Domenico Scarlatti redefined the possibilities of keyboard music, blending the grandeur of the Baroque with the emerging vitality of the Classical era. He found his artistic sanctuary at the royal court of Portugal in the employ of Queen Maria Barbara, a pivotal role that generated a remarkable synthesis of Italian and Spanish musical traditions. The works included in this collection thoroughly explore the capabilities of both instrument and player, with thrilling inventiveness, dazzling virtuosity and beautiful lyricism, which encapsulate Scarlatti's legacy as a trailblazer in this genre.

Anna Geniushene and Lukas Geniusas both have brilliant careers as soloists: Anna won the silver medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022 and now records for Fuga Libera, while Lukas' two Rachmaninov recordings, a recital of solo works (ALPHA997) and songs with Asmik Grigorian (ALPHA796), have both won major awards. Partners in life and in art, they form a highly virtuosic and tightly knit duo. This highly varied programme pays tribute to American music with works by Gershwin, Stravinsky, Copland and McPhee, a succession of melting-pots that create fusions of classical music, jazz, Mexican music and Balinese rhythms. The spectacular and rebellious Fourth Ballad from Frederic Rzewski's North American Ballads (1978-79) is also included. This musical odyssey concludes with the vast fresco that is John Adam's magnificent Hallelujah Junction (1996).

SOMM Recordings is proud to extend it's celebration of the 150th anniversary of Gustav Holst (1874�- 1934). The label was one of the few to mark the anniversary with it's double CD release last September of Holst: Savitri, Choral Hymns from Rig Veda, 4 Songs, The Evening Watch, Hammersmith, The Perfect Fool Suite & The Planets, ARIADNE 5030-2. These never-before-released live recordings from the 40s, 50s, and 60s were issued in meticulous restorations by long-time SOMM collaborators Lani Spahr and�Paul Baily. Now, SOMM continues it's outstanding mission of issuing lesser-known music of interest with a pair of gems to enrich the catalogue of historic performances:�a stereo recording of Holst's three-movement suite Beni Mora (the fictional name for Biskra, Algeria) and a live performance of the Choral Symphony. Both are played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent, who brought a personal acquaintance and a deep understanding of the composer's inspiration to the works. Once again, the suburb audio restoration is by Lani Spahr. Holst's The Planets is a justifiably well-known suite, but the great originality and skill in his writing is still largely under-appreciated. He lived a retiring life playing trombone in theatre orchestras as a younger man and teaching for much of his career at the St Paul's Girls' School in London. Yet, his abiding interest in cultures of North Africa, the Levant, and India were reflected in his rare musical expression. While spending time in Algiers in 1908, Holst heard an indigenous musician playing the same phrase repeatedly for two hours on a bamboo flute. This melody became the basis for the final movement of Beni Mora, where Holst repeats the eight-note tune 163 times in a manner foreshadowing minimalism. The first two movements of the suite evoke the mysticism, lively rhythms, and exoticism of the Arab world, juxtaposed with more reflective moments. Following the success of The Planets, Holst received a commission from the 1925 Leeds Triennial Festival, and he used the opportunity to revise the draft of his Choral Symphony. The work consists of a Prelude and four movements, in keeping with an idea of conventional symphonic structure. Holst's inspiration came from a widely diverse collection of poetry by John Keats-ranging from the famous Ode to a Grecian Urn to lines scribbled on the flyleaf of a book of plays. The response to the Choral Symphony was not initially favourable. Even Holst's lifelong friend, Ralph Vaughan Williams, admitted that he felt only a "cold admiration" for it. But within months of the first performance Holst wrote, "I think the work as a whole is the best thing I have ever written." This recording is evidence of that belief.

With Ukraine's defence of it's sovereign nation against Russia's invasion in the news and in our conscience, SOMM releases a timely recording that pays tribute to a rich heritage of Ukrainian music that was long subsumed by the former USSR. Margaret Fingerhut, described by Gramophone as a pianist of "consummate skill and thrilling conviction," has become increasingly involved in using the power of music to raise money for charitable causes. In 2019, drawing on the stories and music of composers who had to leave their homelands because of war or persecution, she undertook a major recital tour, performing "Far from the Home I Love" at thirty-two venues across the UK to raise money for refugees. In 2022 she collaborated with a young Ukrainian film-maker on a powerful video in support of Ukraine. Margaret Fingerhut was awarded an MBE in the 2024 New Year Honours in recognition of her services to music and charitable fundraising. For SOMM's recording, UKRAINE: A Piano Portrait, she has selected works written between 1877 and 2005 for a deeply personal recital featuring composers from the country of her grandfather's birth. Mykola Lysenko, the earliest Ukrainian composer represented here, published a definitive ethnological�study of the Ukrainian Dumky, and his Dumka-Shumka is from the opening pages of his second piano rhapsody on Ukrainian folk themes. We owe our knowledge of Lysenko's music to his pupil and editor, Lev Revutsky, who fell foul of new Stalinist cultural demands in the 1930s, but later revisited earlier compositions that include Three Preludes and Improvisation. Viktor Kosenko, a contemporary of Revutsky, also pursued his composing career in Ukraine, and his expressive Nocturne comes from a set of etudes for Piano in the Form of Old Dances. The opening and closing pieces in this collection are by Sergei Bortkiewicz, who suffered under both Soviet and Nazi tyrannies. Les Rochers d'Outche-Coche is the first of three Sketches of the Crimea, while Consolation is from a group of eight Lamentations et Consolations. From Vasyl Barvinsky, who shared Bortkiewicz's adoption of late-Romantic Impressionism, we have Two Preludes and Loneliness - the sorrow of love from his piano cycle, Love. Boris Lystoshynsky, whose featured works are the Elegy-Prelude 'Mourning' and Two Preludes on Ukrainian Folk Songs, survived the Zhdanov Decree in the 1940s, which aimed to control Soviet culture and art; while the most contemporary Ukrainian composer on this recital, Valentin Silvestrov, fled to Berlin to re-establish his career following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. His Three Bagatelles are written in a neo-classical, post-modernist musical language. Royalty sales from this recording will go towards British-Ukrainian Aid, which raises money for emergency vehicles and medical supplies for Ukraine.

Cesar Guerra-Peixe's compact First Symphony and the colourful Nonet date from his years as part of the M�sica Viva group - a collective of young composers influenced by Hans-Joachim Koellreutter, the German composer and teacher who brought serial techniques to Brazil. Guerra-Peixe's relationship with serial composition was intense and short-lived, but both of these earlier pieces were admired internationally and remain two of the finest works produced by this movement. From the 1950s onwards, Guerra-Peixe turned to musical nationalism with many successes including his award-winning and eloquently programmatic Second Symphony.

'The Fifth is a cursed piece. Nobody understands it,' said Gustav Mahler in March 1905 after a performance of his Fifth Symphony in Hamburg. He had been working on his new symphony for almost three years before it premiered on 18 October 1904: in Cologne, with the Gurzenich Orchestra and Gustav Mahler at the podium. To many of his contemporaries, the work seemed too bold, too radical - perhaps also insufficiently explained, given that programmatic explanations had been added to the so-called 'Wunderhorn' Symphonies Nos. 2 to 4. Not only the number and the order of the movements seemed new, but stylistically Mahler also broke new ground with his Fifth. But now, all at once, his musical language changed, a transformation that evidently gave him some unease later. Shortly before his death, he made corrections to the instrumentation. Today the work is considered the beginning of his new creative phase, which culminated in his Ninth Symphony and it's one of his most popular symphonies. Gary Bertini was born in Bessarabia (now Moldova) in 1927. After the Second World War, he studied at the Milan Conservatory, then at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music (where he graduated in 1951), and finally at the Paris Conservatory and the ecole Normale de Musique. He founded and directed first the Rinat Choir - later named the Israel Chamber Choir - and then the Israel Chamber Ensemble with which Bertini made numerous appearances in Europe and the USA. Over the years, he has been principal conductor of the Frankfurt Opera and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, artistic director of the New Israel Opera, and music director of the Rome Opera and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. Bertini's breadth of repertoire was very impressive, reaching from the 16th century to contemporary composers.

Challenge Classics is proud to present the first collaboration with reputed Spanish ensemble Accademia del Piacere. Accademia del Piacere for about ten records which have received several awards around the world. This new recording by Accademia del Piacere focuses on the work of improvisation, ornamentation, embellishment on famous Baroque tunes of the Spanish baroque - according to 17th Century style and practice. Once more Accadmia del Piacere delivers a disc full of energy, colours and invention, faithful to it's name: Academy of Pleasure.

Les Frivolites Parisiennes return to b-records with a revival of Le Dieu Bleu, a ballet by Michel Fokine which premiered in 1912, and whose music by Reynaldo Hahn had not been heard in France since then. This was an exceptional project performed with a full symphonic orchestra of more than seventy musicians. The live recording is a measure of their great attention to detail.

Award-winning Canadian composer Christopher Tyler Nickel adds to his impressive catalogue of large-scale liturgical works with a double-bill featuring his Mass and Te Deum, composed concurrently and completed in 2022. As with previous works - including Requiem, and the seven-hour long oratorio The Gospel According to Mark - Chris' spirituality infuses his music with melancholy and meditative qualities. Haunting intimacy, a predilection for chant-like melodies and allusions to Medieval music, and plangent orchestral colours, give these two new sacred works a feeling of timelessness. Listeners will recognise Chris' penchant for unusual combinations of instruments - a quartet from the oboe family in both works, with the lesser heard oboe d'amore and bass oboe alongside oboe and cor anglais; and a pair of Wagner tubas in the Mass. Chris once again collaborates with soprano Catherine Redding, the Vancouver Chamber Choir and Vancouver Contemporary Orchestra under the baton of Clyde Mitchell - who on previous releases of Chris' music have delivered "emotionally stirring performances" (The WholeNote).

San Francisco-based Cantata Collective continues it's exploration of J.S. Bach's major choral masterworks with a third in the ongoing series, pairing the composer's Easter Oratorio and Magnificat. Released in time for Holy Week, both works are lavishly scored and feature some of Bach's most festive and popular vocal writing. With celebrated baroque music specialist Nicholas McGegan on the podium, and a roll call of today's finest early music vocal soloists, this release is poised to build on the auspicious previous releases - a "bold and beautifully constructed" St. John Passion (BBC Radio 3 Record Review), and "an exemplary performance" of the Mass in B Minor (American Record Guide).

Positioned between Southern Europe and North Africa, Malta has long been an artistic crucible that forms one of the Mediterranean's most significant cultural crossroads. With it's intense pianistic colours, Charles Camilleri's African Dreams explores that continent's native rhythms and melodic lines, while Carmelo Pace and Carlo Diacono look towards the worlds of Liszt and Chopin. Josie Mallia Pulvirenti's rarely heard Impressione Sinfonica is a concert masterpiece of virtuosic majesty, steeped in the piano's Golden Age. Award-winning Maltese pianist, Charlene Farrugia, has done extensive research into the life and work of composers from her homeland.

- Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) was an English composer known for his lyrical and contemplative music, often inspired by English literature and landscape. Born in London, he faced numerous hardships and personal losses early in life, which shaped much of his musical output, often reflecting themes of mortality and nostalgia. In World War II he worked to assist German and Austrian musicians fleeing the Nazis. - Finzi's works are characterized by their deep sensitivity to English poetry and their pastoral nature. His love for literature is evident in many of his vocal works, including settings of texts by Thomas Hardy, William Wordsworth, and Christina Rossetti. - The cantata Dies Natalis, composed between 1925 and 1939, is one of Finzi's most celebrated works. It is a setting of texts by the 17th-century poet Thomas Traherne, which explore themes of innocence and the wonder of a newborn experiencing the world for the first time. Scored for solo voice and strings, the work reflects Finzi's delicate and expressive style, with lyrical vocal lines and lush orchestration that evoke a sense of spiritual reflection. - Also presented is Finzi's Clarinet Concerto, a vibrant and melodious work, one of the finest in it's genre. - Performed by Susanna Rigacci, Roberta Gottardi, and the Benedetto Marcello Chamber Orchestra conducted by Flavio Scogna.

While the life of Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) is well documented, the same cannot be said for Leonhard Frischmuth (c. 1725-1764), a name unknown to many. Frischmuth is today best known for having created and published keyboard transcriptions of six of Tartini's violin concertos. Frischmuth hailed from the Thuringian village of Grafenroda, near Gotha, where he studied organ under Johann Christoph Keller, himself a student at Leipzig's Tomasschule during the tenure of J. S. Bach. Frischmuth travelled to Amsterdam probably around 1750, where he became a pupil of Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch, organist of the Oude Kerk. On 26 July 1763, Frischmuth was appointed organist of the Nieuwezijdskapel, the only position he is known to have held, and he died having served in the role for just 15 months. His Tartini transcriptions were published as his Opus 4 by the Dutch printer Arnoldus Olofsen in a collection of concertos 'accommodati per il cembalo' (adapted to the harpsichord) and, as was the custom, playable on other keyboard instruments such as the organ. Holland in the early 18th century was 'ground zero' for burgeoning interest in organ transcriptions of Italian instrumental concertos, beginning with the blind organist Jan Jacob de Graaf (1672-1738), who performed his own transcriptions of concertos by various composers at concerts he gave on the organ of the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. The decision to record these concertos on a historic Italian instrument, built around 1745-50 by the Dalmatian-born organ builder Pietro Nachini (1694-1769), whom Tartini probably knew personally, can only enhance these pieces, as it's sonic characteristics would undoubtedly have been familiar to Tartini: at the Basilica del Santo in Padua, Tartini had four organs at his disposal, some of them reconstructed by Nachini in the period 1743-49. Other information: - Recorded May 2024 in Castelferretti, Ancona, Italy - Booklet in English contains liner notes by the organist, a description of the organ with stoplist, and a profile of the artist - Italian liner notes available at brilliantclassics. Com - Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) was a virtuoso violinist, composer, theoretician and teacher, a spider in the international cultural web in a time when Italy was the centre of the musical world, his violin school, the "School of Nations", attracted musicians from all over Europe. - Tartini wrote 125 concertos for his own instrument, the violin, attractive and melodious works full of bold harmonies and featuring brilliant solo parts that freely converse with individual voices within the orchestra. These violin concertos were so famous and popular at the time that the organist and composer Leonard Frischmuth (1721-1764) made organ transcriptions of six of them. Frischmuth, of German origin, was a student at the Thomasschule in Leipzig from 1726 to 1734, during the tenure of Johann Sebastian Bach (later he was an organist in Amsterdam). - Recorded at the historic 1750 Pietro Nachini organ at the Church of Sant'Andrea Apostolo in Castelferretti, Ancona, Italy. - Organist Luca Scandali is one of Italy's foremost scholars and keyboard players. For Brilliant Classics he recorded the complete organ works by C. P. E. Bach (nominated for the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, BC 94812), Galuppi, Pasquini (BC 9434) and Pellegrini & Padovano (BC 95259).

Back in 2015, Fanfare singled out Ekaterina Litvintseva's first solo album of Rachmaninoff, including the Moments musicaux Op.16, as an 'impressive outing. Her playing is tonally rich and extremely thoughtful.' Since then, she has assembled an impressive and critically acclaimed catalogue on Piano Classics, including most recently the great Trio elegiaque which Rachmaninoff wrote in memory of Tchaikovsky: 'an attractive and valuable disc' (Fanfare). Litvintseva now turns to a trio of uncontested masterpieces by the Russian composer, demonstrating within a single album the range of his stylistic evolution over the course of 40 years. He was still a teenager, studying at the Moscow Conservatoire, when he wrote his First Piano Concerto in 1891. On the instruction of his teachers, he took the Grieg Concerto as a model, and poured his own invention into it: a remarkably successful strategy, as it turned out, because the finished work is both strong and personal, touched with many of those fingerprints of gesture and harmony which we have come to think of as quintessentially Rachmaninoff. These include flights of lyric fantasy and equally sudden, unexpected turns towards melancholy introspection. Rachmaninoff had become an international celebrity by 1913, when he took his family to live the high life with him in Rome, at a home which Tchaikovsky had once used. In the Italian capital he began work on the imposing Second Piano Sonata, though the work had to be completed back at the family estate, Ivanovka, when his daughters came down with typhus. Rachmaninoff overhauled the Sonata in 1931, cutting and in some places simplifying it's form, and it is this version which Litvintseva plays: a stylistic bridge between mid-period and late-style in a composer whose capacity for reinvention has often been underestimated. By 1941 he was an exile living in the US and Switzerland, where he wrote his Variations on a theme of Corelli - the 'La folia' theme adopted by countless of his predecessors. Informed by decades of pianistic and creative mastery, Rachmaninoff makes the theme his own with a neoclassical severity and haunting economy of expression. Thus, taken as a whole, Ekaterina Litvintseva's new album pays a wide-ranging and personal tribute to a composer who has inspired her playing since her formation in Siberia. - Ekaterina Litvintseva is one of the most remarkable pianists of her generation. Her recordings won her enthusiastic acclaim in the international press: "a notable moment in the history of Chopin interpretation" (Fanfare); "a sense of spontaneous invention" in Mozart's K.271 (Gramophone) and "an expressive depth" in Brahms's 1st Piano Concerto (BBC Music Magazine). She previously recorded for Piano Classics an album with piano works by Dora Pejacevic (PCL10226), as well as the Works for Piano and Orchestra by Chopin (PCL10142 and 10274), which was a CD Of The Week at Classic FM. - In this new release Litvintseva displays her innate feeling for the idiom in works by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): the youthfully exuberant First Piano Concerto, the monumental Second Piano Sonata and the innovative Corelli variations Op. 42, cornerstones of the piano repertoire nowadays, and played with vigour, drama and a deep sense of poetry. The concerto is accompanied by the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, conducted by Vahan Mardirossian.

Born in Belfast and raised in Greater Manchester, the world-renowned trombonist Peter Moore gained international attention at the age of twelve when, in 2008, he became the youngest winner of the competition BBC Young Musician. His early involvement in the brass band culture in Northern England was crucial to his rapid development. Appointed Co-Principal Trombone of the London Symphony Orchestra aged just eighteen, he departed after ten years to focus on his solo career. He has performed concertos with leading orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and given recitals at venues such as the Koninklijk Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall, in London, and Wiener Musikverein. This album celebrates Peter's life-long association with the brass band movement, with a diverse programme that includes major works such as Gordon Langford's Rhapsody (written for Don Lusher) and the world premiere recording of Simon Dobson's Shift - a trombone concerto written for Peter Moore. Peter also pays tribute to other great trombonists: Arthur Pryor was a soloist with the Souza band, whilst I'm Gettin' Sentimental over You was a huge hit for Tommy Dorsey.