Vestiva: not only our red thread throughout the album, referring to one of our favourite madrigal hits Vesti va i colli, but also a metaphorical motto: “dressing up” the music with colours, diminutions, trilli, accenti … (as the hills, the colli, in the original madrigal text are dressed up with flowers) in the balancing act of pure fl exibility and absolute punctuality or momentum – creating spoken “words” with a minimal, reduced instrumentation and without actual sung text. Working in this minimal, fragile and intimate instrumental setting with lute, harp and recorders while trying to reach maximum expression is an absolute challenge and pure joy.

This recording is the culmination of 10 years of research by Dr. Emily Baines, and it brings to dazzling life the fascinating and effervescent performance style found in eighteenth-century mechanical musical instruments. It contains never before heard transcriptions of music found in eighteenth-century barrel organs and musical clocks, set for the live performers of Amyas ensemble and a number of other collaborators.

Dr. Baines is a recorder player, lecturer, and musical director working throughout Europe, also specialising in a wide variety of historical woodwinds. She she wrote her doctoral thesis on the role of mechanical musical instruments as sources for 18th-century performance practice. Baines performs regularly for many period instrument ensembles, contemporary groups, music festivals and theatres across Europe.

In addition to her performing schedule, Baines is a lecturer in Music at Brunel University London, Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Shakespeare's Globe Higher Education department, and is regularly invited to other H.E. institutions for guest lectures and practical workshops.

Michael Stephen Brown's debut album as a composer of all-original works has it all: tributes, emotional detours, and even a breakup etude he probably should've kept under lock and key, you'll find lost loves, lifelong mentors, children who never grew up, an arrogant violist - because what's an album without one? - and a legendary pianist couple who walk twelve blocks daily reciting poetry to each other. Performers include Jerome Lowenthal, Ursula Oppens, Anne-Marie McDermott, Osmo V�nsk�, Erin Keefe, Susanna Phillips, Paul Neubauer, and Brown himself.

To Anglican church musicians around the world, Herbert Murrill is well-known for his wonderful�Magnficat�and�Nunc Dimittis in E major. But there is a treasure trove of other music waiting to be rediscovered, including his many songs which are featured here in first recordings.

From the ensemble: The sad news of George Crumb’s death was announced on 6 February 2022, shortly after these recordings from a concert in Holland in 1978 were discovered in the KRO-NCRV archives in Hilversum. They included the first European performance of Dream Sequence (1976), one of his most beautiful and original compositions. George was always a pleasure to work with, highly professional, considerate, open to suggestions and relaxed. On one fraught occasion, when Rohan’s cello mysteriously disappeared for several hours, making rehearsal impossible, we would have expected many composers to throw a tantrum (!) but not George. He remained completely calm and slightly amused by the ensuing Tati-esque comédie. He was also a master calligrapher. His scores, all hand-drawn, are works of art, the notation often original, and models of musical practicality. We offer these three recordings from long ago in tribute and gratitude to a remarkable musician, composer and friend.

Joseph Gibbs is one of the 18th century's best-kept secrets; his music is characterful and individual, fusing the best of Italianate virtuosity with English and quirky Gibbs-ian humour. Despite the obvious brilliance of his compositions, the 8 Solos for Violin and Basso Continuo, Op. 1 of c. 1746 are one of only two published sets of music, and there are scant references to Gibbs in the years after his death. However, the re-emergence of his portrait (painted by Thomas Gainsborough) in the early years of the 20th century sparked a curiosity and interest in Gibbs's music, which has been described as amongst 'the finest English violin sonatas of the century'.

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?

Written almost 100 years ago, The Thief of Bagdad is one of the greatest ever film scores and incredibly, has never been recorded untill l now - FHR are honored to be able to release the first recording of this wonderful score. Recorded in 2019, this recording features one of greatest European orchestras, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, along with conductor Mark Fitz-Gerald who has an unparalleled reputation for performing the very specialized task of accompanying silent films live with orchestra. The score was written by the American composer Mortimer Wilson at the specific request of the film's main star actor Douglas Fairbanks. The Thief of Bagdad is now widely considered one of the great silent films and Fairbanks's greatest work. For the first time, Fairbanks recognized the composer as a creative collaborator from the start in the overall composition of his film (Wilson spent many hours in the projection room working out precise timings for every scene). Wilson was essentially a classical composer. Indeed, you can hear influences of Puccini's aria Vissi d'arte from Tosca, hints of Wagner's Valkyrie, along with moments of Alban Berg, Reger and Tchaikovsky. Fairbanks biographer Jeffrey Vance writes, "An epic romantic fantasy-adventure inspired by several of the Arabian Nights tales, The Thief of Bagdad is the greatest artistic triumph of Fairbanks's career. The superb visual design, spectacle, imaginative splendor, and visual effects, along with his bravura performance (leading a cast of literally thousands), all contribute to making this his masterpiece."

THE FUTURE is FEMALE is a three-volume series, which celebrates and highlights women composers from the 17th century to the present day. These albums encompass 30 compositions by women from around the globe and include many new commissioned works and world première recordings. Most pianists grow up with the classical canon, which has always excluded women composers as well as composers of colour. It is still standard practise to perform recitals consisting entirely of music written by men. The Future is Female aims to be a corrective towards rebalancing the repertoire. It does not attempt to be exhaustive, in any way, and the three albums in this series represent only a small fraction of the music by women which is waiting to be performed.

Vol. 1, In Nature, and Vol. 2, The Dance were released in 2022 to much critical acclaim. American pianist Sarah Cahill, hailed as ‘a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde’ by The New York Times and ‘instrumental in bringing to life the music of many of our greatest living composers’ by Keyboard Magazine, has commissioned and premièred over 70 compositions for solo piano. She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music by the American Composers Forum.

The worldwide lockdowns of 2020/21 proved highly fruitful for US-based violinist Itamar Zorman in his quest to seek out new repertoire. A virtual voyage around the world yielded a discovery of many lesser known and rarely played works for violin, which he presented in 2020 as a livestreamed video series entitled Hidden Gems. From this musical treasure trove he selected 10 pieces for his new album Violin Odyssey, produced by Grammy Award-winning Judith Sherman. The far-reaching geographical origins of the repertoire – from New Zealand to the United States by way of Sudan, China, Russia, Poland, Croatia, Czech Republic, Israel and Mexico – reveal a fascinating variety of styles and cultural diversity in these seldom heard works. Two larger works set the framework of the album – Slavonic Sonata (1917) written by Croatian noblewoman Dora Pejacevic and the Second Sonata for Violin and Piano (1927) by Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff. While sharing Eastern European flavor, the two sonatas, written only ten years apart, are worlds apart stylistically. These particularly dramatic works are complemented by a program of shorter pieces with evocative titles that suggest little adventures and encounters on a traveler’s journey.

For over two decades, Matthew Schellhorn has championed the creativity of living composers through commissions and premi�res, bringing new music to a wider audience. This album draws together a selection of eclectic and captivating piano works united through shared interpretative insights and deep artistic connections.

This recording sets Ravel's String Quartet in F major, a work that is known and much loved alongside three lesser-known quartets by the French composers Louis Durey (1888-1979), Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) and Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), three of the composers from Les Nouveaux Jeunes who later became Les Six. The friends met and lived in Montparnasse, Paris and composed their quartets around 16 years after Ravel completed his. Ravel's innovative and progressive style as demonstrated in his quartet marked the beginnings of a transitionary period in quartet writing and one that was continued by Durey, Tailleferre and Milhaud with these young composers heralding modernism and signalling a break with the past and the search for new forms of expression. By placing these works alongside one another, this albums gives a fresh and interesting context for the listener and hopefully fosters an interest in the music of this fascinating period of history.

Mozart's Divertimento in E flat, K563 plays a central role in the musical life of our ensemble. It's musical complexity and the depth of expression which Mozart achieves through only three voices are seemingly miraculous: it is one of those pieces which constantly rewards rehearsal. One simply never gets tired of playing it! When the opportunity to record this masterpiece arose, we were faced with the challenge of what to play alongside it. Our dear friend Rob Fokkens had written two short movements for string trio which seemed to fit beautifully with Mozart's music: Rob's translucent harmonic and rhythmic style offers unique expressive possibilities. The chance to commission the great Julian Joseph was not to be missed, and his work, Bring it!, wonderfully demonstrates his brilliance and lyricism, and the subtly of his harmonic language. We sincerely hope you enjoy listening to the music on this album as much as we loved preparing it!

Featuring the first recording of BRITTEN's Les Illuminations, Op. 18 sung in English, from a brand new translation by Timothy Ades. Also includes the original French version. Coupled with Samuel BARBER's dramatic masterpiece Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24, written just a few years after Les Illuminations. Among the most personal and powerful music ever written for the human voice, Britten and Barber's masterpiece settings of texts by Rimbaud and Agee continue to resonate intensely. Taken together, they form bookends to the cataclysms of the 20th century, with it's two life-shattering world wars. The colours, verbal and harmonic, of such human drama are a dazzling mix, running the gamut of life in dramatic flux. Mild mannered it is not, though parts are hauntingly beautiful.

The For nearly a hundred years, the doors of the famous Red Hedgehog coffee house (Zum roten Igel) opened onto the very heart of Viennese musical life. The Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde established the city’s first public concert hall there, hosting regular premières by Beethoven, and then Schubert, who even lived next door at one point. As if that wasn’t enough, the complex of buildings included a bar at the back with a vaulted cellar that later became Brahms’s favorite haunt, where patrons caroused and who knows what kind of musical activities went on after hours. The original building was demolished in 1906, but the spirit of the great composers feeding off the soundscape of a dynamic and cosmopolitan urban culture lives on in ZRI. Schubert and Brahms were both fascinated by Hungarian ‘Gypsy-band’ music and it became as fashionable as the waltz in Vienna, with one of the tunes included here still a concert favorite even now in an arrangement by Brahms. Bach may never have been to the city but some of his music must surely have been performed at the Igel and his ghost presided over the whole tradition.

This recording celebrates ghosts from the future too. American tunes were being played in Vienna even in Brahms’s time, and once the first recordings started to arrive the jazz influence on improvising Hungarian bands and artists like Georges Boulanger was immediate. The transatlantic flavor of Hora din Budesti and Tamboo owes much to this uniquely Viennese melting pot and, if the Igel still stood, the fusion of old-world instruments with contemporary songs by Donna Summer, Solange and Taylor Swift would not be out of place.

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

An album of new orchestral works by Peter Fribbins. 'Gommecourt', a four-movement symphony with obbligato piano, traces the dramatic story of his grandfather, Tom Fribbins, at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. It is paired with the passionate, and at times wild, 'Cello Concerto', and the beautiful melodic lines of his 'Folk Songs' for viola and chamber orchestra.

Bach's English Suites are a set of six keyboard suites, each featuring a prelude and a series of stylised dance movements. While named 'English, the suites are more closely related to the French Baroque style, featuring intricate counterpoint, technically demanding passages, and a grander scale compared to Bach's French Suites. Papastefanou's Baroque style and technique is first-class in her brand new recording of these technically high demanding Suites. A natural Bach player who plays with panache, high skill, individuality with an attractive style and touch, Papastefanou's has produced another high quality recording of Bach, in this her 6th album for FHR.

A collection of solo piano music conjuring soundscapes of changing timbres and tonal hues conveying the beauty of Baltic culture. The Latvian Lucija Garuta (1902-1977) and the Estonian Ester Magi (1922-2021) are two of the most important pianist composers of their generation. Exploring their similarities and differences is an album of virtuosic pianism that encapsulates the essence of Baltic song, a deep connection to nature and the mysterious world of Baltic folklore.

J.S. Bach's 'The Art of Fugue' is considered his monumental final statement, a work renowned for it's architectural complexity and spiritual depth. This recording presents the work on the celebrated Metzler organ of Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge, an instrument noted for it's clarity. The performance approaches the score not as an abstract exercise but as a coherent dramatic journey, where registration is used to clarify the structure and character of each movement. The chosen arc builds towards the unfinished fugue, treating it as a purposeful fragment that invites reflection on the work's inherent possibilities, offering a compelling interpretation of one of the repertoire's most significant compositions.

The present release comprises two works by Russian composers of differing generations, in music which has long been central to the repertoire of composer and conductor Álvaro Cassuto who is heard conducting the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra. Even before the Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet had made it to the stage, selections were heard in concert on both sides of the Atlantic, and various sequences continue to feature prominently in the orchestral repertoire. Although these sometimes take the guise of one of the three orchestral suites, it has become more common to select freely from across these or even from the overall ballet. Establishing dramatic and musical continuity within this context is more difficult than might be supposed, to which end Cassuto had devised his own selection on this present recording. Rimsky-Korsakov’s mastery of orchestration is heard at its most impressive in the Russian Easter Festival Overture, (composed at much the same time as his symphonic suite Scheherazade). Cast in a loose sonata-form design, the piece falls into three main sections which the composer prefaced with quotations from Psalms, Gospel of Mark and his own description of the Easter celebration. Almost all its themes are derived from the Obikhod, the collection of liturgical chants with which every Russian would then have been familiar – not least the composer, even though he had long since become a non- believer and viewed this music strictly as a source to be utilized in his own compositions. These two live recordings were originally broadcast by Antena 2, Portuguese Radio and Television in the mid-1990s. This album is the recording’s first commercial release.

After 25 years, this Bela Bartok album is seeing the light of day! The Global Music Network originally recorded this album in 2000 but unfortunately went out of business before the recording could be released. I am delighted that First Hand Records now presents these recordings for all Bartok fans... I am convinced that that the revised version of the Bartok Viola Concerto is a more effective and stronger work than the original version of the concerto and no doubt closer to Bartok's intent. The Duos are also delightful to play and hear in these excellent arrangements of Peter Bartok. (Paul Neubauer)

Shura Cherkassky (1909-1995) was a Russian-American concert pianist known for his performances of the romantic repertoire. He was one of the last pianists to come from the Golden Age of Pianism, whose playing was characterised by a virtuoso technique and singing piano tone. Cherkassky early on in his career earned a reputation for spontaneity, creativity, and technical perfection in his playing. His sound was unique and became almost instantly recognisable and was famous for never playing the same piece the same way. In addition to the standard virtuoso repertoire, especially that of Chopin, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff, Cherkassky also performed works by Hofmann, Hindemith, Morton Gould, Britten, Luciano Berio, Alban Berg, Stockhausen, Boulez and other 20th century/contemporary composers. The stimulus of a live audience always produced a more compelling performance from Cherkassky than he would give in a recording studio. Presented here are all the recital performances, totalling over five hours, which he gave at the Ambassador Auditorium between 1981 and 1989, published for the first time.

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.

Heino Eller (1887–1970) is the founding father of Estonian professional instrumental music, both as a masterful and original composer, and as a teacher of composition over half a century. His output of around 300 titles is almost exclusively dedicated to instrumental music. Though Eller wrote three symphonies, around a dozen symphonic poems, six string quartets and four piano sonatas, he is nevertheless essentially a master of the small form. Eller’s music is characterized by a bright pantheistic lyricism and a Nordic restraint in expression, whilst retaining a philosophically charged, at times epic undercurrent. This magnificent album is the first ever devoted to Eller’s music for violin, about half of which is represented here — including the demanding second of his two sonatas for violin and piano, the remarkable, hyper-expressionist Fantasy for solo violin, and the most popular, emblematic work in Estonian repertoire for the instrument, Pines.