Two decades after their pioneering 2004 album�New French Song, soprano Alison Smart Fisher and pianist Katharine Durran return with a bold and timely sequel.�New French Song II�presents ten newly commissioned settings of French texts by women and non-binary composers, expanding the art song repertoire with fresh perspectives and luminous creativity. The original�New French Song�brought together 20 British composers, each setting a French poem-predominantly Romantic and written by men. This second collection rebalances the picture, offering a rich, contemporary counterpoint. The texts, all by women and non-binary poets, span eight centuries of Francophone literature, from Europe to the Caribbean, and reflect a wide-ranging poetic tradition-from the sensual cadences of Symbolism to the fractured textures of post-Modernism. The themes are universal: love's first stirrings, it's losses and partings, the solace of solitude, and the healing power of nature. Chosen with care to resonate with younger readers as well as seasoned listeners, these texts speak with clarity and nuance, free from gendered conventions, yet charged with emotional depth. The composers-among them Deirdre Gribbin, Shirley J. Thompson, Lesley-Jane Rogers, and Grainne Mulvey-respond with a dazzling range of musical idioms. From lyrical stillness to rhythmic intensity, their settings are at once rooted in the tradition of French melodie and alert to the sonic world of today. The resulting collection is kaleidoscopic in colour and tone, yet unified by a shared commitment to text, voice, and the art of expressive song. Two bonus tracks complete the programme: a new song each by Nicola LeFanu and Daryl Runswick, both closely associated with the performers and longstanding champions of new music. Together,�New French Song I & II�form a landmark achievement-an ambitious, beautifully realised cycle that now offers a more inclusive and representative vision of what the modern songbook can be. This album is a compelling testament to artistic curiosity, collaboration, and the enduring vitality of song. For listeners drawn to the intersection of poetry and new music, or for those seeking fresh voices in the classical landscape,�New French Song II�is a significant and rewarding release.

In May 2026 Metier Records is proud to present Michael Hersch's monumental chamber work Zwischen Leben und Tod (Between Life and Death) performed by violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved and pianist Roderick Chadwick, marking the label debut of one of the most gifted composers of his generation. Hersch's music has been described by The New York Times as "viscerally gripping and emotionally transformative music.claustrophobic and exhilarating at once, with moments of sublime beauty nestled inside thickets of dark virtuosity". In January this year he was selected as the inaugural recipient of the�John Hopkins University Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. Zwischen Leben und Tod is a startling yet moving 22-movement cycle for violin and piano written in inspiration of paintings by the surrealist German artist, writer and filmmaker Peter Weiss, each movement corresponding to a particular image. It's duration of 100 minutes makes it one of the longest works for violin and piano. Peter Weiss was best known as a playwright of searing and often disturbing stage dramas, including Marat/Sade which features the assassination of French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat in an asylum-set play by the Marquis de Sade. Weiss's little-known paintings and drawings share many of the same characteristics, featuring loneliness, violence and grief (themes of asylums, war, prisons, cannibalism) but also deeply meditative imagery (a string quartet, a garden concert, a boy in the grounds of a country house). Hersch found Weiss's spectrum of colour and motion, of proportion and spacing, particularly musical, and Zwischen Leben und Tod makes a deep and visceral engagement with these same explorations. The result is a complex, rich and multi-layered work featuring extremes of tempi, dynamics and technique making enormous physical demands on the performers, while being hugely rewarding. Much of the music is disturbing and raw, but the overall effect is affecting, offering the listener moments of solace. In David Hackbridge Johnson's fabulous booklet notes he says "The little modal chord figures, the open strings that plaintively grate over them, the wisps of folk song, the lullaby figures - all these are a welcome balm to sooth the sores of an atrocity exhibition.�What tenderness amid the haunted landscapes!.. Despite these scenes of peril, after over 90 minutes between living and dying in Hersch and Weiss's world, a curiously cathartic sense is achieved; a procession of bleak images in sound that somehow resist despair."� Violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved has known and collaborated closely with Michael Hersch for over twenty years, and this is their first recording together. His performance here alongside that of pianist Roderick Chadwick is hugely expressive, displaying extraordinary virtuosity. Michael Hersch is professor of composition at the Peabody Institute and is a composer of "uncompromising brilliance" (The Washington Post). His output includes opera, theatre, chamber, vocal and orchestral works, performed across Europe and the US, including UK premieres at the Aldeburgh Festival and with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He is the recipient of many prizes and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition, both the Berlin Prize and Rome Prize, the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, and the President's Frontier Award from the John Hopkins University.

In May 2026, Metier Records presents Edward Cowie's Darkness into Light, a stunning collection of works for harp and flute, performed with superb brilliance by Alice Giles and Laura Chislett, two of the world's leading soloists on these instruments. The album features two major works for solo flute and solo harp, a duo for both instruments specially written for Alice and Laura, and the title track, a fantastic three-way improvisation for flautist, harpist, and Edward Cowie himself on piano. Edward Cowie is one of the most notable voices in contemporary music and is considered by many to be the "leading contemporary composer of music that is related to the natural world" (Fanfare). A remarkable polymath, Cowie is renowned as a composer, visual artist, and natural scientist. La Primavera is a series of 'sound portraits' for solo flute, inspired by the nine figures in Botticelli's painting, one of the most beautiful, mysterious, and cryptic of all time. The painting radiates light and movement, and this is reflected in Cowie's music, which epitomises the limpid and hugely flexible sonorities and brilliance of the flute. The series of variants follow the figures in the painting from left to right, 'blown' into the music by Zephyrus, signifying the breath of the flautist. In the painting, most of the characters are either dancing or posed in dance-like actions, linking it to Harlequin Dances for solo harp, one of the 'satellite' works inspired by characters from Cowie's opera Commedia (1977). In Harlequin Dances, Cowie fuses music of the 16th century with some of the gestures and theatrical devices of the Commedia itself. The sorrowful emotions of unrequited love lead to Harlequin's rehearsal of dancing himself to death, but also to something hopeful and luminous. Cowie skilfully uses the resonances and wide range of timbre of the harp, and the closing few minutes are some of the most beautiful and transcendental music he has ever composed. Australian Water Music for flute and harp, is inspired by the ocean and fresh water lakes of Australia, and also Handel's Water Music, this being a recurrent theme for Edward Cowie, both as a composer and a visual artist. The tremendous velocities of flute and harp capture the speed of a stream of water and it's liquid sound, as well as bringing delicious richness and expressive qualities. Each instrument plays alone, but also thematic and motivic materials are resounded and re-worked in a dynamic dialogue between them. Darkness Into Light came from a discussion with Alice and Laura about their shared experience of darkness and light. The resulting work takes the form of a transcendence into some sort of divine light from impenetrable and engulfing darkness (of mind and spirit), all done in one continuous and shared exploration. Edward Cowie said of the experience: "Working with two giants of the musical world in this process was pure and undiluted pleasure".

The third in Metier's 20th century British Piano Music series based on Tippett's Sonatas, this CD contains his Fourth Sonata and works by Colin Matthews, Constant Lambert and Robert Saxton, central figures in mid-late 20th century music.

Part of Metier's ongoing series of recordings of the music of Michael Finnissy, one of Britain's most accomplished and acclaimed contemporary composers. "This is rather special. If variety is the spice of life, then this disc is hot. And so are the Kreutzer Quartet, whose commitment and spirit make this demanding music sound clear, fluent and gritty. A must for anyone interested in new music, or in the evolution of the string quartet as a genre." - Fabrice Fitch (Gramophone)

The first of three Metier CDs (so far) featuring the Piano Sonatas of Sir Michael Tippett alongside contemporary works, each with a different performer.

Tippett's marvelous one-movement 2nd sonata is joined by fine works by Saxton, Sackman and Connolly in the 2nd volume of the Metier British Piano Music series, in which a Tippett Sonata is presented amongst contemporary works.