I was less interested in God and religious ceremonies than in singing of unrivalled beauty. What Sergei Rachmaninoff later said about his early childhood contact with the Orthodox liturgy and it's rituals also applied to his later life as a composer. Singing plays a central role in the Russian Orthodox rite: almost the entire service is sung, instruments are not permitted and only the word should take centre stage. This mystical a cappella singing is characterised by it's Byzantine tonal system based on eight notes and it's strong bass foundation. In combination with the peculiar language of the special Church Slavonic, the result is an archaic, exotic and fascinating world of sound, which Rachmaninoff masterfully combines with his modern tonal language in his Ganznachtliche Vigil, written two years before his emigration to the USA.

Few works by Johann Sebastian Bach have given rise to more research and speculation than the 'Sei Solo', the sonatas and partitas for solo violin. From the search for models to dating based on stylistic features, from the identification of the paper used for the autograph from 1720 to the mysticism of numbers, no stone has been left unturned to solve the numerous riddles posed by this exorbitant work. The pieces in this collection are exorbitant in several respects. Not only does Bach go beyond what was customary at the time in terms of length, but the musical content and technical demands are also unprecedented, both in the context of contemporary violin music by other composers and within Bach's own oeuvre. As so often in Bach's oeuvre, an entire musical cosmos is explored in a single work.

Intermedial, occasionally multimedia, filmic, (photo-)graphic, electro-acoustic, radiophonic, instrumental, improvisational, notated, installative and often collaborative. This is how Nikolaus Heyduck, born in Kassel in 1957, can be described. He is not just an artist and composer, he is a performing musician, a sound artist, an equally active player in the various aesthetic metiers. The CD Horizons features seven of his works that have been created in recent years as joint projects with artists and composers who are also predominantly polyaesthetically active.

His 18 piano sonatas can be described as the secret stars of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's extensive oeuvre. They were often important areas of experimentation, which in Mozart's short biography describe a development from early rococo to classical maturity, in which he explored new compositional techniques and then later transferred these to the larger genres. This is exemplified by the three works now recorded by Amy Lin in her familiar sensitive manner: the Sonata K. 333 emphasizes the lyrical and pastoral. In K. 284, the 18-year-old composer establishes the alternation between 'quasi-tutti' based on the orchestral writing and soloistic passages in dialogue-like interplay. The famous C minor Sonata K. 457, which Beethoven admired so much, shows a completely different, darkly dramatic tone and thus Mozart's fascinating stylistic diversity in this genre as well.

Antje Rux and Lee Santana venture on an unconventional spiritual journey in their latest release. They found inspiration for their song cycle in the poet Angelus Silesius, who made a particularly deeply felt religiosity the basis of his texts. The Breslau court composer Georg Joseph set the 200 poems of his Heiligen Seelenlust to music as early as the 17th century. Lee Santana selected 14 of them and made them the starting point for further arrangements with ritornellos and preludes. Antje Rux explains the unusual principle behind this compilation: 'We have combined the Silesius songbook by Lee with a small, fine selection of Georg Joseph songs, harmonised in terms of content. Since both composers use modal keys, it will sometimes not be immediately recognisable to the listener whether they are musically in the 17th or 21st century.' These interweavings create extraordinary sound effects that make the spirituality tangible.

“Whether the subject is geology, oceanography, meteorology, or sociology, a stratum is a layer that is distinguished in some way from the layers below and above it…”
Tim Rutherford-Johnson - on Strata.

The Laefer Quartet’s debut album, Strata, presents a body of previously unrecorded music that explores the different ways we interact, intertwine, and impose on the natural world around us. A collaborative ethos has formed a central part of the album's creation, which features six commissioned pieces alongside visual artworks based on a synaesthetic response to the music. The album guides listeners upwards across various ‘strata’: starting from the rumblings of the New York subway, moving through various natural, mechanical, and political phenomena that form the stratum we, as humans, typically occupy, into the skies we fly through and the stars we gaze upon, before finally bursting into the ethereal and beyond, all the while exploring the varied and exciting sonic possibilities the saxophone quartet has to offer. Featuring works by Charlotte Harding, Michael Cryne, Benjamin Oliver, Clare Loveday, Anna Appleby, Denise Ondishko, and Howard Skempton.

In the 19th century, Italy and Spain were not only countries of longing, but also sources of inspiration. An illustrious group of composers, including celebrities from countries further north such as Johannes Brahms, expressed this longing in a variety of ways. In the wake of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Germans primarily sought themselves in Italy, while the Romantics sought the Orient in Spain. The French composers of the second half of the 19th century were enthusiastic travellers to Spain who tried to capture the Spanish colours with their very own colouring. Gioacchino Rossini reminisced about his homeland and the Adriatic Sea in Paris, while Fernando Obradors set classical Spanish poetry, including Federico García Lorca, to music on the Canary Islands. Carmen Artaza and Hilko Dumno breathe Mediterranean temperament into all of this and unfold a vibrant colourfulness.

The five works on Sarah Saviet's debut solo album each explore resonances and textures on the violin in unique ways. In Liza Lim's The Su Song Star Map, the scordatura and throaty bow gestures create a sensual and sonorous sound world, while Lisa Streich's Falter instructs the performer to 'be a lepidoptera' (a moth or butterfly) and focuses on lighter, more wind-born gestures. Evan Johnson's Wolke über Bäumen played with gut strings and baroque bow involves constant re-tuning of the instrument, allowing for and delighting in the inconsistencies produced in sounds and phrases. Arne Gieshoff's spun is the most outwardly virtuosic work on the album, and Lawrence Dunn's Habitual focuses on a private expression of an inner song.

SILENZIO; MISTERIO! SECRET AND SILENT ... this is how the chorus begins Verdi's first Venice opera. For I due Foscari; the composer combined dark timbres; impressive choral scenes; intimate orchestral solos and stirring arias.

Eight remarkable and talented young pianists; from six different countries around the world came to further their musical studies at the Conservatory of Music and Académie Supérieure de Musique (HEAR) in Strasbourg; France. During the COVID-19 years; they took on together the challenge of learning the marvelous but highly demanding piano works of the great French composer Hugues Dufourt; who coined the term “Spectral Music” in the 1970's. The young pianists had the honour of working with Hugues Dufourt himself. Here the complete piano solo works of Hugues Dufourt are presented for the first time. The CDs were recorded in the presence of Mr. Dufourt and under his guidance.

He is probably the most famous German "prince of poets" - but music also accompanied Goethe throughout his life: His parents played music and he himself learnt to play several instruments. Naturally, he was interested in having his poems set to music - although he was strict in his requirements. Carl Friedrich Zelter set the poetry to music very "carefully"; in his songs, the rhythm of speech takes centre stage. This obviously corresponded to Goethe's ideas, as he wrote to him in a letter: "I immediately feel that your compositions are identical to my songs, the music only takes the balloon up with it, like an inflowing gas. With other composers, I first have to realise how they took the song, what they made of it." Fortunately, not all of them adhered to Goethe's ideas and thought more independently in terms of composition. This creates a fascinating field of tension between the very different approaches of contemporaries.

Tristan und Isolde - the opera in which "Richard once wanted to be completely symphonic"; as his wife Cosima wrote - in a gripping one-hour paraphrase for string septet which, shortly after its premiere by the soloist ensemble D'Accord, has already conquered a place on stages all over the world.

The depiction of emotions came to the fore in the music of the late 16th century. Religious content is foregrounded, told from the perspective of the protagonists in order to generate compassion and understanding. In Tarquinio Merula's Canzonetta sopra la nanna, Mary's love for her child is just as palpable as her fear of his impending fate. Sacred songs such as the Salve Regina are transformed by Claudio Monteverdi into an intimate prayer to the Virgin Mary. Placing secular texts in a spiritual context was another means used by early Baroque composers. Claudio Monteverdi rewrote the then-popular Lamento d'Arianna as Lamento della Maddalena; Arianna, who laments for her beloved Theseus, becomes Marie Maddalena, who has been abandoned by Jesus. The Aria sopra la Romanesca by Paolo Quagliati is a reinterpretation of a love sonnet. "Working out and showing all these emotions in an almost theatrical style is the appeal of this music. We particularly enjoyed doing that," says Pia Davila.

The proud Hanseatic city of Hamburg enjoys a special status in northern Germany - and that was already the case 400 years ago. Maritime trade made it prosperous even back then, and through skilful diplomacy and a gigantic defensive wall, the city was almost completely spared the devastation of the 30 Years' War, while much of the rest of Europe sank into rubble and misery. The office of Hamburg's city cantor was thus one of the most attractive positions that northern Germany had to offer at that time. Thomas Selle held this position from 1641 and repaid his new home with outstanding compositions such as the St. John Passion from 1643, which is particularly striking for the extraordinary colourfulness of the instrumentation. The Göttingen Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Antonius Adamske, brings it out radiantly, providing the perfect support for the illustrious trio of soloists.

The Ares Trio brings together two requiems in the form of piano trios by two composers whose active periods fell within those of the Soviet Union and who were harassed by the cultural bureaucracy there: Shostakovich composed his Trio for Piano and Strings, Op. 67, in memory of his beloved friend, the musician and music critic Iván Sollertìnski, who had always stood by him, even when the Leningrad composer's music was condemned by Stalin, making him constantly fear arrest. The trio was premiered in Leningrad that same year, 1944, and has been part of the standard repertoire of piano trio literature ever since. Shostakovich's contemporary and fellow sufferer Arno Babadjanian, on the other hand, wrote his piano trio almost as a requiem for himself: in 1952, the 31-year-old was diagnosed with leukemia, which in his day was an almost certain death sentence. But with an iron will to live, he managed over 30 more years, during which his trio was performed again and again.

How science and art cross-fertilize can be studied in the city of Göttingen in the late 18th century. Founded in 1734, the university there is not one of the oldest in Germany, but it is still one of the most popular. And it brought a heyday precisely in music as well. Johann Friedrich Schweinitz was one of the first law students in Göttingen; he had previously been a member of the Bach Collegium musicum in Leipzig and had personally experienced the old Johann Sebastian. In general, he was probably more interested in music than in law and made it his task to coordinate the Göttingen university music and to lead it to its peak, for which he also worked diligently as a composer.

The Christmas Cantata is one of his greatest works, and the influence of Bach as a role model can be felt in them. His successors expanded the stylistic spectrum, and thus, supplemented by symphonic works, a colorful picture of Göttingen's musical life on the threshold from the Baroque to the Classical era emerges.

The "promotion of the worship of God and German loyalty, cultivation and improvement of the German language and poetry" was the goal of the so-called Pegnitz-Schäfer, formulated in baroque floweriness. The poets' association, based in Nuremberg and named after the river Pegnitz there, was progressive in one respect, however: women could also become members. Gertraud Möller was the best known of them in her time, and was even crowned "poeta laureata" in 1671. The poet, who came from Königsberg, took the opportunity to compile an extensive collection of her works, which were printed under the title Parnaß-Blumen. Much of this magnificent collection of poems was set to music by Möller's Königsberg composer friend Johann Sebastiani, just as magnificently for singing voices with instrumental accompaniment. Alternating between touching love and mourning songs and pointed caricatures, Wunderkammer and Aelbgut's selection presents the plump baroque reality of life with haunting intensity.

Michel Corrette belongs to that not so rare species of 18th century composers whose diligence was at times their undoing. He was so prolific that he was dismissed by some in posterity as a superficial prolific writer, a fate he shared with Vivaldi, for example. In his time, Corrette was simply a keyboard whiz: in Paris, he held various organist posts, among others in the service of the Jesuits, composed sacred and secular vocal and instrumental music, and directed a music school. Thus we owe him a number of excellent school works for various instruments. His musical passion, however, was for the queen of instruments: With his works, he was able to elicit a playful lightness from the organ, which is otherwise associated with powerful sounds, like hardly anyone else. In their new recording, Hannfried Lucke and the orchestra le phénix present the concertante character with virtuoso brilliance.

The encounter of different epochs is often the decisive moment of tension in music programs. Chorwerk Ruhr chooses a particularly original path in its latest prank: a central work by Heinrich Schütz is juxtaposed with what Nikolaus Brass, born in 1949, develops from his encounter with the work of arguably the greatest German vocal composer of the early Baroque. Schütz's Musikalische Exequien, a three-part funeral music with German text from 1637, vividly depicts suffering and death, but in accordance with Christian doctrine also gives great space to the certainty of salvation. Nikolaus Brass, as he says, conscious of this certainty, interrogates the music of his revered colleague and responds partly with almost verbatim quotations, partly with strongly contrasting passages from his works Voices 1 and Voices 2. In this new production, these two frame the Exequien as a large central work, again framed by two Schütz mottoes, so that a symmetrical overall arrangement is formed.

In the short period between strict Baroque counterpoint and mature Viennese Classicism, we find delightful and entertaining compositions of unprecedented elegance. Numerous playful and lighthearted serenades and divertimenti were often performed in open-air venues. In particular, the parks of the Mirabell and Hellbrunn palaces in Salzburg offered a suitable setting for such open-air concerts. These often featured wind and brass instruments and provided occasions for the musicians of the Salzburg Hofkapelle to display their virtuosity. Their reputation continued at least as late as 1806, when Christian Daniel Schubart wrote "Die Salzburger glänzen sonderlich in blasenden Instrumenten".[1] One of these soloists was trombonist Thomas Gschlatt (1723-1806), for whom Michael Haydn wrote the Larghetto for trombone and orchestra presented here. From 1753 to 1771 Salzburg was ruled by a great patron of the arts, Archbishop Sigismund III Count Schrattbach. As a generous donor he often supported his musicians with his private "casket funds". Today, he is best known as financier of the Mozart family's travels. Except for Leopold Mozart's trio, which probably originated around 1750, all compositions recorded here come from his Salzburg regency.

His colleague Georg Philipp Telemann, who was only a few years older, described him as "the greatest mind of his time". Reinhard Keiser is a striking example of a musician who was held in the highest esteem in his time, but is hardly present today. He wrote numerous stage works for the Hamburg Opera at the Gänsemarkt. A special position in Keiser's oeuvre is occupied by the opera Ulysses from 1722: it is based on the work of another. Jean-Féry Rebel had already presented an opera of the same name in Paris in 1703; librettist Friedrich Maximilian von Lersner translated the literary model into German. Keiser made a virtue out of the necessity of adaptation and created a highly virtuosic combination of German text, French splendor and the Italian passion that was already common in the opera business at the time and which he mastered to perfection. The Göttingen Baroque Orchestra and an illustrious group of soloists present this ingenious and highly enjoyable mix of styles with passionate enthusiasm.

A well thought-out concept album was to be their first recorded release, the musicians of Percussion Under Construction had already decided before Corona. The forced break in the first lockdown in March 2020 strengthened them in this decision: Newly created works in this exceptional situation were to enter into correspondence with previously known ones. Thus, Prelude I, composed by ensemble member Martin Hennicke during this time, reflects the situation of the soloist left entirely to his own devices, while he revised his work L.A., begun earlier, to represent the particular consternation of the mega-metropolis: The composition, consisting partly of field recordings of industrial plants, takes on a life of it's own and continues to exist even without the temporarily invisible people. Works of the last decades partly sound in new versions, new ones were created especially for the situation of the only virtually connected actors - an impressive demonstration of different worlds of experience.

Variation means change - a creative impulse that has driven composers for centuries. Among the great variation cycles in music history, one rises like an eight-thousander: Ludwig van Beethoven's 33 Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli, op. 120. On her new recording, pianist Lei Meng places this monumental late work at the centre and invites listeners on an ascent into Beethoven's most imaginative terrain. Lei Meng pairs this towering cycle with a work from Beethoven's early years: the energetic, sharply profiled c-minor Bagatelle WoO 52 from 1795. Here we already encounter the composer who would make the key of C minor his signature - with scherzo-like wit, driving force and a softly glowing trio in C major.

Philippe Joseph Hinner (1755-1784) - long known only as "Harp Master to Her Majesty, the Queen of France" - was much more than a court musician. His extraordinary biography and elegant music offer a fascinating glimpse into the world of Marie Antoinette and the refined culture of pre-revolutionary France. In 1774, he was appointed to the royal chapel of Louis XVI and soon became harpist and valet to the young queen. In her company, he composed numerous subtle works - romances and airs tendres for voice and harp - intended for the elegant salons of Versailles and often dedicated to members of the royal family. For several years, Julia Kirchner and Vera Schnider have been rediscovering forgotten works for soprano and harp from around 1800. Their new album brings Hinner's romances and airs back to life - intimate, finely nuanced pieces full of expression, grace, and virtuosity.