Anyone who enters the world of the piano four hands knows that Mozart and Schubert are the names to be reckoned with. These two Austrian geniuses are responsible for the consolidation of this unique musical genre. Mozart was the first to identify the great potential of the format, composing his first four-hand piano sonata when he was nine years old. Franz Schubert was possibly the composer who most identified with the format, writing more than 60 works for this formation. Schubert found an inexhaustible source of inspiration in the piano four hands, which is possibly his most intimate and personal facet. His passion for this genre intensified at the end of his life. Like Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn had a very talented pianist sister, who stayed by his side all his life. However, his production for piano four hands is scarce. Even so, the quantity does not detract from the great quality of these works, which are proof of the surprising level of virtuosity that can be achieved as a duo. Since the middle of the 19th century, the four-hand piano has taken many paths, transcription being one of them. With William Bolcom's work we leave a window open to the future, exploring other ways of making music within this exciting formation. After winning some of the most relevant national and international chamber music competitions, Maite Le�n (Pamplona) and Ant�n Dolgov (Saint Petersburg) have established themselves, despite their youth, as one of the most promising Spanish groups of the moment. They claim the piano duo as a fundamental ensemble in the new music scene, not only because of the extensive repertoire of great quality dedicated to this formation, but also because of it's singularity and nature, in which the search for a common language among pianists is essential.

Chaconnerie is a recording that deals with repetition. Chaconnerie illustrates that particular principle of Art that seeks to combine elements over and over again to achieve balance and unity. Chaconnerie encourages us to undertake a voyage in which sounds –through the centuries– build upon an insistently repeated, or imaginatively varied, scheme. Repetition has been a major element of humankind’s artistic manifestations and expressions ever since the time of the Moais on Easter Island up to the drawings of Max C. Escher. Repetition is rhythm, pulse, and life, and life overflows in the chaconne, a dance whose origin Lope de Vega attributed to the American Indian (“from the Indies to Seville / it has come by post”) and whose character Miguel de Cervantes describes as lascivious and immoral. With its accent on the second beat and its variations on a harmonic scheme, this dancing base - together with sarabandes, folias, and passacaglias - was conducive to improvisation on chordal progressions, a novelty that had a crucial impact on Baroque music in Europe.

Music of spiritual edification, music of mystical inspiration -almost an exercise in contemplation or adoration- that, following the words that the composer himself writes on the cover of the manuscript of the score, must be sung with the humblest devotion, wholeheartedly. ("humble Totius Cordis Devotione decantata"). In 1680 Buxtehude composes the cycle entitled Membra Jesu nostri, when Bach was not yet born. It was still almost 45 years before he wrote the first of two of his known passions, the St. John Passion. But with the composition of that music sheet, Buxtehude marks a before and after in the repertoire of music related to the Passion of Christ.

In the aftermath of the 20th century, it seems that Berlioz’s old prophecy has been finally fulfilled. He saw in the saxophone the spring of sound of “unheard of effects until now”. Furthermore, unlike other instruments of more deep-rooted tradition, the saxophone is open nowadays to many and unsuspected possibilities. Good evidence of this claim is the program brought together here by Angel Soria. Six recent pieces within a time period of two decades (the oldest one goes back to the year 2000), written by composers of different aesthetics (despite all of them belonging to what it is generally called the avant-garde), define the plurality of the aesthetic and expressive options offered by the saxophone. The “truth” of the saxophone is neither unequivocal nor one-dimensional. Instead, it includes many truths that reflect, in a wide range, the complexity of the current times.

Fire is what Josu de Solaun shed with his improvisations to the audience of the City of Le�n Auditorium on 13th March 2021. It was an exceptional concert in which improvisations full of warmth and light now have a second life thanks to this album. panDEMi-City is the musical document - the still photo - of a unique event, an unprecedented hic et nunc in the artistic career of the great pianist born in Valencia and raised in New York. Undoubtedly, this is a milestone which makes Josu de Solaun an essential demiurge of the current world improvisation scene. de Solaun's exuberant idiomaticism, his vast musical background, provokes vertigo in the listener. de Solaun not only pays a moving tribute to Keith Jarrett, but also visits and inhabits the music of numerous composers who have been nesting in his prodigious fingers for decades, such as his favorite composers: Schumann, Jan�cek, Bart�k, Chopin, Brahms, Enescu, Carter, Liszt or Debussy, 20th century and interwar music, music close to Russian composers such as Shostakovich, but, above all, jazz, always jazz, because for Josu de Solaun this music is his "link with popular music, folklore... Jazz has very strong vernacular roots and this music keeps me with my feet on the ground, in the atavistic, in the ancestral."

Jesus Bal y Gay (Lugo 1905 – Madrid 1993) and Salvador Bacarisse (Madrid 1898 – Paris 1963) were two musicians and intellectuals who belonged to the group known as the Generation of ‘27. Having received their education in Spain, they went into exile as a consequence of the atrocities of the Civil War that Spain suffered between 1936 and 1939. Written in 1942 and performed for the first time in 1946, the “Divertimento for Woodwind Quartet” is structured in 4 movements. Some aspects attest to the clear influence of Falla, and the use of rhythmic and harmonic pedal notes owes an obvious debt to Stravinsky, charting an aesthetic line close to Neoclassicism. The “Concert pour le jour de l’an” (“Concert for the Day of the Year”), for Harp and Woodwind is an expanded version of the “Concerto in E flat” that Bacarisse wrote in 1954 for the same combination of instruments which was subsequently reorchestrated in 1961 under the same title (“Concert pour le jour de l’an”) but in this case with the orchestration increased to “for Harp and Orchestra”. There is no record of the first version having ever been performed.

Between 1874 and 1878, the young Antonín Dvorák received help from the Austrian government to compose musical works. At that time, he was a promising composer who, having been brought up in Bohemia, not only spoke German but also demonstrated a profound knowledge of the Central European musical tradition. The composer, with all this, very quickly faced reality: in the Vienna of that time what they wanted of a Czech composer was music that sounded Czech, not German. Of the works he wrote in those years, the one that caught the publisher´s and Brahm´s attention was his song cycle, Moravian Duets. They particularly stood out if we keep in mind, as mentioned by Michael Beckerman, that to the Bohemian composer the Moravian culture was as foreign as any other. This is how history, with its selective forgetfulness, has prolonged for years the European rule that has been to label Dvorak a nationalistic Czech composer and author of various worthy symphonies. That he left more than a hundred songs written, that his inspiration went far beyond Bohemian folklore and that he was one of the most prolific Opera composers of his time are irrelevant questions. This recording from Spanish mezzosoprano Marta Infante and pianist Jorge Robaina gives us an opportunity to hear some songs that seem to have been written out of their time.

Vocal secular music in 17th century Spain began to be studied when Francisco Asenjo Barbieri and Felipe Pedrell showed interest for the issue at the end of the 19th century. Everything pointed to an exponential increase in those studies with the arrival of the 21st century, but it was not the case. Once the first years of the new millennium were over, in which the studies by Gerardo Arriaga, Lola Josa and a few others were published, the research drastically decreased. This album aims to rekindle that preservation. The works here are sung pieces, in verse and vernacular language, known in that period as human tones (or just tones) when they were profane, and divine tones when they were religious. Those composed in the first half of the 17th century were mostly polyphonic, which reveals that, in this period, polyphony was still thought to be highest. The Book of Human Tones, preserved at present at the National Library of Spain under the signature M 1262, constitutes, with its 222 works, a privileged sample of all the aspects. Who might be interested in these works has now the possibility to listen to them in a retrained performance on four voices with harp accompaniment, one of the instruments used in this repertoire. If, on the one hand, the vocal quartet shows that the “grace notes” (“quiebros”) and voice effects do not constitute an impediment for the care of tuning, on the other hand the harp adds to the score beautiful introductory and transition passages based on the features of passacaglias and 17th century dances.

The present release is a fascinating journey through the music that unites Debussy with Spanish composers. Places are sounds- and this music is Granada. The city was a recurring source of inspiration for Debussy, and yet the composer never visited it; his knowledge of it was gained only indirectly through literary accounts, images, and musical sources heard in Paris. All of these materials served to unleash his imagination in regard to its sound, which according to Falla represented ‘the truth without authenticity, as not a single note is borrowed from Spanish folklore and yet, even in its smallest details, it wonderfully expresses Spain’. A common element links all the composers in the present program: the city of Paris. From the end of the nineteenth to the early twentieth century, the French capital was a fundamental goal for many Spanish composers, who at some point in their lives went there for study or work purposes. Born in Tokyo, Japan, Azumi Nishizawa is considered one of the finest Japanese pianists of her generation. She studied with Michiko Okamoto and Ikuyo Kamiya at the Toho Gakuen Conservatory of Music in Tokyo, and was subsequently selected as an outstanding pupil by the famous French pianist and instructor Dominique Merlet at the Geneva Conservatory where she won first prize for virtuosity.

The title chosen for this document, Alto Mystic, reflects what the violist Ana María Alonso and the IBS-CLASSICAL label wanted to suggest as the universe enclosed in an instrument full of secrets such as the viola, an instrument that has transcended from the orchestral ripieno scene to a solo virtuosity in a relatively short time. The accurate reference to the etymological origin of the term (from the Greek mystikós whose first meaning is about something arcane and mysterious) not only reveals the intention of discovering the timbre and expressive effects of the viola but to inducing composers to penetrate into their mysterious world through the works composed for this occasion. In this sense, interpreter and composers have achieved their purpose, without a doubt; Ana María Alonso discovering the subtleties of the viola´s timbre through a technical and expressive refinement of the highest instrumental conception, and the ten composers, each from their creativity, constructing an enriching musical poetic discourse, not only for the violistic repertoire, but for the music itself.

Cristo Barrios and Andrew West write of their new release Deep Light: “We were inspired to gather together this collection of chamber works for reasons beyond the obvious prestige of the individual composers and the importance of their works. We wanted to present the listener with a satisfying musical journey, as much through the formal variety as the expressive content of the pieces, full of contrasts that are to be found among different movements of the same piece, as well as among the five works on the recording. Rather than offering a historical overview of the programme, we would prefer to look briefly at our choice of title, Deep Light, and its various meanings. On the one hand, it aims to evoke the luminosity that lies in the depth of feeling, represented here by two major works of the German Romantic clarinet repertoire, the Grand Duo Concertant by Carl Maria von Weber and Robert Schumann’s Phantasiestücke. Emotionally profound in their darker, slower movements, these works also display an exalted brightness in their exuberant finales. On the other hand, however, the deep and the light are simply synonyms for the serious and the playful. Seen in this way, the two German works provide the weight on the album, while the three others fall more into the second category. It is our hope that the contrasting styles and the unusual juxtaposition of repertoire will stimulate those familiar with these works into fresh ways of listening, and provide those new to them with the delight of discovery.”

With this recording Sofya Melikyan introduces us to composers who seem marked by some historical design in which the momentous events of their countries of origin, and the magic of figures, have somehow crisscrossed and interwoven. As such, these three women represent countries that underwent tremendous upheavals a century ago. Kaija Saariaho’s native Finland gained its independence in 1917, which was the same year and with almost the same historic circumstances that shattered the social foundations of Russia, Sofia Gubaidulina’s country of origin (although she was actually a Tatar), in that case resulting in the October Revolution of 1917. The third composer, Geghuni Chitchyan’s country is Armenia, which achieved its first period of modern independence in early 1918, also as a result of the dramatic events that shook that part of the world in 1917. These three women are joined by a young Venezuelan, Raquel Quiaro, who settled in Spain over twenty years ago, and is one of Kaija Saariaho ‘s most outstanding pupils.

This recording has selected almost all of the piano-voice songs by Ángel Barja, based on ancient Galician folklore, where the melody tames a very accomplished popular style, slenderized in a subtle and coloristic piano accompaniment that scrupulously observes the conventions of popular roots voice writing. Barja preserves the syllabic nature of the melodies and insists on maintaining the accentuations against the verse. He alternates in them the strophic song, with turns and repetitions, with the simplicity of the popular tune, in many cases with medieval roots, as happens in the Cantiga “Those who know how to love” with a 13th century melody. Another bloc groups exuberant Christmas songs and, last, a third and eclectic group, assembles songs of different styles and subjects. The poetic anthology used by Barja in his songs is very successful regarding the rhythm and musicality of these verses. It is no coincidence that, despite the apparent aesthetical and geographical remoteness of Galicia and Granada, our composer chose Federico García Lorca to compose five of his songs. José María Pemán was the poet chosen by the composer to set two of his most beautiful and brilliant songs. This sample of the best of his legacy clearly showcases his music, his talent as melody composer, and his mastery to combine sonorities and tradition.

This album is a journey through the most important sonatas written in the 20th century with the clarinet as the protagonist, by five great composers. Argentine composer Carlos Guastavino proposes us in his Sonata for clarinet and piano a neoclassical atmosphere in the clear formal definition of his themes and in a certain harmonic freedom, yet he offers a more scholastic work, more solid and resounding that is already clearly evident from the beginning of the work. This release also includes a final perspective of the neoclassical conceptual model, offered by the Austrian composer and conductor Joseph Horovitz in his Sonatina for clarinet and piano composed in 1981. Sonata en re by Nino Rota, composed in 1945, comes to us to finally offer us a musical image brimming with Mediterranean light. Kindness, beauty, simplicity and pleasant repose merge into a piece of scholastic organization in which solid formal structures guarantee the listening and understanding of a fundamentally melodic discourse, always well-articulated. Sonata for clarinet and piano by Francis Poulenc brings tenderness to the album. The slow section of the first movement invades all who know the work but its beauty is not only collected there. A different world, despite the proximity in time is what Edison Denissow offers us in his Sonata for clarinet, composed in 1972.

The stunning economic development of the Basque Country after the end of the last Carlist War (1876) turned into an artistic flowering almost without precedent in the first decades of the 20th Century. Music, particularly, was promoted as an identifying attribute and a tool for civic progress. In a context of advanced “globalisation” of the Western culture, a constellation of local authors aspired to measure themselves on equal terms with their European counterparts, although without giving up neither their own personality nor their vernacular roots. Nevertheless, each of them faced such a challenge depending on their particular circumstance, sensitivity and idiosyncrasy. In their own way, the three composers featured on this album summarize a historical, social, cultural, and geographical framework of thrilling eagerness, sometimes evanescent. Guridi and Sorozabal culminated their career in Madrid: the former acclaimed by the academia, the latter blessed with popular success, although condemned to an inner excile because of his dissident and controversial nature. Only Isasi died, prematurely, forgotten, in his homeland. Fortunately, and all the same, the good art does not pay duties in the frontiers of life.