His first recital album on Signum Records, internationally acclaimed pianist Melvyn Tan brings a new perspective to Beethoven's Piano Sonatas 30, 31 and 32. Exploration, insight and imagination are vital ingredients in Melvyn Tan's blend of artistic attributes. He established his international reputation with pioneering performances on fortepiano and continues to cast fresh light on music conceived for the piano's early and modern forms.

Robert Schumann's piano music, which Gerhard Oppitz now presents for the third time in a specific configuration of works, displays a special characteristic in contrast to the piano writing of the major 19th-century Romantic piano composers Alkan, Chopin and Liszt. The attempt to categorize his works either as contributions to the Classical models of sonata and variation, or to the Romantic genres of Etude, Ballade, Scherzo and a wealth of dance and character pieces, proved unsatisfactory; that remains the case even though Schumann himself was a regular contributor to the two forms handed down from the Classical era. Schumann himself, then, was engaged in the creative questioning of hitherto valid compositional and musical ideals.

From the mid-seventeenth century onwards, the overture became an orchestral piece intended to precede a large-scale dramatic work. This recording brings together twelve overtures from Mozart’s operas. They foreshadow the action, sometimes stylistically, sometimes by quoting themes that will appear later, to create a dramatic impression before we even see anything on stage – think of the memorable overtures to Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte.

The twelve overtures brought together here cover 21 years of Mozart’s career: from Mithridate, composed when he was just 14, which testifies to the young composer’s familiarity with the galant style then in vogue, to La Clemenza di Tito (1791), the high point of his work in the opera seria genre that was to disappear with him, not forgetting masterpieces such as Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Le nozze di Figaro and Così fan tutte.

The Kölner Akademie, playing on period instruments, and its conductor Michael Alexander Willens demonstrate Mozart’s unrivalled ability to capture the audience’s attention with these brilliant overtures, some of which are among his most famous works, both on stage and in concert.

REVIEW:

The interpretations are very fresh, the playing virtuosic. The historical instruments provide a clear, crisp, and transparent sound, which is reproduced by the sound engineers with good spatiality and balance, with a clean and beautifully present bass.

-- Pizzicato

A 50 years old birthday hommage to one of today leading composers: Lera Auerbach. The disc is focused on two Piano Trios in world premiere recordings. The monumental Third Piano Trio is dedicated to the Delta Trio. Delta Trio were already much acclaimed for their first recording on Challenge Classics. Gramophone on their previous CC 72901 called Origin: With its superb sound and perceptive notes, the present release can be warmly recommended.

Son of the better-known Georg Muffat, Gottlieb was also hawked around the courts of Europe by his father as a boy wonder of music, anticipating the course of Mozart's early years under the self-interested care of Leopold. However, when at home, Gottlieb Muffat grew up in Vienna under the careful tutelage of Johann Joseph Fux, master of music at the Hofkapelle, a relationship which deepened once Georg died in 1704, when Gottlieb was just 14 years old. In due course Fux pulled strings to get his talented pupil an official post, and this album of keyboard partitas offers ample proof that his faith in Gottlieb Muffat was justified. Their date is uncertain: during his lifetime, only two collections of his music were published, and after 1739 he seems to have broken off composition, focusing his energies on performing and teaching at the Hofkapelle. Listeners familiar with the keyboard partitas by JS Bach will find a certain degree of common ground in the elegant sequence of French-style dances which are headed by a more exploratory Prelude. Muffat's counterpoint may not be so rigorous, but his ear for a well-turned melody offers satisfying reward in it's own right. The use of French, English and even Spanish titles to individual movements underlines the imaginative and fanciful qualities of the collection: see for example Postillon in the Suite in F major; Coquette in the Suite in A major; a Hornpipe in the Suite in D minor and the Intrada to the Suite in F. As well as enthusiastically received albums of Pasquini, Gabrieli, Vivaldi and above all Frescobaldi, Roberto Loreggian has previously recorded the 1739 collection of Componimenti Musicali to which this new recording forms a sequel. Of his collection of Partitas by Telemann, Fanfare commented: 'Without seeming driven, his playing is lively and well-articulated, and he is always sensitive to Telemann's stylistic variety, whether it is tending, at any given moment, to the courtly or to the common.'

With this recording, volume 42 of the complete music for solo keyboard by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Miklos Spanyi continues his exploration of transcriptions of concertos originally written for keyboard and orchestra, to which he adds some movements from early versions of sonatas (the standard versions of which appear on earlier volumes in this series). Four of the six concertos from the Wq 43 collection are featured here (the remaining two appear on the previous volume, BIS-2397). When Bach published this set of six concertos for keyboard and orchestra in 1772, he also prepared a version for solo keyboard intended for moderately advanced amateurs who could then play them at home, without orchestra, thus opening up a much larger market. A smart move by the shrewd businessman that Bach was. About his decision to record these works on a clavichord rather than a tangent piano as previously, Spanyi says that it allows 'nearly infinite possibilities for fine dynamic shadings' and that 'the required dynamic contrasts can be emphasized even better than on other keyboard instruments of the period'. Spanyi adds that this release is a tribute to the clavichord, and especially to his own instrument, built by Joris Potvlieghe.

This disc features solo keyboard arrangements of works by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach originally scored for other instruments. In the second half of the eighteenth century the demand for keyboard music increased rapidly, as musical skills became a social requisite for young ladies of the upper classes. Providing compositions for these new keyboard players was financially profitable, but Bach also had another reason for welcoming arrangements: keyboard instruments were his favourite medium. The seven short pieces on this well-filled disc all exist in versions for various small groups of instruments or, in some cases, for mechanical instruments. In his comments, Spanyi suggests that they could in fact be the original versions, perhaps written down in keyboard notation as drafts for further versions, and later arranged by Bach on for various ensembles. Miklos Spanyi has grouped these short pieces around four larger-scale works, of which two are arrangements of symphonies, probably not arranged by or for the composer himself. The solo keyboard arrangements of the two concertos, made by Bach himself and easier to play than the original concertos, were intended for amateurs. On this disc, Spanyi uses an extremely versatile and colourful tangent piano, a very popular instrument in the second half of the 18th century. This particular instrument was built in 1998, after a model from 1799.

An ordinary day. A terrible event. The death of her infant child sets in motion one woman's search for a life-restoring miracle. All she needs to do - in the course of a single day - is find one genuinely happy human being. But when every encounter ends in disappointment, she turns finally to the mysterious owner of a magnificent garden. Recorded during the first performances, as part of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, at the Theatre du Jeu de Paume, Aix-en-Provence, France, from 5th July 2023.

Ukrainian American folklorist and singer Nadia Tarnawsky leads the women of Cappella Romana with special guest folklorists from Ukraine, Inna Kovtun and Hanna Tishchenko, to perform this unique offering of Ukrainian wedding songs. The songs sung in preparation for the wedding employ the vocal techniques of village singers, while the chants and choral works sung during the wedding ceremony itself reflect the sublime style more prevalent in church singing. From the engagement through the crowning of the young couple, the rituals of a traditional Ukrainian wedding are accompanied by songs. Traditionally performed by the women belonging to the families of the young couple, these songs help bring forth good health, prosperity, and many children. These songs were collected by Nadia Tarnawsky in Ukrainian villages, often from women over 80 years old, before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Eastern Orthodox understanding of repentance doesn’t dwell on morose sorrow for past transgressions. Instead it focuses on deliverance and optimism: repentance, from the Greek metánoia, is a change of mind, a fundamentally positive redirection. This recording presents Arvo Pärt’s Orthodox choral works for the first time as a service (or office) of supplication (Greek paráklesis, Slavonic molében). The office is built around the singing of a Byzantine poem called a kanon, on this occasion three odes from Pärt’s monumental Kanon Pokajanen (Kanon of Repentance).

Compositions by Pärt likewise comprise the other elements of this office: a Gospel reading marks the center of the service (The Woman with the Alabaster Box) completed by psalmody, Orthodox hymns, and fervent prayers. Pärt’s transcendent “Prayer after the Kanon” eventually gives way to silence, to the prayer of the heart. Cappella Romana transforms hearts and minds through encounters with the sacred musical inheritance of the Christian East and West, bringing to life these ancient and diverse traditions, especially of Byzantium, and their interactions with other cultures. Cappella Romana is devoted to the stewardship of this precious jewel of world culture. Arvo Pärt: Odes of Repentance is Cappella Romana’s 31st release.

REVIEWS:

In this album, the stars, the galaxies, all the wonders of a distant universe seem to touch us through the medium of sound. Whether or not one is knowledgeable about Eastern sacred music, this is an album of supreme artistry to cherish, heed, and enjoy.

Under the direction of Alexander Lingas, Cappella Romana’s Odes of Repentance is a selection of Arvo Pärt’s Orthodox works woven into a service of public and private prayers of supplication and renewal. While Pärt is widely identified with works having an Eastern spiritual flavor, his pedagogical background derives from Western classical music and the musical traditions of the Roman Catholic church. However, since his conversion to Orthodoxy some 50 years ago, the public has come to associate Pärt with music as inspired by Eastern Christianity.

Odes consists of 12 spellbinding tracks which give voice to the human yearning to be cleansed of past mistakes and to make positive changes in one’s future life. As the excellent booklet notes in Church Slavonic and English tell us, these prayers are less an expression of sorrow than they are an affirmation of rebirth. This renascence is expressed eloquently through Pärt’s music in an imaginative flow of melodies, modal harmonies, unexpected twists and turns, and the composer’s unique tintinnabuli technique.

What I found most absorbing in this recording was the variety of musical utterances, the splendid multiplicity of sounds, rhythms and tremors. Something new is lurking around the corner of every measure, sometimes as puzzling as our own contemplated destinies.

The album begins with an Ode from the Triodion and two Slavic Psalms (Psalm 131, “Lord, my heart is not haughty” King James Version [KJV] and the Doxology Psalm 116). The Ode is the first of three in this recording from the Triodion, a liturgical book used in the Eastern Church during Lent. Seven selections from the Kanon of Repentance shine at the heart of the album.

These tracks could not be more different. Slow staccato notes tiptoe under a silvery upper register in the third track while an almost Western sensibility shapes the sound of the fourth (did I hear a touch of Mahler?). The swinging rhythms and unexpected pauses of Kanon Ode 9 remind us that “we aren’t in Kansas anymore”, but, rather, in a world that sometimes stretches far beyond the Western orientation of many listeners.

The album also includes a sung “reading” from the Gospel of Matthew, “The Woman with the Alabaster Box” (“There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.” KJV). Pärt’s music floats effortlessly from the ensemble and melts into the next selection, scattered with little discords.

This is Cappella Romana’s 31st album. While the group specializes in the sacred music of the Christian East and West, it is known largely for its stewardship of the music of Byzantium and the works of Arvo Pärt. Those of us raised in Western cultural traditions have missed much if we have ignored or been deprived of the legacy of Eastern sacred music, old or new. There is a core of authenticity in Pärt’s work that has endeared it, even in his lifetime, to millions around the world.

-- ConcertoNet

Dandrieu’s Premier Livre de Pièces d’Orgue was printed a year after the composer died in 1738. It contains six suites of pieces in differing church tones; each followed by six versets suitable for performance under the canticle Magnificat. While the Magnificat verses have a logical sequence; the other movements in the suites are somewhat haphazardly planned. Even setting aside the Pascal hymn in the Premier Suite; the remaining pieces have no apparent order; perhaps reflecting a desire to make the publication as generally useful as possible. The first suite’s two fugues are the only cantus firmus pieces in the collection and are based on the hymn Ave Maris Stella and the Pascal proclamation Exultet coelum laudibus (CD 1: 3 and 4). Like the remaining fugues; which are independent; the style is serious: each is marked Majestueusement [sic] and follows the prescriptions of several composers’ prefaces from the late 17th and early 18th centuries. While no fugues from this epoch are as carefully crafted as those of the Rouennais organist Jehan Titelouze (Paris; 1623 and 1626); their placing within organised organ masses and hymns; often as the second verset of a Kyrie; Gloria or hymn; demonstrates an underlying association between genre and rhetoric. We see similar associations with the opening movements of each Magnificat set; but they work on two levels. They are austere and reserved solely for a plein jeu combination of stops: foundation stops from 16 feet to both mixtures but without reeds. According to André Raison they are to be played solemnly with absolute finger legato. A second rhetorical association is the link between registration and text. It has been mentioned that fugues were often used as the second verse of hymns and in mass sections; and a similar association between a plein jeu and the first Kyrie; Gloria or Sanctus; or the first verse of a psalm or canticle exists in nearly every organ composer’s publication until late into the 18th century. This is not by accident since associating sounds and text would help guide congregants – many of whom were neither literate nor conversant with Latin – through the complexities of the ceremony. Indeed; such an association is well within the ceremonials’ inclusive philosophies. Several commentators associate plein jeu pieces with Titelouze; and while the registration provides a link with the north European school of organ playing; particularly of such composers from Flanders and the Spanish Netherlands as Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck; other genres are decidedly more French. Thus; we have bourrées (e.g.; Duo; Magnificat V; CD2: 15); menuets (e.g.; Basse de Cromorne; Magnificat III; CD1: 33); gavottes (e.g.; Trio; Magnificat V; CD2: 16); gigues (Magnificat IV; CD2: 5); Italianate gigas (Duo; Magnificat III; CD1: 26) and; as mentioned previously; rustic dances in the guise of musettes. It is not only dance forms that permeate French organ music; since we also see the influence of the air de cour in the tender récits (e.g.; Magnificat III; CD1: 33); concerted viol music in the two Tierce en Taille pieces (Suites IV and V) and even Lullyan ouvertures; which form the basis of the offertoires. These are exclusively reserved for grands jeux combinations that juxtapose concertante and ripieno sections using combinations of reeds; cornets and foundation stops that mimic the grand orchestral writing popular with Parisian apparatchiks of the opera.

Hailed by the magazine BBC Music for it's 'generous and warm-hearted, utterly beguiling playing', the GRAMMY®-nominated Neave Trio has emerged as one of the finest young ensembles of it's generation. For this, their eighth album, they have once again selected a programme of works by female composers. Written in 1846, the Piano Trio of Clara Schumann was considered a great success by her friends and supporters (notably by Brahms) but her lack of self-confidence clouded her own view of the piece. Intellectually curious and a voracious reader from an early age, Dora Pejacevic was largely self-taught as a composer. She composed her first piano trio (in D major) in 1905 (when she was twenty) and the second followed in 1910, by which time Pejacevic's musical language had already evolved into it's distinctive late-romantic style. Chaminade's Piano Trio No. 2 in A minor was published 1887, with a dedication to the great French cellist Jules Delsart. The successful premiere had been given at the Salle Érard on 4 February 1886. Chaminade went on to play the A minor Trio regularly during the 1890s, to substantial critical acclaim.

Armonico Consort present their next instalment of works by Franceso Scarlatti, this time his only surviving oratorio 'Il Daniele nel Lago de'Leoni' or Daniel in the Lions' Den. Scarlatti's Daniele conforms in all general aspects to the typical Sicilian oratorio of the late-seventeenth century, which was itself closely modelled on Roman practice: four or five singers inhabit character roles, without a separate narrator, together with a chorus often consisting of the soloists singing in ensemble.

With their new album, the Berlin Baroque Soloists take us again (also available Cremona I HC22084) to Cremona, one of the important Italian centers of violin making and technical developments in the 16th/17th centuries. Composers were only too happy to make use of the many innovations, as they opened up unimagined possibilities for them to add additional colors and accents to their musical art. This wonderful recording gives a lasting impression of how different these can be. Reinhard Goebel and his Berlin Baroque Soloists find exactly the right tone for each of the recorded concerti. Pizzicato

International sensation Federico Colli continues his personal exploration of the music of Mozart with this second volume of works for solo piano. Colli opens his programme with the Adagio in B minor, K. 540, from 1788, toward the end of Mozart's short life. The only piece on the album not to involve variation form, this Adagio instead adopts sonata form, and is an extremely rare case in Mozart's output of it's chosen key. The two sets of variations that follow (from the seventeen sets that Mozart composed) use a similar approach in their method of constructing variations on the theme - 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' in the first instance, and Gluck's smash hit 'Les Hommes pieusement' (or 'Unser dummer Pobel meint') in the second. Colli concludes his programme with the rather extraordinary Sonata in A major, K. 311. Instead of the expected sonata form, the first movement is a theme with (six) variations. Following the second movement (a minuet and trio), Mozart finishes with a rondo - arguably one of his most famous pieces, the 'Alla turca'.

An audiophile LP transfer for an
immersive tribute to a remote island
off the coast of Brittany.
Having become celebrated for his score
to Amélie (2001), the French composer
moved to the island of Ushant
(Ouessant/Eusa), and this album is a
musical tribute to his home, comprising
ten pieces about ten specific places on
the island. In 2016, Tiersen published a
collection of pieces called Eusa, which
Jeroen van Veen has combined with his
2021 collection, Kerber, named after a
chapel on the island, to produce Island.
The album has been a best-seller on CD
for its contemplative mood and beauty.
Among the 10 tracks, some offer the
perfect soundtrack for contemplation on
a long walk or staring out of a window on
a train journey. Others seem predestined
to be background music for study or
relaxation. The pieces sound at times
dreamy and wistful, at times bittersweet,
at other times happily playful. With each
song, your imagination can easily conjure
a scene from a movie: a breakup after a
fight in a cosy café or a nature
documentary showing two baby birds
opening their eyes for the very first
time.
This isn’t a collection about isolation;
it’s more an expression of awareness of
your own environment and your place
within it: a sonic encapsulation of the
hyper-local. Tiersen relates this
approach to a night spent studying the
stars – which he himself does. ‘You can
look at things that are thousands of
light years away and relate your own
existence to this really cosmic element,’
he says. ‘But you get that same feeling
with the things all around you.’

All the works recorded here were composed between 1825 and 1835, when Mendelssohn was aged between sixteen and twenty-six. He spent much of this decade travelling, from Berlin to Paris via Weimar, then London and Scotland before work in Dusseldorf eventually led to his appointment as municipal musical director and conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. The Piano Sonata in E major and that in B flat major, and indeed the Phantasie (subtitled Sonate ecossaise), owe some debt to Beethoven, but are also influenced by Weber, Hummel, and Moscheles (to whom the Phantasie was dedicated). The two shorter works (Scherzo à capriccio and Capriccio) perhaps show a more relaxed side of the composer, free from the constraints of sonata form. Liszt's virtuosic re-working of themes from A Midsummer Night's Dream completes the programme. Born in Manchester in 1953, Peter Donohoe studied at Chetham's School of Music for seven years, graduated in music from the University of Leeds, and went on to study at the Royal Northern College of Music with Derek Wyndham, and then in Paris with Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod. He is acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for his musicianship, stylistic versatility, and commanding technique.

A half-speed mastered, new LP transfer of a best-selling album in the acclaimed series of minimalist piano music recorded by Jeroen van Veen for Brilliant Classics.
‘Throughout, the playing’s brilliant, confident, and sonorous’: this album of the piano output of John Adams won glowing reviews when it was first released in 2017. As an indefatigable champion of minimalist music from both sides of the Atlantic, Jeroen van Veen had recorded some of these pieces before, within his compendious ‘Minimal Piano Collection’ which became an essential acquisition for collectors of the most influential classical style in music during the last 60 years.

The 2017 remake of China Gates is even more opulent as a performance, superbly engineered to catch van Veen’s subtleties of touch at the piano, and thus eminently suitable for a high-spec vinyl transfer. ‘There’s something quite nice about encountering interpretations of these perennial Adams favourites that sound so comfortable,’ continued the Arts Fuse review: ‘a pianist enjoying himself, freely exploring the enveloping diatonicism of the music.’

Adams regards Phrygian Gates (1977) as his ‘first mature composition’, and it may seem strange that he has not since written more for solo piano than the four pieces gathered here, but as Jeroen van Veen argues in his sleeve-note essay, these pieces between them say all that needs to be said in terms of the composer’s piano style.
Mostly composed in a West Coast beach hut, the gentle flow, rolling swells and thundering breakers of Phrygian Gates add up to a half-hour, overpowering analogy for melodic waves. From the same year, China Gates distils this energy into a five-minute work of memorably concentrated stillness. Adams left off the piano for another 20 years until writing Hallelujah Junction for two pianos in 1996. Van Veen gave the Dutch premiere, and he remains an outstanding, authoritative advocate of Adams’s music.

The music recorded on Arc I [FHR127] expresses foreboding from the brink of disaster. The music on Arc II [FHR128] was written by composers dealing with tragedy. At last, Arc III is a set of pieces born from the bright points of life. Peace, hope, love, ambition, optimism and the divine - the inspirations are myriad. These compositions spring from the million shades of happiness. Orion Weiss has performed internationally as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. This is his sixth album of solo piano music, his third for First Hand Records. Full biography available at orionweiss. Com

The Neave Trio's new album celebrates French works for piano trio, focussing on three works composed around the turn of the twentieth century. Saint-Saens's Piano Trio No. 2 dates from 1892 and comprises five movements. Unusually for Saint-Saens, the work took a great deal of time from conception to completion (over five years) and then went through a number of revisions before Saint-Saens was finally satisfied. Mel Bonis's two pieces Soir and Matin, whilst on a smaller scale, are equally powerful works, bridging the worlds of romanticism and impressionism. The first piece is dominated by a cantabile melody, whilst Matin is more chromatic and harmonically complex. The album concludes with Sally Beamish's arrangement of Debussy's orchestral masterpiece La Mer. This three-movement symphonic work presented Beamish with an exceptional challenge, as she strove to 'reinvent Debussy's orchestral score with the piano trio in mind... This meant exploring what strings and piano can do in terms of texture, and concentrating on idiomatic and natural techniques.' By studying and recreating Debussy's colours and textures, rather than attempting to transcribe every note, Beamish produced an arrangement that presents the performers and listeners with a completely new perspective on these well-loved seascapes.

Symphonic in scale and with great dramatic power, Rachmaninoff's Piano Sonata No. 1 in D minor is an underappreciated masterpiece, depicting a tremendous range of human emotions. The turbulent and brilliant Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor is heard in the 1931 revised version which clarifies textures and streamlines the work, heightening it's emotional impact. The Isle of the Dead employs Georgy Kirkor's 1957 transcription which Boris Giltburg has revised significantly. Giltburg's authority in Rachmaninoff has been universally acknowledged, with his performances termed 'characterful, sensitive and technically dazzling' by BBC Music Magazine (Naxos 8.574528).

REVIEW:

For all his technical ability and mastery of what is possible on the piano, Boris Giltburg is not a merciless technician, but a pianist who immerses himself in the music.

In the two Rachmaninoff sonatas, Giltburg draws us into a music that takes off without harshness, almost floating, and clearly tending toward Scriabin. The contrasts are made all the more exciting by the spontaneity of the playing, as are the magnificent, exciting melodic arcs with which he makes the piano sing.

The transcription of the symphonic poem ‘Isle of the Dead’ is also very successful, because Giltburg and Kirkur have obviously felt the dark and demonic secrets of this music very well. With his imaginative playing, Giltburg gives the piano a very active role, allowing it to act rather than merely reproduce impressions. The music of the Isle of the Dead shimmers in many colors and is full of dramatic power, full of life.

— Pizzicato

Gerhard Oppitz plays Robert Schumann Piano Works, Vol. 2 In the second part of his Schumann cycle, Gerhard Oppitz combines four works composed in the second half of the "piano decade" from 1830 to 1840 with two from the beginning and end of Schumann's piano music period: on the one hand Carnaval op. 9 (1837), Piano Sonata no. 1 op. 11 (1836), Kinderszenen op. 15 (1839) and the Drei Romanzen op. 28 (1840), and on the other Schumann's Papillons op. 2 published in 1832 and the Drei Fantasiestucke op. 111 published in 1852.

The Arcadia Quartet reaches the penultimate release in it's acclaimed complete Weinberg string quartets series with this volume, featuring Quartets Nos 3, 9, and 14. As in previous volumes, the works are taken from contrasting periods of Weinberg's compositional development, and so present a varied programme that works in it's own right. Quartet No. 3, composed in 1944, could be considered as the first 'mature' quartet, and is set in three movements. The Ninth Quartet, composed in 1963, dates from his self-described 'starry decade', when his work was championed by a significant group of enthusiastic performers, including Emil Gilels, Leonid Kogan, Kirill Kondrashin, Rudolf Barshai, and the Borodin Quartet. Quartet No. 14 dates from 1978, three years after the death of Weinberg's great friend and mentor Shostakovich: a time when Weinberg was questioning and renewing his artistic identity. The album also includes the short Improvisation and Romance, from 1950.

The Sacconi Quartet join forces again with celebrated composer Jonathan Dove for the latest instalment of their many fruitful collaborations and journeys. The String Quartet no 2 On the Streets and in the sky was written during the recent pandemic and was commissioned for the Sacconi Quartet to celebrate their 20th anniversary. Between Friends, is a world premiere recording, and a memorial to Graeme Mitchison (1944-2018), a multi-disciplined scientist, intrepid adventurer, cyclist, paraglider, mountaineer and a possessor of two pianos on which he and Dove would play together for over forty years. Who Wrote the Book of Love? Is an extended song cycle written for baritone Philippe Sly who performs the work here. Vanishing Gold is a compact five-minute piece written for the 40th anniversary of the Endellion Quartet, who then retired. Dove's previous release with the Sacconi Quartet on Signum "In Damascus" was awarded Gramophone Recording of the Month and Presto's Editor's Choice in 2017. ? The beauty of the piece, for tenor and string quartet, is it's restraint. It doesn't sensationalise, get maudlin, moralise or politicise. The words are direct and the music respects that. The performance does, too: focused playing from the Sacconi Quartet and lucid, unswerving narrative from tenor Mark Padmore - The Guardian

Giovanni Sollima is an internationally renowned cellist and one of the most frequently performed Italian composers in the world today. His original BaRock Cello project gave new readings to Rock pieces in the intimate setting of a solo performance, matching these to little-known 17th- and 18th-century Italian composers. These improbable contrasts and surprising connections are now extended further back to their musical roots in Folk & BaRock Cello. In this Sollima takes up the tonal colours and rhythmic grooves of archaic songs from a diversity of countries and blends the common features shared by all music, whether it is globally iconic, nationally popular, or long lost amidst the dusty manuscripts of time.

Description to follow

ChromaDuo (Tracy Anne smith and Rob MacDonald) is one of the world's greatest guitar duos. The works recorded here were all composed within the last 20 years, and four of the five works are dedicated to ChromaDuo. World premiere recordings.

The latest instalment from baroque ensemble La Serenissima. Often compared to Vivaldi, Giuseppe Tartini was a famous virtuoso violinist and highly respected teacher, and is best known for the sonata “Il Trillo del Diavolo” (The Devi’s Trill) which is legendary for both its story and for its fiendish level of technical wizardry.

Continuing their Magnificat series, and the last album of Andrew Nethsingha's tenure as director, The Choir of St John's College Cambridge present Magnificat 4 with works from composers including Judith Weir, Jonathan Dove, Joanna Forbes L'Estrange and Charles Villiers Stanford. The album also features 'Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis' by Piers Connor Kennedy, commissioned for the choir.

SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce a stunning new solo piano recital from label veteran Peter Donohoe following his recent acclaimed coupling of Chopin's Second and Third Sonatas with Rachmaninoff's Chopin Variations, over which BBC Music Magazine's Rebecca Franks enthused "Donohoe's approach has a robust honesty and an appealing straightforward feel, with an instinct for the emotional rises and falls." Now the pianist revisits Chopin in the genre for which the composer is arguably best known and loved: the waltz. Donohoe has fashioned a substantial selection of 14 of Chopin's Waltzes into a set of his own design, juxtaposing the intimate numbers with the grand and virtuosic in fortuitous key relationships that the pianist says "form a more satisfying collection" compared with simply playing them through as numbered. It is hard to imagine any other composer that could have infused a dance-form with Chopin's lyrical pianism and singular dramatic storytelling. But the waltz naturally appealed to a great many other composers, among them Robert Schumann, Chopin's exact contemporary and fervent, if unrequited admirer. His Opus 1 "Abegg" Variations, in triple-time throughout and brimming with elegant fioritura, form one of a pair of waltz bookends to the Chopin set and begin this recital with an exhilarating take-off. On the other side of the Chopin set and leading the waltz suavely into the 20th-century is Maurice Ravel's cycle of eight Valses nobles et sentimentales, again organised to contrast vigorous (noble) numbers with evocative (sentimental) counterparts in an eclectic blend of Impressionism and Modernism, but this time according to the composer's own design. A lovely postlude comes in the form of La plus que lente, in which Ravel's fellow impressionist Claude Debussy crafts a harmonically sumptuous ode to the "slow waltz" (valse lente) steeped in languid nostalgia. Peter Donohoe's acclaimed discography of previous SOMM releases includes the complete cycle of Prokofiev Piano Sonatas and a complete survey of Mozart's Piano Sonatas - Volume 1 of the Mozart series was named a BBC Music Magazine "Recording of the Month", citing "a gloves-off spontaneity that imbues these magical scores with a compelling vitality and freshness". Other discs include Stravinsky's Music for Solo Piano and Piano and Orchestra and Scriabin's Complete Piano Sonatas.