The sound of a viol consort seems to float lightly; the silky, shining tones of the viols, ranging from soprano to bass, combine almost weightlessly - free from all. This consort was particularly popular in England around 1600, and no self-respecting household was without 'a chest of viols' (a box containing a set of different viols). The most important English composers wrote wonderful music for this ensemble, from dance movements and fantasies to complex polyphonic compositions, bringing the repertoire for viol consort to a peak. The 'chest of viols' of the Ensemble Private Musicke has compiled 'highlights' of English viola da gamba music by composers such as Holborne, Dowland, Ferrabosco II, Tye and Coperario, taking the listener on a journey through the air.

Black Mountains features original compositions by Alexej Gerassimez and Gordon Hamilton, who also conducts this recording with the NDR Radiophilharmonie. The program explores the dynamic interplay between orchestral sound and percussion, with a highlight being the work Leviathan by John Psathas-a powerful composition for percussion and orchestra, written specifically for Alexej Gerassimez.

Franziska Fleischanderl calls her new CD solo un salterio - just a salterio. This title is not just an understatement, because Franziska Fleischanderl is quite simply THE salterio specialist worldwide. She has devoted herself entirely to her instrument, written a doctoral thesis on the salterio, discovered many works for the instrument in archives, and researched historical playing techniques. The title also refers to the instrumentation: while the salterio is known today only as an accompanying or continuo instrument, Franziska Fleischanderl shows that the instrument was widely used and played in aristocratic and clerical circles in the 17th century. Here, for the first time, she presents an entire CD programme of works for solo salterio, allowing her instrument to shine in many colours. She plucks it with her fingers, with special plectrums, and strikes it with various small hammers - a compendium of playing techniques that she has brought back to life through her research. For the listener, this creates a sensual, multi-coloured world of sound with enchanting melodies full of lightness.

Capella de la Torre, one of Europe's most renowned early music ensembles, is starting a new chapter: future projects will be released on the Prospero Classical label. This exciting collaboration kicks off with the anniversary album 20 Years of Capella de la Torre, which will be released in the form of a high-quality digipack. With this recording, the ensemble celebrates two decades of intensive artistic work, numerous award-winning projects, and tireless curiosity about the sound worlds of the Renaissance and early Baroque, licensed by Sony Classical.

Saxophonist, clarinettist, composer and visual artist Marcel Barta entered the Czech jazz and improvisation scene while still a student and has since become one of it's core members. He is a founding member of the electro-jazz quintet MUFF, the cult jazz sextet Vertigo and the duo DoMa Ensemble. Besides collaborating with many foremost artists from different genres on the home and international scene, he has been dedicating himself to composition, writing scenic music for the theatre company Farma v jeskyni (Farm in the Cave), among otherprojects. He is the recipient of multiple Czech Music Academy Awards in the jazz category, having also been nominated for the same award on a number of occasions. While Episodes from the Spinning Ball is the first recording to feature Barta's work exclusively, the eponymous composition is his first piece for a large ensemble. As composer and arranger he has taken part in dozens of projects and recordings, many of which were released by the label Animal Music. The new album brings a recording of a concert performance featuring the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, which took place as part of the jazz-symphonic crossover series New Horizons in February 2025 in the DOX+Multifunction Hall in Prague. Composed on a commission from the orchestra, the work formally resembles a suite in three parts. It is performed, however, as a continuous flow of music. In the author's own words, the piece "is an attempt to evoke a story that reflects my own planetary experience. The rotating ball in the title is a geoid, the shape of our own planet." Combining composed music with improvisation, the piece bears traces of Barta's original style, known for example from his work for Vertigo or Muff. It is rooted in jazz and contemporary classical music and unfolds like an elaborate story in which densely composed soundscapes interweave with delicate melodies and fine-grained instrumentation and whereorder coexists with improvisation and melancholy passages alternate with psychedelia and humour. The jazz band in the recording features, alongside Marcel Barta himself, trombonist stepan Janousek, keyboardist and synth player Vojtech Prochazka, double bassist Milos Klapsteand drummer Jan Chalupa. The whole jazz-symphonic ensemble is conducted by Bastien Stil who has had ample experience leading crossover projects.

Baroque mastermind J�rg Halubek finishes his journey around the great historic organs of Germany. The final installment of his series Organ Landscapes on vinyl. Halubek plays the Silbermann organ (1710-1714) in the Dom St. Marien Church in Freiberg, the Hildebrandt organ (1746) in St. Wenzel Church in Naumburg, and in the St. Johannis Church in L�neburg.

Saxophonist, clarinettist, composer and visual artist Marcel Barta entered the Czech jazz and improvisation scene while still a student and has since become one of it's core members. He is a founding member of the electro-jazz quintet MUFF, the cult jazz sextet Vertigo and the duo DoMa Ensemble. Besides collaborating with many foremost artists from different genres on the home and international scene, he has been dedicating himself to composition, writing scenic music for the theatre company Farma v jeskyni (Farm in the Cave), among otherprojects. He is the recipient of multiple Czech Music Academy Awards in the jazz category, having also been nominated for the same award on a number of occasions. While Episodes from the Spinning Ball is the first recording to feature Barta's work exclusively, the eponymous composition is his first piece for a large ensemble. As composer and arranger he has taken part in dozens of projects and recordings, many of which were released by the label Animal Music. The new album brings a recording of a concert performance featuring the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, which took place as part of the jazz-symphonic crossover series New Horizons in February 2025 in the DOX+Multifunction Hall in Prague. Composed on a commission from the orchestra, the work formally resembles a suite in three parts. It is performed, however, as a continuous flow of music. In the author's own words, the piece "is an attempt to evoke a story that reflects my own planetary experience. The rotating ball in the title is a geoid, the shape of our own planet." Combining composed music with improvisation, the piece bears traces of Barta's original style, known for example from his work for Vertigo or Muff. It is rooted in jazz and contemporary classical music and unfolds like an elaborate story in which densely composed soundscapes interweave with delicate melodies and fine-grained instrumentation and whereorder coexists with improvisation and melancholy passages alternate with psychedelia and humour. The jazz band in the recording features, alongside Marcel Barta himself, trombonist stepan Janousek, keyboardist and synth player Vojtech Prochazka, double bassist Milos Klapsteand drummer Jan Chalupa. The whole jazz-symphonic ensemble is conducted by Bastien Stil who has had ample experience leading crossover projects.

The Queen of Instruments meets one of the world's leading organists, Iveta Apkalna. The repertoire of the new album includes Vasks' Viatore and Te Deum, as well as P�rt's famous Spiegel i'm Spiegel, Pari intervallo, Trivium, and Annum per annum. Two of the most important contemporary composers are united on one album, celebrating P�rt's 90th birthday in 2025 and Vasks' 80th birthday in 2026. Also captured on this release is a milestone in music history: it is the first-ever solo organ recording made on the organ of the Ventspils Concert Hall "Latvija"-one of the most remarkable concert instruments in Northern Europe.

Ravel Reflections not only presents an impressive artistic statement from Anton Gerzenberg, but also a kind of musical self-portrait: the young pianist proves himself to be an interpreter with analytical acumen, playful wit, and a captivating virtuosity that always remains committed to expression. His playing combines clarity and refinement with passion and a fearless willingness to take risks-qualities that made him the winner of the 2021 G�za Anda Competition and which also characterize this album.

Inspired by his impressive descriptions, ensemble feuervogel follows Coryat on his voyage of discovery through the alleyways, squares, and canals of the Serenissima: from the magnificent St Mark's Basilica to the noble palazzi of the Venetian aristocracy and the elegant courts where music, dance, and courtly art played a central role. The concert programme Observations of Venice brings ornate diminutions and madrigals into dialogue with dance music, ricercars, and canzonas. In this way, ensemble feuervogel receives the music of the Venetian cinquecento, which Coryat wrote was "so beautiful that I would willingly walk a hundred miles at any time to hear the like of it."

Following the huge success of the album Spotlight on John Williams, the City Light Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kevin Griffiths, returns with an equally spectacular follow-up project: Sound of Adventure. The double CD brings together legendary film themes that embody a spirit of adventure, imagination, and emotional depth in equal measure-a tribute to the great soundscapes of Hollywood. An album that not only delights film music fans, but also impressively translates the orchestral artistry of the great screen composers into concert format.

Transience is one of the major themes of the Baroque period, and Gabriel Garrido has put together an entire programme for this production featuring works from Baroque Rome whose lyrics deal with the transience of the world. The texts are sombre and brimming with charged symbolism of death - in stark contrast, the music of Giacomo Carrismi, the brothers Vigilio and Domenico Mazzocchi, Marco Marazzoli, and Kaspar F�rster is cheerful and magnificent. The grand seigneur of Baroque music, Gabriel Garrido, works with a large ensemble of young musicians and singers on this recording, which was brought together for the first Rencontre Baroque de Montfrin festival. The result is a wonderful example of Baroque splendour in 17th-century Rome, which sweetens the transience of life for the listener with the most beautiful colours and Baroque soundscapes.

With If Love's a Sweet Passion, soprano Arianna Savall, tenor Petter Udland Johansen, and the Freitagsakademieunder the direction of Katharina Suske present a carefully curated selection of vocal and instrumental works by Henry Purcell and George Frideric Handel. The album illuminates essential aspects of Baroque affect, stylistic hybridity and dramatic rhetoric. It's program brings together Purcell's distinctly English musical language - marked by rhetorical clarity and subtle chromatic inflection - with Handel's Italianate, operatically expansive melodic writing and his masterful shaping of musical character. This recording unites two central Baroque traditions - the English 'consort style' of Purcell and the Italianate dramaturgy of Handel - within a coherent artistic and dramaturgical framework.

Almost 70 years after it's premiere in Athens, we are now experiencing the German premiere of Mikis Theodorakis' First Symphony. This expressive composition has a dramatic history: the boiling sounds of this composition reveal the suffering, hope, and desire for freedom that the 25-year-old composer felt when he wrote this work on the prison island of Makronisos. This is contrasted with Ektoras Tartanis' own symphonic debut work, Erato Psaltrian, for baritone, harp, and orchestra; three movements entitled Genesis, Journey, and Celebration. Tartanis introduces us to the world of Greek mythology, the tradition of Byzantine chant, and, at the same time, to contemporary soundscapes. The piece was written for Anneleen Lenaerts, principal harpist of the Vienna Philharmonic, who performs the work together with the internationally acclaimed Swedish baritone Kosma Ranuer Kroon.

With his first recording, Himmelsmusik, the Hieronymus Consort explores Sacred Concerts and Songs by the Hamburg councillor, musician, and organist Johann Schop and his son Albert Schop. Both composers were well connected during their time; Johann traveled to Copenhagen together with Heinrich Sch�tz to play at the wedding celebrations of the Danish Crown Prince. Albert received his organ education from Philipp Scheidemann and worked as organist at the Mecklenburg court in G�strow. The concerts shine through their focus on text and virtuosity, and the songs, with texts from Johann Rist's Heavenly Songs, transport the listener to other worlds.

Two years ago, the Arte dei Suonatori ensemble and it's dynamic conductor and harpsichordist Marcin Swiatkiewicz presented C.P.E. Bach's 'Hamburg' Symphonies (BIS-2459) - highly expressive and personal works. Nervous, full of unexpected twists and turns, surprises, contrasts and 'affects', they are, in a word, marked by Empfindsamkeit (heightened emotionality). This time, Arte dei Suonatori and Marcin Swiatkiewicz present six 'Berlin' Symphonies, composed between 1755 and 1758, that is, before the 'Hamburg' Symphonies. Arte dei Suonatori and it's conductor chose the original versions for strings alone with harpsichord continuo, making this recording the first to offer all these works together in their original forms without the wind parts, which were added later. The chamber-like aspect of the writing is highlighted here by the ensemble's compact instrumental force, where each musician participates on an equal footing and everyone is heard. Swiatkiewicz also points out that their interpretation, resting on historically oriented performance practices, is "grounded in a constant search for analogies between music and poetry, alongside a close attention to prosody and dance forms", ensuring that they will undoubtedly delight music lovers of the 21st century.