In this first volume of a trilogy dedicated to Beethoven, the Quatuor Dutilleux (Dutilleux Quartet) showcases works of the composer's youth, when he would "receive Mozart's spirit from Haydn's hands," as Count Waldstein phrased it. Haydn's last quartet passes the baton to Beethoven's first quartet, with Mozart's monumental Adagio and Fugue acting as the "Statue of the Commander".

This album features 20th-century compositions where the flute plays the leading role. Eldin Burton's Sonatina, one of his few works, has become a staple of the flute repertoire. The outer movements are marked by a playful, joyful character, contrasted with the serene, subdued middle movement. The Sonata by Srul Irving Glick, making it's Polish premiere on this album, incorporates elements of traditional Jewish music, enhanced by rich melodies and harmonies based on frequent modulations. This is a hallmark of the Canadian composer's style. The final piece is Three Watercolors by the French flutist and composer Philippe Gaubert. These miniature works, for flute, piano, and bassoon, combine influences from Impressionism, program music, and Iberian traditions. The performers on this album are award-winning soloists, teachers, and outstanding chamber musicians, which is reflected in their nuanced and light interpretations.

Diversions is delighted to present the January 2026 release of Bach Lute Suites for Alto Guitar, from the Finnish guitarist Vesa Lassila. Even today, it's unclear whether Bach's Lute Suites were written for a lute-harpsichord, or even a harp. While the works have been recorded many times on the modern guitar, in Water Through Ice, guitarist Vesa Lassila presents his own arrangements for the the alto guitar. Lassila states, "With a little imagination, one can easily view the alto guitar as the modern instrument version of the baroque alto lute." The alto guitar on the recording features an instrument created by Finnish luthier Keijo Krelin in 2009, and provides a rich and powerful bass register alongside a light descant and clear voice, bridging the gap between modern sounds and historic authenticity. Water through Ice also includes arrangements for alto guitar of two Suites Bach originally composed for solo violin, but which were later transcribed or arranged by him for lute-harpsichord. "As a musician, the possibilities of the alto guitar opened a wider range of bass lines, meaning that unlike when performing Bach on the modern guitar," says Lassila, "one doesn't have to reduce the rich voice in the lower register but can instead employ the full two octaves as were written for the lute. The shorter scale of the fretboard allows for more open solutions in the fingerings and articulations in order to better bring out Bach's glorious counterpoint." These beautiful, intricate and technically demanding works continue to inspire musicians today because of their exceptional quality. Lassila traces Bach's well-planned musical narrations throughout the Suites to bring forth a poetic, musical journey, that "moves as water runs through ice, with musical diversions adding to the harmonious journey." Vesa Lassila is a Finnish guitarist who grew up in the city of Ylivieska. He began to play guitar at the age of twelve and little later began to take lessons with Jorma Styng. Lassila studied classical guitar in Helsinki and Oulu Conservatory with guidance from Timo Korhonen, Ismo Eskelinen and Ilkka Virta, also with Jan Olof Ericsson in Piteå Music Hogskola in Sweden. He has taken part in masterclasses held by Oscar Ghiglia, Jukka Savijoki and Roberto Aussel. Lassila works as a guitar professor at the Institute of Music in Ylivieska, in northern Finland.

Pleyel was primarily a composer of instrumental works and cultivated most of the major genres of his time. As Haydn's star pupil he naturally composed symphonies and string quartets and indeed his first published set of quartets won the admiration of no less a figure than Mozart. All of the works on this recording demonstrate a similar level of compositional mastery and a freshness and vitality comparable to the works of his early career. In some respects these duos represent Pleyel's farewell to the eighteenth century.

GingerBlackGinger, the daring and authentic project centered around Belgian double bass player Yannick Peeters, has entered a new chapter. They are now joined by American avant-garde alto saxophonist Tim Berne. Their new album, titled Smalltalk Code, will be released in February 2026 by Challenge Records (NL). "Tim is a hero of mine, a great example when it comes to music composition. I didn't even dare ask him to join at first. This project is going to be unique; I don't know of many bands with two alto saxophones. I'm excited to see the dynamic form between Tim and Frans Van Isacker. Tim has such a strong personality, he has a great impact on our sound. The fact that Tim and Tom Rainey have played together before means there was an element of trust there from the beginning." - Yannick Peeters GingerBlackGinger is made up of Yannick Peeters (BE) on double bass (Jakob Bro, Frank Vaganée, Chris Joris, Mark Feldman, Jim Black, Joshua Redman, Hank Roberts); Frederik Leroux (BE) on guitar (Flat Earth Society, Ruben Machtelinckx, Joachim Badenhorst, Lander Gyselinck, Steven Delannoye); Frans Van Isacker (BE) on saxophone and clarinet (Tom Malmendier, Quentin Stokart, Ottla, Chantal Acda & The Atlantic Drifters); Tom Rainey (US) on drums (Fred Hersch, Ingrid Laubrock, Mary Halvorson, Mark Helias, Joey Baron, Jim Black); and now Tim Berne (US) on saxophone (Paul Motian, Bill Frisell, Hank Roberts, John Zorn, Marc Ducret, Michael Formanek, Craig Taborn). These are personalities with a vision: creative, stubborn people who won't settle for mediocrity; restless spirits who keep looking for new sounds, contexts, and like-minded people, and are therefore the ideal partners in crime for Peeters. In January 2024, the band released their debut album GingerBlackGinger. This album combines elaborate soundscapes, brief bursts of energy, and mesmerizing grooves. In May of 2025, Yannick Peeters was given carte blanche by Bozar. She took the opportunity to invite her personal musical hero Tim Berne to join the band for the recording of a new album and a live show. The result of this journey into new musical adventures is the album Smalltalk Code, to be released in February 2026 by Challenge Records (NL).

The compositional career of Robin Stevens, Welsh-born (in 1958), and Manchester-based, is divided into two periods, separated by a period of illness. The first mainly produced chamber music and works for the church that employed him; restored to health, he found an appetite for larger forms, writing three substantial concertos and a number of other orchestral works - all now recorded for Toccata Classics. This first album sets his expansive Bassoon Concerto, amid three shorter works, each of them revealing how his command of orchestral colour and melodic line can suggest landscapes and narratives. In the slow movement of the Concerto in particular, there are passages of deep feeling and intensity, but Stevens also has a healthy sense of fun, which often emerges unexpectedly to energise his music.

In July 1884, MacDowell and his wife, Marian, spent their honeymoon in England, and were both captivated by performances of Shakespeare plays at London's Lyceum Theatre. The young composer started immediately on sketches based on six characters, but completed only two, Hamlet and Ophelia, which were published the following year. MacDowell recycled some of the music from his sketch for Benedick, from Much Ado about Nothing, as the second movement of his Second Piano Concerto. Having lived in Germany from 1885 to 1888, the couple returned to America and Edward reactivated his career as a concert pianist. The Second Concerto was the perfect vehicle to display his virtuosity, and he gave the first performance in New York in 1889. Composed during the same period as the Second Concerto, the Romanze for Cello and Orchestra was written at Wiesbaden in 1887, and MacDowell dedicated it to the virtuoso Bohemian cellist and composer David Popper. The Suite in A minor was the first work MacDowell composed after the couple's move to Boston, and reflects his lifelong love of nature. Set in five movements, it received it's first performance in 1895 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Emil Paur.

Beethoven's three Sonatas Op. 10, written between 1796 and 1798, mark a decisive step from the Classical clarity of Haydn and Mozart toward a bolder, more individual language. Each sonata displays a distinct character: the C minor No. 1 combines tragic urgency with structural concentration; the F major No. 2 reveals Beethoven's emerging humor and rhythmic invention; and the expansive D major No. 3 unfolds an unprecedented emotional and architectural scale, crowned by the visionary Largo e mesto. The unifying rhythmic motif of "short-long" pulses through the set, foreshadowing the composer's later dramas. Performed on an 1820 Conrad Graf fortepiano, Roberto Prosseda's interpretation restores the music's raw contrasts, speaking timbres, and anti-rhetorical gestures that modern pianos often smooth away. In his personal note, Prosseda explains how returning to these works on a historical instrument transformed his understanding of Beethoven's expression. The fortepiano's transparency, differentiated registers, and responsive mechanism invite a freer phrasing and more rhetorical, speech-like delivery. He aims not for novelty but sincerity-seeking to rediscover familiar music through it's original sound world. Prosseda is one of Italy's leading pianists with a distinguished career, celebrated for his complete Mendelssohn and Mozart recordings and for reviving the pedal piano. This Beethoven Op. 10 album follows his acclaimed Op. 2 set for Challenge Classics, continuing his exploration of early Beethoven on period instruments.

I have chosen the title Kairos for my debut album of compositions, as this richly meaningful Greek word conveys a sense of a significant moment or season of time. While the word Chronos refers to quantitative, measurable time, Kairos refers to a deeper, qualitative view of time. This music is the fruit of a season in which I turned over a new page as a composer, digging deeper into the forms and vocabulary of the historic classical music tradition, and delving into some of the most vital themes of human existence - time, birth, life, death, and love. - Kyle Werner

This is Volume Two of four in a first-ever exhaustive set of Ravel's complete works for solo piano, a landmark collection that will embrace numerous world premieres. Here, we have familiar works prepared and recorded from personal scores annotated by pianist and teacher Vlado Perlemuter during his private study and collaboration with the composer (1927-29), alongside world-premieres of transcriptions by Lucien Garban (1877-1959).

Piano works by two great French composers; Contemporary composer Philippe Manoury, and Claude Debussy.

After the warm reception of their first collaborative album, pianist Bruno Bavota and vocalist/composer Chantal Acda felt a quiet but undeniable pull to continue the journey they had begun together. What started as a spontaneous musical dialogue has grown into a deeper partnership; one rooted in trust, intuition, and a shared devotion to the emotional core of sound. For this new chapter, the duo stepped into the studio together for the first time, choosing to shape the music side by side rather than far apart, as was the case with their first album. They invited legendary engineer Phill Brown, renowned for his work with Talk Talk, Mark Hollis and a constellation of other boundary-pushing artists, to help capture the fragility, space and raw honesty that define their collaboration. Brown's unmistakable sensitivity to atmosphere became an essential part of the album's sonic architecture. To expand their palette even further, Bavota and Acda opened the doors to a small circle of like-minded musicians whose voices naturally complement their own: Adam Wiltzie (A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Stars of the Lid), Gerd Van Mulders, Beatrijs de Klerck and Niels Van Heertum. Their contributions move gently through the record: brass, strings, textures and drones that never overwhelm, but instead illuminate the quiet spaces where Bavota and Acda's music breathes. The result is an album that feels both intimate and expansive, grounded in the delicate interplay of piano and voice yet broadened by the subtle orchestration surrounding them. It is a record about presence: two artists meeting in the same room, listening deeply and allowing others to join their conversation. Released by Challenge Records, the album Safer Places marks a meaningful evolution in Bavota and Acda's collaboration. An album that resonates with the beauty of connection, the weight of silence and the courage to let sound unfold in it's own time.

The silver Renaissance trombone and the ostentatious claviorganum were once glittering status symbols for Renaissance popes and Baroque princes. Duo GlossArte bring these treasures to life with a colourful journey of timbres around the Mediterranean that celebrates virtuosity as well as heartfelt emotion. The bright, lyrical and contoured sound of the silver trombone is perfectly suited to virtuosic passages, from Renaissance ornamentation to Baroque stylus fantasticus. The expressive richness that Spanish historical trombone virtuoso, Juan Gonzalez Martinez explores finds an imaginative and charismatic counterpart in the Swiss-born organ and harpsichord specialist Lea Suter.

The multiple award-winning bass-baritone Sebastian Naglatzki and the versatile pianist Ana Miceva bring together on their new GENUIN album the last song compositions of Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf, Johannes Brahms, and Maurice Ravel. These works reflect themes such as farewell, transience, and the search for ultimate truths - captured in music with poignancy and deep feeling. The imaginatively conceived album of the exceptional singer and his expressive piano partner is both a musical retrospective and an audible legacy from four great masters of music history.

A native of Frankfurt, Anton Urspruch was a student of Joachim Raff, later becoming one of Liszt's favourite proteges. Urspruch's style was more aligned with Mendelssohn and Beethoven, however, and he proclaimed that 'you can't understand modern music if you don't understand Bach'. The Cavatine und Arabeske are delightful salon pieces, while the Variationen form an extensive canvas that revels in contrasting moods and constructional ingenuity. The short but emotionally packed Cinq Morceaux stand at the apex and final flowering of purely Romantic pianism in Europe.

According to an old tradition, it is perfectly legitimate to arrange works for one instrument to another, if this does not detract from the substance of the work. This is what the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart likely told himself when he arranged three piano sonatas by his admired role model Johann Christian Bach into small concertos (KV 107) in his early years. This is also what Silke Aichhorn told herself with equal justification when she arranged one of these pieces for the harp alongside concertos by the German Johann Samuel Schroter, who was almost the same age. The pairing is no coincidence. Mozart and his father both admired the works of Schroter, born in Guben, Lusatia, who enjoyed a distinguished career as a pianist. In 1782, he succeeded the "London Bach" as music teacher to Her Majesty Queen Charlotte - unfortunately not for very long. Schroter died three years before Amadeus and at the same age.

Following his acclaimed recording of Kurt Weill's symphonies 1 and 2 and excerpts from The Silver Lake (BIS-2579), HK Gruber and his congenial partner, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, present three more works by the famous musical theatre composer, this time featuring sopranos Wallis Giunta and Jennifer France and violinists Katerina Andresson and Benjamin Herzl. This release opens with the ballet-chante satire The Seven Deadly Sins, a scathing critique of capitalist society that highlights the perpetual struggle between money and morality. Anna, a young girl, is sent away from her family with the mission of bringing back enough money to build a house on the Mississippi. The cantata The New Orpheus, which blends the very different styles of aria and song, tells the sad story of the singer who sets out to conquer the dreary walls of modern cities to save Eurydice, and with her, all of humanity. Finally, the Concerto for Violin and Wind Orchestra, a central work from Weill's early creative period, displays a theatricality that heralds the stage works to come. An exciting programme showcasing Weill's inimitable language of mixing the sophisticated and the popular, the melodic and the dissonant, the complex and the streetwise.

Pianist Naoko Christ-Kato is dedicated to bringing to light the works of forgotten and persecuted Jewish composers. On her new GENUIN album, she now presents music by the Dutchwoman Rosy Wertheim - a rediscovery of delicate, multi-layered sounds that have been forgotten for far too long. The musical arc extends from the charming Sonatina, through imaginative character pieces, to the large-scale Variations on a Theme by César Franck. With refined and committed playing, Naoko Christ-Kato compellingly brings this music - so deserving of being heard - to the public's awareness.

Aptly described as "music which wants to be heard with the ears of a child, full of wonder and amazement... deep and vulnerable", Ping Gao fuses the sonic aromas of East and West in a unique way, reflecting the appeal of his music throughout the world. The Sichuan-born composer finds a kindred spirit in Yubo Zhou, whose fragrant transparency and splendidly virtuoso performance create a poetic banquet for the ears.

In March 2026, Divine Art Records presents Cocteau from pianist Isabelle O'Connell, exploring the musical connections and artistic spirit of the multi-talented and influential French artist, filmmaker, novelist, and poet Jean Cocteau (1889-1963). Throughout his life, Cocteau worked with the legendary Ballets Russes, was involved with major art movements like Cubism and Surrealism, and was one of the most important avant-garde directors in cinema. Isabelle O'Connell's Cocteau is anchored by Irish composer Rhona Clarke's brand-new work Cocteau, written especially for O'Connell, and heard after the listener moves through Cocteau's contemporaries and collaborators in Paris a century ago: Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky, and members of Le Groupe des Six for whom Cocteau was a figurehead (Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre). The initial spark for this revealing new album came from conversations between Isabelle O'Connell and Rhona Clarke during the COVID pandemic. Rhona had developed a fascination with the work of "this complete artist," and Cocteau is a set of six short pieces inspired by his drawings, paying tribute to his "overall aesthetic and personality, his quirkiness, modernism, sense of freedom, his mix of the sublime and the ridiculous." The works by Satie include his Trois Gnossiennes and Trois Gymnopédies (available as digital-only tracks), epitomising qualities that Cocteau so admired - clarity, refinement, with minimal and spare textures. The album also features the Ragtime Parade from the surrealist ballet Parade, conceived by Cocteau for the Ballets Russes, and Rêverie de l'enfance de Pantagruel from his orchestrated work Trois petites pièces montées, originally composed for a concert Cocteau organised. The album further includes Stravinsky's Ragtime and Les Cinq Doigts, Darius Milhaud's Le Boeuf sur le Toit from Cocteau's ballet, and three works by Germaine Tailleferre, the only female member of Le Groupe des Six. Though the composers of the group had differing styles, their music followed Cocteau's artistic principles, sometimes incorporating elements of American jazz and café music, often with a hint of humour or parody. L'Album des Six was the only work on which all six collaborated. Since her Carnegie Hall debut recital in 2002, Franco-Irish pianist Isabelle O'Connell has developed an international career as a soloist and chamber musician. She is co-founder of Grand Band, a piano sextet described by The New York Times as "six of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York's contemporary-classical scene." She has worked with composers John Adams, Meredith Monk, Donnacha Dennehy, Georg Friedrich Haas, Missy Mazzoli, Joan Tower, Kevin Volans, and Julia Wolfe. A Fulbright scholar, Isabelle currently serves on the piano faculty as Artist-in-Residence at Bard College and Conservatory of Music, New York.

Leo Weiner's legacy as an educator influenced generations of Hungarian musicians for a half century. His early work as a composer was internationally acclaimed for it's new engaging sound, resulting from a unique synthesis of German and French Romanticism allied to a Hungarian musical language. These chamber works with piano are some of the best of his early opuses, from the 'classical nobility and deep poetic substance' of the Ballade, to the dramatic and stunningly beautiful Violin Sonata No. 2 - two pieces that were popular and widely performed in their day.

The admired Schumann authority, Jean-Pierre Armengaud, presents this second volume of Clara Schumann's solo piano music, which focuses on the transcriptions she made of works by her husband, Robert. Clara evokes orchestral density in the overture to Robert Schumann's only opera Genoveva, and also in the complex Bach-inspired Studies for Pedal Piano. Above all, the song transcriptions see her engaged in acts of complex creative union while also revealing the independence of her musical vision. Volume 1 in this series is on GP930.

Following acclaimed recordings devoted to English music for viol consort, notably that of Christopher Simpson (BIS-2153), Henry Purcell (BIS-2583) and William Byrd (BIS-2663), the Chelys Consort now presents a programme that explores the kind of music that might have been played in France in the 16th and 17th centuries. The works presented here include arrangements and fantasies on popular songs, dances and a suite, demonstrating the extreme versatility of the viola da gamba, which, alone or in a group, could adapt to all musical genres. Although the French golden age of said instrument was between the mid-17th and mid-18th centuries - represented here with works by Charpentier, Metru and Lully - the programme also gives prominence to earlier compositions, with dances and fantasies by Caroubel, Le Jeune, Moulinie, Du Caurroy, Louis Couperin and Du Mont. Finally, the programme also includes three pieces for solo guitar by Francois Campion, performed by guest musician James Akers. These pieces remind us that the baroque guitar, depicted foreshadowingly in paintings by Vermeer and Watteau, was to replace the lute as the most widespread domestic musical instrument. A programme that emphasises elegance, refined melancholy, beautiful sound and a subtle dialogue between the different instruments.

The oratorios of Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674) are seminal works in the early history of a genre that combines sacred narrative, theatrical expression, and musical virtuosity to create a new, dramatic form. Of the mostly Old Testament stories to which Carissimi's oratorios refer, the vivid tale of Jonah stands out. During his divine mission at sea, the biblical hero is caught in a storm and swallowed by a whale. Carissimi shapes this material into a fast-paced plot with emotionally powerful solo recitatives, interspersed with a complex array of choral passages-including a striking double chorus depicting the storm. Who better to interpret Carissimi's expressive music than Giovanni Antonini, one of the foremost conductors on the period-instrument scene? The performance also features the historically informed performance ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, with instrumentation specially adapted to the Bavarian Radio Chorus and the unique tonal qualities of the oratorio. It's artistic director Giovanni Antonini has worked with the Bavarian Radio Chorus for many years, with critically acclaimed concerts featuring works ranging from the early Baroque period to the First Viennese School-and he also finds the perfect sound for Carissimi's music. With choral music by Claudio Monteverdi and Orlando di Lasso, this album also traces the development of dramatic vocal music in the transition from the late Renaissance motet to the more emotionally expressive interpretations of the early Baroque period. The famous Lamento d'Arianna is the only surviving piece from the lost opera Ariadne by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), who reworked this lament into an equally expressive madrigal in 1610. Excerpts from the two legendary and mysterious cycles Prophetiae Sibyllarum and Lagrime di San Pietro by the Wittelsbach court composer Orlando di Lasso (1532-1594) conclude the album, allowing us to experience masterpieces of the motet style, to which the Bavarian Radio Chorus regularly devotes itself in historically informed performances. With it's powerful double-choir storm scene, the oratorio Jonah is a highlight of high Baroque choral music. Carissimi's oratorios are key milestones in the development of the genre. Featuring the renowned early music ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, led by Giovanni Antonini, with whom the BR Chorus has already performed programmes to high acclaim, this release also includes the madrigal version of the legendary Lamento d'Arianna by Claudio Monteverdi, the master of early Baroque opera. Also including excerpts from two important cycles of works by the Munich Renaissance master composer Orlando di Lasso, this dynamic live recording captures performances in Munich's Prinzregententheater.

Towards the end of his life, Johannes Brahms declared more than once that he was retiring from composing - luckily for us, he never quite followed through. Not because he had run out of inspiration - Brahms was at the height of his powers - but because he felt a growing pull toward the intimacy of chamber music, piano pieces, and songs, which brought him deeper personal satisfaction than grand orchestral forms. Still, Brahms returned once more to orchestral writing in 1887 with the Double Concerto in A minor, Op. 102 - his last orchestral work. The reason was personal: a gesture of reconciliation toward his estranged friend, the great violinist Joseph Joachim. This concerto, written for Joachim and cellist Robert Hausmann, symbolises renewed harmony - not just musically, but emotionally. The two solo instruments engage in a rich, expressive dialogue throughout. Mozart wrote his Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major for violin and viola in the summer of 1779 - a true synthesis of symphony and concerto. This work is expansive and noble in character, full of brilliant writing for both soloists. Mozart, himself an accomplished violinist, clearly understood how to write for the instrument with flair and sensitivity. One striking feature of the work is that the viola part is written in D major, requiring the instrument to be tuned a semitone higher (a practice known as scordatura). Common in the Baroque era, scordatura was still occasionally used in Mozart's time to achieve a brighter, more penetrating sound. The autograph of the piece is lost; only later copies have survived - except for the original drafts of the cadenzas. On this recording, the viola part is performed by a cellist, playing in the original viola position without octave transposition. © Jaromír Havlík