The phrase 'Baltic music' is not just a label, but a key that unlocks the rich creativity of composers living around the Baltic Sea. However, it is more than a specific style, mood, or aesthetic. It is about a diverse landscape of Baltic music, each piece being a unique story of individual experience, desire, and reflection of identity. The Baltic identity manifests itself in the most diverse ways, as a cultural tapestry that is both engaging and intriguing. The album Baltic Prayer opens up part of this landscape, united by the motifs of peace, and a conversation with oneself, others, or God. Works by the Lithuanian composers Anatolijus senderovas and Jurgis Juozapaitis, by the Latvian composer P?teris Vasks, and by the Estonian composer Arvo Part, are presented. Next to them are some stylistically close compositions by the Norwegian star of choral music Ola Gjeilo, the British composer John Tavener, and the Ukrainian Myroslav Skoryk.

The phrase 'Baltic music' is not just a label, but a key that unlocks the rich creativity of composers living around the Baltic Sea. However, it is more than a specific style, mood, or aesthetic. It is about a diverse landscape of Baltic music, each piece being a unique story of individual experience, desire, and reflection of identity. The Baltic identity manifests itself in the most diverse ways, as a cultural tapestry that is both engaging and intriguing. The album Baltic Prayer opens up part of this landscape, united by the motifs of peace, and a conversation with oneself, others, or God. Works by the Lithuanian composers Anatolijus senderovas and Jurgis Juozapaitis, by the Latvian composer Peteris Vasks, and by the Estonian composer Arvo Part, are presented. Next to them are some stylistically close compositions by the Norwegian star of choral music Ola Gjeilo, the British composer John Tavener, and the Ukrainian Myroslav Skoryk.

Given that not one of the Masses by Jacques Arcadelt was included in our boxed set that revealed his immense musical personality to the world, we now remedy this situation with an indispensable addition. Leonardo Garcia Alarcon chose the Missa Noe Noe, which is presented here in the context of the Christmas liturgy. We have also included motets not only by Arcadelt but also by Josquin Desprez, as he was the great model for musicians of his generation. The recording ends resoundingly with Josquin’s imposing Benedicta es coelorum regina for six voices, although in an expanded version for twelve voices by Jean Guyot de Châtelet (1512 – 1588): another Walloon composer to be discovered!

Jeannette Sorrell, the celebrated founder-director of Cleveland-based Baroque orchestra Apollo's Fire, first fell in love with the harpsichord upon hearing three masterpieces by Johann Sebastian Bach: the composer's concertos in D Minor, BWV1052 and F Minor, BWV1056, and his Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 (for Harpsichord, flute & violin). Jeannette and Apollo's Fire recorded these works between 1999-2004, with the subsequent 2010 album release debuting on the Top 10 of Billboard's Traditional Classical Albums Chart. This 25th anniversary reissue brings together a new programme of Jeannette's favourite Bach harpsichord concertos.

The Art of Fugue, Bach’s final and most quintessential work, while a monument, is far from being a monolith! Here, Les Récréations present a new version using different combinations of instruments that best suit each individual movement, from the piccolo violin to the cello with a detour via the violoncello piccolo; such revelations of the work’s extraordinary variety, from the Stile antico to the beginnings of the Empfindsamer Stil, refresh our perception of this masterpiece.

Marked by a profound dramatic and spiritual intensity, the St John Passion was composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1724. Based on the Gospel according to St John, it recounts the last moments of Christ's life, from his arrest to his burial in the tomb. The Cantor's Passion is one of the most sublime works in his repertoire, drawing the listener into a mystical and contemplative reflection. Gaétan Jarry conducts the Orchestre de l'Opéra Royal and the child singers of the Tölzer Knabenchor, to restore this treasure of sacred music to it's rightful place.

A genuine masterpiece inspires musicians to adopt, adapt, or transcribe it without losing any of it's greatness. Nevermind's four baroque aces, Anna Besson, Louis Creac'h, Robin Pharo and Jean Rondeau, have taken a creative look at Bach's famous Goldberg Variations and have made their own stylishly insightful 'variations' on the work. As they themselves explain: 'We needed only an informal rehearsal to grasp the incredible potential of a transcription for our ensemble. There have been other arrangements, but nobody has ever attempted this one before now, even though our instruments are among those most typically used in J.S. Bach's chamber music, in his many solo sonatas for flute, violin or gamba with bass continuo and obbligato harpsichord - and they also frequently feature in the arias of his cantatas and Passions.'

Supersize Polyphony is a celebration of large-scale choral works from the 16th century, performed here by the Armonico Consort and the Choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, under their musical directors Christopher Monks and Geoffrey Webber. The unique programme features epic motets, such as Thomas Tallis' Spem in Alium and Alessandro Striggio's Ecce Beatam Lucem, alongside his rarely performed 60 part Missa sopra Ecco Si Beato Giorno. Interspersed with the serene beauty of ethereal chants by Hildegard of Bingen, this new recording presents works of magnitude and polyphonic drama in stellar performances by two of the UK's leading choral ensembles. Now Available as a CD / SACD Surround Sound album.

Michael Haydn did not achieve the same exorbitant quantity of instrumental music as his older brother, since he had to compose a large amount of sacred music because of his position; but the surviving symphonies and chamber music in particular are not lacking in novel and "original" character traits. This becomes clear, for example, in the six string quartets recorded here, which he wrote sometime in the 1770s or 1780s. Here, personable elegance and subtle humour are combined with a quiet touch of tragic drama to create a very unique candour that reveals a world view that is as moving as it is entertaining, somewhere between the masterpieces of his brother Joseph and Amadeus, who was around twenty years younger.

The CD Kinetic Valves offers a listening journey inspired by the pluralism of contemporary languages, in a mix of different styles and poetics, between the sounds of the euphonium and the ophicleide. A listening journey dedicated to the new Italian compositional panorama that unfolds through the works of Matteo Tundo (Innesti e Germinazioni), Pasquale Punzo (Mirrored in the brass), Maria Vittoria Agresti (Mutea: I, II and III) and Daniele Vulpiani (Inventario di oggetti introvabili), all in firstever recordings. The conclusion of this journey into a world of rarely heard sounds is the reinterpretation of the piece PostPraeLudium per Donau by Luigi Nono. The protagonist of the recording is Marina Boselli, a virtuoso of the instrument who, after her studies, perfected herself with internationally renowned teachers. Winner of numerous national and international competitions, she is active in Italy and abroad as a soloist. Since 2018 he has been the first euphonium soloist of the Civica Filarmonica di Lugano and collaborates as a guest musician at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia for the creation of new repertoires for euphonium and electronics, also holding masterclasses on composition for brass and extended techniques in conservatories and international composition campuses.

Nearly a century before Gluck, another opera called Iphigenie en Tauride - same plot, same protagonists - had immense success on the opera stage. This 'first' Iphigenie has rather a curious history. The opera was sketched out by composer Henri Desmarest around the year 1695, but he was then banished from France by Louis XIV for having married a young girl without her father's consent. The uncompleted score of Iphigenie was then entrusted to Andre Campra. The opera, since lost and forgotten, was rediscovered by Benoit Dratwicki, Director of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, who marvels at it's stylistic unity: 'Campra easily adopted Desmarest's style. He just added some virtuoso arias to the divertissements, as well as the tuneful choruses that were his speciality.' Iphigenie en Tauride had it's premiere on 6 May 1704, and was revived throughout Europe from 1711. Thanks to Herve Niquet, a top-flight team of singers, an orchestra well versed in French repertoire, and all their collaborative research into the practices and specific playing techniques of the early 18th century, Iphigenie sees the light of day once more.

Giovanni Battista Velluti, born in 1780, was the last heir of the great Italian castrati. His exceptional voice, both powerful and agile, and his impressive vocal mastery opened the doors to the most prestigious opera houses in Europe. His talent for highly complex vocal ornamentation had a lasting influence on the style of vocal interpretation in the 19th century. Franco Fagioli immerses himself in Velluti's theatricality to recreate the full extent of his genius, and gives a superb performance of his most famous roles, accompanied by the Orchestre de l'Opera Royal de Versailles.

Over the past century or so, composers have tended to see themselves as either traditionalists or modernists. The music of Joel Feigin (born in New York in 1951) bridges both worlds, combining the resources of tonality and atonality with equal relish, naturally extending the styles of the recent past. It's freewheeling energy is often tempered by an elegant restraint, sometimes revealing the warm, humanist impulse behind his sound-world. This first volume of his piano and chamber music follows a lusty piano trio and a moving tribute to a much-missed teacher with four sets of variations, three by Feigin and one an arrangement of Bach, the composer who Feigin says is the root of all his music.

When baritone Milan Siljanov decided to record his first song album, the composers to be immortalised on it were immediately clear to him. Even in his early youth, he had the desire to become a pianist, even though he realised early on that his talents lay in other musical areas. But it was during this time that he first came into contact with Schubert's piano works, in particular the Impromptu No. 4 in A flat major - a piano piece that still fascinates him to this day. The singer also finds the melancholy and pathos of the music in many of Schubert's songs. It quickly became clear that Schubert would be a focal point of the album, complemented by two weighty cycles by Johannes Brahms and Frank Martin

The new CD Time is breathing by the Sbaffi Campi Duo is released on Stradivarius, with Leonardo Sbaffi on saxophones and Cristina Campi on piano. A singular musical journey between present and past that develops, with a free and passionate approach, a listening journey characterized by contamination, in the wake of musical solutions that broaden horizons and outline stories, images and emotions, in an eclectic meeting between the classical and contemporary repertoire. The album opens with two medleys, the result of elaborations by the Duo: Discontinuous Vibrations and Cellular Armonies, with songs by G. I. Gurdjieff, Claudio Monteverdi, G. F. Handel, Arcangelo Corelli, J. S. Bach. "The CD - declares the Duo - is nothing other than our reading of what we live, of what happens and of what happens to us. The work is conceived as a fractal, the individual pieces are entities having their own structure which then go on to constitute another, larger but identical one. This is the purpose of the two medleys, where centuries-old songs intertwine and overlap to form a single work. "Vibrazioni Discontinuous and Armonie Cellulari are followed by Paul Hindemith's Sonata and the first ever recording of Last Cloud by Alberto Napolitano, a piece which, states the composer, "finds it's expressive modernity in memory". To complete the programming of the CD, the Debussy's Rhapsody, an integral part of the work which can be downloaded by connecting to the website stradivarius. It. The booklet of the album is enriched by images, texts and poems in an enthralling meeting of the arts.

Lovers and Mourners: Variations and Sonatas from 17th-century Germany, offers a comprehensive glimpse into the lives of virtuoso composer-performers Johann Jakob Walther, Heinrich Biber, and Johann Georg Pisendel. The Composers featured on Lovers and Mourners drew upon the “stylus phantasticus,” a 17th-century Italian idiom whose features were marked by jagged shifts of affect and intended to display the player’s technical command and expressive abilities.

Bandy nimbly guides the listener through a labyrinth of variation sets and themes, simultaneously reproducing faithful interpretations of the music while injecting his own unique touch. Lovers and Mourners boasts a brief, yet intense survey of one of the richest chapters in the history of the virtuoso composer-performer.

The collection of toccatas Apparatus musico-organisticus, published in 1690, immediately established Georg Muffat as one of the greatest organists of his century. A veritable reference in the organ repertoire, appreciated for it's stylistic diversity, this work testifies to Muffat's ambition to blend European styles while exploring the expressive possibilities of the Baroque organ. Bernard Foccroulle deploys a range of emotions that underline the breadth and harmonic richness of the toccatas, performed on an organ emblematic of the French style that suits them so well, to which is added the delicate Sonata a violino solo, executed with brio by Marie Rouquie.

Christopher O'Riley's THE WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER BOOK II continues the pianist's exploration of Bach's masterpiece. A true expedition into the second set's finest of details, O'Riley delves beyond the notes themselves and into the spaces between them, sifting through the silence for every last possibility of rhythmic flexibility and potential for expression. With preludes and fugues more intricate and complex than those of the first, the second book provides an even richer opportunity for the discovery of texture, articulation, and hidden meaning within the music.

After Piazzolla Reflections, (ALPHA664), Latvian accordionist Ksenija Sidorova devotes this new recording to Bach and compositions influenced by his music - starting with the famous Concerto BWV 1052, which has inspired so many adaptations for piano, violin and even heavy metal guitar, "so I don't think a version for an instrument with two keyboards will surprise anyone!" says Ksenija. The programme also includes Sergey Akhunov, a composer who featured on her previous album, with a work inspired by Bach's Chaconne BWV1004; Beyond Bach by Gabriela Montero, the Venezuelan pianist and composer famous for her improvisations; and Horizons by the Anglo-Bulgarian composer Dobrinka Tabakova. The programme is completed by Bach's Chorale Prelude Ich ruf zu dir, which has accompanied Ksenija since childhood: 'I think this organ piece works particularly well on the accordion. Both instruments use bellows, but the accordion offers a much more flexible dynamic range. You can really let the music breathe.'

Francesco Tropea plays the Sonatas BWV 963 - BWV 970 by Johann Sebastian Bach. Recorded on a Steinway B Grand Piano.

The motivations behind a choice The basic question we asked ourselves in taking on this work was whether it was practicable and interesting on an artistic level to study and perform these trio sonatas by Bach using musical instruments that he had not originally envisaged, but which nevertheless belonged to his era and musical environment. We are now convinced that the answer is affirmative, and not only that, but that this kind of experience of study and listening can lead to the discovery of details and expressive resources that are fully inherent to the music that Bach composed. On the other hand, it is well known that reworking, "accommodation", as it was then often referred to, was a daily and natural practice in the Baroque era, both at the compositional level and at the performance level tout court (the distinction, with the consequent value judgement, between an "original" and it's adaptations, belongs to a more modern sensibility): the motivation for such operations, which were considered entirely legitimate, often derived from marketing requirements (think, for example, of the numerous title pages of printed works explicitly designated for various different instruments in order to attract more buyers: "[...] for a German flute, Violin, Hautbois or Harpsichord [...]" etc.) and the intended use for teaching purposes and the study of composition, as well as from the availability, in a given court environment, of instruments and virtuosos of particular ability, or even simply the need to have ready-made musical material, one's own or that of others, to be adapted to other ensembles and other functions. What was and is important to us is the survival of the original idea of the work. Indeed, if respected, this is revived and communicated to the listener in all it's potential thanks to the different timbres, the different dynamics and the various "pronunciations" in the emission and articulation of sound that characterise each chosen instrument. A fascinating operation because it can enhance the richness already inherent in the work, in this case of Bach, sometimes revealing it's most hidden and otherwise neglected aspects. While it is true that the musical idea often (but not always) develops in a composer at the moment in which he also imagines it's instrumental destination, and is therefore influenced by it, one could also speculate, precisely on account of what we have described as the very nature of composition and performance in the Baroque era, that the work (the idea) is conceived to a large extent even before it takes on a specific instrumental voice and therefore remains in a certain sense available to be communicated through different means.

Saxophonist Raaf Hekkema presents Sigfrid Karg-Elert's complete works for solo saxophone, stylistically encompassing Bach and baroque dances as well as dance-hall and atonality. This recording is the result of a life-long quest to unveil the musical intentions of this enigmatic, colourful composer. It's hard to think of a better ambassador for this vibrant repertoire than Raaf Hekkema, one of today's most-acclaimed saxophonists. Raaf Hekkema is an adventurous Dutch saxophonist. Performing mainly his own arrangements, he gives approximately 100 concerts per year the world over. This is his first solo project on PENTATONE, after having released Hidden Gems (2018), Dido & Aeneazz (2019), Bach's Musical Offerings (2020) and An American Rhapsody (2023) as member of the Calefax Reed Quintet.

Philippe Herreweghe and Collegium Vocale Gent have made a lasting impression on the Bach discography with their many recordings devoted to the Kantor. They have also explored other sacred repertoires by Beethoven, Haydn, Dvorák and Bruckner, to which they have brought all their excellence and sensitivity. Here they are together for the first time in a boxed set of 11 CDs.

The young organist Mona Hartmann (*1994) is currently enjoying a stellar career and has already won numerous national and international competitions. For Chaconne 1927, the musician chose the Walcker organ built in 1927 in St. Antonius in Papenburg. The form of the chaconne runs through the entire album as a leitmotif: It's principle of variation, like that of the passacaglia, allows the Walcker organ with it's 89 stops to be presented in countless, ever-changing sound combinations like no other genre.

Our debut album tells of creative connections spanning centuries and of the curiosity and passion that keep music relevant and alive today. We move playfully between rarely heard and well-known masterworks of the Baroque, presenting both ensemble and solo works to create a richly textured soundscape. Many of the composers featured on this album were linked through personal or artistic exchange. Telemann, Handel, Corelli, and the mysterious Mrs. Philarmonica were not only connected stylistically, but also crossed paths in the musical centers of Europe such as London, Hamburg, and Rome.

The highly acclaimed Karg-Elert edition on AEOLUS is being supplemented by another series: for the ninth series, the monumental E.F. Walcker organ (1927) from the Hans-Sachs-Haus in Gelsenkirchen was once again found to be an ideal instrument for Karg-Elert's sensational late cycles, which has been completely restored in the St. Antoniuskirche Papenburg since 2018. The SACD with Elke Volker is the first recording of this instrument in it's new location, where it's fascinating sound comes into it's own better than in the dry acoustics of the former concert hall.

Leon Berben plays Weckmann's organ work.

Between the new and the familiar, the accordion is a young instrument. This is precisely why I believe it lends itself almost naturally, or rather vocationally, to experimentation. At the same time, its place in the collective imagination, its wide diffusion in popular and folkloric cultures, also make it a “familiar”, “domestic” instrument. This combination of “familiarity” and experimentation is, then, the inspiration behind the entire “Fly. Electronic Music for Accordion” project. New works for accordion and electronics aimed precisely at enhancing such duplicity: the feeling of familiarity and the disconcerting activation of the new. For this purpose, I involved some of the Italian composers among those I most respect, with whom I could establish a creative relationship that could lead to the development of particularly significant works featuring this instrument. At least in my ambitions and intentions. What the outcome will be is not for me to say. The fact remains that when a new work is born, especially one with some compositional weight, we are always faced with an event, the opening up of a world, which, however bewildering, or perhaps precisely because of this, proves capable of putting us in relation with ourselves and with the contemporaneity in which we live. Besides this, the choice of alternating the electroacoustic works with “small” pieces (in terms of duration) taken from the historical, classical literature to which we belong, is also intended to promote precisely the coexistence between familiarity and experimentation. A piece of “easy” listening, “familiar”, a prelude or postlude, as it were, in order to “cleanse” the ear, in some way to prepare it for a different kind of listening, that of electroacoustic music, which is complex and full of novel information, not “familiar”. Fragments of history, therefore, that intervene in the rhythm of listening, supposing a linear path, almost like recollections that assail the involuntary memory, to try to undergo an experience that allows us to achieve a relationship between reminiscence and the new.
Germano Scurti

With this "colourful" selection of pieces, we intend to give an impression of the diverse repertoire collected in the Turin Tablature. The motets and liturgical works were most likely intended for performance in church, whereas dances and madrigals were intended more for secular settings: at festivals, celebrations, and for domestic music-making. Toccatas and ricercars could be played in both ecclesiastical and secular settings. [In light of the wide variety of purposes of this repetoire, we utilized a wide variety of instruments.] Thus, in addition to the Marx-Gunzer organ, three other stringed keyboard instruments were used: a clavicytherium in southern German design from the 17th century, a virginal after Michael Praetorius (1619), and a harpsichord of a seventeenthcentury Italian design.

The Bremen-born painter and sculptor Hugo Körtzinger (1892 - 1967) was a close friend of his much more famous colleague Ernst Barlach. Both were in the favor of the well-known Hamburg art patron Hermann F. Reemtsma. In 1937, Reemtsma financed a new workshop for Hugo Körtzinger in the small town of Schnega (Wendland), where he saved sculptures of his friend Barlach, which were considered "degenerate art", from being melted during the Nazi era. In 1937, Germany's most important organ-building company at that time, E.F. Walcker, built a new 3-manual instrument for Körtzinger's studio as their Opus 2576 - at the request of the customer with many unusual timbres. The instrument was continuously extended in individual construction steps until 1947.

A few years ago, the studio and the organ, which had been completely unplayable for many decades, were renovated thanks to the support of the Hermann F. Reemtsma Foundation. Martin Schmeding presents the instrument on a double SACD with music by baroque composers, played in the style of the 1930s aesthetic, as well as with original works from the time the instrument was built. This program gives an impression of the works that may have been played in the Körtzinger atelier between 1937 and 1967. The program is supplemented by Schmeding's improvisations on sculptures by Ernst Barlach.

USP: the first recording of an organ that is probably one of the largest private organs in Germany. Very comprehensive booklet (48 pages) with many illustrations and descriptions of Körtzinger and the recorded music. Double SACD in stereo and 5.1 surround sound. Rarely heard works from the 1930s and 1940s.