Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of Fugue) is the fifth album in the Bach series by Jorg Halubek and his ensemble il Gusto Barocco - the think tank for the music baroque master Johann Sebastian Bach. The new recording is led by Jorg Halubek, who plays the historic German Silbermann Organ from 1737. Together with the Early Music ensemble il Gusto Barocco, they present a unique interpretation of the world famous Bach composition "The Art of Fugue".

A new and complete survey of the attractive body of cello sonatas which, in his day, helped to make Antonio Caldara a Viennese rival to the fame of Antonio Vivaldi in Venice. Born in Venice as the son of a violinist, Caldara grew up as a chorister at the Basilica di San Marco, and won important posts in Mantua, Rome and Barcelona, as a maestro di capella to royal courts. But it was his move to Vienna during the 1710s which secured his name and his fortune. Becoming Vice-Kapellmeister to the Imperial Court in 1716, Caldara introduced the late Venetian style to Central Europe, and it's influence remained a determining factor in both church music and opera as well as instrumental music until long after his death in 1736. Through sacred works such as the oratorio Maddalena al piedi di Cristo, Caldara has won a following on record in the modern era. However, his surviving output of instrumental music has remained largely unexplored. Publishing his Op.1 Trio Sonatas in 1688, Caldara refers to himself as a 'musico di violoncello', and there can be no doubt from this collection that he knew his way around the instrument. They were composed between 22 April and 26 July 1735: Caldara's sheer facility has perhaps told against him, with a total output of over three thousand separate works. But he knew his craft, and melody seems to have come readily to him. A few Lezioni (Nos. 43, 23 & 1) from Caldara's published instruction method for learning the cello are included as preludes to Sonatas Nos. 8, 10 and 12. Most of the sonatas belong to the four-movement 'sonata da chiesa' form, but Caldara also used the three-movement archetype which became increasingly standard. There is no shortage of opportunities for virtuosic display, as well as for lyricism. These recordings are made by musicians immersed in the Italian late-Baroque world. In it's expanded form, L'Arte dell' Arco has made much praised recordings of Haydn and Vivaldi for Brilliant Classics, including a comprehensive box of Vivaldi's Concertos Opp. 1-12. These Italian musicians speak and sing Caldara's music with unforced fluency. - Antonio Caldara (1670-1736), an Italian Baroque composer, was born in Venice, where he was a chorister in the famous San Marco, with Legrenzi as his teacher. He soon spread his wings across Europe and held several important posts in Mantua, the Spanish court in Barcelona, Rome and eventually the post of Kapellmeister at the Imperial Court in Vienna. Caldara left a substantial oeuvre, consisting of instrumental music in the tradition of Corelli, sacred music and operas. - Caldara's sonatas for cello and basso continuo exemplify the transition from the late Baroque style toward the emerging galant aesthetic. These works are clearly written by a master of the instrument, as Caldara evidently was. The sonatas typically follow a four-movement structure, alternating slow and fast tempos, in the tradition of the sonata da chiesa. They blend lyrical, cantabile lines with virtuosic passages, showing the cello's agility and warm tone. - Played by one of Italy's foremost "Early Music" cellists, Francesco Galligioni, playing with fellow members of the ensemble L'Arte dell'Arco. He successfully recorded the complete cello concertos by Vivaldi, works by Dall'Abaco, sonatas by Lanzetti and others.

Few contemporary composers have enriched the choral repertoire quite like Gabriel Jackson, and this recording from The Choir of Canterbury Cathedral is a luminous testament to his singular voice. Rooted in the grand traditions of English sacred music yet infused with a distinctly modern harmonic palette, Jackson's writing revels in soaring treble lines, shimmering textures, and a deep affinity for space and resonance. Under the direction of David Newsholme, the Choir delivers these works with a compelling combination of precision and fervour, illuminating the rich polyphony of Ave maris stella, the jubilant energy of Praise ye the Lord, and the grandeur of the Coronation Canticles. The Cathedral's organ, resplendent in Canterbury Concertos, emerges as a protagonist in it's own right. This is music that both honours tradition and expands it's boundaries, performed with eloquence and authority.

This first recording of the Eule Organ of Magdalen College, Oxford (opened in January 2023) features a wide range of music performed by Alexander Pott. From Wagner to Delius, the repertoire showcases the instrument's German Romantic heritage as well as it's suitability for English 20th-Century transcription, thanks to it's distinctive voice, colour, breadth and sensitivity.

Whether in his original home of Vienna, as a conservatoire director in Mainz, or as an emigre in Edinburgh, where he became one of the mainstays of musical life, Hans Gal (1890-1987) championed choral singing as a way of directly involving people in making music: he founded and conducted a number of choirs and provided an extensive output of choral compositions. This third album of his choral music offers a vivid cross-section of music for chamber choir, featuring mixed voices, women's voices and male-voice choir, a cappella, with solo soprano, with piano and with chamber accompaniment.

This compelling debut album from composer Lucy Walker showcases one of the UK's most exciting emerging voices in choral composition. Written during her residency with St Martin's Voices, the works trace a journey of artistic growth and spiritual depth, from the hopeful intimacy of Today to the shimmering expansiveness of I saw eternity. Walker's music is deeply rooted in the choral tradition, yet distinctly contemporary her harmonic language radiant and text-driven, her textures luminous and finely woven. Under the sensitive direction of Andrew Earis, St Martin's Voices bring remarkable nuance and warmth to these performances, revealing the emotional resonance and craftsmanship in each piece. Whether drawing on plainsong, part-song or contrapuntal dance, Walker's voice is unmistakably her own lyrical, thoughtful, and full of light. This album is both a celebration of collaboration and a moving portrait of a composer whose music speaks with clarity, heart and vision.

SOMM Recordings is proud to present an album devoted to works by David Matthews, hailed as one of the leading symphonists of our time. His diverse output is superbly represented here by a Symphonic Diptych from his opera, Anna; his Symphony No. 11; and his Flute Concerto. The release features Dutch conductor Jac van Steen and the Ulster Orchestra, of which he is Honorary Principal Guest Conductor. Both are frequent SOMM collaborators, most recently on Manuel de Falla: The Three-Cornered Hat, Nights in the Gardens of Spain & Seven Spanish Folk Songs, SOMMCD 0694, about which Gramophone magazine wrote, "when van Steen unleashes the full orchestra... The tone is big and generous." They are joined by flautist Emma Halnan, winner of the BBC Young Musician Competition in 2010 in the woodwind category. She was also elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in the Academy's 2024 Honours, recognizing alumni of the Academy who have distinguished themselves in the music profession. Emma enjoys commissioning new works, and composers who have written for her include Sir�Karl Jenkins, James Francis Brown, and, as here, David Matthews. David Matthews' first opera Anna had it's concert premiere at The Grange Hampshire in July 2023, conducted by Jac van Steen. Shortly afterwards, Jac suggested that David should make an orchestral reduction, as Strauss had done for his Intermezzo and Die Frau ohne Schatten. So, in this Symphonic Diptych, David has compressed the opera into two movements, one for each act-I. Anna in Love and II. Lament for Anna-which tell the story in purely orchestral terms about a brother (Peter) and sister (Anna) and their different reactions to the revolution that has just taken place in their country. In transferring all the vocal parts to instruments, David has slightly increased the opera's orchestra. In 2022, at the Presteigne Festival, David Matthews heard some striking trumpet playing at an orchestral concert. The next day, he wrote a few bars of quiet trumpet solo over a string chord. At first, he did not know what to do with this idea, until he thought it might be the beginning of a symphony, and so his single-movement Symphony No. 11 was conceived. He decided to preface it with an allegro D major/d minor theme, beginning on violas and moving to first violins, and these two ideas form the basis for a set of free variations. Considering the flute to be, essentially, a melodic instrument, David Matthews composed his Flute Concerto as alternating song and dance. The first movement combines a gentle allegretto with a fast waltz. The slow middle movement evokes a dance celebrating Pan, while the finale begins with a little tune that he wrote for his wife, Jenifer, at Christmas 2019, which has something of an Irish flavour. Siegfried Wagner was named for the young hero in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle and immortalized in the Siegfried Idyll, included on this release. He was born to Richard Wagner and his future wife, Cosima (nee�Liszt), on 6 June 1869. Although Siegfried considered following a profession outside music (and, as a youth, studied architecture in Berlin and in Karlsruhe), it was inevitable that he would follow a career in music given the lineage of both his parents and his grandfather, Franz Liszt. In addition to receiving instruction in music from Liszt, the thirteen-year-old Siegfried began his advanced musical studies in Frankfurt with Engelbert Humperdinck, a true disciple of Richard Wagner. Siegfried became an assistant at Bayreuth in 1892, immersing himself in his father's music under the strong influence of Cosima Wagner and the conductor Hans Richter. In 1895, he made his debut at Bayreuth conducting a complete Ring cycle. The debut was a considerable artistic success, and Siegfried's future as the true guardian of the Wagner inheritance was assured, as he took a greater share in the direction of the Bayreuth Festival. With Cosima's full endorsement, Siegfried assumed the general directorship from his mother in 1908. Siegfried's busy professional life was devoted in the main to Bayreuth in the 1920s, but it was also during this time that he began a recording career devoted almost exclusively to his father's and his own works. Apart from his evident qualities as a conductor of his father's music-heard here in the recorded legacy he left of his performances at Bayreuth and in Berlin and London-he was equally keen to establish himself as a composer. The first of his twelve completed operas, Der Barenhauter (Bearskin) inspired by the German fairytale, met with public and critical acclaim when it was produced in 1899. The acoustic recording of the overture is heard here. Among the Richard Wagner works conducted by Siegfried Wagner on this historic release are well-known selections from Das Rheingold and Die Walkure from the Ring Cycle. Also included are a suite from Parsifal and selections from Tannhauser, Lohengrin, and Tristan und Isolde.

The viola da gamba is not dead, despite a claim to the contrary in the Dictionary of Musicians by German composer, organist and cellist Ernst Ludwig Gerber (1746-1819). From the 16th century to the end of the 18th, the viola da gamba experienced a true apotheosis, becoming the favoured instrument for bourgeois entertainment, particularly in Germany, France, Italy and England, even if the instrument's origins lie in the Spanish Renaissance. Because of these associations with the aristocracy, but also because of advances in musical style that demanded more from the role of the lower member of the string family, the gamba lost ground to the newer cello during the French Revolution. Limited interest in the instrument persisted through the 19th century, until a rebirth occurred thanks to German cellists Christian Dobereiner (1874-1961) and Paul Grummer (1879-1965), and later the Austrian Karl Maria Schwamberger (1905-1967) and Swiss cellist August Wenzinger (1905-1996), a pupil of Grummer's and a founder, in 1925, of one of Germany's first early music ensembles. Wenzinger was appointed cello and viola da gamba teacher at Basle's new Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where Giacomo Nones (1929-2017) and Jordi Savall (b.1941) would become his pupils. Dobereiner was one of the most important pioneers at the dawn of modern research into historical performance practice, considered to have revived both the viola da gamba and the baryton from obscurity. From his Sarabande, in Handelian style, only the solo part has survived, and the basso continuo has been reconstructed by Matteo Malagoli. Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) was an important Russian pianist and composer. He invented his own harmonic language, combining major and minor hexachords in a pentatonic scale that blended old Russian patterns and Georgian (Caucasian) harmonies. During a stay in France he became friends with Paul Grummer and in 1969 published a lovely Sonata da chiesa for viola da gamba and organ dedicated to Grummer and his daughter Sylvia. Giuseppe Selmi (1912-1987) was a gifted concert cellist, performing both with orchestra and piano. As a composer, he wrote several works for solo cello, with piano and with harp (he played in a duo with his wife Maria Dongellini). Following the gift of a viola da gamba (built by Paolo Leonori in 1952) from his wife in the 1970s, he became a passionate advocate for the instrument, writing works for it with harp or solo. Giacomo Nones (1929-2017) dedicated himself from a young age to classical music and the popular music from his native Trentino, studying violin, organ and viola da gamba, as well as musicology and organology. He has edited transcriptions and publications of Renaissance and Baroque music and has collaborated with various early music ensembles. Passionate about contemporary music, in particular 'computer music', he wrote his 10 small Algorithms for two viols with the use of a computer according to theories by the Russian mathematician Rudolf Zaripov. His only other viola da gamba works are the very different Partitas on the Lutheran chorale Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan for gamba and organ, and the Fantasia for solo viol on the Kyrie of the Gregorian 'Orbis factor' Mass. Riccardo Giavina (1937-2019) was a Piedmontese pianist and composer, later a teacher and headmaster at the 'Bonporti' Conservatory of Trento and Riva del Garda. A friend of Giacomo Nones, in April 1977 he dedicated his three short pieces for three viols (soprano, tenor and bass) to the other composer. Written in late Renaissance style, they are aimed at extending the original literature for viola da gamba into the 20th century. - Recorded April 2022 in Silvelle; July, August & December 2023 in Ponte nelle Alpi; and January 2024 in Trento (Italy) - Booklet in English contains liner notes and a profile of each of the composers - Matteo Malagoli plays a viola da gamba by Marco Salerno (Rome - Barcelona, 2004) - Cristina Centa plays a Salvi harp - Stefano Rattini plays a harpsichord by Fabrizio Acanfora (Naples, 1997) and at the Carlo Vegezzi-Bossi organ (1907; restored Mascioni, 2000) of the Trento Philharmonic Society

The Pacifica Quartet presents The Korngold Collection, a landmark recording of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's complete string quartets and rarely heard chamber works tracing the composer's extraordinary evolution from prodigy of post-imperial Vienna to pioneering film composer in Hollywood. Described by The Daily Telegraph as "nothing short of phenomenal," the multiple Grammy Award-winning Pacifica Quartet brings more than three decades of acclaimed artistry to this sweeping portrait of Korngold's chamber music. The three string quartets, written between 1923 and 1945, chart Korngold's artistic journey: the First Quartet pulses with adventurous harmony; the Second, composed just before his emigration from Austria, overflows with lush melody; and the Third, finalized after WWII, draws on themes from his iconic film scores, including The Sea Hawk and Between Two Worlds. Complementing the quartets are two early chamber gems: the radiant Piano Quintet in E major (1920), written in the wake of his operatic triumph, Die tote Stadt and performed with pianist Orion Weiss; and the vibrant String Sextet in D major (1914), a youthful work that helped establish Korngold's early reputation, featuring violist Milena P�jaro-van de Stadt and cellist Eric Kim. Praised for their "remarkable expressive range and tonal beauty" (The New York Times), the Pacifica Quartet has distinguished itself through a deep commitment to complete composer cycles, including The Soviet Experience, their celebrated survey of Shostakovich's 15 string quartets, plus quartets by his contemporaries.

Hugo Alfv�n was an accomplished writer and painter as well as musician and composer. Born in Stockholm in 1872, he studied first at Kungliga Musikh�gskolan (the Royal College of Music) and then in Berlin, Dresden, Paris, and Brussels. Influenced by Wagner and Richard Strauss, Alfv�n's style is also permeated with the influence of Swedish folk music. Festspel (Festival Play) was commissioned to inaugurate the new art nouveau building for Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern (the Royal Dramatic Theatre) in Stockholm, in 1908, the work is suitably rousing and celebratory for such an occasion. Alfv�n was asked in 1932 to write incidental music for a play by Ludvig Nordstr�m, to commemorate the 300-year anniversary of the death of the protestant Swedish monarch at the battle of L�tzen, at the end of the Thirty Years War, the suite that he subsequently extracted is a substantial work in it's own right. Cantus arcticus is perhaps Rautavaara's best-known work, and was commissioned by the University of Oulu, in northern Finland, to honour it's first formal doctoral graduation ceremony, in 1972, Rautavaara instead took his inspiration from the natural environment of the region, incorporating two-channel tape recordings of birdsong as part of the orchestral texture.

David Fray stands out as one of today's most distinctive French pianists, widely acclaimed for his profound interpretations of Bach. Each of his recordings is considered a major event, making this new release all the more anticipated, as it marks his return after several years of silence. This new album features masterpieces from Rameau to Scarlatti, including lesser-known composers like Royer, with a strong focus on Bach. The repertoire includes original keyboard works as well as piano transcriptions by legendary pianists such as Siloti, Kempff, Busoni, and Stradal. Additionally, the album also includes the world premiere recording of Monsaingeon's arrangement for piano of Bach's Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, BWV 1003: Andante.

Dido's famous lament, 'When I am laid in earth' has long featured in Joyce DiDonato's repertoire - and she has triumphed as the tragic Queen of Carthage in Berlioz's Les Troyens - but it was in early 2024 that she first performed Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas in it's entirety. With Il Pomo d'Oro, conductor Maxim Emelyanychev, and a cast including Fatma Said as Dido's companion Belinda, DiDonato toured extensively in Europe. This recording was made in Essen's Philharmonie, where Michael Spyres took the role of Aeneas. The two stars have been through this all before, as Spyres sang �n�e to DiDonato's Didon in the prizewinning Erato recording of Les Troyens, conducted in 2017 by the late John Nelson.

Fr�hling is also a project that decisively sheds light on the figure of Andr�s Isasi (1890-1940), one of the most singular and underrepresented composers of early 20th-century Spain. At the heart of the album, Goikoetxea and Fern�ndez Aguirre offer the world-premiere recording of the complete Lieder-Album op. 16, a cycle composed in Berlin in 1913 and virtually unknown until today. These fourteen songs reveal a cosmopolitan Isasi at a moment of full creative maturity, shaped by his Central European training with Engelbert Humperdinck and attuned to the late-Romantic and Jugendstil currents of his time. The cycle blends intimate lyricism, legendary evocations, decadent impulses, and a refined harmonic language of striking modernity. Works such as Ali Bey, Fr�hling, Die ungetreue Luise, or Vergiftet sind meine Lieder display a uniquely personal voice that bridges the German Lied tradition with Basque imagery and an advanced European sensibility that was unusual for it's time. Goikoetxea and Fern�ndez Aguirre stand out for their elegance, their textual insight, and their ability to convey the emotional universe-at times na�ve, at times shadowed, always intensely poetic-of a composer whose vocal output was long overdue for a first-rate artistic rediscovery. The programme is framed within a broader exploration of Heinrich Heine's profound impact on European music. The album is completed with lieder by Liszt, Grieg, Ives, Rubinstein, Boulanger, Backer-Gr�ndahl, MacDowell, Sgambatti, and Castelnuovo-Tedesco, composers who, like Isasi, were captivated by the emotional depth and symbolic power of the German poet.

Jewels of the 17th century, the Tours and Deslauriers manuscripts form a corpus of three hundred works born in the fervour of the provinces of the Kingdom. This journey to the very heart of French cathedrals reveals the striking theatricality of sacred stories, ranging from fascinating anonymous pieces to flashes of genius by Bouzignac and Moulini�. Under the direction of Fabien Armengaud, the Pages and Chantres of the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles make these scores blossom into a garden of delights, like a bouquet of myrrh.

The final volume in a new groundbreaking and much-praised complete symphony cycle of Ferdinand Ries' (1784-1838) symphonies by the Tapiola Sinfonietta and conductor Janne Nisonen includes the composer's two final statements in the symphony genre. Like most of his symphonies, also Ries' Symphony No. 6 was premiered in London in 1822. His 7th Symphony, written a decade later, remained in the shadows and was published only in 2004. Both works, however, are full of discoveries.

The Spanish label IBS Classical releases Libro del Fr�o (Book of Cold), a major work by composer Jos� Mar�a S�nchez-Verd�, based on the celebrated poetry collection by Antonio Gamoneda, one of Spain's most influential contemporary poets and winner of the Cervantes Prize. Written for countertenor, organ, orchestra, and five spatialized instrumental groups, Libro del Fr�o is an immersive sound architecture conceived for the Cathedral of Le�n, where it was premiered in 2008 on the occasion of the 25th International Organ Festival. In this recording, the haunting voice of Carlos Mena finds it's perfect echo in the vast resonances of the sacred space, joined by �scar Candendo at the organ and the Orquesta Sinf�nica de Galicia, under the composer's direction. Drawing on the deep musicality of Gamoneda's verse, S�nchez-Verd� creates a unique dialogue between word, space, and sound. His composition unfolds as a seven-part cycle-with interludes and the final organ work L�mina-where silence and light become structural elements of the music. The result is an experience that blurs the boundaries between liturgy and abstraction, between human voice and cathedral architecture.

Encounter brings together two towering works of contemporary chamber music that speak across cultures, histories, and inner worlds. Osvaldo Golijov's The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind and Peteris Vasks' String Quartet No. 6 arise from profoundly different traditions-Jewish mysticism and Baltic spirituality-yet meet in a shared search for truth, memory, and transcendence. Both works are intensely personal, rooted in lived experience and belief, and animated by music's power to give voice to what lies beyond words: longing, suffering, hope, and illumination. In this recording, these worlds do not merely coexist; they listen to, reflect, and transform one another. Performed by the Arethusa Quartet with clarinetist Chen Halevi, Encounter is also a meeting of artistic journeys. Golijov's ecstatic, ritual-like score unfolds as a spiritual ascent through dreams, prayers, and blindness-understood as deeper inner vision-while Vasks' Sixth Quartet traces a life's arc from farewell and remembrance to a final, hushed encounter with transcendence, illuminated by echoes of Beethoven. Across both works, vulnerability and intensity are balanced by stillness and song, darkness by light. What emerges is an album that feels at once intimate and universal: an affirmation of shared humanity, and a reminder of music's enduring ability to connect past and present, earth and spirit, performer and listener. = Curiosa is conceived as a personal "cabinet of curiosities" by violinist Jorge Jim�nez, bringing together music that entered his life through years of travel, collaboration, and discovery. The album spans laments, dances, preludes, fugues, and songs from both renowned and anonymous sources, ranging from the Middle Ages to the Baroque and beyond. Each piece is selected for it's emotional depth, strangeness, and expressive power, forming a living repertoire shaped in rehearsals, late-night conversations, concerts, and recording sessions. Central to the project is Jim�nez's fascination with unaccompanied music and historical instruments, particularly the baroque violin and vielle, whose raw and earthy sound transports the listener into earlier sound worlds. Throughout Curiosa, Jim�nez weaves together personal heritage, musical memory, and imaginative storytelling. His own arrangements connect Bach, Dowland, Strozzi, Gaspar Sanz, and traditional tunes with vivid images. Joined by Joy Smith on early harps and Daniel Garay on historical percussion, and performing with his ensemble Tercia Realidad, Jim�nez blends historical insight with spontaneity and improvisation. The result is an album that feels both intimate and expansive-music passed "between hands, ears, and hearts," constantly transforming while remaining deeply rooted in shared curiosity and human connection. Jorge Jim�nez: "These pieces entered my life through the extraordinary musicians and ensembles I've been fortunate to work with across Europe. They form a living repertoire shaped in rehearsal rooms, late-night conversations, recording sessions, and concerts." = During the darkest of the lockdowns, I took my daughter to an open field near our home. In a time when the world felt shuttered and small, walking was our only escape from the suffocating stillness. As we reached the field, a sudden sensation washed over me-a quiet awakening. It wasn't just the spring breeze or the scent of the grass; it was a sudden reminder of what being alive meant. I felt I had been touched by Zephyr, the Greek god of the west wind, sparking a renewed wish to create and perform for the world once more. Liberte�: A piece exploring and searching for emotional freedom. Zephyr: Named after the gentle west wind, this track served as the primary source of inspiration for the entire album. Fushigi no Kuni: Translating to "Wonderland" in Japanese, this piece was inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland written by Lewis Carroll. A Troubadour in the Moonlight: A composition and improvisation depicting a minstrel serenading a loved one beneath the moon. For Misato: A heartfelt dedication to Misato-san, my dear friend who departed too young. The five songs above are composed by Yukari. Eurus, Suibokuga, Pandora's Box, Don't Follow the Piper, and Au cr�puscule are collective improvisations. = "We can imagine some eyebrows being raised at the description of Dora Pejacevic as a contemporary of Brahms; the two composers were born more than fifty years apart, and their lives only overlapped by twelve years. Yet both works by Pejacevic are unmistakably from the same compositional lineage as that by Brahms; and both are works written early on in Pejacevic's remarkable (and, sadly, all-too-short) life. Both pieces belong clearly to the romantic tradition, displaying no hint of the more modernist directions which her later works would take. We were immediately intoxicated by the passionate sweep of Pejacevic's Piano Quartet, but also the tenderness of it's slow movement, and felt it would make the perfect bedfellow for the First Piano Quartet of Brahms, a piece to which Tom has felt particularly close since student days. Brahms's Piano Quartet is justly one of the best-loved of all chamber works, and few works are more exhilarating to perform: the first movement offers an abundance of glorious themes; the second takes us to a mysterious dreamworld; the third luxuriates in expansive lyricism; then the fiery virtuosity of the gypsy finale sends us headlong to the finish line. This album brings us to the end of our recorded journey through Brahms's three piano quartets, and it has been the greatest privilege and joy to record these works, alongside three major piano quartets by composers who deserve to be far better known. However, we are pleased to say that the series does not end here: looking beyond the piano quartets, we have further albums in preparation, pairing Brahms with his brilliant and lesser-played contemporaries." -Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

Sarah Fox: Mozart Concert Arias

Philip Cashian (born Manchester, 1963) is one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary British music, widely recognised for a style that combines rhythmic urgency with luminous harmonic writing. His music has been described as "an uncompromising reflection of the modern world," characterised by tightly worked motivic ideas, striking instrumental colour, and a constant tension between propulsion and stillness. Trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Oliver Knussen and Simon Bainbridge, and later with Lukas Foss at Tanglewood, Cashian has developed a language that is both intellectually rigorous and immediately physical in it's impact. This recording brings together key chamber and concertante works spanning nearly three decades, framed by the two Chamber Concertos (1995 and 2024), written twenty-nine years apart. Both pieces explore the rich possibilities of instrumental combination within a chamber ensemble, giving prominence to extended solo lines and concertante groupings. Between them appear two more intimate works: Dances and Nocturnes (2020), a single-movement piano quartet alternating kinetic rhythmic energy with reflective, nocturnal stillness, and The Distance of Night (2022), a restrained and deeply expressive solo piano work written in memory of Simon Bainbridge. Throughout the programme, Cashian's music reveals a fascination with visual art-particularly mid-20th-century British abstraction-as well as a highly refined sense of form and drama. The result is a compelling portrait of a composer whose music is at once rigorous, vivid, and emotionally direct.

It crunches, rustles, whispers, rattles, bubbles - extended playing techniques, preparations, and various everyday materials produce a seemingly endless variety of sounds in Eloain Lovis H�bner's compositions. H�bner does not understand sound as fixed material, but rather as a state or "as a living relationship between bodies - instrumental, vocal or electronic," as booklet author Sophie Emilie Beha describes it. "The music is constantly in motion, attracting, repelling, tilting, shimmering, breaking apart, and reassembling itself. It creates spaces in which listening itself becomes a physical experience: focused, fragile, and yet full of energy." Two series of works are at the heart of the album. "crunch modes 1.0" (Schallfeld Ensemble) and "crunch modes 3.0" (Sp�ldzielnia Muzyczna Contemporary Ensemble) initially reveal what is typical of H�bner's composing - they zoom between micro- and macrocosm and move between structure and loss of control, accumulation and decay, and radicalism and delicacy. "Trauma und Zwischenraum" [Trauma and Interstice] was composed under the influence of the coronavirus pandemic and features three very different instrumentations: in the first part of the work, the ensemble airborne extended plays the recorder, flute, prepared harp, and harpsichord. In the second part, the musicians of the Arditti Quartet swap their bows for whisks, corks, or toothbrushes, creating acoustic metaphors. In the third part, interpreted by the Lange//Berweck//Lorenz Trio, hybrid sound bodies such as accordion plus effects unit or Korg MS 20 Mini with electric guitar are used. In "[untitled]," the only vocal work on the album, AuditivVokal Dresden deals with nonsense speech, noise imitation, and film language, referring to the legendary airport scene from the film "Casablanca".

The session notes for the 1974 recording show that Fantasias Nos. 1-5 were recorded on Monday, 26 August; Fantasias 7-12 on Tuesday, 27 August, followed by a day without recording. Fantasia No. 6 was recorded on Thursday, 29 August 1974. In these early days, it was Nimbus' practice to assemble masters quickly after recording, and given the founders' fierce commitment to 'unedited' takes, it is a reasonable bet that the master was assembled from the best whole takes of each movement. Scribbled words on the last page of the session notes suggest future possibilities: Tartini 24 Sonatas, Boccherini Quartets and Quintets with a 'very, very good pupil' for 2nd violin and 'Amo' (Fleming) on cello. Alas, it never happened. Apart from the Recording Agreement itself, there is no general correspondence in the Nimbus archive to explain how Maurice Clare found himself at Nimbus' Birmingham studio, nor why Telemann was the chosen repertoire. It is intriguing that Maurice's signature on the Agreement dated 24 April 1975 (interestingly eight months after the recording session) is witnessed by Ida G. Carroll-the celebrated principal of Manchester's Northern School of Music. In 1973, she was a key player in the amalgamation of Manchester's two music schools into the Royal Northern College of Music and served as it's first Dean of Management until 1976. � Adrian Farmer

Alongside Smetana, Dvorak, and Janacek, Bohuslav Martinu stands as one of the great pillars of Czech music. Born in Policka in 1890, he revealed his precocious talent early on, composing his first string quartet at just ten years old. His interest in France and it's music, particularly that of Debussy, developed quickly. As a second violinist of the Czech Philharmonic, Martinu also became well acquainted with the works of Ravel and Dukas. In 1923, he moved to Paris, where he studied under Albert Roussel. He would spend the next seventeen years in France, fleeing the German occupation in 1941 to take refuge in the United States. In 1953, he returned to Europe, dividing his time between Nice, Rome, and Switzerland, where he died in 1959. A composer of vast cultural horizons and innate cosmopolitanism, Martinu's music reveals a ceaseless curiosity for diverse styles. Though his early work is steeped in Czech folk traditions, his voice soon broadened to incorporate French clarity, the Renaissance English madrigal, and the baroque concerto grosso. Within his vast output, chamber music holds a central place. In 1946, while composing his Sixth String Quartet, Martinu wrote: "In pure chamber music, I always feel most myself." This new recording presents works written between 1937 and 1945: the famous Flute Sonata, Sonata for Flute, Violin & Piano, the Madrigal Sonata for the same instruments, and the Violin Sonata No.3, music of vibrant vitality and rich emotions. Played with strong commitment by Ambroise Aubrun (violin), Jocelyn Aubrun (flute) and Steven Vanhauwaert (piano).

From the tenderness of Faur�'s songs to the famous Sonata by Franck, via Honnor�, B�sser and Enescu, the viola here champions the French School in it's widest sense: full of lyricism, sophistication and intensity, here is a program to match the abilities of Timothy Ridout and his partner at the piano, Jonathan Ware.

While Rodolfo Ritter's repertoire encompasses many well-known and unfamiliar composers, he has made a speciality of Ponce's piano music. He recorded the two piano concertos (for Sterling) in 2013, as well as several solo pieces. Now, for Piano Classics, he embarks on a new adventure, which should win new friends everywhere for an idiom full of charm and optimism, essentially Romantic in spirit and piquantly coloured by the composer's Mexican heritage. A social and cultural revolution followed on the heels of Mexico's political revolution of 1910-1917, as a once largely rural nation became, within a matter of years, predominantly urban. Born in 1882, Manuel Ponce in some ways embodied the outward-facing spirit of that revolution, as the country's first internationally renowned composer of European-style art music ('classical'), and yet in the nostalgia-soaked language of that music evoked a romanticized past. This is the tension explored by Rodolfo Ritter as he begins a multi-volume journey through Ponce's piano output - only the second pianist to do so on record. Ponce was something of a child prodigy, already accomplished and cultivated as both a pianist and composer before he entered the national conservatoire in 1901. Take the dance for the left hand titled Malgre tout, which Ponce was inspired to write in 1900 as a homage to the sculpture of the same name by Jes�s F. Contreras - a resonant depiction of a chained and defenceless woman who, "despite everything", looks up with hope (not so oblique as a politically charged metaphor). Earlier still is the bel-canto style lyricism of the Misterio doloroso (1899). Another pivotal work for the left hand dates from a full quarter-century later, the Prelude and Fugue which Ponce wrote in Paris while under the tutelage of Paul Dukas. No less schooled by an earlier period of study in Europe, as a pupil of Martin Krause in Berlin, comes the Variations on a Theme by Handel (1906). In the interim, Ponce channelled this classical technique through the melodies and rhythms of his home country in pieces such as the Rapsodia Mexicana No. 1 of 1911. Volume 1 of Rodolfo Ritter's survey contains all these and many more exciting discoveries. As a Mexican pianist, teacher and scholar of German heritage, Rodolfo Ritter is ideally placed to guide us through such unfamiliar territory.

Two composers. Two bassoonists. Two premieres. One big musical feast. The bassoon as a solo instrument does not appear all that often in the concerto literature, but a concerto for two bassoons is truly rare, being something that could arise only in the environment of an ensemble that possessed two soloists on that instrument. One such double concerto has been played for many years under the name of the important Czech composer Jan Krtitel Vanhal. But what if it had really been composed by someone else? The question has been raised by Ondrej sindelar, a player of the classical bassoon, who has found the same concerto bearing the name of Anton Zimmermann in one of Prague's archives. The two works differ from each other only in the slow movement. Theft? Plagiarism? A copyist's error? Collegial assistance? We are left with the unsolved mysteries of authorship and of whether the two masters may have met. Vanhal's travels took him from Hradec Kralove to Vienna, Italy, Hungary, and Croatia. Having established himself professionally in Hradec Kralove, Zimmermann went on to a successful career in Pressburg (Bratislava) in the service of Archbishop Jozef Batthyany. What is important, however, is that Ondrej sindelar has now joined his former teacher, the bassoon wizard Sergio Azzolini, to record Zimmermann's version of the double concerto in it's world premiere, supplemented by a solo concerto by Zimmermann (another premiere) and one of Vanhal's three preserved concertos. Noteworthy music that is previously undiscovered in the hands of wonderful soloists and orchestra - that's a real musical feast.