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.

Music has its own language. Its beauty immediately discloses emotions but sometimes also conceals its meanings. The musician is compelled by this dualism to make choices, which are not always painless. To enhance one of them entails attenuating what is immediately perceptible, in order to highlight what, although existing, is not. This peculiarity makes both studying and performing a piece difficult, and must always be taken into account. This often occurs in Johann Sebastian Bach. He is always searching for some kind of absolute truth. However, we are not given to grasp it in its entirety and in its incomparable complexity: only through continuous research and assiduous work we are able to comprehend a small part of it. The art of music resembles an extraordinary journey encompassing infinite dimensions; the most important aspect is treasuring what we experience and discover along the way, not just reaching the destination, because even then we would realize that the journey is far from over. As Bach suggests in his Musical Offering, there is only one road: quaerendo invenietis, seeking you will find; this is what I have tried to accomplish in this new recording project dedicated to the genius from Eisenach. The anthological choice of this CD stems from the need to provide a significant overview of this interpretative philosophy, which allows us to shed new light on the kaleidoscopic world of Bach. My previous recording project “Domenico Scarlatti alio modo” followed this same criterion, albeit on different bases.

With György Kurtág (born 1926); György Ligeti (1923-2006) and Péter Eötvös (born 1944); Hungary has produced three of the most important and internationally successful composers of the post-war era. This recording brings together piano works by Kurtág and Ligeti. It shows that the four-hand piano character piece also has musical expressiveness and genre-technical justification in contemporary musical art. Ani and Nia Sulkhanishvili were born as twins in Tbilisi / Georgia in 1988. At the age of 6 they received their first piano lessons from Svetlana Arakelova. The highlight of their career so far was the 2nd prize at the "64th ARD International Music Competition" in Munich in 2015. This was the start of an international career with performances in Europe, America and China. The piano duo has mastered a large repertoire spanning the epochs from classical to modern.

For me, whenever I play the Bach suites, all of a sudden I find myself visualising Giacometti's hands incessantly moulding the earthen clay until a face appears. Getting to grips with the Bach suites is very closely related to that sense. You have to dig deeply into the string to give birth to the phrase, to make sure it breathes correctly: a phrase that is perpetually becoming, endlessly making and remaking itself. I waited a long time before recording these suites. Then one day, or rather one night, I began. Then there was my meeting with Sarah Moon. When I first felt my longing to record the Bach suites, I dreamt constantly of her images; because whenever I look at them I think of the creation of the world, the separation of the waters, the earth appearing, all before the beginning of history. Sonia Wieder-Atherton

First recording of this special collection of very early chamber music. Several pieces are world first recordings. Beautiful acoustics of a church of the time when the music was composed. Very diversified instrumental settings. Use of some nstruments that are nearly unknown today.

One might be tempted to think that there is no crossover in music that hasn't been done yet; and thankfully, one would be mistaken. DEEP RIVER presents a vibrant selection of 21 African American spirituals, interpreted by countertenor Michael Walker II and Old Music consort Alchymy Viols. A curious collaboration? Not at all, according to director Philip Spray. The viol consort's historical purpose was to arrange popular tunes of it's day; so it appeared only logical to try this setup on America's first folk songs. It worked. Additional harmonies are provided by a distinctly anachronistic grand harp, and counterpoint by a small field pump organ. The effect is stunning: a music so utterly, distinctly American, one wonders why this hasn't been done before.

Renato Wiedemann is a violin player with Brazilian origin. He has recorded an original programme with works by composers from Brazil and Switzerland.

Since the Baroque revival of the late 1980s, Iphigenie en Aulide is Gluck's only French opera to have remained unrecorded on period instruments. To celebrate it's 250th anniversary in 2024, Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de la Loge, Les Chantres du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles and a top-flight cast led by Judith van Wanroij, Stephanie d'Oustrac, Cyrille Dubois, Tassis Christoyannis, Jean-Sebastien Bou and David Witczak have filled that gap with a new recording of the work which revolutionised the aesthetics of French opera. It is underpinned by in-depth musicological and stylistic research carried out by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles in collaboration with Julien Chauvin, in this, his first operatic recording.

This album celebrates a warm and close musical relationship between composer, conductor, and orchestra - and the extraordinary impact the Covid pandemic had on British cultural life. Sir Mark and the Hall� commissioned and premiered the works on this album between 2020 and 2025, with Huw Watkins writing with the specific sound of the Hall� in mind. Symphony No. 2 and Fanfare for the Hall� were born of the pandemic. The symphony was composed during Covid lockdown, and Watkins said this influenced the work's character, with a determination that it should end positively. This is uplifting music, crafted in a symphonic tradition whilst offering a fresh voice and skilful use of instrumental writing. The performance was awarded the South Bank Sky Arts Classical Music Award for 2022. The Fanfare for the Hall� was commissioned by the Hall� to celebrate the return of the orchestra to the concert platform following the first Covid lockdown. Scored for 11 brass instruments, the work moves from a tentative beginning to a confident and defiant conclusion - arguably reflecting much of the national mood during the pandemic. Following almost a quarter of a century as Music Director of the Hall�, Sir Mark premiered Watkins' Concerto for Orchestra in his first concert as Conductor Emeritus. The piece particularly reflects the qualities of the orchestra and it's musicians, and their longstanding relationship with Sir Mark. The work exudes positivity, with rhythmic deftness and highly effective orchestral colourations, displaying the musical strengths of all sections of the orchestra, in writing that is beguiling and joyous.

One hundred years of Romanticism, about sixty years of postromanticism and another sixty of filologic research and adhesion to "original versions" of past musical compositions got used to us badly.
Romanticism conditioned us to think that what was written by the hand of a composer has to be untouchable, a sacred document that's perfect like it is; postromanticism convinced us that this idea had to be applied to any artwork, even the ones that were written before the '800s; lastly, the meritorious and sacrosanct philologic enforcement to the research of the 'original text' have definitely forced us to believe that the only 'original version' of a composition is the one that reproduces exactly the text, recovered with all the tricks modern and performed with instruments as close as possible to the 'original' instruments of the time in which the composition was, in fact, composed.
These three elements, put together, even if they seem contradictory to each other, actually go to form a perfect storm, a kind of explosive mixture that makes people look askance artistic achievements such as the one proposed by the program of this CD.
But fortunately, for some, very little indeed, time, we have awakened from these paths so tremendously binding, starting right from the end, from the last step. And so 'historically informed' executions, those in which, that is, the performers tell you “I know very well that I am playing with a modern instrument an ancient music, but I also know that…”.
Music has always been there, especially chamber music, which is done at home, among friends with the mere pleasure of playing together, is written for variable organics. And even if we find the name of one or more instruments on the title page of the critical edition, the author is actually giving the eventual executor only an 'executive suggestion', as if he was telling us: “check the range of your instrument, and if with it you can play the notes that are written, this song is for you”. Be it melodies or accompaniment chords. This has always been the meaning of chamber music. Making music together for someone to listen to, or just for the pleasure of making it.
Maria Chiara Mazzi

In September 2020 Florian Berner travelled to Tuscany. Playing in the local church, and initially just for himself, he recorded the first three of Bach’s six suites for solo cello. By early 2023 he completed the cycle in Köthen, where Bach was Capellmeister from 1717-1722. The two separate experiences captured performances of unique intuition and power.

This album celebrates the work of Thomas Ades, one of Britain's 'most imaginative composers' The Guardian, and Artist-in-Residence of the Halle (2023-25). Alongside a survey of his recent works for orchestra are two pieces by composers who have been championed by Ades. Conducted by Thomas Ades, 'one of the most accomplished and complete musicians of his generation' (New York Times) this album features three world premiere recordings, including Ades' Aquifer. Taking it's name from an underground geological structure through which water seeps and flows, the work features orchestral writing which is full of colour and movement, flamboyant climaxes and rich expression. Written during the first Covid lockdown, for an orchestra that had to play socially distanced, Dawn is constructed from a slowly unfolding passacaglia which passes between instruments, depicting the sunrise moving continuously around the world, in music of sonic beauty. Repetition is also at the heart of Shanty, as material is passed between orchestral voices, with hypnotic and captivating results. In contrast, ingenious use of imitation and repetition produce a gripping effect in the invigorating brass fanfare Tower. Premiere recordings of two works closely associated with the Halle complete this album. Leith's Cartoon Sun, described as 'mesmeric' (The Arts Desk), was commissioned by the Halle. The processional piece displays a rich soundscape, coloured with large tolling bells and stunning orchestral climaxes. The Halle and Ades gave the world premiere of William Marsey's Man with Limp Wrist' in 2023. Inspired by a Salman Toor oil painting and with writing which is rooted in historical melody and harmony, the music is full of emotion and expression. Thomas Ades, CBE: internationally acclaimed composer, pianist and conductor whose work has been presented in leading concert halls and opera houses worldwide. Recordings of his works have received numerous international awards and in 2024 Ades received the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal from Sir Simon Rattle, who described him as being an 'outrageously gifted' musician.

Finnish cellist Max Lilja, one of the founders of Apocalyptica, takes us on an immersive journey across Johann Sebastian Bach’s life. Through merging the iconic Cello Suites with an ambient composition, Lilja enlightens the space around the solitary voice.

To emphasize the continuous transcendence of a life, Lilja builds a solid sense of identity for each suite. The cello is embraced by the sonic world like an individual by the universe. Lilja’s playing has influences from the span of 300 years of existence of the suites, evolving from the simplicity of the 1st suite to almost Romantic in the 6th. His interpretation is inspired by Bach’s rhythmical ideas that expand suite by suite and, as life throughout the years, become more complex and multilayered.

After years of pioneering cello artistry in rock and electronic music, as well as composing for various projects, Lilja returns to his classical roots. With "Six Shades of Bach," he presents a first-of-a-kind crossover work, contributing to dialogues about the cello suites and the survival of classical music.

Max Lilja makes his Pentatone debut.

Taken from a rapturously received and critically acclaimed performance at The Bridgewater Hall (with The Times' 5* review describing a 'splendid night' and hailing the magnificent sound of the 'blazing Halle) this recording will prove essential for those wishing to hear the work in the intended four movement form. The recording is accompanied by a booklet containing a personal introduction from Kahchun Wong and a note from Dr. John A. Phillips, surveying the material Bruckner left for the Finale and detailing the work done on reconstructing it for performance.

This album marks the beginning of an innovative journey for the Halle under it's newly appointed Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor, Kahchun Wong. Internationally acclaimed for his dynamic stage presence and his thoughtful exploration of Eastern and Western artistic legacies, Singaporean-born Kahchun Wong assumes his new role with the Halle in September 2024, following his electrifying debut with the orchestra last season. This recording of the complete The Prince of the Pagodas ballet, the first in over a decade, reflects Wong's interest in Balinese Gamelan and the deep connection he made during his composition studies to the work of Britten. Music which he says, 'resonates deeply inside me'.

Among the first releases on the Hallé recording label, established in 2003, were Elgar’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2. This recording revisits those works nearly 20 years later and marks the culmination of Sir Mark Elder’s tenure as Music Director. The First Symphony was premiered in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, in 1908 by the Hallé and its Music Director, Hans Richter, to whom the symphony is dedicated. It is a work of astonishing musical and structural mastery which was greeted with worldwide acclaim, receiving one hundred performances in its first year. The musical material demonstrates Elgar’s skill at melody and transformation and presents a wide emotional range.

By contrast, the Second Symphony, with its deeply personal ‘pilgrimage of a soul,’ initially received a more muted reception. However, it came into its own after the end of the First World War when the tone of remembrance and tribute possibly reflected the national mood, in what is now considered to be one of Elgar’s finest works.

The Concerto Koln goes on a journey of discovery and contrasts the famous Johann Sebastian Bach with the now unknown Johann Adolf Scheibe?. The ensemble is accompanied by the excellent soprano Marie Sophie Pollak. Together they present the two rivaling composers in a way, where instrumental and vocal composition by Bach and Scheibe alternate on the album?.

Finnish harpsichordist Aapo H�kkinen plays Book I of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier on the Christian Vater harpsichord preserved in Nuremberg and on an equally historic clavichord. Two of the 24 pairs of Preludes and Fugues are even presented in an alternative instrumentation on the historic North German organ of Backemoor. Aapo H�kkinen, not least through his acclaimed AEOLUS recordings of Bach's harpsichord concertos, continues to reveal the richness and expressive possibilities of these masterpieces.

The centerpiece of the Bach collection is a 2015 recording of The Well-Tempered Clavier, the so- called old testament of piano music, a series of 48 preludes and fugues in all of the piano's possible keys. A look at that monumental collection's recorded history could serve as a compendium of piano performance styles through the last 120 years. Unsurprisingly, Biret conforms to none, and perhaps the best way to describe her interpretations is orchestral. As the historically informed Baroque practitioners prescribe, each prelude and fugue certainly has a distinct character, but those long lines emerge with the definition of strings, brass or winds, lush and strident by turn. Trills are mellow and exquisitely shaped, and a wealth of detail is present but never exaggerated. Biret's Bach is a cliff wall to be scaled, a peak to be reached and an aspiration to be achieved.

Concerto Copenhagen's musicians present six new "Brandenburg Concertos" - based on Bach's organ trio sonatas?. J.S. Bach's six organ trio sonatas represent some of his most imaginative and attractive music - by transforming the format through an orchestration inspired by the original Brandenburg Concertos, Concerto Copenhagen is offering a unique new orchestral repertoire. Oboist Antoine Torunczyk has created these six new Brandenburg Concertos with special focus on varying instrumental mixes and sizes - including flute, recorder, oboe d'amore, oboe da caccia, viola d'amore, natural horn, violoncello da spalla, bassoon.

The powerful Catholic Archbishop of Salzburg, renowned for the extraordinary religious ceremonies held at his cathedral, received a splendid festival mass from Muffat. Muffat was a true European: he studied music in Paris with Lully, was an organist in Alsace, and had positions in Vienna, Prague, and Salzburg. He was a man who fused Italian, French and German styles, adding his extravagant verve, especially for this 1690 Pentecost. The music is written for twenty-four different voices and has to be distributed through the space by five choirs, along with impressive effects from the trumpets and percussion. The Royal Chapel allows this “immense” music to be set in space as it deserves. Le Banquet Céleste (Damien Guillon) and La Guilde des Mercenaires (Adrien Mabire) rise to the challenge of performing this work of exceptional proportions!