Baroque giants La Serenissima return with their new recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, among other concerti for ensemble by Antonio Vivaldi. Recognized for 'whipping up a storm with Vivaldi,' La Serenissima is 'one of Britain's best-loved chamber orchestras' (The Telegraph) known for championing a host of neglected Italian baroque composers and its outstanding performances. Uniquely, the group's entire repertoire is edited from source material by founder and violinist Adrian Chandler. Praise for Vivaldi recordings by La Serenissima on Signum Classics: "After being obsessed by the composer and his music world for more than 30 years, Chandler by now is Vivaldi incarnate" - The Times

The first collaboration on record of long-time recital partners Viktoria Mullova and Katia Labèque. Ranging from the Schubert Fantasy of 1827 to Stravinsky’s 1933 Suite Italienne, this fascinating programme spans a tremendously exciting 100 years, in which music changed radically, rapidly, and irreversibly. These works demonstrate the massive alterations wrought in those years; the contrast between the Romanticism of Schubert and Clara Schumann, and the innovation of Ravel and Stravinsky. Yet Stravinsky’s use of Baroque music and Ravel’s appropriation of jazz show that the 20th century embraced diverse influences, including those of the past. Viktoria Mullova and Katia Labèque have played this recital together many times, and, as is clear from this recording, relish each composer’s distinctive approach to writing for violin and piano. This is a re-release of the original 2006 production.

Two collections of art songs by the American composer Walter Arlen, who escaped Vienna at the time of the annexation of Austria in 1938 and moved to Chicago where he worked as a journalist and composer. He died in Santa Monica at the age of 103 in 2022. The album features mezzo soprano Anna Huntley, tenor Gwilym Bowen, baritone Thomas Mole, the English Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Women's Chorus of Wales and is conducted by Kenneth Woods

REVIEW:

The Poet in Exile sets five poems by the late Nobel Prize-winning Polish-American Czesław Miłosz to music of personable warmth, substance and no little autobiographical resonance. In sum, this is well worth investigating – and how heartwarming to discover that Arlen managed to hear and give his approval to the mastertape shortly before his death at an advanced age.

— Gramophone