This album comprises seven solo, chamber, and orchestral pieces composed over almost forty years. It does not include any compositions for Japanese instruments or for early instruments which are well-represented in other albums by David Loeb. All of the pieces were written specifically for the performers who have played them here.

On August 15, 1684, the Sun King's war against Emperor Leopold I and King Charles II of Spain reached a temporary end. Louis XIV had secured the advantage, and so several influential gentlemen sought to delight His Majesty with extravagant tributes. One of them was the Marquis de Seignelay, who spent the staggering sum of 100, 000 livres on illuminations, lavish banquets, and a concert at his Ch�teau de Sceaux on a summer evening. In doing so, he sparked a sensation that echoed for years: the Idylle sur la Paix (Idyll on Peace), featuring music by the court composer Lully and poetry by the court poet Racine. The Duke of Richelieu (the great-nephew of the legendary Cardinal) could only remain in second place. He, too, had planned a grand f�te at his estate, with music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and the unveiling of an equestrian statue of the king. But the devil lurked in the details, and the F�te never came to pass. Now, 340 years later, the Boston Early Music Festival brings this long-lost vision to life.

Born just months before his father's early death, Franz Xaver Mozart represented the great hope of his mother, Constanze, who envisioned the continuation of the musical lineage in the younger of her two surviving sons. She, therefore, ensured that he received a first-class education, and he strove with all his might to prove himself worthy of the trust placed in him. He became a distinguished and recognized pianist, while over the years he created a small but refined body of work dominated by intimate ensembles ranging from lieder to chamber music. His character, as revealed through his compositions, is not unlike that of his father: behind the classically elegant and occasionally humorous language lies a quiet, touching melancholy, which in his piano quartet presses stormily into the world of the Romantics.

Sueye Park is no stranger to solo violin recitals. After her recording of the Paganini Caprices (BIS-2282) and a recital entitled Journey through a Century (BIS-2492), both critically acclaimed, she brings us another solo project, Echoes of Exile, an undertaking that finds it's raison d'�tre in today's very turbulent times. Park offers us different perspectives on the topic of exile with works composed between the 1920s and 1950s, by great composers who left their country as a result of political circumstances as well as by others who went into their own inner exile. Two pieces by composers who left their native lands for artistic reasons, Enescu and Ysaye, frame three substantial and very contrasting works by composers forced into exile, either because their existence was threatened or because of a feeling of alienation within their respective countries. The works of Bartok and Ben-Haim show composers who, in their longing for their homelands, succeeded not only in emphasising the value of their culture even more strongly, but also in anchoring it within the environment into which they had entered. Zimmermann's sonata, with it's unique expressive language, evokes the concerns of a young composer in the devastated Germany of the post-war period.

In the eighteenth century, a special genre of instrumental ensemble playing developed in church music: works were written for a wind instrument and obbligato organ. The geographical center of this genre was the kingdom of Saxony along with Thuringia. The majority of these works specify oboe as the wind instrument, less frequently horn or even trumpet, flute, or bassoon. Besides a few compositions in a free style, these were predominantly chorale preludes in which the wind instrument played the cantus firmus (the chorale melody), and the organ, usually in trio textures, performed elaborate, often very virtuoso figurations.

Manuel Blancafort's music has a concise tonal directness that draws on his fondness for French composers. His Cancons are not simply evocative but embody an increasing use of the Noucentist aesthetic: the Catalan cultural movement of the early 20th century that was a reaction against Modernisme. Blancafort rejected the Romanticism and Wagnerian pathos of the modernist Lied in favour of Classicism and beauty - sentiments he shared with his Catalan contemporaries Toldra, Gerhard and Mompou. Intimate, sensitive and playful, his Catalan songs connect both to his country's past and also to a wider European musical culture.

An interpreter portrait of one of the most important German organists and composers in the second half of the 20th century

Music is an indispensable component of the early theater. This is true not only of Shakespeare's and Moliere's dramas in which there was singing, playing, and dancing, but also for the theater pieces of German-speaking authors. Yet, this beautiful and characteristic music lies dormant, like the pieces themselves, forgotten and unrecognized in libraries and archives. They are to be heard here again for the first time in centuries. This is a rediscovery of entirely unknown things. Baroque theater music - music not intended for the opera, but for the theater of the spoken word - comes to life again.

Florentine, born Francesco Maria Veracini (1690-1786), was considered one of the greatest violin virtuosos of his day. Periods of residence in London, Dusseldorf, Venice, and Dresden brought the eccentric musician international fame. Amongst his extensive output,� his Sonate Accademiche Op. 2 (London/Florence 1744) for violin and basso continuo are the best known today.�The character of the Sonate Accademiche is defined by a peculiar combination of the intellectual, the virtuosic, and the highly expressive.�Despite the technically demanding writing for the violin, Veracini's masterfully idiomatic approach to his own instrument means the virtuosity flows with a natural ease and playfulness.

Their fifth release on Signum Classics, the "engaging" (New Yorker) men's vocal en- semble Cantus present a collection of songs cycles by contemporary and living com- posers, exploring different kinds of journeys through song. "These contrasting song cycles share an embrace of change, growth, acceptance and renewal, and through the collective experience of their journeys - great and small, painful and magical - we gain a clearer picture of life and of ourselves" - Cantus

Two magnificent masses by the most important German representative of the "Messa concertata" at the beginning of the 17th century

Following their successful album Overtures from Finland (CHSA 5336) Rumon Gamba conducts the Oulu Symphony Orchestra in another programme of works from their native land. The album takes it's title from Selim Palmgren's four movement suite, which was written in 1904 and are richly atmospheric character pieces celebrating the changing seasons. Several of the works here take inspiration from the natural world, not least Sibelius' Kurkikohtaus (Scene with Cranes), originally composed as incidental music for a play by his brother-in-law, Arvid Jarnefelt. Robert Kajanus is often considered the father of Finnish music. As a young man, Kajanus was one of the standard bearers in the drive for Finnish independence, and he developed a keen artistic interest in Finnish folklore and vernacular traditions. His second Finnish Rhapsody (Suomalainen rapsodia), Op. 8, dates from 1886 and is the oldest work here. The album also features works by two other key Finnish composers: Vaino Raitio and Leevi Madetoja - a native of Oulu. Taken as a whole, the album presents it's own fascinating picture of Finnish Orchestral Music.

In the early years of the twentieth century a first wave of composers in the Caucasus laid down the basis of their national schools by grafting the outlines of western classical music onto local folk traditions. By mid-century a second generation took up the challenge more thoroughly, their compositions confidently handling the large forms of the concert hall, though still drawing on regional idioms. The Soviet orthodoxy of the day expected it's composers to abide by the rules, but the three composers heard here - two Azeris and a Georgian, all young men when they wrote the violin concertos on this album - brought something fresh and individual to the task, marrying east and west, form and freedom, tradition and originality.

Five significant 20th-century compositions for violin and cello. Works by Xenakis, Ravel and Honegger reflect the composers' French roots, while a diverse, forward-looking harmonic language contrasts with such traditional forms as the sonata and passacaglia, the latter in Norwegian Johan Halvorsen's Passacaglia for Violin and Cello after Georg Friedrich Handel; Austro-Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff's Duo for Violin and Cello completes the programme. Manuel Lipstein has already released his first solo album, Roots, on OehmsClassics.

This arresting new album presents a major addition to the solo flute repertoire, bringing together the visionary artistry of flautist�Noemi Gyori�and the intricate, evocative music of composer�Sinan Savaskan. Spanning nearly five decades of Savaskan's compositional output, the album explores the full expressive range of the flute it's lyric warmth, it's structural clarity, and it's capacity for sonic transformation-often in dialogue with subtly woven electronic elements. At the heart of the album lies�Sonata '... una rilettura indipendente', a five-movement tour de force that is both architectural and deeply intuitive. Conceived as part of the composer's epic cycle�Many Stares through Semi-Nocturnal Zeiss-Blink, this work embodies Savaskan's radical approach to form and harmony an evolving narrative shaped by transformation, resonance, and reflection. Written specifically for Noemi Gyori, the Sonata draws upon her exceptional virtuosity and interpretative insight, and represents a rare synthesis of structural rigour and emotional intensity. Alongside the Sonata are three additional works, each revealing a distinct facet of Savaskan's sound-world.�The Sleep of Reason, for solo flute, offers a tightly coiled musical meditation, born from a nocturnal journey and haunted by socio-political undercurrents and subconscious recollections.�Always at Dusk, No.3, for alto flute and electronics, distills a fleeting emotional memory into an atmosphere of suspended time, echoing the concept of�duree�rather than chronological sequence. Finally,�Pas de Deux for One, originally composed in 1978 and revised in 2023, draws from Savaskan's background in dance and experimental film, resulting in a vivid theatricality that unfolds through extended techniques and shifting gestures. The electronics, composed entirely from transformations of flute sounds, serve not as backdrop but as an active, organic extension of the instrument's breath, resonance, and timbral possibilities. Whether experienced through speakers or headphones, the recording invites deep listening preferably in dim light, as Gyori suggests offering an immersive sonic space where listener, performer, and composer meet. An album for connoisseurs of contemporary music,�Sonata '... una rilettura indipendente'�is a profound collaboration between two artists whose shared sensitivity reshapes what solo flute music can mean today.