strong points of this production are indeed the colorful, flamboyant setting and costumes and the amazing acting ability of all four singers, who have the audience laugh with sheer delight.

Brazilian composer Ant�nio Carlos Gomes was among the many musicians who travelled to Italy to master the language and the rules of operatic works. He studied in Milan and succeeded in having a few operas staged at Italian venues, before returning to Brazil where he was hailed as the most famous living national composer. Gomes felt compelled to commit his work to the country's anti-slave cause, which was still legal practice then. Lo schiavo was therefore conceived as a politically engaged work. However, the issue was rather volatile and the composer had to change the contemporary time setting to a more distant one. In Brazil the opera was a triumph, but elsewhere it failed to gain popularity and soon fell into oblivion. This recording of the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari's production documents the opera's first performance in modern times and reveals Gomes' flamboyant richness of melodic creativity, his sound grasp of construction, and a technical mastery of the theatrical mechanisms that are always of the highest level. "The most popular title of the entire Brazilian repertoire. The most represented and, perhaps, the most loved one." (John Neschling, conductor)

Gabriel Faure has frequently been termed “the father of Impressionism.” Why this is so rendered very apparent on this state-of-the-art album featuring interpretations of his two Piano Quartets by the superb Mozart Piano Quartet. With great virtuosity, a fine sense of sound, and an intelligent command of the complex overall structure, the four instrumentalists brighten the performance skies with their musical fireworks. The Parisian music world of Faure’s time was characterized by emancipation from Germany hegemony in chamber music after the traumatic outcome of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and by the beginnings of an original French musical language beyond the opera. Faure’s quartets draw formally on the tradition- and yet breathe a new spirit: church modes and whole-tone scales mark so many a motif, and here and there, along with the “classical” development of the themes, we also encounter entirely new harmonic fields and soundscapes. For instance, the beginning of the Adagio in op. 45 already suggests Ravel’s “La vallee des cloches” from the Miroirs: like a memory, distant bells ring in the piano part, over which the very lonely viola gives its all in a pastoral song of lament- enchanting! The two slow movements belong to the absolute highlights on this release.

This just might be one of the most important releases in the entire Dynamic catalog. Maybe even in all of recording history. For the first time ever, all of Paganini’s works have been collected in one single release, featuring all the best interpreters of the composer’s music: Salvatore Accardo, Massimo Quarta, Leonidas Kavacos, Luigi Alberto Bianchi, Stefan Milenkovic, Franco Mezzena, the Quartetto Paganini, Bin Huang, Luca Fanfoni, and many others. The release also includes historical documents featuring milestone Paganini interpretations by Ruggiero Ricci, Arthur Grumiaux, Yehudi Menhuin, Franco Gulli, Vasa Prihoda, and others. The six concertos, as well as several other works, are performed on Paganini’s 1742 Guarneri del Gesu violin. There is also a section of the release that features rare and newly re-discovered works in their world premiere recordings.

When do we ever have silence today? In the late 15th century, the renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino wrote that music was “nothing but a decoration of silence,” and music could bring out a “divine frenzy.” In our modern age, with piped music everywhere in lifts, airplanes and doctors’ offices, and music available on tap whenever and wherever we wish through digital media devices, our experience of music has been diluted, losing much of its original power. The Italian lutenist, Francesco da Milano, known as “il divino,” was said to have sent his audiences into a trance and rob them of their senses, save one, that of hearing. This album invites the 21st century listener into a world of sensual delight and a real decoration of silence. World-renowned lutenist Nigel North returned to the studio to continue his series of recordings of the works of Il Divino- better known as Francesco da Milano. “North leans more towards allowing a phrase’s flow gently to retard as it reaches the still pool of its final tone… ultimately it’s North’s intense introspection and empathy that make this a thoughtful programme…” (Gramophone)

"Songs of Darkness and Hope" was the culmination of a project conceived and created by choral music teacher Pam Rhein of the Meesalonskee Public Schools - Rural School Unit #18 in Oakland Maine for the “Shoah Student Education Initiative” of the Maine State Holocaust and Human Rights Center in the state capital of Augusta. The songs are composed from poems written by interred children found on the walls of concentration camps after WW2, along with a few camp work songs found in the Center’s historical archives. Sung by over 400 students from 5th grade through high school, combined choirs and select auditioned choirs conducted by high school choral teacher Kevin Rhein, the creation of this album was a moving experience in education which changed the lives of those involved, students and teachers alike, many of whom were moved to tears upon hearing the pre-production master.