Sir Arthur Bliss contributed two staples of the brass band repertoire - Kenilworth and The Belmont Variations, whose enduring success inspired arrangers to turn to his other compositions, for example Eric Ball and Four Dances from the ballet Checkmate or Phillip Littlemore's suite from the film score for Things to Come. Three new arrangements have been made especially for this album: Robert Childs' suite from the ballet Adam Zero, and Michael Halstenson's arrangements of Music from the Royal Palaces and Welcome the Queen. Collectively this program reflects the essence of Bliss's compositional style: the inherent drama of his scores for film, ballet, and television and his flair for the ceremonial, especially in the context of his position as Master of the Queen's Music.

Black Dyke Band, tracing it's continuous history back to 1855, is the most recorded band in the world, having produced a discography of more than 350 recordings to date. It is also the most successful contesting band in the world, having won the European Championships thirteen times, the British Open thirty times and the National Championships of Great Britain twenty-four times. In 2023, they appointed conductor John Wilson as their Honorary President.

REVIEW:

The ensemble balance is superb, the internal voicing clear and detailed, the execution punchy, delicate, breezily confident and heartfelt by turn. This is a wonderful album in every way, highly recommended.

— Gramophone

The program is well put together and demonstrates the essence of Bliss’s style.

— British Music Society Journal

The tradition of bringing out New Year publications on January 2, “Berchtold’s Day”, goes back as far as the 17th century. Societies andguilds provided printed books, illustrations or music to the young people of the city in return for a financial contribution, which went towards the heating of the society rooms. A 2005 CD of piano music by the Winterthur composer Johann Carl Eschmann, whose documents are held in the Zentralbibliothek Zürich, marked the revival of the old tradition in a new guise.
The New Year release CD 2024 brings together works by six composers, male and female, all of whom except one were born and trained in French-speaking countries. Even Paul Juon had Romanic roots, since his grandfather had emigrated around 1830 from the Swiss canton of Grisons to Russia. Short pieces have been grouped around César Franck’s Sonata in A major: composed between 1880 and 1924, all – except Ernest Bloch’s three lieder movements From Jewish Life (1924), whose Judaistic timbre became Bloch’s trademark – conform to our present-day perception of a rhapsodic fin-de-siècle sound.
The cellist Isabel Gehweiler is a prizewinner of the European Bursary for Young Artists, the Art Prize of the Art Foundation of Baden-Württemberg, the Art Prize of the Markgräfler region; she is also a recipient of grants from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), the Juilliard School of Music, the Rotary Foundation, the arteMusica Foundation, the Cultural Foundation of the Saarland region, the Richard Wagner Association, the Covid-19 Grant of the City of Zurich, the Notenstein La Roche Privatbank and the Vontobel Bank. As a composer, Isabel Gehweiler has produced a body of work encompassing chamber music and orchestral compositions, which are regularly performed at international festivals.

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) wrote vocal chamber music over the whole of her career, from Wandrers Nachtlied, her first completed composition, in 1903, through her overhaul of Lethe, in the winter of 1976-77. Taken together, her songs and duets constitute one of the greatest and most distinctive contributions to the vocal repertoire of the twentieth century.

Jascha Horenstein (1898-1973) was born in Kiev but studied in Vienna. After a move to Berlin, he became Wilhelm Furtwangler's assistant and during the 1920s he conducted both the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic. At this time, he came into contact with Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Nielsen. In 1929, Horenstein became the music director of the Dusseldorf Opera but, with the outset of war, he settled in the US. He conducted some of the major orchestras there but returned to Europe in 1947, where he was much in demand including a close association with the LSO. He is best remembered for his outstanding Mahler and Bruckner performances but, being Russian, he conducted Shostakovich who he knew, and because of his early links with Nielsen, both composers were featured throughout his life.

Schelomo: Rhapsodie Hebraïque is the most celebrated part of Ernest Bloch's Jewish Cycle, and although originally conceived for voice, Bloch determined that only the cello could adequately embody the character of Solomon. The Suite for Viola and Piano was composed between February and May 1919, and the cello version is the work of the pianist and composer Adolph Baller and cellist Gabor Rejto, who recorded their version in 1969. This album sees the World Premiere Recording of the cello version for orchestra, with cellist Parry Karp, who studied with Rejto "getting to record these two masterpieces with conductor Kenneth Woods and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales is a dream come true" - Parry Karp.

Busoni's operatic masterpiece, Doktor Faust, was left unfinished on his death in 1924. A DVD (37998) and Blu-ray (57998) of this performance was released on Dynamic in March of this year, receiving much critical acclaim. Cornelius Meister conducts the orchestra and chorus of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with Dietrich Henschel in the title role. This release marks the 100th anniversary of the composer's death. May 2025 will be the 100th anniversary of the opera's premiere performance.

Deutscher Schallplattenpreis - The jury's statement: "Comprehensive and highly "Comprehensive and interpretatively high-ranking insight into the central creative field of an unjustly forgotten composer of the Schonberg generation, who stood in the Reger tradition and continued it not without a pronounced will to experiment. The edition of a young label enriches the record repertoire in an exemplary way and has a high information value." (Orgelwerke); "Excellent performance." (American Record Guide)

After completing his Goyescas, the pianist and composer Enrique Granados wrote that he had happily succeeded in "writing something significant". And who would want to contradict him? The six scenes, some of them very extensive, are based on drawings by the great Spanish artist Francisco Jose de Goya. They form a cycle that is glowing with inspiration from the first to the last bar, and whose technical difficulties achieve the kind of transcendence that Franz Liszt in particular had achieved in the 19th century. His technical prowess is entirely devoted to picturesque and highly emotional expression, from humorous whimsy to the most grave of tragedies. The young Dina Stojilkovic has recorded Goyescas for cpo on a Steinway B built in 1895, an instrument that Granados might well have had under his virtuoso fingers at the time.

Guy Braunstein, who was concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for nearly fifteen years, pursues an international career as soloist, conductor and composer. His lifelong passion for the music of the Beatles led him to compose this suite for violin and orchestra which includes all the greatest hits of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, performed here with the Liege Royal Philharmonic under a longstanding musical partner, the Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra. This large-scale rhapsody, based on a dozen Beatles songs, pays tribute to a group of musicians who were greatly influenced by Classical and Romantic composers. To accompany this first recording, two English works for violin and orchestra, The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams and the rarely performed Violin Concerto of Frederick Delius, which - like so many Beatles hits - was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London!

Carpathian Tales is a project of the artist's heart that has been formed over two years. It represents a musical dedication to her second home Romania - full of personal stories and compositions that capture the spirit of the country and paint a multi-faceted picture of the Carpathians. Each piece is accompanied by it's own story. All works combine the unmistakable energy of folk themes, pure emotionality and show a varied spectrum from melancholy to dancing virtuosity. These are special arrangements and first recordings that come together on this album. For this album, Lelie Cristea also went in search of works that would be equal in beauty and character to the pieces by Enescu and Porumbescu. She herself was surprised by the musical treasures she found and her expectations were far exceeded. All the works are united by their expressive character, which is characterised by folk themes and a wide spectrum of colours. Sensual ballads give way to virtuoso character pieces that joyfully invite you to dance. What always attracts one almost magically is the emotional depth of the compositions. It is up to the performer and, of course, the listener to allow this completely and to immerse themselves in the respective work. Then the pulse of the works begins to connect with your own, and the journey begins. With Carpathian Tales and further planned concept albums, Lelie Cristea fulfils her wish to record and capture special works from classical, film and salon music in exclusive arrangements.

Sir Adrian Boult (1889–1983) was probably Britain’s most authoritative interpreter of the music of Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. He formed close relationships with both composers; particularly with Vaughan Williams; giving premieres of three of his symphonies.

Featuring several world-premiere recordings, the most comprehensive set ever released of Pizzetti's song output. Art song occupies a substantial space in Pizzetti's oeuvre, with over 40 pieces, and yet the composer is still remembered mostly for his opera Murder in the Cathedral, and more tangentially for chamber and choral pieces such as the Cello Sonata and Requiem. Pizzetti composed songs for almost his entire life as a composer, starting with Nuvole (1899), a romanza still unpublished, up to the Tre canti d'amore, which belong to the group of his last works, from the second half of the 1950s. Pizzetti wished to distance himself from the Italian tradition of song writing for the salon of salon writing: in 1914 he wrote that 'a new period for vocal chamber music in our country is about to begin.' His choice of authors is singular, and serious: Petrarch, Michelangelo, Victor Hugo, as well as contemporary Italian versions of Greek lyrics by Sappho and the classical-era tragedians. Another running thread is nature, and a love for his native region of Parma. Pizzetti often set poets from the region such as Mario Silvani's Sera d'inverno (1907), an evocative winter landscape, and a set of three 'tragic sonnets' by Alfredo Zerbini. Alas, like other songs here, they were never published, despite the poet's entreaty to the composer: 'I ask you to do it for our beloved dialect, if you do not want to do it for me. Through the music of a great musician, who knows, even our poor dialect may aim high!' Alfredo Blessano's booklet essay gives invaluable context to this absorbing and richly varied collection of 20th-century song. Performing together as the 'Vansisiem Lied Duo', Paola Camponovo and Alfredo Blessano have previously recorded the complete songs of Gian Francesco Malipiero (96153). 'The songs are lovely, and the performances excellent. They are strongly closely attuned to each other, and their committed performances here are much more than readings.' (Fanfare) - The Complete Songs (Liriche) by Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880-1968) form a significant portion of his vocal output, bearing witness to his deep connection with Italian literary traditions and his ability to translate poetry into expressive music. As one of the leading Italian composers of the early 20th century, Pizzetti was known for his lyrical style, drawing inspiration from both the past and the modern era. His songs often set texts by prominent Italian poets such as Gabriele D'Annunzio, who shared Pizzetti's interest in themes of nature, mysticism, and the Italian cultural heritage. - Pizzetti's liriche demonstrate his skillful blend of text and music, characterized by a refined melodic line that closely follows the natural inflection of the language. His approach to vocal writing is often declamatory, allowing the poetry's meaning to guide the musical expression. Harmonically, the songs exhibit a rich, modal language influenced by Renaissance and early Baroque music. The thematic variety in his Complete Songs ranges from intimate, introspective reflections to more dramatic, impassioned expressions, always maintaining a close relationship between word and sound. - Sung by the Vansisiem Lied Duo: Paola Camponovo and Alfredo Blessano. This duo already showed their affinity with the idiom in their much praised recording of the complete songs by Malipiero on Brilliant Classics (BC 96153).

SOMM Recordings is proud to mark the centenary of the legendary German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (28 May 1925-18 May 2012) by adding to his canonical discography with live recital and concert recordings from the Music Preserved archive. Fischer-Dieskau was at the very height of his powers from 1960-75, and the performances on this album date from that period. A bonus CD contains two interviews conducted by Jon Tolansky-appearing here in their entirety for the first time-the 75th Birthday Interview (2000) and 80th Birthday Interview (2005). The extraordinarily vast repertoire of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau over his 45-year career comprised lieder, operas, cantatas, and oratorios. He sang these in German, Italian, French, Russian, English, Hebrew, Hungarian, and Latin, from eras that spanned the Baroque to the latter part of the 20th century. Particularly, it was the controlled power and beauty of his voice, and the dramatic intensity and poetry of his interpretations, that led him to excel in the genre of German lieder. In this form he exerted a virtually unprecedented stylistic and interpretative influence-not only on the musical world of his day, but also on generations of performers to come. SOMM's centenary tribute opens with four songs by Ferruccio Busoni, all being works that were written late in the composer's career. They come from a programme that Fischer-Dieskau gave with Gerald Moore in 1962.  At the 1971 Helsinki Festival, Fischer-Dieskau presented a recital with Irwin Gage, which was devoted entirely to songs with texts by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The recital, described by a contemporary critic as "a landmark event," featured compositions by contemporaries of Goethe, who lived from 1749 to 1832, such as the Countess Anna Amalia, Kapellmeister Johann Friedrich Reichardt, and Goethe's friend Carl Friedrich Zelter. The more familiar composers represented on this Goethe-inspired recital were active during the first part of the 20th century. They include Richard Strauss, Max Reger, and Ferruccio Busoni. This tribute to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau also includes six songs from a programme of works by Gustav Mahler, which was presented with his long-time collaborator, Karl Engel. Three of the songs are from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, based on texts of German folk poems, and three are from the collection of five Ruckert-Lieder, after poems written by Friedrich Ruckert. The musical component of this collection closes with a concert performance of three songs by Zoltan Kodaly, sung in Hungarian by Fischer-Dieskau. The composer proves himself an outstanding interpreter of his own music in conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. In the two interviews included on the bonus CD, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau discusses his early years, his teachers, the development of his career, and a small but revealing cross-section of his enormous repertoire.

Choirs of spirits, wild passions, unshakeable loyalty, a gruesome act of murder, and the eternal triumph of love over death - these are the thoroughly familiar ingredients of the libretto that Ethel Smyth wrote (in German) for her one-act opera Der Wald (The Forest). The music, however, is anything but gruesome. Echoes of Robert Schumann, some striking reminiscences of Richard Wagner, and, particularly in the prologue, an unmistakable touch of Art Nouveau carry the drama. It had it's premiere at the Berlin Court Opera on 9 April 1902. It was subsequently staged at the Royal Opera House in London and presented with triumphant success at the Met in New York in March 1903. There were standing ovations and a veritable sea of flowers for the 44-year-old Englishwoman, who was the first woman to conquer the classical music temple on Broadway with her work. Talent can achieve anything.

SOMM RECORDINGS announces the first appearance on disc of three historic live recordings by Sir Adrian Boult to mark the 40th anniversary of the pre-eminent British conductor’s death, including his complete 1949 account of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, Stravinsky’s Capriccio (1948), and Vaughan Williams’ Fourth Symphony (1965).

Boult had led the UK premiere of Berg’s excoriating opera in 1934, although only Act II of that performance survives. This complete 1949 recording with the BBC Symphony, Heinrich Nillius as Wozzeck, and Suzanne Danco as Marie – only the second UK performance – adds to Boult’s and the opera’s stature on disc. Recorded live in London’s Royal Albert Hall, it is a remarkable document of an exhilarating performance.

Boult’s pioneering championing of ‘new’ music is also heard in his recording of Stravinsky’s Capriccio, with the BBC Symphony and the prodigiously gifted Australian Noel Mewton-Wood at the piano.

Boult’s rare outing in 1965 with the Royal Opera House Orchestra saw him returning to a work he premiered 30 years earlier, Vaughan Williams’ Fourth Symphony. Under Boult’s baton it is a stirring and startling statement of loss and grief.

A bonus track features a revealing discussion of his 19-year tenure at the head of the BBC Symphony by Boult with Bernard Keeffe for BBC Radio in 1965.

This recording brings together four Hungarian composers who, each in their own way, contributed to the development of a new national musical style at the beginning of the twentieth century. They managed to write music that was respected internationally and that both nurtured them and raised the general standard of music in Hungary.

Leó Weiner’s (dubbed the ‘Hungarian Mendelssohn’) and Erno Dohnányi’s string trios were composed during their student years, yet both works have become significant milestones in the limited repertoire for this instrumental combination. Elegant and occasionally reminiscent of Brahms, they also incorporate subtle touches of local folklore. Zoltán Kodály, alongside Béla Bartók, one of the most important Hungarian musicians of the century, composed relatively little chamber music, but his Intermezzo, also an early work, evokes the folk music that the composer had begun to collect for his ethnomusicological research. The least familiar and youngest of the composers represented here, László Weiner, met a tragic fate. His Serenade, composed while he was studying with Kodály, reveals the exceptional talent of a composer whose body of work remains small. Less ‘Magyar’ than the other works presented here, his Serenade recalls the intense and concentrated atmosphere of Viennese ‘modernist’ works.

Embark on a captivating musical journey with Roby Lakatos as he delves into the soul-stirring rhythms of Tango. Teaming up with the renowned Gang Tango, the King of Gypsy violinists invites you to explore the rich traditions of Tango from across the globe. From timeless classics like Oblivion and La Cumparsita to undiscovered jewels such as Rookgordijnen and Vale Mousiki, this album is a veritable treasure chest for lovers of passionate music-making.

Shortly after the election of the last chancellor of the German Empire on 30 January 1933, the political catastrophe known as the "seizure of power", composer Paul Frankenburger was on his way to Palestine. The former British Protectorate, regarded by Western culture as a developing nation, profited considerably from the arrival of the this Munich native, who renamed himself Paul Ben-Haim ("Son of Heinrich") and then did a large amount of pioneering work. After the recordings of the two symphonies by this influential teacher and administrator, we now present an extensive anthology of concertante works under the direction of violinist LIV Migdal. These include the Yizkor fantasy, duos for violin and piano, and selected art songs. They leave no doubt that Paul Ben-Haim was an inimitable voice in Israel.

Mignone: Doze Valsas

Volume 13 is the final instalment in Wolf Harden's series of Busoni's piano music, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the composer's death in 2024. It features selections from the multi-volume Klavierubung ('Piano Exercise') as well as some early miniatures, and more.

Franco Alfano was born in Naples on 8 March 1875 and soon showed musical aptitude, studying piano with Alessandro Longo at the Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella in Naples and composition with Camillo de Nardis. In 1895 he moved to Leipzig to study with Salomon Jadassohn, where he was able to undertake deeper study of Bach and Wagner, as well as Busoni, Richard Strauss and other composers still little known in Italy. In the summer of 1899 he moved to Paris, encountering an even more stimulating environment where musical debate between such names as Massenet, Bizet, Charpentier and Debussy aroused his curiosity. His long career saw it's greatest successes in the field of opera, his most successful being 1904's Resurrection, based on Leo Tolstoy's novel of the same name, L'ombra di Don Giovanni (1913 rev. 1941), La leggenda di Sakùntala (1921 rev. 1952, his masterpiece) and Cyrano de Bergerac (1936), along with eight other operas. In spite of this prolific operatic output, Alfano owes his fame today mainly to his completion of Puccini's Turandot on the basis of notes left by the deceased composer. The decision to have Alfano complete the opera was taken by Arturo Toscanini and the publisher Ricordi because of affinities that Alfano's Sakùntala had with the unfinished finale of Turandot. Alfano died in San Remo on 17 October 1954. Begun in 1929 and quickly completed, the Concerto in A for Violin, Cello & Piano was performed on 31 May 1930 at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia with Luca Ballerini (violin) and Benedetto Mazzacurati (cello) along with Alfano himself on piano. It had a warm critical reception for it's clarity, expressive intensity, powerful construction and 'it's effusive cantabile and substantial episodes', all distinctive traits of the composer. Particularly appreciated was Alfano's use of the ancient modes - a different one for each movement: Phrygian for the first ('Con dolce malinconia'), Dorian for the second ('Allegretto fantastico') and Hypolydian for the last ('Presto, con grande vigoria'). This concerto also displays absolutely masterful writing for the three instruments, which take up a truly animated discourse, each with a defined role and interesting individual timbral solutions and combinations. Alfano's final chamber music composition, the Piano Quintet in A flat for strings and piano dates from 1945. Written after a ten-year gap in Alfano's chamber music output, the difference between the trio on this album and this piano quintet is evident. He uses less elaborate solutions in the later work, in fact, including doublings and emphatic unison tutti at resolutions and cadences. Ornamental material is more conspicuous here than before, lending the work a certain Art Nouveau flavor. Alfano displays a desire to return to a stylistic idea from the past, as of one consciously wanting to fall back on old certainties, idealizing and emphasizing them while distinctive Alfano traits remain evident, such as the genuineness of the lyrical impulse and the quality of the technical craftsmanship. Other information: - Recorded December 2023 in Bernareggio, Italy - Bilingual booklet in English and Italian contains notes compiled by Marcello Miramonti & Enrico Graziani and profiles of the ensemble and it's musicians - Franco Alfano (1875-1954) was an Italian composer best known for completing Puccini's opera Turandot after the composer's death. His own works, particularly his chamber music, show a deeply personal lyricism and rich harmonic language. Among these, his Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano and Piano Quintet stand out as exceptional examples of his late-Romantic style infused with Impressionist and modernist influences. - The Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano, composed in the 1930s, blends lyrical expressiveness with intricate counterpoint, weaving dense textures while maintaining clarity between the three instruments. The dialogues between the violin, cello, and piano are filled with emotional intensity and virtuosic passages. - His Piano Quintet, composed in 1945, is marked by soaring melodies, rich harmonic color, and dramatic contrasts, the piano playing an integral role rather than merely accompanying the strings. Alfano's harmonic language in this work is both forward-thinking and rooted in late-Romantic tradition. - Played with passion and commitment by the Italian Davinci Ensemble.

This album of Gurney's songs, Volume 24 in the English Song series, presents a wide selection of his works. Featuring several masterpieces - among them Sleep and Severn Meadows - this collection also includes twelve world premiere recordings. Snow is performed here in it's corrected edition. Prize-winning baritone Marcus Farnsworth is accompanied by Eric McElroy.

SOMM Recordings marks the 150th anniversary of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 - 1912) with a diverse selection of his orchestral works, reflecting both his Afro-British parentage and a musical milieu that included Holst and Vaughan Williams. Of particular note is that five of the seven works presented here are first recordings. This commemorative release features the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Charles Peebles, whose first recordings of Piano Concertos by Dora Bright and Ruth Gipps for SOMM were widely praised. It was quickly apparent that Coleridge-Taylor possessed an unusual talent, and he produced a remarkable body of work before his untimely death at 37 though much of his music has been hidden from public view by the absence of surviving performance material. He composed his first work for voice and orchestra, Zara's Earrings, when he was just 19. Rebecca Murphy, hailed by Opera Journal for her "stunning delivery," is the featured soprano. The Ballade, also written when Coleridge-Taylor was 19, was premiered by Isabella Donkersley, the future wife of Augustus Jaeger (soon to be immortalised by Elgar as 'Nimrod' in his Enigma Variations). The Ballade's great drama and charismatic melodic material play to the strengths of Coleridge-Taylor having been a violinist.  Ioana Petcu-Colan, heard here, is leader of the Ulster Orchestra and a soloist of considerable reputation. When Coleridge-Taylor heard Brahms's Clarinet Quintet while a student at the Royal College of Music, he was encouraged to write his own. The Romance for string orchestra is an arrangement of the quintet's introspective Larghetto affettuoso movement. Solemn Prelude, written for the Worcester Three Choirs Festival of 1899, is a work of elegiac pathos exuding the confidence of a young composer reaching the height of his powers. Since it's modern revival in 2021, it's been performed by some of the world's most distinguished orchestras. Coleridge-Taylor's Idyll, a commission for the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival in 1901, was a reworking of the Lament from his Symphony in A minor. When he conducted it's first performance, the Times critic wrote, "it was a single, very beautiful movement in C major. Giving ample room for the composer's love of original rhythm and rich and individual orchestral colouring. " Ethiopia Saluting the Colours from 1902 is an exuberant work for orchestra and organ. It was inspired by Walt Whitman's moving poem paying tribute to an elderly Ethiopian woman encountered during the American Civil War. Beerbohm Tree commissioned the incidental music for Stephen Phillip's play Nero in 1906, and the chance for Coleridge-Taylor to hear his music nightly rather than as one performance in the concert hall was a particular joy. This anniversary collection includes the first Entr'acte, which also featured at the 1907 Proms under Henry Wood.

In July 1884, MacDowell and his wife, Marian, spent their honeymoon in England, and were both captivated by performances of Shakespeare plays at London's Lyceum Theatre. The young composer started immediately on sketches based on six characters, but completed only two, Hamlet and Ophelia, which were published the following year. MacDowell recycled some of the music from his sketch for Benedick, from Much Ado about Nothing, as the second movement of his Second Piano Concerto. Having lived in Germany from 1885 to 1888, the couple returned to America and Edward reactivated his career as a concert pianist. The Second Concerto was the perfect vehicle to display his virtuosity, and he gave the first performance in New York in 1889. Composed during the same period as the Second Concerto, the Romanze for Cello and Orchestra was written at Wiesbaden in 1887, and MacDowell dedicated it to the virtuoso Bohemian cellist and composer David Popper. The Suite in A minor was the first work MacDowell composed after the couple's move to Boston, and reflects his lifelong love of nature. Set in five movements, it received it's first performance in 1895 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Emil Paur.

A rather unique piano trio The repertoire for piano trios is plentiful and varied. Composers such as Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven preferred to write for piano, violin, and cello. The repertoire for the combination of piano and two saxophones is rather limited in comparison. This is mainly to do with the fact that the instrument was first developed around 1840 by Antoine Joseph Sax, who opened a workshop in Paris in 1842 and built saxophones in seven different sizes. His patron, Hector Berlioz, was one of the first to incorporate the instrument into his orchestral compositions, and Jules Massenet used it prominently in his opera Werther in 1892, but the saxophone became more popular in French military music and, of course, in jazz, where it has been used as a solo instrument since around 1920.

Francisco Mignone was a leading figure in the Brazilian music scene of the 20th century, with a free-flowing style and gift for melody that instantly communicated with audiences. He was part of the first generation of modernist Brazilian composers that included Villa-Lobos and Guarnieri. Mignone's two early unnumbered sonatas emulate the French influence of Faure and Debussy, but it was not until the 1960s that he returned to the genre. The First and Second Sonatas share a fragmented, experimental character that juxtapose varying forms of tonality and metre, while the Third Sonata features national rhythmic and melodic elements. These sonatas represent some of the most significant works for violin and piano to come from Brazil.

A young violinist, paired with one of the most renowned Lisztians of our day, make an illuminating and harmonious partnership in an exquisite body of modern classics for the duo. Very few 20th-century pieces have entered the canon of literature for violin and piano as universally as the Mythes of Karol Szymanowski. Alongside the sonatas of Janacek and Prokofiev, for example, the cycle embodies the style of it's composer at his most characteristic. In Szymanowski's case, the Mythes draw on a sensuous language of impressionism but also a Russian school of violin playing, and a fragrance in the melodies that is unique to him. Italian critics have been extravagant in their praise of Francesca Bonaita. Her repertoire already includes modern classics such as the concertos by Barber, Zimmermann and Schnittke, indicating the kind of affinity with modernist idioms which makes this Szymanowski disc so striking as a demonstration of her musicianship. Having graduated from the conservatoire in Milan as a student of Sergei Krylov, she furthered her studies in Lugano while attracting notice for her performances in many international violin competitions. The pianist Saskia Giorgini is well known as a Lisztian, with several outstanding albums to her credit, and as a sympathetic recital partner to outstanding musicians of our day such as Ian Bostridge and Vilde Frang. The duo have written a note for this new album of Szymanowski which both explains the background to each of the major works - the Mythes, the early Sonata and the composer's late transcriptions of three Paganini caprices - while underlining their intellectual grasp of this music as it falls under their fingers. As they note, Szymanowski was initially inspired by the examples of Franck and Brahms in writing his own, opulent Violin Sonata in 1909. Gradually he found his voice, helped along the way in particular by his friendship with the violinist Pavel Kochanski. It was Kochanski who gave both technical advice and inspiration to Szymanowski as he composed the two violin concertos and the trio of Mythes which are his culminating work in the field of chamber music: 'a mystical synthesis of the sensual and the divine', as they encapsulate it's elusive sequence of moods. Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) was one of Poland's most important and original composers. Szymanowski's style is eclectic, standing in the long romantic tradition. He imbued his works with exoticisms, impressionistic flourishes and a general sense of freedom and imagination. The works for violin and piano were composed for the famous Polish violinist Paul Kochanski. The most important works are the substantial Second Violin Sonata and the cycle Myths, both appearing regularly on concert programs nowadays. Played by rising star Francesca Bonaita with pianist Saskia Giorgini, whose Piano Classics and Pentatone recordings have won many awards (Critic's Choice) and 5 star reviews.

The Puerto Rican pianist JESÚS MARÍA SANROMÁ (1902-1984) came to the USA to study and subsequently built his career there. He had a very wide repertoire and gave the US premieres of many contemporary works, including Ravel's G major Concerto, but was equally at home in the classics or Gershwin. He had a long association with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and their summer festival brand, the 'Pops', resulting in the series of concertos reproduced here. All are conducted by Arthur Fiedler (1894-1979), who led the 'Pops' for an astonishing 50 years from 1930. Their Gershwin Rhapsody was a huge hit, and the MacDowell and Paderewski were first recordings. We have filled out the set with Sanromá's first recording of a selection of dances by Juan Morel Campos, his 19th-century Puerto Rican fellow countryman.

For her first project at Cypres, young Belgian pianist Cassandre Marfin thinks big and has come up with Jusqu'a la nuit, a triptych devoted to chromesthesia, one of the many forms of synesthesia known to date. Synesthesia refers to the general alliance of two senses within the brain of an individual. Chromesthesia, on the other hand, refers specifically to the association between colours and sounds. Each volume of this trilogy is dedicated to a primary colour: blue, yellow and red. This first volume focuses on blue, which is undoubtedly the colour most present in music and the one most appreciated in the Western world. According to Cassandre Marfin, it evokes the world of night and dreams, something intangible and indefinite. It is a source of multiple representations in our imaginations. Through a skilfully conceived programme, the pianist associates this colour with ideas, metaphors and compositional systems that allow us to form our own personal impression of blue.

Spring Fire, the newest release from SOMM Recordings, highlights the complete music for cello and piano by Arnold Bax (1883-1953), with Alexander Baillie, recognized as one of the finest cellists of his generation, and pianist John Thwaites, his long-time musical partner. The Baillie-Thwaites Duo has capitalized on concert performances of the greatest twentieth-century British music over the last decade, and, with this recording, continues it's enduring partnership with SOMM. The release takes it's title from an early masterpiece by Bax, Spring Fire, a Symphony for Orchestra from 1913. Coming from a particularly fruitful period when Bax wrote a series of symphonic poems of consistently high quality, it may well have been inspired by his love for the beautiful young pianist Harriet Cohen. Theirs was a passionate love affair and a fertile artistic partnership that lasted forty years. Through force of circumstance, not least of which was World War I, Spring Fire was never performed during Bax's lifetime; but he repurposed the haunting melody from it's opening movement, In the forest before dawn, for the slow movement of the Cello Sonata in E flat minor. Performances of this three-movement Cello Sonata are vanishingly rare, which makes the present release all the more important. The recording opens with a little-known gem, the Folk-Tale for cello and piano. It is a gorgeous work dedicated to the English cellist, Felix Salmond, who gave the first performance at Wigmore Hall on 27 April 1918 with Bax at the piano. The first two works on this disc are linked to a fantasy world, while the last two are written with formal clarity and concision. In 1933, Bax dedicated his Sonatina for Cello to the legendary cellist, Pablo Casals, and it fulfils it's slight brief with barely a repeated note. The Legend-Sonata was commissioned by and dedicated to the English cellist Florence Hooton. She gave the premiere at Wigmore Hall on 10 November 1943 with Bax's muse and lover, Harriet Cohen, as the pianist. The sweeping survey of twentieth-century cello repertoire that the Baillie-Thwaites duo has undertaken for SOMM includes a double CD of Twentieth-Century Sonatas for Cello and Piano (SOMMCD 251-2) and The British Cello (SOMMCD 0175). The Observer has praised "Baillie's rewardingly intelligent playing... matched by Thwaites's warm, generous, perfectly judged pianism;" and BBC Music Magazine says "It isn't just the excellence of Alexander Baillie's and John Thwaites's playing, but that they invest each work with the power of utter belief." This CD is dedicated to the memory of the Bax scholar Graham Parlett, who, in preparation for this recording, supported the UK performances of these works given by the Baillie-Thwaites duo. Henry Purcell was at the height of his powers at the time of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which saw King William III and his wife Queen Mary II crowned as joint British monarchs. Queen Mary was an avid lover of dance, which led to it being a regular and expected part of Restoration theatrical productions. Purcell's first great operatic work, Dido and Aeneas from the late 1680s, included no less than seventeen original dances. Purcell wrote in every form-ranging from theatre and church to concerts and balls-and his music dominated public demand in almost every genre. His success led to requests for music of all kinds, particularly dance movements, either singly or forming parts of suites for the keyboard. At the time, there was a growing fashion for French keyboard music, and Purcell willingly accepted the structural influences from that school. And yet, his music remained infused with the individual expression of an undoubtedly English composer. Tragically, Purcell died at the peak of his career on 21 November 1695 at his home in London. He is believed to have been 35 or 36 years old at the time. A year after his death, Purcell's widow, Frances, posthumously published A Choice Collection of Lessons for the Harpsichord or Spinet. These eight suites, long overshadowed by his more celebrated theatre works, are the core of Purcell's keyboard output, shifting from major to minor keys, from humour to seriousness, to create a uniquely expressive musical world. The suites incorporate French dance forms like the Almand, Corante, and Minuet, and the Spanish Saraband, which Purcell imbued with a quintessentially British idiom. This finds particular expression in movements like a Corante that deftly incorporates tunes from Ireland and Scotland; a brilliant Jigg that seems to catch the listener unawares; and a burly Hornpipe that draws on earlier incidental music. Cristian Sandrin intersperses Purcell's posthumously published eight keyboard suites with occasional additions from other works, and his recital concludes with the beautiful Sefauchi's Farewell. Purcell was deeply impressed on hearing one of the greatest of all castrati, the Italian 'Sefauchi' (Giovanni Francesco Grossi), in London. This keyboard work is a tribute from one noble musician to another.