After two initial chamber music albums recorded with Helen Huang, violinist Paul Huang, recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2015, confirms in the concerto repertoire his strong affinity for the lyrical qualities of his instrument. He chose to record the concertos by Barber and Korngold for their broad, expressive melodies, their sumptuous harmonic language, and their climaxes of great emotional transparency, which echo the spirit of late Romanticism associated with Brahms, Tchaikovsky, or Bruch. Korngold himself said that he had composed his concerto "for a Caruso of the violin rather than for a Paganini." This is sure to appeal to the thirty-something violinist, who was drawn to his instrument at a very young age "because of it's singing tone, a sound that resembles the human voice."These two American concertos, dating from the mid-twentieth century, offer him the stimulating challenge of painting worlds that are both luxuriant and intimate, using the refined palette of a chamber musician. To meet this challenge, he is joined by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Jun Markl, a conductor with whom he frequently collaborates in concert. Korngold, an Austrian composer who fled to America in 1936 under pressure from the rise of Nazism and whom Mahler described as a "musical genius," composed extensively for Hollywood. Here, he notably draws his thematic material from several of his earlier film scores. The American composer Barber, for his part, captures the atmosphere of the United States in the 1930s, while also evoking the vast American landscapes and the industrial dynamism of New York. "A profound vulnerability also emerges from these two works, particularly in their sublime slow movements," the violinist notes. The slow movement of Barber's concerto expresses a deep sense of dismay, uncertainty, and despair characteristic of the Great Depression.The luxuriant Romantic language of old Europe, transformed through Korngold's experience in cinema, and Barber's lyrical voice - marked by great emotional sincerity and deeply rooted in the American soil - represent for Paul Huang two complementary visions of American musical identity. They take on particular meaning for him, a Taiwanese-born musician UPC: 3700187681210Label: NaiveRelease Date: 7.3.26Format: CD
Paul Smith had previously recorded two albums of my solo guitar music, so with more than enough new pieces ready, a third album seemed destined. He also kindly introduced me to Ekaterina Skliar, who has joined him for two works, playing mandolin and domra. This latter instrument comes from Russia. It has three strings tuned in fourths, and it's sound resembles both the balalaika and the mandolin. David Loeb UPC: 044747419121Label: CentaurRelease Date: 8.14.26Format: CD
Ramin Heydarbeygi's music is strongly influenced by Iranian aesthetics, especially the concise, intricate, interwoven artistry found in Persian poetry and miniature paintings. Inspired by it's beauty and complexity, he has exclusively set Persian poetry to his vocal and choral music. Echoes of Gusan presents selections from his vocal and chamber works, featuring performances by several close collaborators, including violinist Pauline Kim Harris, pianist Stephen Gosling, String Noise, soprano Sarah Paar, violist Max Mendel, and FLUX Quartet. UPC: 613527162511Label: New FocusRelease Date: 6.26.26Format: CD
SOMM Recordings is pleased to release their second recording with the Chamber Ensemble of London, a virtuoso group of hand-picked string players directed by violinist Peter Fisher, whom The Times counts amongst "a handful of the world's finest musicians." Following the ensemble's 2022 SOMM release, Eclogue - British Chamber Music, which Gramophone praised for it's "unfailingly sympathetic music-making throughout," this new release is Quiet Summer Evening - British Concertante Music, drawing on the rich tradition of light classical music. The programme opens with Rhapsody for Clarinet & Strings by Geoffrey Bush. He was initially taught by John Ireland and, on his advice, studied composition and classics at Balliol College, Oxford emerging with degrees in both subjects in 1946.Bush's hauntingly beautiful rhapsody features the sought-after clarinettist Peter Cigleris, whose growing discography includes three previous releases with SOMM. He is also the soloist in 5 Pieces for Clarinet & String Orchestra by Clive Jenkins, CEOL's associate composer. Jenkins was born in Plymouth, and he shows his roots in many of his compositions-including these pieces, each of which has a name connected with Plymouth. Another work by Jenkins included here is Fantasy for Horn & Strings featuring Alexei Watkins, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, where he was awarded the Dennis Brain Prize. Watkins is also featured in Orion (Serenade for Horn & Strings) by prize-winning conductor-composer Andy Meyers; as well as Lullaby, an expressive and programmatic piece by composer and BBC Radio 3 producer Luke Whitlock. Bassoonist Sarah Watts is a multi-instrumentalist who has become well-known worldwide as a prolific composer of colourful and inspiring music. Here, she performs her composition Everywhere Is Somewhere Else. Additionally, she is the soloist for the contemplative Sunday Afternoon by notable arranger, conductor, and composer Nigel Brooks, excerpted from the broadcast series Stars on Sunday; and also A Little Waltz by the prolific mid-twentieth-century composer, arranger, and master orchestrator, Gordon Jacob.Other pieces by composers from former generations include Canto popolare extracted from Edward Elgar's concert overture In the South; Lennox Berkeley's single-movement Andantino, which he adapted from his Festival Anthem; and one of Frederick Delius's earliest surviving compositions, Romance. The soloist for Berkeley's Andantino and Delius's Romance is cellist Michael Mace, who pursues a wide and varied musical career as performer and teacher. Peter Fisher is the violinist for Elgar's Canto popolare and the appealing Vers le Sud (Towards the South) by Terence Higgins who, notwithstanding his early promise, decided against a full-time professional musical career and-like composers Wilfrid Josephs and Alan Rawsthorne-qualified as a dentist. Fisher also plays the CDs title piece, Quiet Summer Evening, a contemplative piece by composer-pianist Don Shearman, who enjoyed a long and distinguished career in light music. UPC: 748871072725Label: Somm RecordingsRelease Date: 7.17.26Format: CD
SOMM Recordings is delighted to collaborate once again with one of the foremost pianists of our time, Peter Donohoe. A joint winner of the 1982 International Tchaikovsky Competition, Donohoe has performed with all the major London orchestras and multiple European and American orchestras, as well as at the BBC Proms no less than 18 times. His impressive discography on SOMM includes the complete Prokofiev and Scriabin Sonatas as well as the complete Mozart Piano Sonatas. "Donohoe appears to take early Beethoven as his interpretive trajectory with a gloves-off spontaneity that imbues these magical scores with a compelling vitality and freshness..." (BBC Music Magazine, Choice) "Donohoe plays these pieces with a personal involvement that is as touching as it is fascinating and finely considered." (Gramophone)Donohoe also recorded with SOMM the highly regarded 2nd and 3rd Sonatas (2023) and Waltzes (2024) by Chopin. Now, this latest release is The Chopin I Love, a title he borrowed from one of the most formative recordings of his youth, an LP of Arthur Rubinstein. Donohoe's personal selections represent works which have always resonated very much with him as well as representing some of the most challenging, unique, and significant repertoire for piano ever written.The most substantial works in this collection are the Preludes, Op. 28, whose technical demands place them firmly amongst Chopin's most virtuosic works. Although Chopin did not necessarily intend for all 24 Preludes-one in each key-to be played as a group, they are performed here as a complete cycle, which makes for a fascinating and satisfying listening experience. Chopin wrote a further single Prelude, Op. 45, which is a longer and more detailed study than the individual numbers in the Opus 28 set, with the exception of the "Raindrop" Prelude.Chopin's Barcarolle, Op. 60, inspired by the rocking rhythm of the traditional folk song sung by Venetian gondoliers, is another of his more demanding compositions. It is also one of his last major compositions, along with his Polonaise-Fantasie, Op. 61. Chopin's distinctive sound often includes the national flavour of his native Poland, and this piece takes it's character from the Polish dance, while the fantasie provides it's harmonic complexity and intricate form.For Peter Donohoe, the 2 Nocturnes, Op. 62 are the culmination of the musical form, these intimately expressive works being Chopin's final compositions in the genre. The 3 ecossaises, Op. 72 No. 3, which close this recital, were amongst the first pieces Donohoe ever knew, and were therefore seminal for him. He says, "That they are much less serious than any of the other works here does not detract from their originality and charm."Included as a download is Donohoe's performance of Chopin's Berceuse, a lullaby he composed late in life, which remains one of the composer's most beloved pieces. UPC: 748871072626Label: Somm RecordingsRelease Date: 7.17.26Format: CD
Born in Manchester in 1953, Peter Donohoe studied at Chetham's School of Music for seven years, graduated in music from Leeds University, and went on to study at the Royal Northern College of Music with Derek Wyndham, and then in Paris with Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod. He is acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for his musicianship, stylistic versatility, and commanding technique, a critic concluding in Musical Opinion that 'I cannot imagine a living pianist capable of improving upon Donohoe's outstanding artistry'. Following his previous volume of Grieg's Lyric Pieces (CHAN 20254), this double-album presents the remaining 39 pieces, alongside the Ballade, Op.24. Born in Bergen in 1843, Grieg is widely regarded as Norway's 'National Composer'. Grieg wrote for the piano throughout his career, but eschewed the German Sonata in favour of miniatures, which he named Lyriske stykker (Lyric pieces). Often influenced by the folk-music of his native Norway, these works were published in 10 volumes. Rather than recording them sequentially, Peter Donohoe has arranged the pieces in an order of his own choosing. UPC: 0095115256428Label: ChandosRelease Date: 8.21.26Format: CD
This second volume of Peter Donohoe's Haydn Keyboard Works series brings together a wide-ranging selection of sonatas, partitas, capriccios and fantasias spanning almost the composer's entire career. From the early Partita in G major to the dramatic B minor Sonata and the late works of the 1780s, the programme traces both Haydn's stylistic development and the evolution of the keyboard itself. Folk-inspired pieces such as the Capriccio in G major and the Fantasia in C major sit alongside sonatas of elegance, wit and expressive depth. Donohoe's clarity, rhythmic vitality and architectural insight illuminate Haydn's invention and craftsmanship throughout. UPC: 635212098929Label: Signum ClassicsRelease Date: 6.12.26Format: CD
July 2026, Metier presents David Hackbridge-Johnson's A Pocketful of Tunes, a collection of fascinating works for solo violin and viola written for and performed by internationally acclaimed violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved, resulting from their friendship and hugely creative collaborations. All the works are inspired by, written for and recorded on great historic instruments, bringing the past vividly alive. There are joyful dances and elegant suites evoking dance movements of the Baroque and Roccoco eras alongside works responding to modern life, a showcase of David Hackbridge-Johnson's wide range of techniques. Hackbridge-Johnson started attending Peter Sheppard Skaerved's London Church Concerts in 2019 and the two soon formed a friendship around shared passions of literature, history, and railways. Many pieces emerged from these concerts which stem from Peter's deep interest in violin composers, their lives and instruments and the buildings they played in. There are three works for solo viola, all recorded on the oldest known English viola, the extraordinary Rayman 1641: the sonic commentary on abandoned railways Three Disused Stations, the dance based Seven Versets and Three Preludes. All of these showcase the instrument's glorious dark woody tone. The Rayman was made in Southwark in 1641 at the time the 'south bank' became London's entertainment hub. Peter felt that "this instrument is a direct link, a portal even, to London's greatest theatrical age, to the thunderous musicks of Shakespeare, Webster, and even... Marlowe.." Six Preludes for Charles II were inspired by a London violin, the Charles II '1664', after hearing Peter play it at St Margaret Lothbury, the medieval church rebuilt by Wren after the fire of London. The 'Six Preludes' balances these various pasts and the present, forming a suite that could have been written by a composer of that time. On this recording the Preludes are played on a 1629 Girolamo Amati violin, as are all the works for violin on the album. Inspired by Peter sharing a comic story of 18th century violinist Will Rosin, who like Peter resided in Wapping, David wrote the Will Rosin of Wapping suite, with extracts from the Tatler Volume 1709 story read by David in between each movement. Some works were written in the span of less than 24 hours, including Alleyway, Pastoral, River Falls. On a visit to Wisconsin Peter shared a photo with David in the morning to which David spontaneously responded with a new work that Peter performed that night in a concert! Divisions on Mr Simons' Prelude was inspired by hearing the exquisitely melancholy F minor Prelude (1700) by the mysterious 'Mr Simons' at one of Peter's City Church concerts in 2021, after emerging from 18 months of lockdown. David felt "That beautiful F minor thread reaches out to us over the centuries" and he used the prelude as the basis for a set of variations. Playing for dancing was always a key function of the violin and was driven by developments in the ballroom, country-dance and hop. A Pocket Full of Tunes was inspired by a French dancing-master's piccolo violin, played here on a 'full-size' Amati. Violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved is acclaimed internationally for performances and recordings of a vast range of solo repertoire from the late 16th century to hundreds of works written for him by major composers to the many young composers with whom he collaborates worldwide. David Hackbridge-Johnson is a multi-instrumentalist, conductor, recitalist and writer as well as composer. Among his 600 or so compositions are eighteen symphonies, over a dozen tone-poems and concertos, and hundreds of songs and chamber pieces. His most recent commissions have been operatic including Blaze of Glory!, written for the 75th anniversary of Welsh National Opera. UPC: 809730714825Label: MetierRelease Date: 7.24.26Format: CD
The name Pleyel is chiefly remembered today as a piano manufacturer, but the company's founding figure Ignaz Pleyel, a former pupil of Haydn, was one of the most acclaimed composers of the late 18th century. The success of Pleyel's finely wrought twelve String Quintets, the three of which heard on this album inspired Mozart to compose his own quintets in C major and G minor, lies in their well-paced balance between crackling energy and lyrical expansiveness. These highly accomplished works are sprightly, good humoured and filled with such an intrinsic lightness and grace that they are guaranteed to delight as much now as they did centuries ago. UPC: 747313449279Label: NaxosRelease Date: 7.10.26Format: CD
Reference Recordings proudly presents the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra performing Manfred Honeck's masterly interpretation of Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 in E minor, (Op. 95) "From the New World." This album also features the first commercial release of Carlos Simon's "Four Black American Dances." The album was recorded live in February 2025 in beautiful and historic Heinz Hall, home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, in superb audiophile sound. UPC: 030911276928Label: Reference RecordingsRelease Date: 7.3.26Format: CD
The art of composition attained a wholly new quality and a totally new aesthetic status with the works of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an art that their contemporaries already described as Classical. The standards these two masters set through their creations continue to shape our perceptions and criteria of evaluation to this day, yet we rarely think of the virtuosos who brought them to life and to whose outstanding skill they frequently owe their very existence. The Italian violinist Niccolo Mestrino was one such virtuoso. After several engagements with various orchestras in Italy he was appointed by Joseph Haydn as concertmaster of Prince Esterhazy's famous court orchestra in Eisenstadt. Later he became the leader of the orchestra of the Theâtre de Monsieur opera house in Paris. The works that are recorded here for the first time demonstrate that Mestrino was not only an extraordinary violinist but also an accomplished composer. UPC: 4250128525039Label: RameeRelease Date: 8.28.26Format: CD
A live concert recording of the one-act farce based on Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, captured during the 29th edition of the Easter Beethoven Festival in 2025. This release is based on the complete and authentic Milan manuscript, rather than the later versions that also circulated under different titles.The Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of it's chief conductor Lukasz Borowicz, joins forces with six outstanding soloists to deliver a performance of irresistible charm, virtuosic brilliance, and dynamic theatrical momentum. Thanks to it's vivid pacing and finely judged structure, the nearly 80 minutes of music pass in what feels like an instant, carrying the listener toward the work's unmistakably happy resolution to it's amorous entanglements. UPC: 5902547021904Label: Dux Recording Prod.Release Date: 7.3.26Format: CD
A concert performance of Darius Milhaud's "intermedial" ballets, alongside the world premiere recording of the complete original version of Salade. This release brings together all that is most irresistible in the music of the great French master of modernism: jazz, the circus, reimaginings of early music, serenades from Sardinia, and the folkloric colours of Provence. A distinguished cast of young vocal soloists, together with a chamber ensemble of the Poznan Philharmonic, is led by Lukasz Borowicz, an eminent interpreter of unjustly neglected scores. UPC: 5902547021423Label: Dux Recording Prod.Release Date: 7.3.26Format: CD
Rhythm Nation celebrates American rhythmic traditions as an expression of bodily autonomy and tacit history keeping. This wide-ranging exploration features new works by Jlin, Jeff Scott, Mazz Swift, and Eddie Venegas, commissioned by Publiquartet with the support of a 2024 Chamber Music America Artistic Projects grant. The quartet also expands upon two works from the library of Kronos String Quartet's Fifty for the Future project: Fode Lassana Diabate's Sunjata's Time (2015) and Henry Threadgill's Sixfivetwo (2018), with electronics interludes created by Jannina Norpoth and John-Paul Norpoth meditating on the poignant words of Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation.' Each of the pieces on the album evokes a distinct rhythmic world, reflecting the plurality of American movement(s) and protecting the unspoken spirit of their lineage's narratives. UPC: 822252286823Label: AvieRelease Date: 8.7.26Format: CD
In 1927, at the time of the first Beethoven centenary, the celebrated French musicologist Saint-Foix drew attention to an anonymous manuscript collection of six quartets that once belonged to the publisher Domenico (III) Artaria and is today preserved at the Berlin State Library. He conjectured that these pieces could be the very first experiments of a young Beethoven, then still an adolescent, in a genre that he would properly inaugurate when he published his op. 18 set in his early thirties. On the strength of this theory, the collection was included in the Beethoven catalogue, though listed among the works of doubtful attribution, where it has remained awaiting further musicological research. With the world premiere recording of the Six Quartets Anh. 2, the Alla Maniera Italiana Quartet brings back to light a precious collection of chamber music that is still enveloped in mystery, in a historically informed performance based on a close study of the Berlin parts, thereby offering an original contribution to the forthcoming Beethoven bicentenary. UPC: 3760195735916Label: Arcana RecordsRelease Date: 6.5.26Format: CD
Quartetto Altemps'new album Romanticismo Italiano brings to light two extraordinary yet long-overlooked voices of nineteenth-century Italy: Stefano Golinelli and Vincenzo Antonio Petrali. Conceived as a rediscovery of "two treasures of the Italian musical heritage" that fill the apparent void of Italian chamber music of the era, this world premiere recording reveals how two towering keyboard virtuosi- a celebrated pianist and a renowned organist- embraced the string quartet, the supreme chamber genre. In Golinelli's String Quartet Op. 100 No. 1 in B minor (1854), operatic intensity and harmonic restlessness meet the structural clarity of the Austro-German tradition, evoking echoes of Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schubert while retaining a distinct Italian lyric impulse.Petrali's Quartet in G major, presented in it's 1884 revised version, reflects a mature and deeply personal synthesis: Italian cantabile warmth intertwined with contrapuntal mastery inspired by Central European models. Rooted in meticulous research of original sources and manuscripts, Quartetto Altemps approaches this repertoire with the spirit of musicians performing music of their own time - forward-looking, vibrant, and alive. The result is more than a historical reconstruction: it is a powerful artistic statement that restores these works to their rightful place, illuminating a forgotten chapter of Romantic Italy with passion, stylistic awareness, and compelling interpretative depth. UPC: 608917200607Label: Challenge ClassicsRelease Date: 6.5.26Format: CD
Alongside Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, this release features the world premiere recording of Mikhail Pletnev's Rachmaniana, which will be first performed in January 2026 at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. The eight short pieces of the Rachmaniana Suite succinctly outline some of the composer's character traits: passion, tenderness, a joie de vivre both exuberant and rooted in pain, and an all-encompassing melancholy. This music can be called "contemporary" insofar as it was composed in our time. However, it is not entirely untouched by what has been composed since Rachmaninoff's time, and these experiences are incorporated into it in a very subtle way - it does not follow the path of describing the ugliness of this world; rather, the music professes an imagination of beauty that we might find old-fashioned, yet desperately need again today.
Tracklist:
Symphonic Dances, Op. 45: I. Non Allegro
Symphonic Dances, Op. 45: II. Andante Con Moto. Tempo Di Valse
Symphonic Dances, Op. 45: III. Lento Assai - Allegro Vivace
Rachmaniana: Dance
Rachmaniana: Nocturne
Rachmaniana: Serenade
Rachmaniana: Landscape
Rachmaniana: Allegretto
Rachmaniana: Melody
Rachmaniana: Farewell
Rachmaniana: Hungarian Dance
UPC: 880242111425Label: EuroartsRelease Date: 6.19.26Format: CD
After Hugo Kaun ended his American adventure and returned to the old world, he began to pour the exotic events of his life into two symphonic tone poems. These have been in our catalogue since late 2023 under the title I'm Urwald (In the primeval forest). He soon rose to become one of the most highly regarded German composers (thanks primarily to his noteworthy works for male choirs), and in 1905 turned his attention to programme music. Sir John Falstaff, the incomparable charmer from William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and the drinking companion of the future King Henry V, has been given a well-deserved place in the musical gallery of famous literary heroes alongside Till Eulenspiegel, MacBeth, Don Quixote, Don Juan and Zarathustra, all to whom he certainly does justice from this, his first self-assured appearance. It also provides an excellent introduction to the powerful Second Symphony, which was completed five years later - further evidence of an orchestral maestro who had mastered the late Romantic repertoire with consummate skill. UPC: 761203571420Label: Cpo RecordsRelease Date: 6.19.26Format: CD
Viola Concertos presents three 21st-century Danish concertos, written for Rafaell Altino by Karsten Fundal, Christian Winther Christensen and Soren Nils Eichberg.In these works, the viola moves from intimate lyricism to dazzling virtuosity, weaving it's way through both tender dialogues and dramatic exchanges with the orchestra. Altino's masterly playing brings out each composer's distinctive voiceand reveals new facets of the viola, revealing the instrument's full expressive range, shifting between neo-Romantic hero, indifferent loner and shadowy foil. UPC: 747313697526Label: DacapoRelease Date: 8.14.26Format: CD
With this remastered edition of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde from the 1952 Bayreuth Festival, Note One label launches it's new series Note One Heritage, which makes important historical recordings in music history accessible again. The legendary performance on 23 July 1952 at the Bayreuth Festival Theatre is considered one of the most striking documents of the early post-war years and the artistic renewal of the festival in the era of the so-called New Bayreuth. At the podium is Herbert von Karajan, whose conducting steadily intensifies the dramatic tension of the score, ultimately culminating in an almost ethereal Liebestod. At the centre are two extraordinary singers: Martha Modl, one of the most dominant dramatic voices of her time, and Ramon Vinay, whose powerful, passionate Tristan ranks among the greatest interpretations of this role. Their encounter unites two contrasting temperaments in an electrifying musical dramaturgy - from eruptive passion to meditative introspection. The cast is complemented by outstanding Bayreuth forces such as Hans Hotter as Kurwenal, Ludwig Weber as King Marke and Ira Malaniuk as Brangane. The Bavarian Radio recording - long out of print and now remastered - reveals the atmosphere of a performance whose intensity and immediacy were celebrated as extraordinary even at the time. Note One Heritage's first release invites listeners to rediscover a pivotal moment in the history of opera and the festival. UPC: 4011254200012Label: Note OneRelease Date: 8.21.26Format: CD
In their second Boccherini release, the Karski Quartet and cellist Raphael Feye again present four string quintets, including two world premiere recordings. Composed for the unusual combination of two cellos, these pieces showcase Boccherini's versatility, moving from Mediterranean warmth to the elegance of Viennese classicism. The album successfully combines historical awareness with contemporary depth, providing a refined and compelling portrayal of the composer. UPC: 608917726923Label: Evil Penguin RecordsRelease Date: 4.17.26Format: CD
This album brings together three major orchestral works by John McCabe, composed between 1970 and 2007, and reflecting key strands of his musical thought. Symphony No. 2 unfolds as a tightly integrated single span, notable for it's rhythmic energy, luminous orchestration and structural clarity. Symphony No. 3, Hommages, acknowledges McCabe's lifelong engagement with the music of Haydn and Nielsen, blending quotation and allusion within a vibrant, tonal framework. The Cello Concerto Songline traces a continuous musical journey, combining virtuosity with introspective lyricism and a finely balanced orchestral palette. UPC: 635212100721Label: Signum ClassicsRelease Date: 7.24.26Format: CD
For their Preziosa series, MDG revives one of the most remarkable organ composers of the late Romantic period, Carl Sattler. The uniqueness of his works and the absolute richness of his musical ideas are expertly captured by Reinhard Kluth on the Klais organ at Himmerod Abbey. Still residing at the abbey was a former student of Sattler's, the elderly Father Raimund, whose contributions add a greater degree of authenticity to the interpretation. UPC: 760623236421Label: MdgRelease Date: 4.17.26Format: CD
Anyone familiar with Apollo's Fire will recognise the exceptional baroque orchestra's engaging and entertaining principal cellist Rene Schiffer. Featured on dozens of the Apollo's Fire recordings, Rene steps into the spotlight for his solo debut recording with a meticulous rendering of that pillar of the baroque repertoire, J. S. Bach's Six Suites for Solo Cello.Deploying different instruments - a 1768 Benoît Fleury cello for the first four suites, an anonymous late 18th century violoncello piccolo with an added string for the fifth (in his own arrangement) and sixth - and multiple tunings, Rene's distinctive interpretations are in harmony with his comprehensive and probing liner notes which abound with theories and intellectual insights. UPC: 822252270426Label: AvieRelease Date: 6.12.26Format: CD
World-premiere recordings of chamber-music collections by an overlooked master of the French Baroque.With two previous collections for Brilliant Classics - the Premier livre de pièces d'orgue on 2CDs and Trois Livres de Pieces de Clavecin on 4CDs - Pieter-Jan Belder has become the pre-eminent modern exponent of Jean-Francois Dandrieu, as reflected by the enthusiastic welcome in Fanfare for the organ volume: 'The playing here... is simply terrific. [Belder] has completely absorbed the French Baroque idiom as a native musical tongue and speaks it with absolute fluency... For anyone who loves the organ repertoire of the French Baroque, this is an essential purchase; highly recommended.'In this latest collection, Belder invites the listener to delve further into the output of this Parisian musician, who left behind precious few examples of his art on his death in 1739, but who won the admiration of both fellow musicians and royal patrons, most notably Louis XV. Published as Opus 1 in 1705 and Opus 2 around five years later, these collections of trio sonatas and violin sonatas represent a thorough and skilful assimilation of 'modern' Italian grammar - and most notably the influence of Corelli - into French gesture and style. Opus 1 represents a remarkably mature and purposeful integration of styles: at just 23, Dandrieu confidently asserts a distinct voice by seamlessly integrating the expressive nuances of the French harpsichord school into this Italian framework. Dandrieu's Op.2 sonatas do not merely reflect Italian influence; they actively transform it: in their formal clarity and expressive depth they embody both the elegance of Versailles and the vitality of Rome.To complete this volume, Pieter-Jan Belder plays three books of harpsichord pieces from Dandrieu's accomplished youth: most of them very brief dances, no more than a minute long, deftly sketching an idea for the equal enjoyment of performer and listener. Like the chamber music sets, these have never been recorded complete before, and the set as a whole advances our appreciation for Dandrieu as a major figure of the French Baroque. UPC: 5063758700238Label: Brilliant ClassicsRelease Date: 6.5.26Format: CD
Continuity through change as the very essence of tradition.The first instalment in a series documenting the legacy and evolution of one of Poland's leading music centres. It brings together recordings by it's most senior artists - musicians who remain active both on the concert stage and in the pedagogical sphere - representing distinct interpretative approaches and teaching lineages.What distinguishes these Kraków masters is, above all, their finely judged sense of time and their deliberate refusal to pursue mere virtuoso display, choosing instead to seek beauty of tone and the harmony of shared sonorities - qualities further enriched by the artistry of their outstanding pianists. UPC: 5902547021720Label: Dux Recording Prod.Release Date: 7.3.26Format: CD
When Germany invaded Austria in 1938, Robert Furstenthal, born in 1920, took the path of many Viennese Jews and fled to the United States, where he made his living as an accountant; the fact that he had written music in his youth was soon forgotten. Reconnection, after 35 years, with the woman who had been his first love rekindled both that flame and his urge to compose, and from then on songs and chamber music flowed from his pen, preserving the spirit of fin-de-siecle Vienna under the Californian sun - 'When I compose, I am back in Vienna', he explained. He died in November 2016, aged 96, knowing that his lyrical, eloquent music was at last attracting the attention of both musicians and microphones. [Volumes 1-3: TOCC 0519, 0542, 0577] UPC: 5060113447746Label: ToccataRelease Date: 4.24.26Format: CD
SOMM Recordings is delighted to release the next CD of it's ongoing, glowingly reviewed Beecham Collection. The label's initiative in issuing this collection is widely regarded by critics and music historians as a superb and invaluable endeavour. Focusing on live performances, radio broadcasts, and rare recordings-often featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra-the series has been described as a "ground-breaking" enterprise that unearths "buried treasure" for enthusiasts of Sir Thomas Beecham. This 36th issue includes live performances from two of Beecham's last concerts in 1959 and 1960, as well as one from 1954. Once again, producer and audio restorer Lani Spahr 'has done wonders with the restoration,' to quote John Quinn, Music Web International.This release opens with two of Beecham's signature musical lollipops, which he described collectively as 'delightful little pieces.' By the River comes from the Florida Suite by Frederick Delius. Though written in Leipzig, the suite was inspired by Delius's sojourn on an orange plantation in Florida, where his father had sent him in a vain attempt to try to dissuade him from pursuing music. Beecham championed the suite, and this piece, recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall on 24 April 1960, is an especially poignant document, as it was taped at what turned out to be Beecham's last concert in London.The second of the four Symphonic Dances by Edvard Grieg is the earliest performance on this CD, recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall on 26 October 1954. Grieg noted on the title page of the autograph manuscript that the dances were 'based on Norwegian motifs,' and this second dance, marked Allegretto grazioso, was an especial favourite of Beecham.The works of Leonard Salzedo, an English composer of Spanish descent, include seventeen ballets, the most successful of which was The Witch Boy from 1956, based on the 'Ballad of Barbara Allan.' Beecham's exciting and clearly committed concert performance three years after the premiere was described on the programme as 'Scenes and Dances from the Ballet, The Witch Boy,' and this recording faithfully reproduces the section titles as they were printed in the original Royal Festival Hall programme on 14 November 1959.That performance also included the Symphony No. 3 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky-his only completed symphony in a major key, and the only one with five movements instead of the traditional four. Nicknamed 'The Polish' after the Tempo di polacca marking of the fifth and last movement, it is a lighter work than his other symphonies and considered by some less masterful. Beecham never saw it that way, and he always made a persuasive case for the symphony. By the time of the present performance, he had been playing the 'Polish' symphony for decades, and his conducting reveals a deep engagement with the work. UPC: 758871013628Label: Somm RecordingsRelease Date: 8.21.26Format: CD
Famous for composing one of the world's greatest marches, Alte Kameraden (available on Volume 1 in this series, 8.574317), Carl Teike wrote a body of works that have enriched the German concert march repertoire. They imbue the medium with both diversity and charisma marrying thematic invention with clarity of structure and richness of tone colours. For the 43rd anniversary of his death, a 1918 march was disinterred, and named Neue Kameraden, while Sorgenbrecher is a tribute from Teike to his contemporary, the admired composer Paul Lincke. This is the final volume in the series. UPC: 747313461073Label: NaxosRelease Date: 6.26.26Format: CD
We clarinetists are profoundly grateful to Johannes Brahms for these four late works, composed near the end of his life. They stand as some of his most intimate and deeply felt music. We also owe thanks to the clarinetist Richard Muhlfeld, whose artistry moved Brahms so greatly that it inspired him to compose again. Muhlfeld's playing unlocked a new, quieter world for Brahms. Instead of writing large, dramatic works, Brahms started composing more personal and emotional music that highlighted the clarinet's warm and gentle sound.I was a young man when I first got to know these works, and in retrospect, I believe that my long engagement with these four compositions has shaped my approach to music-making more profoundly than any other repertoire, extending even to my interpretations of contemporary music. There are certain compositions that simply refuse to let go. Often, after performing them, one assumes it will be the final time, yet that is seldom the reality. This has certainly been my experience with the works of Brahms. His music is a constant source of inspiration. Every time I set the music on the stand, something opens up - a new interpretative idea or a deeper understanding of the music. And then that feeling comes up that every musician recognizes: I have to play this again!This is music that demands stillness and focus, and for me, it serves as an escape from the speed and noise of modern life. We are inviting the audience into a space where time stands still, where we are allowed to be sincere and reflective.It is both a privilege and a responsibility to keep these compositions present through performance and recording. After our recital in 2017 where we played all four works, the idea emerged to record them together. I hope you will find as much enjoyment in listening as we found in bringing this music to life. - Runar UPC: 053479704801Label: Sono LuminusRelease Date: 6.26.26Format: CD
Ollowing a successful concert series of Felix Mendelssohn's complete organ works at St Paul's Cathedral in 2021 Samuel Bristow marks the 30th anniversary of the installation of the Mander organs at Chelmsford Cathedral by recording Mendelssohn's revolutionary set of Organ Sonatas Op. 65. The sonatas contain such a wide breadth of moods and textures that an equally wide range of colours can be explored on both contrasting yet complimentary instruments. This album acts as a testament to the completion of a unique musical vision with Mendelssohn's music a perfect fitting vehicle to celebrate their strengths. UPC: 5060216348780Label: First HandRelease Date: 7.24.26Format: CD
The Will of Tongues is the new studio album by Sarah Davachi, and it is certainly her most ambitious to date, spanning over two hours, available as a triple vinyl set, or double compact disc in hardback book style packaging. The album features five new works for historical pipe organs, three choral pieces, a suite of "interludes" for various microtonal ensembles, and a longform chamber piece for strings, organ, and tape. In addition to Davachi performing on organ, the album also features an incredible group of musicians from across the US and Europe, including Whitney Johnson (viola), Eyvind Kang (viola), Lucy Railton (cello), Diapason (an experimental brass ensemble from Los Angeles), Phaedrus (a Renaissance flute consort from Switzerland), and Chamber Choir Ireland. The album engages several different compositional methods and concepts, all rooted in the minimalist tradition from which Davachi primarily operates, but underscoring The Will of Tongues as a combined body of work is a deep reverence for the act of listening. This collection of music is not easy listening, and it's not meant to be - when long durations and a reduction of materials are at play, the ear and mind are forced to confront sound itself and the significant mental spaces that it continually gives rise to. The Will of Tongues is thus a celebration of iterative listening and of extreme confrontation, of intimate aural experience and it's vast psychic horizons.
Tracklist:
Interlude I: Polyphonic, for Strings
Canto Duo
Songs of the Smile's Fig: I. Hours
Interlude V: Harmonic, for Woodwinds
The Second Tuning
The Rose Dialogues, Part I
The Rose Dialogues, Part II
Songs of the Smile's Fig: II. Salts
Four Narrow Forms
Interlude II: Unison, for Brass
The First Tuning
Songs of the Smile's Fig: III. Follies
Canto Solo
UPC: 5056818808326Label: Late MusicRelease Date: 8.28.26Format: CD
The opulent Second Symphony of Sergei Rachmaninoff in the compelling guise of a piano concerto: the only available recording, now available as a single CD. Rachmaninoff achieved a breakthrough, both for himself and in the genre of the Russian symphony, with the completion of the Second in 1908. This is music of a positively Brucknerian scale and paragraphing which needs space and breadth to unfold and climax. However, the symphony gained popularity through heavily cut performances and recordings, and it was only in 1973, with the recordings conducted by Ormandy and Previn, that the strength of the original, uncut Second revealed itself to new audiences. Rachmaninoff himself was hardly averse to making radical cuts and alterations both to his own music and the scores of his predecessors. Thus Alexander Warenberg followed suit in a long and distinguished Romantic tradition, when he transformed the symphony into a piano concerto. As completed in 2007, and recorded shortly afterwards by these musicians, this concerto can be compared to a cinematic adaptation of a great novel, as Ates Orga remarks in his booklet essay, 'with the main personalities, scenes and action retained, but subsidiary figures, incidents and detail omitted.' Thus the symphony's four movements are ingeniously condensed into the concerto's conventional three, with the central slow movement enclosing both the Symphony's Adagio, with it's unforgettably lugubrious opening clarinet melody, and the scherzo, as an interlude. With the symphonic argument shared between soloist and orchestra, Warenberg achieves a remarkably smooth idiomatic transition between the genres.The performance itself is driven and passionate in the best Rachmaninoff tradition, as the work of musicians entirely at home in the composer's world. Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy has made many fine recordings for Piano Classics, attracting lavish critical praise. 'Schmitt-Leonardy's collection of the three Chopin piano sonatas is the best single-disc version I have ever heard' (Fanfare). On his album of Schumann, the Etudes symphoniques 'have a formal integrity and sense of connectedness often missing in the hands of lesser artists' (Fanfare). UPC: 5063758700313Label: Brilliant ClassicsRelease Date: 8.14.26Format: CD
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