Aleksandra Kaca was born in 1991 in Radom. Composer and Italian language specialist. She is a graduate of the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, where she studied composition with professor Marcin Błażewicz. She also completed a postgraduate course “Menedżer Artysty” (‘The Artist’s Manager’), carried out in cooperation with SGH Warsaw School of Economics. She is currently pursuing a degree in composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, where she is working with Simon Steen-Andersen and Niels Rønsholdt. Kaca also holds a degree in Italian Language and Literature from the University of Warsaw, which she obtained whilst following a part-time course in cultural production, journalism and multimedia at the LUMSA University in Rome. She is a laureate of many national and international composer competitions, such as the first prize at the 56th Tadeusz Baird Competition for Young Composers (2015) and the Call for scores competition, organised by the American ensemble E4TT (2016). Her works were performed during the 59th and 60th editions of ‘The Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music’, at many different venues, such as the Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre for Music, the Pomeranian Philharmonic Hall, the Fryderyk Chopin University, The Masovia Institute of Culture, The Baltic Sea Cultural Centre, as well as the Music Academies in Cracow, Katowice, Poznań and Łódź. Aleksandra Kaca is an active participant in her country’s music scene. She is a co-founder of a group called gen~.rate, which focuses on promoting works written by the young generation of composers. She also works with Delirium-Edition, co-organising important music events – e.g. the performance of Patterns in a Chromatic Field by Morton Feldman as part of the KODY Festival (2017), as well as Dark Matter(s): The Artist’s way Mykietyn / Balka / Peszat / Kociuban at Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera (2017). As a translator, she co-operates with the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, Cinema Italia Oggi Festival (Cinema Muranów / Cinecittà LUCE) and the directing duo Manetti Bros. In her composing work, Kaca focuses mostly upon colours and how to combine them in order to achieve a multidimensional, yet a coherent image. She often reaches for non-obvious orchestration, such as combining the harp with the piano (Smugi cienia) or the soprano and barithone saxophones with electronics (Argument snu). Aleksandra Kaca persists in exploring her interest in many different music genres. She is the leader and founder of the ensemble called FJORS (composition, voice, keyboard, electronics), specialising in alternative and electronic music, as well as trip-hop.

Arno Bornkamp, a maestro of the saxophone deeply rooted in the 20th-century French tradition, has been celebrated by audiences for over four decades for his energetic, impassioned interpretations. Now, he presents an album of works by the French composer Henri Sauguet under the GENUIN label. Sauguet's compositions embody a blend of styles from renowned composers like Erik Satie, Darius Milhaud, and Claude Debussy, yet are also marked by a playful spirit that defies any rigid categorization. Unique, vibrant, and above all, poetic—this is the essence of Sauguet's music, delivered with profound sensitivity by Bornkamp and his friends.

Experience a captivating juxtaposition of four distinct and mesmerizing compositions spanning a mere decade on the GENUIN CD recorded by violinist Friederike Starkloff and pianist Endri Nini. The duo has compiled works from 1913 to 1923 by Erwin Schulhoff, Claude Debussy, George Antheil, and Leoš Janácek — echoes of an era characterized by tumultuous innovation and pioneering spirit where artists across all genres laid the foundations for modernity. Starkloff, who embarked on her career as the youngest first concertmaster of a German radio orchestra, and Nini, esteemed internationally as a chamber musician, breathe life into these extraordinary, kaleidoscopic compositions with unparalleled intensity and technical mastery.

John Pickard is best known for his powerful orchestral and instrumental works, and his music has been widely praised for its large-scale sense of architecture and bold handling of an extended tonal idiom.

This recording brings together three works composed over a period of almost forty years, providing a glimpse of the composer's creative range.

The Second Symphony, completed when Pickard was 23, is an extremely impressive and concentrated work. Its starting point was John Hersey’s book Hiroshima, which describes how vegetation quickly reasserted its presence amid the city’s ashes.

The Verlaine Songs feature six poems by the French poet Paul Verlaine. Chosen for their broad range of expression, the poems were grouped in an order that provides dramatic contrast and an overall progression of mood. The cycle was composed for the soprano Emma Tring, with her particular vocal characteristics very much in Pickard’s mind.

The Sixth Symphony, which completes this recording, was composed at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and is dedicated to Robert von Bahr, founder of BIS Records. After a first movement dominated by a feeling of unease, the second offers relief from the darkness. This recording was the work’s first performance.

Anton Bruckner finally received the award of an honorary doctorate of the University of Vienna on 11 December 1891. For Bruckner, receiving the doctorate fulfilled a long-time wish. He had spent most of his life pursuing academic credentials and applied for honorary doctorates at Cambridge University in 1882 and at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Cincinnati in 1885. Two days later, Hans Richter conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the first performance of the second or so-called “Vienna” version of the composer’s First Symphony, which he had dedicated to the university in gratitude for the degree. The changes Bruckner made in the revised version of the First Symphony are not as extensive as those he made to the Third, Fourth, and Eighth Symphonies during the late 1880s and early 1890s. His revisions to the First Symphony did not affect the overall form of any of the movements. He changed many details of orchestration, articulation, and phrase length, some of which are difficult to notice on first hearing. The 1891 autograph score is, nevertheless, the composer’s final word on how he wanted his First Symphony to be performed and understood.

Pianist Helen Davies is the daughter of a Bohemian mother and Anglo-German father and her family has always been acutely aware of their European heritage. Connections was conceived during the COVID-19 UK lockdown in March 2020. Much of the music on this recording was created by German composers, hence the decision to focus on that link, recording music which they felt connected them back to some of their familial roots. Music is an international language, unaffected by boundaries and this is celebrated in this recording. The inclusion of the little Rondo by the British composer Arnold Cooke embodies this continental link: Cooke studied composition with the German composer Paul Hindemith who had a strong influence on his style and whose musical language can be clearly heard in Cooke's short composition. In keeping with the connections theme, Laurence Davies uses a German horn, an Alexander model 103 made in Mainz for this recording.

The large-scale Bach Organ Landscapes project featuring J.S. Bach's entire organ oeuvre recorded on a range of instruments aims to provide an overview of organ-playing and organ-building traditions that were key to Bach's composing. With a keen eye to the unique cultural organ legacy of the places associated with Bach, Halubek has placed Bach's original sound at the heart of his project. The recordings are accompanied by digital material that offer an almost tactile access to the great composer's sound universe.

This new recording from the Staatskapelle Weimar under Hansjörg Albrecht presents a rarely heard compilation of Richard Wagner’s themes from Tristan und Isolde, arranged for orchestra by Henk de Vlieger (b. 1953). This is Hansjörg Albrecht's follow-up Wagner recording to his album Der Ring ohne Worte (OC1872). The Staatkapelle Weimar dates back to 1491, making it one of the oldest orchestras in the world, and one that is more than familiar with the works of Richard Wagner.

Among Bruckner’s Symphonies, the Fifth is his contrapuntal masterpiece; the grandest until the Eighth. The tour-de-force of a finale gives us an idea of what the finale of the Ninth might have been like. Its magnificent dark and halting opening with the descending bass line – so effectively recalled in the finale – is inimitable. Although long available only in a disfigured version by Franz Schalk, it is also distinct for never having been the subject to revision or, perhaps, even doubt on the part of Bruckner – who never heard it performed with an orchestra. And yet, when Bruckner wrote this masterpiece, he was still far from establishing himself as a composer in Vienna and his spirits were as low as ever, writing a friend that “my life has lost all joy and delight – in vain and for nothing.” A radiant pinnacle from amid darkness.

By his own reckoning, Bruckner began his career as a professional composer when he was thirty-nine years old. With a mere exercise for a symphony under his belt – the unnumbered one in F minor – he was now ready to write his first true symphony. The world was not. First performed in 1868 in Linz – badly – the work flopped and was put aside until nine years and five symphonies later, when it was gently adjusted. A subsequent performance in 1884 was Bruckner’s “most successful Viennese performance to date”, prompting, perplexingly, a thorough revision that would be the 1891 “Vienna” version. This recording uses the unadulterated 1868 “Linz” version.

“Since Beethoven, nothing has been written that even comes close!”

The great conductor Arthur Nikisch made this remark to Bruckner’s former student, Joseph Schalk and also his fellow conductor, Hermann Levi, described the piece as “the most significant symphonic work since Beethoven’s death.”

Arthur Nikisch conducted the first performance in the Stadttheater, Leipzig, on 30 December 1884, with Bruckner in the audience. While the performance was not a total triumph, it brought the sixty-year-old composer significant international recognition for the first time. During the composer’s lifetime, the Seventh, especially its Adagio, was his most popular symphony, and it remains among his most beloved and frequently performed works.

After three solo recordings, virtuoso pianist Paul Wee brings us two forgotten concertos from the Romantic period with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Michael Collins.

Premièred by Clara Schumann under the baton of Felix Mendelssohn, Adolph von Henselt’s Concerto in F minor was eventually performed by the greatest virtuosos of the 19th and 20th centuries. It has, however, inexplicably disappeared from the repertoire despite its obvious qualities: soaring melodies and tender lyricism, colorful orchestration, dramatic intensity across its three movements and piano writing of astounding inventiveness and brilliance.

The familiarity between Henselt’s concerto and some of Sergei Rachmaninoff's works can be explained by the profound influence that the German composer exerted on the Russian. Hans von Bronsart’s Concerto in F sharp minor did not enjoy the same public acclaim, although it is rousing, intimate and electrifying in turns. The richness of its orchestration is matched by an uncommonly brilliant piano part that is a model of practical virtuosity. Breathing late-Romanticism, it requires a soloist to embrace its superheated Romantic language unashamedly if its passions are to take flight.

REVIEWS:

Paul Wee’s fingers dance with clarity and delight around the keyboard. He and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Michael Collins, have an excellent rapport.

— BBC Music Magazine

There is no question that Wee and his cohorts do a tremendous job in bringing these works to life. Wee has warmth and a Romantic stain that encompasses steel along with the requisite limpid lyricism and sparkling decoration. In short, Wee is a pianist you need to hear, whatever the context.

— Limelight

Music developed and modernized unstoppably in the tense environment of the 19th century. Parallel to the industrial and technical revolution of the era, many composers broke away from the firmly chiseled rules of music theory and took ever greater liberties. Singer Pur traces this arc of tension here. The composers of the selected pieces were likely very different in their attitudes toward faith and spirituality. Anton Bruckner, who is said to have had an almost childishly pure faith, probably struggled less with his attitude toward God than Franz Liszt or Max Reger, for example.

Natures is the second monographic album of composer David Chaillou and will be released at GENUIN. An illustrious group of internationally renowned musicians, including pianist Laura Mikkola and cellist Christoph Pantillon, dedicates itself to the French composer's expansive, shimmering, immersive sounds. In his works for cello, piano, string quartet, percussion, and natural sounds, Chaillou conjures a sonic journey through the course of a day, through imaginary landscapes and spaces. The compositions are impressionistic and suggestive, rich in detail, with sweeping lines, and filled with symbols and emotion.

Modern Solo Violin Music

This recording highlights the tremendous contribution of black composers to the repertoire of church and concert organists. Includes organ works by composers from the late nineteenth century to the present day. The masterfully arranged spirituals and dynamic original compositions can add the perfect touch to a worship service. Artist Nathaniel Gumbs has been recognized as "one of 20 outstanding organists under 30 years old for his achievement in organ performance and church music (The Diapason magazine, 2017). The Newberry Memorial Organ, in Woolsey Hall at Yale University, heard on this recording is one of the most renowned Romantic organs in the world.

In her new album "Solitude," soprano Katharina Konradi embarks on a musical journey to explore solitude. On this journey, she is accompanied by poets and composers from different time periods. The Cosmos Quartet from Barcelona joins her on her journey. Art songs by composers such as Robert and Clara Schumann, Franz Schubert, and Hugo Wolf, as well as folk songs and French chansons, are waypoints on this journey on which they explore the various facets of solitude together. Miniatures for solo soprano by the Hungarian-French composer György Kurtág serve as transitional elements, providing subtle and sophisticated coherence. Among the special rarities of the recording are the two Catalan songs by the violinist, composer, and conductor Eduard Toldrà.

The soprano, born in Kyrgyzstan, captivates audiences and critics alike with her vocal brilliance and cultivated emotional depth. The Cosmos Quartet matches her with its honest elegance and compelling expressiveness. Although the Cosmos Quartet and Katharina Konradi only met at the beginning of rehearsals for "Solitude," a very special magic immediately revealed itself, inherent in the combination of Katharina Konradi's voice and the Cosmos String Quartet. "String quartet and voice blend incredibly well together – even though the four instruments already form a perfect sonic structure on their own. I always enjoy being surrounded by so many different colors while singing," describes Katharina Konradi about the collaboration.

The result of this collaboration and shared journey is an album characterized by emotionality, a variety of moods, and the highest musicality. It invites one to linger, to listen closely, to find tranquility in the beauty of music, and to draw strength from it.

In this new recording of contemporary works for saxophone and piano, Max Goldberg and Annabel Thwaite present a programme of contemporary works by European, American and Australian composers, including the world premiere recording of Welsh composer Edward-Rhys Harry's The Ballad of Lady Barham, the philanthropist who established schools and churches in the Gower peninsula through her own funding. Max Goldberg demonstrates the lyrical and expressive qualities of the saxophone as a solo instrument throughout this recording.

Franco-Swiss violist Mathis Rochat presents British repertoire for viola and orchestra, pairing William Walton's well-known concerto with rarely recorded works by Herbert Howells and Arthur Benjamin. Featuring violinist Abigel Kralik, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under the direction of Howard Griffiths, the program highlights romantic styles and lesser-known voices within the first half of 20th-century British music.

Bruckner’s Third Symphony had always been something of a problem child among Bruckner’s symphonies, from its disastrous first reception (an enthused youthful Gustav Mahler notwithstanding) until well into the 20th century. In its original form, it is the longest, most Wagnerian of his symphonies – and often considered, rightly or not, the first truly Brucknerian symphony. While some cherish the uncompromising originality of the first version, Bruckner himself wanted the third, much tightened Edition performed, finding it “incomparably better”. It is that final version that is here recorded – and listeners can now easily decide for themselves.

As a rising star, Wolfgang was just 13 years old when he wrote the first of the brilliant symphonies that the Folkwang Chamber Orchestra Essen is presenting on its new GENUIN CD under the direction of Johannes Klumpp. The outstanding ensemble enters the third round of its Mozart recordings with four early symphonies from 1769 to 1773 – the period in which the young composer wrote most of his symphonic oeuvre. With a slender sound and historically informed means of expression, the top-class ensemble interprets the works of a teenager that still leave you amazed even after 250 years!

Zhu Jian'er represents the first generation of Chinese composers of contemporary piano music. In honor of his 100th birthday in 2022, pianist Xie Yashuangzi, recognized as an expert in this repertoire, has recorded characteristic works from various periods of the composer's career for GENUIN. The composer, who also wrote ten symphonic works, had a particular fondness for the relatively small-scale piano pieces, which, like "small, fragile flowers," brought out his personal voice. Xie Yashuangzi plays with impeccable technique and great clarity; the inspiration flows directly from the piano keys, creating a natural unity of sound and musical phrases.

This recording emerged from a quest to explore new rhetorical and poetic spaces, timbres, and dynamics, aiming to reveal the soul of J.S. Bach's splendid sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord. The cello piccolo, an instrument similar in size and texture to the viola da gamba, proves ideal for capturing the lyrical quality of some movements and the virtuosity of the more intricate and faster passages. The fortepiano, an English instrument beautifully restored, was chosen to emphasize the contrapuntal nature of the three trio sonatas, particularly in the continuous duetting of the right hand with the cello.

The present collection commemorates the long-standing cooperation between Gary Bertini, born in today’s Republic of Moldova, and the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, beginning in 1978 with Hector Berlioz’ 'Symphonie fantastique'. Their last recording featured on this box was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, performed in 1996 in Tokyo. Bertini conducted several Israeli orchestras for many years. Even though he had never wanted to set foot in Germany, he was convinced to travel to Hamburg by the offer to conduct the 1971 premiere of the opera Ashmedai by Josef Tal. He later became chief conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, then director and highest-ranking conductor at the Frankfurt opera and in 1998 went on to serve as artistic director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra.

"Heiko Quinto" is the sixth album release on Naxos by the award-winning composer Daron Hagen. Composed for Duo YUMENO, the piece is based on the Japanese medieval text "The Tale of the Heike." Scored for Japanese koto, cello, and two voices, the work presents a compelling and expressive narrative. World premiere recording.