When Christian Ferras died at age 49. his friend and colleague Yehudi Menuhin wrote that Ferras was"possessed by music, immensely talented, and of both a generous and intense temperament."

Christian Ferras was one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century. Born in 1933, he was a guest soloist of the Nice Symphony orchestra in1942. In 1948 he won the First Prize at the International Scheveningen (Holland) Violin Competition and in 1949 won the top prize at the International Long-Thibaud Competition. Thereafter, he pursued a successful career as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras and in recitals with his long time accompanist, pianist Pierre Barbizet. He recorded for EMI and from 1964 for DG where he recorded the four main repertoire violin concertos, Brahms, Sibelius, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
Fortunately, Christian Ferras left behind a rich recorded legacy, that enable us to continue to enjoy his great artistry.

In 1938, at the Reichsmusiktage in Düsseldorf, the Nazi regime opened an exhibition around music with the theme: 'Entartete Musik'. They collected examples of what they considered degenerate music. Gustav Mahler, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Mischa Spoliansky; these were just a few names on the long list of depraved composers. On this album, this music and more.

On this unique and originally programmed journey, the violist Massimo Piva takes the kind of fantasy journey (Fantasiereise) that forms one of the cornerstones of German Romanticism. It is in the context of highly wrought, fantastic tales that Schumann’s style is formed from a literary point of view: Hoffmann's short stories and Jean Paul's novels, inhabited by bizarre characters and surreal situations, are his polar stars. On the musical side, he had an 18th-century heritage of fantasies by composers such as Mozart or C.P.E. Bach to draw upon, in which the notion of the fantasy is still linked to the Baroque idea of improvisation.
This is the background to the Marchenbilder Op.113, which Schumann worked on feverishly in March 1851. As a masterpiece in his late style, the collection shivers with obsession and fevered dreams. Placing them side by side illuminates the degree to which Reinecke was inspired by Schumann’s example in his own Fantasiestucke Op.43. But this recital moves on into less familiar territory, where the viola’s personality as a melancholy guide takes us to repertoire by Vieuxtemps (an F minor Elegy), Wieniawski (Rêverie in F sharp minor) and Sibelius (Rondo in D minor) by composers much better known for their prowess as violinists, and as violinst-composers.
The recital reaches a natural chronological end with the pre-eminent poet of the viola in the early decades of the 20th century, Frank Bridge. No violist he, but inspired by the artistry of Lionel Tertis, Bridge came to write a good deal for the instrument such as the Two Pieces featured here, and found its mellow, soulful voice a natural fit for his own as a composer. As a former member of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Orchestra Mozart, Massimo Piva worked extensively with the conductor Claudio Abbado. As a member of the Quartetto Prometeo he has performed both modern and classic repertoire across Europe, working with composers including Sciarrino and Fedele, and recorded the complete works for string quartet by Hugo Wolf on Brilliant Classics (94166).

This album is dedicated to the compositions of Federico Mompou, a composer and pianist of profound sensitivity. He exhibited an early inclination for the piano but, inspired by a Gabriel Fauré concert, he shifted his focus to composition, making his way to Paris to further his study. Mompou’s compositional approach was channelled through the piano, which he considered a fundamental tool for connecting with music’s essence, so he composed primarily on and for the instrument. There are some exceptions, however: notably his guitar compositions Suite Compostelana (1962) and Cançon i Dansa No.13 (1972).

In the guitar’s melancholic and evocative timbre, Mompou discovered an ideal medium to express his contemplative and gentle poetic world. The guitar becomes the canvas where sound and silence intertwine, evoking emotionscapable of transporting the listener to archaic places suspended in time.

In 2018, Brilliant Classics released Ramelli’s recording of Mompou’s original guitar compositions. This new album furthers his exploration of the composer’s works, taking his piano compositions and reimagining them for the guitar. The collaboration between the guitarist and James Beneteau, who presented Ramelli with these exquisite transcriptions of Mompou’s pieces, has been profound.

Throughout the transcription journey, Ramelli and Beneteau followed Mompou’s scores as a map, transmuting each piece through the lens of contact with the geography of the guitar’s unique resonance. Decisions about transcription, instrumentaltechnique, tempo, and dynamics are all intertwined with this listening to the instrument itself. Playing Mompou’s music transcribed for guitar is a journey aimed at heightened listening and sensitivity, exploring the spaces between notes through tactile contact with the instrument. This recording captures this creative process and marks the beginning of this ongoing artistic journey.

The Cenci (1951–52) is Havergal Brian’s operatic realisation of Shelley’s gruesome tale of incest and parricide in Renaissance Italy. The score calls it simply an ‘Opera in Eight Scenes’, but it rarely goes in for grand tunes; instead, its dark colours reflect Shelley’s fascination with the struggle between good and evil. Stylistically, it is an unusual but highly effective hybrid: a music-drama focused on the intense delivery of Shelley’s text, with the declamatory style of the vocal lines echoing such recent oratorios as Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher, and the freewheeling orchestral writing producing something of a vocal symphony.

We know Gabriel Fauré the composer well but little the pedagogue. This recording aims to highlight the influence of the composer in France and even in Europe when, in 1896, he became professor at the Paris conservatory taking over from Massenet. The program of this disc wishes to bring together one of the work of his last period and compositions by his illustrious students: Ravel, Lili Boulanger and Enescu.

Born in London in 1886, violinist/violist Rebecca Clarke was also a composer who produced a significant number of works; her songs and chamber music were particularly notable. Although her output became neglected after the Second World War, it experienced a renaissance in the 1970s. The performances on this album take the listener on a journey through the eloquence and profundity of Rebecca Clarke’s creative world. This is OehmsClassics’ second album featuring Judith Ingolfsson (violin, viola) and Vladimir Stoupel (piano), furthering the label’s commitment to presenting musical discoveries.

The internationally acclaimed pianist Adriana von Franqué takes a musical journey through Paris on her GENUIN debut album. The world-concerting musician, known for innovative concert formats and unusual program selections, focuses on the delicate and poetic aspects of the "City of Lights". With a sensitivity for sound and clarity, she plays music by Lili Boulanger, César Franck, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Simon Laks from Warsaw. The result is floating, atmospheric, finely crafted music that seems to incorporate the Tuileries Garden, the banks of the Seine, or the intricate lacework of the Eiffel Tower…

The first recording of another monumental work for piano by the composer of Opus clavicembalisticum and Sequentia cyclica.

Kaikhosru Sorabji tended to discourage performances of his music, feeling that most musicians not only lacked the technical equipment and dedication to conquer his vast scores, but also that they would not satisfactorily grasp their spiritual content. Born in a London suburb of Parsee origin, living for much of his life on a remote Scottish island, Sorabji died in 1988, and only in the last two decades have advances in digital publishing enabled his many unperformed and intimidatingly large pieces to be transferred from manuscript, and then taken on by dedicated performers such as the British pianist Jonathan Powell, whose first recording of the eight-hour Sequentia Cyclica won widespread praise on its release by Piano Classics: Sorabji’s ‘most inclusive and revealing major statement’ according to Gramophone, ‘a wilful yet engrossing challenge that, in Powell, has met its match.’ Composed in the mid-1950s, the Toccata terza had been thought lost until the score turned up in 2019, and Abel Sánchez-Aguilera has produced his own critical edition in order to make this first recording: a monumental labour of love and skill. The Toccata is cast in ten sections, including a 50-minute Passacaglia – one of Sorabji’s favourite forms – and the kind of thorny counterpoint and mountainous climaxes which will be familiar to followers of his music. There are four extant Toccatas: ‘They seem to look back to the examples of Bach and Busoni,’ as Sánchez-Aguilera remarks in his booklet introduction, ‘reinvented in Sorabji’s personal language and expanded to monumental proportions. Notwithstanding their complexity, several features make them particularly effective and accessible to the listener. They make use of familiar procedures – such as the variation and the fugue – and thus establishing clear links with tradition.’

No Sorabji collector will ignore this major new release of his music, and searchers for rarities in the hyper-virtuoso piano repertoire will discover a new treasure.

Founded in 1841 under the participation of Constanze Mozart, the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg today enjoys the highest reputation worldwide for its lively and style-conscious Mozart interpretations. In numerous ways, it connects the Viennese Classical period to the music of the 19th/20th and 21st centuries. The orchestra's constant preoccupation with his core repertoire also shapes its approach to the music of later periods. In this recording, the Mozarteumorchester brings chamber-musical transparency, articulatory clarity, and nuanced sonority to the highly romantic music by the late Richard Strauss. The selected repertoire on this Album highlights the individual sections of the orchestra.