Aarhus – or Aros as the town was called in Viking times, is one of the oldest cities in Denmark and was first settled around the 8th century. Its name means “the mouth of the river”, referring to the town’s location by the mouth of Aarhus Å (Aarhus River). Owing to its central location, Aarhus enjoyed generations of peace and prosperity and is popularly known as Smilets By (City of Smiles). It is the Danish city with the youngest demographics and home to Scandinavia’s largest university, Aarhus University.

From this vibrant environment emerge the young guitarists Simon Wildau and Mikkel Egelund, who, in honor of their hometown, call themselves the Aros Guitar Duo. The Duo has garnered several 1st Prizes in international competitions for Guitar Duos, including Liectensteiner Guitarrentage Ligita, Omiš Guitar Fest (Croatia), and Fiuggi International Guitar Festival (Italy).

The Aros Guitar Duo presents six works composed especially for them in the years 2018-2021. Each composer was given the singular task of incorporating the theme of Morten Børup’s 500-year-old ode "In vernalis temporis", a melody that has been played by the town carillon since 1948 and has become the official melody of Aarhus. This CD, and the entire project, is a loving tribute to the city of Aarhus. It features a grand suite in six movements by six very different composers, all of whom have a connection to the city of Aarhus. Despite differences in ages and circumstances, composers Asger Agerskov Buur, Martin Lohse, Peter Bruun, Rasmus Zwicki, John Frandsen, and Wayne Siegel have jointly created a shimmering sonic portrait of Denmark’s second-largest city and the diversity of the contemporary music scene in Denmark.

“UPHEAVAL” is an exceptional project in several aspects. First, it presents four compositions for cello and piano written by female composers from the first part of the 20th century, challenging the cultural norms of the day and secondly, the title “Upheaval”, also refers to the tumultuous period around the First World War.

The works featured on this recording are Henriëtta Bosmans' Sonata for Cello and Piano (1919), Dora Pejacevic's Sonata for Cello and Piano (1913), Nadia Boulanger's Trois pièces (1914), and Lili Boulanger's Nocturne (1911), were all written over an eight-year period in France, the Netherlands, and Croatia. Henriëtte Bosmans was one of Holland's greatest pianists, and a composer of great distinction as her sweeping, early Cello Sonata proves. Countess Maria Theodora Paulina (Dora) Pejacevic is rightfully considered the matriarch of Croatian composers. Her Cello Sonata, Opus 35 embodies late romanticism, with influences of Mendelssohn, Brahms and Dvorak particularly evident. The program concludes with works from two amazing sisters: Nadia (1887–1979) and Lili Boulanger (1893–1918). Both were pioneers in their fields (Lili was the First Woman to win the coveted Prix de Rome, and Nadia, for teaching about every major post war composer) and were for many years, two of the best-known women in music in the twentieth century.

The artists, the husband-and-wife cello/piano duo of Janne Fredens (cello) and Søren Rastogi (piano) approach this program with a sense of profound commitment and mission, recognizing that there performances of such unfamiliar repertoire may well serve as a benchmark for future artists. Both are active soloists and teach at the Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus. The chosen instrument for the recording is the Bechstein Gran Piano to match the beautiful tone of Janne's cello, and to give an impression of the periods piano sound.

This is a highly recommended recording for fans of unfamiliar chamber music, advocates for women composers and those who just love to hear glorious music played by great musicians with passion and commitment.

The inspiration for Hugo Distler’s gem of a Christmas narrative can be found in the German-language protestant sacred music of the early baroque era, especially the music of Heinrich Schütz. Drawing on Schütz’s example, Distler composed his Christmas story exclusively for vocalists – soloists and a 4-8-voiced ensemble – in what is, in Distler’s own words, described as an “Oratorium mit kammermusikalishem Charakter." We also hear parts of the beautiful choral Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, which appears seven times during the course of the narrative. – every time in a new harmonic colour. The story of Hugo Distler’s life is a tragic one. Born in Nuremburg in 1908, he would go on to teach at the School for Church Music in Spandau before being appointed professor of church music in Stuttgart in 1940. Distler, who was a deeply religious man, has been recognized as a forerunner of the New German Church Music, an important musical movement which developed in the 1930s. The Nazis stigmatized Distler’s compositions as “degenerate art”, and when he received his conscription papers, he took his life. Sadly, Distler’s music is seldom performed outside of Germany even to this day. Hailed by Gramophone as “a choir worth listening to for their beautiful singing, which can deliver performances of pure, natural eloquence,” the 16 voices of the award-winning vocal ensemble Concert Clemens, founded by conductor Carsten Seyer-Hansen in 1997, has established itself as one of the leading vocal ensembles in Scandinavia. Their stylistic versatility has been seen in numerous collaborations exploring the connections between jazz and classical music as well as note-perfect interpretations of standard repertoire. The evangelist, tenor Adam Riis, is one of Denmark’s leading voices. Recorded in the DXD format by the Danish “Wizard of Sound”, Preben Iwan, in the resonant sonics of Skt. Markus Kirken, Århus.

As the progenitor of a style whose influence more or less came to define the instrumental music of the High Baroque, Arcangelo Corelli (1653 - 1713) occupies a position in music history as unenviable as it is to his great credit. Just what made Corelli’s style seem strikingly novel to his contemporaries is a tricky question. To be sure, his standardization and popularization of certain formal tropes – most notably the succession of movement types in Sonate da Camera and Sonate da Chiesa – was a significant part of what his followers considered the ‘Corellian’ manner.

But Corelli’s actual compositional style, his way of organizing musical thoughts into phrases and motives, is fundamentally derived from the expressive capabilities of his chosen instrument, the violin. Certain melodic patterns used to modulate and to effect sequences (e.g., chains of sevenths and fifths) basically derive from specificities of violin technique that amplify an instrument with origins primarily in dance music into one that in Corelli’s hands, could imitate the rise and fall of the sung and spoken human voice. This tension between idiomatically instrumental techniques and the evocation of the voice is the defining characteristic of Corelli’s style throughout all his surviving works and would establish the “Roman School” as the supreme measure of musical taste for generations.

For this exploration of the 18th century’s Corelli Craze, the dynamic star trio of Mahan Esfahani, Hille Perl and Michala Petri unite to trace the Roman’s influence, (sometimes in name only...) on the musical legacies of Bach, Händel and Telemann, and of course two works from the pen of the celebrated Italian Master, himself. Gramophone about the Petri/Perl/Esfahani Trio’s Bach recording: “While the tonal and expressive range of the recorder, viol and harpsichord may appear constrained in comparison to, say, flute, cello and piano, in the hands of foremost players such as these, even a relatively lightweight work such as the C major Sonata, BWV1033, comes over as the ideal demonstration of a particular facet of the composer’s style and the performers’ abilities.”

Ever since it quietly emerged on the international scene in the late ‘60s; Scandinavian jazz carved out for itself a distinctive niche. Drawing on the influence of Miles Davis and Gil Evans; Scandinavian jazz embraced a free, spacious; experimental; and contemplative aesthetic. It has also been open to modern or contemporary classical music and collaborations with European folk and ethnic-musicians. This is not OUR Recordings first journey into Scandinavian Jazz; the critically acclaimed album Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart; with legendary trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg; has proudly taken its place with other genre-defying Scandinavian jazz classics. Composer; trumpet and flugelhorn player Jakob Buchanan writes music specifically with the musicians he is working with in mind. Joining him on this important project are regular collaborators the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra, conductor Carsten Seyer-Hansen and percussionist Marilyn Mazur. Together they conjure landscapes of beauty, power and sometimes deep melancholy. Mazur’s panoply of percussion function as an emotional “basso continuo,” speaking a language built out of pure rhythm while Buchanan’s solos emerge almost like ancient cantilations from the choral/orchestral textures. The Aarhus Jazz Orchestra is carefully orchestrated; and the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir provides an aura of ethereal beauty to this soundscape song and wind. In every way; Buchanan’s Song & Wind is a worthy successor to his earlier award-winning Requiem; (also written with Marilyn Mazur and the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra in mind); a major work; expressive and full of beauty; drawing equally on the music of the past while charting a further course into the future.

Olivier Messiaen’s two-and-a-half-hour piano cycle Vingt Regards sur l’enfant-Jesus is one of the most extraordinary and ground-breaking works in twentieth-century piano repertoire, joining such musical Mount Everests as Bach’s Goldberg Variations and the late Sonatas of Beethoven. That such a work was created in 1944 during the German occupation of France, and yet expresses such joy, conviction, love, and hope makes it all the more remarkable.

At more than two hours in length, the work is rarely performed in full. It takes a special kind of performer who has the physical and emotional stamina and focus to undertake such a task for it places immense technical and musical demands on the pianist.
One such musicians is Kristoffer Hyldig. KRISTOFFER HYLDIG is one of Denmark‘s leading pianists, recognized for his musicality and highly personal, sensitive approach. Known for his versatility, he is in demand as a soloist, as well as chamber musician and lied accompanist, and his concerts are often broadcasted on Danish Radio. He is a founding member of Messiaen Quartet Copenhagen, where his work comprises artistic programming as well as closely working with composers, commissioning, and premiering pieces.

Recorded in Vor Frelser’s Church, Copenhagen during one of the most severe periods of the lock down by producer, recording & balance engineer extraordinaire, Preben Iwan. The album is recorded in the immersive DXD format.

All my life I have admired, studied and performed the music of the extraordinary Argentinian composer, Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992). So, when I was offered the chance to publish a whole instrumental Piazzolla album of my own for the centenary of his birth, I decided to base my tribute solely on Piazzolla titles but… with a little something extra. I decided to design a varied and comprehensive listening experience - an hour of accordion solos, instrumental duos, and pieces that I arranged for accordion and a small ensemble as a tribute to the Master of Tango! The music is all Astor but with a touch of Bjarke here and there and maybe everywhere, in fact. There are no singers involved, but Piazzolla’s music sings, and our instruments sing, and at every corner there is melancholy, tripping feet, fast figures, and an atmosphere of Buenos Aires.” (Bjarke Mortense) All of Piazzolla’s more than 750 works are inextricably bound to an essential and unmistakable Argentinian identity. His output includes an opera, music for the theatre, film scores, concertos, chamber music and songs. He loved to startle the listener by spicing up his music with chromaticism, dissonance and abrupt surprises: yet Piazzolla paid homage to Johann Sebastian Bach on almost every page he ever wrote. In commemoration of the genius of Nuevo Tango the young Danish master of the modern accordion, Bjarke Mortensen and his friends serve up a true musical banquet that will satisfy all tastes.

Although Robert Schumann’s public role in the Bach revival is less well known than that of Felix Mendelssohn, Bach’s music would play an influential effect throughout his life. Schumann would in turn, arrange and perform many of Bach’s works including adding piano parts to the Solo Violin Sonatas and Cellos Suites and trumpets to the St. John Passion! In 1843 he and Clara rented a custom-made pedalflügel - a dreadnought of an instrument combining a Friedrich Wieck grand piano with a pedal keyboard that enabled Schumann’s to play Bach’s organ music at home. During one of his periodic bouts of depression, Schumann became gripped by what he called Fugenpassion and shortly thereafter his obsession with Bach would blossom in the Canons and Fugues of Opp. 56 and 58. The curious name of this album references Carl Nielsen’s advice to fellow composer Ture Rangström, namely, to get down to the roots of a piece so that it would truly flower. And so following Nielsen’s advice, acclaimed organist Jens E. Christensen, a master of styles ancient and modern, dug deep to uncover the roots of Schumann’s imagination for this truly extraordinary program, a lovingly cultivated German-Danish, Piano-Organ, Baroque-Romantic hybrid, that will no doubt become a perennial favorite for fans of Schumann’s most florid contrapuntal creations.