“I don’t want to betray that constantly sounding tone in me, through which I hear the world around,” acknowledged Sergei Rachmaninoff. This tone stimulated by the intonations of folk melodies and bell ringing, and the imagery of the Russian landscape, permeates his Second Symphony. It became a landmark work for the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, whose performances in the leading concert venues of Europe and Asia were widely admired. Dmitry Liss, Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Orchestra has created a musical collective of remarkable quality during his 25-year tenure. A life-long personal favorite of Liss, Rachmaninoff is frequently included in the Orchestra’s programs, both in Russia and abroad. “For me, his music is as much a symbol of the flourishing Russian culture of the Silver Age as works by Bunin and Chekhov”, states Liss. “His music always captivates me with its incredible emotional sincerity expressed in a reserved, noble and aristocratic way. Perhaps it’s this combination which gives his music such extraordinary depth.”

London 1651: the third year of Civil War. Opera houses and theatres are shut down, but the nightlife is buzzing: people enjoy a few hours of escape thanks to carefree dancing, cheerful songs and good drinks, living for today and not tomorrow. There’s so much life in the traditional tunes, virtuosic divisions and popular songs that were well-known thanks to the theatres! PRISMA takes us ona trip through the bars and pubs of London and explores the British dance music of the seventeenth century. This program comprises melodies from the famous collection The English Dancing Master, as well as music from The Division Violin, Scottish and Irish folk tunes, and even some later hits like Danny Boy – all served up in PRISMA’s spontaneous and lively signature style!

This album of works by Debussy, Prokofiev and Barber aims to show not only the fascination of the increasing complexity of musical language in the 20th century but also the desire to preserve the ideas and achievements of previous musical epochs. The expansion of tonality and the search for new rhythmic and acoustic solutions in the first book of Debussy’s Préludes are followed by Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives, perhaps his only work that was clearly influenced by Impressionism.

Some pieces from Visions fugitives could seem to be part of Debussy’s cycle, although Prokofiev’s famous Feroce offers electrifying rhythms and sharp dissonances. I have chosen Barber’s Piano Sonata as my final work. This unique masterpiece literally sprouted from the soil of 20th century musical discoveries but still retained Baroque and Classical structures. The stunning fugue that concludes the sonata sounds like a manifesto: no matter how far the creative process takes us, there is always something constant to which we will always return. (Konstantin Emelyanov)

Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony is one of conductor Dmitry Liss’ favourite works. It is close to his heart because it encapsulates an ethical standard. Orchestras from countries that have experienced dictature and repression have a special relation to this work. The performers immediately understand what is behind the notation; the mysteries, the magic of ambiguities, the playing with fire. To express oneself so personally is extremely hazardous and Shostakovich does it with sublime skill. Dmitry Liss says he comes closer to the music and admires it more and more each time he conducts it. The Ural Philharmonic Orchestra has performed the work in major venues all over Europe.

Hailed by the music press as one of the most gifted pianists of her generation and recipient of many international awards, established German-Italian pianist and ECHO winner Sophie Pacini invites us on a very personal journey across the pianistic cosmos. In her own words: “On this album, I have combined pieces which have accompanied and reassured me in seemingly small, but ultimately crucial moments of my life.”

Since her concert debut at the age of eight and her training in the highly gifted institute of the Mozarteum Salzburg, Sophie Pacini has played in many important concert halls worldwide, including the Philharmonie Berlin, Philharmonie and Prinzregententheater Munich, Suntory & Orchard Hall Tokyo, KKL Luzern, and Kurhaus Wiesbaden. Sophie's special focus is on communicating classical music to the next generation, in the context of her own concert activities and in numerous publications.

A program of works by Sergei Prokofiev performed by Dmitry Liss and the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra in Yekaterinburg in June 2021 caused the audience to react with extraordinary enthusiasm and a storm of emotion. Critics stated that its outstanding performance and interpretation deserve to be recorded for future generations: yet another acknowledgment that this orchestra, the winner of the 2020 National Critics Prize, should now be classified as one of the best performing today. This album by the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra is a celebration of Prokofiev’s 130th anniversary.

Jérémy Garbarg writes: "The word parlando contains several ideas that I would like to explore in this recording, as it unites the concepts of musical discourse, of speech, of narration, and of sharing. Here we bring together such emblematic chamber ensembles as the piano trio and the string quartet to perform works inspired by the folk traditions of Eastern Europe. Parlando also symbolizes the sharing that takes place between artists who are passionate about the human exchanges involved when rehearsing and performing these chamber works. It symbolizes the powerful discourse of the Hungarian tradition in Kodály's Sonata Op. 8, the joy of discovering original and rarely recorded music such as Enescu's Trio no. 1, and the wealth of almost cinematic expression in Janácek's Quartet no. 1."

Coline Dutilleul writes: "What could be more fascinating than the play of light and shadow? To descend into sensual melancholy, to dare to be fragile and to reveal oneself in its depths and inner nuances. I find that one way of illustrating this complexity of the senses is to compare two musical and pictorial schools: French Impressionism and German Expressionism. The colors and timbres employed by these two schools have long fascinated me just as much as the extreme refinement and detail of the paintings and compositions themselves. Each painter and composer explored the depths of the human soul in his or her own manner. This program of works composed between 1899-1914 that laid the foundations for modern music is intended as a bridge between Expressionism and Impressionism. This parallel does not claim to illustrate their differences but rather to highlight their common points, to reveal the voluptuous and almost decadent sensuality of these two currents as well as their geographical and stylistic contrasts."

Being a concert pianist in the 21st century is a strange profession. Going out on another big stage I often feel like this crazy guy from the next street, who’s going around, wide-eyed, yelling about love and death, gods and devils, and the inevitable end of it all, being all alone and ridiculous. But for many years this has actually been the most interesting challenge of it for me – to make the listener realize that behind all the big romantic gestures and the language that may seem a little too dramatic in the era of internet messaging there is a story that is still totally about you and me. For my first record, I’m going through the staples of a romantic piano repertoire that played a huge role on different stages of my life as a pianist, looking at the little story that appears between them. The two main pieces in the tracklist – Schumann’s Humoreske and Schubert’s Wanderer-Fantasy – always fascinated me with the way in which they balance the ironic and the serious in a brilliant and poetic way, so that one cannot exist without the other. Those pieces set the tone for the whole project which is basically a self-portrait of a guy who is presumptuous enough to be a classical pianist in 2022. (Sergei Redkin)

Two very different musicians meet and realize that music is not limited to the genre they happen to perform. They touch the hearts of their listeners and in so doing realize that music is a universal language that transcends everything. (Marcel Ponseele) The three sections of this Triptych can be described as follows: the left-hand panel — Misery — depicts the vale of tears; Transitio on the right-hand panel represents a transformation in everyday life, whilst Transfiguratio, the central panel, portrays the brilliant colors of transcendental bliss. Jean-Paul Estiévenart is a Belgian jazz trumpeter whose career to date is surprisingly dense and diverse. His playing is nourished as much by his passion for the traditions and history of the genre as it is by modern experiments and free improvisation. His meeting with the eminent oboist Marcel Ponseele created no clash of contexts, as they both experience and talk about music in the same way. They have chosen to perform a selection of works — principally by Bach — in which each reacts to the other, altering the music slightly where necessary to allow space for improvisation.

The forest has always been an important place for Olivia Gay. She wanders through the woods alone, listening not only to its silence but also to its murmurs. It is a place of creation where her cellist’s instincts are awakened and where she can find peace and quiet outside the city. She joined forces with the Office national des forêts (ONF) in 2022 to raise public awareness of such spaces by inviting spectators to concerts given in the heart of the forest or in natural site. This album continues this project and includes works by Jacques Offenbach, Camille Pépin, Edward Elgar, John Luther Adams and Max Richter; the program as a whole is under the aegis of Antonin Dvorák’s magnificent Silent Woods, which also lent its name to this initiative.

Hélène Desaint, Laureate of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, presents a recital with two facets that are an admirable illustration of her personality: "This [album] was born of my fascination with Schumann. Everything about him captivates me: the tormented human being, the great reader fascinated by the fantastical and the supernatural, the brilliant and introverted composer, the poet who goes where words cannot go, the music, powerfully evocative at once of human characters or tableaux and of complex states of mind. In 1990, György Kurtág composed a trio in homage to Schumann – a way of straddling the centuries and opening up a dialogue between two styles, of reviving the imaginary figures and short contrasting forms with which we are familiar in Schumann. So it seemed an obvious idea to build a programme around these two composers. The comparison seems all the more interesting to me because I find in their music the same interiority, the same concentration (in Kurtág’s work, this density goes so far as to permeate every note), the same concision." (Hélène Desaint)

In residence at Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth with the Artemis quartet, the Dali trio is a French ensemble of an exceptional level, rewarded with numerous prizes in Japan, Germany and the Unites-States in 2008. Amandine Savary, Vineta Sareika and Christian-Pierre La Marca, adding to their intense solo schedule, devote a large part of their wonderful energy to make up the trio, which is already leading them to the four corners of the world. By capturing the brilliance of their youthfulness, the subtleties of their tones, and their apparently endless quest for perfection, Fuga Libera and Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth have cooperated to make known one of tomorrow's great trios, in a repertoire comprising three summits of Maurice Ravel's production.

Alice Ader’s first Debussy disc (Erato) won all the awards in the specialist press on its release twenty years ago and is still regarded as an unequalled benchmark. Now this unconventional pianist at last unveils her recording of the complete Ravel piano works. And what better moment could there be than Debussy Year to present these two hours or so of music in dialogue, en Miroirs as it were, with the œuvre of ‘Claude de France’? Ravel, the hot-blooded Swiss watchmaker, the discreet Lisztian, the mediocre pianist who made such extreme demands on his colleagues, the man of so many sublime paradoxes, deserves only the finest interpreters: those who take the time to explore his deepest recesses. Alice Ader, light-years away from the flashy gestures often encountered in this music, takes us to the very heart of one of the most secretive composers of his time.