N the 18th century, Europe experienced a profound musical transformation from the Baroque to the Classical period. At the centre of this period stands Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. He emerges as a fascinating and highly influential figure in music history, embodying the transition from the Baroque to the Classical and Romantic periods. Throughout his life, C.P.E. Bach composed over three hundred keyboard works. His foray into organ music was significantly influenced by his association with Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723-1787), sister of his employer King Frederick and recognised as one of the most enthusiastic collectors, performers, and composers among the women of the 18th century. The princess, had an organ installed in her living room to immerse herself in the 'learned style' epitomised by Bach's father. It cannot be coincidence that the first four of Bach's five organ sonatas were composed in 1755, the same year Amalia's organ was installed. These compositions represent a departure from traditional forms, emphasising an expansive expressive range and harmonic innovation. Only the five sonatas listed in Bach's own catalogue have been included in this recording. Amidst the flourishing creativity of the Classical period, a fascination with mechanical music swept across Europe. Esteemed composers such as Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart embraced this trend, creating compositions that enhanced both public and private musical experiences.

We know that key influences on Flamenco date back to Islamic Iberia or the Al-Andalusian era of Spain between the 8th-15th centuries. Yet the first mention of Flamenco by name is not until 1774, where it appears in an epistolary novel, Cartas Marruecas, by the playwright and soldier, Jose de Cadalso y Vazquez. In collaboration on with soprano Victoria Couper, kanun player, Konstantin nos Glynos, and oud/Flamenco guitarist, Ignacio Lusardi Monteverde, this album seeks to explore this question by tracing the influences on Flamenco through Arabic music alongside Sephardic song and the Spanish composers of the late-16th to 18th centuries. What happened in these intervening centuries?

One of the greatest Bach players of her generation, Russian pianist Tatyana Nikolayeva delivers this incredible live performance just a few months before her death. This recording will be published for the first time on FHR, with the kind permission of the Tatyana Nikolayeva estate. This is one of the last recordings of Nikolayeva. Although the Art of Fugue work was long thought to have been written on Bach’s deathbed, recent research has shown that he was working on it during the early 1740s. The autograph from this time comprises fourteen movements (twelve fugues and two canons), but at the end of his life Bach revised the unpublished work adding two fugues and two canons. Engraving of the plates for publication began during the last months of Bach’s life and he was able to proofread some of them albeit with failing eyesight. However, when the work was published at the end of 1751 Bach was already dead and the last fugue left incomplete. In creating his The Art of Fugue Bach proved that he was master of the form but in the hands of a musically intuitive interpreter such as Tatyana Nikolayeva it becomes one of the masterpieces of a world genius.

Classical Music

Although the word salon derives from a room in a domestic dwelling (In 1836, Robert Schumann referred to Salonmusik (a term he incidentally coined) as a 'combination of sentiment and piano passage'), it also came to refer to private gatherings of composers and well-to-do members of society congregated in order to appreciate musical performances of a shorter and more varied nature, as distinct from those of longer chamber works. By the 1830s, the musical salon emerged as a vehicle for virtuoso performers who encapsulated the romantic ideals of enhanced emotional subjectivity and greater artistic individuality, with the piano at the center of it all. The charming, off-the-cuff pieces that so delighted audiences up until relatively recently seem to have faded away with the last performers of the romantic tradition. This album serves to illuminate the brilliant music that many of these underrated yet highly talented 19th century composers gave us. '... played with a purity, profundity and sense of dramatic architecture that truly stops you in your tracks. Really, bravo.' (Gramophone, 'Editor's Choice' - VILSMAYR Partitas [FHR38])

The Flautadors recorder quartet are the UK’s leading recorder ensemble and celebrate 20 years of making music together with a recording of some of their most popular contemporary music. ‘bavardage’, their 5th album and 2nd on FHR, shows an appealing mix of minimalist, folk & global influences, from selected works of particular significance from Europe, Asia and America. Performed on 56 different recorders, The Flautadors showcase the tonal spectrum of the recorder through many different forms but all with a common root – simplicity and clarity of musical expression or sound. This recording features première recordings including De la Salle written by 2016 British Composer Award winner, Leo Chadburn. “the repertoire is delightful, the playing first-rate, and the recorded sound ideal” (Fanfare) “expertly and beautiful performed” (American Record Guide) “Beautifully poised and deliciously played” (Gramophone)

Classical Music

This beautiful new release is a live recording of Tatyana Nikolayeva’s 1989 Herodes Atticus Odeon Recital, and this is the first time the recording from that even has ever been published. Russian pianist Tatyana Nikolayeva was the greatest Bach performer of her generation, as well as an undisputed authority on the piano music of Dmitri Shostakovich. This recital was made in an open-air venue, and displays Nikolayeva’s impeccable technique and her interpretive sensitivity. Her chosen repertoire crosses genres and periods, and includes works from Bach, Prokofiev, Mussorgsky, Schumann, and more.

Since their first concert together in 2011, Polish oboist Monika Dawidek and English guitarist Russell Poyner have captivated audiences with their energy, vitality and charming interaction on stage. In this, their debut album, the German-based Dawidek-Poyner Duo presents a delightful program of Latin American classics, including the popular Libertango by Astor Piazzolla. Interspersed between the duo tracks, Poyner performs a selection of favorite South American works for solo guitar.

Classical Music

Classical Music

This historical release from First Hand features two major English orchestras and two acclaimed conductors in stereo recordings from the late 1950s, offered here for the first time on CD and for the first time ever in stereo. The recordings were transferred using original analogue session and master tapes from the EMI archive. The program includes American conductor Thomas Schippers leading the Philharmonia Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, and English conductor Sir Eugene Goossens leading the orchestra in Scriabin's Reverie in the first recording of a Scriabin work ever made by a British orchestra. To conclude the disc, Goossens leads the Pro Arte Orchestra in Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1.

Another outstanding performance/recording of J.S. Bach by Papastefanou, this her second album for FHR, in another classic set of keyboard works by the composer, The French Suites. Papastefanou, Greece's leading pianist, is now regarded worldwide as a leading exponent of Bach on the piano. Her previous recording for FHR, The Well-Tempered Clavier, 2018, did incredibly well with the music press and critics including: MusicWeb International RECORDING OF THE MONTH, The Union of Greek Theatre and Music Critics Award: BEST RECORDING OF 2018, and Five Stars from BBC Music Magazine. On listening to Alexandra's Well-Tempered Clavier recording, the great pianist Alfred Brendel commented: "I find Papastefanou's Bach riveting. This is Bach playing on a high level - full of life, controlled in all strands of the music, pianistically immaculate, and highly personal. Here is a Bach player who has lived a lifetime with this music.' Amongst the other works featured on the album is the Keyboard Sonata, BWV 964, Bach's own transcription for keyboard of the Sonata in A minor, BWV 1003 for Solo Violin. This is rarely recorded on the piano, so it's a welcome addition to the catalogue.

For the third in this series of recordings drawn from his archive of concerts with Orquestra Sinfonica Portuguesa (see also Prokofiev and Rimsky-Korsakov on FHR146; Abril, Falla and Weber with Teresa Berganza on FHR153), alvaro Cassuto has turned to music from the late Classical and mid-Romantic eras in a coupling of Schubert and Wagner. Written less than 15 years apart, these two pieces inhabit very different aesthetics while having a common link in Beethoven.

This recording contains two compostions by Welsh composer Matthew Owain Jones, String Quartet No. 1, 'Deletia' and Wind Quintet along with his arrangement of nine movements from Carl Nielsen's ballet Aladdin, Op. 63 for chamber ensemble. All three works on this album are premiere recordings and performed by Denmark's leading chamber ensemble Ensemble MidtVest. Jones is widely regarded as a unique, visionary musician and educator. Alongside composition, Jones is one of the leading violists and violinists of his time, recording 25 solo and chamber albums to date, premiering numerous concertos and commissioning dozens of works.