Gunter Herbig's meditative e-guitar albums have become cult objects far beyond the classical music scene. After 'ex oriente' with arrangements of piano music by Gurdjieff/de Hartmann (BIS Records) and the Villa-Lobos album 'Tristorosa' (Aldil� Records), he has now taken on the iconic music of Arvo P�rt on his Gretsch White Falcon. He has transcribed vocal and instrumental pieces of various sizes and settings in tablature for the guitar, as has been the custom since the 14th century in order to reproduce polyphonic works on the solo instrument. Not only does the music gain an incomparable breadth and atmospheric liveliness through the resonance of the electric guitar as well as through the possibilities of subsequent shaping of the sound; at the same time, Arvo P�rt's music resounds here completely pure and simple, reduced to the essential, magical in it's eremitic power, as close to silence as we already know from Herbig's Gurdjieff album, and as perhaps only Gunter Herbig is able to manifest in this way combining inner warmth and outer beauty.

Joseph Keilberth (1908-68) was, according to Brigitte Fassbaender, "the most aesthetic, most natural, most serene of all conductors". Martha Mödl "always found him the greatest", for Hermann Prey "he was and is the trend-setting musician of my singing life" and for Inge Borck simply "the singer’s conductor". He was an exemplary incarnation of the ideal virtues of the German Kapellmeister and died far too early at the conductor's podium during a 'Tristan' performance. His recordings of works by Reger, Pfitzner and Hindemith are legendary for the transparent and vital realization of their complex structures.

Among the archival treasures of the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra (now the WDR Symphony Orchestra), unsurpassed recordings of complex 20th-century masterpieces (1923-62) have been selected for this double album, decisively enriching the orchestral repertoire. Album 1 features the Concerto grosso for double orchestra and piano, the singular pioneering work by Heinrich Kaminski, the mystical master of the new polyphony, as well as Reinhard Schwarz-Schilling's Partita, which timelessly transforms the Bachian tradition. On album 2, two recording premieres by Karl Höller (1907-87) are followed by late Hindemith, Keilberth's favourite composer: Agnes Giebel sings the 6 songs from 'Ein Marienleben', and Anton Heiller, the soloist of the premiere performance under Hindemith, plays in the late organ concerto.

With Rolf Schulte, a cosmopolitan among violinists has taken on the music of the great cosmopolitan among 20th century composers: In the 1970s, he recorded most of the works for violin and piano at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne, as well as the trio suite from the 'Soldier's Tale' arranged by Stravinsky himself. Schulte, born in Cologne, studied with Yehudi Menuhin, Franco Gulli and Ivan Galamian. He has lived in New York since 1971, where, like Paul Zukofsky, he established himself as one of the great violinists in the modern repertoire. According to 'The New Yorker' he is "one of the most distinguished violinists of our time". His recordings of the violin concertos by Schoenberg, Roger Sessions and Elliott Carter have been successful worldwide. His live recordings of the concertos by Respighi, Dohnányi (No. 2) and Stravinsky as well as the Kafka Fragments by György Kurtág (with Adrienne Cséngery) are legendary. The present recordings are released here for the first time on record for the Stravinsky anniversary year and give European listeners the exclusive opportunity to experience the greatness of a German virtuoso who emigrated to the USA. The immense richness of expression and color of Schulte's Stravinsky playing, his stylistic clarté and violinistic fulminance allow Stravinsky's music to speak with an authentic authority a few years after his death that is very rare today. Recommended listening: the 'Suite Italienne' based on the popular Pulcinella Suite on themes by Pergolesi.

The established Salzburg violinist Thomas Albertus Irnberger has already played with the greatest musical personalities and leading ensembles of our time such as the Royal Philhamonic Orchestra (violin concertos by Beethoven and Elgar). For his most recent recording featuring the Violin Concerto in D by Igor Stravinsky, the versatile virtuoso Irnberger can refer to the collaboration with another world-class orchestra: the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Doron Salomon. In addition to this work from 1931, the Concert Fantasy on Russian themes in B minor Op. 33 by Stravinsky’s teacher Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov is included on this album. Together with Paul Kaspar, piano, with whom he shares a long artistic collaboration, Irnberger also interprets Stravinsky's Suite Italienne, the Duo concertant for violin and piano as well as the Danse russe (Petrushka) and Chanson russe (Mavra), borrowed from stage works.

Paul Badura-Skoda, piano, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, violin and Boris Pergamenschikow, violoncello are among the most important musicians of the second half of the 20th century. A testimony to their rare collaboration can be found in this hitherto unpublished recording, which presents the three exceptional artists with the piano trios by Franz Schubert. The Trio No. 1 in B-flat major, op. 99, D 898 is a studio recording from the Grand Hall of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation in Vienna from 1984, the second trio in E-flat major, op. 100, D 929 was made during the Salzburg Festival in 1981 as a concert recording. These recordings provide a stunning experiencing of the superb individual class as well as chamber musical abilities of three of the greatest musicians of musical history.

With this release of works by Mussorgsky, Liszt, and Beethoven, pianist Yuko Batik explores human imagination and fantasy. One of the most important examples of programmatic music, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition impresses upon the listener the visions that would befall a viewer watching gallery paintings. The techniques required to play this work on a single instrument display Batik’s virtuosity. Yuko Batik travels globally performing in concert halls in Austria, Hungary, Bosnia, Turkey, Japan, Italy, and Germany.

The pianist Andreas Eggertsberger was considered a prodigy in his early years, gave his first concert at the age of 12 and completed piano studies at the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz at the age of just 15. Further studies, an international career and many awards followed, before Eggertsberger finally received the diagnosis of "focal dystonia" after a long search for causes of his diminishing left-hand play in 2012. Focal dystonia is the same neurological disease that was probably for the first time documented with Robert Schumann. The long-term therapy required a complete re-learning of the piano, meticulous exercises to bring rehearsed movement back under control. Five years later, Andreas Eggertsberger sees himself healed and returns to the concert podium. For his debut album with Gramola under the meaningful title "Dystonia", the pianist from Linz, Austria, recorded the Kreisleriana, Op.16 by Robert Schumann and the Sonata in A major, D.

This album markes the fourth volume of the complete recordings of Beethoven's piano trios by the Austrian TrioVanBeethoven. It opens with the Trio, Op. 1/3 in C minor. Preceding this last work of hte group of piano trios, Op. 1 were a great number of uncounted works and sketches like the Variations, Op. 44, whose first drafts can be dated back to as early as the year 1792. The famous "Gassenhauer" Trio Op. 11 which was originally written for clarinet instead of the violin, got its sobriquet from the final movement of the work, comprising variation son a then very popular melody from the opera "L'amor marinaro ossia il corsaro" by Joseph Weigl from 1797. The simplicity of this tune in contrast to the normally more serious and complex writing of Beethoven enthused his contemporary critics, and it was advocated he were to write more natural rather than strained pieces. Why 'van Beethoven'? Beethoven stands for independence of mind, for revolutionary ideas, for music that reaches far beyond his own time. Beethoven was a "lone wolf", but at the same time the oentral point of departure for new traditions of composition, such as the lineage from Brahms to Schoenberg. In its foundation year in 2001, the trio held its debut at the renowned Festival Tage der Alten Musik in Herne. Since then, the ensemble has appeared in Austria, Germany, Italy, Frankd, the UK, Poland, Serbia and Greece. Recently, the TrioVanBeethoven has set accents with two concert series in Upper Austria and Styria. The trio is releasing a complete recording of the piano trios by Ludwig van Beethoven for the eminent Austrian label Gramola.

Karl Gottfried von Leitner (1800-1890), born in Styria, Austria, was throughout the course of his long life not granted a great breakthrough as a writer: the audience's taste changed too rapidly, there was a lot of competition, and from the middle of the century he had to endure ubiquitous censorship. Nevertheless he inspired numerous composers to adapt his lyrics, among these Franz Schubert, Albert Stadler, Robert Fuchs, Franz Paul Lachner, Sigismund Thalberg and Anselm Huttenrenner. On this album, German bass baritone Ulf Bastlein presents together with pianist Sascha El Mouissi songs by different composers who set von Leitner's lyric poetry to music. As quasi-interludes the singer recites further poems by the Austrian writer. Ulf was awarded several prizes, including the VDMK singing competition in Berlin and the Numberger Meistersinger competition. He has sung in almost every European country and frequently appears as a guest at international music festivals. Sascha El Mouissi has just completed a busy international concert schedule and has been invited to numerous festivals, such as the Festwochen in Vienna, both in Germany and abroad.

In his music, Heitor Villa-Lobos wanted to combine the culture of the street with high culture, to fuse indigenous elements with the polyphonic structures of European classical music. The German-Brazilian guitarist Gunter Herbig, who lives in New Zealand, expands this spirit by transferring the guitar music of the Brazilian grand master to the electric guitar, giving it a meditative expanse and cosmopolitan openness that transcends the classical field of sensibility. After his groundbreaking Gurdjieff album for BIS Records, this is already the second unorthodox album on which Herbig uses the fine-nerved possibilities of his Gretsch White Falcon electric guitar to breathe into the music a dreamy spirit that flies over and unites worlds, transporting us to unknown dimensions. And finally, in the famous Aria from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, he unites with the samba singer Alda Rezende, who here too - an octave lower than usual - makes the music shine in a completely different new light. An album for dreamers between worlds and those who want to become one.

The album La mia letizia infondere (My heart is full of happiness) by Mexican tenor Héctor Sandoval takes us on a journey to Giuseppe Verdi, presenting arias especially from Verdi’s early oeuvre or earlier versions of subsequently revised works – precisely because they allow us to hear Verdi at his young and original freshest. As writing for voice was his sole concern, the melodies are simpler, their treatment totally uninhibited, devoid of any mannerism or layers of complexity. With accompaniment by the Philharmonia Baden-Baden conducted by Pavel Baleff, Sandoval interprets excerpts from I Lombardi, Ernani, I due Foscari, Macbeth, I Masnadieri, Don Carlo, Simon Boccanegra, Un ballo in maschera and Luisa Miller.

In the era of Romanticism, there is hardly any other Russian composer who is more associated with western European aesthetics than Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, a composer known for his symphonic and instrumental works, ballets, and operas. Although several of his more than a hundred songs are quite famous, they are rarely performed in vocal recitals. Bulgarian musicians Nadia Krasteva, mezzo soprano, and Dora Deliyska, piano exemplify Tchaikovsky’s creativity and personal life with selected songs featured on their new album. Not least due to their own Slavic descent, the artists succeed brilliantly in portraying such powerful emotions of melancholy, aspiration and sorrow, but also reconciliation and joy.

Maria Fedotova, one of the most sought-after Russian flautists, performs as a soloist in the orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre St. Petersburg under Valery Gergiev and teaches at St. Petersburg Conservatory. With this release, Fedotova dedicates herself to the Fantasies by Georg Philipp Telemann. This cycle counts among the first major compositions of the Baroque era for this instrument, combining melodic as well as harmonic elements into a single linear, monophonic voice.

Raimund Lissy was born in Vienna and received his first violin lessons at the age of four. He went on to study with Thomas Kakuska at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna (then the Wiener Musikhochschule) as well as with Alfred Staar. After working as an orchestral musician in the Arena di Verona, he joined the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera in 1988. In 1991 he became a member of the Vienna Philharmonic. That same year, he became first chair of the second violins; since 1993 he has been principle of the second violins for the Vienna Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. Raimund Lissy has also been active in the Wiener Hofmusikkapelle since 2013. As a soloist Raimund Lissy has played a number of violin concertos with orchestra and has given sonata recitals. His 30 recordings as a soloist and chamber musician include a six-part (to date) album series with works by Joseph Mayseder (released by Gramola).

The Austrian mezzo-soprano Klaudia Tandl, acting legend Gabriele Jacoby and the Irish pianist Niall Kinsella present with “Schubert’s Women” Schubert songs and recitations by contemporary poets with a strong connection to women and the subject “love”. There are classics like Das Heidenröslein, Du liebst mich nicht, Des Mädchens Klage or Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, but also lesser known songs like Luisens Antwort, Thekla or Gretchens Bitte. These are intertwined with poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ludwig Rellstab, Friedrich Schiller, Ignaz Franz Castelli, and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, which Gabriele Jacoby stages in a unique way.