On Darknesse Visible, Inon Barnatan brings together French and British composers with works by Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy Thomas Ades and Ronald Stevenson. The album title is derived from Ades's piece of the same name and conveys some of the aspects that Barnatan finds most fascinating about the music on this album: all the pieces are inspired by stories or poems, and in all of them dark and light are intertwined. Ades and Stevenson both take their inspiration from existing pieces, by Dowland and Britten respectively. Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit and La Valse showcase the evocative power and colour of his music, while Debussy's Suite Bergamasque contains the world-famous Clair de lune.

Quatuor Diotima presents Lachenmann: String Quartets, a powerful testament to their 25-year collaboration with visionary composer Helmut Lachenmann. Known for pioneering "instrumental musique concrete," Lachenmann redefined the sonic possibilities of the string quartet. Their first meeting in 1998, originally just a one-week workshop, sparked a deep artistic bond and a shared fascination with his radical approach to sound and listening. This album is the result of hundreds of hours spent in rehearsal, performance, and conversation - a tribute to a composer who has become a central figure in contemporary music. Lachenmann: String Quartets captures not only the evolution of a musical language, but also the story of a transformative and enduring partnership. The quartet returns to PENTATONE following their acclaimed releases Metamorphosis Ligeti (2023), Bruckner & Klose: String Quartets (2024), and Boulez: Livre pour Quatuor (2025).

Violist Jonathan Bagg unearths three overlooked gems of the mid-20th century chamber repertoire by Marion Bauer, Ulysees Kay, and Margaret Bonds. Joined by pianists Emely Phelps and Mimi Solomon, Bagg sheds light on well deserving repertoire by three composers whose contributions to the larger musical field went far beyond their fine music.

Pianist Nicolas Stavy, who has already made recordings devoted to works by Boris Tishchenko (BIS-2189) and Dmitri Shostakovich (BIS-2550), now presents the first instalment of a complete survey of Alfred Schnittke's compositions for solo piano. This recording presents works from various periods of the Russian-German composer's career - from the 1950s, which the composer described as the 'years of obscurity', to the 1990s, a time shaped both by world fame and serious illness. While Schnittke wrote relatively little music for the piano, each work reflects - or sometimes anticipates - the phases of the composer's creative development. The Five Preludes and Fugue and the Prelude and Fugue belong to Schnittke's first creative phase, when he was still under the influence of Shostakovich. The Little Piano Pieces, composed for the composer's six-year-old son, are an example of his 'polystylism', juxtaposing and combining music of various styles from the past and present. The Sonata No. 2 and the Five Aphorisms, both from 1990, return to a more ascetic and abstract language, with a bleaker tone, no doubt echoing his serious health problems.

The three works on this recording bear witness to the changes that took place at the dawn of musical modernism. The reappraisal and reinterpretation of traditional musical genres and innovations led to new ways of organising and addressing the harmonic, melodic, timbral and rhythmic elements of music. Polish composer Karol Szymanowski developed a highly personal musical language that prioritises tone colour, an approach that is perfectly suited to the triptych Mythes, inspired by legends from ancient Greece. Here he developed a new mode of expression, a fusion of the violin and the piano into a single entity with the use of extended violin techniques. The Hungarian Bela Bartok assimilated Szymanowski's contribution and composed his two sonatas for violin and piano in quick succession at the beginning of the 1920s. These two works, as daring as they are demanding, skilfully blend the influence of contemporary composers such as Debussy and Schoenberg with elements of Central European folklore. Frank Peter Zimmermann, whose recent recording dedicated to Bartok's two Rhapsodies and Stravinsky's Violin Concerto (BIS-2657) has received international critical acclaim, performs these landmark works with pianist Dmytro Choni, his regular partner since 2023.

Following his acclaimed recording of Kurt Weill's symphonies 1 and 2 and excerpts from The Silver Lake (BIS-2579), HK Gruber and his congenial partner, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, present three more works by the famous musical theatre composer, this time featuring sopranos Wallis Giunta and Jennifer France and violinists Katerina Andresson and Benjamin Herzl. This release opens with the ballet-chante satire The Seven Deadly Sins, a scathing critique of capitalist society that highlights the perpetual struggle between money and morality. Anna, a young girl, is sent away from her family with the mission of bringing back enough money to build a house on the Mississippi. The cantata The New Orpheus, which blends the very different styles of aria and song, tells the sad story of the singer who sets out to conquer the dreary walls of modern cities to save Eurydice, and with her, all of humanity. Finally, the Concerto for Violin and Wind Orchestra, a central work from Weill's early creative period, displays a theatricality that heralds the stage works to come. An exciting programme showcasing Weill's inimitable language of mixing the sophisticated and the popular, the melodic and the dissonant, the complex and the streetwise.

Hakan Hardenberger and Roland Pontinen have enjoyed a fruitful artistic relationship for over forty years. They have played, toured and recorded together and have devoted much time and energy to repertoire ideas. 'For us to create a new programme is an exciting, stimulating and fun process', says Pontinen. 'A process that often mirrors our mutual interest in jazz, film and other art forms. The idea of juxtaposing works of contrasting characters, or composed centuries apart, can often shed new light on the music itself.' We are treated here to recently composed works, arrangements, favourites of both musicians and standards from the Great American Songbook. The centrepiece of the programme is Three Autumns by Staffan Storm, atmospherically connected to Anna Akhmatova's poetry, a reflection on elegiac autumn moods. Among contemporary composers, Mark-Anthony Turnage and HK Gruber, who have provided Hardenberger with more works than any other composers, are also represented. Roland Pontinen contributes two pieces, one of them a meditative work inspired by the simplicity and mood of Thomas Newman's masterful film scores. Legende by George Enescu reflects the impressionistic style of the composer's teachers. The recital is also interspersed with shorter pieces, arrangements and reinterpretations of classic American songs, and includes legendary jazzman Ornette Coleman's Chanting, a favourite encore in Hardenberger/Pontinen programmes - always improvised, every time different.

While the three composers featured on this recording are not, in the public perception and sometimes even in that of the performers, among the most significant exponents of Viennese music in the first half of the twentieth century, their remarkably expressive and virtuoso writing is deeply rooted in fin-de-si�cle Vienna. They were banned by the dictatorships of the 1930s and then blacklisted in the aftermath of the Second World War by the young European avant-garde, and it is only in recent years that the beauty and opulence of their works have been rediscovered. Vienna-born conductor Sascha Goetzel writes about the works performed here with the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire: 'With Korngold, Schreker and Krenek, we're not just hearing music - we're entering a dialogue between past and present, tradition and rebellion, myth and modernity [...] Korngold embodies the emotional sincerity and creative ambition of the late Romantic tradition. Schreker immerses us in the subconscious - mythical, unstable, and rich in feeling. Krenek breaks through the facade, injecting irony, jazz and fragmentation into the orchestral form [...] In their own ways, each composer pushes back against inherited conventions to discover new languages of sound.'

Throughout history, the open landscapes and mythical cultures of the Nordic countries have triggered the imagination of artists. Finnish horn player Markus Maskuniitty and pianist Martin Sturfalt perform works which, although separated in time by more than a century, all draw their inspiration from from these areas of interest. The compositions gathered here approach these Nordic themes from different angles, blending traditional folk influences with contemporary classical techniques whilst exploring the horn's lyrical and dramatic capabilities and it's rich sound palette. Recent compositions by Piers Hellawell, Tryggvi M. Baldvinsson, Albert Schnelzer and Benjamin Staern are mixed with older works by Carl Nielsen, Hugo Alfven and Julius Rontgen, including the latter's Aus Jotunheim, a suite characterized by an irresistible Norwegian flavour throughout it's five movements, quoting everything from cattle calls to lullabies with plenty of rustic folk dancing in between. This imaginative program designed by Maskuniity and Sturfalt puts a spotlight on the unique character of the Nordic musical identity.

This album represents a trove of new and never-before recorded songs from the Kazuno region in northern Japan world premiere recordings. Many of the works by renowned local Kazuno children's song composers were largely unknown with beautiful melodies, even though the Japanese culture reveres children's songs, taught to children and sung often by both children and adults. The scores for these children's songs were not published for commercial sale and were believed to be inaccessible but were lent to soprano Wakako Kawasaki by two individuals residing in Kazuno who possessed complete children's songs collections of composers Jujin Odajima and Takatomo Kurosawa for this recording project, as these works of these great composers from Kazuno were not even being sung in their hometown. These collections were used as the base works for the album in addition to pieces composed by Sapporo composer Kyoichi Enda, inspired by Japanese author Ryusuke Saito's story of the Kazuno floods. The album also includes a revival performance of "Dainosaka," a song associated with the Kemanai Bon Dance not sung since the early Showa period (1926-1989), arranged with piano accompaniment by Dr. Akiko Hosaki. Today "Dainosaka" is performed only with flute, drum, and dance, but historical records indicate it was accompanied by song as well. "Dojokko Funakko," was discovered on an original song monument at a temple in Kazuno and added to the album. The album is the result of years of research and discussions with Japanese musicologists in order to create a collection which will be historical in the annals of Japanese music

Three works by three women composers from three different countries, each piece with it's own original idiom, are performed here by the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra under the direction of it's dynamic conductor and artistic director Malin Broman. Three works that assuredly deserve a wider audience! The Sea Sketches by Welsh composer Grace Williams open the programme. Inspired by the beaches of Glamorganshire and by it's seascape, this five-movement work seems in constant motion and evolution. One can practically taste the salt spray and feel the power of the waves. The second work is Grazyna Bacewicz's Fourth String Quartet, played here in an arrangement for string orchestra. Bacewicz was an important figure on the Polish music scene in the mid-20th century, and her quartet is an approachable work - something that has undoubtedly contributed to making it her best-known composition - with influences of folk music and passages which, according to Malin Broman, can only be described as heavenly. Vienna-born Johanna Muller-Hermann's String Quartet, also in an arrangement for string orchestra, concludes the programme. Exciting, beautiful and powerful, this work with it's post-romantic language is a testimony to the golden age of Vienna, when the music of Mahler, Strauss and her teacher Zemlinsky reigned supreme.

Metamorphoses: this is what Duo Amabile is in search of. In their concept album, Paula Breland, clarinet, and Anna-Katharina Schau, accordion, zoom into the processes of upheaval and new beginnings to offer their listeners transgressive listening experiences and to immerse themselves in a common"liminal moment". Featuring top-notch musical performances, this album combines works composed especially for the duo by René Kuwan, Michaela Rea Catranis and Marín Donoso Vera together with thematically appropriate movements from Edward Elgar's famous Enigma Variations. All the new works are presented here in world premiere recordings!

For it's first recording for BIS Records, the Marmen Quartet tackles three major works from the twentieth-century string quartet literature. The two quartets by Gyorgy Ligeti belong to two different periods in the composer's output. Written before Ligeti left Hungary and emigrated to the West, the First, subtitled 'Metamorphoses nocturnes', represents the peak of his 'Hungarian' period. Regarded as a virtuoso exercise, the work reveals the influences of Bela Bartok, particularly from his Third and Fourth Quartets. Ligeti's Second Quartet belongs to his second period, particularly rich in significant works. Considered by the composer as a response to the works of his illustrious predecessors such as Mozart, Beethoven, Bartok and Berg, the Second Quartet, with it's calculated anarchy, dynamic extremes and sublime climaxes, is not only one of Ligeti's masterpieces but also a true classic of modernism. Bela Bartok's Fourth Quartet, which had a particularly strong influence on Ligeti, is widely seen as one of his most radical; it requires high levels of technical accomplishment from the performers, yet reveals a deep understanding of the instruments, and draws an unprecedented range of colour and character from them.

Introducing the debut solo album, "Phaethon, Becalmed," by Ben J. Connolly - a member of Berlin's alternative pop band, ALL THE LUCK IN THE WORLD. This project draws inspiration from the Greek myth of Phaethon, who sought to prove his parentage by driving his father's Sun Chariot across the sky, inadvertently causing ecological chaos and meeting a tragic end.
Collaborating with Echo Collective on strings, Ramon Lormans on tuned percussion (Stargaze), and Andrew Dickinson on vocals (Dt. Oper), the album comprises 17 pieces that intricately weave together to narrate Phaethon's tale. The instrumentation includes piano, strings, synths, and electronics, creating a calm and relaxed musical atmosphere.
The album unfolds like a story, with interwoven themes marking each chapter of Phaethon's journey. The diverse musical palette captures the essence of the myth, offering a tranquil and immersive listening experience. "Phaethon, Becalmed" invites listeners to explore the narrative through a blend of classical and contemporary elements.
This project goes beyond a mere musical release, offering a thoughtful exploration of myth and storytelling through sound. It's a unique opportunity to engage with a rich tapestry of emotions and experiences.

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa (c.1561-1613) was a Renaissance composer known for both his groundbreaking music and the infamous murder of his wife and her lover. While historical records about his personality are limited and contradictory, his music-especially his 104 madrigals-is notable for it's bold harmonic experimentation, centuries ahead of it's time. Composer Peter Navarro-Alonso, long fascinated by Gesualdo, created the hour-long piece In flagrante delicto in collaboration with violinist Christina �strand and conductor Paul Hillier. The composition explores the darkness of Gesualdo's psyche through musical quotations and has been performed and recorded by Ensemble Stralo and Theatre of Voices. Peter Navarro-Alonso is a composer focused on drama, sound, and the human mind, known for exploring timbre and the concept of hope. He has written vocal, chamber, orchestral, and electroacoustic works, and received Denmark's top music honor in 2023. Paul Hillier is a renowned singer, conductor, composer, and writer, known for founding the Hilliard Ensemble and Theatre of Voices. With nearly 200 acclaimed recordings, multiple awards, and honors from both the British and Danish monarchs, he has led major chamber choirs across Europe and is especially noted for his collaborations with composers Arvo P�rt and Steve Reich. Ensemble Stralo, founded in 2016 by four Danish soloists and chamber musicians, combines strings, winds, and keyboard to create a unique and flexible sound. They perform music from the Renaissance to contemporary works, offering distinctive and engaging concert experiences. Recorded November 16-18, 2024, in Garnisonskirken, Copenhagen, by producer Preben Iwan in HD audio format (96 kHz / 32-bit). Available in Dolby Atmos format.

The Danish composer Axel Borup-Jorgensen (1924-2012) was one of the 20th century's great "silent individualists." Although largely self-taught, he was the first Danish composer who attended the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music. Without a doubt, the avant-garde of the sixties exerted a strong influence on Borup-Jorgensen's sound world, but he never embraced any specific "ism," following instead his own intuition and his extraordinary sense of organizing sound. Borup-Jorgensen's handwritten scores are of almost calligraphic quality and beauty and reveal him to be a meticulous craftsman and magician of tone color, traits on full display on this very special tribute in honor of the composer's centenary. The vast majority of his work is devoted to chamber music. Here he enjoyed the freedom and inspiration to work closely with the artists and explore new sonic possibilities of their instruments. This album is the final entry in a decade long documentation of the life and work of Axel Borup-Jorgensen's music, a project that has seen multiple critical triumphs, innovative concert installations and even an award-winning video. The animated short film for his masterpiece MARIN won OPUS Klassik AWARD as best DVD/Blu-ray as well as the Danish Radio P2 Prize for Best ALBUM. For those curious to explore the composer's unique style, this is an ideal entry point, featuring works from throughout Borup-Jorgensen's creative journey, in equally diverse and colorful arrays, including his only woodwind quintet and a work employing junk yard percussion, performed by the leading Danish chamber orchestra the acclaimed Esbjerg Ensemble. Joining the Ensemble for this recording, the 8th album in OUR Recordings series with music by Axel Borup-Jorgensen, is the award-winning pianist Kristoffer Hyldig, and special guests, all captured in crystalline clarity in the DXD audio format by producer Mette Due.

The latest release from the internationally acclaimed, multi-award-winning Danish National Vocal Ensemble marks an extraordinary milestone in the choir's history with the appointment of their new Chief Conductor, Martina Batic, and it was clear from the very beginning there was a special connection between her and the choir's singers! For her OUR Recordings debut, maestra Batic has chosen the works of two composers, both of whom may well come as revelations to music lovers. Opening the album is a selection of works from one of the musical heroes of her homeland, the Slovenian composer Uros Krek. Highly regarded in his homeland, Krek's stylistically accessible, well-crafted music is seldom heard internationally, making this musical encounter particularly valuable. A fluid pan-tonality informed the Three Autumn Songs while the other selections freely draw upon folk-influences and orthodox polyphony. As a calling card to her new Danish friends, Maestra Batic makes an extraordinary artistic statement presenting the choral music of Else Marie Pade! Rightly celebrated as one of the pioneers of electronic music, Pade also composed an extraordinary catalogue of works for acoustic instruments and voice. As beautifully score the pair of stunning works from the 1950s are, nothing could prepare us for the World Premiere Recording of Pade's extraordinary Maria (1980) scored for coloratura soprano, bass baritone, speaking choir and 7 trombones, and electronic sounds. Written as spiritual self-solace to comfort her from her trauma during the war, Maria is a modernist musical Rosary, and a masterwork of contemporary religious music. Truly, Martina Batic and the Danish National Vocal Ensemble has taken us on an amazing journey you will not want to miss! On the video from the recording, ? you will hear the Danish National Vocal Ensemble's artistic director Michael Emery, conductor Martina Batic and soprano Anna Miilmann talk about the music. Technician Mikkel Nymand talk about the new way of recording a Choir, special for Dolby Atmos.

For her second album with naïve, Zlata Chochieva has chosen a magnificent, audacious program, associating Schumann, Ravel, Liszt and Bartók with the lesser known Draeseke and Schulz-Evler. Sensitive to nature and to the emotions it inspires, the Russian pianist Zlata Chochieva has conceived this very personal album as a patchwork, sometimes inward-looking, landscape with changing skies. “A recorded program is not a concert program, but I also wanted to tell a story, propose a whole tapestry of emotions, open different perspectives,” she confides.

Finnish composer Kalevi Aho has produced a considerable and varied body of work that continues to grow rapidly. Aho first tackled the genre of string quartet at the very beginning of his composing career, more than fifty years ago, and has only recently returned to it. Aho was only 18 when he completed his String Quartet No. 1 in 1967. Self-taught at the time, Aho took his inspiration from the essentially tonal music he played on the violin or heard on the radio. The Second Quartet was composed in 1970, during his second year of studies at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with Einojuhani Rautavaara and uses fugue technique in each of it's movements. The first performance of the quartet received excellent reviews and marked a minor breakthrough for Aho as a composer. The Third Quartet dates from the following year and marks the end of Aho's studies with Rautavaara. In this work Aho's personal language begins to emerge, although the influence of Shostakovich can also be heard. The work was a great success and has been performed more often than any of his other chamber compositions. The three string quartets are performed here by the Stenhammar Quartet, one of Scandinavia's leading string quartets, whose extensive repertoire gives prominence to contemporary music from the Nordic countries.

Three major works for piano and orchestra by English composers, all eschewing the traditional nineteenth- century model of a bravura virtuoso soloist pitted against an orchestra, in distinctive ways. Together with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under George Vass, Clare Hammond presents an original programme that provides a unique perspective on how the piano concerto reflected musical currents in mid-twentieth-century Britain. William Walton's Sinfonia Concertante for Orchestra with Piano Obbligato began as a ballet score. After it was rejected by Sergei Diaghilev, Walton arranged his score into a leaner, more direct and more effective work that reveals the influences of Stravinsky, Poulenc, Rimsky- Korsakov, Borodin and, at times, Elgar. Benjamin Britten's Diversions was commissioned by the left-hand pianist Paul Wittgenstein. Enthusiastic about the challenge of writing for the left hand, Britten devised a work in variation form; he did not seek to conceal the soloist's one-handedness, but revelled in it while still retaining emotion and grandeur. Michael Tippett's Piano Concerto completes the programme. Inspired by a performance of Beethoven's Fourth Concerto, Tippett was convinced that a contemporary concerto could be written, 'in which the piano is used once again for it's poetic capabilities'. In his work, the orchestra does not merely accompany; the principal players shine when they get their opportunity for solos or close dialogue with the soloist.

‘The Miraculous Mandarin’ (Op. 19, Sz. 73) is Bartók's last work for the stage. The plot revolves around prostitution, brutality, robbery, murder, being an outsider, (unrequited) love, and finally, as a catharsis, a kind of love-death. The music is relentlessly sharp for long stretches, garishly dissonant, radical—probably the most modern score Bartók created. The premiere (1926) in Cologne was a scandal, and Konrad Adenauer, then Lord Mayor of Cologne, immediately cancelled the performances.The Violin Concerto No. 2, Sz. 112, was composed between August 1937 and December 31, 1938, shortly before Bartók's emigration to the United States in view of the increasingly oppressive political and social climate in Hungary. Unlike the ‘Mandarin,’ the work quickly established itself after its premiere in Amsterdam in 1939 as one of the central violin concertos of the first half of the 20th century, and at the same time, as one of Bartók's greatest creations.

In the course of his long career, Michael Gielen has been Music Director of the Royal Opera in Stockholm, the Belgian National Orchestra in Brussels, the Dutch Opera, and the Frankfurt Opera. He was also Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Staatskapelle Berlin, as well as Chief Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Südwestfunk Symphony Orchestra.

Mystics & Cynics is a mesmerizing journey through the sacred and the subversive, the ecstatic and the irreverent. Featuring the world premiere of Taumelnd von Glut (Reeling in the Light)-a stunning new song cycle by composer Boris Bergmann, setting the passionate poetry of Otto Braun to music for the first time. Braun's youthful idealism and later disillusionment echo through Bergmann's evocative score, creating a deeply moving meditation on love, war, and loss. This striking new work is woven into a tapestry of mystical and iconoclastic masterpieces: the luminous chant of Hildegard von Bingen, the playful defiance of Erik Satie, and the radical vision of John Cage. Mystics & Cynics invites listeners on a journey through war-torn poetry, cabaret whimsy, and transcendental meditation-where every note is both a question and an answer. An essential release for adventurous ears.

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.

Sarah Saviet and Joseph Houston formed their duo in 2019 through a mutual devotion to an intimate, powerful, and transcendental sound language created by the violin and piano. In this album, the Saviet/Houston Duo trace a path through a shifting landscape of melodic contour, with duos by Michael Finnissy, Enno Poppe/Rebecca Saunders, Lawrence Dunn, Iannis Xenakis, and their own collaborative composition. Each work reflects in different ways the intricate contradictions and the powerful complexity of contemporary life.

The internationally renowned pianist Yulianna Avdeeva presents Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87, one of the most important works in the piano repertoire. This monumental cycle harks back to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and is considered one of the most demanding works for piano ever written. Avdeeva joins an elite group of pianists who have undertaken the challenge of performing the complete opus, which is rarely heard in it's entirety. To complement this iconic work, Avdeeva also presents the completion of an alternative Prelude and Fugue in C-Sharp Minor, discovered by leading Shostakovich expert Olga Digonskaya and completed by composer and Shostakovich biographer Krzysztof Meyer. Shostakovich sketched an initial prelude in C-Sharp Minor in 1950, but then decided to compose a new prelude-fugue pair in this key, which eventually found it's way into Opus 87. The sketch of the original prelude was found in the Shostakovich archive in Moscow in 2005; Krzysztof Meyer completed the fragment in 2019 and added his own fugue "in the style of Shostakovich". This discovery adds a new and exciting dimension to the cycle and will be an important part of the story behind the album.