This outstanding release was recorded live at The Library of Congress on January 28, 30, and February 1 1946, and this is the first time they have ever been available to the public! Beethoven’s 10 Sonatas for Violin and Piano are performed by Henri Temianka and Leonard Shure, two of the finest musicians of the first half of the twentieth century. This remastered recording has received glimmering reviews: “The performances are magnificent: bold and fresh, technically fluid and musically insightful… exciting…elegant…exceptional grace… this duo balances formidable power with magisterial command.” (The New York Times) “A great hit in the Beethoven discography… one of the most beautiful surprises to the discophile in recent years… makes you hold your breath constantly… A priceless treasure.” (Diapason)

In 1967, New York Impresario Sol Hurok presented Mstislav Rostropovich in 8 monumental evenings in Carnegie Hall from Feb. 23 to March 12, 1967. Rostropovich performed 30 cello concertos - offering standard concerto repertoire and new works, several of which were written for him and two were world premieres. From these, a selection of 22 concertos from the actual 1967 performances are presented in this set. This marathon program features works from Elgar, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Respighi, Hindemith, Honegger, Britten, Khrennikov, and more.

Aïda Stucki's recognition as an artist is both inevitable and overdue. Her artistry is a timeless inspiration. Her interpretation incorporates bewitching sound, personal instinct coupled with great insight to the wishes of the composer. These recordings are a must for any string player and music lover. This second volume of her works shows her broad repertoire, and includes works from Brahms, Schumann, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Dvorak.

The early 20th century is a period that fascinates me. The prevalent musical aesthetic was disrupted by a new generation of composers who maintained their roots in tradition, but felt a great desire to expand music's horizions: they formed a multitude of currents and embarked on a number of different paths, all driven by the idea of transfiguring everything they had previously known. For this album I have chosen to retrace the path originally taken by Arnold Schoenberg. Born in Vienna in 1874, Schoenberg had an atypical career. Upon his father's death, he had to leave school as the eldest sibling at the age of sixteen to take up a profession. As an autodidact he learned the essentials of composition by sight-reading great repertoire and by playing chamber music on the cello and the violin. Married to the sister of Alexander Zemlinsky, Schoenberg took some counterpoint lessons from that composer and soon started teaching harmony and counterpoint himself, from 1903 on. His teaching activity remained central throughout his life, both in Europe and after having immigrated to the US. Profoundly aware of the continual evolution of Art as a historical necessity, Schoenberg introduced an important change into composiiton at hte beginning of the 20th century. He took it over the brink into the unknown by dissolving the classical functions of harmony, then by eliminating all familiar points of melodic and thematic reference. Schoenberg's Op. 11 is the first truly atonal work for piano ever written....

Following the success of the first Great Scientists title in the "Junior Classics" range, this collection features the lives of nine more remarkable scientists, with descriptions of their discoveries. From the astronomy of Copernicus and Halley to the natural science of Linnaeus and Humboldt, and from the discoveries of Pascal, Davy, Volta and Babbage to the harnessing of atomic power by Julius Oppenheimer, it explores the contrubtions made by these great scientists, and the impact on our everyday lives. This audiobook is a marvellous snapshot of nine of the world's greatest scientists, written and narrated so as to spark the interest of a junior audience in the fascinating topic of science.

Beethoven's first Sonatas for violin and piano Op. 12/1-3, composed during the years 1797 and 1798, contain unmistakable elements of his later composition style, which challenged his contemporaries’ critical taste accordingly. The violin sonatas No. 4 Op. 23 and No. 5 Op. 24 and their composition correlate, according to findings of musicologists, closely with Beethoven’s own relationships. The former one seems to portray the darker side of love, its unfulfillment, whereas the later so-called ‘spring sonata’ – as a sort of characterization of a loving heart’s feeling of spring – references the sweet, beautiful aspects of love. The three sonatas Op. 30/1-3, composed in 1802, the year when he also wrote the ‘Heiligenstädter Testament’, reflect Beethoven’s emotional state and are characterized by heavy mood swings. Maybe the most famous work is the ‘Kreutzer’ sonata No. 9 in A major Op. 47, once termed unplayable by its dedicatee, the French violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer. By contrast, Beethoven’s final violin sonata No. 10 in G major Op. 96 seems more heartfelt in tone and was praised by critics as the ‘most poetic and musically most sensitively crafted’ of his sonatas. Thomas Albertus Irnberger and Michael Korstick furthermore present the variations ‘Se vuol ballare’ WoO 40 on a theme from the opera Le nozze di Figaro by W. A. Mozart. The Rondo in G major, WoO 41, and the Six German Dances, WoO 42, were written in 1794/96 and convey ease and almost juvenile cheerfulness – a trait also prevalent in the interpretation of Irnberger and Korstick.

One of the most respected violinists of the 20th century! This set contains many items not previously available on CD, and some that have never been released at all. - Allegro

Featured Artists:
Oscar Shumsky: violin/Maureen Forrester: alto/Lois Marshall: soprano/Nadia Reisenberg piano/James Melton: tenor/Mario Bernardi: piano/Primrose String Quartet.

The 3 CD set also features arrangements of unspecified arias from Cantatas No. 120 & 132 by Bach and unspecified songs by Rachmaninov.

This set offers a fascinating overview of piano works by Martucci, Cilea, Busoni, Sinigaglia, Caetani, Fano, Respighi, Pizzetti, Casella, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Dallapiccola, Rota, Malipiero, Castiglioni, and Einaudi.

This release is a substantial anthology of piano music written by Italian composers in the twentieth century. In an era dominated by opera, several Italian composers chose a radically different path, concentrating on purely instrumental music, influenced by widely varying sources such as Wagner, Impressionism, Neo-Classicism and Dodecaphony. Only leading Italian pianists perform on this release, including Sandro Ivo Bartoli, Michaelangelo Carbonara, Pietro de Maria, Alessandra Ammara, and more.

-----

REVIEW:

To sum up, this is a most interesting and highly valuable set, one which presents the whole ambit of twentieth century Italian piano music, from romanticism through neo-classicism and serialism to popular minimalism. Everything is put across to the listener in at least good performances, with most of them excellent. The booklet notes are truncated versions from the original releases and are in many cases essential in getting to know the composers represented. Indeed this set offers the listener a real bargain. At around £2 a disc you can’t go wrong. Grab it whilst you can.

– MusicWeb International

Music friends, that’s how trumpet player Jan van Duikeren puts his relationship to drummer John Engels. Inspired by their friendship, Jan started writing tunes for John and asked him for his favorite compositions to record. Their chemistry lead to the establishment of the quartet JvD4 in 2015 and to the recording of Dear John. Even before the recording of Dear john started in June 2015, the quartet was invited to play at Tokyo Jazz festival and some other Japanese venues. Both Jan and John love Jan. Jan performs in Japan almost every year, with Candy Dulfer, Trijntje Oosterhuis or Jazzinvaders. John, who turned 80 this year, experienced one of this career highlights in Japan in 1987, when he recorded a live record with Chet Baker.

This is the fifth release in the series The RIAS Amadeus Quartet Recordings. This installment is dedicated to nineteenth-century Romantic composers. The Amadeus Quartet included a wider repertoire in the broadcasting studio than in the recording studio. Works by Edvard Grieg and Robert Schumann interpreted by the Amadeus Quartet can be heard here for the first time. Five works in this edition represent novel repertoire that the Amadeus Quartet never recorded on LP: Dvorak’s Piano Quintet, Grieg’s String Quartet, Mendelssohn’s String Quartet, and Schumann’s String Quartet and Piano Quintet. Only half the works recorded here belong to the string quartet genre. The Amadeus Quartet enjoyed collaborating with other musicians and did so often. In the three piano quintets by Brahms, Dvorak, and Schumann, they performed together with pianist Conrad Hansen, who had appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic under Wilhelm Furtwangler in the 1940s. In the string quintets by Brahms and Bruckner, the Amadeus Quartet is joined by South African-born Cecil Aronowitz- the musician they always turned to when in need of a second violist. And in Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet we hear Heinrich Geuser, regarded as Germany’s leading clarinetist in the 1950s.

Messiaen’s artistic mission was to invent new musical languages to explore and portray the mysteries of the Christian faith. These “languages” employed many compositional techniques, including modes of limited transposition, Hindu rhythms, Greek rhythms, plainsong, birdsong, “communicable language,’ and serialism. Born in Avignon to Pierre Messiaen, a Shakespeare scholar, and the poet Cecile Sauvage, Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) exhibited a rare musical talent from an early age. He was admitted to the Paris Conservatory at age eleven, where he won five First Prizes- notably in classes with Marcel Dupre, Maurice Emmanuel, and Paul Dukas. In 1930, he was appointed Organiste Titulaire of Sainte Trinite Church in Paris, a position he held until the early 1970s. At the outbreak of WWII, he became a French army hospital attendance, and in 1941 was taken prisoner and held in a POW camp in Silesia (where he composed Quartet for the End of Time). Upon his repatriation in 1942, he was appointed professor of harmony at the Paris Conservatory. During his lifetime, Messiaen was famed as an organist and pianist and frequently performed his own difficult compositions in concerts around the world. Colin Andrews is an internationally famous concert artist, with extensive experience in the music of Messiaen. One of only four organists to have recorded Messiaen’s complete organ works, Andrews was recently named “Membre d’Honneur” of the Association Grand Orgue Trinite Messiaen, based at Messiaen’s church in Paris.

This release, containing all nine of Bruckner’s symphonies, is one of Challenge Classics’ greatest achievements so far. The quality of the performances- by both conductor and orchestra- and of the recordings makes this Bruckner’s complete survey a primary reference for anyone interested in such repertoire. Each one of these symphony recordings has received positive press. Of the Seventh: “Conductor and orchestra bring out the structural and thematic complexity of the final movement, in a fine end to another very strong and recommended performance.” (Classical Net Review) Of the Third: “This is a resplendent addition to an important cycle in the making.” (Gramophone) And of the Sixth: “Exceptional engineering achieved by Challenge Classics, with natural-sounding timbres and an extremely realistic sense of acoustic space.” (International Record Review) Jaap van Zweden has risen rapidly in the past decade to become one of today’s most sought-after conductors. He has been Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since 2008, and Music Director of the Honk Kong Philharmonic Orchestra since 2012. Earlier this year he was announced as the next Music Director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

EAT THE SUN AND DRINK THE RAIN is a work for choir and live electronics. Sven Helbig has created a concept album in which he appears both as composer and as author of almost all the song texts. Over the course of ten pieces he weaves a loose narrative that addresses pressing questions of the present day. The powerfully resonant work suspends delicate choral passages above pulsating synthesizers. Sublime a cappella chords spread out above digitally created sounds, in perfect balance between choir and electronics. I EAT THE SUN AND DRINK THE RAIN builds upon the musical principles underlying POCKET SYMPHONIES and POCKET SYMPHONIES ELECTRONICA. Folk?influenced pieces (ABENDGLÜHEN / red sky at night) are set alongside subtle harmonic complexes in the manner of Arvo Pärt (KYRIE) and minimalistic drone music (GEDENKEN / remembrance)

4 CDs of award-winning performances, the great Russian baritone Sergei Leiferkus sings the songs of his compatriot Mussorgsky. “Absolutely riveting,” wrote Gramophone’s reviewer, praising the singer’s “amazing variety of tone colour and textual inflexion” and pianist Semion Skigin “a wonderfully responsive partner.”

REVIEW:

Although Sergei Leiferkus does not have the most powerful baritone in the world, his insight, intelligence, intuition, authority, and soulfulness more than compensate. And in the Russian art song repertoire, he hardly has any competitors. His recordings of Glinka and Tchaikovsky are flat out magnificent. But decades from now, when art song aficionados speak of Leiferkus, it will be his recordings of the songs of Mussorgsky that are mentioned in hushed whispers and reverential tones.

Not since Boris Chirstoff's sublime survey of the complete Mussorgsky songs has another singer of comparable stature scaled the heights Leiferkus reaches in the first volume of the songs. His The Songs and Dances of Death are among the most terrifying, moving, and truthful ever recorded. His The Puppet-Show is dreadfully, nastily witty and his Forgotten is heartbreaking. His Darling Savishna is drop-dead funny. And his concluding Mephistopheles' Song of the Flea is grotesquely hilarious. In all ways, this is one of the best art song recitals in years. Except for one thing. There is not much good to say about his recording of The Nursery. Sung throughout in his head voice, as Mussorgsky requires, Leiferkus' interpretation of the songs through his tone is frankly agonizing to hear. He minces, he mutters, he mumbles, he does everything except chew the scenery. This is still a highly recommend recording, but just skip Leiferkus' The Nursery.

-- AllMusic.com (James Leonard)

As a singer, conductor, teacher, and scientist, Rene Jacobs is without a doubt one of the most impressive personalities in today’s early music scene. In addition to her numerous opera performances and concerts, he also boasts an impressive discography containing more than 250 recordings. In the early stages of his career, during the 1970s and 1980s, Jacobs made waves primarily as a singer. He belonged to the first generation of male altos in Europe during a time when countertenors were still considered rare and exotic in many regions. This release has been issued to celebrate Jacobs’ 70th birthday. All of the recordings which Jacobs made for Accent early on in his career are included, with repertoire ranging from early Baroque to Romanticism, from Purcell and Telemann to Gluck and Rossini.