In the 20th century, composers Erik Satie, Francis Poulenc, and John Cage each created a pause in music-a caesura-by exploring life's contrasts: the noise of the outside world and the quiet of inner reflection. Satie balanced cabaret flair with meditative stillness. Poulenc exposed the cabaret's charm and underlying despair before turning to sacred music. Cage broke with tradition, using experimental simplicity to draw listeners inward and awaken deeper listening. A journey inward-a Room for Listening

Composed between 2006 and 2010, Frederic Rzewski's Nanosonatas are a cycle of 56 brief piano pieces, structured into eight books. Conceived after his vast work The Road, these sonatas focus instead on concision, restraint, and the poetics of incompletion. Each nanosonata offers a fleeting glimpse-suggesting larger ideas, then stopping abruptly, like a character in Tolstoy evoked in just a few lines. Despite their brevity, the Nanosonatas contain striking variety: echoes of Scarlatti, Schumann, Shostakovich, folk tunes, protest songs, and even boxing gestures all contribute to a vivid and unpredictable sound world. Deeply personal and philosophical, the cycle embraces imperfection as an aesthetic, resisting closure while reflecting on time, memory, and fragility. Rzewski saw these works as part of a living keyboard tradition-from Frescobaldi to the present-and a continuation of the composer-performer lineage. Pianist Daan Vandewalle's performance, shaped by years of artistic dialogue with Rzewski, captures both the intimate nuance and radical spirit of this masterful late work.

A singular monument in contemporary music, THE ROAD is Frederic Rzewski's magnum opus - a nearly nine-hour odyssey for solo piano composed between 1995 and 2003. Conceived as a "novel for piano," the work unfolds across eight expansive books (64 "miles"), each exploring the unpredictable, often chaotic path of life. Rzewski deliberately turned away from the ideal of the perfect form, embracing instead the fractured, the absurd, the political, the intimate, and the philosophical. The cycle draws on everything from American folk songs and avant-garde percussive effects to the literary voices of Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Dostoevsky, weaving autobiography with social commentary in a way that is deeply personal and boldly universal. Musically, The Road is encyclopedic. It spans fugal writing, jazz, free improvisation, virtuosic fantasy, and the spoken word - often within the same piece. It recalls the tradition of domestic piano literature, but on an epic scale, oscillating between private reflection and public confrontation. The interpretation of this work requires not only technical prowess but also an intimate understanding of it's creator. Pianist Daan Vandewalle premiered the first two books of the Road and remained an artistic confidant throughout the creation of the remaining volumes of The Road. As Rzewski himself said near the end of the cycle: "I failed to make a revolution, but I am still here." The Road is not a solution - it is an enduring act of resistance, presence, and creation.

The famous alto solo cantatas by J. S. Bach not only display an extraordinary musical variety, but also place the highest demands on the virtuosity of the singing voice. Now-adays, these cantatas are mostly performed by countertenors. The exceptional alto Seda Amir-Karayan is bucking this trend. She is accompanied by the young baroque orchestra Camerata Vivaldiana under the direction of Fritz Kramer. And as a further speciality, she combines this magnificent figural music with the ancient, simple a cappella church chants from her Armenian homeland, which on the one hand form a captivating contrast, but at the same time show an astonishing closeness to the cantatas of the Thomaskan-tor in their spiritual content.

What comforts the soul? The various settings of the 42nd Psalm and other spiritual works that are brought together on this recording provide different answers to this central human question. It's always about a path between complaint and hope. The juxtaposition of the solo bass voice, which represents the human soul, and a string ensemble offers exciting opportunities for composers like Knupfer, Schulze and Briegel to show not quick answers, but strong emotional developments. Other spiritual and instrumental works, primarily from Central Germany, show other aspects of this affective search for reliable values and are all first recordings by the Kirchheimer DubenConsort with Dominik Worner as bass soloist and directed by Jorg-Andreas Botticher.

As the composer of over 500 revolutionary keyboard sonatas, Domenico Scarlatti is rightfully regarded as a towering figure in 18th-century Spanish music. His close ties to the Spanish Court granted him a wide network of influence among contemporary composers, while his innovative integration of Spanish folk elements played a crucial role in shaping the distinctive keyboard style of the era. However, the prominence of Scarlatti has unfortunately overshadowed the remarkable work of his contemporaries and immediate successors, whose compositions blend Italian, French, and Spanish traditions in unique ways. From Nebra's recently discovered Sinfonias to the enigmatic sonorities of Albero's Recercatas and the folkloric character of Maximo Lopez's Variations on the Spanish fandango, this project explores the rich diversity of 18th-century Spanish keyboard music and sheds light on an often-neglected chapter of the harpsichord repertoire.

With their new album Generations, Aleksandra and Alexander Grychtolik present famous 'influencers' of music for keyboard instruments who played a decisive role in shaping the transition from the galant style to Viennese Classicism. The journey begins with W.F. Bach and C.P.E. Bach, who composed works for two harpsichords in succession to their father J.S. Bach, and leads via J.C. Bach to Mozart, who is known to have been strongly inspired by the music of the Bach sons and, like the youngest Bach son, was one of the first composers to create piano works for four hands.

The fact that Johannes Pullois (ca. 1420-1478) is so little known today among the Franco-Flemish composers of the 15th century is solely due to the fact that almost nothing is known about his life and work and only less than two dozen of his compositions have survived. However, the historical significance and special quality of these rare surviving works quickly become clear in the PASSACAILLE recording with the Sollazzo Ensemble. It is definitely worth taking a closer look and listening attentively to this skilful music.

In the latter half of the 18th century, the Portuguese court saw the emergence of distinctive instrumental practices within it's sacred repertoire. Among these innovations were works composed for Holy Week that featured concertante violas but conspicuously omitted violins. This unusual instrumentation became a hallmark not only of daily court music but also of Portuguese music as a whole. This tradition likely reflects the profound influence of Neapolitan music in Portugal, aligning with a broader practice of incorporating solo bass instruments to enhance the solemnity of liturgical occasions, such as Holy Week and All Souls' Day. One of the most notable composers of the Patriarchal Chapel to embrace this style was Jose Joaquim dos Santos. Born in obidos in 1747, he entered the Patriarchal Seminary in 1754, studying under the renowned Neapolitan composer David Perez. By 1763, Santos had joined the seminary's teaching staff, where he remained a central figure until his death in 1801. His work exemplifies the rich interplay of local tradition and Neapolitan influence.

On the occasion of Maurice Ravel's 150th anniversary in 2025, Un Tombeau pour Ravel presents a musical journey interweaving the styles of Ravel and the French Baroque, especially the works of Francois Couperin. The program of this CD revolves around Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin, composed during World War I as both a tribute to Baroque composers and a memorial for his comrades lost in the war. This recording includes original works and carefully crafted arrangements for harpsichord, tracing influences from 18th-century French music, illustrating Ravel's inspirations at the time of the piano cycle's creation, and exploring the tombeau as an homage genre.

Every country has a unique organ music tradition. To celebrate the restoration of the outstanding Klais organ in the Cathedral of the Holy Redeemer in Bruges, titular organist Ignace Michiels presents a wide selection of Flemish organ works, spanning roughly a century from 1884 to 1961, while highlighting the splendor of the sound of this remarkable instrument.

TheLeuven Chansonnier(1470–75) includes not only fifty compositions by such leading 15th century Franco-Flemish names as Johannes Ockeghem, Antoine Busnoys and Firminus Caron but also twelve newly rediscovered works that exist in no other source. The Ensemble Sollazzo here brings a selection of this music to life in an interpretation that is both brilliant and refreshing. With the present Volumes 3 and 4, the final instalment of the complete recording of this fascinating manuscript is now available.

With the present recording, I continue exploration of the musical culture of central Europe in the 15th and early 16th century, first focused on un-known Flemish composer Johannes Tourout exclusively, now I enlarge the repertoire of his contemporaries Gaspar van Weerbeke and Heinrich Isaac. The structure of the program is following several aspects of this period: Flemish musicians played a central role in the composition and performance of art music and the reception by unknown local authors is very eclectic. The "grey zone" of Anonymous repertoire is hiding real gems of polyphonic composition which aren't discovered yet. Another important phenomenon are compositions substituting original texts with new ones to repurposed them to fit in liturgical context, as it is the case of French chansons - the real hits of late medieval and early modern Europe. Again this recording was very intensive and thrilling musical discovery of richness of Franco-Flemish polyphony in Central Europe region.

Rediscover the brilliance of Handel's 8 harpsichord suites from 1720! Handel composed these suites not only as performance pieces but also as teaching material, possibly to support himself financially after his father's death and before his opera ventures. Despite their educational purpose, Handel's suites were crafted with artistic sophistication, demanding skill and interpretation from performers. The suites themselves demonstrate Handel's versatility and innovation. They incorporate various suite types, including traditional four-movement suites and sonatas inspired by Corelli's trio sonatas. Handel's use of variations, fugues, and other forms highlights his compositional prowess. Handel's 1720 collection received widespread acclaim across Europe, inspiring composers like Bach, Muffat, and Rameau to incorporate similar elements into their works. Handel's ability to fuse French, Italian, and German influences into his compositions exemplifies the "mixed taste" aesthetic of the time.

Classical Music