Mozart's Divertimento in E flat, K563 plays a central role in the musical life of our ensemble. It's musical complexity and the depth of expression which Mozart achieves through only three voices are seemingly miraculous: it is one of those pieces which constantly rewards rehearsal. One simply never gets tired of playing it! When the opportunity to record this masterpiece arose, we were faced with the challenge of what to play alongside it. Our dear friend Rob Fokkens had written two short movements for string trio which seemed to fit beautifully with Mozart's music: Rob's translucent harmonic and rhythmic style offers unique expressive possibilities. The chance to commission the great Julian Joseph was not to be missed, and his work, Bring it!, wonderfully demonstrates his brilliance and lyricism, and the subtly of his harmonic language. We sincerely hope you enjoy listening to the music on this album as much as we loved preparing it!

The Gottingen Symphony Orchestra under Nicholas Milton combines Dvorak's well-known symphony From the New World with the orchestral work Frozen in Time by Avner Dorman. This unusual combination results in an exciting musical journey that challenges the performers to present a broad spectrum of styles and techniques, thus opening up a "new world".

The University of York is very fortunate to own this exquisite 1856 Erard London concert grand piano, lovingly restored by Nigel Scaife and tuned to the Bach-Lehman temperament by Aidan Delacey-Simms. The piano is straight strung allowing greater separation of registers compared to it's more homogenised modern counterpart. The strings are damped from below, rather than above as in a modern piano, a less efficient design that results in pleasing result is a wash of colour and a ring of complex overtones that was surely an aesthetic choice. Pianos were likely not tuned in equal temperament in the mid-19th century and my choice of unequal temperament brings extra resonance to the instrument as well as colour to the music. Daniel Grimwood is best known as a world-leading exponent of 19th century virtuosic piano repertoire. Received with critical acclaim, Grimwood's recordings and performances of the music of Adolph von Henselt ensure his international reputation as a groundbreaking, inspirational musician, making him out as a unique voice amongst his generation of pianists. His recording of Henselt's Complete Etudes garnered "instant classic status" by Gramophone Magazine, which also named it piano release of 2023.

Highly virtuosic, intense and passionate: Gran Caprice - these are works for violin written by violinists for violinists. Maxim Brilinsky shows lyrical lines - with the possibilities of bowing and fingering technique utilised to the utmost.

Debut recording for an experienced piano trio, who celebrate their fifteenth anniversary launching a series devoted to Russian composer Nikolaj Roslavets, known as the Russian Schoenberg. This is the first volume and it couples Roslavets' Third Piano Trio with the famous arrangement of Schoenberg Verklaerte Nacht by Emmanuel Steuermann. To complete the disc, Shostakovich First Piano Trio, composed in the same year (1923) and in the same place (St. Petersburg). Discover Roslavets and his remarkable music, as much neglected as much worthwhile listening to.

First disc by Alessandro Deljavan on Challenge Classics. Pupil of, among others, Nabore, Berman and Bashkirov, Deljavan chose some masterpieces of Chopin repertoire which have been recorded hundred of times. But, as usual with him, the listener has the impression to hear them anew, afresh: Deljavan has a thoroughly individual if not idiosyncratic approach to this music. Some may nor like it, but some will find and will hear surprising, revelatory things they never heard before. Pizzicato wrote:�Technically brilliant and with an exceptional imagination, Alessandro Deljavan brings finesse and spontaneity to Chopin's Etudes.

This new collection of my choral music features recent commissions from choirs near and far. The overall theme of the album is one of hope but also concern for our relationship with living things and the planet we inhabit. Thus, in Earthificat I have based a new secular, environmental text on the words and structure of The Magnificat and in Renew Me In The Sunlight the words ask for strength to move forward in balance with nature. There is a movement, Reverence from my secular mass M=pV, a work about our stewardship of nature and our place within the universe and a setting of some beautiful words by the great 'nature poet' William Wordsworth. Alongside this are Christmas settings and other choral songs. The timbres weave between my more classical 'a cappella and strings' texture, towards a more jazz inflected sound world in tracks such as On This Night and Let All The People Praise You. I have worked many times with the inspirational Newcastle-based choir Voices of Hope who won BBC Choir of The Year in 2016 and who have continued to grow in vocal magic and audience since that time. It's been a joy to work with them and their choir director Mark Edwards alongside my own ensemble and string players from The Alina Orchestra.

In a time when musical genres are constantly in dialogue with one another, Standard - No Standard proves that the jazz tradition is not only alive but also constantly evolving. This album, the result of a powerful collaboration between guitarist Joost Zoeteman, bassist Bart Tarenskeen, and drummer Wim de Vries, showcases how three musicians masterfully strike a balance between reverence for jazz history and a fresh, contemporary approach.

Look around at the place you are right now - yes, now. Apartment, house, subway car, tool shed, office, wherever. Now imagine this place, with all it's material elements and constituent parts, intertwined as they are, as living, with a circulatory system and a pulse. With an inner life, a memory, experiences and a story of itself to tell. Now listen. Nathan Davis's Earthworks is a unique acousmatic piece, a 40-minute conceptual and musical love child of land art, environmental activism and music concrete in which the composer orchestrates the sonic outcome of the extraction, processing and use of common commercial materials of our contemporary built environment. It is an audio tapestry of drilling, fracking, stirring, slurring, scraping, cracking, popping and hammering, with the bright thread of one very intimate human voice woven through it. This particular iteration of Earthworks, originally produced as a sound installation for the exhibit "Planetary Home Improvement: From Just-in-time to Geological Time", is immersive in nature - both a recording and a full-body experience, primordial and post-industrial. Davis collected field recordings of the raw materials and created a multi-channel sound environment using the materials themselves as speakers, soundboards, and resonators. It is musique concrete as composed through a big box store, and the effect it had on me was mysterious - compelling and even dreamy. A few times I pictured Morton Feldman walking through the enormous back aisles of a Home Depot - the "modern quarry" from which this work is drawn - with an Earthworks-like soundtrack running through his celestial head. In experiencing Davis's work I often find that in addition to composing in the traditional sense, he is also coaxing and conjuring, often in nature, and often with the most basic elements - minerals, metals, stones, water, air. Much of the power of Earthworks derives from what the exhibition artists describe as "collapsing the ancient and the instant." Of it's audience Earthworks demands close attention and attunement to the elements from which it arises. I fully understand that there is a conceptual sophistication and technological mastery at work in pieces like this - it is experimental music for grown ups - but I think I'd do Earthworks a disservice by overintellectualizing the pleasures inherent in it. By this I mean that there is something childlike about the work. At least, this is least one of the responses it summoned in me. I experience these "lifeless" materials both talking amongst themselves and speaking to me. When Sylvia Milo begins the piece by intoning the names of these orchestral instruments - Galvanized steel sheet. Foam insulation. Polycarbonate panel... - each one followed by the sounding of it's characteristic voice, I'm transported back to my early listening to Peter and the Wolf, when I first heard Boris Karloff introducing the cast of the tale by way of their instrumental voices. As a percussionist Davis possesses a deep attunement to materials and their sonic characteristics. But there are non-material aspects embedded here as well. In this case the political context of the work: it is a response to the industrial plunder of the planet. The experience of listening to these materials speak, hearing their breath and pulses, move us closer to an understanding of this, and to a relationship of awareness and reciprocity with the Earth, whose body we tear apart in order to achieve shelter or convenience, and whose riches we violently transmute into material for use. Ever since the story of Adam and Eve's ejection from the Garden, and certainly before, our human alienation from Nature has been the source of existential grief. Part of the task of poets, artists, philosophers, filmmakers, musicians is to restore us to this Edenic state, in which we are again in peaceful harmony with the Earth and it's elements.

An extraordinary recording based on the famous middle-age manuscript Codex Faenza. Extraordinary for the thrilling interpretation of this often obscure and remote musical language. Extraordinary for it's continuous and seamless capacity of captivating the listener, who never gets tired nor bored. Extraordinary for the quality of the sound of the oldest extant organ (Valere, Switzerland - 1435). This daring project owes it's allure to the musicological knowledge and the musical prowess of the interpreters, of the recording engineer and producer. The well thought-out alternance of colours, instruments and climats (keyboards, flutes and voices) allow an enjoyable listening throughout. L'Amorosa Caccia is led by Fabio Antonio Falcone, already responsible for the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik recording of Sweelinck's harpsichord music (CC 72926).

A new recording, unique in the catalogue, of the First (and only surviving) book of keyboard works by Charles de Mars (1702-1774). Compared to many other composers of his era, we know a good deal about the life of de Mars (alternatively known as Demars), making it all the more surprising that the present collection represents all the music of his to have come down to us. He was born to a wax merchant in Sezanne, a small town on the border between the French regions of Brie and Champagne. Several of his relatives were musicians, organists in particular, such as his two brothers. Indeed, we can trace more than 12 members of the de Mars/Tourneur dynasty as organists all over France. Again, the curiosity is that none of their compositions have survived, though they would have written music for their posts just as Charles de Mars did. There is a Handelian flavour to the harmony of the four suites in de Mars's volume, which was published in 1735 and therefore could conceivably have been written with awareness of the older composer's Eight Great Suites for harpsichord. Many features of the volume make it a singular body of work in the French harpsichord tradition. de Mars eschews descriptive titles for individual movements, and occasionally prescribes the performer to play with 'notes egales', and therefore specifically not in the inegale style which we associate with French keyboard composers of the day. As a specialist in this field of unfamiliar keyboard repertoire from the 17th and 18th centuries, with an impressive catalogue of Brilliant Classics albums already to his credit, Simone Pierini has explored the life and work of de Mars for himself, and produced an authoritative booklet essay to accompany his new recording of the Pieces de Clavecin. The Fanfare reviewer of his 3CD album of keyboard sonatas by Helene de Montgeroult considered it 'a major addition to the catalogue', noting that Pierini 'plays with tremendous energy and conviction.' - The Pieces de clavecin by Charles de Mars (1707-1774) are written in the rich tradition of French Baroque harpsichord music. A composer largely overshadowed by luminaries like Francois Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau, de Mars nonetheless contributed to the genre with his distinctive style, characterized by elegant ornamentation and a refined sense of harmony. - de Mars's harpsichord works are steeped in the galant aesthetic, bridging the ornate Baroque style with the more expressive and accessible traits of the early Classical period. His music often features dance forms like the allemande, courante, and sarabande, which were central to the French clavecinistes. - One of the hallmarks of his Pieces de clavecin is his innovative use of ornaments, or agrements, which add a shimmering quality to the melodies. These works also reflect de Mars's ability to evoke character and mood, making them miniature portraits of the 18th-century French musical ethos. - Played by Simone Pierini on a harpsichord by Giulio Fratini after M. Mietke, 2014. Born in Rome in 1996, Pierini began studying music at the age of eight. Aged eighteen, he graduated in piano at S. Cecilia Conservatory of Music, Rome, with highest honors. He afterwards grew interest in historically informed piano practice, attending masterclasses led by Alexei Lubimov, Andreas Staier, Tobias Koch, Stefano Fiuzzi. Subsequently, his interest about historical keyboards in general grew further, and he began studying harpsichord and basso continuo with such teachers as Andrea Coen and Giovanni Togni. His recordings with music by Cherubini and the complete piano sonatas by Helene de Montgeroult were very positively received by the press. Classic FM nominated him as one of the 30 best musicians under 30 in 2024.

Tel ve Ten is the debut album by Ozan Baysal. Discover the diverse sounds of the double-necked baglama, a modified Turkish instrument which has evolved from the traditional Anatolian baglama style, selpe. Featuring improvisations, original compositions and arrangements of traditional Anatolian melodies.

Werner Heinrich Schmitt, born in Mannheim in 1961, began to study the piano in boyhood, and soon started to compose as well. Since then he has earned his living as a pianist, writing music as time permitted. This first album of his works reveals a composer of considerable substance, particularly in the two moving song-cycles that book-end this album. The sensitivity and resourcefulness of Schmitt's aural imagination are confirmed in the chamber and piano pieces heard here. Some are infused with joy, others with sorrow, but they all speak a musical language that aims to speak to the listener directly.

In the 1930s, as Gunter Raphael (1903-60) found doors closing in his native Germany - he was half-Jewish - he was accorded a warm reception in Finland, where his music was heard in a series of broadcast concerts. There was a family connection, too: Raphael's grandfather had taught Sibelius in Berlin. Raphael acknowledged his welcome by incorporating Finnish material into his music, and his Op. 41 is a monumental organ triptych based on Finnish chorales, with two towering contrapuntal edifices either side of a Baroque suite.

New music with entertainment value can be found in the works of Benjamin Scheuer. On the surface, his music surprises with humorous, crazy sounds and playful elements. In the background, Scheuer shapes his compositions, which often consist of various miniatures, in a very precise and complex way. "His preference for whimsical sounds, dislocated vocals and weird gestures is, of course, evidence of a wild sense of humor, but at the same time it demonstrates an indestructible musicality and, yes, seriousness," says booklet author Gordon Kampe. In the song cycle "Impulsive Lieder", which gives the album it's title, Scheuer illuminates an idea, a particular sound or a process in each track, dissecting and exaggerating them. The use of the simplest electronic means lends the pieces a lo-fi-aesthetic and often leads the listener astray. In addition to three ensemble works, two solo pieces, interpreted by Vanessa Porter and Nikolai Rosenberg, complete the portrait both as audio and video. Here it becomes clear that Scheuer makes use of a broad palette of sounds: rubber pig, kazoo or unrolling party horn can be heard as well as traditional instruments. And last but not least, his compositional focus lies on people and their voices, as in "Lachtherapie" (Laughter Therapy), in which the pianist amazes with crazy nuances of laughter.