Bach's English Suites are a set of six keyboard suites, each featuring a prelude and a series of stylised dance movements. While named 'English, the suites are more closely related to the French Baroque style, featuring intricate counterpoint, technically demanding passages, and a grander scale compared to Bach's French Suites. Papastefanou's Baroque style and technique is first-class in her brand new recording of these technically high demanding Suites. A natural Bach player who plays with panache, high skill, individuality with an attractive style and touch, Papastefanou's has produced another high quality recording of Bach, in this her 6th album for FHR.

Over the course of his life, Einojuhani Rautavaara's work has developed like a microcosm of the history of music since 1950. His break with the bonds of serialism and a commitment to his own unique ideals were of crucial importance to his international reputation - a courageous step that manifested itself in unmistakeable creations. Rautavaara demands extreme intimacy and immediate, vivid empathy from his listeners, but rewards them with a spiritual wealth that leaves an indelible impression. The 50-year old violin concerto with it's delicate reminiscences of Sibelius, the poignant declaration of love in the Serenade from the year of his death, 2016, and his beautiful Autumn Gardens written just before the turn of the millennium are impressive examples of his intelligibility and are for good reason the most often performed works of the Finnish master.

As one of the main representatives of Viennese early classical music, Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1715-1777) is one of the composers of the gallant and sensitive style epoch, which became so important for the shaping of Viennese classical music in the history of music in the 18th century. The two CDs with Elisabeth Ullmann and the Piccolo Concerto Wien as well as the Ensemble Echo du Danube introduce us to music that has been neglected for far too long and which, in addition to it's significance in music history, is characterised not least by a typical Viennese quality: it's irresisti

Formed in 2020 and comprised of veterans of New York City's vital contemporary music community, the Anzu Quartet - Olivia de Prato, Ashley Bathgate, Ken Thomson and Karl Larson - is an ensemble dedicated to the music of our time and the recent canon. The quartet's first full-length studio release of premiere recordings features new works by Thomson (?) and fellow composer Anna Webber (?, which lends the album it's title). Relentless, kinetic and emotive, Thomson's ? reflects the pace and anxieties of modern life, while Webber's ? explores the liminal space between classical contemporary music and experimental jazz. Both works, composed between 2019 and 2022, highlight the quartet's prowess as interpreters and performers of demanding, modern repertoire, and fulfill Anzu's mission of commissioning and promoting new repertoire for the instrumentation of Messiaen's elemental "Quartet for the End of Time," a new recording of which the group will release later in 2025.

Saxophonist Anton Schwartz brings music for the serious jazz lover, but is also fun and accessible to all. With classic holiday songs and compelling arrangements, this is a perfect stocking stuffer for any music lover!. Anton Jazz.2004.

Close harmony singing is the vocal equivalent of a jazz big band, and this programme is the Vasari Singers' personal tour of a style in which they have excelled for years. Their connection with Ward Swingle and the pioneering Swingle Singers is explored in arrangements ranging from traditional folk songs such as the haunting Danny Boy, to favourites by The Beatles and the delicious harmonies of Stephen Sondheim. George Shearing's English musical background and American jazz influence combine in his Songs and Sonnets from Shakespeare, and the album closes with a cleverly integrated and up-beat version of Duke Ellington's classic It don't mean a thing (if it ain't got that swing).

Arrigo Boito is remembered today for his only completed opera Mefistofele. The score for Nerone was left unfinished at the composer's death - a performing version was completed by the composers Vincenzo Tommasini and Antonio Smareglia, along with Arturo Toscanini who conducted the world premiere at Teatro alla Scala in 1924. The narrative focuses on Emperor Nero during a time of conflict between beliefs in Imperial Roman gods and Christianity, and ends with tragic dramas amidst the Great Fire of Rome. With influences that include Wagner and Sibelius, Boito's rarely performed Nerone uses a truly exciting harmonic palette delivered through a masterly handling of huge orchestral forces.

Carl Teike achieved great success at the beginning of his career with Alte Kameraden (available on Naxos 8.574317), renowned as the German 'march of marches'. Characterised by a clear structure, inventiveness and a wide range of tone colours, Teike's marches significantly enriched the German concert march genre. On this second of three volumes they range from the festive Aus allen deutschen Gauen ('From All Regions of Germany') composed for veterans, marches with patriotic titles such as Der Kaiser kommt and Kaiser-Parole or dedicated to major cities in Northern Germany, to Die Welt in Waffen ('The Weaponised World'), which gave rise to political scandal in it's day.

What better way to introduce Alfred Cortot to APR's French Piano School series than by focussing on the few recordings he actually made in France. There's a good case for claiming Cortot as the greatest of twentieth century French pianists and he was certainly the most prolific one to record in the 78-rpm era. He began recording as a soloist in 1919 and continued through to the 1950s, but nearly all his discs were made in the USA and the UK. It was only during World War 2 that he recorded solo repertoire in France and these recordings, originally only released locally, are much less well-known than his London HMVs from the 1930s. Cortot seems to have planned these Paris sessions to be a substantial survey of Chopin's works, including the complete Polonaises and Scherzi which he had not previously recorded, but in the end only the Etudes, Preludes and Waltzes were released. Cortot here is still on top form, the post war decline in his playing not yet evident, and these performances are very much complimentary to his earlier ones. Anyone, knowing of Cortot's 'wrong notes' and doubting his technique only has to listen to these Etudes (all first takes!) to hear virtuoso playing of the highest order, and of course Cortot's unique poetry is never in doubt. Perhaps the Preludes best reveal the soul of our pianist, and this set finds him at his finest. As an appendix we have included another rarity, Cortot's first recording of Chopin's B minor Piano Sonata, made in London in 1931. He was to remake the work in the then new Abbey Road studios in 1933, and it is this later version which has been continuously reissued, but this earlier version is in no way inferior and could be argued to be better in parts than the 1933 version. It is also in very good sound for it's time and we are happy to give it some well-deserved attention.

For his tenth Avie release, Daniel-Ben Pienaar advocates for the little-known French composer Gaspard Le Roux, by re-imagining his exquisite "Piece de clavessin" from 1705 (his only publication) for it's first ever recording on the modern piano. By turns pleasing, witty, brilliant and affecting, the complete collection makes for a diverting and balanced recital. For his tenth Avie release, Daniel-Ben Pienaar advocates for the little-known French composer Gaspard Le Roux, by re-imagining his exquisite "Piece de clavessin" from 1705 (his only publication) for it's first ever recording on the modern piano. By turns pleasing, witty, brilliant and affecting, the complete collection makes for a diverting and balanced recital.

During his lifetime, Oskar Merikanto (1868-1924) was the most popular composer at Finnish homes. Even today, in events such as weddings or funerals, his pieces are widely heard and performed. Merikanto was an excellent pianist and organist and possessed a particular gift in writing memorable melodies. Enjoying great popularity, Merikanto wrote over 200 songs, a number of duets and also several choral works, and nearly 200 piano works. Year 2024 marks the 100th anniversarys from the death of Oskar Merikanto. To celebrate this anniversary year, baritone Waltteri Torikka is presenting 29 melodies by Oskar Merikanto through this album. Signed by Warner in 2015, Waltteri Torikka topped the Finnish pop charts for 3 weeks in 2018, performs frequently in European opera festivals and music festivals, and has also performed at the BBC Proms.

Released to celebrate the 70th anniversary of these sessions and the 75th anniversary of Prestige Records, "Miles '54" brings together 20 tracks recorded by the trumpet legend in 1954. Including cuts from albums released that year, it features Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk and more. Included are new liner notes by GRAMMY Award-winning music historian Ashley Kahn and session notes by Dan Morgenstern, with mastering by Paul Blakemore. 2 CD set.

An unprecedented and critically praised series reaches it's fifth and final volume with richly evocative settings of German and Russian poets, from Pushkin to Nietzsche and beyond. Though born in Moscow, Medtner had partially German ancestry, and nearly half his songs are set to German poetry, which he knew in the original. In previous volumes of their complete survey of his songs, Ekaterina Levental and Frank Peters have concentrated on the Russians; now they conquer the peaks, as Medtner did, of Romantic German poetry, with texts by Goethe, Chamisso and Eichendorff. Rather less well known as a poet was Friedrich Nietzche, but he was a figure who fascinated Medtner, and the settings here speak of deep affinity. In the booklet, Ekaterina Levental reflects on her own sense of affinity with the composer. 'It was love at first hearing. It was as if someone whispered to me a truth for which there were no sounds before. He sounded out for me emotions and feelings, images, associations, a world of felt knowledge and experiences that I had been carrying inside me all along, but had never heard expressed in such a way. Someone from the past spoke to me in a language that I seemed to understand totally instinctively. Passing on this knowledge and wonder and sharing it with the audience became my dream.' This cycle on record has been a passion project for both artists, and Peters also passes on his own insights into Medtner's notoriously complex piano writing. Between them, they have gone further than anyone else in documenting a perennially undervalued Russian song composer, who deserves to be considered alongside Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky in this vein. This final volume closes out the cycle with the Eight Lieder Op.61, which move between Russian and German poets in a quintessentially Medtnerian synthesis. 'All in all, Levental and Peters make the strongest possible case for the repertoire... Levental continues to strike us with the beauty and purity of her voice and the rhetorical sensitivity of her phrasing, unfailingly tied to the affect of the text.' (Fanfare)

After it's Baroque heyday, the oboe did not have an easy time of it in the 19th century. The Romantic period favoured the warmer, fuller sound of the clarinet, and the former star among the wind instruments was rarely featured in solo works. Reason enough to remedy this situation, thought the famous master arranger Andreas N. Tarkmann and set to work. It was no coincidence that he chose Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, whom he considers to be the consummate composer of the early Romantic period. From seven selected 'Songs without Words' - typically Romantic short piano preciosi - Tarkmann creates a fascinatingly dense suite for oboe and string orchestra. A much larger work inspired him to create a homage to Mozart and his concerto for flute, harp and chamber orchestra. Tarkmann takes up this instrumentation and gives Mendelssohn's concerto, originally scored for violin, piano and chamber orchestra, a completely new tonal guise.

Even though the arias have been 'stripped' of their text (using the historical techniques of transcription, of course, which were very fashionable at the time), they showcase Farinelli's artistry and evoke the noble sound and his open-throated messa di voce that inspired composers such as his brother Riccardo Broschi to write such charming arias as "Ombra fedele" or "Son qual nave". And the arias that Hasse and Porpora wrote for Farinelli also bring us very close to his seductive supernaturalism.