Principal trombonist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Jörgen van Rijen is also much in demand as a soloist with a special commitment to promoting his instrument. Various composers have written new pieces for him, including James MacMillan and Theo Verbey, whose works are included on the present release together with Luciano Berio’s SOLO for trombone and orchestra. The present recordings were made at concerts with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Iván Fischer, Markus Stenz and Ed Spanjaard respectively. They have previously been showcased on three different discs on the RCO’s own Live Horizon label, and are gathered together here for the first time. The album therefore highlights the versatility of van Rijen as a musician, but also of his instrument as perceived and presented by three very different composers.

Leonard Bernstein's own version bettered? Yes, indeed! This is, handily, the best sung, best played, most intelligently interpreted recording of Mass currently available. Of course, Bernstein's rendition always will have sterling qualities, including some wonderful solo singers with really characterful "pop" and Broadway voices, but for its sheer musical integrity combined with the advantage of the composer's final revisions to the score, this version is unbeatable. Jubilant Sykes, as the Celebrant, easily outclasses Alan Titus' very fine premiere recording of the role. His voice has more edge; he's more at ease with the various pop idioms; he sounds radiant at the work's opening and grows increasingly desperate as it proceeds. This only serves to make his climactic breakdown tragically believable.

The various street singers are, one and all, terrific. "God Said" becomes the work's comic climax, which is as it should be. "I believe in God", "Confession", "World Without End", and "Thank You" are both idiomatic and beautifully sung. The children's choir sounds luminous in the Sanctus, while the adult chorus, from Morgan State University, sings with gusto as well as immaculate diction, with every word clearly comprehensible. Marin Alsop knits the whole ensemble together with infallible insight and verve. Her tempos, a bit different from Bernstein's, quicker here ("God Said"), a touch slower there (the wild dance in the Offertory), are no less right.

It's all fabulously recorded with a glittering impact that never turns unduly aggressive. The multi-textural layering in the climactic Dona Nobis Pacem comes across as both musically and physically overwhelming. Mass has its detractors, but when performed with this kind of conviction the piece can be inexpressibly moving. Alsop never has made a finer recording--it's both a tribute to her mentor Leonard Bernstein, as well as to her exceptional talent as an exponent of his music.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com (10/10)

Although Philip Glass came late to the string quartet, his contribution to the genre has since become a significant one. This disc features the first four of his five quartets, ranging from the uncharacteristic yet fascinating sound-world of the First, through the compact dimensions of the subsequent two (themselves derived from theatre and film scores). The more expansive manner of his Fourth Quartet makes allusions to the formidable string quartet heritage, in particular those of Schubert and Dvořák.

The musical world of Arvo Pärt has fascinated listeners and performers for several decades. The astonishing, breathtaking musical landscape he presents brings us to another dimension in which time seems to cease to exist. And his music reaches an audience which is wider than that of any other contemporary composer of art music today, teaching us that newly composed music can serve to fulfil spiritual needs. As BIS' contribution to the celebration of Pärt's 70th anniversary this year, we have looked back through our mirror and brought together a number of works spanning more than three decades of his career: from 1964 to 1998.

Torleif Thedéen and Roland Pöntinen, who with this disc give us the larger part of Schnittke's chamber music for the cello, are long-time partners whose first joint recording for BIS was made in 1986 - entitled 'The Russian Cello', it incidentally included a performance of the first of Schnittke's cello sonatas. Since then the two have appeared on a number of discs together, performing works by Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Hindemith and Anton Webern among others. Their recording of the Chopin Sonata, coupled with works by Robert Schumann, was highly acclaimed in The Gramophone, whose critic found that the team gave 'this wonderful music a sweep and gradeur that's immensely satisfying'.

For Bunita Marcus opens with a clear call to our attention. With these first six notes, we step over the threshold and into the journey of the piece. We know that we are in this for the long haul: Morton Feldman’s late works are notorious for being marathons. He composed For Bunita Marcus in 1985, immediately after his four-hour For Philip Guston, and two years after his six-hour String Quartet (II). These earlier works make an hour-long solo piano piece seem short. Still, it is a long time to sustain a single movement, a single journey, and we inevitably have this in mind as we take the first step: so this is how it starts.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s passionate Sixth Symphony is dedicated to the memory of the writer George Mackay Brown, with the ‘very special musical virtuosity’ of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in mind. It is one of his most beautifully expressive works and, whilst not untroubled, reaches moments of serene beauty. Composed for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Time and the Raven is a brilliant and exciting collage, whilst few contemporary works enjoy such popularity as the magical An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise.

Acclaimed British composer John Rutter’s Gloria was a milestone in his career and remains an evergreen favourite with choirs worldwide for its freshness, drama and sheer beauty. His joyous setting of the Magnificat was conceived, in the composer’s words, as ‘a bright Latin-flavoured fiesta’ and is performed here in its version for choir, organ and chamber orchestra. This delightful choral album concludes with Rutter’s setting of the Te Deum, one of the church’s most ebullient hymns of praise to the Almighty.

Taking its name from Evan Ziporyn’s Hive, which grew out of the composer’s experience as a beekeeper, this album brings together an engaging selection of pieces for solo clarinet and clarinet ensembles of various sizes. From Piazzolla’s popular tangos to Harbison’s Bach/Stravinsky-inspired Trio Sonata, Schuller’s Duo Sonata and Barker’s Single Six, both jazz-inflected yet classical in spirit, to Persichetti’s lyrical Serenade, Clarinet Hive is an endlessly fascinating showcase of the clarinet’s expressive and virtuosic potential, as well as its wide range of subtle sonorities.