Tristan Keuris was one of the Netherlands' most distinctive twentieth-century composers, creating music that bridges contemporary expression with lyrical warmth and remarkable accessibility. This recording brings together three of his finest chamber works - the String Quartet No. 1,  Clarinet Quintet and Canzone for solo clarinet - revealing a composer whose music is at once virtuosic, emotionally compelling, and deeply communicative. Rich in colour, dramatic contrasts, and expressive melodies, these works highlight Keuris' unique ability to combine modern musical language with unmistakable humanity.  Performed by the acclaimed Animato Quartet with clarinetist Jelmer de Moed, this album is both a tribute to one of the great voices of Dutch music and a passionate plea for his chamber music to reach a wider audience. From moments of quiet introspection to exhilarating rhythmic energy, these performances capture the emotional depth, brilliance, and timeless appeal of Keuris' musical imagination, inviting listeners to discover a remarkable yet still underappreciated composer.

Norwegian composer Christian Sinding benefitted from some of Oslo's finest music teachers, later studying in Leipzig and encountering Ferruccio Busoni. With his rich melodic gifts Sinding became seen as Grieg's successor, though his music avoided Norwegian folk-music influences and looked more towards the high Romanticism of Liszt and Wagner. In keeping with his lyrical gifts, the Sonata in B minor is driven by melodic invention with Brahmsian influences that also emerge in the 15 Caprices. This collection is a fine representation of the sheer melodiousness and energy that made Sinding's music incredibly popular in it's day. Sinding's Rustle of Spring and Am spinett are available for streaming and download on a digital single (9.70394).

Leo Weiner created a unique synthesis between German/French Romantic traditions and the Hungarian musical language at the beginning of the 20th century. The Ballade, admired for it's beautiful dreamlike lyricism, was one of his most successful works. Weiner took inspiration from folk music as an escape from the 20th-century rise in modernism - his Suite integrates dance melodies into a work of symphonic scale and structure. The Second Violin Concerto is a defiantly Romantic post-war masterpiece in which darkness and light co-exist as an expression of humanity in an age of violence.

SHHH!! Ensemble, the percussion-piano duo of Zac Pulak and Edana Higham, brings together a programme of beautiful and unexpected sounds inspired by the night sky and the vastness of space on their third album, Starry Night. Featuring newly commissioned works by Mari Alice Conrad, Paolo Griffin, Monica Pearce, and Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis alongside Vincent Ho's contemplative Nostalgia and Jocelyn Morlock's sparkling early composition Quoi?, the album moves between the immense forces of the universe and the intimate inner worlds of sleep, memory, and consciousness, exploring how dreams process emotions and memories and shape our evolving sense of self. Across the programme, Stafylakis, Griffin, and Conrad look outward to astronomical events, gravitational interactions, and the possibilities of peaceful exploration, while Pearce and Ho turn inward to examine emotional and psychological experience. Morlock's Quoi? brings an exuberant and light-hearted energy to the album. Bringing celestial motion to a human scale, Starry Night is dedicated to the memory of Jocelyn Morlock, who was, and continues to be, an inspiration and a brightly shining north star to many. Known for their distinctive 'avant-accessible' blend of the experimental and familiar and praised as 'truly virtuosic and intense' by Confluence Concerts and 'a beautiful discovery' by the Societe de musique?contemporaine?du Quebec, SHHH!! Ensemble has commissioned more than two dozen works and performed at festivals, concert series, and with orchestras across Canada. Their debut album, Meanwhile, was nominated for Classical Recording of the Year at the 2023 East Coast Music Awards, while An Auditory Survey of the Last Days of the Holocene received two nominations at the 2025 East Coast Music Awards.

J.S. Bach's first Clavier-Übung - the Partitas - is an important work which holds a particular status: it is the first major publication by a great musician at the height of his maturity - he was 46 - and already a living legend. A large part of the challenge it poses can be found in this contradiction; that a hurdle must give the impression of ease. Art must conceal art itself. My intention was to play them as I would wish to hear them, such as I thought they might be heard: here then is a proposal. And if this proposal incites a desire to delve further, my goal will have been achieved. This is the second half of the recording made with the fabulous 1751 Henri Hemsch harpsichord in 2021-2022, in Royaumont Abbey.

Louise Farrenc's contributions to the keyboard repertoire are a cornerstone of her creative identity. The Air russe varie stands out as one of her most enduring masterpieces, acclaimed by Robert Schumann for it's rigorous counterpoint and refined musicality. The brilliant Souvenir des Huguenots draws it's themes directly from Meyerbeer's hit opera, while the Grandes Variations sur un Theme du Comte Gallenberg is a monumental testament to Farrenc's mastery of the variation form. This is the sixth and final volume in Maria Stratigou's acclaimed survey of Farrenc's complete works for piano.

This 17th volume in the 'Next Generation Mozart Soloists' series marks the conclusion of this collection which, under the inspired and supportive guidance of Howard Griffiths, has enabled dozens of young soloists to record Mozart's concertos with leading orchestras. A series whose reputation has grown with each release and which concludes with three piano concertos grouped under Kochel catalogue number 107 and dated 1772: 'Three Sonatas by Mr Giovanni Bach arranged as concertos by W. A. Mozart' and a concerto for three pianos (KV 242), a work commissioned by Countess Maria Antonia Lodron to be performed with her daughters, Maria Aloisia and Maria Josepha The soloists on this recording were recommended by Andras Schiff, a member of the Orpheum Foundation's artistic board.

Rachmaninoff's etudes-tableaux, Op. 39 is a masterpiece of late Romanticism, full of extreme contrasts with an overwhelming melancholy. Ravel's Miroirs explores a concise and colourful language, exemplified by sonic experiments, rarefied timbres and a refinement of utterance demanding meticulous technical clarity. Pianist Catalin Serban has long wanted to present these two great piano cycles juxtaposed, exploring the tensions between them and finding an inner arc that spans both cycles.

Violist Dana Zemtsov is joined by Modestas Pitrenas and the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen on Reverse Directions. This recording brings together two ideas: movement and belonging. For Zemtsov, movement can lead in many directions: outward into the world, inward into memory, back towards our origins, towards another culture, towards a place we may never physically reach again. Born in Mexico, raised in Europe, and deeply connected to both Latin American and European musical worlds, her artistic voice is rooted not in one place, but in the dialogue between them. Gyula David's Viola Concerto draws on Hungarian folkloric elements. Bohuslav Martinu's Rhapsody-Concerto, written in exile, carries the unmistakable tension between distance and belonging. The album is rounded out with two pieces for solo viola, Fazil Say's Viola Sonata and Francisco Tarrega's Recuerdos de la Alhambra.

On 13 November 2026, Metier is proud to present Distant Horizons from pianist David Palmer, featuring works by Robert Saxton, Thomas Metcalf, and David Palmer himself. David Palmer and Thomas Metcalf met through Robert Saxton when they were both his students at Worcester College, Oxford, and have worked on projects together continuously over the past decade. The album is an exciting multi-layered collaboration exploring and visualising themes of fragmentation and the intangible through the language of music, and reflects the close collaborative friendships between the three composers. As students, Thomas Metcalf and David Palmer were inspired by Robert Saxton's music, the rigour of his process, and his respect for and commitment to the craft of composition. This album stands as a reflection of those values while displaying the evolution and development of their own compositional voices. Saxton's work 'Distant Horizons' was commissioned by and dedicated to David Palmer: it's seven movements each address an aspect of the title, exploring distance in music, whether that be in registers, intervals, harmony, or melody, and the idea of moving towards something ungraspable. 'Distant Horizons' is a radiant, intricate, and engrossing work, demonstrating all the aspects of Saxton's imaginative and technically masterful music. Saxton's music provides a gateway to the pieces by Thomas Metcalf and David Palmer, which are more fragmented and modernist, but also illuminating and colourful. Metcalf's two pieces 'Arrays' and 'Involuntary' are separated by five years and display his fascinating compositional journey of aesthetic and technical exploration. 'Arrays' considers how a varyingly pixelated text can be used to create musical structure and material, a playful interpretation of what 'word-setting' really entails. The work was highly commended by the jury of the Royal Musical Association's Tippett Medal (2023). 'Involuntary' contemplates involuntary musical imagery (INMI): the phenomenon known colloquially as 'earworm', aiming to translate Metcalf's experience of it as an annoying transient memory into a single work for piano. David Palmer's own innovative piece demonstrates his ever-searching mind both as a performer and as a composer. 'Twine' takes it's name from the method of it's construction: multiple independent lines intertwined to form a single tightly bound strand which then gradually frays. After early advice and support from Benjamin Britten, Robert Saxton studied with Elisabeth Lutyens, Robin Holloway, Robert Sherlaw Johnson and Luciano Berio. He was awarded first prize at the 1975 Gaudeamus Competition in Holland and, from 1985-86 was the Fulbright Arts Award Fellow at Princeton University, USA. His output includes orchestral, chamber, and solo music, and opera, through which he has collaborated with many major artists and ensembles. He is Emeritus Professor at Oxford University. Thomas Metcalf is a musicologist and composer specialising in music, visual art, and intermediality, and is currently the Christopher Cox Junior Research Fellow at New College, Oxford. David Palmer is a London-based composer and pianist specialising in 20th- and 21st-century repertoire. He is a College Lecturer in Music at Keble College, Oxford, and at the Royal College of Music Junior Department.

Tracing the footsteps of Princess Amalie of Saxony, Coloquio 6 revives the spirit of Harmoniemusik, intimate wind ensembles that once brought the most beloved music of the day to audiences everywhere. This musical journey features works by Amalie herself, her mentor Carl Maria von Weber, and captivating arrangements of operas by Mozart and Rossini.

... Feeling, Taste & Science... : The Viola da Gamba Music of Carl Frederick Abel presents Richard Boothby and Fretwork exploring the work of Carl Friedrich Abel, the German-born composer and viola da gamba player who became a central figure in London's musical life from 1759 until his death in 1787. The programme draws on solo works from the Drexel Manuscript, three sonatas with harpsichord, and a fugue believed to have been composed for Abel's close friend Thomas Gainsborough. Countertenor Iestyn Davies joins for Abel's only known aria. Two of the three sonatas included are recorded here for the first time, having been discovered in a castle in Poland.

Les Itinerantes, the acclaimed female vocal trio, make their PENTATONE debut with HYSTERÆ, an imaginative and deeply personal exploration of the many faces of the Feminine. Mothers, queens, witches, workers, saints, fairies and enchantresses come together in a rich tapestry of stories, archetypes and emotions that have shaped cultures across the world and throughout history. Through melodies from diverse musical traditions, original compositions and rarely heard works by women composers and writers, the album gives voice to figures who have been revered, feared, idealised, silenced and misunderstood. Renowned for their captivating a cappella performances and their unique repertoire spanning fifty languages, Manon Cousin Cipriani, Pauline Langlois de Swarte and elodie Pont create a sound world where borders, eras and genres dissolve. HYSTERÆ is both an intimate journey and a universal celebration, embracing the contradictions that define the human experience: tenderness and rage, fragility and strength, creation and destruction. Blending influences from early music, world traditions, sacred song and contemporary composition, Les Itinerantes invite listeners on a powerful voyage of self-discovery, liberation and imagination.

GRAMMY Award-winning tenor Nicholas Phan's thoughtful and probing recital program Fellow Citizens delves into stories of immigration and migration through compositional voices ranging from the 19th century to the present day. Nick explains, 'The 'wanderer' has been a trope at the centre of song repertoire since the advent of the art form fostered by travelling troubadours; through the migrant journeymen protagonists of Schubert, Mahler, and their contemporaries; to today's itinerant singer-songwriters.' Fellow Citizens, with Nick's fellow GRAMMY Award winner pianist Myra Huang, is bookended by works of composers who migrated during their lifetimes. The album opens with 'God Bless America,' Irving Berlin's musical prayer of thanksgiving to the nation that gave him refuge as a child fleeing pogroms in Russia. In the closing set of songs are by Robert Owens and Florence Price, each of whom followed the path of America's Great Migration in the twentieth century, whilst Rebecca Clarke's relocation to the United States was prompted by the Second World War. Songs by British-American composer Rebecca Clarke and British composer Errollyn Wallen CBE, alongside works by Franz Schubert and Ralph Vaughan Williams, explore the act of traveling from one place to another. Folk-song arrangements by Bela Bartók and Antonín Dvorak - both of whom spent extended periods in America - sit alongside an arrangement of the folk-gospel tune Poor Wayfaring Stranger by Ohio-born composer Steven Mark Kohn. Ruth Crawford Seeger's striking setting of Chinese-American poet and actor Hsi Tseng Tsiang's Chinaman, Laundryman, is juxtaposed with Schubert's expansive setting of Franz von Schober's poem romanticising the figure of the homeless wanderer as a kind of eternal pilgrim. Mohammed Fairouz's setting of W. H. Auden's poem, Refugee Blues, recounts the plight of Jewish refugees during World War II, who found themselves denied entry at nearly every port as they sought to escape the Holocaust. The title track comes from a song by Chicago-based composer Eric Malmquist, an eloquent setting of Carl Sandburg's poem of the same name. The world premiere recording of Shawn Okpebholo's cycle, The Beautiful, responds to Sandburg's poem, meditating on the question of who are our fellow citizens as Americans, through settings of poems by Margaret Noodin, Carl Sandburg, Claude McKay, and Tsitsi Jaji. Booklet art features historical images of immigrants passing through Angel and Ellis Island, as well as scenes from the Great Migration. In the year of America250, Fellow Citizens reflects on two enduring narratives in American history: one that asserts America is for Americans and another that celebrates the country as a Nation of Immigrants.

This program, presented by Max Volbers and the ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro, invites you to discover the astonishing diversity of Teleman's oeuvre. The focus is on works brimming with imagination, humor, and expressiveness-works that tell stories, bring characters to life, and transform moods into sound. Telemann dedicated some of his most significant original compositions to the recorder in particular.

Benjamin Frankel is among those 20th-century British composers whose true standing remains to be rediscovered today. This edition offers a comprehensive overview of his oeuvre: it brings together Symphonies Nos. 1-8, major concertos, orchestral works, chamber music, and pivotal film scores, including the complete recording of The Battle of the Bulge. Frankel's music combines structural clarity with expressive power, incisive rhythm, and a distinct sensitivity to tonal colors. Alongside the moving violin concerto In Memory of the Six Million and the five string quartets, his stage and film scores demonstrate the versatility of a composer who developed an unmistakable voice bridging the concert hall and the silver screen. This box set invites listeners to rediscover Benjamin Frankel as a striking voice of musical modernism.

This programme forms a continuity with the album Brahms Berg Zemlinsky (released by Cypres - CYP8610), one that was distinguished notably by a Gramophone Choice. It continues the same reflection on the Vienna of the late nineteenth century and the passage towards modernity by exploring the ties uniting Johannes Brahms, Carl Frühling and Franz Schreker. These three works - the Trio with horn of Brahms, the Trio op. 40 of Frühling and the Quintet Der Wind of Schreker - form a fascinating journey through Austro-German music, illustrating with force the evolution of a mature romanticism into Viennese modernity. The first great axis of convergence lies in their unique, deliberately 'hybrid' instrumentations. Each composer rejects the standard formations, such as the string quartet or the classical wind quintet, in order expressly to create an aural texture that combines the strings, the piano and the wind instruments. We are witnesses to a subtle transmission of the tone-colours: Brahms's horn first brings a wooded, dark dimension that Frühling then replaces with the clarinet in velvety fusion with the cello. Lastly, Schreker brings together clarinet, horn, strings and piano within the same piece, achieving an unexpected synthesis of these acoustic worlds. Founded in 2006, the Ensemble Kheops has progressively asserted itself as one of the most outstanding chamber music groups in Belgium. With it's variable formation, it has forged an artistic identity that is based on curiosity, high standards and a dialogue between repertories, epochs and disciplines. This first instalment of a triptych celebrating it's twentieth anniversary marks an important stage on this route, the result of two decades of musical exploration undertaken with the same high standards regarding both the choice of the performers and the conception of each of it's projects.

This album, Tchaikovsky: Manfred Symphony, Op. 58 presents the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León under music director Thierry Fischer in one of the composer's most ambitious works. Recorded at the Jesús López Cobos Symphonic Hall, Valladolid, in July 2025, Fischer's approach treats the four-movement symphony as a single dramatic arc, shaped by the persistent return of the Manfred motif through scenes ranging from Alpine wandering to the subterranean palace of Arimanes. Neither a numbered symphony nor a symphonic poem but a hybrid of both, the Manfred Symphony is the largest symphonic work Tchaikovsky ever completed, in both duration and the scale of it's orchestral forces.

Sebastian Klinger and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie under Marzena Diakun bring together a compelling selection of Romantic works for cello and orchestra: Schumann's deeply expressive Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129, alongside Max Bruch's lyrical pieces Kol Nidrei, Canzone, and Ave Maria. Schumann's concerto, born from a moment of creative exhilaration, unfolds with poetic intensity as it's movements flow seamlessly into one another, illuminated by the cello's warm, human voice. Bruch's works, by contrast, shine with heartfelt melody and emotional immediacy - music that speaks directly to the soul. Sebastian Klinger, one of the outstanding cellists of his generation, combines technical brilliance with a uniquely rich tonal palette. Together with the DRP, he brings Romanticism to life in it's most compelling form: intimate, passionate, timeless.

In the years immediately leading up to the First World War the Royal College of Music in London welcomed three of the most brilliant young musicians of their generation as students: Eugene Goossens, Arthur Bliss, and Herbert Howells. Close friends as they became, their musical personalities nevertheless evolved over the following years as notably distinct from one another. This disc brings something of their individual characteristics to the fore through a selection of their rarely performed solo songs, including four first recordings and three unpublished works. The songs are performed by tenor James Geer and pianist Ronald Woodley in this continuation of their long-standing partnership.

Marking 400 years since Orlando Gibbons's death, harpsichordist Friederike Chylek presents a programme of English keyboard music from Orlando Gibbons, William Byrd, and John Bull. The recital shows how Byrd's vocal-inspired counterpoint, Bull's virtuosic keyboard style, and Gibbons's synthesis of both contributed to the development of English keyboard music. This recording presents Gibbons not simply as the 'end of an era,' but as a composer who brought together the ideas of his predecessors while exploring new possibilities for the keyboard. An accessible introduction for listeners discovering English keyboard music and a solid overview for those familiar with the repertoire.

Trumpeter Sam Jones releases an ambitious collection of works for his instrument, focusing on modernists who have integrated it into their respective aesthetics. Works by Elliott Carter, Morton Feldman, Liza Lim, Charles Wuorinen, Louis Karchin, Luciano Berio, Olga Neuwirth, Wolfgang Rihm, and others display an impressive range of expressive and instrumental territory.

The Six Partitas are a collection of keyboard pieces that were first published by Johann Sebastian Bach himself in 1731 as 'Clavier Ubung OPUS 1', while he was Kapellmeister at the court of Saxe-Weissenfels and Music Director of the city of Leipzig. Guitarist Azusa Shimizu performs superb arrangements for guitar of these masterpieces by Hiroshi Saito

The new CD edition 'Bauhaus Music, Volume 1' by the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung brings the rich and long-overlooked music history of the Bauhaus back to life. The series opens with an absolute sensation - Marc Blitzstein's 'Parabola and Circula', believed to be the only geometric opera in the world. Developed in 1929/30, the piece was supposed to debut at a Bauhaus event but, for various reasons, remained unperformed for almost a century. It wasn't until 2025 when the research project 'Bauhaus Music', initiated by the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung, presented the world premiere of a reconstructed version at the Musikfest Berlin in the Berliner Philharmonie. Modern, poignant and richly multifaceted, Blitzstein's opera tells a tragic love story in the realm of geometric forms that evokes the artistic visions of the Bauhaus stage. With this CD, you can now enjoy the first recording of the 2025 debut performance - an acoustic document that captures an extraordinary moment of music and Bauhaus research.

First release with Thomas Ades as Principal Guest Conductor of the 'pioneering' Halle Orchestra, featuring two of the composer's own works, coupled with landmark concerti by Tippett and Kurtag. This album marks the beginning of Ades' tenure as Principal Guest Conductor of the Halle Orchestra, a post he assumed in September 2026. It is Ades' first formal conducting title, having previously held positions as an artist and composer with orchestras and festivals in Europe and USA. Ades said of the appointment 'Composing is the most important part of my musical life, but conducting has always played an essential role. Working directly with orchestral musicians and soloists and shaping the interpretation of my music and that of other composers, has been an endless source of joy and inspiration. It feels like the right moment to have a deeper relationship with an orchestra over a number of years. My association with the Halle and The Bridgewater Hall goes back many years and make this pioneering orchestra the obvious choice'.

Igor Stravinsky's fairy-tale ballet "The Firebird" is rarely performed in it's entirety in today's concert halls - usually, only one of the concert suites is played. Simon Rattle performed the narrative ballet (composed in Paris in 1909/10 and premiered in 1910 by the famous Ballets Russes) in it's full magnificence on November 6 and 7, 2025 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Isarphilharmonie in Munich. BR-KLASSIK is now releasing this recent concert recording on CD - together with an edition of the new format "Discover Music with Simon Rattle". The impresario Sergei Diaghilev organised a series of concerts of Russian music in Paris in 1907. He went on to present Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov in 1908 and, in the following year, alongside Borodin's Prince Igor, offered Parisians a memorable selection of Russian ballet performances. This marked the birth of the Ballets Russes, a legendary company that was to make theatre and music history. In early 1909, at very short notice, Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to compose the music for The Firebird. Despite considerable time pressure, Stravinsky managed to complete the score by May 18, 1910. The premiere on June 25, 1910 was an unprecedented success that has lasted to this day. In his interpretation, Simon Rattle allows the modern, colourfully orchestrated expressiveness of Igor Stravinsky's blazing Firebird to shine through in all it's glory. "Discover Music with Simon Rattle" A conductor's mind must be like a six-lane highway. What if you could take a look inside? The new BR-KLASSIK series "Discover Music with Simon Rattle" makes that possible! The conductor guides you - the listeners - through recorded orchestra rehearsals with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and explains what he was thinking at the time. You'll also learn a lot about the works that are particularly important to him. Simon Rattle guides you through the rehearsals in his easy-to-understand English, providing numerous insights into the work of the orchestra as well as some very personal memories. ? Simon Rattle conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich concerts on November 6 and 7, 2025 ? Live recording of the complete "Firebird" ballet by Igor Stravinsky ? Including "Discover Music with Simon Rattle": explanations by the conductor about the work and his own interpretation (in English) ? Thrilling live atmosphere from Munich's Isarphilharmonie concert hall

The French composer Florent Schmitt was born in 1870, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, close to the German border. He studied music locally before entering the Paris Conservatoire aged nineteen, where he studied with Gabriel Faure, Jules Massenet, Theodore Dubois, and Albert Lavignac. Winner of the Prix de Rome in 1900, Schmitt saw his post-romantic music regularly performed in France before the second world war, but subsequently his music became neglected and is now very rarely played (or recorded). This recording of his Symphonie concertante, featuring Peter Donohoe as soloist, is only the second commercial recording of the piece. Cancunik, 'Suite in Two Parts', was composed for a competition run by the Compagnie francaise de radiophonie which oversaw Radio-Paris. The suite won first prize, and here receives it's premiere recording. The other pieces on the album (Three Dances and Memorial) are orchestrations by the composer of his own works, originally written for solo piano.

On 6 November 2026, Divine Art is thrilled to announce Window to the Stars, it's second release devoted to the highly appealing chamber music of Scottish composer Helen Leach. Window to the Stars follows her hugely successful 2024 debut album Diary of the Bee, and features an acclaimed lineup of artists, including pianist Simon Leach, cellist Adrian Bradbury, clarinettist John Bradbury, and violinist Benedict Holland. A cornucopia of new, imaginative works, Window to the Stars overflows with finely crafted and deeply redolent, sensitive music, with titles set to become classic repertoire. Leach writes: 'Often inspired by the abundance and timeless beauty of the natural world here in Scotland' Window to the Stars combines lush 'romantic lyricism, bursts of harmonic colour with evocative textures. At times majestic and dramatic, elsewhere infused with deep peace and moments of lightheartedness, the music reflects my own inner world'. 'Out of the Depths', the tender and poignant opening work for solo cello, is followed by two pieces transporting us to the wild and beautiful Scottish landscape: 'As the Feet of a Deer', a rich, expressive, earthen combination of clarinet, cello, and piano, conveying the stag's nobility and physicality, and 'Wherever I Wander', which is inspired by Robert Burns' poetry, begins with a simple folk melody, rhapsodic in it's nostalgia for a treasured homeland, and ends softly with a sense of sublime peace. 'When the Seasons Danced' also reflects the natural world, taking the listener through the seasons and landscapes and ending with the dreamy movement that gives the album it's title, 'Winter: Window to the Stars', which leaves a sense of wonder with distant echoes of Christmas bells. 'The Dove of Peace', for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, is a tribute to the beautiful, spiritual musical language of Messiaen's 'Quatuor pour la fin du temps', articulating our need for peace. 'Hommage a Edgar Degas' celebrates an artist beloved among musicians and dancers alike through melodic lines, musical gestures, and vivid colours reflecting the forms and movements of Degas' works. The uplifting and deeply spiritual 'Butterfly Garden draws on the inherent ethereal nature of the clarinet, while the expansive melody and undulating accompaniment of 'Prelude for a Royal Swan' for cello and piano seek to portray the beauty, dignity, and unwavering commitment of England's late Queen. Hallmarked with vivid storytelling and melodic strength, the distinctive compositional voice of Helen Leach is becoming increasingly regarded internationally, with the music of her Divine Art 2024 debut album Diary of the Bee being regularly broadcast on the airwaves around the world. Helen has a background as a clarinettist and church musician and was Principal Clarinet with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, going on to study at the Royal Northern College of Music. She was a Director of Worship in Manchester and there directed the music for live BBC Radio 4 broadcasts. In 2022, she became Composer-in-Residence at Marchmont House, Berwickshire, and the historic Lorimer Music Room. Helen works with the BBC Songs of Praise team, and since 2024 has conducted and arranged the ensemble music for the annual BBC Young Chorister of the Year event with Aled Jones.

Prophecies of Fire' is sublimely moving and exciting percussion music (for bass drums, timpani, tom-toms, snare drums, tam-tams, and orchestral bells) performed by the celebrated Sandbox Percussion ensemble. It's waves of seismically rumbling low drums and shimmering metallophones wondrously wash over the listener. Adams writes:?'Prophecies of Fire is a celebration of the elemental power of sound itself to touch, to move, and perhaps even to transform human consciousness.' Composer John Luther Adams's music has won a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award, and has been performed by such prominent ensembles as the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, and the JACK?Quartet. 'John Luther Adams... one of the most original musical thinkers of the new century.' (Alex Ross, The New Yorker) 'His music becomes more than a metaphor for natural forces: it is an elemental experience in it's own right.' (Tom Service, The Guardian) 'His music perfectly echoes the landscape he loves: impersonal, relentless, larger than human scale, yet gorgeous.' (Kyle Gann, Chamber Music magazine) Sandbox Percussion is a highly lauded, award-winning, Grammy-nominated percussion quartet dedicated to championing the work of living composers through it's unwavering dedication to contemporary music. Sandbox Percussion's performances have been hailed as 'exhilarating' (The New York Times) and 'virtuosic... utterly mesmerizing' (The Guardian).

A glance at the catalogue of works by the composer Otto Nicolai quickly reveals that, although he composed an astonishing amount of music during his short, incredibly eventful life of barely 39 years, he paid rather scant attention to the piano-an instrument he played superbly-when it came to his own compositions. Alongside half a dozen operas and two symphonies, as well as a wealth of sacred and secular vocal music, he wrote a handful of piano works that easily fit on a double album. The result is a veritable bonbonniere. Two starkly contrasting sonatas represent the 'serious' Nicolai. The founder of the Vienna Philharmonic and director of the Vienna Court Opera is represented, amongst other things, by theatrical occasional music and a fantasia on Casta Diva. The trend conscious, playful composer of The Merry Wives of Windsor also composed a number of light pieces such as the Moon Waltz, which has nothing to fear from comparison to anyone named Strauss.