Celebrated British pianist Martin Jones recorded the complete piano music of Jean Roger-Ducasse in 2015 (NI5927, 3 CDs). Along with Ravel, Roger-Ducasse joined the composition class of Gabriel Fauré. In 1902 he won the second Grand Prix de Rome, with Ravel gaining fourth prize. His style is not impressionist but descends from Chopin and more closely aligns with Fauré.

For some twenty-five years I've had the inestimable privilege of collaborating with Augusta Read Thomas, and so it is with some authority that I claim she is a singular refutation of Newtonian physics: she creates energy. In countless workshops, recording sessions, performances, and masterclasses I've watched her elicit previously undiscovered timbral nuance, dynamic possibility, and personal virtuosity from players and composers alike. Hers is a creative energy so irrepressible that somewhere amidst the cascade of commissions, awards, and international flights to attend performances of her work she, to mention just two examples, launched Chicago's largest-scale new music festival (Ear Taxi) as well as one of the country's most prolific incubators of new work, The Grossman Ensemble. I'm happy to report that the performances captured within this tracklist provide significant evidence in substantiating this bold claim. To my ears, Sol offers Gusty's compositional luminosity as a collection of rituals for introspection, spiritual stimulus, and, at the very least, a reminder that light can prevail in darkness. Particularly enticing is that when imbibed as a whole, this record shepherds us through an extraordinary ceremony that, as with each of the five rites comprising it, tenders the possibility for subtle yet substantive restoration and, ultimately, transformation. © Doyle Armbrust

The voice of Ti Frère rises up, alone in the silence. A voice with an edge and a hiss, grinning and derisive, shouting, rasping and groaning, it threatens and then becomes very sweet and tender, and with it now come all the manifold voices of the Mauritian people: matrons and young girls begin to sway their hips, a magic wave running through their bodies, as their feet beat time and as the fire on the beach is smelt in the warmth of a night thronged with insects and spirits (.). -Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. Wherever she came into contact with the outside world, Africa's influence was profound. Slaves left empty-handed with nothing but their memories, voices, bodies, and therefore their songs, rhythms and dances. And these traces grew, despite their new masters' prohibitions, into the unique musical expression of many a people throughout the world. This was how the séga, the music of exile, evolved into the traditional song and dance of the people of Mauritius and Rodrigues, and of other Indian Ocean islands too, like the Seychelles and Réunion.

The Value of Choices is the long-awaited new work by composer, guitarist, and storyteller Gabriele di Franco-a project shaped by years of reflection, doubt, vision, and the courage to choose. Written for a remarkable ensemble of musicians whose personalities and sounds inspired every line of ink on the score, the album unfolds as a collection of narratives where jazz meets classical colors, folk sensibility, and contemporary imagination. Across eight compositions, di Franco explores how every decision-musical or personal-carries weight. Each piece opens a small universe: a dreaming fly, an ancient Sardinian chant reframed through a woman's eyes, a lullaby for two children, the heaviness of loss, the intimacy of doubt, the breath that becomes creation. Voices, improvisation, and orchestral textures weave into a sound world where emotion and craftsmanship coexist. The album features gripping solos, rich orchestrations, and collaborations with guest vocalists François Vaiana, Vanesa Diaz Gil, Lieselot de Wilde, and Federico Pecoraro. Through them, di Franco expands the ensemble's timbral palette, giving story and sound equal expressive force. At the heart of this project lies a simple yet profound idea: "In composition, as in life, every choice shapes meaning." Holding this record-whether physically or digitally-is already one such choice. And for di Franco, it means everything. The Value of Choices is dedicated to his family and to mentor Kris Defoort, whose guidance has deeply influenced the composer's artistic path. Alongside his work as a composer, di Franco has built an international profile in musical theatre, opera, and contemporary music. His works-acclaimed by prestigious competitions across Europe and Asia-reflect a passion for narrative, structure, and emotional honesty. His libretti and musical theatre works, including the award-winning LULELA, reveal an artist who moves fluidly between mediums while staying rooted in the poetic power of sound. With this album, Gabriele di Franco invites listeners into a space of reflection: a place where stories breathe, choices resonate, and music becomes a shared moment of meaning.

Tae-Hyung Kim's Echoes in the Mists is a poetic journey through a century of piano music, tracing a line from early Romanticism to early modernism. The album opens with Franz Liszt's masterful transcriptions of Schubert's Lieder-works that preserve the songs' lyrical intimacy while expanding their expressive possibilities on the piano. These include Fruhlingsglaube, Standchen von Shakespeare, and excerpts from Die schone Mullerin, where Liszt illuminates Schubert's emotional worlds with subtle pianistic colour and occasional virtuosic flourish. At the heart of the programme lies Robert Schumann's Waldszenen, a deeply introspective cycle in which nine miniature scenes form an imaginative, poetic walk through an inner forest-alternating between joy, mystery, tenderness, and melancholy. Through this selection, Kim highlights the richly interconnected sound worlds of Schubert, Schumann, and Liszt, revealing both continuity and evolution within the Romantic tradition. The album's second half turns toward a different aesthetic with Leos Janacek's V mlhach (In the Mists), written in 1912, a work shaped by personal grief and the composer's late-style search for distilled expression. It's four movements form a single, mist-shrouded psychological landscape, where fragmentary motives, speech-like rhythms, and shifting tonal colours create a fragile, introspective atmosphere. While faint traces of Debussy's influence may be heard-particularly in the luminous openings and closings-the music remains unmistakably Janacek's in it's tension, fatalism, and emotional immediacy. By juxtaposing these radically different composers, Kim creates an album that reflects the transformation of piano writing from Romantic lyricism to early modern expression, inviting listeners to hear how echoes of the past resonate through changing musical languages.

Acclaimed guitarist Christophe Dejour brings together four works that were premiered many years after they were composed, due to unpredictable and, in some cases, fateful circumstances. Both oscar Espla's ground-breaking Tempo di Sonata and Ignace Strasfogel's monumental Prelude, Elegie and Rondo were written for Andres Segovia but remained hidden for decades, while Alois Haba's neglected Guitar Sonata is a fantastic work of the highest musical quality. Antonio Jose's music was banned under the Franco regime in Spain, yet his extraordinary Guitar Sonata, composed in 1933 and only rediscovered in the late 1980s, is revealed as a true masterpiece.

Music is a river fed by many streams. Try as one might to capture it and attach tidy labels - classical in this bottle, jazz in that, minimalism in the other - the river flows on, enriched by each tributary as it goes.

Ottorino Respighi's Maria Egiziaca, described by the composer as a 'mystery in three episodes', narrates the life of Saint Mary of Egypt in a profoundly moving and deeply sensuous musical representation of Christian faith as seen through it's various characters. This work, depicting Maria's journey from prostitution to sainthood through sin, conversion and atonement, started out as a concert triptych and sits somewhere between an oratorio and an opera. The intensely dramatic and at times symphonic qualities of Maria Egiziaca are imbued with ancient Italian musical traditions, with two beautiful symphonic interludes separating the three episodes.

Amanda Ginsburg & Andy Fite

Explore the power and depth of Shostakovich's cello concertos with Alexander Kniazev and Kazuki Yamada. Kniazev's profound understanding of Shostakovich's music brings out the intricate layers of anguish, irony, and resilience that define the composer's voice. Yamada's energetic and insightful conducting adds a vivid dimension to the orchestral textures. Together, they deliver a recording that captures the dark intensity and emotional richness of Shostakovich's music, offering a compelling listening experience.

LI R'vindje di l'Åbe is a choral and symphonic work inspired by the Walloon poems of Henri Simon (1856-1939), LI Mwért di l'Åbe (1909) and it's sequel LI R'vindje di l'Åbe (1926). The first poem describes the majesty of an ancient oak tree, king of the landscape and refuge for birds and men, but the tree is felled for it's commercial value, and it's collapse leaves 'a hole in the sky'. The second poem picks up the story where it left off: the woodcutters cut up the wood, which gradually leaves it's homeland. The poem, both serious and caustic, highlights the cyclical nature of life and the inevitability of death, whether for trees or humans. Both texts are composed of 75 unrhymed alexandrines, carried by a subtle internal rhythm. Patrick Leterme's musical setting unfolds these two poems over a period of approximately 90 minutes, featuring a mixed choir of 20 singers and an orchestra, it pays tribute to the Walloon region and it's figures (trees, birds, farmers, craftsmen). The composition incorporates wood sounds (branches, saws, logs) and percussion, which take turns as orchestral sections and stage protagonists through performative "Wood Interludes", the project is accompanied by ethnomusicological and linguistic research on popular heritage, aiming to connect the spirit of the poems with contemporary orchestration. This book and CD set is an elegant edition featuring the original poems, their translations, illustrations, and reflective texts by various authors on the genesis of the project, the Walloon language, and the environmental dimension of Henri Simon's work.

Since 2010, Christian Lindberg and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra have embarked on a unique and ambitious project: a complete performance and recording cycle of the orchestral works of Allan Pettersson, the Swedish master symphonist renowned for his deeply personal and emotionally charged compositions. Premiered in 1956, Symphony No. 3 is distinctive within Pettersson's extensive symphonic output as his only symphony in four movements, adhering to a more traditional structure. While an early work reflecting influences of Shostakovich, Sibelius, and Mahler, it is far from a minor achievement. Though the lyrical passages that would later define his style are not yet fully developed, the symphony offers a concise and sharply etched musical landscape, both impressive and strikingly original. Symphony No. 8, premiered in 1972, is arguably Pettersson's most celebrated and frequently performed symphony. It's extended, often described as "free" or "never-ending," melodies create an impression of boundless continuation, yet the work is far from tranquil. As is characteristic of Pettersson, the symphony possesses a strong autobiographical element. In his own words: "The work I am working on is my own life, the one that is blessed, the one that is cursed: I devote myself to it in order to rediscover the song that the soul once sang."

In The Hidden Legacy, Italian pianist Alessandro Deljavan explores the restless imagination and expressive daring of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), a composer who bridged the worlds of Baroque complexity and Classical clarity. The program traverses the vast emotional and stylistic landscape of C. P. E. Bach's keyboard works-from the introspective Fantasias and fiery Rondos to the refined Sonatas-revealing the composer's pioneering embrace of Empfindsamkeit, the "sensitive style" that sought to mirror human emotion in all it's volatility. Deljavan's interpretations illuminate the dramatic contrasts and psychological depth of this music, turning each piece into a vivid, unpredictable narrative that feels as alive today as it was two centuries ago. Deljavan's artistry combines intellectual precision with fearless emotional spontaneity. His phrasing, pacing, and use of silence elevate Bach's mercurial spirit into something immediate and human. The recording presents not just a historical tribute but a living dialogue between composer and performer-a meditation on creativity, freedom, and feeling. In this album, Deljavan continues his lifelong mission to "touch the heart," capturing the tension, tenderness, and transcendence that make C. P. E. Bach's legacy both hidden and essential.

The "Tondichtung", or tone poem, was a popular European genre from the mid-19th to early 20th century. German composer Richard Strauss excelled in this form, producing ten works. A tone poem is a single-movement orchestral piece meant to evoke moods, stories, or scenes without following a strict narrative. Strauss's Don Juan, Op. 20 (1888), was inspired by Nikolaus Lenau's poetic take on the Don Juan legend, portraying him as a man seeking the perfect woman and ultimately succumbing to despair. Strauss's orchestral work mirrors this, opening with energetic themes of Don Juan's adventures, featuring lyrical passages for his loves, and concluding with dark chords symbolizing his demise. In 1898, Strauss composed Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), a six-section tone poem inspired by Beethoven's Eroica, reflecting his own life and career. Themes depict the hero, his adversaries, companion, battles, peace, and eventual retirement. Critics debated Strauss's self-portrait as arrogant or humorous, but the work remains a testament to artistic struggle and triumph. Austrian conductor Hans Graf, Chief Conductor and Quantedge Music Director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) since 2020, is known for his curiosity, creative programming, and commanding presence. An acclaimed guest conductor worldwide, he has won multiple awards including the Österreichischer Musiktheaterpreis and recorded works by Mozart, Stravinsky, and Berg. Founded in 1979, the SSO is Singapore's flagship orchestra, performing year-round and achieving global recognition, including rankings by Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine. Under Graf, the orchestra has released over 50 recordings and revived rare works by composers like Kozlowski, Klenau and Ogerman. The SSO forms part of the Singapore Symphony Group, which also encompasses choruses, youth orchestras, and major music festivals.

Dutch cellist Lidy Blijdorp and pianist Tobias Borsboom, delve into the world of the Société Nationale de Musique in this programme of late-romantic and early modern French chamber music. César Franck's Sonata for Violin and Piano was transcribed, with the composer's approval, by Jules Delsart, Nadia Boulanger's Trois Pièces for cello and piano date from 1914, these lyrical and playfully virtuosic works are proof of the master pedagogue's extraordinary talent for composition. Debussy's Sonata for Cello and Piano conjures up images of nocturnal encounters, in a form and proportions that are almost classical, a performance of this Sonata in Amsterdam in 1918 after Debussy's death, inspired Dutch composer Matthijs Vermeulen to write a cello sonata of his own. Shortly after, Vermeulen moved to France, where he would work as a journalist and keep composing until after the Second World War, with seven symphonies and a wide array of chamber music works to his name, Blijdorp and Borsboom present Vermeulen's Sonate pour violoncelle et piano here.

La Blancheur des Cygnes is a poetic and reflective musical project that celebrates feminine energy, beauty, and strength through the timeless art of the French chanson. Historian Els Kloek's liner notes frame the album as a continuation of the conversation started by Simone de Beauvoir - exploring how women have evolved from "the other" to agents of their own expression. Through Haesen's evocative voice and the refined strings of the Café des Chansons quartet, the album traverses nearly a century of song - from Charles Trenet's joyful optimism to modern interpretations by artists like Zaho de Sagazan and Solann - weaving themes of love, self-acceptance, vulnerability, and empowerment. At the heart of this collection lies a reclamation of beauty as a feminine right: no longer dictated by the male gaze but redefined as a source of power and authenticity. The title, La Blancheur des Cygnes ("The Whiteness of Swans"), alludes both to Baudelaire's poem La Beauté and to Andersen's tale of The Ugly Duckling, reflecting transformation, grace, and the freedom to be seen. Through these fourteen chansons, Charlotte Haesen and the ensemble offer a moving counterpoint to the enduring dominance of masculine energy - proposing empathy, love, and artistic sensitivity as the true instruments of balance in our modern world.

2020 - a time when travel was not easily possible - gave rise to this unusual journey in the mind, traversing the country and leading us to a variety of places. The guitar is our guide. But it doesn't travel alone; it joins mandolin, double bass, and accordion, inviting us to make music together in duets. The music originates from Spain, often from the pen of the famous composer and pianist Enrique Granados, who lived from 1867 to 1916 and wrote for the piano. His compositions vividly capture the atmosphere of the country. In the arrangements with guitar and partner instruments, new chapters are opened, the sounds leading us to new places. The central work is the "Valses Poeticos," which illuminate a different scene in each of it's ten short movements. In this "Spanish Journey," the guitar is not only the guiding thread of the production - a specific instrument is the protagonist: a 1955 concert guitar from the workshop of the Guitar maker Ricardo Sanchis-Carpio from Valencia. The accompanying musicians-Jochen Roß on mandolin, Florian Dohrmann on double bass, and Alexander Pankow on button accordion-are all longtime and cherished collaborators and fellow musicians. The electric guitar finds it's place alongside the accordion, keeping pace with it's volume and tonal range. The "Spanish Journey" is a free-flowing exploration that began in the mind and has now become audible, with impressions of Spain, hints of jazz and classical music, and subtle emotionality.

Hailed by the magazine BBC Music for it's 'generous and warm-hearted, utterly beguiling playing', the GRAMMY®-nominated Neave Trio has emerged as one of the finest young ensembles of it's generation. For this, their eighth album, they have once again selected a programme of works by female composers. Written in 1846, the Piano Trio of Clara Schumann was considered a great success by her friends and supporters (notably by Brahms) but her lack of self-confidence clouded her own view of the piece. Intellectually curious and a voracious reader from an early age, Dora Pejacevic was largely self-taught as a composer. She composed her first piano trio (in D major) in 1905 (when she was twenty) and the second followed in 1910, by which time Pejacevic's musical language had already evolved into it's distinctive late-romantic style. Chaminade's Piano Trio No. 2 in A minor was published 1887, with a dedication to the great French cellist Jules Delsart. The successful premiere had been given at the Salle Érard on 4 February 1886. Chaminade went on to play the A minor Trio regularly during the 1890s, to substantial critical acclaim.

As soon as you leave your homeland, says composer Hilda Paredes, who comes from Mexico and has been living in London for a long time, "you become a citizen of the world." Her work not only establishes continuity between the past and the present, but also denies any separation between the musical cultures of the northern and southern hemispheres or the Old World and the New, repeatedly building bridges between the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica and European-American modernity. The complexity of her sound world is rooted in this dual cultural identity and reflects diverse influences from both worlds. But Paredes does not look only to the past. She takes a keen and compassionate interest in the social conditions in her country, using her works to address themes of migration and the search for a better life. In addition to tradition and the current reality of life in her homeland, Hilda Paredes's work is rich in references to literary and visual works by her contemporaries and to Mexican cultural history. The first work on this album, the monodrama "Altazor" for baritone, eight soloists, and electronics, can also be seen in this context. It is based on an epic poem published in Madrid in 1931 by Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro, the founder of the literary movement "creationismo", a variant of surrealism. The musical language depicts this disintegration of consciousness and language of the poem fragments with a broad spectrum of instrumental and vocal techniques that are subjected to live-electronic processes. Two further aspects of Hilda Paredes's creative output can be seen in the two ensemble works on this album: "Epitafio" was written in response to a death in the composer's family, and "Siphonophorae", whose compositional idea and formal structure are borrowed from a fascinating phenomenon in the world of marine life, was inspired by a work of visual art.

Around a concert at the Singer-Polignac Foundation, the Ensemble Écoute celebrates ten years of creativity with a first monographic album devoted to the music of Alex Nante. Inaugurating a new b·records collection, this disc traces, between lyricism and spirituality, the evolution of a unique musical language carried by the long-standing complicity between the composer and the ensemble, through several chamber music formations reflecting the diversity and richness of his writing.

Armenian-German pianist Lilit Grigoryan, known for her passionate expressiveness and technical brilliance, combines deep emotion with flawless precision in her playing. She has been an official Yamaha artist since March 2023. At her side, is acclaimed bassoonist David Petersen, who is at home as a soloist and chamber musician on the great stages of Europe, Asia, and America. His performances with renowned orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Camerata Salzburg, and the German Symphony Orchestra have thrilled audiences and critics alike. Together, Grigoryan and Petersen present a fascinating program with works by Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Moscheles-masterfully arranged for bassoon and piano.

On Spiegel i'm Spiegel, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, the Netherlands Chamber Choir, Candida Thompson, Martina Batic, Hülya Keser and Tim Posner, perform a program of Baltic and English compositions, wherein space and time blur. The title of this album is from Arvo Pärt's meditative work of the same name, Spiegel i'm Spiegel, which is performed in two separate versions bookending the album, embracing the concept of the mirror. Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis mirrors the Renaissance in the 20th century, works by Estonian composers Veljo Tormis and Lepo Sumera have yet another spiritual essence, as shamanistic primal cries resound in Tormis' epic choir work Curse upon Iron, Latvian composer Peteris Vasks' Plainscapes evokes the vast expanses of the Baltic plains.

After a 'spellbinding' album for Alpha devoted to her American roots (Alpha1071), pianist Claire Huangci now celebrates female composers, acknowledging: 'The realities these women faced are difficult to imagine for any modern woman in the field.' Clara Wieck (who became Schumann after her marriage to Robert in 1840) was a mother of eight and the main breadwinner, constantly on tour. Fanny Hensel composed largely in private. Often publishing under her brother's name. Amy Beach's career was practically silenced during her marriage; only upon her husband's death did she return to the stage. Florence Price faced both racial and gender discrimination and later raised two children alone. Across the centuries, the voices of these women reach us thanks to musicians like Claire: 'In their music, we don't just hear history. We hear transformation. Heroines is my way of listening back-and adding my voice to theirs.'

This album traces pianist Alexandra Dariescu's journey through discovery, memory, and celebration, uniting masterworks with neglected gems and world premieres. Mozart's radiant Rondo in D major, K. 382, opens the programme, paired with Emmy Schäfer Klein's long-forgotten Child's Dream and James Lee III's newly composed Humble Birth. Music by Clara Schumann, Nadia Boulanger, Florence Price, Amy Beach, Germaine Tailleferre, Leokadiya Kashperova, and others highlights the voices of women across centuries. Interwoven are personal favourites-Bach/Siloti's Prelude in E minor, Villa-Lobos's sparkling O polichinelo-alongside youthful treasures by Carl Filtsch and Tudor Ciortea. Together, they form a vivid portrait of music as dream, memory, and renewal.

Barbara Strozzi, a Venetian singer and composer who lived between 1619 and 1677, stands out as a rare jewel in the musical landscape of the Italian Seicento. The adoptive (and perhaps natural) daughter of Giulio Strozzi, a man of letters belonging to the illustrious Florentine family, she rejected the alternative prospects of matrimony or life in a convent in order to devote herself entirely to her one true passion: music. Moreover, she aimed to assert herself not merely as a performer, but also as a composer, thereby transgressing the strict rules of the period. Over the course of twenty years she published over a hundred and twenty cantatas and other works for solo voice, a number unequalled by any of her contemporaries. In her most significant works she combines the absolute originality of her formal structures with extraordinarily intense and exuberant poetics of the "affects." In these respects her vocal writing is comparable only with that of the century's greatest Italian composer, Claudio Monteverdi. After five successful albums with Giuliano Carmignola and Mario Brunello, the Accademia dell'Annunciata, conducted by Riccardo Doni, offers us a portrait of this extraordinary artist, arguably the greatest Italian composer of all time. In an era when the music scene was almost exclusively male, Barbara Strozzi managed to carve out a unique place for herself, becoming one of the most fascinating personalities of 17th-century music, a figure that is today given voice by soprano Laura Catrani.