On this new recording, Coro Victoria offers a portrait of Alonso Lobo (1555-1617) through a cross-section of his sacred output (his works in Spanish are all lost). The group also illustrates the variety of interpretative practices of the period. The concluding O quam suavis est Domine is sung by a single soprano while the vihuela accompaniment supplies the remaining five parts. Church choirs sang this music in the liturgy, but minstrels also played it during processions, and there was free traffic between sacred and secular contexts. Coro Victoria was founded by it's director, Ana Fern�ndez-Vega, to recover and preserve a native, historically informed tradition of singing Spanish polyphony from it's Renaissance-era high noon, exemplified not only by Victoria himself but also his contemporaries such as the Seville-born and bred Alonso Lobo (indeed, Victoria considered Lobo his equal). He is now best known for a haunting, six-voice setting of the Requiem, and his magnificent motet for the obsequies of King Philip II, Versa est in luctum shares the Requiem's tone of mourning and remembrance, established by a dense mesh of overlapping counterpoint. Coro Victoria also presents other sides to a composer whose style is far more various than is commonly assumed. As well as the beautifully handled techniques of canon and counterpoint in Marian motets such as Ave Maria and Ave Regina coelorum, distinguishing features of Lobo's style are his jagged melodic lines, a far cry from Palestrina's smooth curves, and his more animated conclusions, both vividly demonstrated by Vivo ego, dicit Dominus. There is also a complete, portmanteau setting of the Mass, drawn from his Missa O Rex gloriae, Missa Petre ego pro te rogavi and Missa Simile est regnum caelorum, with the Credo filled in by the separate Credo Romano, which is underpinned by a figured bass and continued to be popular long after his death. These polished performances should renew wider interest in Lobo's music.

The piano is a beautiful instrument, and this special release brings together some of the most moving and romantic classics in the piano repertoire. With over two hours of this enchanting music to enjoy, sit back, relax and lose yourself in the timeless melodies of masters including Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Scarlatti, Schubert and Schumann. Savour the tender lyricism of Liszt's famous 'Liebestraum', Debussy's elegant Arabesques and evocative 'Clair de lune', the emotional drama of some of Beethoven's best-loved Adagios for the piano, and the beguiling melodies of Schubert's Impromptus and Chopin's 'Raindrop' Prelude - to name but a few of the many wonderful moments in this collection. These captivating piano works are performed by Misha Goldstein, who has made many acclaimed recordings for Brilliant Classics.

Ulf Wallin and Roland Pöntinen made their first duo-recording for BIS in 1991 and have released acclaimed recital albums ranging from Schumann and Liszt to Alfred Schnittke, by way of Schoenberg and Hindemith. With the present disc they bring their most recent project to a close: a recording of all the works by Johannes Brahms for violin and piano. These include not only the three well-known and -loved numbered violin sonatas, but also the Scherzo from the so-called F.A.E. Sonata and the composer’s own violin versions of the two sonatas for clarinet and piano. Wallin and Pöntinen open the present release with Sonata No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 120, composed in 1894 for clarinet and transcribed for the violin a year later. As the clarinet part extends further down than the lowest note on the violin, Brahms made considerable revisions to the clarinet part, which entailed changes in the piano part, and consequently the printing of a new piano score. This is followed by the second and third violin sonatas, in A major and D minor respectively. Both works were composed during the summer of 1886 in Thun in Switzerland and are clearly related, even though they inhabit completely different expressive worlds.

Having studied with the great Bach bass Peter Kooy - who has made his own distinguished recordings of these solo albums - David Greco has established himself as a fine interpreter of oratorio and opera throughout Australia and Europe. He has sung with Ton Koopman's Amsterdam Baroque Soloists as well as Monteverdi with Le Nuove Musiche - acclaimed for their Brilliant Classics recordings of the madrigals - and taken the role of Aeneas in Purcell's opera at the Brisbane Baroque Festival. David Greco's partnership with Luthers Bach Ensemble stretches back to his time as a student in The Netherlands in 2009, and this album marks the culmination of over a decade of performing the works of J.S Bach together. These solo bass cantatas are often reserved for singers of more mature years due to their weighty themes of worldly fatigue, death and redemption, but the interpretations here are infused with youth and cosmopolitan openness, with the aim of finding a united expression and interpretation in order to pay tribute to the universal nature of J.S Bach's music, and to the personal, touching expression at the heart of each musical phrase. 'I've always had a deep affinity for this music,' says David Greco, who enjoyed a breakthrough moment in appearances with Dame Emma Kirkby, doyenne of early-music sopranos. 'I think it's an aesthetic thing because I find it to be super passionate and Romantic in the truest sense of the word. The boundless possibilities of expression interest me very much and I just feel so at home with it.' These three cantatas all date from the full flower of Bach's maturity as Capellmeister to the Church of St Thomas in Leipzig. All three explore the very Lutheran longing for death as a state in which the soul is reunited with God in peace, finally relieved from earthly torments. Lamentation and consolation are thus united in arias of sublime beauty.

BIS ecopak Yevgeny Sudbin has previously recorded Beethoven’s piano concertos – releases which have received international acclaim, for instance on the website ClassicsToday.com: ‘A Beethoven experience you will not want to miss.’ For his first disc featuring solo works by Beethoven, Sudbin has chosen the two final sonatas and the Six Bagatelles, Op. 126 – late works written between 1821 and 1824, just a couple of years before the composer’s death. There are numerous anecdotes that testify to the fact that Beethoven was highly temperamental. But in his liner notes to this disc, Sudbin writes of another, contrasting side to the composer: ‘warmth, generosity and wisdom – with unexpected outbursts of cheeky humour – are also unmistakably among Beethoven’s qualities and particularly evident in the works on this recording’. If Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas form one of the most important collections of works in the history of music, then the final ones belong to his crowning achievements. Various musicians and musicologists have commented on them, hearing a hard-won triumph of the spirit in the great fugue of the final movement of Op. 110, and interpreting Op. 111 – and especially its second movement, the famous Arietta – as a last farewell. The set of Bagatelles was composed only months after Beethoven had completed his monumental Ninth Symphony. It became the last work for piano to be published in his lifetime, and together the six brief pieces form a distillate of a lifetime of writing for and playing the piano.

Nearly all of Daniel Purcell’s surviving solo harpsichord music consists of arrangements, the only clear exception being the short Toccata, a brief essay in the style of the preludes from Henry Purcell’s harpsichord suites. The Suite is a simple but effective arrangement of movements from the composer’s own suite

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Engage, Exchange, Connect. That is what this young American piano trio is all about, on stage as well as on this album, it's very first. Experience the group at it's revelatory best in these idiomatic and fresh interpretations of early-twentieth-century American piano trios, by Foote, Korngold and Bernstein. As reported by WXQR radio, "Neave is actually a Gaelic name meaning 'bright' and 'radiant', both of which certainly apply to this trio's music making." Praised for their "heart-on-sleeve performances" (Classical New Jersey), the Neave Trio has been described as "A consummate ensemble" (Palm Beach Daily News), "A revelation" (San Diego Story), and "A brilliant trio..." (MusicWeb International), one that has "exceeded the gold standard and moved on to platinum" (Fanfare).

The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu presents Mahler’s Symphony Nr. 1 with the original 2nd movement Blumine restored which Mahler excised after a few performances of the symphony. To this day, there is much discussion of Mahler’s decision to drop this lovely movement with many theories attached to the discussion. Nonetheless this recording performs a valuable cultural service with its inclusion, especially in the hands of the very capable FRSO.

Classical Music

Classical Music

A complete edition of all Gaspare Spontini’s vocal chamber-music pieces currently known is presented here for the first time. These pieces were composed for all sorts of purposes and performed in the circles of private drawing rooms. This recording, which is the outcome of an extensive, meticulous work on the sources, includes the collections, the independent tunes and, in the appendixes, the modified or translated pieces, the drafts and sketches, and the original contemporary arrangements.

Angelo Berardi (1636–94) maintained in his day that modern music had reached “greater perfection compared to the past” and that the practice of music was more important than theory; he asserted, moreover, that a good composition should also elevate the soul to virtuous thoughts. In terms of his stylistic profile, Berardi shows great richness of inspiration, so much so that this, his only work assigned to the violin, seems to cover the entirety of the instrument’s abilities and expressive variety.