Previously unreleased broadcast recordings capture Thomas Jensen in Baroque and Classical-era repertoire new to his discography. Jensen makes a stylish Mozartian in these rhythmically sprung and cultivated concert performances, given by the DRSO in Copenhagen and on tour. They are joined by the Danish violinist Tutter Givskov for one of Mozart’s earliest masterpieces, the Violin Concerto No. 3 K216.

With�Marimba, David Moliner presents an extraordinary album that places this unique instrument and it's manifold colors and sounds at it's core. Moliner's masterful arrangements and two original works composed specifically for the instrument take listeners on a sonic journey through the centuries, combining both technical skill and creative expression. The album brings together works from various epochs and styles. Particularly notable is his arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suites, which he transforms into new, polyphonic textures using his four Marimba mallets. Moliner successfully combines Bach's rhythmic pulse and musical complexity with the Marimba's unique tonal color. In addition to the Baroque works, the album also features pieces by Claude Debussy and Franz Schubert. Moliner brings a new dimension to Debussy's impressionistic�Arabesques, allowing the Marimba to bloom in a delicate, almost pictorial soundscape. Schubert's romantic�Impromptu, transcribed by Moliner for Marimba, unfolds in it's poetic beauty and gains expressive depth through the instrument's distinct timbre. Another highlight is the composition�Jalak Suren�by contemporary composer Alexander Liebermann, inspired by the bird songs of Indonesia. Moliner brings the subtle melodies and rhythmic structures of this music to life, allowing the Marimba to shine as a sensitive storyteller of a musical nature portrait. The album concludes with Moliner's own Marimba composition, making a powerful statement: the Marimba is not just an exotic instrument but a full-fledged member of the classical music scene, capable of interpreting the entire spectrum of the repertoire from Baroque to Modern. A must for lovers of sophisticated percussion and for all those who want to experience classical music in a new, captivating sonic dimension. Recorded at Kloster Lankwitz, Berlin October 2024

The six duos for violin and viola on this recording were composed between July and October 1783. A biographical sketch by Michael Haydn, published in 1808, two years after his death, recounts this in detail. "Michael Haydn was ordered by superiors to write duets for violin and alto. However, he was unable to deliver them by the appointed time because he was struck by a severe illness, which subsequently rendered him incapable of any work for longer than anyone expected; for the great man was incapable of giving a quid pro quo. He was threatened with the withdrawal of his salary if he delayed, because the master was presumably too little informed about Haydn's circumstances, or perhaps even deceived by false reports. Mozart, who visited him daily, learned of this, sat down, and wrote for his afflicted friend with such unceasing restlessness that the duets were completed in a few days and submitted under Michael Haydn's name. We often delighted ourselves later on with this excellently executed work of love, which our master also preserved in the original as a sanctuary, always honoring Mozart's immortal memory. Holy genius of friendship!"

This collection of arias from the operas Il Tigrane, Poro, La Sofonisba, L’Ippolito is a testimony of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera activity from the year 1743 to 1745. At the age of 30, yet already successful composer, Gluck wrote his operas for the most important events in the cities of Crema, Turin and Milan, almost without a break. He seems to be at the peak of his career, yet he has not created those great compositions such as Orpheus and Euridice, Paride ed Elena, Alceste, that would have linked his name to the reform of opera theorised together with Ranieri de’ Calzabigi and which made him one of the immortal names in the music history. The autographs of these arias no longer exist, nor the scores of the entire operas. Some pieces, sometimes with only basso continuo accompaniment, are all that remain of the enormous fortune that those performances had at the time. To be as close as possible to the original performance, arias with existing orchestral part have been chosen, except for the aria""Se viver non poss’io"" from the opera Poro which was orchestrated from the basso continuo and some indication of the first violin motif, as complete scores of the opera Poro no longer exist. The curator of the work is Elena De Simone herself, a mezzo-soprano that – accompanied by Il Mosaico ensemble – already distinguished herself with the rediscovery of the works by Hasse and Maria Teresa Agnesi (Tactus' TC690801, TC720101 and TC720102).

Bach - Berio - Boulez: Marek svejkar's bold and brilliant debut The clarinet is one of the instruments with the broadest spectrum of sonic possibilities in terms of it's range of dynamics and pitches. It received the greatest attention during the era of Classicism both in solo parts in concertos and in the roles of a chamber music partner and an orchestral instrument. It had to wait until the 20th century for works featuring it's unaccompanied solo voice in it's full range of colours. Outstanding among the composers who created such works are two figures who fundamentally shaped musical thinking in the latter half of the 20th century: Luciano Berio and Pierre Boulez. Commemorating the 100th anniversaries of both men's birth, this recording covers their complete music for solo clarinet. Berio and Boulez sought new ways to organise music in time and space, and both took inspiration from poetry. Boulez gave symbolic expression to their quest: "It must be our concern... to jettison the concept of a work as a simple journey starting with a departure and ending with an arrival." One of the things that inspired Berio's idea of "polyphonic music for a monophonic instrument" were works by J. S. Bach. One of them, Partita in A minor for solo flute, is heard on this recording in juxtaposition with the modernism of the 20th century. The clarinettist Marek svejkar is a laureate of the Premier Prix from Paris's prestigious Conservatoire National Superieur, and he has been a winner of international competitions including events in Markneukirchen, Germany, and in Carlino, Italy. He has appeared as a soloist with the Czech Philharmonic and with Jiri Belohlavek, and having participated at the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, he is now enrolled at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome under the tutelage of Alessandro Carbonare. The elite circle of European clarinettists is now within Marek svejkar's reach.

This CD features works whose first editions or manuscripts are preserved in libraries north of the Alps, particularly in present-day Germany. Of particular interest is that these are primarily works for wind instruments, especially oboes, but also trumpets. Another important aspect is the transcription and arrangement of Albinoni's works and themes from the pen of two famous German composers, Johann Sebastian Bach and Johann Gottfried Walther. Albinoni was already very famous during his lifetime and admired by princes and fellow musicians, even north of the Alps!

The Swiss-Franco-American virtuoso, Celeste-Marie Roy, elevates the sonorous splendour of the bassoon to vibrant new heights, dispelling many a preconception about her instrument. Roy's flexible tone, technical finesse and striking interpretation ensure this solo programme in high-resolution 3D reproduction is a dynamic listening experience!

The name of the young Czech virtuoso Michaela Koudelkova should be committed well to memory. She has far more going for her than just the names of her teachers (Peter Holtslag, Erik Bosgraaf). She is a winner of the Tel Aviv Recorder Competition and a finalist of the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition in England, and her solo recitals have included an appearance at the prestigious Oude Muziek Festival in Utrecht. Her Supraphon debut, for which she has chosen masterworks by Handel and Corelli, showcases her uncompromising technique, but above all it shows her supreme musical sensitivity and her interpretive stylishness, including the ability to improvise, participating in the recreation of notated works. Of all the sonatas listed on the album, only one is intended for her instrument; the rest were originally for violin or transverse flute. Of course, a characteristic of the baroque era was great freedom in the choice of solo instruments, as is clear from period printed editions, and the recorder was very popular at the time. Besides the most common alto and soprano recorders, the recording also features an instrument with a darker timbre, the voice flute in D, which was popular in England, and the sixth flute, pitched an octave higher and often used for music played between acts of Handel's London operas. Besides sonatas by Handel, the soloist has also chosen three sonatas from Corelli's Opus 5. Over the centuries, the art of improvisation has been taught using the passaggi in the slow movements of the twelve violin sonatas in this iconic collection. The last and most famous sonata, "Follia", is the brilliant and rather experimental climax of the album, combining the creativity of the composer with that of the performers. Lightness, liveliness, spontaneity, bravura, intoxicating richness of sound - Michaela Koudelkova's exciting Handel and Corelli

Ignatius Sancho: Music of an Eighteenth-Century Black Englishman The Black British writer and musician Ignatius Sancho (ca. 1729-1780) may have been born into slavery. By 1749, he had become part of the household of the Duke of Montagu, where he worked as a valet, later becoming a shopkeeper in the neighborhood of Westminster. Sancho is known today as a writer through his posthumously published Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African (1782).

With a sure instinct for the extraordinary the Baroque orchestra caterva musica, formed by renowned soloists, release the final installment of their "L'arte del virtuoso" series in time for the ensemble's 25th anniversary. Once more they showcase their virtuosic artistry with distinctive solo concertos by J. C. Bach, Pergolesi, Vivaldi, Telemann and Walther, inspiring 18th century masterpieces that still connect with today's audiences emotionally with their cheerfulness, solemnity or sensuality.

Shout for joy, praise & cheer! Gordon Safari has put together a collection of festive cantatas and motets by Johann Sebastian Bach for his ensemble of instrumental and vocal soloists recorded in the authentic setting of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. BachWerkVokal is critically acclaimed as one of the most exciting new ensembles in the field of historical performance practice. The high quality of MDG's 2+2+2 recording technique reproduces the rich acoustics of Bach's original church, up into the heights of the vaulted ceiling.

After his first recording for na�ve of Bach's Goldberg Variations (V7566, 2022), the Chinese pianist Tianqi Du gets back to the composer closest to his heart, of whom he this time plays four Concertos, with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Jonathan Bloxham. The four works chosen here by Tianqi Du are among the most famous and remarkable of the series of Bach's keyboard Concertos.

Following his recording of the first book of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier released last year (BIS-2621), which was praised as 'a pleasurable benchmark for anyone seeking a traversal that honours every detail of the music' (Gramophone), harpsichordist Masato Suzuki now offers us his interpretation of the second book of Bach's masterly cycle of preludes and fugues. No other works from the baroque period have been as cherished, performed and studied as these collections, the objectives of which were musical, theoretical and didactic. Like the first, the second book of The Well-Tempered Clavier features a prelude and fugue in each of the 12 semitones of the chromatic scale, covering all of the 24 major and minor modes. Produced almost twenty years after the first book, this collection is a sort of follow-up. Though less frequently heard than it's predecessor, it nevertheless contains pieces of great beauty covering a wide stylistic range, and demonstrates a mastery of counterpoint that never outweighs emotion, beauty and aesthetics. Occupying a key position in Bach's output, the second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier points ahead to the major cycles of Bach's last years and presents 'sheer masterpieces from beginning to end', to quote Johann Nikolaus Forkel, the composer's first biographer.

Johann Sebastian Bach hardly ever left his native Saxony; yet he was always up to date on what was going on elsewhere in Europe. Naturally; he paid close attention to innovations from Italy; the cradle of the concertante style; and instilled transalpine sparkle in his brilliant counterpoint; especially in his keyboard works. Proof of this may be found in the pieces based on originals by the Venetians Antonio Vivaldi and Benedetto Marcello; in which Bach transcends everything with his polyphonic genius. In the large-scale Italian Concerto; the future composer of the Goldberg Variations revisits Corelli and; once again; Vivaldi. After several solo recordings devoted to musical dynasties (La Famille Forqueray; La Famille Rameau and Les Frères Francoeur); Justin Taylor sets off on a voyage of exploration of Bach and Italy.

- Under the direction of violin virtuoso Midori Seiler, this album presents a very lively musical portrait of the former Köthener Hofkapelle, now revived as Köthener BachCollektiv
- With exceptional virtuosos and composers, Bach went to the limits of what was then playable and experimented with instruments, scorings, sounds and musical forms
- New reconstructions of Bach Concertos BWV 1056R & 1064R by Midori Seiler
- Musical treasures and world premiere recordings by A. R. Stricker (Sonata D major), J. Spiess (Concerto E minor) and G. Linike (Suite D major)

In her latest album, Tatjana Vorobjova focuses entirely on emotion. Expressed in richness of sound, dynamics and refined nuance, the highly acclaimed Latvian harpsichordist explores expanding the instrument's expressive possibilities and shows how well this can be achieved with the grand master of counterpoint in a touchingly personal selection of Bach's highly expressive works.

He took up the lute when he was young and became such a virtuoso that he was unrivalled in France or Italy. Music historian Gottfried Johann Dlabac�'s testimony describes the lutenist and composer, Count Jan Antonin Losy of Losinthal, whose family came from Lombardy. He was born in Bohemia, where he spent most of his life, but his fame spread throughout Europe. After he died, he was honoured by his younger colleague, Sylvius Leopold Weiss, who memorialised him with his famous Tombeau. Nowadays, the name of the Count and virtuoso musician (besides the lute, he played the harpsichord and violin superbly) is known especially to lute players. However, even they may be surprised to learn that this album contains compositions with harpsichord, flute and violin. In fact, Losy's oeuvre is far more varied. According to period sources, many of his compositions were played by chamber ensembles including instruments, such as the violin and a bowed bass instrument. The main performer, Jan Ci�mar, reconstructed some of them, using manuscripts scattered all over Europe, and invited his colleagues from the Polish ensemble, Orkiestra historyczna, to take part in the recording. The result is a revealing album that presents Losy's lute pieces in an unusual sound version for the first time. Count Losy - a Prince among lutenists

This CD illustrates how present-day musicians can arrange Bach's compositions in accordance to his teachings, beyond the narrow limits set by the ideal of fidelity to the score. With good criteria, Il Maniatico Ensemble has arranged the six sonatas BWV 525 to 530, originally intended for organ, adapting them to an ensemble consisting of oboe, keyboard (harpsichord or organ), and cello. Johann Sebastian Bach himself is a good example of this conception of the musical work, far from the conceptual changes introduced by Romantic aesthetics. His arrangements of pieces by others and by himself are well known. He arranged concertos by Vivaldi, Marcello, and Telemann for organ; he turned oboe and violin concertos into harpsichord concertos; he transformed movements of concertos into cantata choruses; he reused and adapted vocal compositions in order to include them in other vocal compositions, etc. The present recording includes one of these arrangements by Bach himself. It is a version of the BWV 1030 sonata in B minor for flute and obbligato harpsichord, a work that is central to the flute players' repertoire canon. An autograph score by Bach himself of the sonata BVW 1030 for flute and harpsichord is preserved, and presumably he wrote it around 1736/37, during Bach's last years as conductor of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig.

Described as the ‘Pianists’ Old Testament’, The Well-Tempered Clavier is a collection of pieces of exceptional artistic quality. No other work from the baroque period has been as valued, performed and studied as this collection whose objectives were musical, theoretical and didactic.

Both books of The Well-Tempered Clavier feature a prelude and fugue in each of the 12 semitones of the chromatic scale, covering each of the 24 major and minor modes – a unique body of works. No two preludes or fugues are alike; they display the full range of contrapuntal devices, while the preludes offer an infinite variety of melodic, rhythmic and constructional possibilities. Each of these pieces demonstrates a mastery of counterpoint that never takes precedence over emotion, beauty and aesthetics. With the two books of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Bach established himself as the unrivalled master of the fugue genre.

Following his recordings of Bach’s concertos for one and two harpsichords (BIS-2041, BIS 2051 and BIS-2481), which reviewers have praised for his unaffected playing and acute musicianship, Masato Suzuki now offers us his take on this Bach monument.

For their 25th anniversary, caterva musica has recorded virtuoso concertos for all instrumental groups in the ensemble. L‘arte del virtuoso (The Art of the Virtuoso) is a four-part series released by MDG. The programme on Vol. 3 includes Franz Benda's dramatic flute concerto, lively chamber music by Telemann, Graun and Vivaldi, as well as a very special rarity: Johann Sebastian Bach's large-scale Sinfonia BWV 1045 with concertante violin.

Charlotte Mattax Moersch performs major keyboard works by Bach, that are now usually performed on harpsichord, on the lautenwerk. The lautenwerk is sometimes referred to as a lute harpsichord; it is a harpsichord-like instrument with a major exception; the strings are gut, giving it a far more mellow sound. Bach often performed his own works on a lautenwerk.

While there is no doubt today that this music originates from Bach, due to numerous deviations from the usual viola da gamba music of his time, it is considered likely that he originally had a different ensemble in mind, or that these works existed in other instrumentation before he adapted them for the viola da gamba. This was a common practice then, just as it makes sense today to arrange "classics" for all kinds of other instruments, preserving their original character while simultaneously creating possibilities for new tonal aspects. It was in precisely this spirit that Kurt Gold and Reinhard Latzko arranged Bach's sonatas for their instruments. In Astor Piazzolla, we encounter one of Argentina's most prominent and innovative musicians, who stands out as a bandoneon player, composer and founder of the "Tango Nuevo". This category includes "Le Grand Tango", which was commissioned in 1982 by the Russian cello virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich.

Prof. Erich Beurmann donated 70 instruments to the Hamburg Museum of Arts and Crafts. Among them are a large number of harpsichords, clavichords, and fortepianos: from an Italian harpsichord dating from 1540 to a Steinway concert grand piano from 1871. A significant portion of these instruments are kept playable so that the music of various eras can be reproduced on the instruments of the time. Susanne Von Laun regularly plays instruments from this collection in concerts and on guided tours. The artist, who was awarded the Muzio Clementi Award in 2005, selected five instruments for this CD (a square piano from 1777, three fortepianos from 1795 to 1820, and a Broadwood grand piano from 1841), which can now be heard on CD for the first time.

In this 1720 score, Johann Sebastian Bach laid the foundation that would shape the future of the violin in Western music. While building on the contributions of earlier composers, his meticulous craftsmanship-a true compendium of the instrument's virtues-and his vision in terms of musical conception and performance render these Six Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin a cornerstone. No self-respecting violinist can ignore them, as they serve both as a fundamental study and a lofty aspiration. There is no separation between the performer and the music; their expressive power and technical demands require a lifelong dedication. This is exactly what the excellent violinist Gisella Curtolo tells us: In Spanish, grabar means to leave a mark on a surface, on stone... on a CD. It is something lasting, like a "sculpture of sounds." It is a way to communicate the culmination of our journey, akin to scaling a mountain and reaching the summit, achieving something "epic" that we have been carefully preparing and envisioning year after year. There comes a moment in musicians' life when they feel like the right time to "record" what they have been playing, teaching, and perfecting for many years. This is how I felt as I approached the recording of this immense masterpiece, one of the pillars of the repertoire for violinists of the past, present, and surely the future.

Works by Bach arranged by Max Reger for piano four hands with the warm; romantic timbre of the magnificent concert grand “Manfred Bürki” Steinway-D from 1901.

World Premiere Recordings of Christmas Cantatas from the Archive of Assisi Monastery.

Julian Walder (*2000 in Vienna) is first prize winner of numerous international competitions, including the NYIAA - New York International Artists Association Violin Competition. He is the Grand Prix winner in all categories at the Grumiaux Competition in Belgium and was awarded, among other distinctions, the 3rd prize at the 2023 International Henri Marteau Violin Competition in Germany. The Chaconne by BACH, a source of inspiration for countless composers over centuries, forms the heart of this CD. Around this fundamental Baroque masterpiece, many currents, influences, admirations, and tributes have emerged. The title of the CD, "(R)-EVOLUTION", encompasses the word "evolution," signifying how, through the adoption and application of Bach's compositional techniques, his structures continue to live on in many works across the ages. The "revolution" refers to the deliberate transformation of his defining style by other composers over time.

The harpsichord from 1745 by Joannes Daniel Dulcken bearing the inventory number SAM 726 not only is an instrument with a beautiful and most distinctive sound: it also commands admiration as a visually magnificent exhibition piece. Nothing is known about the original owners, but over the course of a century and a half it found it's way from the production site in Antwerp to Vienna, where it was added to the collection of Historic Musical Instruments at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in 1921. In the following decades, it's playability was restored in several stages, with it's sound now documented for the first time on this CD. The internationally acclaimed Austrian organist and harpsichordist Stefan Donner presents the Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach, one of the most famous variation cycles in music history, which is also an ideal choice of program due to the immediate proximity of it's publication in 1741 to the time of the instrument's creation

Serendipia Ensemble, Rita Rógar, and Moisés Maroto, together with their ensemble of musicians—Darío Tamayo on the harpsichord, Calia Álvarez on the viola da gamba, José Arsenio Rueda on the baroque bassoon, and Jon Wasserman exchanging his plucked string instruments (theorbo and baroque guitar)—have recorded the complete sonatas. Premiering worldwide with the record label IBS Classical.

With this large continuo group, Serendipia Ensemble seeks a unique musical approach to the concept of the triosonata, finding the common ground between the concerto form conceived by Corelli and the sonata form arranged by Schickhardt. We are now able to hear, with layering of different instruments, the triosonatas approach the concerti in sections such as the tutti-soli that we appreciate in the Corellian originals.

Robert Horton; the 2022 First Prize Winner in the American Guild of Organists' National Competition in Organ Improvisation (NCOI); presents a program of organ improvisations modeled after a variety of musical forms; in addition to his adaptations of music of Bach and Mendelssohn for solo pipe organ; on the new Pasi Opus 28 pipe organ at St. George's Episcopal Church; Arlington; Virginia USA.