Two years ago, the Arte dei Suonatori ensemble and it's dynamic conductor and harpsichordist Marcin Swiatkiewicz presented C.P.E. Bach's 'Hamburg' Symphonies (BIS-2459) - highly expressive and personal works. Nervous, full of unexpected twists and turns, surprises, contrasts and 'affects', they are, in a word, marked by Empfindsamkeit (heightened emotionality). This time, Arte dei Suonatori and Marcin Swiatkiewicz present six 'Berlin' Symphonies, composed between 1755 and 1758, that is, before the 'Hamburg' Symphonies. Arte dei Suonatori and it's conductor chose the original versions for strings alone with harpsichord continuo, making this recording the first to offer all these works together in their original forms without the wind parts, which were added later. The chamber-like aspect of the writing is highlighted here by the ensemble's compact instrumental force, where each musician participates on an equal footing and everyone is heard. Swiatkiewicz also points out that their interpretation, resting on historically oriented performance practices, is "grounded in a constant search for analogies between music and poetry, alongside a close attention to prosody and dance forms", ensuring that they will undoubtedly delight music lovers of the 21st century.

Saxophonist Ruth Sabadino's new album celebrates life in all it's colors and nuances. Funky jazz with depth and drive - dynamic, energetic, sparkling with improvisation and an organic band sound. In catchy songs and a healthy dose of jazz, funk, and soul, she and her band tell stories of highs and lows, joie de vivre, and authentic moments. A sound that touches and moves with it's deep bass clarinet, crisp tenor sax, and fine vocals - full of warmth, depth, and drive. Close at her side is a top-class band: Werner Acker, Kurt Holzkamper, and Christoph Sabadino.

Virgile Barthe, winner of the 2025 Guitar Foundation of America Competition, presents works ranging from the Baroque to the 21st century performed with his impeccable virtuosity and artistry. This recital takes us from arrangements of Domenico Scarlatti's deeply expressive sonatas and Buxtehude's brilliant Suite, to the lyrical Songs without Words of Mendelssohn and the haunting Music of Memory by Nicholas Maw. The album closes with Dusan Bogdanovic's Third Sonata, a truly virtuoso piece with it's quotes from Stravinsky and musical influences from the Balkans, jazz and the Renaissance.

Transience is one of the major themes of the Baroque period, and Gabriel Garrido has put together an entire programme for this production featuring works from Baroque Rome whose lyrics deal with the transience of the world. The texts are sombre and brimming with charged symbolism of death - in stark contrast, the music of Giacomo Carrismi, the brothers Vigilio and Domenico Mazzocchi, Marco Marazzoli, and Kaspar Förster is cheerful and magnificent. The grand seigneur of Baroque music, Gabriel Garrido, works with a large ensemble of young musicians and singers on this recording, which was brought together for the first Rencontre Baroque de Montfrin festival. The result is a wonderful example of Baroque splendour in 17th-century Rome, which sweetens the transience of life for the listener with the most beautiful colours and Baroque soundscapes.

With his concept album PEACE, renowned Austrian violinist and composer Yury Revich (-1991) invites listeners on a journey through the world to explore inner and universal peace through the voices of composers from different backgrounds and cultures. The consistently melodious program also includes compositions by Yury Revich himself: his Impressions - short, connecting pieces of music created especially for this project - as well as two original poems, act as conceptual bridges within the chapters of the album and shape PEACE into a coherent musical narrative. Sensitively interpreted by Yury Revich together with accordionist Basha Slavinska and pianists David Chen and Volodymyr Borodin, the album acquires a special artistic depth and coherence.

Following the huge success of the album Spotlight on John Williams, the City Light Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kevin Griffiths, returns with an equally spectacular follow-up project: Sound of Adventure. The double CD brings together legendary film themes that embody a spirit of adventure, imagination, and emotional depth in equal measure-a tribute to the great soundscapes of Hollywood. An album that not only delights film music fans, but also impressively translates the orchestral artistry of the great screen composers into concert format.

The Queen of Instruments meets one of the world's leading organists, Iveta Apkalna. The repertoire of the new album includes Vasks' Viatore and Te Deum, as well as Pärt's famous Spiegel i'm Spiegel, Pari intervallo, Trivium, and Annum per annum. Two of the most important contemporary composers are united on one album, celebrating Pärt's 90th birthday in 2025 and Vasks' 80th birthday in 2026. Also captured on this release is a milestone in music history: it is the first-ever solo organ recording made on the organ of the Ventspils Concert Hall "Latvija"-one of the most remarkable concert instruments in Northern Europe.

Tenor Daniel Behle fulfills a heartfelt wish and sings the "great" bel canto repertoire. However, he is not accompanied by a symphony orchestra, but by the renowned Alliage Quintet. The idea is as unusual as it is charming: instead of a full opera orchestra, four saxophones and a piano take center stage - sometimes shining velvety soft like strings, sometimes flashing virtuosically like brass instruments. Behle, one of the most versatile tenors of our time, sings arias that every opera lover carries in their heart-and which shine here in completely new colors. Bel canto with a wink, so to speak

Today, it is a beacon in the world of music: a cappella choir culture at the highest technical and musical level. Clytus Gottwald had a decisive influence on this choir culture with his work, arranging solo songs for polyphonic choirs and thus enabling new, breathtaking sound experiences. In 2025, Gottwald would have turned 100 years old. The Stuttgart Chamber Choir, conducted by Frieder Bernius, has taken this anniversary as an opportunity to honor Gottwald's art with a special program. From Franz Schubert's Nacht und Träume (Night and Dreams) to Die Könige (The Kings) by Peter Cornelius to Solveig's Song by Edvard Grieg, the range of songs that Gottwald transformed into a cappella choral sound experiences through his transcriptions is vast. A vocal delight, not only in the anniversary year!

Black Mountains features original compositions by Alexej Gerassimez and Gordon Hamilton, who also conducts this recording with the NDR Radiophilharmonie. The program explores the dynamic interplay between orchestral sound and percussion, with a highlight being the work Leviathan by John Psathas-a powerful composition for percussion and orchestra, written specifically for Alexej Gerassimez.

Capella de la Torre, one of Europe's most renowned early music ensembles, is starting a new chapter: future projects will be released on the Prospero Classical label. This exciting collaboration kicks off with the anniversary album 20 Years of Capella de la Torre, which will be released in the form of a high-quality digipack. With this recording, the ensemble celebrates two decades of intensive artistic work, numerous award-winning projects, and tireless curiosity about the sound worlds of the Renaissance and early Baroque, licensed by Sony Classical.

With his first recording, Himmelsmusik, the Hieronymus Consort explores Sacred Concerts and Songs by the Hamburg councillor, musician, and organist Johann Schop and his son Albert Schop. Both composers were well connected during their time; Johann traveled to Copenhagen together with Heinrich Schütz to play at the wedding celebrations of the Danish Crown Prince. Albert received his organ education from Philipp Scheidemann and worked as organist at the Mecklenburg court in Güstrow. The concerts shine through their focus on text and virtuosity, and the songs, with texts from Johann Rist's Heavenly Songs, transport the listener to other worlds.

Baroque mastermind Jörg Halubek finishes his journey around the great historic organs of Germany. The final installment of his series Organ Landscapes on vinyl. Halubek plays the Silbermann organ (1710-1714) in the Dom St. Marien Church in Freiberg, the Hildebrandt organ (1746) in St. Wenzel Church in Naumburg, and in the St. Johannis Church in Lüneburg.

The Elastic Heart of Youth Preface - Notes of Renewal If we understood the world, we would realize that there is a logic of harmony underlying it's manifold apparent dissonances. - Jean Sibelius, In 1907, in conversation with Gustav Mahler. Originating in distinct musical dialects - Baroque, Classical, Nordic, Slavic, French, and contemporary - the works recorded here are bound together by a vivid, elastic heart: a profound spirit of vitality that endures through tension and release, stillness and motion, loss and restoration. Beneath their differing voices beats a kindred pulse shared with the natural world. Sibelius's Le Sapin evokes the spruce's calm and poise, it's hushed sonorities suggesting their own logic of repose. Janacek's Sonata 1.X.1905 bears witness - urgent, searching, unafraid-it's broken arcs invoking the dissonances of modernity's estrangement from nature and the fragile openings through which rebirth begins. Debussy's etude pour les arpeges composes and La fille aux cheveux de lin shimmer with shifting light and color, while Clair de lune unfolds in the moon's tender chiaroscuro, a meditation of light, shadow, and serenity. Mozart's Fantasy in D minor restores grace and clarity not by denying shadow, but by transfiguring it; it's improvisatory nature finds form through discovery. Scarlatti's sonatas dance with quick, inventive pulse: sunlight on stone, castanets crossing through the air. Their brilliance is youthful joy tempered by seasoned experience. Gross's Solace turns inward towards repose. Here the heart practices a different virtuosity - the courage to be calm, to let resonance and renewal begin. Even in this quietude, her music recalls nature's adaptability, it's patient recalibrations in the face of change. Missy Mazzoli's The Elastic Heart of Youth gathers all these energies into a radiant celebration of life. It's tensile rhythms and glowing harmonies echo the supple strength of the living world-the capacity to bend, to adapt, to begin again.

This double CD brings together two of the most impressive sacred works of the 18th century, composed in different cultural and religious contexts - yet linked by their extraordinary expressive power: Jan Dismas Zelenka's little-known Missa Paschalis ZWV 7 and George Frideric Handel's Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline HWV 264. In the interpretation of the ensembles Zeronove and I pizzicanti under the direction of Lukas Wanner, these works unfold their full emotional and dramaturgical depth. Zelenka's Missa Paschalis, composed for Easter, is one of the Bohemian master's most original mass settings. It is juxtaposed with Handel's Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline, a work of monumental dignity and haunting simplicity. The ensembles Zeronove and I pizzicanti approach these works with stylistic sensitivity and tonal transparency. Historically informed but never academic, they focus on expressive articulation, lively tempi and clear emotional expression.

To mark the 85th birthday of the renowned Munich composer Wilfried Hiller, master of universal sound art, the CD VERNISSAGE Works for Violin, Piano, North Indian Singing Bowls, Wine Glasses and Tap Shoes will be released now: This unconventional instrumentation creates a synthesis of tradition and experimentation that takes the listener into new dimensions of sound. Several world premiere recordings can also be heard, some inspired by the expressive sculptures of the artist Antje Tesche-Mentzen. Interpreted by violinist Franziska Strohmayr and pianist Laura Pitz, who make the nuanced timbres shine, they also present solo works with virtuoso musicality and technique, interweaving harmonic worlds and percussive elements. This CD is a novelty in contemporary music: innovative, interdisciplinary and astonishing!

Louise Farrenc was one of the most respected pianists, composers and pedagogues in the Parisian musical scene of her day, gaining the admiration of Robert Schumann. Her Theme and Variations sets are regarded as some of the most significant pieces she composed for piano. In this volume, Farrenc takes inspiration from the famous bel canto operas of Bellini and Donizetti, as well as popular airs and dances that would have resounded throughout the fashionable salons of 19th-century Paris. Maria Stratigou continues her acclaimed survey of Farrenc's complete works for piano.

Haydn composed the three symphonies in this volume during the mid-1780s in a spirit of triumph. Though still employed by the Esterhazy family, he had recently been allowed to publish his music himself and to accept outside commissions. A number of symphonies were duly commissioned by a new, large ensemble recently established in Paris. Superficially similar, they reveal Haydn's inexhaustible creativity whether in the astonishingly colourful introduction to No. 84, the rustic interludes in the trio section of No. 85 - a favourite of Marie Antoinette, or in the greatest of the Paris symphonies, No. 86, where the transition from the slow introduction to the main section is unequalled in his music.

The sound of a viol consort seems to float lightly; the silky, shining tones of the viols, ranging from soprano to bass, combine almost weightlessly - free from all. This consort was particularly popular in England around 1600, and no self-respecting household was without 'a chest of viols' (a box containing a set of different viols). The most important English composers wrote wonderful music for this ensemble, from dance movements and fantasies to complex polyphonic compositions, bringing the repertoire for viol consort to a peak. The 'chest of viols' of the Ensemble Private Musicke has compiled 'highlights' of English viola da gamba music by composers such as Holborne, Dowland, Ferrabosco II, Tye and Coperario, taking the listener on a journey through the air.

With If Love's a Sweet Passion, soprano Arianna Savall, tenor Petter Udland Johansen, and the Freitagsakademieunder the direction of Katharina Suske present a carefully curated selection of vocal and instrumental works by Henry Purcell and George Frideric Handel. The album illuminates essential aspects of Baroque affect, stylistic hybridity and dramatic rhetoric. It's program brings together Purcell's distinctly English musical language - marked by rhetorical clarity and subtle chromatic inflection - with Handel's Italianate, operatically expansive melodic writing and his masterful shaping of musical character. This recording unites two central Baroque traditions - the English 'consort style' of Purcell and the Italianate dramaturgy of Handel - within a coherent artistic and dramaturgical framework.

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Time brings with it many changes in the course of a lifetime. "The only constant in life is change," stated the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. The Italian composer Carlo Alessandro Landini, whose string quartet was premiered by the renowned Arditti Quartet at the Darmstadt Summer Courses in 1994 and has made him famous in Germany since, has always been concerned with change and transformation, both embodying the deepest essence of music. In the meantime, his works have become calmer, more balanced, exuding aesthetic beauty and harmony through their tonal inventiveness. The listener is surprised by the extremely subtle sound visions that the pieces presented here suggest. They could be understood today as counter-designs-probably due to the composer's spiritually oriented creativity-to our restless times. This leads us right into the heart of these four works. In the background of his creativity, Landini believes in the special proximity of all art to the realm of metaphysics. He is virtually inspired by this aspect and sets out in his compositions in search of what holds the world together. His more recent works convey his message of a "world soul" of some kind. His music requires a listener who opens up in order to broaden the shared horizon and feel more strongly what is happening between heaven and earth. Landini continuously unfolds his music from a nucleus. The composer demands intensive, sensitive listening to space and time from himself, his performers, and his listeners. Olivier Messiaen, whose student Landini had been, must have encouraged and inspired him in this.

The award-winning vibraphonist Pascal Schumacher and the internationally acclaimed pianist Danae Dorken present their new album 'Glass Two' - an impressive musical homage to one of the most influential composers of our time: Philip Glass. Their unusual instrumentation for piano and vibraphone creates an unrivaled sound world that brings Glass' minimalist worksto life in a new and refreshing way. At the heart of the album are original interpretations of Glass' compositions, complemented by Schumacher's own works. These pieces, inspired by personalities who influenced the American composer, such as the poet Allen Ginsberg or the sculptor Richard Serra, form a unique fusion of two musical worlds. This fusion creates a profound and multifaceted, yet reduced and clear atmosphere. Pascal Schumacher and Danae Dorken impressively demonstrate that less is sometimes more: Their artfully crafted arrangements are characterised by a fascinating transparency that captures the essence of minimalist music. The result is a captivating listening experience that allows the colors and textures of Glass' works to shine in a new light and interact harmoniously with Schumacher's own compositions. The album will be released on the Neue Meister label on CD and vinyl on 8 November 2024 and is an indispensable discovery for all lovers of modern classical music. Immerse yourself in the soundscapes of 'Glass Two' and experience a musical journey that inspires both in it's reduction and diversity

New recordings of neglected but compelling piano works from the spring of Giuseppe Martucci's career. Martucci composed all the pieces on this album during the year 1876. As Ilaria Sinicropi observes in her booklet essay, Martucci was 'a composer in the making', in the first flush of his talent. In finding his own voice for instrumental composition, he looked naturally northwards, to the other side of the Alps, and in particular to Schumann and to Brahms, with their strong narrative arcs, their expansion of traditional models such as sonata form and their richly chromatic but disciplined harmony. The more adventurous language of the Capriccio e Serenata Op.57 was yet to come. Yet the first movement of the Piano Sonata - mysteriously neglected by pianists until now, with no other recordings in the current catalogue - already shows Martucci stretching his wings, and adapting the fantasy-style of Schumann to the ends of his own lyrical style. Sinicropi hears within it a powerful evocation of nature in the mould of Grieg's Lyric Pieces, and it prefigures the imposing intensity of expression in the third-movement Andante, with a scintillating Scherzo to serve as intermezzo and a Lisztian finale which synthesizes elements of chorale, fugue and rondo. The suite of Four Pieces Op.31 do not venture into the Sonata's ambitious terrain, cast by and large in a vein of gentle introspection, but they too reward close listening (which again is only now possible with Ilaria Sinicropi's recording). In fact the opening Nocturne is the most developed piece of the quartet, belying it's title with fiery outbursts and unexpected pauses. The following barcarolle and Romance may be heard as songs without words in a stylish emulation of Mendelssohn, before a final 'Dolce Ricardo's (Sweet Memory) returns to the tripartite but eventful form of the Nocturne. Finally, the Mazurka Op.35 makes a graceful encore, 'deeply rooted in the Italian tradition and the expressive style typical of mannerism,' according to Ilaria Sinicropi. Her affinity with this music is abundantly clear from her playing as well as her writing, and with this album she makes an auspicious debut on Piano Classics, which is sure to attract wider attention.

Under the title "Bach Organ Landscapes", a new complete recording of Bach's organ works will be released over the next few years. It is based on ten historical organ builders who were relevant to Johann Sebastian Bach. With no other instrument like the organ are space and sound so closely linked. The further we look back into the history of music, the more regional developments play a role. Traveling has been part of the world of organists from the very beginning.