The Potsdam-based brothers Sebastian and Daniel Selke have, throughout their career, been employing themes surrounding their Communistera, East German heritage. From modern classical to jazz to electronic music, CEEYS invites 10 contemporary composers to share their musical impressions by reworking tracks of HAUSMUSIK on MUSIKHAUS. To name a few: Neue Meister colleague, Marina Baranova gave her own major melody to CEEYS' harmonies making her interpretation of the piece Circa one half-CEEYS' evocative mood and one halfBaranova twist with the pianist's unique touch. Singer-songwriter Mara Simpson adds her haunting voice and poignant lyrics, 'We keep the pieces to build better, to build hope brick by brick' to the soft, repetitive backdrop of 'Yes, brick by brick' embracing the meaning of the original composition. Erased Tape's electronic-music composer, Ben Lukas Boysen builds around Fallen's repetitive and tense motif, adding an ascending energy and instrumentation to the composition which stretches it to new planes of emotion.

Premiered at the Opera-Comique in Paris on 26 January 1857, Ambroise Thomas's Psyche tells the story of the ill-starred love between Eros and Psyche, who are manipulated by the cynical Mercury and envied by Daphne and Berenice, the heroine's own sisters. The style of the work represents the nec plus ultra of mid-nineteenth-century French opera-comique, notably in the Italianate influence of Rossini, which gives the singers of the two leading roles - one of which, Eros, is a breeches part for mezzo-soprano - a chance to glitter amid torrents of coloratura poured forth in impressive, passionate love duets. The librettists Jules Barbier and Michel Carre achieved an inspired blend of comedy and tragedy by contrasting a quartet of cruel and grotesque characters (Psyche's sisters and their suitors) with the noble hero and heroine. Ambroise Thomas's music does not merely foreshadow the future triumphs of Mignon and Hamlet: it is worthy to stand beside them at the pinnacle of his operatic legacy, as his obituarists declared. This recording confirms their judgment.

Divine Art is delighted to announce a superb collection of sensuous classical Spanish language songs for voice and piano, from the sublime musical partnership of lyric soprano Esther Rayo and renowned pianist and conductor Peter Grunberg. This program of works was first heard in a series of concerts given by the San Francisco based teaching and performance organization LIEDER ALIVE! The album features songs by early 20th century Spanish language composers: Fernando Obradors, Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados, Alberto Ginastera, Xavier Montsalvatge, Consuelo Velazquez and Manuel Ponce. Drawing from Spanish classical poetry and regional folk melodies, these vibrant song cycles offer appeal to art song aficionados and first-time listeners alike. Born in California, and surrounded by Spanish music and language, this music is close to Esther Rayo's heart. Her connection with these songs started when she was introduced to the music of Manuel Obradors while in college. Obradors offered the perfect starting point for her continued study and discovery of Spanish art song, and she was guided by the great 20th century sopranos Montserrat Caballe and Victoria de los Angeles, who kept this music alive. While she was at graduate school in 2017, Esther was introduced to Peter Grunberg by Maxine Bernstein, Founder and Director of LIEDER ALIVE! And they made an immediate musical connection around the works of Spanish language composers. LIEDER ALIVE! #helped provide opportunities for Peter and Esther to perform this music together, alongside it's standard mission of promoting German Lieder. Over the years they continued to study and learn more classical Spanish repertoire, resulting in this, their debut album together. And, even after all these years, they still feel they've only just scraped the surface of this wonderful repertoire!

Composer Adam Roberts'�Book of Flowers�is a celebration of the large scale collection of character pieces, participating in a tradition that traces from Schumann to Chopin to Debussy to Crumb. Performed by piano virtuoso Conrad Tao, Roberts explores an expansive range of expression and techniques on the keyboard, fashioning many short components into work of epic scope.

[Their Beethoven performance's] were shockingly deep. I've never heard a quartet so young get so inside this ultimately inscrutable music LA Times The Calidore Quartet return to Signum Classics for the first instalment of their Beethoven Cycle: a 3-volume set of The Late Quartets. Their interpretation is informed by their diverse set of mentors which include Alban Berg, Emerson, Guarneri and yet still uniquely representing the sentiments, aesthetics and research of their generation. Their interpretations of Beethoven are already critically acclaimed with future performances planned at prestigious venues to be announced.

A sense of expectancy, along with images of stillness in nature, are recurrent in depictions of the story of Christmas. This collection of contemporary carols, alongside well-known favourites, seeks to draw the listener deeper into the remarkable story of the Christ Child.

The Flemish Music Heritage series is a journey of discovery, reviving remarkable pieces of musical heritage. Forgotten scores are brought to light, and familiar compositions are given a fresh perspective. In close collaboration with the Study Centre for Flemish Music, the recordings are founded on intensive research in libraries and archives and meticulously prepared score editions.? The works, expertly selected by connoisseurs, are performed by valued musicians and ensembles who passionately restore neglected and forgotten composers to the recognition they deserve. With these vibrant composer monographs, Antarctica Records aims to broaden horizons and enrich the repertoire with rediscovered treasures from the past. This third volume of the Flemish Music Heritage series focuses on piano works by Joseph Ryelandt (1870-1965). Spanning nearly five decades of his creative output, the recording features five piano works-including two early sonatas, the expressive Six Preludes, and two later works that highlight Ryelandt's evolution toward a more transparent, neoclassical style. Performed by Jozef de Beenhouwer, who has championed Ryelandt's music for decades, the album sheds light on a versatile and refined voice in Belgian musical history.

The Aalborg Symphony Orchestra under Henrik Vagn Christensen presents Royal Danish Concertos for Brass by Thorvald Hansen (1847-1915), Mogens Andresen (*1945) and an arrangement of a flute sonata by Morten Raehs (1702- 1766) in the style of Maurice Andre. Outstanding soloists make the presented works shine and guarantee a truly royal pleasure!

APR's landmark issue on three CDs of Nicolas Medtner's complete solo recordings, which included fifteen 78-rpm sides of previously thought lost Columbia recordings from 1931 and an unpublished HMV recording of his Violin Sonata No 1, are here reissued as a set. Medtner was a magnificent pianist, and these are definitive performances of many of his most important compositions. We can also hear him in Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata, the only music other than his own, he was to record. For this issue we have added a track - his recording of the Russian Round Dance for two pianos where he is joined by Benno Moiseiwitsch - and made some further refinements to the sound quality of the transfers.

To compose a few lines upon the fifth anniversary of the late Wolfgang Gluxam's decease is a task at once light and solemn. Light, for though the inevitable gloom of his too-early passing doth weigh heavy, it is Hope that doth prevail-that sentiment of a positive onwardness, which Music itself may impart, but only when artists of due skill are at work. Wolfgang's talent was singular: through his playing, he could spin tales, rousing in his auditors a tension for "What next?"-a suspense he deftly stoked to fervor. No note was struck without it's precise place in the chaos of the score defined, each tone a pillar in the storm. Some may deem this method contrived, a sign of some cold design-yet I affirm him, in the noblest sense, a genius both calculating and questioning, ever striving for perfection, yet tempered (with a grain of salt) by self-doubt. Though such rigor left certain long-forged schemes-as his endeavor with Bach's Art of Fugue-unrealized, we, in this age of vulgar mass-production, find solace in his scant recordings. These relics, though few, leave us quietly content, brimming with gratitude and joy. For such artistry cannot be reckoned by arithmetic, nor conjured by artificial engines; it demandeth a feeling soul, one that breathes and bleeds. Herein lies the power of Wolfgang's works: they compel us to love. That we may likewise rejoice in the album Brook Street is thanks owed to his descendants, who, in their benevolence, hath permitted it's release-a boon to all who cherish his memory.

Die Geigerin Natalia van der Mersch und die Pianistin Natalia Kovalzon spielen in dieser Aufnahme die drei Sonaten fur Violine und Klavier von Edvard Grieg bieten. Ihre Spielweise, brillant, dynamisch und zugleich der interpretativen Tradition verpflichtet, fuhrt dazu, die Eigenheiten und Starken dieser drei Sonaten neu zu entdecken, die sich in ihrer Sprache und in ihrer Aussagekraft sehr voneinander unterscheiden - mit Momenten lyrischer Abschweifung, aber auch mit Hohepunkten virtuoser Gestaltung, insbesondere in der dritten Sonate, einem charakteristischen Werk aus der vollen Reifezeit des Komponisten. Grieg schreibt: "Die drei Sonaten gehoren zu meinen besten Kompositionen und reprasentieren verschiedene Perioden meiner musikalischen Entwicklung: die erste ist naiv und ideenreich; die zweite ist von nationalem Schwung inspiriert; die dritte ist die mit dem weitesten Horizont."

Like Chopin before him, and even more closely Scriabin, Rachmaninoff yielded to the temptation of writing his 24 Preludes, assembling this emblematic number in three stages. It began with a youthful work: the famous Prelude in C-sharp minor. From this root, music deeply anchored in Russian soil, imbued with the Slavic soul to which the composer, later exiled, would remain forever attached, there would spring, a decade later, the Opus 23 set, followed seven years on by Opus 32. These Preludes are like images in an album that Jean-Baptiste Fonlupt invites us to leaf through, sonic paintings whose authentic colours of memory he poetically restores. Far from his native land, which he left for good, Rachmaninoff would never write this way again.

Das Bearbeiten eigener oder fremder Werke ist eine seit der Barockzeit eingefuhrte Verfahrensweise, um Werke einem breiteren Auffuhrungsspektrum zuganglich zu machen. Dabei war den Komponisten jener Epoche bei solchen Transkriptionen eine wertende Differenzierung zwischen Originalwerken und Bearbeitungen fremd. Sie gingen noch von der Einheit geistlicher und weltlicher Musik aus und von hoherbestimmten, den Komponisten vorgegebenen Affekten. Dies fuhrte in vielfacher Weise zur Wiederverwendung und Wiederverwertung bereits vorhandener Werke i'm sogenannten "Parodieverfahren", wobei diese inspirierte Bearbeitung nahtlos an neues Schaffen anknupfte, etwa durch das Transponieren in andere Tonarten, durch Besetzungsanderungen und vieles mehr. Romain Nosbaum spielt Klavierbearbeitungen von Liszt/Bach, Bach/Marcello, Kornienko/Tschaikowsky u.a.

Amid the pomp of the court, the ear of the young Louis XIV was awakened to the charms of the harpsichord. Surrounded by the most illustrious harpsichordists, he explored a world where music was still a treasure passed from hand to hand. While French harpsichord making flourished, Jacques Champion de Chambonnieres published the first printed scores in 1670. From unmeasured preludes, to poignant tombeaux imbued with subtle melancholy, to delicate arrangements of popular airs, the harpsichord of Louis XIV echoes an era of unprecedented musical richness. Brice Sailly's sublime interpretation highlights the splendour and diversity of this golden age of the French harpsichord.

This anthology of sacred works - all of which could be used in the liturgies of the Christmas festivities - features some of the leading musicians active in Venice in the 16th and 17th centuries. They range from the earliest, Andrea Gabrieli, who died in 1585, to the most recent, Francesco Cavalli, who died almost a century later, in 1676. At the centre of this broad chronological span we encounter not only veritable giants like Giovanni Gabrieli and Claudio Monteverdi, but also prominent musicians connected to them, such as the Saxon composer Heinrich Schu�tz, Giovanni Bassano and Alessandro Grandi. After three successful albums on Arcana, Natale veneziano inaugurates a new series by Il Pomo d'Oro. This recording shines a spotlight on the choir of Il Pomo d'Oro, which has accompanied the orchestra's activities under the direction of specialist Giuseppe Maletto since 2021.