This album presents a diverse selection of world premieres commissioned by the award-winning guitarist, Gabriel Bianco, from composers who have lived and worked in his native Paris. These range from the swirling Spanish motifs in Matthieu Stefanelli's Ellipsis for four guitars, featuring the Quatuor eclisses, to Camille Pepin's hypnotic Autumn Rhythm and Thomas Viloteau's festive A Night in Bastille - just a few of the highlights in this programme of new guitar music from the City of Light.

Clara Schumann was one of the most famous of all 19th-century piano virtuosos, admired by contemporaries such as Liszt and Thalberg. Her piano works never succumb to stereotype and the Romances anticipate the sonority of Brahms' late music for piano. Her Variations, Op. 20 entwines Robert Schumann's themes with her own in music of touching intimacy. The Preludes and Fugues reflect Clara's love of Bach. This first volume of her complete music for solo piano is performed by the distinguished French pianist, Jean-Pierre Armengaud, who has written about Robert and Clara Schumann as well as having organised a symposium devoted to them.

One of Gubaidulina's special merits is that at the end of the 1970s she discovered the sound characteristics and expressive possibilities of the bayan, a button accordion that had previously only been popular as a folk music instrument in Russia, and established it as an instrument of contemporary music through numerous inspired compositions. She was supported and accompanied in this endeavour by bayan performers such as Friedrich Lips in Moscow and the Swiss Elsbeth Moser, who taught in Hanover. The creation of the Triple Concerto for violin, cello and bayan can be traced back to a suggestion by Elsbeth Moser. For the five movements of the duo composition Rejoice! For violin and cello (1981), Gubaidulina chose various quotations from the writings of the Ukrainian 'travelling philosopher' Grigori Skoworoda (1722-1794), who called for poverty and self-deepening as a prerequisite for finding God. The composer explained: "The theme of my work is the metaphorical representation of the transition to another reality, expressed through the juxtaposition of normal sound and harmonics." Due to the unmistakable religious references it was not possible to premiere the work until 1988 and the premiere took place in Finland.

What would it mean to 'compose like a woman'? The present collection answers the question, in a literal sense, while undoing the premise on which the question was asked in the first place. In social and historical terms, it means enjoying privileges of upbringing, education, and/or wealth that were historically denied to the vast majority of women. It means, on the part of the women represented here, a single-minded determination in pursuit of their vocation, helping them to overcome prejudice and sexism in a cultural, social and political milieu that has consistently denied women the opportunity to find and express their own voice in music. Only with movements of emancipation in the last century, and much more rapidly in the last 50 years, has this situation begun to be addressed and corrected. What composing like a woman does not mean - as the music in this collection makes clear - is a definable set of qualities or characteristics to the music itself which would distinguish the work of female composers from the music composed by men.

This remarkable set gathers many individual recordings of music by women composers, which Brilliant Classics has quietly yet actively championed in their catalogue for decades, uniting it with exciting new outings, so that a comprehensive historical picture of the highly varied struggles and successes of women composers through the ages to our present time are chronicled and celebrated.

Other information:

- Recordings date from 1994-2024

- Booklet in English contains liner notes by Peter Quantrill

- The revival of interest in female classical composers reflects a growing recognition of their overlooked contributions to music history.

For centuries, women composers were marginalized, their works overshadowed by their male counterparts. However, recent efforts by musicians, scholars, and institutions have brought these composers into the spotlight, highlighting the richness and diversity of their compositions.

- This renewed focus stems from a broader movement toward inclusivity in the arts, challenging traditional narratives that have historically excluded women. The rise of feminist musicology has also played a key role, offering fresh perspectives on these composers' lives and works.

- This comprehensive box set offers a wide spectrum of works by female composers, from the Medieval mystic Hildegard Von Bingen (1098-1179), through the Renaissance Isabella Leonarda (baptized 1620-1704), Francesca Caccini (1587-1640) und Barbara Strozzi (baptized 1619-1677), traversing the Baroque and Classical eras, and arriving in the contemporary field, with composers such as Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) and Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969).

- A long due homage to the art and voice of female composers, spanning nearly a thousand years!

Maria Herz, nee Bing, was born in 1878 in Cologne. By the 1920s, she became to be recognized as a dynamic element of the contemporary music scene. New music's 'chief theoretician', Theodor W. Adorno, became interested in her works and their style, which was rooted in Late Romanticism and aimed at Modernism by way of Expressionism, New Objectivity, and Neo-Baroque, all while retaining it's playful, charming air. She was close to a veritable Who's-Who of contemporary musicians, including the Budapest String Quartett, Gregor Piatigorsky, Emanuel Feuermann, Hermann Abendroth, Otto Klemperer, and Hans Rosbaud. In her lifetime, only five songs (1910) and a transcription of Bach's Chaconne for string quartet (1927) were published, but all her 30 orchestral works, solo concertos, chamber music pieces, and art songs have survived in manuscripts. The Nazis seized her family's assets and forced Maria Herz to emigrate, first to England, and, after the war, to the United States where she lived with her children and died in 1950, in New York.

The two new choral pieces in this fifth volume of works by Elisabetta Brusa offer a revealing look at her response to her own spirituality. The Stabat Mater was written as a trial for the Requiem and is the more expressively brusque work. Both works, heard here in world premiere recordings, follow traditional models, with the Requiem evoking an archaic atmosphere with luminous elements and transcendent effects. Previous volumes of Brusa's music can be heard on 8.574263 (Vol. 4), 8.573437 (Vol. 3), 8.555267 (Vol. 2) and 8.555266 (Vol. 1).

The third volume in this acclaimed series features a selection of more highly original compositions from Luxembourg performed by Christoph Konig and his Solistes Europeens forces. All of the pieces are world premiere recordings.

Outi Tarkiainen (b. 1985) has rapidly risen to the ranks of Finland’s internationally most successful composers. Born in Lapland, the landscape of this mystic Arctic region has proved a constant source of inspiration for her. This new album by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Nicholas Collon featuring Nicholas Daniel as soloist, includes some of the composer’s most recent orchestral works, including Midnight Sun Variations commissioned by the BBC Philharmonic and by the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada, and premiered at the BBC Proms in 2019. Outi Tarkiainen’s works are marked by strong atmosphere and rich orchestral textures.

The Gershwin titles included on this album are from the new Gershwin Critical Edition which seeks to publish the definitive versions of the composer’s works. All are premiere recordings. Joan Tower’s 1920/2019 is a propulsive study in rhythm and texture, while ghostly waltz evocations can be heard in Steven Stucky’s Dreamwaltzes.

Born in London in 1886, violinist/violist Rebecca Clarke was also a composer who produced a significant number of works; her songs and chamber music were particularly notable. Although her output became neglected after the Second World War, it experienced a renaissance in the 1970s. The performances on this album take the listener on a journey through the eloquence and profundity of Rebecca Clarke’s creative world. This is OehmsClassics’ second album featuring Judith Ingolfsson (violin, viola) and Vladimir Stoupel (piano), furthering the label’s commitment to presenting musical discoveries.

Norwegian artist and singer/songwriter Maria Brym explores modern songwriting and popmusic in a retrospective sound. Some of her songs appear epic and bold, while others are stories told in kind and gentle musical surroundings. Her love for 80’s pop and inspiration from Kate Bush might seem evident at times, but Maria has a personal and wonderful way of writing her melodies. Together with her production team Bård Berg and Anders Egil Meyn Jensen she has created a modern album with lots of charm and nostalgic references.

Tom Winpenny conducts this album of choral works by Elizabeth Poston (1905–1987) – an English composer renowned for her great sensitivity of word setting, a profound appreciation of ancient folk-song traditions, and timeless melodic charm. Performed by the Cathedral Girls Choir and Lay Clerks from St Albans Cathedral, located in her native Hertfordshire – this is the first album to be dedicated entirely to Poston’s work. Includes many world premiere recordings.

Korean Tapestry

Norwegian-Brazilian Gabriela Garrubo has already made a mark on the live-scene in Norway with her incredible voice and her lovely blend of modern Nordic jazz and influences from Brazilian 80’s music and bossa nova. Her lyrics performed in both English and Portuguese is about finding yourself and finding strength in a chaotic and unfair, yet beautiful world. Through 2021 and 2022 Gabriela has been working with producer Vetle Junker on her debut album "Rodando". Together they have created a unique listening experience balancing a modern and fresh sound with retro associations. Touring Norway journalists have found her performances stunning and BT gave her show 6/6 stating “The way she moves silky smooth through the scales and alternates between soft tones and attacking lines is admirable.”

Christina Sandsengen is an educated classical concert guitarist, and has performed in concert halls around the world. Solace is her debut album as a composer and the album highlights her technical skills as well as a wide range of contrasts, emotions and feelings. Sometimes dark and dramatic, then suddenly brighter and melodic. Christina says: “The classical guitar is the key to my unconscious world of emotions and thoughts, and so I put the classical guitar in the center and use different soundscapes and elements to highlight or enhance the colors and the expressions from the guitar, and I use a lot of imitation of church bells played on the guitar to capture the empty and painful feeling of a funeral.” The album consists of 13 tracks and invites the listener on a personal musical journey from dark and light, grief, passion, and pain. The melodic language of the music are similar to Norwegian folk music. Fredrik Falk has produced the album and also contributes with piano and soundscapes. Recorded by Ole Teigen in Crowtown recordings and mastered by Kenneth Amundsen. Artwork by Nihil.

Tanya Ekanayaka presents a stunning array of 43 works for solo piano composed between 2021 and 2022, drawing inspiration from 40 languages ranging from rare and critically endangered languages spread across Earth’s six continents, home to permanent human habitation, to some of the most famous and unusual languages of South Asia. Mystical, vibrant, contemplative and poetic, the sutras and pianisms traverse a broad spectrum of moods and thought. Throughout, the prolific composer-pianist’s fearless musical authenticity glistens within the beautiful originality of this remarkable double album.

Foot in the Door is The Hartt school's new music ensemble. The music featured on this album was written for - and premiered by - the ensemble, and is the work of Hartt alumni, or current and former faculty members. The pieces owe their inspiration to a TV series, to the mutations of fire, aerosol physics, political resistance, the process of breathing in meditation, and to the beauty of rebirth in the spring. The music is crafted to showcase the virtuosity and stylistic variety of this ensemble

Please note: this is a recording of spoken theatre, not an opera or musical.

Anna Gmeyner's play "Automat" dates from 1932 and was inspired by the technological innovations of her age as well as by the reactionary attitudes of the bourgeoisie. The provinicalist Adam saves the beautiful stranger Eva from suicide by drowning and takes her along to the "Automatenbüfett", the restaurant owned by his feisty wife. Eva's arrival is an attraction to this largely male community and the shrewd Adam knows how to use it to further his plans. Barbara Frey and Martin Zehetgruber had designed the eponymous outomat, which provides a looming backdrop to sometimes cringeworthily funny and sometimes heartrendingly sad encounters between the outstanding cast. The play proved a draw in major theatres in Hamburg, Berlin and Zurich before its author was forced to flee in the face of persecution by the National Socialists. This production is a true rediscovery.

Finnish composer Lotta Wennäkoski (b. 1970) is one of Finland’s most distinguished composers of the last two decades. The most consistent feature in Wennäkoski’s music is its rich palette of tonal colour, not restricted to musical pitches but also incorporating noise as required. Her expression ranges from sensitive lyricism to forceful outbursts. Her output is wideranging, including orchestral music, vocal works, chamber music and solo pieces. This second album of her music on Ondine includes Wennäkoski’s international breakthrough work, Flounce (2017) from the BBC Last Night of the Proms performed by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and its new chief conductor Nicholas Collon. Premiered in 2022, Wennäkoski’s Harp Concerto Sigla was written for harpist Sivan Magen.

REVIEWS:

Lotta Wennäkoski (b. 1970) is one of Finland’s most distinguished composers of the last two decades. The most consistent feature in Wennäkoski’s music is its rich palette of tonal colour, not restricted to musical pitches but also incorporating noise as required. Her expression ranges from sensitive lyricism to forceful outbursts. Her output is wide-ranging, including orchestral music, vocal works, chamber music and solo pieces. This second album of her music on Ondine includes Wennäkoski’s international breakthrough work, Flounce (2017) from the BBC Last Night of the Proms performed by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and its new chief conductor Nicholas Collon. Premiered in 2022, Wennäkoski’s Harp Concerto Sigla was written for harpist Sivan Magen.

-- Records International

Rome became an important musical centre during that precious moment of peace between the two world wars, and both of these composers were swept along in feverish activity in the arts during this period. Iditta Parpagliolo matches a refined choice of texts with an equally diverse use of musical language in her songs, from the modal mysticism of La buona parola to the infinite sadness of the Tre canti d’amore. Giovanni Salviucci captures the soul of nature in his Quattro liriche, the twilight classical intimacy of his songs contrasting with the radiant neoclassical style of his Chamber Symphony.

Maria Lithell Flygh writes: “It’s hard to pinpoint what makes my heart sing when I read a poem, but that’s what it takes to get me composing. Another source of inspiration is to picture the musicians and singers who will be performing the piece, which is the case for the material on this album. The pandemic brought certain things home to us: what we truly long for. Encounters with other people, experiencing music and other art forms in groups, having good health, being together. While reading Nya dikter by Lotta Lotass, I realized that an undercurrent of longing ran throughout the poems. The images of chained circus elephants she chose to include in her collection reinforced this feeling and made me want to create music that combined the sense of longing and melancholy present in Swedish folk music with my own, more contemporary, expression.”

The unique instrumentation of the three works in this album was pioneered by the innovative Lou Harrison, whose 1959 concerto encapsulates his culturally wide-ranging aesthetic. More conventional instruments work alongside calibrated extras such as wash tubs and flowerpots in a work of color, languorous elegance and kinetic energy. The companion works were composed in its honor: Robert Xavier Rodríguez’s Xochiquetzal evokes the ancient Mayan world in imaginary folk music to form a synthesis of time periods and cultures, while the economical serenity of Kati Agócs’s concerto also includes bitonal effects and zesty syncopation.

The String Quartet in E minor by Ethel Smyth, one of the most innovative and original figures in English music, has a masterful coherence and consistency. With eloquent writing for the viola in particular, it is both playful and reverential, and ends with a flourish – forthright, bold and uncompromising, like Smyth herself. Delius wrote the early String Quartet in 1888 but it was rejected for performance and he was later to reuse the Scherzo for his mature Quartet of 1916–19. In 2018 the score of the two opening movements of the 1888 Quartet, long assumed lost, reappeared at auction and have been edited and reunited with the final two in this premiere recording, which adds significantly to our understanding of Delius’s early compositional directions.

REVIEWS:

A Delius discovery is brought to life with compelling musicianship…The Villiers Quartet gives it a fine first recording, captured in warm and well-balanced sound.

-- The Strad

Full marks to the Villiers Quartet for bringing this new and challenging repertoire to life.

-- Gramophone

...what I like about this quartet very much is its questing nature – this is a kind of musical laboratory for Delius to test out ideas, nascent harmonies and textures that would define his mature music in the years ahead.

-- MusicWeb International

Dear body, “In my silence, There’s a heartbeat, Surrounded by love. Let’s play, Dear body, Surrendering, I am not broken.” You are everything, all that we have. You are life, and through you the music is channeled and takes shape. I ask you to keep playing and singing for as long as I exist. (Annasara)

Through the album’s seven tracks, the titles of which together form a complete text, the music on Dear Body becomes an entire story, like the performance of a musical drama for which the stage has not yet been set. The different moods and soundscapes of the songs propel the story forward, painting a complex picture of pain interspersed with playful simplicity and quiet poetry. It is the love of music, and of making music, that is the driving force here, leading to humility and love for the body. This is what the whole album is about.

The impressionistic sounds, and the simple yet impactful arrangements, are recognizable from previous albums. Harmonies and instrumentation from classical music are transferred to the singer songwriter form in which Annasara’s clear and intimate voice can be heard on four tracks. The last track includes friend and tenor Martin Vanberg. The other tracks are completely instrumental and, in addition to piano and violin played by Annasara herself, we also hear Amelia Jakobsson on cello, Johan Bridger on marimba and Simon Peterson on double bass. All tracks share a sense of chamber music and an organic sound with songlike phrasings and dynamics. All music has been written and arranged by Annasara Lundgren. In the title track "Dear Body," two themes from the Sibelius Violin Concerto are first woven into the song’s verse and chorus, before being heard instrumentally toward the end.

This recording represents a survey of American music composed for violin and piano between 1980 and 2010. These masterpieces are by four American composers distinguished by the highest honors of their profession, and whose international careers and creative voices have been shaped by major political, social, and cultural events during the last 50years. From the ethereal electronic sounds that surround the players in Sebastian Currier's Digital Mist to the Chinese evocations in the complete violin and piano works of Chen Yi, this collection has been made in close collaboration with the composers and includes three world premiere recordings.