Danish Dynamite! The Danish Quartet, established in the 1930s, enjoyed fame for over two decades in Denmark and abroad. Many composers wrote music for their nontraditional setting, including Niels Viggo Bentzon, Fini Henriques, Herman D. Koppel, Otto Mortensen, and Knud�ge Riisager. With one exception (Riisager), all pieces on this album are world premiere recordings performed by today's highly ranked and award-winning Swedish-Danish musicians: Janne Thomsen (flute), Cecilia Zilliacus (violin), Andreas Brantelid (cello), and Bengt Forsberg (piano).

Ludvig Norman (1831-1885) was a composer of great importance in Swedish musical life. On this album the Stockholm-based Japanese pianist Kiyo Wada presents, along with Ludvig Norman Strings, two of his major chamber music works: the piano quartet and the piano sextet. As a bonus you get the piano suite "Lifvets �ldrar" (The Stages of Life). The piano sextet and the piano suite are world premiere CD recordings, not to be missed!

The composer, violinist and conductor, Hugo Alfven (1872-1960), is a kind of national composer in Sweden. His tonal language is very much romantic nationalism and his period of glory ranges from the late 1890s until the mid-1920s. He was active in all imaginable genres, such as symphonic works, chamber music, choirs, solo instruments, and his many songs are still widely performed today. Several songs are available in different arrangements, partly for voice and piano, partly with orchestra in different settings. The great majority of the orchestral song versions presented on this album are first recordings, performed by a dream team of singers: Kerstin Avemo and Sabina Bisholt, sopranos; Tobias Westman, tenor; Karl-Magnus Fredriksson, baritone. The Goteborg Opera Orchestra is conducted by one of Sweden's foremost conductors, Patrik Ringborg.

Peter Friis Johansson is one of Sweden's most brilliant pianists right now. He has not least won recognition for his cycles of Franz Schubert's complete piano sonatas for more than a decade. Now that he has finally started recording them under the title 'Beyond Schubert' it is with an unusual approach. Not only does he perform from original manuscripts, and even completes unfinished sonatas - he also combines some of the sonatas with high quality works by Swedish composers that somehow are connected to Schubert's. On this first volume, the charming A Major Sonata, Op. 3, by Sweden's grand old lady, Elfrida Andree (1841-1929), is placed next to Schubert's equally charming sonata in the same key (D 664). This album starts, however, with Schubert's big A Minor Sonata (D 845). 'Beyond Schubert' is both a series of recordings and an artistic research project, centered around Franz Schubert and his piano sonatas. As a body of work, the recordings aim to portray Schubert in new and sometimes experimental ways. The word 'Beyond' is therefore central to the project and carries different meanings across it's various components. The research project primarily focuses on Schubert's piano sonata fragments, completing them using diverse methods and aesthetic approaches. Some of these completions will be released as recordings, while others will be available only as sheet music. An online tool will also be developed, allowing anyone to create their own completions of the unfinished sonata movements. The recordings will eventually encompass all of Schubert's finished and fragmentary piano sonatas. Some, as in this recording, will be juxtaposed with other works that have a clear connection to Schubert's music. In this sense, 'Beyond' refers to how Schubert has influenced other composers, and how his style resonates beyond his own compositions.

Sweden is well-known for it's many great singers, but perhaps less known for it's operas and orchestral songs. Now you have the opportunity to hear a selection of works by both male and female Swedish composers: Hugo Alfven, Elfrida Andree, Ingeborg von Bronsart, Helena Munktell, Laura Netzel, Gosta Nystroem and Ture Rangstrom. On top of everything performed by a Swedish vocal dream team (Kerstin Avemo, Sabina Bisholt, Julia Sporsen, Viktor Johansson, Karl-Magnus Fredriksson) and the Goteborg Opera Orchestra conducted by Patrik Ringborg. World premiere recordings of more than half of the content!

Marten Falk, one of Sweden's foremost and most versatile guitarists, is back with the second part of his guitar trilogy, a survey of the astonish repertoire for the Russian, seven-string guitar. This time he invites you to forgotten music from mid-19th century Fedor Zimmerman through Vetrov, Alexandrov, Polupaenko, Khalpakchiev, Pavlov-Azancheev and Orekhov, until 20th century Fedor Kondenko.

Bo Linde (1933-1970) was one of his time's most gifted Swedish composers and composed very advanced music already in his teens. Due to his expressive preferences he became more or less a musical outcast since the strongly politicized Swedish music life in the 1950s demanded avantgardistic music which under no circumstances should be satisfying to the listener's ear! Many of his works were neglected, until now, when some of Scandinavia's foremost chamber musicians, Ylva Larsdotter, Torun Saeeter Stavseng, and Peter Friis Johansson have made the world premiere recordings of Linde's Piano Trio No. 1 and Six Character Pieces. Furthermore, the Divertimento Op. 25 is for the first time presented in a version for violin, cello & piano. Don't miss out on these astonishing finds!

Conductor Simon Crawford-Phillips leads the Västerås Sinfonietta on their new concept album; 'Scotland'. The principal work is Mendelssohn's famous 3rd Symphony; the 'Scottish'; coupled with two interesting contemporary works with strong bonds to Scotland: Helen Grime's "Elegiac Inflections"; and Peter Maxwell Davies' 'Strathclyde Concerto No. 10'.

Swedish award-winning percussionist Markus Leoson presents his own and other's arrangements for marimba of favourite composers such as Astor Piazzolla, Erik Satie and J. S. Bach, In addition, two of the Piazzolla pieces are arranged for vibraphone.
Markus Leoson was admitted at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm already at the age of 15, and graduated four years later in 1989. Since then he has performed nationally and internationally as both soloist and as orchestra musician. Besides his activity as a performing artist he is professor at Hochschulzentrum am Horn in Weimar, Germany.

The newly formed Zilliacus Quartet (Cecilia Zilliacus, violin I, Julia-Maria Kretz, violin II, Ylvali Zilliacus, viola, and Kati Raitinen, cello) now release an exclusive album with rare string quartets by Edvard Grieg, Amanda Maier, and Julius Röntgen. It's the first time Julius Röntgen's original manuscript of his completed version of Grieg's F major quartet has been recorded, including Röntgen's coda of the final movement. This CD with romantic string quartets of three close friends is a must for all string quartet lovers!

The Nordic Chamber Orchestra, led by multiple award-winning conductors JoAnn Falletta and Patrik Ringborg, perform orchestral works by multiple award-winning Swedish composer, Andrea Tarrodi.

Tarrodi needs no further introduction in Sweden, and international audiences have also opened their hearts to her accessible, colorful music. In 2020, she was the first Swedish composer ever to receive a commission for the BBC’s renowned Last Night of the Proms.

This new release is a fully loaded album with a unique combo of violin concertos by Johannes Brahms and his contemporary friends, Amanda Maier and Julius Röntgen. Furthermore, the album includes a brand-new Brahms cadenza, written by award-winning Swedish composer, Mats Larsson Gothe. This is the first Swedish studio recording of Brahms’s concerto with one of Sweden’s foremost violinists, Cecilia Zilliacus, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, and renowned Estonian conductor, Kristiina Poska.

”Cecilia is extremely musical and living proof that it’s always possible to pursue unusual ideas” (The Strad, 2018). Over the years, audiences have embraced Zilliacus’ equally tantalizing and warm interpretations of everything from the great classical and Romantic works to contemporary chamber music and collaborations across genres – from the most prominent symphony orchestras, conductors, and composers in Europe to jazz musicians, folk musicians, singer songwriters, and others.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music