Beloved worldwide, Chloe Chua returns to PENTATONE with Mozart's complete violin concertos - a project that began when she was just 15 years old. The album features Mozart's Rondo in B-Flat Major, K. 269 and Rondo in C Major, K. 373 as well as the Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola & orchestra in E-Flat Major, K. 364. The latter also features the outstanding young Chinese violist Ziyu He, winner of the 2016 Yehudi Menuhin Competition at just 16. In this performance, he showcases his remarkable artistry alongside Chloe, herself a former winner of the same prestigious competition. The soloists are accompanied by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Hans Graf, for whom the relationship with the violin star is particularly special. For Chloe, Mozart's music holds a special place in her heart and she has embraced the challenge of following in the footsteps of so many legendary violinists. In these refined and fresh interpretations, her deep connection to the music - written by Mozart when he was around her age - is unmistakable. Even without a trained ear, one can appreciate her extraordinary technique, elegance, and effort to capture the vitality of these beloved works. This album continues Chloe's exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, complementing the already released and acclaimed Butterfly Lovers & Paganini (2024) and Vivaldi Four Seasons and Locatelli Harmonic Labyrinth (2023).

Guerra-Peixe: Violin Sonatas

For Italian composers of the 18th century, the stage was the primary focus. However, Giovanni Battista Viotti, an exceptional violinist and composer, sought instead a career at the Concert Spirituel in Paris, where his performances seduced and astonished the public. His compositions also established the new standard in violin concertos, laying the foundation for the French violin school. This premiere complete recording of Viotti's 29 concertos reveals the full range of his technical and expressive mastery, showing why he was an influence on Paganini, and was admired by Brahms.

On this double SACD, "Paths into Impressionism" are taken: starting with the two important Sonatas for Violin and Piano by Gabriel Faure, the first of which was already described as a masterpiece by Camille Saint-Saens, and four other short pieces by Faure, the great Salzburg violinist Thomas Albertus Irnberger and the German pianist Michael Korstick, who is already very familiar with the French idiom through many of his own recordings, present further works from the French and Belgian repertoire in their usual masterly and spirited interpretations: the Sonata by the early deceased Guillaume Lekeu, which was commissioned and premiered by Eugene Ysa�e, and Maurice Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Piano (with a Blues as the middle movement), which is characterized by Ravel's view that violin and piano were fundamentally incompatible. The resulting manifold parallel developments and bitonal frictions create specific stimuli, though without showing even the slightest hint of the music falling apart. Ravel's "Kaddish" and the "Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Faure", dedicated to his teacher, can also be heard, as well as the Sonata by Francis Poulenc, written in collaboration with Ginette Neveu and dedicated posthumously to Federico Garcia Lorca, and the fascinating work "Theme et variations" by Olivier Messiaen, which he dedicated to his first wife, a violinist, and which still contains many impressionistic elements.

In the sixteenth century, the quality of a 'civil conversation' was a topic of great interest, both within learned academies and in the verbal games of convivial banquets. As musical virtuosi learned how to 'speak' through their instruments, it was only natural that they would also begin to 'converse'. After a much-acclaimed release in 2023, Seicento Stravagante give us another example of musical conversation, this time between three musicians. In works by thirteen Italian composers from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the musicians of Seicento Stravagante, recreate the extravagance of early baroque music, when composers wove many individual 'voices' (whether vocal or instrumental) into a harmonious whole. While the compositions could often be played on instruments of various kinds, it was on the violin and cornetto that they could shine most brightly, and the two instruments developed an increasingly close relationship, to the point that they were virtually interchangeable. This recording allows us to appreciate the subtle blend of colours of these two instruments and the richness of Italian instrumental music of the period.

His life, shrouded in mystery, offers plenty of room for speculation and fantasy: Large parts of Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli's biography lie in unexplored and now probably also unexplorable darkness; he appears in various places, first secured in Innsbruck in 1660, then in Upper and Central Italy, he is preceded by a legendary reputation as a violin virtuoso, he publishes violin works, apparently without worrying about a stringent opus narrative, and it probably comes to a dramatic climax when he kills a fellow musician in a dispute in Messina in 1675 and then flees to France and finally to Madrid. His sonatas are no less fascinating: To many they did indeed seem 'baroque', i. e. overloaded and bizarre, but today we recognise in them a fascinating link between the virtuoso Italian and the southern German-Austrian baroque instrumental style, with it's typical harsh contrasts and surprise effects. Daniel Sepec and his colleagues present them with their usual precision.

The leap that Beethoven makes from his first violin sonata compared to his last is huge. "On a personal level, I've always felt that Beethoven is the composer to whom I feel the closest to; the first sonata I ever played was a Beethoven sonata, and so I immediately became enthusiastic about this project. I decided to ask Michael Schoch if he would be interested, and that's how all of this came about." Annedore Oberborbeck

Lament, Air and Dance, for violin and piano (1975) corresponds broadly with Joseph Horovitz's prescription for a three-movement design as favouring the listener 'first in the head, then in the heart, and finally in the toes'. The expansive, spaciously conceived opening Lament takes the form of a freely worked out chaconne based the opening theme played by the violin in low register.

Italian Violin Sonatas

Greek violinist and composer Dinos Constantinides was based at LSU in the U.S. for many years, prior to his death in 2021. He began as a violinist, but became a note composer many years ago. This album features some of his violin compositions performed on his own instrument.

Farinelli's Violin, the new CD by baroque violinist Jorge Jimenez, is dedicated to the music written for the great Farinelli, the most famous castrato of all time - the Freddy Mercury, the Lady Gaga of the 18th century...! With this programme, Jorges Jimenez creates a sound fiction in which Farinelli's most famous arias are freed from their words and brought back to their essence: the music.

Natalia van der Mersch: The idea of recording all three Brahms sonatas came to us quite spontaneously. Olivier Roberti and I had played them together and thought: Why not? There was no lengthy deliberation, just the will to do it. And so it quickly took shape and we organised ourselves quickly. We had to organise the recording equipment, hire a piano and set the date, all of which required a certain amount of planning. In the end, the recordings took place at Conjoux Castle in Belgium - just like my previous recording with Natalia Kovalzon, with whom I form the duo Natalia. Olivier Roberti: "Despite all my experience, I see playing Brahms as a real challenge. Even in his chamber music works he is quite symphonic and when playing the piano you have to be able to imagine orchestral colours that are not typical for the piano or violin. It is particularly challenging here to shape long phrases powerfully, perhaps in a similar way to what Furtwangler did in his symphonies. For me, the pianist and teacher Leon Fleischer was a formative artistic inspiration - especially in this respect. He was one of the outstanding pianists of his time and his interpretations of Brahms' works had a strong influence on me. His approach of offering clear lines and controlled tempi helped me a lot to find a certain direction in my own playing."

Born a year before Richard Wagner and dying two months after him, the apothecary's daughter Emilie Mayer from Friedland in Mecklenburg represents a type of composer who clearly moved away from the foundations of the classical masters and into her own orbit. The artist, who has found a home at cpo, composed eight symphonies, several concert overtures, a piano concerto, songs and a plethora of chamber music. The violinist Emeline Pierre Larsen has already released a highly acclaimed first string quartet album with her Constanze Quartet. She is now beginning a complete recording of Mayer's violin sonatas, in which the classical-proto romantic tone of the revered masters once again crumbles without reverting to eclecticism - a strong talent, whose stature is beyond doubt for convincing and championing interpreters.

Sutton: Violin Concerto; Five Theatre Miniatures; A Fist Full of Fives; War Horse Suite; Short Story

Dutch violinist Niek Baar joins the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie under the direction of Christoph Poppen to perform two classic violin concertos from the mid-19th century: Robert Schumann's Violin Concerto in D minor and Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor. Both of these violin concertos were written for the legendary Joseph Joachim, who had a hand in shaping the final form of both pieces, although ultimately his changes to the Schumann were rejected by the composer. The highly original, introverted and melancholic concerto is a moving self-portrait of the 43-year-old Schumann a few years before his death, and Bruch's No. 1 is one of the most beloved concertos of the entire repertoire.