Heinrich Schutz continued to set himself challenges throughout his long career. Of all the genres of sacred music that he undertook, the oratorio offers us his most contrasting ideas. His Historia der Geburt Jesu Christi (1664) is in many respects the model for the genre that would later be employed by the musicians of Johann Sebastian Bach's generation; the score that Vox Luminis use for this recording has been reconstructed from manuscript sources in the Duben Collection in Uppsala. The album is completed with a number of particularly festive motets for the Christmas period by Heinrich Schutz and his illustrious contemporary Andreas Hammerschmidt.

Sweden is well-known for it's many great singers, but perhaps less known for it's operas and orchestral songs. Now you have the opportunity to hear a selection of works by both male and female Swedish composers: Hugo Alfven, Elfrida Andree, Ingeborg von Bronsart, Helena Munktell, Laura Netzel, Gosta Nystroem and Ture Rangstrom. On top of everything performed by a Swedish vocal dream team (Kerstin Avemo, Sabina Bisholt, Julia Sporsen, Viktor Johansson, Karl-Magnus Fredriksson) and the Goteborg Opera Orchestra conducted by Patrik Ringborg. World premiere recordings of more than half of the content!

Bach's Coffeehouse brings together a selection of Apollo's Fire recordings - old and new alike - featuring repertoire that is believed to have been performed at Cafe Zimmerman in Leipzig, the city where Johann Sebastian Bach served as Cantor. Coffee houses were all the rage at the time, centres for socialising and musical soirees. Bach would have found respite from his formal duties as Cantor, by curating informal concerts at the thriving coffee emporium. Bach's Coffeehouse features new recordings of Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 with virtuoso soloists Alan Choo, the Singaporean violinist and Assistant Artistic Director of Apollo's Fire, and recorder player Daphna Mohr; the Double Concerto for Oboe and Violin with Debra Nagy and violinist Johanna Novom; and "Air on a G String" from Orchestral Suite No. 3. Rounding out the album, Apollo's Fire brings back catalogue favourites by two of Bach's contemporaries: Telemann's swaggering Don Quixote Suite, and Vivaldi's fiery "La folia", featuring Alan Choo and Spanish violinist Francisco Fullana.

Richard Cameron-Wolfe's Passionate Geometries features eight of his chamber works written over a thirty year period, displaying the wide range of aesthetic approaches at play in his music, from his theatrical micro-operas to deeply felt settings of instrumental works that explore microtonality. Cameron-Wolfe's musical voice is rarefied and unique in it's precise detail, injecting pathos and brilliance into the smallest of gestures as they come together to convey rich narratives.

Reiko Füting's newest release "Broken Song" alternates choral settings of poetry by his long-term collaborator Kathleen Furthmann with a solo piano performance of his introspective work, "Five Meditations on Music from Luigi Rossi’s Collection," by pianist Jing Yang. Füting frequently uses quotation and references to early music as a jumping-off point in his work. The choral works are sung by Vocalconsort labia vocalia, conducted by Füting himself.

The trouveres followed in the footsteps of the troubadours, spreading their songs of love from court to court and thus made their own contribution to the idea of mediaeval courtly love. Written in the langue d'o�l, the ancestor of modern French, the songs presented here evoke not only the inaccessible Lady who is worthy of praise but also the little peasant girl who is courted with far less delicacy. An entire world, courtly, colourful and festive, is portrayed in songs to the Virgin, weaving songs, songs evoking spring and chansons a refrain by Guiot de Dijon, Moniot d'Arras, Gautier de Coincy, Thibaut de Champagne and even the trouveresse Maroie de Diergnau.

Franz Liszt's Weihnachtsbaum ('Christmas Tree') is an all-embracing impression of Christmas that includes traditional carols alongside childhood and adult views of the season. The dark chromaticism of Die Trauergondel II is a tribute to Wagner, contrasting with the brighter range and yearning lyrical lines of the Wiegenlied. Many of these works remained unpublished in Liszt's lifetime, and are genuine rarities even today.

Eventide, for two pianos (1989) contains a tune that dates back to the composer's childhood. When Lloyd was writing the music for his opera John Socman (1951), his father William Lloyd, who was writing the libretto, produced a little carol which the ten-year-old George had penned and subsequently forgotten. William Lloyd had kept the manuscript and now presented it with the suggestion that it would be suitable for the opera at various junctures. Thus, the tune appears first as a carol sung by an old man and is later performed by a chorus of boys outside a window. Lloyd used the tune in this piece Eventide, for two pianos (1989) and finally arranged it for brass band as Evening Song in 1991. In it's two-piano incarnation recorded here, Lloyd exploits the extreme registers of the keyboards, the figurations in the upper reaches having the chiming brilliance of a carillon. The central climax is especially stark and ferocious, so that the return of the poignant simple tune, expertly deferred by the composer, has a genuinely cathartic effect.

The Sainte-Colombe family remains a source of mystery to this day: the first name and the origins of the father, who taught Marin Marais and composed numerous pieces for one or two viols, remains hidden in the mists of time. The same obscurity surrounds his son or sons: records show a few traces of him in London and Edinburgh around 1700, although all that is really known of him comes from the Pieces de viole recorded here; these five suites of dances in the French style, including a Tombeau pour Mr de Sainte-Colombe le pere, have survived in a non-autograph manuscript. The version presented here breaks with the usual interpretations of these Pieces de Viole, as it includes a reconstruction of a basso continuo part as was common in works by composers of the son's generation. The non-autograph source that has survived gives a general feeling that something is missing in the harmonic structure, a lack that is here filled by this new basso continuo part. Reconstructed in the musical language and style of the time, the music of Sainte-Colombe's son here seems to come back to life; these pieces have not only recovered their full meaning but also reveal a sublime music.

Composer Kate Soper releases The Hunt, a one act chamber opera inspired by a series of medieval tapestries known as "The Lady and the Unicorn." The work is scored for three sopranos who also play instruments onstage (violin and ukulele), and incorporates some of Soper's characteristic compositional interests, such as the use of diegetic music, into this intimate staging.

Composer Yi-Ting Lu releases her debut album, An Unopened Seashell, a collection of five solo works that demonstrates her capacity for using musical materials to explore extra-musical phenomena. Featuring performances by bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward, harpist Ben Melsky, pianist Lam Wong, saxophonist Thomas Giles, and guitarist Daniel Lippel, An Unopened Seashell is an exciting first release from a composer with a captivating balance between her management of development and structure, creative approach to instrumental writing, and a flair for expressive character.

Conductor Simon Crawford-Phillips leads the Västerås Sinfonietta on their new concept album; 'Scotland'. The principal work is Mendelssohn's famous 3rd Symphony; the 'Scottish'; coupled with two interesting contemporary works with strong bonds to Scotland: Helen Grime's "Elegiac Inflections"; and Peter Maxwell Davies' 'Strathclyde Concerto No. 10'.

The mute cornett, whose mouthpiece resembles that of the cornett but is integrated into the instrument, has a very soft and tender sound. For this reason it is called a mute cornett. Four such instruments that by some miracle survived the loss of the great collections of the Kassel court are now kept in Leipzig; these instruments formed the starting point for a doctoral thesis led by Lambert Colson. It is now possible to trace the entire history of these instruments, from their manufacture by great Venetian makers, their acquisition by Moritz Von Hessen (the famous patron of the young Heinrich Schutz), the names of the musicians who played them, to the music that was composed for this mysterious cousin of the cornett. This recording will use copies of historical instruments in works composed for the Kassel court, for the most part unpublished, at the Accademia Filarmonica in Verona.

Giulio Caccini played a decisive role in the birth of the solo madrigal. He not only accompanied himself as he sang them, but also formed the Concerto Caccini with his wife and children; this ensemble would go as far as to leave it's mark on the French court. This double album features some of Caccini's finest works as well as pieces by his two daughters Francesca and Settimia. It also provides the perfect opportunity for Scherzi Musicali to assemble some thirty instruments and to present the combinations of instruments used for the continuo group that developed around 1600.

Aubade, a fantasy for two pianos, was written during the summer of 1971, for John Odgon and Brenda Lucas. It is in one continuous movement, divided into sections, linked by an introductory theme. The titles of the eight sections are: Introduction; Dance of the Charcoal Burners; The March of the Tin Soldiers; Love Duet; Waltz; Bells, Monks and Lutherans; Moths; Finale. As Edward Seckerson observed of Aubade, 'It's a fun piece, easy on the listener, demanding for the soloists'

The album features archival recordings of an outstanding Polish violinist and teacher associated for years with Hanover, Adam Kostecki, a musical heir of such great violinists as David Oistrakh, Isaac Stern and Nathan Milstein. There are also new recordings, showing two versions of Johann Sebastian Bach's famous Chaconne - traditional, for solo violin, and in the artist's own arrangement, with the accompanying viola acting as a harmonic basis. The remaining compositions on the album are well-known virtuoso pieces, in which the violinist is partnered by chamber orchestras from Sopot and Hanover, as well as by guitarist Carsten Petermann. The CD's leitmotif is the phenomenon of Bach's Chaconne, a timeless that can still be interpreted anew. The album takes the listener into the world of slightly forgotten performance aesthetics; it also allows us to admire the sound of an old Italian instrument and a mature interpretation of the Bach masterpiece, although full of passion and fresh.

Lament, Air and Dance, for violin and piano (1975) corresponds broadly with Joseph Horovitz's prescription for a three-movement design as favouring the listener 'first in the head, then in the heart, and finally in the toes'. The expansive, spaciously conceived opening Lament takes the form of a freely worked out chaconne based the opening theme played by the violin in low register.

We follow the success of the album devoted to Jean-Marie Leclair by continuing our exploration of the rich 18th-century violin repertoire. Leclair's success in the late 1720s acted as a catalyst and many other talented composers emerged in his wake. Those years were particularly favorable to the instrument and the prowess of each violinist was closely scrutinized by observers: the title of Premier violon de France was the subject of fierce competition. This positive and adulatory atmosphere resulted in a great proliferation of sonatas for violin, out of which we have chosen the six jewels that appear here. The greater part of these works are recorded here for the first time.

Maciej Skrzeczkowski, the winner of the MA Competition in Bruges in 2023, devotes his new album to John Bull (1562 - 1628), an English composer who fled his country to take refuge in the Netherlands not only because of his Roman Catholic faith but also because of charges of immorality. There could be nothing more logical in this context than to use copies of English virginals as well as of a typical Dutch adaptation of the instrument known as the moeder en kind (mother and child). This association between English style and Dutch musical practice is clearly evident in John Bull's works, as he had also been in contact with the Amsterdam organist Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck.

David Pohle was one of Heinrich Schütz's most talented pupils although, unlike his master, Pohle did not compose only sacred vocal works; he also created a substantial body of instrumental music, including some thirty sonatas for four to eight instruments and a number of ballet suites. Pohle was very much an heir to the polyphonic tradition and was certainly influenced by the playing of Italian violinists, and particularly so by Carlo Farina, who lived in Dresden at that time. Pohle not only made use of Italian influences but also adapted models from French dance music: this explains the great diversity of structures in these sonatas, which in some respects also herald the outbursts of the stylus fantasticus. This is a revelatory first recording of Pohle’s complete sonatas.

The Book of Miracles is a recently discovered 16th Century German manuscript made up of 167 surviving sheets, depicting in vivid detail miraculous signs, natural catastrophes and Christian myths. Bookended with depictions of biblical events - including stories from the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation - and overflowing with striking images of comets, fantastical beasts, miracles, celestial apparitions and other astronomical events, the manuscript is both an exceptional and unique work of renaissance art but also a comprehensive record of natural and supernatural phenomenon from antiquity to middle of the 16th Century. This collection of visually arresting illustrations is steeped in European folklore - inextricable events are playfully depicted with chimerical and wondrous detail. These images are at once strikingly modern - existing somewhere outside of time - and yet inhabit a world of myth and superstition that are inevitably linked to Christian mythology. From these images I have drawn inspiration for the four movements of this concerto. The piece won an Ivor Novello Award in 2019.

Vitĕzslav Novák was one of the most important Czech composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Moravian-Slovak Suite is one of his most popular works, evoking an eventful and romance-filled day in a Slovakian village. Recorded here for the first time since its rediscovery by producer Jiří Štilec, the Two Wallachian Dances further invoke Novák’s passion for folk music. De profundis was written during the dark days of the Second World War. It includes an important part for organ which is unleashed with full force in one of the most triumphant conclusions in all of 20th-century music.

REVIEW:

Vitezlav Novak (1870-1949) described an eventful day in a Slovak village with his Moravian-Slovak Suite. It was recorded for this production for the first time since its rediscovery by producer Jiri Stilec.

Conductor Marek Stilec has his orchestra play in a tense yet sensitive manner to atmospherically reflect the character of the individual pieces (At Church, Among the Children, The Lovers, The Ball, Night).

This is followed by the Two Walachian Dances and, finally, the 22-minute De profundis, which was written during World War II and can be seen as a protest against Nazi terror. Novak dedicated the work after the war to all Czech victims of 1939 to 1945, commenting, "In Brno, where Czech citizens were shot and hanged by the Germans for fun, they went en masse to the executions, just as the Romans did in Nero’s time, when Christians were thrown to the wild beasts."

De profundis thrives on dark brooding sounds and, in contrast, abrupt effects "of almost apocalyptic expression," as the introduction states.

The important organ solo becomes especially impressive in the powerfully thunderous Grandioso and supports the orchestra in the triumphant coda.

-- Pizzicato (Remy Franck)

Rough Voices was commissioned by Radio 3 for the 2020 BBC Proms - a strange festival in the middle of the pandemic where orchestras played to empty halls across the country. As I was writing the piece I came across the poem 'Tough' by Tony Walsh (born 1965, aka Longfella) - a battle cry for the working-class - and his words resonated with the music I was composing: They don't like it when we make it despite all their ifs and cuts; They don't like it when we take it as our right to shake things up; They don't like it when rough voices start demanding better choices; But it's tough, we've had enough and we are coming. Being from a working-class background myself I know how life changing music can be; and so I wanted to write an anthem for those communities. As the number of people living in poverty continues to rise and working-class voices are marginalised, it's more important than ever that we are heard. As such, Rough Voices is a rallying call to arms: we've had enough. And we are coming! The piece starts with a scream - of anger, frustration - that seems to interrupt a chorale played on strings. The 'interruptions' move into an insistent, incessant procession that drives relentlessly onwards. The 'scream' returns at the climax of the work, though now in a righteously indignant tone, before the chorale reappears, changed somewhat with echoes of the rhythmic pulse that dominated much of the piece. � Gavin Higgins

When I was young I inherited a large pile of my dad's old Beano annuals (a popular comic book in the UK) which, torch in hand, I would consume with relish under my bed sheets at night. There was something about the anarchic and wild nature of the comics that appealed to me as child and, if I'm being honest, continues to appeal to me as an adult. The onomatopoeic words that were delicious to say out loud (Boing! Splat! Paarp! Sluurp!); the diverse range of colourful characters (the Bash Street Kids, Billy the Whizz, Bananaman, and Dennis and his dog Gnasher); the seemingly endless adventures and stories that saw our heroes overcome challenges, get into trouble (and sometimes deal with the consequences) all fed my imagination. It's not often I'm asked to write a piece of music that is, at it's core, fun; but luckily I take writing 'fun' music very seriously! This Percussion Concerto is a colourful, whacky, fast-paced, tour-de-force for solo percussion and orchestra. The concerto features an array of unusual instruments for the soloist (opera gongs, tin cans, plastic buckets), but within the orchestra itself, if you listen carefully, you will also hear slide whistles, kazoos, dustbin lids, car horns, and even some squeaky dog toys! � Gavin Higgins

Peter Lindroth, born 1950 in Norrköping and lives in Stockholm. He started playing the piano as a 9-year-old. Since then, everything has been about music. His long career as a musician started when he joined a pop group in 1965. With some interruptions for touring he studied at music colleges in Gothenburg and Stockholm 1973–1979. During the following 10 years, he freelanced as a keyboard player and producer whilst alternating with composition studies for Sven-David Sandström. In 1989, he returned to the Stockholm Royal College of Music for a diploma course in composition. The list of works includes chamber music, music for voice/s and orchestral music.