A new album on GENUIN from the internationally performing pianist Sophia Weidemann! A prizewinner at numerous international competitions, she thrilled both critics and audiences with her album of works by Fanny Hensel. Now she follows up with a recording devoted to Bach: the program features the world-famous Goldberg Variations, which show off the phrasing and tonal artistry of this young pianist from Swabia to brilliant effect. She takes her listeners on an exciting and moving journey through the 30 variations - a work in which, for Bach, an entire world is contained. To quote the composer himself: "A most joyful delight for the soul!"

Red is the color of love and of roses, but also of blood, anger, and shame. Soprano Eva Resch delves into the multifaceted meanings of this color in her new concept album for GENUIN. Together with her piano partner Eric Schneider, she interprets songs spanning from the Classical era to the present - from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Wolfgang Rihm. With her versatile voice, she traces the subtlest shades of human emotion and creates expressive character portraits that range from jubilant ecstasy to the depths of sorrow.

This album features the live recording of the concert given by Trio Lirico and pianist Josu de Solaun at the Fundacion Juan March in Madrid on April 23, 2025. It marks the world premiere recording of the two piano quartets composed in 1902 by the Spanish composers Vicente Zurron and Bartolome Perez Casas. The beginning of the 20th century represented a creative breakthrough in Spain, where chamber music had previously been limited to private settings and personal enjoyment. The expansion of chamber music into public concert halls inspired local composers to explore the genre - an impulse reflected in the recovery of these long-overlooked works.

The age-old spirit of the composer-performer lies at the heart of the 10-year collaboration between cellist-composer Christoph Croise and composer-saxophonist Daniel Schnyder (pronounced SHNEE-der). This resulting album features two of Daniel's concertos, both commissioned by Christoph, alongside numerous world premieres of solo and chamber works. Christoph shines in the Concerto for Cello, Percussion and String Orchestra, whilst the two Swiss compatriots share the limelight in Concerto Populaire for soprano saxophone, cello, percussion and string orchestra, both backed by members of Christoph's hand-picked Beyond Modern Orchestra, an ensemble dedicated to the creation and performance of new music. Christoph brings in other close collaborators, including Alexander Panfilov for Jazz Sonata for Cello & Piano, harpsichordist Peter Gorobets for Cello BLU - another Christoph commission that explores the unique timbral relationship between the two instruments - and an octet of leading European cellists for Cubac - a fusion of Cuban rhythms and Bachian-counterpoint. Throughout, Daniel's compositions seamlessly fuse a melting pot of musical styles, including classical, jazz, Middle Eastern, African and Latin American. Christoph, who himself is rapidly gaining renown as a composer, says, "There is no more fitting way to celebrate contemporary music than by performing it alongside the composer himself."

On it's new CD from BR-KLASSIK, the Bavarian Radio Chorus, directed by Howard Arman, presents Christmas music from Italy. With his Lauda per la nativita del Signore, Ottorino Respighi modernised the medieval nativity play of the same name by the religious lyricist Jacopone da Todi. He had already explored art forms of the past in adaptations of early music, re-creations and free works based on Gregorian chants. In this piece, he assigned the medieval verses to three soloists - the angel, the Virgin Mary, and the shepherd - as well as a chamber choir. Accompanied by selected woodwind instruments reminiscent of the music of Italian shepherds, and by four-handed piano and triangle, the miracle of Christmas is brought to life in a simple yet impressive way. Francesco Paolo Frontini is remembered less for his compositions than for his many collections of Sicilian folk songs. From his Canti religiosi del popolo siciliano (Religious Songs of the Sicilian People, published in 1938), a collection of 22 songs for voice and piano underlaid with Sicilian dialect verses and their Italian translations, Howard Arman selected eight songs and arranged them for choir and instruments. Like Frontini, who already included regional variants from Catania, Palermo, and other parts of the Mediterranean island, Arman also arranged different regional versions of two songs. The melody of the Italian Marian carol O sanctissima, which is one of the most popular Christmas carols in the German-speaking countries with it's opening verse O du frohliche, could possibly also have originated from Sicily. The arrangement is once again by Howard Arman.

Born of a friendship formed at London's Royal College of Music over 10 years ago and boasting a discography of seven recordings, the Busch Trio takes it's name from the legendary Adolf Busch, whose G.B. Guadagnini violin Mathieu van Bellen has the honour of playing. Van Bellen and the Epstein brothers Omri on piano and Ori on cello now launch their ambitious project of recording the complete Beethoven piano trios. The first instalment contains the Op. 1 trios (Nos. 1 and 3), the first compositions by the young Beethoven who had left his native Bonn to study with Haydn in Vienna in 1792. Although Beethoven did not write a concerto for a wind instrument, he did compose a great deal of chamber music for them, including the Trio in B flat for piano, clarinet and cello (1798), although designing it so that the clarinet part could also be performed on the violin. The playful theme of the variations in the finale earned the trio it's nickname, "Gassenhauer"; (street or folk song).

Leading British critic Stephen Johnson called Poul Ruders "The Richard Strauss of the computer-aged orchestra", and indeed the Ruders six symphonies, collected here for the first time, sparkle with vivid color and brilliant orchestral virtuosity. Ruders is best known for his score to the opera "The Handmaid's Tale", based on Margaret Atwood's dystopian American tale, produced by opera companies throughout Europe and North America.

The two composers heard on this album, Giovanni Gabrieli (1553-1612) and Giovanni Bonato (born in 1961) have more in common than their first names: both hail from the Veneto in north-east Italy - there is no documentation of Gabrieli's birth, but he was probably Venetian, and Bonato was born in nearby Schio. Their music, too, is conceived in terms of it's sound in space, with Gabrieli using the cori spezzati that sang from the opposing galleries of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, and Bonato employing cori spazzializati to build a spatial dimension into the music itself. Juxtaposed, their styles offer a striking contrast, with Gabrieli's bold declamations set against Bonato's shifting, timeless suspensions.

... Romanticism is not the bloodless intellectual commitment to a program, but the expression of my most profound mind and soul." Sergei Bortkiewicz This deeply personal attitude toward Romanticism encapsulates the artistic philosophy that sustained Ukrainian composer Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1952) through the turbulent tides of the early 20th century: the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the unrelenting horrors of the Second World War. Anchored in a deep sense of nostalgia, his works evoke a world imbued with dreams and elegance a stark contrast to the chaos that surrounded him. The composer's life and career reflect the multiethnic, multilingual, and politically complex tapestries of Ukraine during his time. This album is dedicated to the city of Kharkiv the hometown of both the composer and the pianist featured on this recording. Hailed by The New York Times as a pianist of a fiery sensibility and warm touch, Anna Shelest continues her collaboration with the legendary conductor Neeme Jarvi with this release. Their previous recordings featuring the complete works for piano and orchestra by Anton Rubinstein have been praised by Gramophone Magazine for their "... power and agility... effortless effect... nuanced and incisive all around.

Discovering Wilfred HeatonPremiere recordings of major instrumental works by a remarkable yet overlooked English composer Wilfred Heaton (1918-2000) is a name well-revered in brass band circles, but nearly unknown in the wider world of classical music.�Discovering Wilfred Heaton�seeks to change that with no less than seven premiere recordings from pianists Murray McLachlan and Rose McLachlan, tenor James Gilchrist, clarinetist Linda Merrick, and flutist Alex Jakeman. The album is anchored by the first recording of Heaton's monumental Piano Sonata, which was performed in 2024 to rapturous applause by Murray McLachlan at Manchester's Stoller Hall. The Sonata, composed in the 1950s, is a work of striking ambition and depth. Harmonically daring, emotionally raw, and technically formidable, it stands comparison with the great mid-century sonatas of Bartok and Prokofiev. From the muscular counterpoint of it's opening, through a grief-tinged slow movement and a dazzling finale, Heaton's sonata reveals a powerful, individual voice he was fearless in embracing big themes, bold melodies, and contemporary idioms. Also featured are first recordings of the�Three Pieces for Piano�(1954), and the poignant piano suite�Pilgrim Reflections, adapted from Heaton's mystery play�Pilgrim's Song. A selection of Heaton's rarely-heard�songs written in his youth and again in later life are performed here by the acclaimed tenor�James Gilchrist, accompanied by�Rose McLachlan. Together, these works illuminate Heaton's stylistic evolution: his command of bitonality, rhythmic complexity, and melodic invention, rooted in a deep understanding of Bach and Brahms, and influenced by Walton, Hindemith, Bartok and Stravinsky. Heaton's career was shaped by a lifelong tension between personal conviction and professional ambition. A deeply private Yorkshireman, he turned away from a mainstream musical path after early promise studying with Matyas Seiber and submitting works to the Society for the Promotion of New Music choosing instead a life of teaching, reflection, and selective composition. The result is a body of work of exceptional quality, much of it unpublished or unheard until now. This album is not only a significant act of musical archaeology by Heaton's biographer and editor Paul Hindmarsh� - it is a compelling argument for Heaton's inclusion among Britain's most original post-war composers. Track highlights:-Piano Sonata (premiere recording) - Murray McLachlan, piano-Three Pieces for Piano (1954)-Pilgrim Reflections (suite for solo piano) For fans of:�Bartok, Britten, Prokofiev, William Walton, Elisabeth Lutyens, early Tippett. An essential discovery for collectors, performers, and listeners drawn to British 20th-century repertoire beyond the usual names.

Jose Elizondo is a multifaceted Mexican composer. He studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and at Harvard University. In the field of technology, Jose works full-time as an engineer in a company that specializes in speech recognition technology systems. As a composer, Jose writes chamber and orchestral music in a style that is lyrical and expressive, often drawing inspiration from Latin American folk music.

Another discovery unearthed by Brilliant Classics, and another name to add to the library of French-Baroque masters, from the voraciously inquisitive mind and virtuoso hands of Fernando de Luca. Who was Hubert Renotte (1704-1745)? He was born and died in the Belgian city of Liege, and for the last decade of his life served as the titular organist of the cathedral there. Accordingly he wrote a good deal of church music, which remains as overlooked as his output for keyboard. This in itself encompasses not only organ music but the distinctively Franco-Italian style of the harpsichord pieces presented for the first time on record in the present album. The C major Suite is launched in dazzling style with 'Les Roulades et Harpeggio', living up to it's title with cascades of sequences up and down the keyboard. Renotte must have been quite the technician, as well as a composer of great taste and refinement. Perhaps he had a sense of humour, too, to judge from the third movement of the suite: 'Les Bagatelles Ou Les Folies de Liege & Menuet en Suite Des Bagatelles'. Again, true to the title, Renotte presents a series of sharply etched, fantastical sketches, which we might now hear as proto-Beethovenian in their oblique and disconcerting wit. The Suite concludes with, literally, 'Le Torrent', another sparkling cataract of notes. Whether or not Renotte ever intended them to be played in sequence this way - the music survives in manuscript, and there is no sign that they were published - the other pieces are also gathered up by key signature. There are 17 such pieces in D major, including a 'Pastorella' whose charming character belongs to the association of the key with country manners. On this new recording, Fernando de Luca plays a modern copy by Claudio Capone of a Blanchet harpsichord from 1754. While Jos van Immerseel recorded an LP-length selection of Renotte's works, this is the first time that the composer's surviving keyboard music has been recorded complete. The album represents another feather in the cap for a musician who has done a great deal to revive forgotten names from 18th-century music with complete surveys of their music on Brilliant Classics, among them Dufour, Foucquet, Jollage and Siret. '[De Luca] thinks outside of the box, and he clearly is a man with discerning tastes. These extend to his playing, which is clear-headed and disciplined, but never rigid. "Charm" is such an overused word, but I cannot think of a better one to describe this music and these performances.' (Fanfare on the Jollage album, January 2024)

Carlo Mazzoli and Silvia Rambaldi, passionate scholars of historical instruments and performance practice of early music, were teachers for many years - respectively of Piano and Harpsichord - at the Conservatorio "G.B. Martini" in Bologna, where they realised numerous teaching and concert projects. They have had a constant point of reference in Maestro Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, with whom they have collaborated assiduously in the activities of the San Colombano Museum in Bologna, which has housed it's collection of historical instruments since 2010; they are both present with some performances, both solo and in duo, in the DVD Il vibrar dell'aria dedicated to the Museum. It was precisely with performances on these ancient instruments that the study of Clementi's works for duo began, leading to this first complete recording.

The Amelio Trio, which won the German Music Competition in 2024 and is currently taking the world's stages by storm, has been chosen as one of the ECHO Rising Stars of the season 2026/27. In collaboration with Deutschlandfunk, the German Music Council, and GENUIN, the young piano trio now presents a seamlessly crafted album: The trios by Charles Ives, Ludwig van Beethoven, Ursula Mamlok, and Johannes Brahms flow into one another, forming a musical bridge that spans centuries and continents. Birke Bertelsmeier's "vertrautes angezogensein" (familiar attire), composed especially for this album, recapitulates all the previous works and brings the journey full circle - chamber music at it's highest level!

This 15 CD compilation pays homage to Leif Segerstam (1944-2024), one of the greatest Sibelius conductors of all time. Segerstam left a lasting mark in music history in numerous ways. His Sibelius recordings for Ondine were recorded during his more than a decade long tenure as the chief conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and form an integral part of his more than 30 albums for Ondine between 1994 and 2015. These recordings with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra are a fortuitous combination of the orchestra's tradition of performing Sibelius, going back to collaboration with the composer himself, with Segerstam's experience, sensitive ear and creative energy. Here the stars aligned in a truly remarkable way.