A student of Ligeti, Roberto Sierra is the most prominent Latin American composer on the international scene. If the Piezas Íntimas were for me the concentrated version of Roberto’s language, the Aphorisms are 28 fragments that live up to their name, each of them being a short sentence proposing what for me are Roberto’s compositional principles in their purest and most concise version - each of them exploring the dynamic and sonic range of the instrument in a matter of seconds. His Sonatas, as I began to study them, opened me up to a world full of completely fresh sonorities, structures and approaches. The Sonatas span a world from Central Europe, where their structure strengthens in the second half of the 18th century, to the region of Latin America and the Caribbean in the 20th and 21st centuries, where sonata movements contained Afro-Caribbean elements linked to sudden appearances of elements as different from each other as flamenco, salsa, pasodoble or tango, followed by slow movements that seem like improvisations (despite the exactness with which they have been written), filled with nocturnal music, an aria da capo that loses its original rhythm and becomes “out of balance”.

The Estudios rítmicos y sonoros (Studies in Rhythms and Sonorities) of Roberto Sierra, harken back to the grand virtuoso tradition of piano pieces by Chopin and Liszt. Without question, the Estudios continue to push the envelope of technical demands for the performer, as important Etude composers had always done in the past. They demand the utmost not only in a player’s physical technique, courage, and sheer velocity, but also in their intellectual capacity. One must internalize the cross rhythms like a jazz drummer accurately enough to reveal the idealistic conception of the notation. The mysterious landscapes of the Piezas Líricas serve as a foil to the bustling excitement of the Estudios. The resonance and clarity of the acoustic in Auditorio Manuel de Falla offers the perfect ambience for these pieces, lending them the spiritual breadth they require. The inspiration of the Alhambra seems even to lend them a special aura of timelessness and mysticism. Album for the Young offers a striking contrast to both the turbo-charged virtuosity of the Estudios and the high-art sophistication of Piezas Líricas. The Album offers directness, charm, and even naïveté. The musical material represents scenes and ideas of childhood or family life, with folk-like simplicity. Unlike the well-known models, it is derived primarily from Latin-American musical elements. Critically acclaimed as a “musician’s pianist,” Matthew Bengtson has a unique combination of musical talents ranging from extraordinary pianist, to composer, analyst, and scholar of performance practice, and thus is in demand as both soloist and collaborator. An advocate of both contemporary and rarely performed music, he commands a diverse repertoire, ranging from William Byrd to György Ligeti and numerous contemporary composers.

Astor Piazzolla's Tango Nuevo still enjoys great popularity 30 years after the composer's death. Hardly any other music is able to enthuse the classical concert audience as much as the lover of light muse, world music, or the jazz enthusiast and the specialist for contemporary music. Sonic Art Saxophone Quartet has arranged three great suites by the Argentinean grand master, which bring the rhythmic energy of the tango to the stage in highly different ways. And Valentin Butt's accordion provides the unmistakable color in the "Tango Sensations". "Estaciones Porteñas" superficially describe the Four Seasons. But they are much more than that: Buenos Aires and its people, its squares and streets, plus the atmosphere of a city where joy and suffering are often very close together. The music conveys pure emotion, inimitably captured from wild exhilaration to near silence. The almost 30 minutes of "Tango Sensations" are Piazzolla's musical legacy. The five composed states of mind were originally intended as film music and they are Piazzolla's last cyclical work. The "Suite del Diablo" was written as stage music and constantly oscillates between heaven and hell; the devil is sometimes fearsomely threatening, sometimes sugar-sweetly flattering - just as Piazzolla imagined life to be. For the tightrope walk between concert hall and club, between stage and street, the saxophone is the ideal instrumentation. No less than four of them offer a palette of expressive possibilities that blend perfectly with the accordion and which the Sonic Art Saxophone Quartet knows how to use with virtuosity. The dynamics of the performance are impressive and are unlikely to keep anyone in their seats.

Mystics & Cynics is a mesmerizing journey through the sacred and the subversive, the ecstatic and the irreverent. Featuring the world premiere of Taumelnd von Glut (Reeling in the Light)-a stunning new song cycle by composer Boris Bergmann, setting the passionate poetry of Otto Braun to music for the first time. Braun's youthful idealism and later disillusionment echo through Bergmann's evocative score, creating a deeply moving meditation on love, war, and loss. This striking new work is woven into a tapestry of mystical and iconoclastic masterpieces: the luminous chant of Hildegard von Bingen, the playful defiance of Erik Satie, and the radical vision of John Cage. Mystics & Cynics invites listeners on a journey through war-torn poetry, cabaret whimsy, and transcendental meditation-where every note is both a question and an answer. An essential release for adventurous ears.

'Beautiful playing on a lovely, mellow-sounding guitar by master guitarist Enea Leone' (Fanfare). The Italian guitarist Enea Leone has made several, critically acclaimed recordings for Brilliant Classics, in repertoire ranging from first complete recordings of the studies by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Fernando Sor, to more popular repertoire, from Argentina and from the catalogue of Sergio Leone, with the Leone album attracting an LP reissue. For his latest album, Leone stays in the popular vein, with classic tracks by Astor Piazzolla, in solo guitar arrangements mostly made by Leone himself. Adios Nonino, Milonga del Angel, Oblivion and Libertango - these are just some of the tangos featured on the new album, which makes a perfect introduction to the melancholy art of Piazzolla, as balladeer and musical poet of 20th-century Argentina. The sound of the modern tango is defined by the bandoneon, an instrument brought to Buenos Aires at the beginning of the 20th century by German immigrants, possibly sailors. The instrument invested the existing genre with a new potential for expressing deep, passionate feelings. In 1950 a brilliant young bandoneon player called Astor Piazzolla left Buenos Aires for Paris, where he went to study classical composition with Nadia Boulanger. Having also grown up in the US, he mixed elements of Tango with both jazz and with forms and harmonies borrowed from the sphere of classical music, thereby creating what he called Tango Nuevo. Argentinean musicians and audiences were slow to embrace Piazzolla's new idiom, which caught on much more rapidly abroad. The emotional and technical complexity of these tangos made them easier to listen than to dance to. However, once Tango Nuevo became almost ubiquitous elsewhere, Piazzolla was feted back at home as a master of Argentinean music. The strength of his melodies has outlived him, most especially in their suitability for transcription to other instruments, such as violin and guitar. Leone has made these transcriptions specifically for the new album, which should win new fans both for him and for the subtle art of Piazzolla. - Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), Argentina's most famous composer, was the grandson of Italian immigrants, and the melancholy for an abandoned and lost country lends a sweetly poignant note to his music. He was unique in the way he was able to weave the "sweet noises of life" into pure melody and harmony in his works, showing a deep familiarity with every secret of the Tango, Argentina's iconic dance. - In this new recording Enea Leone traces the evolutionary stages of the Buenos Aires composer's music with the guitar. The CD features Piazzolla's most famous and representative pieces: Milonga Del Angel, Muerte del Angel, Adios Nonino, Escualo up to the most famous Oblivion and Libertango. - All the arrangements, with the exception of Revirado and Yo Soy Maria arranged by composer Fabrizio Volpi, were created especially for this CD by Enea Leone. - Enea Leone plays on a Rinaldo Vacca spruce guitar with D'Addario Carbon Normal Tension strings. - Enea Leone successfully recorded for Brilliant Classics works by Fernando Sor, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and guitar arrangements by Ennio Morricone.

John Cage's importance for a comprehensive aesthetic reorientation of New Music after the Second World War can hardly be overestimated. His self-discovery and compositional articulation took place particularly in the field of piano music: in the art-merging experimental laboratory of New York around the dancer Merce Cunningham, the painter Robert Rauschenberg and the congenial performer and pianist David Tudor. It is good fortune that Sabine Liebner, who has already released several internationally acclaimed, award-winning albums with WERGO, has thrown herself into the complex pianistic and artistic demands of interpreting another of Cage's great works. The result is the first recording of the complete "Winter Music" for one pianist: all notated events (aggregates) from each of the 20 unnumbered pages are played consecutively. The additional, fascinating expansion of the sound space through "harmonics" - overtone vibrations - creates a very differentiated sounding, kaleidoscope-like music of surprisingly idiosyncratic beauty. Dedicated to the artists Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, "Winter Music" calls for a new way of listening: listening to sound with crystalline clarity and permanent change both inside and outside the sound. This integral recording, which is set against the tide of a strongly event-driven cultural life, represents a milestone and point of reference for the further impact of "Winter Music"!

Commissioned by the Japan Society in New York and the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan center in Japan, David Lang's note to a friend is inspired by the famous letter written by short story author Ryunosuke Akutagawa to a fellow writer, announcing his intention to take his own life. Conceived as a chamber opera for solo vocalist and string quartet, the work is also the perfect vehicle for singer Theo Blackmann, who brings a profound emotional weight to his performance, in collaboration with the inimitable Attacca string quartet. Content warning: This recording contains references to suicide and depression, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need suicide- or mental health-related crisis support, or are worried about someone else, please call or text 988 or visit the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline's chat to connect with a trained crisis counselor.

A Symphony of the Earth in Three Movements Discover the arresting new album of piano sonatas by Edward Cowie, one of today's foremost composers inspired by the natural world. Performed by the virtuosic Roderick Chadwick, this album marks the 14th release of Cowie's works on the Metier label, further solidifying his legacy as a composer whose music bridges art, science, and nature. This trilogy of sonatas-Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic-draws directly from the geological processes that shape our planet. Each work is both an independent exploration and part of a greater whole, mirroring the classical sonata cycle in an ambitious and deeply evocative form. �Sonata No. 1: Igneous unleashes fiery, volcanic energy, portraying the birth of rocks through explosive eruptions and flowing magma. It's sonic landscape is alive with tension, turbulence, and ultimately, moments of stillness in the aftermath of volcanic forces. �Sonata No. 2: Sedimentary explores the layering and transformation of rock through aeons of deposition, folding, and fracturing. Alternating between serenity and upheaval, the work reflects the dynamic balance of nature's processes. �Sonata No. 3: Metamorphic, the most expansive and virtuosic of the set, culminates the cycle. It's theme and variations evoke the transformative forces of heat and pressure, blending echoes of the previous sonatas into a profound and unified conclusion. Pianist Roderick Chadwick's interpretation captures the elemental power and intricate detail of Cowie's vision, bringing each sonata to life with extraordinary sensitivity and technical mastery. With influences ranging from Beethoven's late sonatas to the intricate patterns of the natural world, Cowie's music transcends genres, offering listeners a unique and transformative experience. This album is not just a collection of sonatas; it is an odyssey through the earth's geological heart, celebrating the interplay of form, motion, and metamorphosis. Rock Music is a testament to Cowie's genius and Chadwick's exceptional artistry. Essential listening for fans of contemporary classical music.

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

Wolfgang Rihm is one of the world’s most performed and prolific composers. In 1972, he not only graduated from high school but also completed Germany’s state examinations for composition and music theory. Rihm and the cellist Friedrich Gauwerky (who is one year older) met in 1968 when they were roommates for a week at a competition for young musicians in Erlangen. This was the beginning of a life-long friendship. Gauwerky has performed his friend’s music throughout his career, especially the “wild and unbridled” virtuoso solo work Grat. Like Rihm, Friedrich Gauwerky quickly became an internationally celebrated star: as a soloist for works by the New Complexity composers and also as a member of distinguished ensembles such as Ensemble Modern (as principal cellist) and the Elision Ensemble in Australia. Gauwerky has taught at a number of German music universities as well as at the Darmstadt Summer Courses.

Gauwerky says of his friend Rihm, “As a composer he almost always comes up with something unexpected, unpredictable, and new. This may be because he is so open and curious, unlike some composers who continue to churn out the same material because they once had success with it. I have tried to illustrate the broad spectrum of his compositional activity with the works on this album.” To celebrate Wolfgang Rihm’s 70th birthday on 13 March 2022, Gauwerky recorded a very personal tribute to his friend in the studios of Deutschlandfunk in Cologne, including an early unpublished and never-recorded string trio influenced by Alban Berg’s lyrical twelve-tone writing.

This recording presents one of the most lucid and well-programmed portraits of john Adams to emerge, well, in a long while.

In this program, Paavo Järvi and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich celebrate a composer of our time with works from different periods and citing a wide range of references, whether autobiographical or typically American. John Adams has assimilated numerous musical influences, and his personal style cannot be reduced to one of them: he is neither Minimalist, nor post-Minimalist, nor neo-Romantic. Some of his works can of course be said to belong to one or other of these movements, but he does not consider himself to be the representative of any particular tendency. If he refers to musical tradition in his works, it is always in a critical way and at the same time open to the influences of pop music, rock, and jazz.

REVIEW:

Paavo Järvi and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich mightn’t be the first pairing one associates with the music of John Adams. But, as their new album – simply titled John Adams – attests, they’ve pretty much got the iconic American composer’s style down pat.

Rhythmically, the Swiss band really digs into the proceedings here. That’s especially true of their account of Lollapalooza, a whimsical 1995 curtain-raiser dedicated to Simon Rattle. Järvi’s tempo is notably slower than either Kent Nagano’s or Michael Tilson Thomas’s, yet, if the reading is less overtly edgy, it’s perhaps jazzier than its forebears. And it certainly doesn’t want for energy or textural clarity.

Similar qualities mark Slonimsky’s Earbox, another mid-‘90s effort. It’s brilliantly energetic, yes, but Järvi’s command of its structure is the real story: this is as coherent a Slonimsky as has been played, clearly drawing on all the threads of Adams’ style up to about 1996 while also suggesting what was to come in pieces like Naïve and Sentimental Music and Son of Chamber Symphony.

Also, My Father Knew Charles Ives, Adams’ semi-autobiographical 2003 tone poem that, last year, was the highlight of a disc from the Nashville Symphony. Järvi and the Tonhalle-Orchester are, generally, a bit more relaxed in their tempos than their counterparts in Tennessee, especially in the first movement. But the performance never slogs; rather, it overflows with atmosphere and color.

Rounding things out is a carefully-balanced account of Adams’ 1986 fanfare Tromba lontana. Perhaps less familiar than its more vigorous companion piece, Short Ride in a Fast Machine, Tromba lontana, with its delicately dancing textures, potently complements My Father Knew Charles Ives.

The end result is one of the most lucid and well-programmed portraits of Adams to emerge, well, in a long while. As such, it’s an excellent way to mark the composer’s 75th birthday this year – or just his general contributions to contemporary music, which, as this disc reminds, have been anything but commonplace or predictable.

-- The Arts Fuse (Jonathan Blumhofer)

Like his Pulitzer-winning work the little match girl passion, David Lang's 'poor hymnal' tries to get to the core of what a religious experience can be. "What I love about hymnals," the composer writes in his liner notes to the CD, "is that they're a catalog of things a community of worshippers can agree on - a catalog that can be sung. And what the worshippers are singing about matters." 'poor hymnal' is a concert-length work written for the multiple GRAMMY Award-winning chamber choir The Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally. Lang constructed the text by stitching together lines, phrases and poignant utterances from sources as varied as the Old Testament, Mahatma Gandhi and Tolstoy - to name just a few. As Lang explains: "This piece is trying to say: The reason we are coming together is to remember how important we are to each other, and to remember how important it is that we take care of each other."

Having broken off work on a second violin concerto in 2012, the prolific Finnish composer Kalevi Aho only returned to the project after being contacted by the violinist Elina Vähälä. While aware of the weight of tradition and eager to avoid the pitfalls of violinistic clichés, Aho nevertheless wrote a virtuoso work dominated by the soloist, who is offered many possibilities to realise her own interpretative conception. The orchestral part was specifically composed for the Kymi Sinfonietta with its sound in mind. With his second cello concerto, Aho also wanted to write a piece that orchestras of the size of a sinfonietta could include in their programmes. Here too the solo writing is particularly well suited to the instrument. The youngest winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2015, cellist Jonathan Roozeman takes on this work in five movements played without interruption and in the last section delivers a cadenza as unusual as it is clever. The Kymi Sinfonietta is conducted here by Olari Elts, a champion of contemporary Baltic composers.

REVIEWS:

The music of composer Kalevi Aho is difficult to categorize among the various schools of the day. It is broadly expressive, and in these two concertos, Aho uses virtuosity in a thoroughly Romantic way. Yet the rigor of their construction is of a thoroughly modern kind. Consider the solo passage in the middle of the first movement of the Violin Concerto No. 2. It is… what, exactly? A cadenza? Aho uses the word in his informative notes, but it is really more of a distillation of what has happened previously. The entire movement is filled with powerfully difficult violin writing.

The edgy Violin Concerto and the lyrical, rather moody Cello Concerto are quite different in character, but both balance complex instrumental writing with long orchestral passages in inventive ways. The Violin Concerto has the unusual feature of having been written not only for its soloist, Elina Vähälä, but also for its orchestra, the Kymi Sinfonietta, and it holds together tightly; both works were conceived in chamber orchestra terms. The Kymi Sinfonietta is a remarkable example of the deep bench of Finnish orchestral music. Both of these works ought to be more widely played in concert, and it may be that this fine recording will help make that happen.

-- AllMusic.com

When composer Philip Glass started work on his solo Piano Etudes back in 1991, his goal was “to explore a variety of tempi, textures, and piano techniques,” but also, as he mentioned in a 2012 interview, to become “a better player.” Ever since, the Etudes have occupied a place of unrivaled prominence in modern music as a proving ground for up-and-coming, and established, classical pianists to test their mettle. It seems only fitting, then, that Vicky Chow should take up the challenge. For more than a decade, she has exerted her star presence with her standout work as part of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, while also teaming up with such composers as Michael Gordon, Tristan Perich, Jane Antonia Cornish and more to release a series of compelling, and at times even physically demanding, solo performances. She has also shared stages with Glass himself — experiences that have given her a more immediate and personal grasp of the composer's original intention.

The concept album “Arvo Pärt” by Gramola is based on the motif of the mirror. Following up on Daniel Barenboim’s saying “Music comes from silence and ends with it”, there is a prologue and epilogue for piano solo (“For Alina” / “Variations for the Healing of Arinuschka”), which in minimalist form and Pärt’s own tintinnabuli style provides the framework for this almost spiritual journey. Embedded in it, the instruments violin, viola and violoncello, each in combination with piano, play three times first “Spiegel im Spiegel” (Mirror in the mirror) – moving down the musical scale, and then in reverse order of the instruments “Fratres” (Latin for Brothers). The meditative character of these works as well as the special timbres of the instruments are presented inimitably by the musicians Ketevan Sepashvili, piano, Veriko Tchumburidze, violin, Gertrude Rossbacher, viola, and Sandro Sidamonidze, cello.

Acclaimed by the New York Times as "an alluring, mystical new work" when it premiered outdoors at the city's Lincoln Center in July 2014, John Luther Adams' Sila: the Breath of the World is so carefully orchestrated that the recording itself pushes the limits of how to capture multiple ensembles of musicians in one setting. Thanks to modern technology and the magic of multi-tracking (with producers Doug Perkins and Nathaniel Reichman at the controls), Sila maintains the composer's vision as a grand invitation to the listener "to stop and listen more deeply." Put simply, like Inuksuit (2009), widely known as Adams' large ensemble piece for percussion, no two performances of Sila are ever the same, due in part to the freedom that is given to the musicians, each of whom plays or sings a unique part at his or her own pace. But on a macro level, Sila can also be described as an intelligent entity all its own — a living, breathing organism that takes on the collective intent of its performers, and its composer, to transcend the forces of nature and become, in a sense, a "breath of the world."

Celebrated clarinettist Julian Bliss is joined by conductor Taavi Oramo and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to perform concertos by Magnus Lindberg and Kalevi Aho. "In my opinion, the Lindberg and Aho clarinet concertos are two of the greatest of the 21st century. These works demand everything from the performer-one moment navigating passages of extreme virtuosity and precision, the next exploring the most beautiful and breath-taking writing. They require total commitment; there's no holding back, making them both thrilling to perform. Recording these concertos with the incredible BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the brilliant Taavi Oramo was an absolute privilege" - Julian Bliss

Piazzolla: La Calle 92

For some twenty-five years I've had the inestimable privilege of collaborating with Augusta Read Thomas, and so it is with some authority that I claim she is a singular refutation of Newtonian physics: she creates energy. In countless workshops, recording sessions, performances, and masterclasses I've watched her elicit previously undiscovered timbral nuance, dynamic possibility, and personal virtuosity from players and composers alike. Hers is a creative energy so irrepressible that somewhere amidst the cascade of commissions, awards, and international flights to attend performances of her work she, to mention just two examples, launched Chicago's largest-scale new music festival (Ear Taxi) as well as one of the country's most prolific incubators of new work, The Grossman Ensemble. I'm happy to report that the performances captured within this tracklist provide significant evidence in substantiating this bold claim. To my ears, Sol offers Gusty's compositional luminosity as a collection of rituals for introspection, spiritual stimulus, and, at the very least, a reminder that light can prevail in darkness. Particularly enticing is that when imbibed as a whole, this record shepherds us through an extraordinary ceremony that, as with each of the five rites comprising it, tenders the possibility for subtle yet substantive restoration and, ultimately, transformation. � Doyle Armbrust

A theme that violinist Sara Övinge aimed to pursue in the project was the juxtaposition of the electronic and the organic. Philip Glass’s 2nd Piano Concerto is arranged for synthesizer and strings, a kind of updated version of Vivaldi’s string orchestra with continuo. But where previous recordings have gone for an electronic sound resembling the baroque harpsichord, Sara wanted to create a more electro-acoustic soundscape.

To mark the November 2014 publication of Philip Glass's 20 Etudes for piano, SOMM Recordings is proud to release a 10th Anniversary Special Edition of Philip Glass Selected Etudes performed by the versatile and eclectic pianist and composer, Giusto Di Lallo. Di Lallo poses a question to his audience that is typical of his creative vision: "Why offer the public another recording of Glass's Piano Etudes when there are already dozens of them out there?" The answer is that when he first acquired the sheet music for the Etudes and began to analyse and study them, he was struck, "almost with disappointment," by the fact that many pianists had deliberately transformed the sense of some of the Etudes. The main discrepancies that caught Di Lallo's attention were primarily regarding the tempi, although he also realized that pianists had often altered the dynamics and phrasing as well. In wishing to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the publication of Glass's Etudes then, Di Lallo chose a selection of the pieces, and attempted to stay as faithful as possible to the original intentions of the composer. Using a scholarly approach, he adhered strictly to the score to preserve the tempi, dynamics, and phrasing exactly as noted. His aim was to restore the work to it's original spirit and present the Etudes in their most authentic form, creating a sort of reset point after ten years of several "personal" interpretations. Piano etudes, or studies, come from a long compositional tradition. Initially, they were intended as exercises for pianists to master a specific aspect of keyboard technique-be that scales, arpeggios, trills, and the like. During the 19th Century, in the hands of composers such as Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, and Brahms, the etude evolved into a true art form. That tradition continued into the 20th Century with composers like Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Debussy. It is within this tradition that Philip Glass's Etudes find their place. Composer-pianist, Philip Glass, widely known as one of the most celebrated and prolific of contemporary composers, describes his work as "music with repetitive structures." His unique style is strongly recognizable in each of the 20 Etudes, and he has referred to them as a self-portrait of sorts. Until their publication in November 2014, he was almost the only person who had performed the pieces live. Giusto Di Lallo is renowned for an innovative approach that bridges genres and cultures.�Since 1996, he has been a dynamic presence on the concert scene, making more than 1,800 appearances both as a solo pianist and accompanist. His performances showcase a wide-ranging repertoire that spans classical, contemporary, and experimental music. Recent concerts include a series-held in both Italy and the UK-featuring Philip Glass's Etudes for piano, selections of which he now presents in this anniversary release.

For composers beyond counting, the sound of bells has been a source of magnetic fascination since time immemorial (figures as disparate as Rachmaninoff and Jonathan Harvey immediately come to mind), but few have hardwired it in their creative psyche as deeply as Augusta Read Thomas. Previous releases in this series have already included a number of such works (Carillon Sky, Resounding Earth, Bells Ring Summer, Ripple Effects), but the present volume is the first one to concentrate upon this long-standing preoccupation. Each of the three major works gathered here is prefaced by a short miniature. On the process of composition, Thomas has said that "it's like living inside of a poem... I think of myself, and have been described as, a poet-composer. I sculpt my music akin to how poets create, refine, and Polish their poems."

Paavo Jarvi and the Estonian Festival Orchestra here pay tribute to Arvo Part, who celebrates his 90th birthday in 2025. The Estonian composer has been part of Paavo Jarvi's life since childhood: "Arvo was my sister's and my father's supercool friend. He wore a baseball cap, jeans and a denim jacket". The history of the Jarvi family is intimately linked to Part's work, since it was the now legendary concert in which Neeme Jarvi - Paavo's father - conducted Part's Credo in 1968 that caused the Soviet regime to blacklist the Jarvi family and precipitate their departure from Estonia. Credo is also included in this vast programme that covers 45 years of composing. What lies behind this music's simplicity and depth? One answer possibly lies in a remark that Part made in London during a rehearsal with Paavo: "I have the impression that the orchestra doesn't like this chord enough". The transformation that then occurred was incredible; the same notes, when played "with love", sounded completely different.

Accordionist Theo Ould describes this new album as "my most shameful - it's as if I hadn't let myself play Astor's music, not got my accordion out of the world of musical cliches, and concentrated on works that were more classical in style". Theo's vocation, however, nonetheless became evident when he heard Piazzolla's Libertango at the age of 6! This Frenchman from Marseille, 20 years later, now tackles this music with fervour, exaltation, tailor-made arrangements, and the complicity of the Bilitis quartet, alongside double bass player Blanche Strombon; the mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti also appears in a generous and beautiful Balada para un loco, Piazzolla's setting of a poem by Horacio Ferrer. Theo Ould is deeply involved with this music, sharing his passion with us and inviting us to join in Ferrer's Balada: "Crawl into this tender delirium that burns within me, put on this wig wovrn from larks - and fly! Fly with me now! Come along, fly, come!"

Daniel Rowland writes: "I remember so well the moment I first heard Marcelo play, in the beautiful and historic Holywell Music Room in Oxford, in the autumn of 2009. Marcelo's version of a magical Piazzolla touched me deeply and I was utterly captivated and fascinated by it: by the depth, the honesty, the raw emotions, the almost unbearable tenderness, the sense of longing, of loss, the fiery passion... That day I decided to dive deeply into the world of tango, and to learn this language from Marcelo. We started playing together, and very soon became a quintet, with superb artists, brilliant musicians, virtuosos, friends, and like minded, inquisitive, musical spirits. Marcelo grew up in Buenos Aires and met Piazzolla as a child, when Astor's legendary quintet would rehearse at his parents home. Piazzolla would tell Marcelo: 'Marcelito, come and stand behind me as we rehearse and follow my printed score, and listen to what I actually play' - often these two things where very different! This is surely the most direct, and incredible insight into the master's interpretation of his music that one could possible dream of! We in the quintet very strongly feel this unique connection between Piazzolla and Marcelo, it is a great inspiration. I'm sure that Piazzolla like the young Marcelito so much because he saw not only a serious, of course very talented your artists with a huge tango-heart, but also someone who would push the boundaries of tango, keep innovating and daring to experiment, while respecting the tradition."

George Lloyd will mostly remembered for his 12 Symphonies, but his compositions include Opera, Choral, Concerto, Piano and Chamber Music. In 2023 the Trustees of Lyrita Nimbus Arts reached an exclusive agreement with The George Lloyd Society to take over the sale, hire, archiving and preservation of all George Lloyd's scores as well as the commercial exploitation of the collection of recordings made by the Society in the 1990s and conducted by the composer. Because George Lloyd's personal attention is a dominating influence on the scores and recordings, which he mostly conducted himself, we have decided to headline this representation the 'Signature Collection'. Scores will be cleaned, and new orchestral parts created, recordings will be reorganised into collectable sets available on CD, Download and Streaming with new notes commissioned from Paul Conway.

It is largely due to Astor Piazzolla that the bandoneon has become inextricably linked to the languid, sensual art of the tango. His renewal of its traditions – the so-called Nuevo tango – is exemplified by Aconcagua, a concerto for bandoneon, string orchestra and timpani of vivid imagination and rapid changes of mood that embodies the milonga, the improvised song of the Argentine. The six accompanying pieces are among Piazzolla’s most famous and evocative – works of poignant melody, profound melancholy and complex, uplifting beauty.

Gavin Higgins' music is bursting with authenticity. Everything he writes speaks in some way of where he comes from, of the land, of the community, of the family which formed him. He grew up in a working class former mining community in the Forest of Dean, a borderland between England and Wales with it's own dialect, a liminal place where Welsh songs and stories as well as English are in the air. It's a place where brass band music is the chief legacy of the coal mines, the last of which closed a decade before Gavin was born and where the forest, with it's sounds, it's colours and it's stories was a constant presence. Gavin has spoken evocatively - and perhaps romantically - about the music of the forest which surrounded him: sounds of foxes and deer mingled with brass bands, church choirs and occasional illegal raves. Nature and music, he says, are powerfully linked in his mind. Almost as soon as he could speak, Gavin was given a cornet to blow and grew up playing in the brass band conducted by his grandfather and populated by most of his family. A scholarship to specialist music school in Manchester and subsequent study at the Royal Northern College of Music meant that he moved on to the orchestral French horn. Now, as a composer chiefly working in the orchestral and opera world, Gavin still writes for brass bands and has even put his two musical traditions on the stage together in an award winning Concerto Grosso for Brass Band and Orchestra. But the pieces on this disc which feature the French horn - Horn Concerto and Fanfare, Air and Flourish - mark the first time that he has highlighted his own instrument in the solo slot. As ever, it was a personal connection which sparked the idea of the Horn Concerto - an approach from the horn virtuoso Ben Goldscheider, made in the full knowledge that this would reunite Gavin with his younger self.

For his third solo album for Alpha, keyboard polyglot Anthony Romaniuk returns to the piano, exploring the seven modes: derived from the major scale, the basis of ancient Greek music but nowadays endemic in folk, jazz, and beyond, each one containing a world of character and mood. Starting with John Adams' Phrygian Gates, Romaniuk devised a programme comprising music by P�rt, Ligeti, Radiohead, and Bj�rk, with his own original compositions; arrangements of traditional Catalan and English/Scottish music; and improvisations. Continuing his search for a personal and original sound, Romaniuk uses two pianos, including a Klavins upright grand piano (from the collection of Nils Frahm) which, thanks to it's massive soundboard and four-metre-long bass strings, overwhelms the listener. The addition of various analogue and digital audio effects, together with innovative recording techniques, brings the listener into a unique sonic landscape, approaching that of a sound installation.

The exquisitely decorated 15th century choir book known as the Old Hall manuscript was lost to history for the best part of 400 years until its reappearance in a Catholic seminary at the end of the 19th century. The largest surviving collection of medieval motets and mass movements, it immediately became the most celebrated source of English music of the period. It was written in the first instance by a single scribe to ensure that the music of his fellow singers was not forgotten. Many of them are known only from this manuscript, and on this album they find their voices again after more than half a millennium of silence, transformed by the singing of Trio Mediæval in the company of Catalina Vicens, alongside new music by David Lang and Marianne Reidarsdatter Eriksen. Hailed as a "fascinating journey with music of timeless beauty", Trio Mediæval’s highly acclaimed first album Words of the Angel in 2001 launched the group into the elite circles of early music ensembles and introduced them to a broad international audience. Formed in 1997, the Grammy nominated vocal ensemble consists of founder members Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Anna Maria Friman, and Jorunn Lovise Husan who joined the group in 2018. Trio Mediæval has recorded eight albums for ECM Records. An Old Hall Ladymass is their second release, following Solacium, with the Norwegian label 2L. Produced by Morten Lindberg.