GENUIN fans have already admired the horn playing skills of Christoph E� on many occasions, including in the albums of German hornsound, the celebrated ensemble founded by Christoph E�. Now the solo hornist of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra presents four effervescent, lively and soulful concertos by Mozart with the Folkwang Chamber Orchestra, perfectly laid out and light as a feather. With his colleagues from German hornsound, he plays-as an encore, so to speak-a quartet of Madsen with tongue-in-cheek and breathtaking virtuosity. Horn couldn't be better! Christoph E� is considered today one of the leading hornists of his generation. In addition to his work as solo horn of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, he is a laureate of numerous international competitions and also appears as a sought-after soloist and chamber musician.

“My heart skipped a beat when [The Italian Job] from La Serenissima and Adrian Chandler landed on my desk, such was my enjoyment of their Gramophone Awards-shortlisted Vivaldi Four Seasons recording. So to discover that with this all-Italian assortment of sinfonias and concertos they’ve actually topped their 2016 triumph- and apparently effortlessly- gives me no small amount of pleasure.” So said the reviewer of the Gramophone Award-winning release, and the Vivaldi specialists are set to triumph once again with Vivaldi x2, an astonishing medley of double concertos for hunting horns, oboes, bassoon, violin and cello. Emanating from Vivaldi’s pen the double concerto- a genre of which he all but cornered the market- resulted in some of the composer’s most colorful and exuberant works. In the hands of two-time Gramophone Award-winning La Serenissima, these concertos come to virtuosic and effervescent life. “Were I asked to condense this review down to two simple words, they would be: buy it.” (Gramophone) “the freshness incinerates the cobwebs of familiarity in the heat of La Serenissima’s proselytizing zeal.” (BBC Music Magazine Concerto Choice)

REVIEWS:

The Vivaldi recordings by Adrian Chandler and his British period instrument ensemble La Serenissima, named after the nickname of the Venetian Republic and specializing in its music, are breaking new ground. Give this one a try if you haven’t heard the group before: it’s wonderful.

– All Music Guide (James Manheim)

These musicians represent one heck of a crack team when it comes to the music of Vivaldi. Bravissima, La Serenissima.

– Gramophone

Both of the song cycles recorded here combine lyricism with powerful storytelling, covering a wide range of emotions that are well suited to the beautiful sonorities and vocal nature of the French horn. Schubert’s late ‘Schwanengesang’ conveys its pastoral setting, messages of love, pain of separation, and haunted loss so descriptively that the music is just as effective without words. Brahms arranged his ‘Zigeunerlieder’ or ‘Gypsy Songs’ from vocal quartets, their Hungarian folk-music character lending themselves superbly to further transcription. Tim Thorpe is gaining a reputation as one of the most accomplished horn players of his generation. He has received extensive orchestral experience as principal horn with several amateur and youth orchestras including the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the European Union Youth Orchestra. As an orchestral musician, Thorpe has played principal horn with all the major London orchestras and with other UK orchestras including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Northern Sinfonia.

The works of the composer Markus Lehmann-Horn have already won several awards. As a border crosser between the classical and the technical-electronic music world, he also wrote numerous film music compositions for national and international film productions and was for this among others awarded the Franz Grothe Prize 2009. He has received numerous nominations and a Best Film Score Award at the annual Jerry Goldsmith International Award in Spain, as well as a nomination for the International Emmy 2012. Lehmann-Horn's music is played by renowned orchestras, conductors and ensembles, including the Ensemble Triolog, Minguet Quartet, BR Rundfunkorchester, the NDR Radiophilharmonie or the Schleswig Holstein Festival Orchestra. On this album, one will find recordings with the NDR Radiophilharmonie and percussionist Alexej Gerassimez and a song for soprano and orchestra with soprano Sibylla Duffe and the Munich Radio Orchestra.

Trumpeter Jonathan Freeman-Attwood and pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar continue their 'ear-ticklingly imaginative' series of musical reinventions with a celebration of the golden era of English music. Featuring heavyweights of the 16th and 17th centuries, such as Byrd, Gibbons, Tomkins, Lawes and Locke, the pair inspire arrangements by Timothy Jones which bring this music alive in a thrilling, entertaining and intimate chamber medium. Performing on modern trumpet and Steinway piano, Freeman-Attwood and Pienaar relish the opportunity to challenge the established interpretation of these works. They succeed by drawing on interpretative instincts, inclinations, and inflections gleaned from their wide performance experience, whilst deliberately referencing their accumulated knowledge of performance practices of the period. Comprising mesmerizing dances, songs, fantasies and variations, this is a journey that re-ignites our appreciation and love for forgotten gems from the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Caroline worlds. This is another must-have recording in Freeman-Attwood's critically acclaimed 'boundary-busting' series.

In one sense this is a sequel to the recent release 'A Garland for John McCabe' - originally intended as a 2nd album in that set, but it grew to be a full album in it's own right. Now, it is released as a further tribute to McCabe, and features first recordings of works by McCabe's fellow composers. Just as importantly, it is a feast of fine music by British and American composers, all (except one very short track) recorded for the first time, including principally music by Alan Rawsthorne - the early and jolly String Quartet in B minor, the Chamber Cantata, and the piano version of the remarkable 'Practical Cats'. Clare Wilkinson is receiving rave reviews for her work and is a mezzo with beautiful tone; veteran baritone Mark Rowlinson is the fine reciter of 'Cats'. John Turner, one of the leading recorder players of today and former member of many world-renowned early-music ensembles, and pianist Peter Lawson, another highly regarded performer who has played with most top British orchestras and has a long and distinguished recording and teaching career, are joined by keyboard maestro Harvey Davies and the very fine Solem Quartet.

The evolution from Renaissance to Baroque musical style partly reveals itself in the process by which forms begin as vocal genres and end as instrumental ones. The ensemble (or instrumental) ricercar was a counterpart of the motet and is often characterized as a textless motet; the canzona began its life as an Italian keyboard or lute transcription of a French polyphonic song, a chanson, hence ‘canzona francese;’ English madrigals originally were transplanted Italian works. This transition is illustrated on this release by trumpet player Edward Carroll and organist Edward Brewer alongside the New York Trumpet Ensemble as they perform works by J.J. Mouret, R. Valentine, J. Wilbye, G. Gabrieli, and more.

This fascinating transatlantic musical collaboration between the brass players of London’s Royal Academy of Music and New York’s Juilliard School presents enduring masterpieces by Giovanni Gabrieli and his Venetian contemporaries. Under the direction of Reinhold Friedrich, renowned trumpet soloist and Principal Trumpet of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the players blend modern instruments and intellect with 16th-century technique and tuning to excel in this profoundly challenging repertoire. The beautiful acoustic of St Jude’s, Hampstead results in a gloriously sonorous soundscape; burnished waves of rich, warm trombones alternate with the brilliant, crystalline articulation of trumpets. Academy Principal Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, who produced the recording, states: ‘We’re hoping it will show Gabrieli as the composer of great intimate music as well as wonderfully grandiloquent Venetian polyphony.’ This remarkable recording features some of the most compelling and attractive instrumental music of the late Renaissance era and boasts performances worthy of Gabrieli’s extraordinary legacy and the reputation of these two outstanding institutions.

Pawel Pudio is a music producer, creative director, and composer from the border of arts. He developes his own artistic projects and composes music on special occasions. Concert pieces and films featuring his music have been presented in Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Israel, Estonia, France, and Spain. “War Horns” is a piece for 10 horns, whose world premiere took place at the Solidarity of Arts festival in Gdansk in 2015. The world premiere was accompanied by a sculptural installation, being a kind of spatial continuation of the project’s idea. On this album, a studio recording of this exceptional piece of anti-war expression is presented, performed by international artists in the Concert Studio of the Polish Radio in Warsaw.

This album is spun out of the musical friendship between Christophersen and Haltlia, and features whirling overtone spectra, virtuosic gestures, beautiful melodic ambiguity and quiet spaces – musical moments and extended structures – all woven together into an hour-long musical narrative. Bjørn Morten Christophersen is continually in pursuit of new musical stories. Whether writing for choir, orchestra, chamber ensembles or TV drama, a clear voice always carries the narrative. The six musicians gathered for this recording are all members of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, and they play together in the ensemble Norwegian Brass Expo. They are among the best and most experienced brass players in Scandinavia and come from a Nordic brass tradition advocating a homogenous and beautiful sound.

The horns are let loose! In their fifth GENUIN release, the german hornsound brass ensemble has brought together their favorite works and those of their fan community. And we’d be hard-pressed to find a single work in the Western musical literature that doesn’t sound at least as beautiful arranged for four horns as it does in the original. What’s more, there’s no need for troublesome singers, meddlesome conductors, and big stages for massive orchestras! In these splendid renditions, Handel’s "Rinaldo", Dvorák’s Ninth Symphony, and Mendelssohn’s "Midsummer Night’s Dream" are both glorious and groovy, exquisite and ethereal, sophisticated and sexy.

Over the years Ifor James (1931-2004) has played with numerous orchestras and many famous composers have written and dedicated works to him. He was also one of the world’s most successful teachers, having put over 100 people into the profession. On his latest release he plays horn sonatas together with Jennifer Partridge. Especially Beethoven’s horn sonata stands out of the programme, since it’s the only sonata that Beethoven wrote for a wind instrument. Ifor James was known for his incredible agility and secure high range, but also a broad spectrum of tone color. Philip Jones once said of him: “What fascinated me about Ifor was his ability to play all over the instrument with enormous panache and great momentum.” Ifor left a legacy of recordings, many successful students, and a gift for humor and friendship.

Septura turns to one of the most groundbreaking periods of music history: France at the onset of the twentieth century. In this fertile compositional field, solo brass instruments flourished, but the chamber music landscape was barren. And so the group re-imagines works by three composers who defined France’s unique musical direction: Faure, Debussy and Ravel. Conjuring the full kaleidoscope of colors possible from seven brass instruments, they trace the origins of Impressionism, from Faure’s masterful melodies through to the iconic piano works of Debussy and Ravel.

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REVIEW:

The Fifth in this series from the quite remarkable London-based Septura is a disc full of innovative ideas of re-scoring familiar music made by members of the septet. The most extended section of the disc comes with six of the Preludes Debussy wrote for solo piano arranged by Simon Cox; here Septura embellish the music with the sonorities Debussy would no doubt have used. Indeed the arrangement of La Cathedral engloutie, which ends the disc, emerges as one of the finest pieces the composer never actually wrote. The virtuosity that the group display is quite remarkable, technical challenges never existing in their elevated musical world. The recording quality is equally superb.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

Harald Genzmer was a composition pupil of Paul Hindemith in Berlin from 1928 to 1934. Whoever studies Genzmer’s enormous oeuvre in detail will recognize in the pupil’s music many Romantic gestures and a sensual imagination rarely occurring in the teacher’s works. What Genzmer adopted from his mentor was the masterly craftsmanship, an awareness of classicism and form and joy in performing in itself and in the colours of the most differing instruments. The broadly educated scion of an academic family never regarded himself as a genius transcending boundaries, but as the servant of performers and the public: ‘Music should be zestful, artful and comprehensible. As practicable, it may win over the interpreter, and then the listener as graspable’. Musicians have always enjoyed performing Genzmer’s inspired music, which is affectionally adapted to the most varied instrumentations, and are now continuing to do so in increasing measure.

Mischa Greul feels connected to the Horn Trio by Johannes Brahms in many ways. As a little boy, he used to be quite at home in the Brahmshaus, which was Brahms’s place of residence in Ruschlikon at Lake Zurich in the summer of 1874. During his childhood, it was where his grandparents lived, and their pride in living in such a historic house was passed on to him. Before becoming a member of the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, he lived in Baden-Baden where Brahms composed his Opus 40, which has become a constant part of Mischa Greul’s repertoire. Beethoven’s Opus 17 sonata for piano and horn could be interpreted as the dialogue of a married couple. Schumann‘s Adagio and Allegro Opus 70 is all about the fusion of sound. For many horn players it is considered a unique jewel of the horn repertoire. The Air for solo horn by Jorg Widmann is Greul’s latest discovery, according to the composer a “piece of nature about closeness and distance”.