First disc by Alessandro Deljavan on Challenge Classics. Pupil of, among others, Nabore, Berman and Bashkirov, Deljavan chose some masterpieces of Chopin repertoire which have been recorded hundred of times. But, as usual with him, the listener has the impression to hear them anew, afresh: Deljavan has a thoroughly individual if not idiosyncratic approach to this music. Some may nor like it, but some will find and will hear surprising, revelatory things they never heard before. Pizzicato wrote:�Technically brilliant and with an exceptional imagination, Alessandro Deljavan brings finesse and spontaneity to Chopin's Etudes.

Musicweb (UK):�The audio sources for these inscriptions have been very well preserved and the resultant sound quality compares favourably with a commercial studio recording of that period. This is a first CD release. I hope that more recordings of this wonderful violinist surface in the future. She deserves to be heard.

Regarded as one of Europe’s leading horn players, Martin Owen appears as a soloist and chamber musician around the world. Currently principal horn at the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he has previously served as principal horn of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and as solo horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Weber’s Concertino was written for the old, valveless ‘natural horn’; its limited range of notes (tied to the harmonic series) was extended mechanically with additional tubing (‘crooks’) and, more artfully, by virtuoso players bending notes, and varied hand stopping. The technical demands of the Concertino are testament to the extraordinary facility of the hornists of the period. The first Horn Concerto by Richard Strauss, written at the age of nineteen, whilst a student, is widely considered his first uncontested masterpiece. Although the influence of Brahms and Schumann are evident, his own compositional voice is unmistakable. Strauss would continue to write significant parts for horn in all of his orchestral scores (possibly an influence of his father, who was a virtuoso hornist), but the second Concerto was not composed until 1942 – some sixty years later. The style is much more neo-classical, even ‘Mozartian’. Schumann’s riotous Concertstück for four horns opens the programme, and features three more outstanding soloists: Christopher Parkes (Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia of London), Alec Frank-Gemmill (Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra), and Sarah Willis (Berliner Philharmoniker).

Essentially, in the incredible ease and naturalness of his pianism, in the unassuming simplicity and absorption of the man, Backhaus was much the same artist and personality then. And he was far from unknown. Even before he won the Rubinstein Prize in 1905, Backhaus was internationally celebrated as a prodigious virtuoso. Backhaus never failed to win a succès d'estime among professional musicians. They always knew his qualities, always marveled at his instrumental perfection, his titanic mastery that scorned every complexity, his unsurpassed freedom and endurance. There was never a time when Backhaus could not toss off any or all of the Chopin études or the Brahms-Paganini variations with an imperturbable calm, an implacable security that left one open-mouthed. Not everyone, for only the pianists really knew what was happening before their eyes and ears, knew how to measure such achievement. There they all sat, in breathless astonishment and envy and despair. Backhaus was a shy, unaffected, recessive personality whose sensational capacities were so unsensationally projected that lay audiences remained totally unconscious of his fabulous accomplishments. (Gerhard Melchert)

A 2023 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Chamber Performance!

Hailed by the magazine BBC Music for its ‘generous and warm-hearted, utterly beguiling playing’, the Neave Trio has emerged as one of the finest young ensembles of its generation. It has been praised by WQXR Radio in New York City for its ‘bright and radiant music making’, described by The Strad as having ‘elegant phrasing and deft control of textures’, and praised by The New York Times for its ‘excellent performances’. Here, the trio presents a program of music connected by the theme of Remembrance.

Rachmaninoff’s early first piano trio was inspired by Tchaikovsky’s trio in A minor, and shows illuminating glimpses of the mature composer to come. The elegiac mood of Rachmaninoff’s work is matched by that of Brahms’s first trio – again an early composition – which was inspired by the composer’s (unrequited) feelings for Clara Schumann.

Ravel’s only piano trio was composed in 1914, as France was being drawn into the horrors of the first world war. Ravel draws extensively on the rhythms and forms of his native Basque musical traditions, while the title of the second movement, ‘Pantoum’, refers to a form of traditional Malaysian poetry which typically deals with two separate themes in alternation, a feature to which Ravel responds with a series of contrasting themes and textures.

Hailed by the music press as one of the most gifted pianists of her generation and recipient of many international awards, established German-Italian pianist and ECHO winner Sophie Pacini invites us on a very personal journey across the pianistic cosmos. In her own words: “On this album, I have combined pieces which have accompanied and reassured me in seemingly small, but ultimately crucial moments of my life.”

Since her concert debut at the age of eight and her training in the highly gifted institute of the Mozarteum Salzburg, Sophie Pacini has played in many important concert halls worldwide, including the Philharmonie Berlin, Philharmonie and Prinzregententheater Munich, Suntory & Orchard Hall Tokyo, KKL Luzern, and Kurhaus Wiesbaden. Sophie's special focus is on communicating classical music to the next generation, in the context of her own concert activities and in numerous publications.

The Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal and it's Music Director Rafael Payare explore Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and Le carnaval romain - two works that reveal the composer's flair for drama, colour, and psychological intensity. In Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz charts the delirious inner world of an artist undone by passion, hallucination, and obsession. From dreamy reveries to a diabolical witches' sabbath, the symphony is a milestone of musical storytelling. Paired with the exhilarating Le carnaval romain, this album captures Berlioz at his most imaginative and uncompromising. In a special touch, the performance of Symphonie fantastique features OSM's two newly acquired carillon bells - G and C - that expand the orchestra's sonic palette and bring striking brilliance to Berlioz's original vision. After their acclaimed PENTATONE recordings of Mahler's Fifth Symphony (2023), Ruckert-Lieder and Strauss's Ein Heldenleben (2024), and Schoenberg's Pelleas und Melisande & Verklarte Nacht (2024), Payare and the orchestra continue their compelling exploration of Romantic repertoire with this vivid Berlioz program.

Dora Deliyska: "It was an exciting and challenging process to record the complex structure of 24 études and préludes. Some of the etudes belong to the most difficult pieces in piano literature, and the préludes have intense musical potential. I decided to record the pieces over a short period of time, in order to keep the spontaneity of the interpretation. I am very thankful to the Teldex Team (René Möller and Jakob Bötcher) and the piano technician Gerd Finkenstein for sharing this musical experience together, and creating an exciting recording.“

REVIEW:

Orfa was Adolphe Adam’s penultimate ballet, with an intriguing scenario based on Nordic mythology. It shares analogies with Hesiod’s Theogony and Wagner’s Ring cycle in depicting the struggle between the older gods (Loki) and younger gods (Odin). Full of archetypal Romantic elements, Orfa was mounted with the lavish stage spectacle for which the Paris Opéra was famous, and featured Fanny Cerrito in the title role. Adam’s writing shows increasingly vivid orchestral imagination, drama and tonal colour, with roles for several instrumental soloists. This world premiere recording uses a new edition copied from Adam’s original manuscript score held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Sandrine Piau admits that she has always been fascinated not only by Schubert's music but also by the genre of the string quartet. "The endless quest for the pure gesture in which we lose ourselves in order to become one with each other reminds me of the aquatic ballets in old-fashioned musicals, when female swimmers formed images of perfect flowers". Thanks to the Psophos Quartet, her dream has now been realised; together they present a magnificent programme of transcriptions. "Between the hair of the bows and the texture of the voice, our instruments blend and form an imaginary Schubert quintet".

On her solo debut album Indomita, soprano Eleonora Buratto pays tribute to the greatest composers and most insurmountable heroines of Italian nineteenth-century opera, together with the Orchestra & Coro dell'Opera Carlo Felice Genova under the baton of Sesto Quatrini. For Buratto, these scenes from Bellini's Il pirata, Donizetti's Anna Bolena and Lucrezia Borgia, as well as Verdi's I due Foscari and Aroldo, constitute a core repertoire for any soprano moving into the dramatic post-1850 operas in which she is currently thriving onstage. The combined demand of agility and power of the indomitable women portrayed fit her voice like a glove, and the combination of pieces offers an illuminating perspective on the development of Italian opera during the nineteenth century. Eleonora Buratto is one of the most highly acclaimed lyric sopranos in the world. Besides the Orchestra & Coro dell'Opera Carlo Felice Genova and conductor Sesto Quatrini, Indomita contains contributions by mezzo-soprano Irene Savignano, tenor Didier Pieri and bass Giovanni Battista Parodi. All artists make their PENTATONE debut.

The Hungarian violinist Johanna Martzy was born in Temesvár, then in Hungary, today in Romania, on October 26, 1924, and was hailed as a wunderkind. At the age of seven, she became the last pupil to be taken under the wing of the great violin teacher Jenö Hubay, who had enabled artists like Joseph Szigeti and Sándor Végh to fly high. Ferenc Gabriel continued the girl's training after Hubay's death, helping her to win first prize at the Hubay Competition when she was seventeen. She took up studies at the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy in Budapest the following year and made her orchestral debut with the Tchaikovsky Concerto under the baton of Willem Mengelberg a year later. When Nazi Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, Johanna Martzy and her husband Béla Szillery fled via Austria and France to Switzerland. There she won the Concours International d'Exécution Musicale in Geneva in 1947, and her international career gradually gained momentum. She began making gramophone records in 1950; Ferenc Fricsay's recording of the Dvorák concerto for Deutsche Grammophon of 1953 is notable for its rousing intensity and still enjoys benchmark status. In 1954 and 1955 EMI's legendary record producer Walter Legge made the recording of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin presented here.

In spite of a successful concert comeback in the 1960s, she was no longer in the top flight. It seems symbolical that it was in Budapest that she discovered she had hepatitis in 1969. Johanna Martzy steadily grew weaker and died in Switzerland on August 13, 1979, a year after the death of her husband. The present recordings remain a rare attestation of the brilliance of Johanna Martzy's playing, and it ensures her everlasting fame, at least among connoisseurs.

REVIEW:

The Hungarian violinist Johanna Martzy, who died in Zurich in 1979 at the age of only 54, experienced a short, steep international career at the beginning of the 1950s. She has remained an icon for insiders to this day and is considered the last great representative of the Hungarian violin school.

Profil has now refreshed the majority of their EMI recordings plus two Yellow Label concertos produced in 1952 and 1953 by Mozart (KV 218) under Jochum and the legendary Dvořák concerto under Fricsay and packed them into a 6-CD box set. The EMI bundle includes the two concertos by Brahms (1954) and Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1955) recorded with Paul Kletzki, which are still among the most expressive interpretations of the entire discography, as well as Schubert's (almost) complete works for violin and piano, and then also her legendary Abbey Road recordings of Bach's solo sonatas and partitas.

Martzy embodies the romantic Bach conception of the time, which aims for intensity, expressiveness, and flowing legato, and an aesthetic that wants to overwhelm the listener with beauty and dramatic stringency. At the same time, on her full-bodied, almost viola-like sonorous Bergonzi violin from 1733, she ignites such an inner fervor and draws such arcs of suspense that one cannot evade her infinitely spun, plastic lines. Every single tone is suggestively shaped and part of the flowing universe: drama and logic in one. And with the changing keys it also changes the respective basic color of its tone, i.e. from the darkened sonority of the D minor partita to the radiantly bright E major of the third partita. You can feel the objective and subjective power of this music at every moment: they are monologues of harrowing beauty.

Her interpretations of the concertos by Mozart, Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Brahms and Dvořák, glowing with intensity, shine as flawlessly clean, full-bodied and sonorous and at the same time as inwardly lively, as passionately urgent and lyrically shaped - she practices a kind of musical perfection that everyone Leaving virtuosity behind, proclaimed as a means to penetrate to the true inner, to the glowing human message, to enchant and shake us with pure, flowing heart energy. It's no wonder that Johanna Martzy enjoys iconic status in professional circles and that the few original LPs that have survived are sold at top prices.

-- Rondo (Germany, Attila Csampai)

Rachel Podger, "the unsurpassed British glory of the baroque violin" (The Times), and Grammy award-winning pianist Christopher Glynn recorded Beethoven's Sonatas for Violin and Piano Nos. 1, 5 and 10. Following the critically acclaimed Mozart/Jones Sonatas Fragment Completions (2021), this Beethoven album marks Podger & Glynn's second release together. Reading about Ludwig van Beethoven as a performer usually brings up the inevitable stories about his characteristic and idiosyncratic piano playing in Vienna. But delving further into his early years in Bonn, we read that, as a musician at the court of the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, he was active as both organist and viola player. And when he left for Vienna in 1792 he was advised to take violin lessons with Ignaz Schuppanzigh. Beethoven's profound understanding of both the violin and the piano, and ability to combine them with astonishing invention and originality, is heard in ten sonatas. Three of which are performed on this new album.

Tenor Charles Castronovo celebrates his first Delos solo album with an all Verdi programme which showcases the composer's spellbinding use of theatrical devices. Noble Renegades offers a collection of complete scenes from operas such as Don Carlos, Luisa Miller and I Lombardi which encompass the emotional arc the protagonists experience as the story unfolds, very much epitomizing Verdi's vision of opera as a true "operatic theater". This album shows Verdi's profound influence on Charles's career, featuring roles he has performed all over the world. He is accompanied by "the singer's dream collaborator" Constantine Orbelian and his Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra. Distinguished singers Kristin Sampson, Tomas Pavilionis and Tadas Girininkas, as well as the Kaunas State Choir join in.

Brahms composed his “Geistliches Wiegenlied” in 1863 as a wedding present for two friends of his, the famous violinist Joseph Joachim and contralto Amalie Schneeweiss. Brahms and Joachim both loved the sound of the viola, a chamber instrument that was only just developing a concert repertoire.
This Classical composition was the starting point for the programme of the present CD, which combines original works for trio from three centuries in the formation voice-viola-piano, including two specially written vocal cycles by Sarah Nemtsov and Walter Zimmermann. The programme represents a kind of musical engagement with themes that are gaining new relevance today: persecution and expulsion, homelessness and homesickness. The texts and their settings sometimes enter into an unexpected dialogue.

Brahms was 43 years old when, after a long period of maturation, his First Symphony was published. Felix Weingartner commented on it ‘taking hold like the claw of a lion’ and its urgency marked a new phase in Brahms’ musical development. The Second Symphony is traditionally seen as the pastoral element in the cycle, while the Third, with its melodic beauty, has the courage to end quietly, an act of astonishing serenity. The compelling Passacaglia finale of the Fourth Symphony represents a fitting summation to one of the greatest symphonic cycles in the classical canon. The symphonies are only available in a box not separately. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the collaboration between Ádám Fischer and the Danish Chamber Orchestra– so it’s a ‘Silver Wedding’ recording. Fischer has called his relationship with the orchestra ‘a musical marriage’.

REVIEW:

For this set of Brahms’ four symphonies with the Danish Chamber Orchestra, the overarching idea is the use of an unusually small ensemble. One result is to favor the rhythmic structures of the symphonies, with percussion lines emerging with unusual clarity. Hear how the percussion strokes at the beginning of the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, produce a momentum that lasts through the entire symphony and even perhaps beyond. The Symphony No. 4 perhaps loses needed breadth in Fischer’s reading, especially in the finale; there is however, close attention to detail throughout. The orchestra punches above its weight. Even listeners completely unfamiliar with Fischer will get a lot out of this cycle.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

According to The Telegraph 'Ingrid Fliter was born to play Chopin', such is her profound musicianship and affinity with the Polish composer. Here, the Gilmore Artist Award winner continues her highly acclaimed Chopin odyssey, which began over a decade ago, with the complete mazurkas. This, the first of two volumes to be released on Linn, includes the early Opp. 6 and 7, the Op. 24 as well as the later sets, Opp. 50, 59 and 63. The programme reflects on the composer's evolving style, from simple folk-inspired dances to brilliantly sophisticated, intimate works whose intricate counterpoint and harmonies often push the boundaries of the form and serve as a benchmark for the genre. Also included are some posthumous mazurkas which transverse Chopin's entire compositional career.

Camille Saint-Saens was only fifteen years old when he composed his first symphony in 1850, which is known as his Symphony No. 0 - his official Symphony No. 1 would not arrive for another three years. Gounod was thirty-seven years old when his La nonne sanglante was removed from the repertoire of the Paris Opera by a new director; he swiftly restored his spirits by composing a symphony for the Societe des Jeunes Artistes in March 1855. Bizet, aged seventeen, began work on his Symphony in C major that same year. Gounod's symphony clearly influenced Bizet's work, as Bizet had just completed a transcription of it for piano four hands. This recording marks the beginning of a collaboration between the Alpha Classics label, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and it's music director Kazuki Yamada, a great lover of the French symphonic repertoire and also music director of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra and the Seiji Ozawa International Academy.

Violinist Ning Feng is recognised internationally as an artist of great lyricism, innate musicality and stunning virtuosity. Together with pianist Zee Zee he presents the Sonatas for Violin and Piano by Johannes Brahms: Sonata No. 1 in G, Op. 78, Sonata No. 2 in A, Op. 100, and Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108. Ning Feng believes these sonatas for piano and violin to be the crown jewels of the repertoire, stating: "Ever since I first heard them on a recording, I fell in love with them. And after performing them myself many, many times over the past 20 years, I have learned to appreciate the beauty of the lyrical melodies even more and more deeply understand the musical philosophy of this great composer.”

The Italian master pianist Pietro Scarpini played Bach's "Die Kunst der Fuge" from memory and was an early pioneer of Schönberg, Berg, Busoni, Dallapiccola and Hindemith. Until now his art remained almost inaccessible. Rhine Classics' complete collection will include 33 albums to comprehensively represent all the significant recordings left by Scarpini, many recorded privately. Musicweb writes: “Scarpini’s legacy can now be seen in all its variety and richness in this series of Rhine releases and this latest example is no less impressive than the previous examples.”

Young pianist Ariel Lanyi is already an established figure on the concert stage. After making his recording debut as part of the Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Series and winning third prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2021, he received the prestigious Prix Serdang in 2023 from Rudolf Buchbinder. In contrast to the intimacy of his Schubert album, Organ Reflections is a project on a more epic scale. Often called the 'King of Instruments', the organ has been a defining presence in classical music, inspiring composers like Bach, Brahms and Messiaen. In this album, Ariel performs works by three virtuoso organists that combine the idiomatic grandeur of the organ and the flexibility of the piano. From Mozart's serene Andante to Franck's lyrical Prelude, Aria et Final and Reger's monumental Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Bach, each piece reflects a unique blend of the sound worlds of both the organ and the piano, showcasing the enduring legacy of this most majestic instrument.

Following his critically acclaimed interpretation of Bruckner's 7th Symphony, Iván Fischer leads his Budapest Festival Orchestration to the summit of 19th century symphonic music, with this new recording of the monumental, enigmatic, unfinished and deeply religious 9th Symphony of Anton Bruckner. The three completed movements are pervaded with angst and awareness of death. As in Mozart’s unfinished Requiem, the first movement is dominated by a dark D minor. The pounding rhythms of the scherzo seem to anticipate Stravinsky and Bartók, while the large leaps and piercing dissonances point towards the Second Viennese School of Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. The Adagio is Bruckner’s heartrending farewell to the world and to life. Although Bruckner died before he could write the huge fourth movement he had in mind, there is something satisfying and comforting in concluding with the Adagio.

Much of Carl Czerny’s concert music for piano was considered ‘wild and almost unplayable’ in his day, but these world premiere recordings reveal inspired melodic writing, great skill in orchestration and colourful virtuoso challenges in a programme that includes his final Concertino, Op. 650. This is the final release in the Naxos edition of works for piano and orchestra by Czerny. Previous releases can be heard on 8.573998, 8.573688, 8.573417 and 8.573254.

For over 60 years, repeated efforts have been made to capture on recording Robert Schumann’s Complete Works for Piano solo, a fascinatingly broad and varied spectrum ranging from highly virtuosic pieces for the concert hall and valuable literature for teaching purposes. This attractive and yet challenging assignment was not always approached with the necessary intellectual rigor, quite apart from any purely artistic shortcomings, and so none of these sets can justly be deemed “complete”. Schumann had published a string of works in two more or less divergent versions, so that it is highly questionable whether an edition can be labelled “Complete Recordings” if it only contains one of those versions or worse still, makes a misguided attempt to combine two of them. Meanwhile, works that were published at remote locations or remained unpublished have hitherto been taken into account only in exceptional cases.

The first true complete recording of Robert Schumann’s works for piano solo on 17 albums (in 15 volumes), played by Florian Uhlig, seeks for the first time to offer imaginative compilations containing all original works for pianoforte written between 1830 (Abegg Variations op. 1) and 1854 (Ghost Variations) according to the newest critical editions and/or first editions. Several of these albums also contain premiere recordings, often of fragments that were amenable to completion. After the project was completed in 2021, it was evident from a further critical inspection of the five Studien- und Skizzenbücher held in the University and State Library in Bonn, and from the volumes of the complete piano works for two hands that have so far appeared in this comprehensive and groundbreaking edition, that there is a string of either very short complete or longer fragmentary pieces dating from about 1830 to 1837 that are worthy of attention.

Benjamin Appl met Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag in 2019 and has worked with him ever since. 'He has shaped me both as a musician and as a human being, perhaps more than anyone else,' says Appl. This album alternates Romantic German lieder by Schubert and Brahms with vocal pieces by Kurtag, five of which are world premiere recordings. Kurtag himself is at the piano for two of the songs by Schubert and Brahms; while the German baritone's old and trusted friends Pierre-Laurent Aimard and James Baillieu join him for the other works in this programme, all under the artistic direction of Kurtag, ending with a fascinating recorded interview with Gyuri bacsi ('Uncle George') by Benjamin Appl, who tells us: 'My aim in this album is to give listeners a glimpse into the infinite universe of Gyorgy Kurtag, a shy procrastinator, stern self-critic, hesitant researcher, introverted questioner, unpretentious intellectual, brilliant composer and an extraordinary human being.'

Fittingly titled With Affection, Nina Kotova's latest album for Delos is a glorious showcase of some superlative cello works that are close to her heart. Starting with Shostakovich's Cello Sonata, a work blending classical form with simplicity and clarity, the program moves on to Debussy's evergreen Cello Sonata, which in contrast is elusive and whimsical, and Nina's inspired rendition of a rarity, Shostakovich's Adagio from The Limpid Stream. Martinu's Variations on a Slovakian Theme and Variations on a Theme of Rossini are both virtuosic and playful, showcasing his distinct rhythmic and lyrical style. The recital concludes with Chopin's Introduction and Polonaise Brillante in an arrangement that blends expressive cello lines with brilliant piano passages - played by Nina's partner on this album Fabio Bidini - creating an exuberant and captivating work.

Celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2022, the Brodsky Quartet has performed more than 3000 concerts on the major concert stages of the world and has released more than seventy recordings. A natural curiosity and insatiable desire to explore have propelled the group in many artistic directions and continue to ensure it not only a place at the very forefront of the international chamber music scene but also a rich and varied musical existence. As they comment in their booklet note: ‘It seems fitting to mark the milestone by recording this epic and most celebrated of chamber works, Schubert’s String Quintet in C major, a piece which we have lived with since childhood, and which we have played with a long line of illustrious cellists. One of our earliest performances took place with Terence Weil, our mentor at college, at his retirement concert, just as we were starting out on our professional journey. Now the wonderful young Laura van der Heijden, who comes to this recording with a maturity which belies her years, represents with respect to us a similar age gap, proving that age is insignificant where there is a meeting of musical minds. Now we look forward to whatever our sixth decade might bring.’

REVIEW:

In this exceptional interpretation of Schubert’s C major Quintet, there are plenty of moments where the players individually or collectively make something happen – a tiny inflection in the phrasing here, an applied touch of color there. Yet nothing is overdone, and the music always flows as it wants to.

-- BBC Music Magazine

In the second instalment of the Consone Quartet's cycle, the foursome continues it's exploration of Felix Mendelssohn's string quartets, simultaneously delving into the work of his sister Fanny, with her only work in the genre. Despite it's turbulent character, Felix's String Quartet in E minor, Op. 44 No. 2, was written three months after the composer's marriage, during a period of stability and creativity. In contrast, the String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80, was composed while he was recovering from shock, following Fanny's premature death. It is a work of striking bitterness and agitation, an unambiguous reflection of his distraught mental state. Fanny's String Quartet in E flat major is an attractive and well-crafted work, which, due to her family discouraging her pursuit of a career in composition, remained unpublished until 1988. It is given a vibrant performance here by the Consone Quartet, the first period instrument quartet to be selected as BBC New Generation Artists.

The admired Schumann authority, Jean-Pierre Armengaud, presents this second volume of Clara Schumann's solo piano music, which focuses on the transcriptions she made of works by her husband, Robert. Clara evokes orchestral density in the overture to Robert Schumann's only opera Genoveva, and also in the complex Bach-inspired Studies for Pedal Piano. Above all, the song transcriptions see her engaged in acts of complex creative union while also revealing the independence of her musical vision. Volume 1 in this series is on GP930.

Trumpet was meant to have a bright future after Handel and Bach, but history decided otherwise. Relegated to a military signal role with timpani, it had to wait until the later Romantic period to flourish once again. A brainchild of Andrew Balio, this album showcases his own transcriptions of works from the golden age of chamber music, inviting trumpeters out of the cold and into the cozy world of Brahms, Schumann, and Schubert. Pianist John Wilson partners Andrew for these new arrangements of Brahms's clarinet sonatas, Schumann's Adagio and Allegro, and Marchenbilder, and Schubert's lied 'Auf dem Strom', in which tenor Nicholas Phan gives voice to the text. Thanks to Andrew, trumpeters and music lovers can now enjoy an expanded repertoire which invites us into an entirely new soundworld.