The fourth volume of this diverse and instructive series presents itself as a "group portrait with a lady". In this installment, Douglas Bostock and the Southwest German Chamber Orchestra Pforzheim continue their exploration of British string music history. Representing the "fairer sex" among her colleagues is Imogen Holst, daughter of the renowned composer of The Planets. Of all the composers featured, she employs the most advanced musical language. Nevertheless, they are all united by a shared artistic ethos: they creatively follow in the footsteps of the old masters, devising various ways to bridge the spirit of past centuries with their own time. This may take shape as variations or as a musical monument, but more often than not, it unfolds "en suite" - with refined taste and that distinctly British sense of conservatism.

Elsa Barraine (1910-1999) must have been a musical prodigy. At 18, she placed second in the competition for the coveted Prix de Rome; by 19, she had it in the bag. While studying under Paul Dukas in the Eternal City, she composed, among other works, a first symphony of remarkable quality and individuality, unmistakably neoclassical. There is no question that this was no mere talent but the manifestation of an outstanding figure. And she lived up to the high expectations placed upon her: The "symphonic illustration of Andre Spire's poem Pogrom" proves to be a gripping tone poem, and the second symphony from 1938 unleashes a force one neither wants nor can resist. And there remains La Mise au tombeau du Titien (The Entombment of Titian") from 1953 - a passacaglia whose expressive power and intensity take one's breath away.

SOMM Recordings celebrates the wealth of popular concert music produced in Vienna in the 19th and early 20th centuries with a release called Dancing in Vienna, an exhilarating collection of waltzes to set your feet tapping. The Philharmonic Concert Orchestra is led by the versatile Scottish conductor, Iain Sutherland, whose previous, wide-ranging collaborations with SOMM have received enthusiastic critical response: "strong and trenchant, often exhilarating, never sentimental, " Gramophone; "getting pretty much everything right, every nuance and subtle rhythm, " Amazon USA. Einzi Stolz, widow of one of the last masters of Viennese light music, Robert Stolz, wrote to Sutherland, "You have a Viennese heart with the golden arm for Viennese music." Robert Stolz's rousing march, Greetings from Vienna, opens this collection, which also includes his Viennese Cafe Waltzes. Dominating the light music programmes of Vienna for almost a century was the Strauss family-Johann I and his three sons Johann II, Josef, and Eduard. They composed dances and conducted their own orchestras for all the grand balls and concerts almost every day of the week in Vienna, as well as all over the world. Among the works by Johann Strauss II included here is his famous Emperor Waltz, commissioned in 1889 for a state visit by Emperor Franz-Joseph I of Austria-Hungary to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. Reflecting the rise of popular Hungarian gypsy music at the time is his Salute the Magyars polka, along with the Trisch Trasch, Thunder and Lightning, and Champagne polkas, and the overture to his operetta masterpiece, Die Fledermaus. Johann II was the most famous of the family of musicians, though he once said of his younger brother, Josef Strauss, that he was "the more gifted of us two; I am merely the more popular..." From Josef Strauss we have the Chatterbox Polka, Dragonfly Polka-Mazurka, Jockey Polka (incorporating the international trumpet call marking the opening of the racing season), the Feuerfest! Polka to celebrate the Wertheim company's 200, 000th fireproof safe, and the beloved Pizzicato Polka, on which he collaborated with popular brother. The youngest of the Strauss brothers, Eduard Strauss, was better recognized as a dance music conductor than as a composer. Still, this release includes his Clear Track Polka, heralding the opening of a new railway company in 1869. Johannes Brahms greatly admired the melodic genius of Johann Strauss II. Their respect was mutual, and Strauss often included his good friend's Hungarian Dances on his programmes. This present collection includes Nos. 1, 5, and 6 from Brahms's collection of 21 dances. The lesser-known composer, author, and musical administrator Richard Heuberger is represented on this CD of Dancing in Vienna by the overture to his light opera, The Opera Ball.

In 1777, Mozart met the wealthy Ferdinand Dejean, an amateur flautist and retired surgeon of the Dutch East India Company. Dejean commissioned a handful of works from the young composer, who termed them 'some simple, short little concertinos'. Nevertheless, these pieces, which actually demand great virtuosity from the soloist, as well as a sensitivity to tonal nuances, have continued to be popular favourites ever since. A short while later, during his stay in Paris, Mozart wrote a further concerto, this time for a flute-playing aristocrat and his harpist daughter to perform as a duo of soloists - both of them 'admirable musicians' according to Mozart. Unlike Dejean, this noble virtuoso had an up-to-date instrument with eight keys, allowing the flute to reach down to middle C, and to play in the - hitherto impractical - key of C. Supported by A Nocte Temporis, the ensemble that she founded in 2016 with Reinoud Van Mechelen, flautist Anna Besson, now one of the most acclaimed instrumentalists of her generation, has recorded these evergreen works, with solo harpist extraordinaire Clara Izambert joining her in the Concerto for Flute and Harp.

Jerrick Cavagnaro, the First Prize Winner in the 2024 American Guild of Organists' (AGO) National Competition in Organ Improvisation (NCOI), releases his debut solo album with Pro Organo, performing upon the historic, renovated pipe organ of Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston. The program contains both repertoire selections and several of Mr. Cavagnaro's organ improvisations in a variety of musical styles.

In the early 1960s Goffredo Petrassi's idiom was almost indistinguishable from that of the Italian avantgarde. Completed in 1964, the Seventh Concerto evolves with mounting tension and a sense of underlying menace. The Eighth Concerto from 1972 was commissioned and premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It is a substantial piece of outright virtuosity, with dissonance, trenchant dialogues and a fraught atmosphere. The much earlier Sonata da camera for harpsichord and ten instruments finds Petrassi poised between neo-Classicism and a more modernist direction. This is the third and final volume of Petrassi's complete Concertos for Orchestra on Naxos (Nos. 1-3 are on 8.573702; Nos. 4-6 are on 8.573703).

Berlin is the focus of this eighth volume of the History of the Russian Piano Trio, which features two Russian composers who lived in the city. Nikolai Lopatnikoff's symphonies were premiered by Bruno Walter and Serge Koussevitzky, and he was once ranked alongside Stravinsky. Lopatnikoff's Piano Trio in A minor is an archetypal example of Russian modernism, unparalleled in it's use of allusions, tonalities and form. Paul Juon's Suite in C major is full of elegant and vivid theatrical imagery, while his Piano Trio No. 1 in A minor employs charming stylised folk material influenced by Brahms.

This album portrait of Carlos Simon grew out of a commission, The Best Cuisine, which was funded by a grant from Chamber Music America and composed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The artists on this album presented the work's premiere in Washington, DC in 2022. At it's core is a spirit of collaboration - a coming together of art song and culinary flair, musical styles, and friendships - during a time that was otherwise quite solitary. It's text, written by baritone Carl DuPont, celebrates the craft of cooking that both he and Simon honed during the pandemic. With newfound inspiration drawn from the multifacetedness of Simon's compositional voice, DuPont and violinist Domenic Salerni, cellist Carrie Bean Stute, and pianist Efi Hackmey returned to Chiarina's longtime venue, the historic St. Mark's Church in Capitol Hill, to record The Best Cuisine and additional works for combinations of violin, cello, piano, and baritone. While Simon has more recently become known for his large-scale works, Chiarina seeks to highlight Simon's versatility and poignancy in works for more intimate performing forces.

Inspired by the spirit of Bach, Karl-Andreas Kolly explores traces of Bach in Mendelssohn's piano works and discovers Mendelssohn's deep connection with Bach in his Organ Sonatas, which through Kolly's transcriptions of astonishingly pianistic effect show the great composer in a completely new light.

Award-winning Polish composer, Pawel Lukaszewski, is one of today's most distinctive creators of contemporary sacred music. The Nocturnes for piano, based on some of his own sacred pieces, are inspired by the cosmos, with each nocturne named after a newly discovered bright star in constellations including Vela, Scorpius and the Southern Cross. Lukaszewski takes the listener on a journey through the beauty of the night sky with these intimate and atmospheric sound paintings.

MDG's multi-award-winning Les Six anthology series showcases the entire spectrum of an epoch. This installment is dedicated to Louis Durey, the eccentric outsider of Le groupe des Six. Holger Falk's incredibly agile baritone and tremendous tonal range accompanied by Steffen Schleiermacher's sensitivity, verve and virtuosity on the piano yet again take the benchmark up a notch in art song excellence.

This album features two of the greatest Clarinet Trios, those of Beethoven and Brahms. These are beautiful performances of truly great works.

Their third duo album on Signum Classics, Viktoria Mullova and Alasdair Beatson perform Beethoven's Sonatas 2 and 10. Uniquely for the A Major sonata Op 12 No 2 they use a copy of an 1805 Walter (a Viennese fortepiano), and for Sonata No 10 op. 96 they use a copy of an 1819 graf, both by Paul McNulty. Together with violin strung with gut, these instruments are what Beethoven's music craves, giving a rich texture and distinct colours between the registers. ?�"'Optimistic, ebullient and inexhaustibly inventive' is how the pianist Alasdair Beatson describes the three Beethoven sonatas on this disc - and that is exactly how they come across in these performances with the violinist Viktoria Mullova. The sense of rustic abandon they create in this work is infectiously gleeful."�- The Guardian ? Recording ? Performance�"Their dazzling playing captures all the music's wit and brilliance"�- BBC Music Magazine

Continuity. The piece "October" from Tchaikovsky's "Seasons" op. 37 comes from an older recording by Evgeni Koroliov from 1992 (TACET 25). That was the time of the Yugoslav Wars and the collapse of the Soviet Union. I remember that Evgeni Koroliov, who was born in Moscow, spoke during a break in his gentle manner about how this music was for him a reminder of irretrievable times before the Russian revolution. 33 years later, Koroliov speaks as he did then, he has remained true to himself and his playing, the times are just as confused and uncertain. Even the sound is similar. Accordingly, the new recordings on this "Russian" CD are permeated by a similar longing for a better world, which never existed as beautifully as in this music. I am happy and grateful to have been able to accompany this quiet and expressive artist, who enriches the music world so lastingly, on TACET for such a long time. This is already his 26th recording on TACET and the second CD this year, the second of three!

Out of a mutual love of spontaneousness and raw emotions, Belgian guitarist Julien Tassin and Finnish guitarist Heikki Ruokangas decided to start creating music together. As two guitars aiming to sound like one.�In their music, the concrete and the abstract can co-exist at each moment. Melodic lines are combined with atonal sounds for an organic and exploratory approach to the acoustic guitar. Just like life itself, the music of this duo is full of both beauty and beast. And, just like the players, it has a playful sense of humor to it.