NEW RELEASES 2020/2

NEW RELEASES 2020/2

WWW.OUTHERE-MUSIC.COM

THE OUTHERE MUSIC GROUP IS ONE OF THE WORLD’S LEADING INDEPENDENT PRODUCERS OF CLASSICAL AND CONTEMPORARY MUSIC. IT IS HOME TO THE LEGENDARY ALPHA CLASSICS AND LINN RECORDS LABELS AND TO SEVERAL MORE SPECIALIZED LABELS SUCH AS ARCANA, FUGA LIBERA, OUTNOTE, PHI, RAMÉE AND RICERCAR. BECAUSE OUTHERE HAS AN UNRELENTING PASSION FOR QUALITY AND INNOVATION, IT HAS BECOME A MUST-JOIN GROUP FOR THE MOVERS AND SHAKERS OF THE MUSICAL WORLD.

L A B E L S ALPHA CLASSICS

4

ARCANA

21

FUGA LIBERA

27

LINN RECORDS

31

OUTNOTE RECORDS

37

PHI

41

RAMÉE

43

RICERCAR

46

ALPHA CLASSICS More than ever, the key words of this season on Alpha are eclecticism and passion!

The passion of the young cellist Astrig Siranossian for Nadia Boulanger, a brilliant pedagogue who whispered in the ears of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century, from Stravinsky to Quincy Jones.

The baritone Laurent Naouri, for his part, whispers songs by Fauré, Debussy and Poulenc in our ears.

Another baritone, Georg Nigl, gives us an opportunity to hear his extraordinary voice with the magician of the fortepiano, Olga Pashchenko.

A great poet of the viola, Amihai Grosz, joins Alpha with Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata.

Schubert is in love thanks to Rosemary Standley.

And there’s more Schubert with the Busch Trio in the famous Trio op.100.

Composer, conductor and clarinettist Jörg Widmann also comes on board, with a Weber programme.

Two equally eminent clarinettists also feature, Paul Meyer and the legendary Michel Portal, making his return to the classical repertory.

Patricia Kopatchinskaja teams up with Giovanni Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico to shift Vivaldian boundaries.

Patkop’s regular partner, the musical polyglot Anthony Romaniuk, presents a vast panorama of music from Bach to Crumb, played on four different keyboards.

François Lazarevitch returns with his ballads, his contredanses and his music for dancing, this time from seventeenth-century England.

Hervé Niquet resurrects the 1778 version of Lully’s Armide.

The pasionaria of the horn Sarah Willis takes us to Havana for Mozart y Mambo.

With Beethoven Year in full swing, Martin Helmchen continues his set of the complete piano concertos, the flautist Anna Besson sheds light on his love of folk music, Jos Van Immerseel celebrates early Viennese Beethoven, Olivier Cavé places his sensitive artistry at the service of Piano Concertos 1 and 2... and Pierre Henry’s Dixième Symphonie de Beethoven is at last premiered in its version for three orchestras and three conductors.

Alpha pays tribute to the great Reinbert De Leeuw in a moving version of his transcription of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, which he conducted just a few weeks before his death.

Also awaiting discovery: Lamento by Damien Guillon and Café Zimmermann, Mozart by the Quatuor Van Kuijk, Handel’s Brockes-Passion by Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen, Mahler conducted by Alexandre Bloch...and the latest instalment in the Haydn2032 saga with Giovanni Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico in volume 9 of the complete symphonies and The Creation!

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VIENNE 1900 EMMANUEL PAHUD FLUTE PAUL MEYER CLARINET DAISHIN KASHIMOTO VIOLIN ZVI PLESSER CELLO ÉRIC LE SAGE PIANO

ALPHA588

2 CDs

10 JULY 2020

Daishin Kashimoto, Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, Zvi Plesser and Éric Le Sage, who have been close musical partners for years, joined forces once again at the Salon de Provence Chamber Music Festival to record this programme devoted to Viennese composers of the early twentieth century. The most famous and innovative of these are represented: Schoenberg with his Kammersymphonie no.1, Mahler with two lieder transcribed for flute and piano, Zemlinsky’s Clarinet Trio and several pieces by Berg. A recording that encapsulates both the exhaustion of a bygone Romantic age and the avantgarde promises of a modern world still to be built...

MOZART Y MAMBO SARAH WILLIS HORN HAROLD MADRIGAL FRIAS, YUNIET LOMBIDA PRIETO, JORGE ARAGÓN HAVANA HORNS, HAVANA LYCEUM ORCHESTRA, PEPE MÉNDEZ

ALPHA578 10 JULY 2020

1 CD

Sarah Willis is a tireless ambassador for her instrument, the French horn, which she champions around the world. A horn player with the famous Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra since 2001, she launched what was soon to become a famous TV programme, ‘Sarah’s Music’, for Deutsche Welle in 2014, interviewing personalities ranging from Gustavo Dudamel to Wynton Marsalis.

The award-winning programme presents music with warmth and in all its diversity.

Sarah’s other passion was born when she arrived in Cuba to give a horn masterclass. The music and the musicians she met there had a huge impact on her. Since then she has returned regularly and founded the Havana Horns, an ensemble of Cuban horn players who were featured in a ‘Sarah’s Music’ episode.

With ‘Mozart y Mambo, Sarah has created an album combining the music of one of the most famous classical music composers, W. A. Mozart and traditional Cuban music. "Mozart would have been a good Cuban" she was told in Havana, and this is what inspired her to create this project.

With the Havana Lyceum Orchestra and its exuberant conductor José Antonio Méndez Padrón, she presents works for French horn and orchestra by W. A. Mozart (the Concerto No. 3 K. 447 and the Concert Rondo K. 371) alongside a 'Rondo alla Mambo' (inspired by the Concerto No. 3 K. 447) a ‘Sarahnade Mambo’, a Cuban ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’, and other treats. A number of wellknown local musicians take part in this recording, which also pays tribute to Cuban repertoire with two songs including ‘Dos Gardenias’, made famous by 5

PIANO WORKS OF THE YOUNG

BEETHOVEN SONATAS OP.10/3, OP. 13 “PATHÉTIQUE”, OP.14/1, OP. 27/2 “MONDSCHEIN”, OP. 51/2, OP. 51/3, OP. 14/2, OP. 26, OP.129 “ALLA INGHARESE”, OP. 28 “PASTORAL”

JOS VAN IMMERSEEL

ALPHA594

3 CDs

14 AUGUST 2020

FORTEPIANO

A leading authority on the fortepiano, Jos Van Immerseel has devised a programme focusing on the music Beethoven composed for a Viennese piano with a range of five octaves. This includes the finest keyboard music from Beethoven’s early Viennese period, more specifically works written between 1795 and 1804. For this recording, the Flemish pianist has used the composer’s extant autograph manuscripts or the first editions published shortly after composition, as well as the latest critical edition by Jonathan Del Mar (Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, 2017-18). The writings of Carl Czerny, one of Beethoven’s most important ‘pupils’, were also a significant source of information. With his customary attention to the instrumentarium, Jos Van Immerseel has opted for a five-octave Viennese grand fortepiano by Christopher Clarke, a masterly replica, built in 1988, of an instrument by Walter, whom Beethoven himself selected in 1802 from among the sixty or so Viennese piano makers of the time.

ARMIDE 1778 LULLY | L.-J. FRANCOEUR VÉRONIQUE GENS, REINOUD VAN MECHELEN, TASSIS CHRISTOYANNIS, CHANTAL SANTON-JEFFERY, KATHERINE WATSON, ZACHARY WILDER…

LE CONCERT SPIRITUEL HERVÉ NIQUET CONDUCTOR

ALPHA973 28 AUGUST 2020

2 CDs+1 BOOK

Armide, premiered in 1686, was the last joint work of Lully and the poet Philippe Quinault. It immediately became a pillar of the Opéra’s repertory, which it finally left only in 1766, when it was removed to make room for a new wave of composers, Philidor, Grétry, Gossec and soon Gluck. A few attempts to restore former tastes still allowed audiences to hear such works as Persée, revived in 1770 (and recorded in that version by Hervé Niquet, ALPHA967). But these operas were profoundly modified in order to increase the role of the orchestra and tailor the vocal numbers to the singers of the day. This was the context for the fascinating and unpublished version of Armide that has lain dormant in the Bibliothèque Nationale for more than two centuries. The revisions to the original are by Louis-Joseph Francœur, nephew of the celebrated François Francœur, one of Louis XV’s court musicians. This recording of the 1778 version of Armide, made at the Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles in collaboration with the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, is not merely the first modern performance but the work’s world premiere, since none of its music was ever actually played at the time. It enables us to grasp the evolution of the ideas and practices of French music over a whole century.

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BELLS ANTHONY ROMANIUK HARPSICHORD, PIANO, FORTEPIANO, FENDER RHODES

ALPHA631

1 CD

28 AUGUST 2020

An Australian who studied early music, harpsichord and fortepiano in New York, Anthony Romaniuk also has a passion for improvisation, independent rock and electronic music. This musical polyglot collaborates regularly with the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja (Take Two, ALPHA211), the vocal ensemble Vox Luminis, the tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen and the cellist Pieter Wispelwey.

For his first solo album, he has spent ten years exploring almost ten centuries of music, which he has decided to play on four different keyboards: harpsichord, fortepiano, piano and Fender Rhodes. Fascinated by low sustained notes (known as ‘pedal points’, the descendants of drones) – hence the title Bells – Anthony Romaniuk exceeds the boundaries of classical orthodoxy, ranging from Mozart to Crumb. An incredible compendium of music and emotions that enables us to discover Rameau, Byrd, Beethoven, Debussy, Purcell in a new light. We go from Bartók’s Mikrokosmos to a fascinating medieval melody that he has harmonised like a jazzman. Thanks to the delicate timbre of the Fender Rhodes, we hear Bach quite differently, alongside Chick Corea’s magical Children’s Songs.

WEBER JÖRG WIDMANN CLARINET AND CONDUCTOR DENIS KOZHUKHIN PIANO IRISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

ALPHA637

1 CD

For his first release on Alpha, the clarinettist and conductor Jörg Widmann celebrates the music of a composer who wrote some of the finest pieces ever devoted to his instrument: Carl Maria von Weber. With the ensemble of which he is principal conductor, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, he has recorded the Clarinet Quintet (in its version with string ensemble) and the Concertino, composed in 1811 and 1815 respectively, along with the ever-popular Overture to Der Freischütz. The pianist Denis Kozhukhin joins Widmann to perform the Grand Duo concertant. This album is the first in a series of recordings that will also give us a chance to meet Jörg Widmann in his role as one of the most active composers of his generation.

28 AUGUST 2020

7

DOUBLE TELEMANN CONCERTO IN D MINOR FOR TWO CHALUMEAUX AND STRINGS

STAMITZ CONCERTO NO. 4 FOR TWO CLARINETS

MENDELSSOHN KONZERTSTÜCKE NOS. 1 & 2 DUOS BY TELEMANN & C. P. E. BACH

MICHEL PORTAL & PAUL MEYER CLARINET ORCHESTRE ROYAL DE CHAMBRE DE WALLONIE

ALPHA415

1 CD

11 SEPTEMBER 2020

A legendary clarinettist equally experienced in classical music, jazz and film music, Michel Portal meets Paul Meyer, another outstanding ambassador of the clarinet in the world and a long-time friend. Side by side and accompanied by the Orchestre de Chambre de Wallonie, they offer a programme that reveals their musical rapport for the first time on disc, whether the repertory is Baroque, galant or Romantic. So, alongside Telemann’s Concerto in D minor for two chalumeaux and strings, we have Carl Stamitz’s Concerto no.4 for two clarinets, while Mendelssohn’s Konzertstücke nos. 1 & 2 are juxtaposed with duos by Telemann and C. P. E. Bach. Each work constitutes a calm dialogue in which words are replaced by notes, a touching testimony to two exceptional careers.

BACH CELLO SUITES NOS. 1 & 2

SONIA WIEDER-ATHERTON CELLO

ALPHA599 11 SEPTEMBER 2020

2 LPs

The Franco-American cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton has always sought to make music a language open to the world. A prizewinner in the Rostropovich Competition at the age of twenty-five, she is the interpreter of choice for many contemporary composers, among them Pascal Dusapin and Wolfgang Rihm, while the voice of her cello also encounters the voices of actresses such as Fanny Ardant and Charlotte Rampling, as well as the film director Chantal Akerman. Sonia Wieder-Atherton has now signed an editorial partnership with Alpha Classics which starts out with a recording of Bach’s Cello Suites, inaugurated by the Suites nos.1 and 2 presented here. This volume and the two others that will follow (Suites 3 to 6) feature photos by the great Sarah Moon: For me, playing Bach's Suites is always at some point or another seeing the image of Giacometti's hands tirelessly moulding clay until a face appears. (...)

To get to grips with the Bach Suites is an experience very close to that. It’s a question of digging into the string until the phrase is born, as well as the right way to breathe it. (...) And then came the encounter with Sarah Moon. When my desire to record the Bach Suites was born I dreamt of her images. Because, when I look at them, I imagine the creation of the world, the separation of the waters, the appearance of the earth, before history begins.

- Sonia Wieder-Atherton

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WHAT'S NEXT VIVALDI? PATRICIA KOPATCHINSKAJA IL GIARDINO ARMONICO GIOVANNI ANTONINI

ALPHA624

1 CD

11 SEPTEMBER 2020

Giovanni Antonini and his ensemble Il Giardino Armonico celebrate the composer who made them famous: Antonio Vivaldi. Their recordings of The Four Seasons and Cecilia Bartoli’s famous first Vivaldi recital left an indelible mark on the discography of the Red-haired Priest! Their musical fireworks display continues with a programme of concertos that is bound to provoke strong reactions, since it is the result of a meeting with a musician who is equally adept at shifting boundaries, the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja.

Together they have devised a programme entitled WHAT'S NEXT VIVALDI?, which interweaves ultra-virtuosic concertos by Vivaldi (Il Grosso Mogul RV 208, La Tempesta di Mare (for violin!) RWV 253, and RWV 157, 191, 550 among others) with, between each concerto, short pieces written by much more recent composers, Luca Francesconi, Simone Movio, Giacinto Scelsi, Aureliano Cattaneo and Giovanni Sollima, and mostly commissioned by Patricia Kopatchinskaja especially for this programme.

LAMENTO BACH, BIBER, FROBERGER, BERNHARD ETC.

DAMIEN GUILLON COUNTERTENOR CAFÉ ZIMMERMANN

ALPHA626 11 SEPTEMBER 2020

1 CD

In the post-Renaissance period, the lamento established a place for itself in both vocal and instrumental music. This grief-stricken utterance in the face of death – one’s own imminent demise, that of a loved one, a lamentation that may be either sacred or secular – conveys a sentiment of melancholy that verges on the inexpressible...

Café Zimmermann invites its longstanding partner, the countertenor Damien Guillon, to perform a programme of lamenti from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which gives equal prominence to instruments and voice on a journey through the German-speaking lands. In the past few seasons the countertenor Damien Guillon has established himself as one of the leading interpreters of Baroque music. Widely admired for his musicality and his luminous and exceptionally pure vocal timbre, he is regularly invited to perform as a soloist under the direction of celebrated conductors.

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PIERRE HENRY LA DIXIÈME SYMPHONIE HOMMAGE À BEETHOVEN

(WORLD PREMIERE)

ALPHA630

1 CD

11 SEPTEMBER 2020

Pierre Henry, a supreme innovator in the field of sound aesthetics, opened the gates to many other musical universes through the applications of his technological research. Fascinated by Beethoven from an early age, he composed a ‘Tenth Symphony’: ‘It’s not the one Beethoven made sketches for’, he said. ‘Nor is it a synthesis of the nine. It is essentially a combinatorial work.

It’s also a tribute to the man who hoped to exceed the limits of the orchestra.

Perhaps a way of painting my portrait (our portrait) through this music and the influence it has had on mine. It is a dreamlike, logical and respectful trajectory through what these symphonies contain and suggest. The work deliberately uses as “raw material” only notes, groups or motifs from the nine symphonies.’

There are three electroacoustic versions (1979, 1988, 1998), but it is the unpublished symphonic version that is presented here. It was premiered in November 2019 at the Cité de la Musique in the Philharmonie de Paris, by three orchestras, two choirs and three conductors: the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris, the Chœur de Radio France and Le Jeune Chœur de Paris, under the direction of Pascal Rophé, Bruno Mantovani and Marzena Diakun. Pierre Henry died on 5 July 2017. He would have loved to have heard his Dixième Symphonie de Beethoven as we are now able to.

SCHUBERT IN LOVE ROSEMARY STANDLEY ENSEMBLE CONTRASTE

ALPHA418 11 SEPTEMBER 2020

1 CD

A few years after the success of her album crossing Baroque music with folk, Love I Obey (ALPHA538), the Franco-American singer Rosemary Standley visits Schubert, this time with the complicity of the Ensemble Contraste: ‘We all have a few notes of Schubert buried deep inside us’ say the artists, who have got together around his music and brought to it an original sound texture, the result of their varied influences – classical, pop, jazz, folk.

They have picked some of the best-known lieder (Ständchen, selections from Winterreise, etc.) and universally loved instrumental pieces, incorporating in them rhythms from other countries and instruments unusual in this repertory: the jazz trumpet of Airelle Besson, the guitar of Kevin Seddiki, the percussion of Jean-Luc Di Fraja join forces with the viola of Arnaud Thorette, the piano, cello and double bass of Ensemble Contraste – not forgetting the exceptional participation of the soprano Sandrine Piau, who joins Rosemary Standley for several duets. The arrangements are by Johan Farjot.

10

MAHLER DAS LIED VON DER ERDE (ARR. REINBERT DE LEEUW)

LUCILE RICHARDOT MEZZO-SOPRANO YVES SAELENS TENOR HET COLLECTIEF REINBERT DE LEEUW

ALPHA633

1 CD

11 SEPTEMBER 2020

This recording was made under the direction of Reinbert de Leeuw in December 2019, two months before his death. A few weeks before that, he had called Thomas Dieltjens, artistic director of Het Collectief, to tell him: ‘Since our concert in mid-July 2019 at the Saintes Festival, I’ve been haunted by Das Lied von der Erde. I’m totally under its spell, and every day I discover new things in this masterpiece by Mahler. Wouldn’t it be a dream if we could record this music with the outstanding group of instrumentalists and soloists we had in Saintes?

And preferably as soon as possible?’ Reinbert himself made the arrangement for fifteen instrumentalists and two soloists and invested all his remaining strength in the recording of this music, which encompasses the whole of life, from the freshness of birth to the moment of farewell... A testamentary album, with the moving mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot, which gives us an opportunity to pay tribute to one of the key ambassadors of twentieth-century music.

MOZART REQUIEM THE NEW SIBERIAN SINGERS MUSICAETERNA TEODOR CURRENTZIS

ALPHA661 11 SEPTEMBER 2020

1 CD

This recording of Mozart’s Requiem, made by Teodor Currentzis in 2011, attracted great attention and soon became a benchmark in the work's discography! In its incredible ardour and sweeping inspiration, it demonstrates the full talent and interpretative freedom of the Greek-born Russian conductor, who has since become a major player on the international musical scene. At the head of his period-instrument orchestra musicAeterna, the Perm Opera Chorus and a line-up of soloists in total osmosis with his conception – Simone Kermes (soprano), Stephanie Houtzeel (alto), Markus Brutscher (tenor) and Arnaud Richard (bass) – Currentzis chose to present the complete version of the Requiem, as completed by Mozart’s pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr.

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MAHLER SYMPHONY NO.7

ORCHESTRE NATIONAL DE LILLE ALEXANDRE BLOCH CONDUCTOR Alexandre Bloch, who has been Music Director of the Orchestre National de Lille since 2016, has chosen to devote a whole season of concerts to Mahler’s symphonies. The Seventh (1904-05) is the most rarely recorded of the cycle – unjustly, because this work later nicknamed ‘Song of the Night’ testifies as clearly as its companions to the metaphysical grandiloquence that haunted Mahler during its gestation. From the gloomy Adagio of the first movement to the thundering Rondo that concludes the work, Alexandre Bloch and his orchestra lead us from the anguish of twilight to the ecstasies of dawn.

ALPHA592

1 CD

25 SEPTEMBER 2020

SCHUBERT ARPEGGIONE SONATA

SHOSTAKOVICH VIOLA SONATA

PÁRTOS YIZKOR (IN MEMORIAM)

AMIHAI GROSZ VIOLA & SUNWOOK KIM PIANO

ALPHA634 25 SEPTEMBER 2020

1 CD

Fascinated by the viola, which he chose at the age of eleven after learning the violin for six years, Amihai loves the sound of his instrument, which is so close to the human voice. He also likes the ambivalence of its timbre, midway between the violin and the cello, which in a sense reflects his own musical education in Israel, with its combination of Mediterranean influences and Russian and Germanic traditions. Initially a quartet musician and founding member of the famous Jerusalem Quartet, Amihai Grosz now pursues a solo career while holding the post of principal viola of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

For this first solo album, he joins forces with the pianist Sunwook Kim, the first Asian to win the Leeds International Piano Competition – in 2006, aged just eighteen. Together they present a programme coupling Schubert, with the famous Arpeggione Sonata – named after the quickly obsolescent instrument for which it was written, a cross between the guitar and the cello; Shostakovich, with the Viola Sonata op.147, completed in 1975, only a few weeks before the Russian composer’s death; and Yizkor (In memoriam) by the Hungarian-Israeli composer Ödön Pártos (1907-77). Amihai Grosz plays a magnificent Gasparo da Salò viola of 1570. This recording is the first of several projects for Alpha.

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THE QUEEN’S DELIGHT LES MUSICIENS DE SAINT-JULIEN FRANÇOIS LAZAREVITCH

ALPHA636

1 CD

25 SEPTEMBER 2020

This programme reflects the full flavour and richness of English music and the instrumental and vocal repertory it inspired in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The rhythmic impulse of this repertory – sometimes making use of ostinato – culminates in the grounds, jigs, contredanses and so on that were all the rage at the time and led to the publication of John Playford’s collection The English Dancing Master in 1651.

Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien, showing their familiarity with early sources from England, Scotland and Ireland, also emphasise the melodic aspect of these dances, which in the course of time became sung airs – the soprano Fiona McGown and the baritone Enea Sorini complete a colourful instrumentarium.

Finally, the light-hearted dimension of entertainment is present everywhere in this repertory, which was popular in the sense that it was universally practised at the time, achieving a fame that spread far beyond the British Isles.

MOZART STRING QUINTETS K.515 & 516

QUATUOR VAN KUIJK ADRIEN LA MARCA VIOLA

ALPHA587

1 CD

As in its Schubert recording in 2018, the Quatuor van Kuijk likes to delve into a composer’s youthful output and then measure his evolution by confronting it with his mature works. Hence, after recording two of Mozart’s early string quartets in 2016, the French group, here joined by violist Adrien La Marca, voted ‘Revelation’ at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2014, now offers the String Quintets K515 and K516. These two large-scale works dominate Mozart’s instrumental output in the year 1787, which ended with the premiere of Don Giovanni. They show us a composer at the height of his creative powers, in a genre to which he had not returned for fourteen years and which he here brought to a high degree of formal perfection.

25 SEPTEMBER 2020

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RESOUND BEETHOVEN COMPLETE SYMPHONIES BOXED SET [5 CDS]

ORCHESTER WIENER AKADEMIE MARTIN HASELBÖCK CONDUCTOR In the course of the eight recordings released by Alpha, the Orchester Wiener Akademie, conducted by Martin Haselböck, has accomplished its objective of recording the complete Beethoven symphonies on period instruments, in the very venues where they were premiered, scrupulously respecting the orchestral forces of 200 years ago. The symphonies take us back to nineteenth-century Vienna for a tour of the Lobkowitz, Hofburg and Niederösterreich palaces, as well as the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Theater in der Josefstadt.

ALPHA480

5 CDs

9 OCTOBER 2020

HAYDN2032 DIE SCHÖPFUNG

CHOR DES BAYERISCHEN RUNDFUNKS IL GIARDINO ARMONICO GIOVANNI ANTONINI ANNA LUCIA RICHTER MAXIMILIAN SCHMITT FLORIAN BOESCH

ALPHA567 9 OCTOBER 2020

2 CDs

Giovanni Antonini has been recording the complete symphonies of Joseph Haydn with the Alpha label for more than five years. Now the series is enriched by another monument by the Austrian composer: Die Schöpfung (The Creation), recorded in 2019 with the Bavarian Radio Chorus and his own orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico. This great oratorio was inspired by those of Handel, which Haydn heard performed by very large forces during his visits to England. The Creation, composed between September 1796 and April 1798, demanded such a colossal effort of him that he even fell ill just after its first performance; but the work enjoyed immense success. The marriage between the Bavarian chorus, so familiar with this masterpiece, and the periodinstrument musicians of Il Giardino Armonico works perfectly, with a vocal trio composed of leading soloists: Anna Lucia Richter, Maximilian Schmitt and Florian Boesch.

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EN SOURDINE 15 CHANSONS AFTER MÉLODIES BY FAURÉ, DEBUSSY, POULENC

LAURENT NAOURI VOICE FRÉDÉRIC LOISEAU GUITAR

ALPHA628

1 CD

9 OCTOBER 2020

We are familiar with the flamboyant baritone Laurent Naouri, a distinguished exponent of the four villains in Les Contes d’Hoffmann from Paris to The Metropolitan Opera New York and an unforgettable Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande. But here it is a much more intimate Naouri, the lover of mélodies by Fauré, Debussy and Poulenc, who invites us to a rendezvous: ‘Here is a repertory I’ve been performing for more than thirty years, sometimes not without a certain frustration: for how can you achieve the intimacy suggested by a poem like Baudelaire’s Le Jet d’eau – it’s almost pillow talk – when the vocal style forces you to “project” the voice? Although classical art song authorises you to sing piano or pianissimo, it’s still inconceivable to whisper in the listener’s ear.

To whisper, you need a microphone, and there we leave the world of the mélodie and enter the world of “chanson”, as that term was understood at the beginning of the radio era. I had already been thinking about these questions for a few years when I met the jazz guitarist Frédéric Loiseau. We started off our collaboration with Les Berceaux, a mélodie that Yves Montand had already sung in a “chanson” style. Encouraged by the result, we looked for other songs that we felt could benefit from this intimate treatment.’

BEETHOVEN PIANO CONCERTOS 1 & 2

OLIVIER CAVÉ KAMMERAKADEMIE POTSDAM PATRICK HAHN CONDUCTOR

ALPHA649 9 OCTOBER 2020

1 CD

A subtle performer of the Baroque and Classical piano repertory (Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven all feature in his discography on Aeon or Alpha), Olivier Cavé here offers us for the first time his interpretation of Beethoven’s first two concertos, written between the ages of twenty-five and thirty. There was a genuine alchemy in the Mozart concertos that he recorded in 2016, and this new project is marked by the same youthful vitality in two works composed by a Beethoven still steeped in the influence of Mozart. His energy gets an additional boost from the collaboration with the Kammerakademie Potsdam, an orchestra highly experienced in the Beethoven repertory, and the young conductor Patrick Hahn, one of the most promising members of the new generation, who celebrates his twenty-fifth birthday in 2020!

15

BACH REDEMPTION

ANNA PROHASKA LAUTTEN COMPAGNEY WOLFGANG KATSCHNER

ALPHA658

1 CD

9 OCTOBER 2020

Anna Prohaska asked Wolfgang Katschner and the Lautten Compagney at the outset of the coronavirus crisis whether they shouldn’t spontaneously organize a musical get-together in this period. This has now resulted in Redemption.

This is a sequence of music selected solely from Bach cantatas, compiled in keeping with the aforenamed conceptual association. Redemption has multiple meanings, for instance: can music give us consolation in times of sickness and crisis; can it open up emotional and contemplative spaces for us; is it redemptive for us as musicians to be the “instruments” in engendering music and therefore spirituality… ?

Besides Anna as soloist and three other singers, Redemption features a larger group of musicians – around twenty instrumentalists. These musicians serve a dual role: they expertly accompany the arias that Anna sings and they also represent the concept of human interaction and a shared collective experience which has been missing during these times.

SCHUBERT TRIO OPUS 100 SONATENSATZ - NOTTURNO

BUSCH TRIO

ALPHA632 23 OCTOBER 2020

1 CD

After its recording of Dvořák’s complete chamber music with piano, the Busch Trio now tackles three works by Franz Schubert, including his famous Piano Trio no.2. While the dying composer dedicated this masterpiece ‘to nobody, save those who find pleasure in it’, as if urging them to enjoy the life that was gradually ebbing away from him, his "Notturno" for piano trio D897 expresses an anguish and a sense of tragedy that makes it one of the most eloquent examples of Romantic lyricism. Schubert’s early period is represented by his very first piece for piano and strings, the single-movement Sonatensatz D28, which he composed at the age of fifteen. Written following the youthful Schubert’s expulsion from the Imperial Choir School in Vienna after his voice broke (he lost his mother the same year), this piece, still heavily influenced by Classicism, offers a troubling counterpoint to the works of his Romantic maturity, which reflect both the joy of creation and the suffering wrought by illness.

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VARIATIONS ON FOLK SONGS OP. 107 & 10 BEETHOVEN I KUHLAU I DOPPLER ANNA BESSON FLUTE OLGA PASHCHENKO PIANO

ALPHA639

1 CD

23 OCTOBER 2020

Anna Besson is a flautist with a passion for traditional music, who has already made an album of Irish folk music, The Dubhlinn Gardens (ALPHA447). For this new recording, she teams up with the Russian fortepianist Olga Pashchenko, an eminent specialist of Beethoven’s music, to which she has already devoted three discs on Alpha. Together they explore his interest in the popular melodies and the various folklores that make up the mosaic of European music by performing four of his ten ‘National Airs’ op.107 and two ‘themes with variations’ from op.105, which will take the listener from one end of the Old Continent to the other, from Scotland to Russia via Austria. The selection of works by Romantic composers that completes the programme shows how they shared the interest in folk material pioneered by Beethoven and his teacher Haydn – Swedish tunes for Kuhlau, Hungarian for Doppler, Auvergnese for Walckiers.

ALEXANDRE DUMAS ET LA MUSIQUE KARINE DESHAYES MEZZO MARIE-LAURE GARNIER SOPRANO KAËLIG BOCHÉ TENOR RAPHAËL JOUAN CELLO ALPHONSE CEMIN PIANO

ALPHA657 23 OCTOBER 2020

1 CD

‘There are few people as susceptible to certain musical beauties as I am; the more learned and complicated the instrumentation, the less I sense it, the faster it escapes me; on the contrary, if a simple and melancholic motif appears, I feel flooded with infinite sweetness’, Alexandre Dumas once said. To mark the 150th anniversary of the great writer’s death, this album celebrates Dumas and music: ‘Despite the incompatibility of poetry and music, the origin of which lay, he felt, in the excessive proximity between the two,’ writes Claude Schopp, the eminent Dumas specialist, in the booklet that accompanies this recording, ‘Alexandre Dumas agreed to collaborate with composers, writing opera libretti for Hippolyte Monpou and Ambroise Thomas. . . . The list of those who borrowed verses from Dumas’s pen is a mixture of obscure and illustrious names’: Hector Berlioz, Joseph Doche, Gilbert Duprez, César Franck, Franz Liszt, Henri Reber, Francis Thomé, Alphonse Varney among them. This programme, conceived in collaboration with the Association Jeunes Talents, presents an anthology of those settings, coupled with mélodies by Jules Massenet, Henri Duparc and Benjamin Godard.

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BEETHOVEN, SOLLIMA & FERRÉ SEARCHING FOR LUDWIG

MARIO BRUNELLO, GIDON KREMER, KREMERATA BALTICA

ALPHA660

1 CD

23 OCTOBER 2020

Gidon Kremer and Mario Brunello pay tribute to Beethoven by presenting two of his most famous quartets in a version for string orchestra played by Kremerata Baltica. The ensemble’s founder Gidon Kremer directs op.131 from the violin, while Mario Brunello conducts op.135 and adds two contemporary pieces, one

by Léo Ferré, ‘the revolutionary, anarchic, inspired singer-songwriter and great lover of Beethoven’: Muss es sein? Es muss sein! ‘We perform this hymn to “free music” in a version arranged by Valter Sivilotti for cello, strings and percussion with Ferré’s original voice. (...) Note sconte means “hidden notes” in Venetian dialect. Franco Rossi, the legendary cellist of the Quartetto italiano, always invited his students, including me, to look for and give importance to the note sconte in the scores of string quartets. I asked Giovanni Sollima to write a piece in memory of Franco Rossi, of his great passion for Beethoven and his note sconte’, comments Mario Brunello. ‘These two works form a bridge between Beethoven and our times, giving the expression “Searching for Ludwig” a concrete reality in sound’, concludes Gidon Kremer.

"DEAR MADEMOISELLE" A TRIBUTE TO NADIA BOULANGER

ASTRIG SIRANOSSIAN CELLO NATHANAËL GOUIN PIANO WITH A RARE APPEARANCE BY DANIEL BARENBOIM ON PIANO

ALPHA635 13 NOVEMBER 2020

1 CD

An emblematic figure of her time, Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) taught and inspired several generations of musicians, from Igor Stravinsky to Quincy Jones. Her musical and pedagogical philosophy, demanding yet highly stimulating, influenced the entire twentieth century. Astrig Siranossian, a rising star of the cello who now joins Alpha for several recordings, is fascinated by this musical personality whom everyone respectfully called ‘Mademoiselle’. She met some of her most illustrious students, including the late Michel Legrand, and Daniel Barenboim who has agreed to accompany her in a piece on the album.

With the pianist Nathanaël Gouin, she has devised a very eclectic programme, including the three pieces for cello and piano written by Nadia Boulanger in 1915, three years before the death of her sister Lili. A wide-ranging album, featuring Igor Stravinsky’s Suite italienne, Elliott Carter’s Cello Sonata, Astor Piazzolla’s Le Grand Tango, Tissue No. 7 by Philip Glass, Soul Bossa Nova by Quincy Jones, and music by Michel Legrand, Leonard Bernstein and others.

Merci, Dear Mademoiselle!

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MARTIN HELMCHEN DEUTSCHES SYMPHONIE-ORCHESTER BERLIN BEETHOVEN COMPLETE PIANO CONCERTOS VOL. 3 PIANO CONCERTO NO. 3 (ANDREW MANZE, COND.) TRIPLE CONCERTO (ANTJE WEITHAAS, VIOLIN - MARIE-ELISABETH HECKER, CELLO)

ALPHA642

1 CD

13 NOVEMBER 2020

German pianist Martin Helmchen continues his journey through Beethoven’s piano concertos with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and Andrew Manze.

In the Third Concerto, published in 1804, Beethoven seems to be moving away from the Mozartian model and inaugurates his ‘middle period’, using the minor mode to depict a distress and heartache that are certainly not unconnected with the famous ‘Heiligenstadt Testament’, which he wrote in 1802 to record his growing deafness. Martin Helmchen is joined by two partners with whom he performs a great deal of chamber music – violinist Antje Weithaas and cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker – to record the Triple Concerto, also written during the composer’s so-called ‘heroic’ period.

VANITAS BEETHOVEN I SCHUBERT I RIHM GEORG NIGL BARITONE OLGA PASHCHENKO FORTEPIANO & PIANO

ALPHA646 13 NOVEMBER 2020

1 CD

Like the paintings of the Flemish Baroque painters, the ‘vanities’ presented here can be approached in two ways: on the one hand, as manifestations of doubts and anxieties at the fragility of human life; on the other, as delights to be savoured without moderation, celebrating earthly life through the senses and the pleasure that human beings can derive from them. After two critically acclaimed recordings each for Alpha, the baritone Georg Nigl and the pianist Olga Pashchenko explore the tortuous meanders of the human soul with vocal works by Schubert (an ‘existentialist’ composer if ever there was one), Beethoven (whose torments hardly need stressing) and the contemporary composer Wolfgang Rihm, whose highly expressionistic Jakob Lenz (ALPHA717) Nigl performed on stage in 2019. His piece Vermischter Traum, here given its world premiere, is dedicated to the Austrian singer.

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TCHAIKOVSKY SYMPHONY NO.5 FRANCESCA DA RIMINI

TONHALLE-ORCHESTER ZÜRICH PAAVO JÄRVI CONDUCTOR

ALPHA659

1 CD

Paavo Järvi, Principal Conductor and MusicDirector of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich since October 2019, here launches a complete recording of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies, the first in both his rich discography and that of the Swiss orchestra: ‘When I think of the Fifth Symphony, I think of vulnerability and hope. It looks directly into our soul.It is perhaps the finest of his symphonies.

The famous horn solo moves me and enriches me every time I hear it... Unlike the Sixth, the Fifth still holds out hope for life.’ The symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini Op.32 completes this programme. This dark and violent ‘symphonic fantasy after Dante’, a drama of jealousy, was premiered in 1877, at the same time as Swan Lake.

13 NOVEMBER 2020

SARAH WILLIS MOZART Y MAMBO LP VERSION

ALPHA730 13 NOVEMBER 2020

2 LPs

Sarah Willis is a tireless ambassador for her instrument, the French horn, which she champions around the world. A horn player with the famous Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra since 2001, she launched what was soon to become a famous TV programme, ‘Sarah’s Music’, for Deutsche Welle in 2014, interviewing personalities ranging from Gustavo Dudamel to Wynton Marsalis.

The award-winning programme presents music with warmth and in all its diversity.

Sarah’s other passion was born when she arrived in Cuba to give a horn masterclass. The music and the musicians she met there had a huge impact on her. Since then she has returned regularly and founded the Havana Horns, an ensemble of Cuban horn players who were featured in a ‘Sarah’s Music’ episode.

With ‘Mozart y Mambo', Sarah has created an album combining the music of one of the most famous classical music composers, W. A. Mozart and traditional Cuban music. "Mozart would have been a good Cuban" she was told in Havana, and this is what inspired her to create this project.

With the Havana Lyceum Orchestra and its exuberant conductor José Antonio Méndez Padrón, she presents works for French horn and orchestra by W. A. Mozart (the Concerto No. 3 K. 447 and the Concert Rondo K. 371) alongside a 'Rondo alla Mambo' (inspired by the Concerto No. 3 K. 447) a ‘Sarahnade Mambo’, a Cuban ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’, and other treats. A number of wellknown local musicians take part in this recording, which also pays tribute to Cuban repertoire with two songs including ‘Dos Gardenias’, made famous by Ibrahim Ferrer and the Buena Vista Social Club.

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ARCANA Links Links, though sometimes experienced as oppressive bonds, are in the artistic world happy associations whose positive force is capable of triggering creative processes that, in our case, produce the beauty of music. Such links are the guiding thread by means of which we introduce Arcana’s new releases in the coming months.

Coexistence Tartini and the cellist Antonio Vandini, friends and colleagues for fifty years in eighteenth-century Padua: on the 250th anniversary of the death of Giuseppe Tartini, Mario Brunello and the Accademia dell’Annunciata rediscover one of the great partnerships in the history of Baroque music.

Friendship Antonio Pappano and Luigi Piovano: the solid and longstanding friendship between the conductor and the principal cellist of the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia is obvious from their thrilling reading of Brahms’s two Cello Sonatas.

Colleagues Telemann, Kuhnau, Böhm... and Bach: the unconventional recital by the talented Francesco Corti is also a gallery of portraits of colleagues who were intimately involved in the important moments of Johann Sebastian’s life, both professional and personal.

Mother The intense maternal bond is at the origin of the most famous Requiem in eighteenth-century Europe, commissioned from Jommelli by Duke Karl Eugen of Württemberg to commemorate his mother who died before the age of fifty. A new discovery by the Ghislieri team.

Cult The Stradella Project is enriched by a new release devoted to Il Trespolo tutore, the only comic opera by Alessandro Stradella, a name increasingly associated with that of Andrea De Carlo, for whom the Bolognese composer is a genuine cult figure.

Community The name of Zefiro is closely linked to that of its three founders, Alfredo Bernardini and the brothers Paolo and Alberto Grazzi, whose charisma transformed the group from an orchestra into a community based on shared values. A precious box set gathers together all their Mozart recordings.

Historical identity Arcana launches its mid-price series by reissuing the milestones of its catalogue, the outcome of a firmly rooted relationship with artists who have linked their name to that of the label, recognising themselves in its philosophy and becoming an integral part of its identity and history.

21

GIOVANNI PICCHI CANZONI DA SONAR CON OGNI SORTE D'ISTROMENTI

CONCERTO SCIROCCO GIULIA GENINI CONDUCTOR

A476

1 CD

14 AUGUST 2020

'El soto dei Frari', 'the lame man of the Frari': this was the nickname given to the Venetian Giovanni Picchi, perhaps a pupil of Giovanni Croce, in the charges pressed against him in 1610 for teaching music to the nuns in the Spirito Santo without a licence. In 1612 we find him intent on initiating an appeal against the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, after the appointment of Giovanni Battista Grillo as organist. The appeal is successful, obliging the powerful institution to repeat the examination. We also find this original and hot-tempered personality in his 19 Canzoni da sonar con ogni sorte d’istromenti (Venice, 1625): a collection which reveals the brilliant flair of this still little-known composer. The detailed instrumentation given by the author allows us to recreate the typically Venetian aural splendour, with glorious sackbut choirs and virtuosic violins, recorders, cornetts and bassoon. With the Canzoni da Sonar, presented by Concerto Scirocco in the first ever complete recording of the work, Giovanni Picchi sculpts his mastery into music with a variety of vivid colours and pulsating affects, earning a place of honour in the world of the Venetian school.

THE MOZART COLLECTION BOXED SET [6 CDS] ZEFIRO ALFREDO BERNARDINI CONDUCTOR

A204 28 AUGUST 2020

6 CDs

Wind ensembles saw an interesting development throughout the eighteenth century, both in their scoring and in their function, from musique de table to Harmonie. Mozart, who appreciated all the wind instruments of his time and gave them important roles in his orchestral and chamber music, including writing solo concertos for most of them, also composed important works for wind ensembles. His early divertimenti for six wind instruments were written in Salzburg between 1775 and 1777, mostly to entertain at outdoor banquets. The two serenades for wind octet K375 and K388/384a, composed in Vienna in 1781 and 1782 respectively, coincide with the foundation of the Kaiserliche Königliche Harmonie by Joseph II of Austria, which originated a widespread trend in the Empire and elsewhere. The function of such ensembles was mainly that of playing arrangements of famous opera tunes in the palace. The most sublime example of Harmoniemusik, however, is to be found in the Serenade K361/370a, the so called ‘Gran Partita’, written between 1781 and 1784: this is the most expansive of Mozart's works for wind in duration and scoring.

Award-winning ensemble ZEFIRO brings together the world’s leading specialists in performance on historical wind instruments and has gained a reputation in its thirty years of activity for lively, eloquent and expressive renderings of Mozart’s music. This six-CD set assembles for the first time its complete Mozart recordings, some of which are now considered as milestones in the discography.

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NICOLÒ JOMMELLI REQUIEM SANDRINE PIAU, CARLO VISTOLI RAFFAELE GIORDANI, SALVO VITALE CORO E ORCHESTRA GHISLIERI GIULIO PRANDI CONDUCTOR

A477

1 CD

11 SEPTEMBER 2020

After the great success of their first disc for Arcana featuring two unpublished masterpieces by Pergolesi, which won the ‘Diapason Découverte’ award, Giulio Prandi and the Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri return with a new recording, devoted to Niccolò Jommelli’s Requiem. Composed in 1756 for the solemn obsequies of the Duke of Württemberg’s mother, it became the most popular Requiem setting in Europe until Mozart’s, written in 1791.

Jommelli’s work, which is bound to surprise even the most seasoned enthusiast of this repertory, is dominated by a luminous intimacy that does not rely on fearsome and spectacular effects, but concentrates on vocal beauty and subtle musical narration.

The voices of Sandrine Piau and Carlo Vistoli lie at the heart of a structure in which the choir participates in an iridescent contrapuntal texture making full use of the skills gained during the composer’s years in Venice and Rome.

The outcome of a long process of research, this recording is based on a new critical edition that presents for the first time a coherent and complete score of the Requiem, and incorporates the sections in plainchant, thus restoring the authentic musical balance Jommelli intended the work’s first listeners to experience.

JOHANNES BRAHMS SONATAS FOR PIANO AND CELLO

GIUSEPPE MARTUCCI TWO ROMANCES

LUIGI PIOVANO CELLO ANTONIO PAPPANO PIANO

A479 25 SEPTEMBER 2020

1 CD

Even a star of the podium like Antonio Pappano devotes himself with enthusiasm to chamber music: there are more and more concerts and recordings in which he sits at the piano, performing with such eminent artists as Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Diana Damrau, Ian Bostridge and Joyce DiDonato.

Now it is his fifteen-year-old friendship and musical collaboration with Luigi Piovano that is reflected in this new and exciting album, in which the two musicians finally record their interpretation – honed over the years in dozens of performances at leading concert halls such as Rome, Milan, Bologna, Florence and Brussels – of the two Brahms cello sonatas and a gem of late nineteenthcentury Italian instrumental music: Giuseppe Martucci’s Two Romances op.72.

Two further elements add life and fascination to this new Arcana release: the instruments used (a sumptuous Alessandro Gagliano cello of 1710 and a splendid piano by Steinway & Sons built in New York in 1875) and the atmospheric surroundings in which the recording was made – not a sterile studio, but the magnificent villa, deep in the tranquil and harmonious verdure of the Tuscan countryside, of a great friend of the two musicians, Nicola Bulgari.

23

VENICE AND BEYOND CONCERTI DA CAMERA & SONATE CONCERTATE FOR WOODWIND INSTRUMENTS

AFFINITÀ ENSEMBLE FÜR ALTE MUSIK ELISABETH BAUMER

A119

1 CD

25 SEPTEMBER 2020

Venice ca. 1700: having recently arrived from France, the instruments à la mode - the oboe, bassoon, baroque recorder, and flûte traversière - go on to conquer the musical centers of the Serenissima. The versatility of these new woodwinds inspires Vivaldi at the Ospedale della Pietà and his compatriots Caldara and Lotti at San Marco throughout their lives, whether in Venice, Rome, Vienna, or Dresden.

This interest in wind instruments also carries over to the next generation of Venetian composers such as Galuppi, whose career plays out in his hometown, or the emigrants Platti and Brescianello beyond the Alps.

For centuries, the imperial chapel in Vienna was characterized by a particular affinity for Venice—and it was with an eye to this historical connection between Vienna and Northern Italy that oboist Elisabeth Baumer founded the AustroItalian Ensemble Affinità with musician friends in 2012.

The ensemble’s debut recording brings together imaginative interpretations of well-known works such as Vivaldi’s Concerto RV 103, exciting rediscoveries, and a world première recording of a remarkable oboe sonata by Ferrandini.

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH LITTLE BOOKS [+ J. KUHNAU, G. BÖHM, G. P. TELEMANN, F. COUPERIN, G. H. STÖLZEL]

FRANCESCO CORTI HARPSICHORD

A480 9 OCTOBER 2020

1 CD

A world renowned international soloist and harpsichord teacher at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Francesco Corti embarks a collaboration with Arcana with a musical journey through the manuscripts of the Bach family, beginning with the two books belonging to Johann Sebastian’s brother (the Möller and Andreas Bach manuscripts) and leading to the famous Büchleine for Anna Magdalena and Wilhelm Friedemann. The programme presents three major keyboard works by J. S. Bach (BWV 815, 992 and 998) that are preserved in ‘domestic’ copies.

Combined with works by the most important musical figures in Bach’s musical life: Böhm, one of his teachers; Kuhnau, his predecessor as Thomaskantor; Telemann, friend and godfather to Bach’s second son Carl Philipp Emanuel; Hasse and François Couperin. The resulting programme is an unconventional Bachian harpsichord recital, a mixture of different genres and composers, that is probably much closer to the ‘home concert’ of the period than to the standard modern recital.

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MILANO SPAGNOLA PARA TECLA Y VIHUELA

MAURIZIO CROCI EVANGELINA MASCARDI

A481

1 CD

9 OCTOBER 2020

With the battle of Pavia in 1525 a long period of Spanish domination began for Milan. Under the reign of Charles V the arts and music flourished. Antonio de Cabezón travelled across Europe visiting Milan in 1548 and his music influenced the great European composers. Contrary to keyboard instruments, lute and vihuela already have a vast repertoire in print. The combination of a keyboard instrument (tecla) with the vihuela (called “viola da mano” in Italy) is common in the sources of Spanish influence of this period, which often bear the indication "para tecla y vihuela”. Evangelina Mascardi and Maurizio Croci, established soloists on the international early music scene , explore the affinities, the contrasts and, in the words of an enthusiastic chronicler of the time, the "unheard of imitations" that arise from the dialogue between the two instruments. Their research project, carried out at the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne (HEMU) with the involvement of various international partners, has led to the discovery of new interpretations that offer to an immense repertoire of extremely high musical value, unique and fascinating perspectives.

ALESSANDRO STRADELLA IL TRESPOLO TUTORE, COMIC OPERA IN THREE ACTS THE STRADELLA PROJECT VOL. 6

ENSEMBLE MARE NOSTRUM ANDREA DE CARLO CONDUCTOR ROBERTA MAMELI SOPRANO / ARTEMISIA RICCARDO NOVARO BARITONE / TRESPOLO SILVIA FRIGATO SOPRANO / CIRO RAFAŁ TOMKIEWICZ COUNTERTENOR / NINO LUCA CERVONI TENOR / SIMONA PAOLA VALENTINA MOLINARI SOPRANO / DESPINA

A475 23 OCTOBER 2020

3 CDs

A major achievement for The Stradella Project, now in its sixth volume, this world premiere complete recording of the comic opera in three acts Il Trespolo tutore comes at a time of important new discoveries concerning Stradella’s life and his operas. This includes the recovery of Doriclea (A454) and the recent discovery of Amare e fingere, soon to be released in the same series.‘Il Trespolo tutore was first staged at the Teatro del Falcone in Genoa for Carnival 1679. Alessandro Stradella’s only comic opera, it unquestionably deserves a place among the masterpieces of this genre. On a libretto by Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi, the entertaining plot mirrors that of a successful comedy published a decade earlier: Amore è veleno e medicina degl’intelletti o vero Trespolo tutore by the Florentine Giovanni Battista Ricciardi. The paradoxical behaviour of the characters, including a ward who falls in love with her tutor and a madman who regains his wits through love, contribute to moments of intense comic delight.’

– Arnaldo Morelli

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TARTINI | VANDINI CONCERTI E SONATE PER VIOLONCELLO PICCOLO

MARIO BRUNELLO VIOLONCELLO PICCOLO ACCADEMIA DELL’ANNUNCIATA RICCARDO DONI CONDUCTOR

A478

1 CD

13 NOVEMBER 2020

To mark the 250th anniversary of the death of Giuseppe Tartini, Mario Brunello and the Accademia dell’Annunciata commemorate one of the great partnerships in the history of eighteenth-century music: the relationship between Tartini and Antonio Vandini, a cellist born in Bologna (cradle of the Italian cello school), active in Padua for fifty years, and the author of the first biography of Tartini, whom he had known since the 1720s. Coupled here for the first time are Tartini’s two cello concertos, probably intended for his friend and colleague, alongside the only surviving concerto by Vandini himself. According to reports of the period, he ‘played in such a way as to make his instrument speak’, that instrument being the violoncello piccolo practised by the virtuosos of Padua in the mid-eighteenth century, here played by Mario Brunello.

The expressive heart of the concertos is to be found in the beautiful slow movements: in Tartini the long, eloquent melodic arches create a free inner monologue, while the rich ornamentation recalls folk motifs from the Balkan region, which he may have known.

In his marvellous Andantino, Vandini gives the cello a gently symmetrical Vivaldian melody that expands in dialogue with the orchestra.

PULCHRA ES AFFETTI IN 17TH-CENTURY ITALIAN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

RICERCAR CONTINUO GIULIA GENINI RECORDERS AND DULCIAN ALESSANDRO PALMERI CELLO MICHELE PASOTTI ARCHLUTE AND THEORBO

A118 13 NOVEMBER 2020

1 CD

The Italian composers of the seventeenth century, living at the time of Galileo, were at the forefront of a musical revolution that offers some surprising analogies with the birth of the modern scientific method. Just as Galileo with his telescope was able to observe the sky and discover new celestial objects, so the musicians of the time strove to fathom the depths of the human soul with their wind and bowed or plucked string instruments. Each ‘affetto’ or emotion was made to correspond to a musical phrase constructed according to the ‘Stil Moderno’. This style was often somewhat unpredictable, which is why it is still so fascinating for today’s listeners. Instruments thus came to dominate the musical scene, eliciting as much excitement and wonder as singers thanks to the skill of virtuoso players and music that was written specifically for them: sonatas, canzonas, sinfonias, diminutions, ballets, etc.

Il Ricercar Continuo tackles this extraordinary repertory with an exemplary selection of pieces that demonstrate the remarkable creativity typical of Italian instrumental music during the seventeenth century. The three musicians are highly versatile, playing nine different instruments, including dulcians, recorders of different sizes, lute, archlute and cello.

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FUGA LIBERA The Fuga Libera label, founded in 2004, surprises the public with original and invariably surprising projects. They explore new musical trails or repertory awaiting discovery, in the company of a series of renowned artists who are the pride of the catalogue.

Bernard Foccroulle takes us into the world of Dante’s poetry with a very contemporary vision of Purgatory, featuring the InAlto ensemble. The recording also provides an opportunity to hear the organ of Bozar in Brussels, inaugurated in 2017.

The singer Ghalia Bennali and the violinist Romina Lischka have devised a totally new programme, mixing Arabic poetry, music for viol (Marais etc.), Indian music and their own compositions. The result is a Call to Prayer that invites us to elevated states...

The philharmonie zuidnederland, whose third Fuga Libera album is released this autumn, juxtaposes two orchestral works. One is French and extremely famous, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. The other is much less well-known, but nevertheless has some wonderful surprises in store: Le Miroir de peine by the Dutch composer Hendrik Andriessen.

Daniel Weismann is accompanied by Peter Petrov in a multi-composer programme focusing on French Romantic music for viola. Vierne, Chausson, Tournemire, Berlioz – all of them wrote fine works specifically for this instrument, which are not necessarily their bestknown. Let yourself be swept along!

The Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, under its talented young conductor Joshua Weilerstein, has turned its attention to arrangements of Shostakovich’s string quartets by his close friend, Rudolf Barshai.

Here is an ambitious project played by the Orchestre Symphonique Bienne Soleure and an array of renowned soloists, including Frank Braley and Louis Lortie, who are associated with the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel: an album of concertante works by Mozart for two soloists.

They took up the challenge in a memorable concert performance, whose highly communicative energy is apparent in this live recording.

We hope you enjoy listening to these releases!

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BERNARD FOCCROULLE E VIDI QUATTRO STELLE FOR BARITONE, SOPRANO, CORNETT, THREE TROMBONES, HARP AND GREAT ORGAN

INALTO LAMBERT COLSON CONDUCTOR & CORNETT NIKOLAY BORCHEV BARITONE ALICE FOCCROULLE SOPRANO

FUG762

1 CD

14 AUGUST 2020

This composition was commissioned from Bernard Foccroulle for the inauguration of the new organ of the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. The work’s text consists of fragments from Dante’s Purgatorio. At the beginning, the narrator and Virgil emerge from Hell and climb the mountain that leads to Paradise. The most sublime visions of the sky and nature are scattered throughout the text. The two travellers converse and meet many tormented souls who are awaiting their salvation. Exhausted, Dante falls asleep several times. Towards the end of their ascent, Virgil silently disappears at the very moment when Dante meets Beatrice. Their reunion forms an extremely dramatic scene: Beatrice reminds her friend of his past errors and the betrayals that followed her death. Her bitter reproaches plunge the poet into a state of prostration close to a swoon. But forgiveness comes: Matelda (a beautiful and mysterious lady we have encountered shortly before, who probably represents earthly happiness) comes to meet him, bathes him in the waters of Lethe and entrusts him to four beautiful women who dance and enfold him in their arms.

The blazing sun is at its zenith. Following his regeneration, Dante is ready to rise up to the stars.

CALL TO PRAYER GHALIA BENALI VOICE ROMINA LISCHKA VIOL VINCENT NOIRET DOUBLE BASS

FUG763 14 AUGUST 2020

1 CD

The viol player and Hathor Consort director Romina Lischka, a specialist in early European music, and the Tunisian singer, dancer, poet and actress Ghalia Benali, ambassador of Arab music, join forces in this fascinating project in order to explore the intersection of their musical cultures. In combining for instance music by Marin Marais with classical Arab maqams on Arab poetry and with classical Indian Dhrupad ragas, they reveal the universal truth in music and poetry of different cultural and historical contexts and grasp their common spirit.

A dialogue that takes the soul on a journey back to the first prayer that ascended... Coming from totally different backgrounds, Romina’s and Ghalia’s experience of common ground and mutual understanding underlines the connecting elements in different cultures – a powerful message in our day. The harmony emanating from their musical venture deeply touches concert audiences of all cultures, and has now finally been recorded.

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HENDRIK ANDRIESSEN MIROIR DE PEINE

HECTOR BERLIOZ SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE

PHILHARMONIE ZUIDNEDERLAND DMITRI LISS CONDUCTOR

FUG764

1 CD

11 SEPTEMBER 2020

This third album released by philharmonie zuidnederland contains works by the Dutch composer Hendrik Andriessen and Hector Berlioz. A highlight of Andriessen’s French-influenced output has been chosen, the song cycle Miroir de peine (Mirror of suffering, 1923), with its texts by Henri Ghéon sung in highly expressive fashion by the mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn.

The coupling is the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz, written at the end of a period of ‘mental overheating’ in his obsessive love for Harriet Constance Smithson. This resulted in a musical gem, officially called Épisode de la vie d’un artiste, Symphonie fantastique en cinq parties (Episode from an artist’s life, Fantastical Symphony in five parts), in which he used every technique to get through to his audience. Here Berlioz leaves nothing to the imagination.

THE ROMANTIC VIOLA II LOUIS VIERNE DEUX PIÈCES: LÉGENDE ET LE SOIR

ERNEST CHAUSSON PIÈCE OPUS 39

CHARLES TOURNEMIRE SUITE EN TROIS PARTIES

HECTOR BERLIOZ HAROLD EN ITALIE (ARRANGED FOR VIOLA AND PIANO BY HUGH MACDONALD)

DANIEL WEISSMANN VIOLA PETER PETROV PIANO FUG765

1 CD

The French Romantic Viola from Berlioz to Tournemire: The Voice of Emancipation

9 OCTOBER 2020 Daniel Weissmann, Managing Director of the Liège Royal Philharmonic, is also a violist. Following an initial album released by Fuga Libera (2018) and chiefly devoted to German music, he continues his exploration of the chamber repertory for viola with this new album, here in partnership with the pianist Peter Petrov. The programme explores the French Romantic repertory, in a worldpremiere recording of the British musicologist Hugh Macdonald’s remarkable and formidably difficult arrangement for viola and piano of Berlioz’s Harold en Italie. The album is completed by ‘fin-de-siècle’ pieces by Vierne, Chausson and Tournemire (all three students of César Franck), written between 1894 and 1897, which embrace the full expressive and melancholic potential of the instrument.

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MOZART CONCERTO FOR TWO PIANOS IN E-FLAT MAJOR KV 365 AIR «CH’IO MI SCORDI DI TE» KV 505 DOUBLE CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO IN D MAJOR KV 315F (KV ANH. 56)

ORCHESTRE SYMPHONIQUE BIENNE SOLEURE KASPAR ZEHNDER CONDUCTOR LOUIS LORTIE, VICTORIA VASSILENKO, FRANK BRALEY IRIS VAN WIJNEN SOPRANO VLADYSLAVA LUCHENKO VIOLIN

FUG766 13 NOVEMBER 2020

1 CD

PIANO

The Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel and the Orchestre Symphonique Bienne Soleure have worked together for several years on producing concerts founded on the concept of apprenticeship, offering renowned artists and promising young musicians the possibility of a residency at the Music Chapel. This collaboration has given rise to the ambitious idea of programming Mozart’s double concertos, with the original feature of partnering a confirmed artist – such as Frank Braley or Louis Lortie – with an emerging talent. The conductor Kaspar Zender and the Orchestre Symphonique Bienne Soleure gave their full commitment to this project, which combines the wisdom of experience and youthful ardour, centring on a concert. It was therefore decided to give priority to the experience of live performance in order to preserve the emotion of the artists and the palpable fervour of the audience.

LINN RECORDS The sounds and scents of a summer’s evening are conjured up by The Orchestra of the Americas and Carlos Miguel Prieto, who are joined by pianist Jorge Federico Osorio to celebrate the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla.

The ‘dream team’ reunite: Francesco Piemontesi, Andrew Manze and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra are back together for two further Mozart Piano Concertos.

Pianist Simon Trpčeski takes a detour from Beethoven and Brahms to celebrate the music of his homeland, Macedonia. “MAKEDONISSIMO” takes listeners on a joyous tour through the incredible rhythms and haunting melodies of the Macedonian folk music tradition.

For his fifth recording with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Robin Ticciati conducts a captivating programme of Richard Strauss, including the Brentano Lieder performed by the charismatic lyric soprano Louise Alder.

KUNIKO continues her compelling exploration of the marimba’s remarkable sound-world with a recording of works by Akira Miyoshi.

Scottish Ensemble joins KUNIKO for the exacting Concerto for Marimba and String Ensemble.

Trevor Pinnock’s new recording of Józef Koffler’s extraordinary arrangement of the Goldberg Variations has been widely anticipated.

Students from the Royal Academy of Music and The Glenn Gould School collaborate.

Embodying the melodies and sweet harmonies which defined the era, Gothic Voices performs music from The Old Hall Manuscript. This is a wonderful collection of classy compositions from late 14th- to early 15thcentury England.

The acclaimed Choir of New College Oxford makes its Linn debut with a recording of works by the English Renaissance composer John Sheppard, including his most celebrated work Media vita and four premiere recordings.

Ensemble Marsyas returns to the engaging music of the Italian composer Francesco Barsanti, as it provides another fascinating glimpse into 18th-century musical life in the Scottish capital.

We compile the definitive collection of Sir Charles Mackerras’s Mozart recordings for Linn, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, demonstrating why Mackerras was acclaimed as one of the world’s greatest Mozarteans.

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MANUEL DE FALLA THE THREE-CORNERED HAT NIGHTS IN THE GARDENS OF SPAIN

CARLOS MIGUEL PRIETO CONDUCTOR THE ORCHESTRA OF THE AMERICAS JORGE FEDERICO OSORIO PIANO ALEJANDRA GÓMEZ ORDAZ MEZZO-SOPRANO

CKD625

1 CD

10 JULY 2020

Following its acclaimed Linn debut recording, Copland & Chávez: PanAmerican Reflections, The Orchestra of the Americas releases its sophomore album with its Music Director, Carlos Miguel Prieto. Prieto is joined by fellow Mexican and celebrated pianist Jorge Federico Osorio, who brings his superb musicianship, powerful technique, vibrant imagination and deep passion to this all-Spanish programme. Osorio is the soloist in Falla’s highly atmospheric piano concerto, Nights in the Gardens of Spain, a set of symphonic impressions which conjures up the enticing sounds and scents of a summer’s evening. Conductor and pianist received critical acclaim following their performance of this work in Ireland: ‘Prieto elicited a diaphanous palette of colours [and] as Osorio’s arpeggios shimmered up and down the piano we were magnetically drawn into this highly evocative world full of lush sounds and sensuous possibilities’ (BachTrack). Falla’s masterpiece The Three-Cornered Hat is both vibrant and colourful and showcases the ‘superb precision’ of The Orchestra of the Americas. Falla’s finely crafted and meticulous work ensures that the piece’s folklore-based melodies are consistently accompanied by exquisite background music. The programme is completed by the Interlude & Dance from Falla’s La vida breve and the well-known Intermezzo from Granados’ Goyescas.

MAKEDONISSIMO SIMON TRPČESKI PIANO HIDAN MAMUDOV CLARINET, SAXOPHONE, KAVAL ALEKSANDAR KRAPOVSKI VIOLIN ALEXANDER SOMOV CELLO VLATKO NUSHEV PERCUSSIONS

CKD636 28 AUGUST 2020

1 CD

“MAKEDONISSIMO”, meaning “very Macedonian”, sees Macedonian pianist Simon Trpčeski take a detour from Beethoven and Brahms to celebrate the music of his homeland, Macedonia. Trpčeski takes listeners on a joyous tour through the incredible rhythms and haunting melodies of the Macedonian folk music tradition in which highly intricate, jazz-influenced riffs and harmonies are seamlessly interwoven. Inspired by Trpčeski’s passion for the folk traditions of his homeland, Macedonian composer Pande Shahov (b. 1973), in collaboration with Trpčeski created a six movement cycle he called Pletenki (Plaits). In these new arrangements Shahov merges his own sound world – one which is influenced by impressionist attitudes to resonance and jazz harmony – with Macedonia’s traditional music. This project had its world premiere in May 2017 at the Ludwigsburg Festival, Germany, and went on to wow audiences in the UK (London, Liverpool, Birmingham), Slovenia (Ljubljana), France (Lille), Poland (Warsaw, Szczecin, Gdansk, Katowice), the Netherlands (Amsterdam), Serbia (Belgrade), Montenegro (Bar), Romania (Cluj) and South Korea (Jeongseon, Wonju, Chuncheon). Led by Trpčeski on piano the quintet of virtuosi musicians comprises Hidan Mamudo, Aleksandar Krapovski, Alexander Somov and Vlatko Nushev.

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART PIANO CONCERTOS NOS. 19 & 27

FRANCESCO PIEMONTESI PIANO ANDREW MANZE CONDUCTOR SCOTTISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

CKD622

1 CD

28 AUGUST 2020

This is the eagerly awaited follow-up to Francesco Piemontesi’s summer 2017 release, Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 25 & 26. This recording finds the ‘dream team’ of Piemontesi, Andrew Manze and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra back together for two further concertos: the graceful and sunny Piano Concerto No. 19 in F major and the mellow and magnificent Piano Concerto No. 27 in B flat major, which was Mozart’s last. When Piemontesi performed No. 27 at the 2018 BBC Proms, The Independent commented: ‘Piemontesi gave a definitive performance... his sound was gloriously transparent throughout.’ This wellestablished team garnered multiple accolades for their debut recording together (Benchmark Recording France Musique, Recording of the Year Presto Classical, Excepcional Scherzo, Editor’s Choice Gramophone, Album of the Week Classic FM) which increases the weight of expectation for this new recording. Widely considered one of the world’s greatest Mozart orchestras, the SCO finds an ideal foil in the freshness and spontaneity of Piemontesi’s playing.

RICHARD STRAUSS TOD UND VERKLÄRUNG, DON JUAN, SECHS LIEDER, OP. 68

ROBIN TICCIATI CONDUCTOR DEUTSCHES SYMPHONIE-ORCHESTER BERLIN LOUISE ALDER SOPRANO

CKD640 11 SEPTEMBER 2020

1 CD

For his fifth recording with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Robin Ticciati conducts a captivating programme of Richard Strauss including Tod und Verklärung and Don Juan. The scandalous story of the insatiable Don Juan forms the inspiration for a tone poem which is rich in imagination and dramatic flourishes. Tod und Verklärung is further testament to Strauss’s vivid imagination; his exploration of the mystery of death and what may follow was written when he was only twenty-five. Ticciati is a consummate Straussian, as his triumphant Rosenkavalier at Glyndebourne demonstrated, and his complete control of phrase shape and dynamics delivers performances of tremendous power and lucidity. Soprano Louise Alder joins Ticciati and the DSO to record what she describes as ‘a fiendish but beloved cycle of Strauss songs’: Sechs Lieder, Op. 68, affectionately known as the Brentano Lieder. Alder won Best Young Singer at the International Opera Awards 2017 and represented England in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition 2017, winning both the third round and the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize. The recording will be released to coincide with Ticciati’s fourth season as Music Director of the DSO in September 2020.

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TRIBUTE TO MIYOSHI KUNIKO MARIMBA SCOTTISH ENSEMBLE

CKD596

1 CD

25 SEPTEMBER 2020

For her sixth Linn recording KUNIKO has chosen to pay a personal tribute to one of Japan’s most celebrated post-war composers: Akira Miyoshi (1933-2013). Showcasing Miyoshi’s marimba works from the last four decades of the twentieth century, this recording represents a reference collection commemorating the composer’s significant contribution to this repertoire. Solo marimba works include the Conversation Suite, Torse III, Ripple and the unpublished Six Prelude Etudes, the last piece for marimba that Miyoshi composed. The inclusion of Miyoshi’s Concerto for Marimba and String Ensemble inspired an exciting collaboration between KUNIKO and Scottish Ensemble, which celebrates its fiftieth anniversary in the 2019/20 season. This recording offers a compelling exploration of the marimba’s remarkable soundworld, highlighting sharper and more percussive characteristics than those heard on KUNIKO’s critically acclaimed album, J. S. Bach: Solo Works for Marimba. Tribute to Miyoshi is an important addition to the wider percussion catalogue and enhances KUNIKO’s celebrated discography of works by Steve Reich, Iannis Xenakis, J. S. Bach, Arvo Pärt and Hywel Davies.

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH GOLDBERG VARIATIONS (ARRANGED FOR SMALL ORCHESTRA BY JÓZEF KOFFLER)

TREVOR PINNOCK CONDUCTOR ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC SOLOISTS ENSEMBLE WITH GUESTS FROM

THE GLENN GOULD SCHOOL

CKD609 9 OCTOBER 2020

1 CD

This new recording of Józef Koffler’s arrangement of J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations has been widely anticipated since Trevor Pinnock conducted the UK premiere at Wigmore Hall in 2019. The Goldberg Variations were still largely unfamiliar to the musical public when Józef Koffler completed his extraordinary arrangement – for flute, oboe, cor anglais, bassoon and strings – in 1938. Sixty years on, the Goldberg Variations are ubiquitous. Bach’s encyclopaedic marvel of digital gymnastics and musical invention is regularly performed and recorded.

Koffler’s arrangement cleverly reimagines the work in a naturalistic and compelling way. In its second transatlantic musical collaboration, the Royal Academy of Music is joined by students from The Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory in Toronto. The partnership with the Academy has produced five recordings with Trevor Pinnock, one with the late Oliver Knussen and one with Reinhold Friedrich in collaboration with The Juilliard School.

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EDINBURGH 1742 BARSANTI & HANDEL PARTE SECONDA

ENSEMBLE MARSYAS PETER WHELAN DIRECTOR

CKD626

1 CD

23 OCTOBER 2020

Following the success of its 2017 recording Edinburgh 1742: Barsanti & Handel, Ensemble Marsyas returns to the music of the Italian Francesco Barsanti who made his home in eighteenth-century Scotland. Having already explored Barsanti’s Concerti grossi - Parte Prima, double horn concerto and his arrangements of Scottish tunes, fans will be pleased to be able to hear more music from this engaging composer. The new album will feature Barsanti’s Concerti grossi - Parte Seconda, composed and published in Edinburgh in 1742, which will complete the Opus 3 collection. A further selection from his ‘Collection of Old Scots Tunes’ featuring Colin Scobie and Elizabeth Kenny, as well as Handel’s Overture to Atalanta, which was performed by the Edinburgh Musical Society, complete the programme. Ensemble Marsyas’ groundbreaking recording of the Parte Prima enjoyed a rapturous reception, gaining a 2018 ICMA nomination and Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’ and MusicWeb International ‘Recording of the Year 2017’ accolades. Artistic Director Peter Whelan has once again created an album that provides a fascinating glimpse into 18th-century musical life in the Scottish capital.

JOHN SHEPPARD MEDIA VITA

CHOIR OF NEW COLLEGE OXFORD ROBERT QUINNEY DIRECTOR

CKD632 23 OCTOBER 2020

1 CD

The Choir of New College Oxford, one of the most acclaimed British choral ensembles, makes its Linn debut with a recording of works by the English Renaissance composer John Sheppard. New College Choir was already 150 years old when Sheppard arrived in Oxford intent on contributing to the wealth of choral polyphony that defined the era. Media vita is his most celebrated work, almost symphonic in its proportions, in which he combines and elevates conventional Tudor musical devices to striking effect. Sheppard’s boundarypushing polyphony requires the skill and precision of liturgical professionals, and in the hands of director Robert Quinney it is compelling. The programme is completed by several motets in which Sheppard sets text from the Old Testament; we are delighted that four of these motets are premiere recordings: A solis ortus cardine, Inclina Domine, Iudica me Deus and Confitebor tibi. This is another distinctive and stylish performance from this acclaimed choir, which marks the first in a new series of recordings for Linn.

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SIR CHARLES MACKERRAS CONDUCTS MOZART BOXED SET [5 CDS] SIR CHARLES MACKERRAS CONDUCTOR SCOTTISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

CKD651

5 CDs

13 NOVEMBER 2020

This is the definitive collection of Sir Charles Mackerras’s Mozart recordings with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for Linn. Comprising nine symphonies plus the Requiem, this boxed set exemplifies why Mackerras was acclaimed as one of the world’s greatest Mozartians and the SCO is internationally recognised as one of the world’s finest chamber orchestras. Mackerras’s recording of Mozart’s four late symphonies (Nos. 38-41) won multiple awards: the 2009 Classical BRITs Critics’ Award and the 2009 BBC Music Magazine Disc of the Year and Orchestral Awards, whilst his recording of symphonies Nos. 29, 31 (‘Paris’), 32, 35 (‘Haffner’) & 36 (‘Linz’) was named Symphonic Recording of the Year at the 2011 ECHO Klassik Awards.

Completing the collection is Mackerras’s recording of the Mozart Requiem, boasting stellar soloists led by soprano Susan Gritton and mezzo Catherine Wyn-Rogers. The score, prepared by the renowned American academic Robert Levin, aims for a more historically authentic performance of the choral masterpiece. It was named a benchmark recording by BBC Music Magazine amongst other accolades. This is a wonderful celebration of the SCO’s Conductor Laureate on the tenth anniversary of his death.

THOMAS WILSON SYMPHONIES NOS. 2 & 5

RORY MACDONALD ROYAL SCOTTISH NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

CKD643 13 NOVEMBER 2020

1 CD

Described by The Herald as Scotland’s leading modern symphonist, composer Thomas Wilson (1927–2001) was central to the renaissance of 20th-century music in Scotland. Wilson’s music was championed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra throughout his life, so it is fitting that the RSNO has recorded a second volume of his symphonies to showcase the strength and inventiveness of his orchestral writing. Wilson’s Second Symphony reveals him to be a mature composer, full of intent and confident in his own style. Premiered in 1965 it is a tautly conceived work, darkly powerful in parts but full of colour and lyricism. The Fifth Symphony was commissioned by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for their 25th-anniversary season in 1998 and was to be Wilson’s final work. Inspired by the challenge of writing for smaller symphonic forces, Wilson created a piece full of dramatic energy contrasted with moments of breathtaking tranquillity that stands apart from his other symphonies. Rory Macdonald returns to conduct the RSNO following the critical success of their recording of Wilson’s Third and Fourth Symphonies.

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OUTNOTE RECORDS

The Outnote label continues its quest to promote the best of today’s jazz. A style that seeks to be innovative and open, especially to other musical genres.

Children are too often neglected by the world of jazz, which is considered too ‘difficult’ for them or else is presented in an extremely debased form. With Jazzoo, the Scandinavian group Oddjob achieves the perfect marriage between high quality music and a proven appeal to young audiences, in both recordings and live performance.

The 1291 project brings together Daniel Humair, Samuel Blaser and Heiri Kaenzig: three generations, three great jazz musicians. Together, they present an album that leads the trio tradition towards new sound palettes.

Antoine Pierre is one of the most prominent musicians on the new Belgian jazz scene. With his flagship group Urbex, he brings together the cream of this exciting and talented new generation. Suspended is inspired by the electronic jazz of the 1970s and was recorded live in optimal acoustic conditions. An exhilarating experience that may even lead you into a trance!

The tenth album by the flagship group of the Scandinavian progressive jazz scene, Oddjob, brings together for the first time, exclusive, original compositions by the ensemble, at the intersection between science, jazz, rock and contemporary music. A meticulous and innovative project that gives off an almost electric energy.

The saxophonist Christophe Panzani has set up an ambitious project assembling, in addition to a jazz ensemble, the accordionist Vincent Peirani, a string quartet (Quatuor Voce) and the Arte Combo. With this imposing instrumentarium, he pays homage to twentieth-century French classical music by bringing out its many connections with jazz.

In Aries Point, an unexpected encounter occurs, between the jazz trio of trumpeter Bastian Stein and a consort of viols, the Hathor Consort. The result is one of rare intensity, yet filled with great gentleness, in a sometimes almost meditative universe. A genuine aesthetic and aural experience.

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JAZZOO, VOL. 1 & 2 ODDJOB JAZZOO is a poetic, multicoloured universe in which each animal is recognisable by its musical identity. This original, luminous concept by the brilliant Swedish quintet Oddjob combines amusing miniature nursery rhymes, both moving and facetious, illustrated in a naive, dynamic style by Ben Javens according to fabulous musical-jazzoological brainwaves. This is musical awakening in the literal sense, all in music and without words, its content as well as its form adapted to the youngest with as much creativity as virtuosity.

In the course of 26 animal adventures, the duck, the kangaroo, the penguin, the gorilla and many others will guide you on a journey into the universe of the first two volumes of the Oddjob series.

OTN632

1 CD

14 AUGUST 2020

1291 DANIEL HUMAIR DRUMS SAMUEL BLASER TROMBONE HEIRI KÄNZIG DOUBLE BASS

OTN633 28 AUGUST 2020

1 CD

Three generations of top Swiss jazz musicians from three different parts of the country, Daniel Humair, Samuel Blaser and Heiri Känzig, form a new trio that promises to stimulate the interest of both music lovers and curious listeners.

The title of the album, 1291, is a nod to the Federal Charter, one of the earliest Swiss constitutional documents that eventually became the founding text of Switzerland.

Daniel Humair sculpts the tempo on drums just as he paints his pictures.

Inventive and attentive to the interaction between his companions, he produces playing in which finesse and energy alternate. Samuel Blaser, who is first and foremost a melodist, is an important, relatively new voice on his instrument who has already distinguished himself as a mature yet curious bandleader and composer.

Heiri Känzig is better-known on the international jazz scene than to the Swiss public. His humble attitude and musical talent are extremely convincing.

Blaser’s robust tone and wide-ranging improvisation are framed by the organic tumult of the interlocking rhythms of Känzig and Humair. From breath, strings and sticks, slides, wood and skins, an alchemy is born which, through inspiration and creativity, transforms the sound into moments of pure poetry.

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SUSPENDED LIVE AT FLAGEY ANTOINE PIERRE URBEX ELECTRIC

OTN637

1 CD

11 SEPTEMBER 2020

Suspended is Urbex’s third album, but also the first live recording of this adventurous group formed five years ago. The repertory is written by Antoine Pierre (TaxiWars, Philip Catherine, Joshua Redman, Jacky Terrasson etc.), the sextet’s leader, who has drawn his inspiration from the electronic period of Miles Davis, with the album Bitches Brew as its inspiration.

The recording was made in the outstanding acoustics of the famous Studio 4 at Flagey (Brussels) during the first public presentation of this new creation. The result is imbued with a powerful groove that leads, by way of an eruption of sound and energy, to a kind of trance.

Since its formation in 2015, Urbex has played in the most prestigious jazz venues and released two critically acclaimed albums that were awarded ‘CHOC’ in Jazz Magazine, ‘Indispensable’ in Jazz News, ‘MUST TSF Jazz’ and an Octave de la Musique 2018.

SUSPENDED LIVE AT FLAGEY ANTOINE PIERRE URBEX ELECTRIC LP VERSION

OTN692

1 LP

11 SEPTEMBER 2020

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ODDJOB KONG

OTN639

1 CD

25 SEPTEMBER 2020

Everything Oddjob undertakes turns to gold; an observation that has resulted, since 2002, in three Grammy Awards, a Manifest Galan Music Award and a Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros, rewarding five of the ten albums the group has released over the last twenty years. After the release of three thematic albums, this tenth recording, Kong, brings together for the first time in ten years the original compositions of the five members of the collective founded in 1997. The artists mould atmospheric music, allowing each individual personality to emerge while maintaining an implacable group dynamic. Smart grooves and incursions into electronics give this recording a sonic texture as rich as it is creative, as delicate as it is multifaceted, brushing against mysteriously captivating landscapes. But it is also and above all the unique working method, on the borderline between science and jazz, between rock and contemporary music, capable of organising its sound with an almost mathematical approach, that marks out this quintet as one of the most audacious combos on the Scandinavian jazz scene.

CHRISTOPHE PANZANI CORRESPONDENCE

CHRISTOPHE PANZANI QUINTET (FEAT. VINCENT PEIRANI) QUATUOR VOCE ARTE COMBO

OTN638 9 OCTOBER 2020

1 CD

The new project of saxophonist and composer Christophe Panzani is a tribute to twentieth-century French art music and jazz, and the close relationship between them in the middle years of the century.

When Ravel toured the United States, presenting his music and playing the piano, he caused a sensation, and at the same time was very impressed by the music he discovered there. This is one of the many examples testifying to the very close links that were forged between French composers inspired by the rhythms and colours of jazz, and jazz musicians who listened to the music of Debussy, Ravel, Milhaud, Varèse and others.

For Panzani, the project is a way of claiming his place in this musical heritage, since he had a classical music education combined from a very young age with a passion for jazz.

It is also a way of showing in music the ‘correspondences’ between these two worlds. Such correspondences are many and powerful, and show themselves in a blurring of contours, where we no longer know who wrote what (Satie or Panzani?), what is improvised and what is written . . .

All the music was written for piano and subsequently orchestrated and arranged

by Panzani for this orchestral ensemble composed of a string quartet (the Quatuor Voce), a wind quintet (Arte Combo) and a jazz quintet with accordion and guitar.

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PHI

The Phi label, created by Philippe Herreweghe in 2010, is noted for its eclecticism, its audacity and its high production standards.

Under the artistic direction of the Ghent-based conductor, Phi boasts among its artists such major ensembles as Collegium Vocale Gent, the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées and the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.

Thanks to the unwavering and enthusiastic support of Outhere, Philippe Herreweghe enjoys creative freedom that enables him to present recordings commensurate with his artistic ambitions.

The Phi catalogue is the fruit of its founder’s vast experience and incessant explorations. It offers a wide repertory ranging from the Romantic symphony to Renaissance polyphony, not forgetting chamber music.

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BRUCKNER TE DEUM & MASS NO. 2

COLLEGIUM VOCALE GENT ORCHESTRE DES CHAMPS ELYSEES PHILIPPE HERREWEGHE CONDUCTOR

LPH034 23 OCTOBER 2020

1 CD

Composed in 1866 for the inauguration of a votive chapel in Linz Cathedral, Anton Bruckner’s Mass no. 2 is a fine example of modernity blended with a centuries-old religious tradition, in that wind instruments are set in dialogue with choral writing inspired by Gregorian chant. Shorter in duration but scored for chorus and large orchestra with four soloists, his Te Deum of 1881 was acclaimed by such illustrious contemporaries as Hans Richter and Mahler, while the composer, usually very self-critical, opined that the score of this work would make God ‘judge him kindly’.

Like the eminent interpreter of the sacred repertory he is, Philippe Herreweghe here conveys with great fervour his vision of these two major religious works of the second half of the nineteenth century.

RAMÉE

Pluto-Ensemble and Hathor Consort undertake a spiritual journey through the realm of life and death.

Dorothee Mields and Hathor Consort paint a deeply touching picture of the musical oasis created by Heinrich Albert and the KĂśnigsberg Circle of Poets in the midst of the devastations of the Thirty Years War. In their first album dedicated to Baroque repertory, Ratas del viejo Mundo pay homage to one of the finest seventeenth-century composers of airs de cour and chansons, Jean Boyer.

Les Abbagliati follow the trail of the mysterious composer-diplomat Emanuele d'Astorga and his close friend Domenico Lalli, librettist to some of the greatest Italian composers of the eighteenth century.

Ensemble Dragma presents a stunning panoply of medieval bestiaries set to music.

The 1750 Project puts the listener in the shoes of an imaginary traveller discovering the musical life of Venice in 1726.

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ANIMAM GEMENTEM CANO TŮMA STABAT MATER BIBER REQUIEM HATHOR CONSORT ROMINA LISCHKA

PLUTO-ENSEMBLE MARNIX DE CAT

RAM1914

1 CD

28 AUGUST 2020

With the world premiere recording of a rediscovered Stabat Mater, a late work by the Bohemian master František Tůma, Pluto-Ensemble and Hathor Consort expand the Baroque discography with an emotionally gripping work. The version presented here, one of Tůma’s five settings of the text, long lay forgotten in the Abbey library in Ottobeuren, until Marnix De Cat (artistic director of the Pluto-Ensemble) rediscovered this gem. It is heard here with the Requiem in F minor by H. I. F. Biber and instrumental works by Biber, his teacher J. H. Schmelzer and his Salzburg colleague A. C. Clamer.

Animam gementem cano (‘I hymn the grieving soul’ – the first two words quote the Stabat Mater text) takes us on a journey through many of life's most significant moments: we are confronted with life and death, but also with our personal path towards consciousness. The programme is intended not only to provide comfort for the ‘captive grieving soul’ of every flesh-and-blood human being, but also to offer every curious music lover a voyage of discovery.

JEAN BOYER CHANSONS À BOIRE ET À DANSER AIRS DE COUR

RATAS DEL VIEJO MUNDO

RAM1910

1 CD

Parisian composer Jean Boyer’s Recueil d’Airs à boire et à danser from 1636 belongs to a genuinely French genre of drinking and dance songs, a more lighthearted offspring of the Air de cour. The latter, a courtly secular strophic song, became one of the most important vocal genres in the first third of the seventeenth century in France. Among the many collections of chansons à boire et à danser of the time, Boyer’s are probably the most compelling, both rhythmically and harmonically, and the texts he chose to set to music are generally more refined than some of his contemporaries’. From the mere number of copies of most of these collections extant in many European libraries, we realise how well diffused and popular this type of repertoire was, while it has been left virtually untouched in the twenty-first century.

25 SEPTEMBER 2020

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D'ASTORGA & LALLI CANTATAS AND SONATAS BY D’ASTORGA, BONONCINI, ALBINONI, HANDEL

LES ABBAGLIATI

RAM1907

1 CD

23 OCTOBER 2020

Can one imagine a more unusual and colourful character than Baron Emanuele d’Astorga? Reading the various biographies concerning him, one has the impression he lived a thousand lives ...

He fled Sicily around 1707 and met the Neapolitan poet and librettist Domenico Lalli, hailed by Goldoni as a ‘poetic genius’, who was to collaborate with many of the most important composers of the time, including Alessandro Scarlatti, Handel, Vivaldi, Albinoni and Caldara. The two men then forged a firm friendship in their travels across Italy with Rome as their destination. The ensemble Les Abbagliati has devised a programme built around these two protagonists. Its singer, Soetkin Elbers, discovered a fascinating manuscript in a Vienna library, a collection of cantatas by several composers who worked in the Austrian capital. Two unpublished cantatas for voice and continuo from this source, composed by Giovanni Battista Bononcini and Astorga respectively, alternate with instrumental pieces by composers who had a close relationship with Lalli.

SONG OF BEASTS MEDIEVAL BESTIARIES SET TO MUSIC

ENSEMBLE DRAGMA

RAM1901

1 CD

Medieval interest in animals and mythical creatures was not limited to the visual arts and literature. At the same time that bestiaries – manuscripts depicting animals and mythical creatures – were being compiled, composers were producing innumerable pieces that describe these same beasts from a musical point of view. Song of Beasts combines medieval iconography with texts and music, immersing a modern audience in this fascinating world of verbal, visual and aural imagery. Ensemble Dragma paints a multifaceted, moving and indepth portrait of the bestiaries, giving a glimpse of a long lost medieval mindset.

Various mythical and real animals are introduced, including the panther, the viper, the phoenix, the unicorn and the basilisk. These pieces by both renowned and less well-known composers are musical jewels, combining artful poetry with engaging melodies.

13 NOVEMBER 2020

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RICERCAR Exactly forty years ago, Jérôme Lejeune, followed by a handful of other young enthusiasts, decided to found the Ricercar label, which was set up to (re) discover a variety of early music repertories.

Their initiative formed part of a movement to re-evaluate this area of music history which began in Belgium in the 1970s, in the footsteps of performers such as the Kuijken brothers, Jos Van Immerseel, René Jacobs and Philippe Herreweghe.

Born of the ‘revivalist’ ideals of a second generation of professional musicians including Bernard Foccroulle, Philippe Pierlot, Frédéric de Roos and the passionate musicologist Jérôme Lejeune, the project took concrete form in Ghent, at the Studio Steurbaut, where this ‘bunch of pals’, assembled under the name ‘Musica Aurea’, recorded an album along with the violinist Janine Rubinlicht and the recorder player Marion Verbruggen.

That first project set the tone: it presented a selection of dances from Michael Praetorius’ collection Terpsichore Musarum. Despite the appeal of this recording, no record company dared embark on the venture.

Discussions grew heated, particularly around the table of the luthier Raymond Passauro and his wife Ruthi Simons. Why not launch an independent label, an autonomous structure, controlling its productions, passionate and authentic in its research and its determination to adopt the most rigorously scientific approach? Jérôme Lejeune then offered to make good use of a family inheritance that he had received unexpectedly.

On 1 April 1980, the statutes of the company (Ricercar SPRL) were signed.

Raymond designed the logo, and Ruthi enthusiastically took charge of the promotional and administrative tasks.

And to celebrate these forty years: The same principles of research, curiosity and indeed audacity have guided the most recent releases.

New light shed on one of the least-known composers of the German Baroque by the label’s flagship ensemble, Vox Luminis.

The passion for early instruments, with an inquisitive exploration of the repertory for bassoon and shawm in Baroque Germany, and an evocation of the virtuoso cornettists of the imperial court in Vienna.

A daringly original stroke: a recording of contemporary compositions for period instruments, in order to further broaden this ‘Early Music’ movement.

There is even an incursion into the œuvre of Beethoven, boldly revisited in Hummel’s chamber version of the First Symphony!

Last, a boxed set comprising 40 hours of music exploring the German Baroque repertoire. This was Ricercar’s main field of research when the label began, and presents an opportunity to highlight the artists, such as Philippe Herreweghe and Henri Ledroit, whose recordings first brought the label to prominence.

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GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL SAMSON CHŒUR DE CHAMBRE DE NAMUR MILLENIUM ORCHESTRA LEONARDO GARCIA ALARCON CONDUCTOR MATTHEW NEWLIN TÉNOR / SAMSON KLARA EK SOPRANO / DALILA LAWRENCE ZAZZO COUNTERTENOR / MICAH LUIGI DI DONATO BASS / MANOAH - HARAPHA JULIE ROSET SOPRANO / VIRGIN - ISRAELITE WOMAN

RIC411

2 CDs

14 AUGUST 2020

Samson is not merely an effective narrative, but also a drama of great psychological depth. Over its three acts, we witness the slow but inexorable mental resurrection of a man chosen by God who, overcome by remorse, gradually rebuilds his character. Awareness of his error sustains him and helps him to conceive a decisive reversal of his situation. Though held in chains and for ever deprived of his sight, Samson nevertheless gradually becomes convinced that his strength is intact. In order to set Israel free, he will succeed in regaining God’s mercy and destroying his captors’ people at a single blow.

This recording was made live during the Namur Music Festival in July 2018.

FRANÇOIS DEVIENNE TRIOS

LE PETIT TRIANON François Devienne (1759-1803), sometimes nicknamed the ‘French Mozart’, was equalled famed for his talents as a flautist and a bassoonist. He was one of the first professors at the Paris Conservatoire, established in the early years of the Republic. Devienne devoted a large proportion of his compositions, in several different forms, to the two instruments of which he was a virtuoso exponent. The programme presents several of his trios, which combine the violin and the cello with the two wind instruments in turn. These works possess all the charm of the galant aesthetic that developed in the late eighteenth century, along with a certain penchant for virtuosity.

RIC416

1 CD

14 AUGUST 2020

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MASTERS OF THE GERMAN BAROQUE 40 HOURS OF MUSIC FOR RICERCAR’S 40TH ANNIVERSARY

BOXED SET [31 CDS] CAPELLA SANCTI MICHAELIS, CHŒUR DE CHAMBRE DE NAMUR, COLLEGIUM VOCALE GENT, EX TEMPORE, L’ACHÉRON, LA FENICE, MUSICA AUREA, CLEMATIS, RICERCAR CONSORT, SYNTAGMA AMICI, VOX LUMINIS...

AGNÈS MELLON, ANDREA BUCCARELLA, BART JACOBS, BERNARD FOCCROULLE, GRETA DE REYGHERE, GUY PENSON, HENRI LEDROIT, MAX VAN EGMOND, PAULIN BÜNDGEN...

RIC110

31 CDs

28 AUGUST 2020

To celebrate Ricercar’s fortieth anniversary, with the symbolic total running time of forty hours of music, this box set assembles a vast anthology of seventeenthcentury German music, an area that clearly emerges here as the label’s main focus. While the most illustrious composers of the period are represented, from Schütz to Buxtehude, including Scheidt, Weckmann, Praetorius and the ancestors of J. S. Bach, the programme also makes room for the multitude of masters who, each in his own field, contributed to making the century a true golden age, rich in every musical form, both sacred and secular. The anthology ends with a selection of the very first compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach, in which the link with the music of previous generations is still very perceptible.

DOWLAND A FANCY BOR ZULJAN The first notes of the descending chromatic theme break the silence and it seems as if time has stopped. The listener is drawn into the world of John Dowland, the greatest lutenist of all, in a journey through multiple shades of melancholy and lucent hope. Never before had the lute sounded as expressive and colourful as in these masterful Fancies, as dynamic as in these sparkling dances: Renaissance lute music here reached its summit. Bor Zuljan explores these qualities in his debut solo recording, breathing new life into Dowland's masterpieces.

RIC425

1 CD

28 AUGUST 2020

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MOZART PIANO CONCERTO NO.24, K.491 (CHAMBER VERSION BY J. N. HUMMEL)

HUMMEL SONATE IN F MINOR, OP. 20

BEETHOVEN SYMPHONY NO.1 (CHAMBER VERSION BY J. N. HUMMEL)

AURELIA VIȘOVAN FORTEPIANO (WINNER OF THE MA FESTIVAL COMPETITION, BRUGES, 2019)

ANNA BESSON FLUTE CECILIA BERNARDINI VIOLIN MARCUS VAN DEN MUNCKHOF CELLO RIC417

1 CD

11 SEPTEMBER 2020

A pupil of Mozart, Johann Nepomuk Hummel was one of the most admired pianists of his era. His career began in Vienna at the time when Beethoven had just moved there. Like the latter, he belonged to that generation of composers whose output may be categorised somewhere between Classicism and burgeoning Romanticism. In addition to an extensive catalogue of original compositions, including piano works of high quality, Hummel also made numerous arrangements for chamber forces of orchestral compositions. Among these were the piano concertos of his teacher Mozart and the symphonies of his friend Beethoven, all of which he transcribed for piano, flute, violin and cello.

The Romanian pianist Aurelia Visovan offers this particularly original programme for her album as winner of the 2019 Bruges MA Festival competition.

GIUSEPPE TARTINI VIOLIN CONCERTOS (D MAJOR D24 / A MAJOR D89 / E MAJOR D48 / G MINOR D85 / E MINOR D55)

EVGENY SVIRIDOV VIOLIN MILLENIUM ORCHESTRA

RIC414 25 SEPTEMBER 2020

1 CD

After devoting a disc to sonatas by Giuseppe Tartini, for this anniversary year of the illustrious Paduan virtuoso, Evgeny Sviridov offers us a recording of violin concertos. This is his first collaboration with Millenium Orchestra, the ensemble founded by Leonardo García Alarcón in the framework of CAVEMA in Namur.

Most of the concertos selected come from manuscript copies made in eighteenth-century Germany, where Tartini’s reputation was very high. Evgeny Sviridov has found in these scores cadenzas and ornaments which are very probably in the hand of Johann Georg Pisendel, the great virtuoso violinist of the Dresden court, a friend (and interpreter) of Johann Sebastian Bach!

Following a practice that was becoming increasingly common in Germany at that time, one of the concertos has two horn parts in addition to the strings. Of the 130 or so surviving violin concertos, Evgeny Sviridov has selected five (D major D24, A major D89, E major D48, E minor D55, G minor D85).

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ANDREAS HAMMERSCHMIDT ACH JESUS STIRBT

VOX LUMINIS LIONEL MEUNIER

RIC418

1 CD

9 OCTOBER 2020

Andreas Hammerschmidt is undoubtedly the most unjustly neglected composer of seventeenth-century Lutheran Germany. Very few recordings have been devoted to him, even though his music was widely published during his lifetime.

The fifteen or so published collections offer a great variety of works, which, like those of his famous contemporary Heinrich Schütz, illustrate the fusion between the Lutheran polyphonic tradition and the various stylistic influences of the Italian Baroque. For this musical portrait of Hammerschmidt, Vox Luminis has drawn on several of these collections in order to offer as rounded a picture as possible of the variety of the composer’s styles. The entire programme is structured around texts for Passiontide and Easter, introduced by an intensely moving madrigalian motet on the death of Christ, Ach Jesus stirbt.

An evocation of Passiontide and Easter in the company of Andreas Hammerschmidt, one of the most unjustly neglected composers of seventeenthcentury Germany.

CAVALIERI IMPERIALI CORNETT VIRTUOSOS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

INALTO LAMBERT COLSON CORNETT

RIC419 23 OCTOBER 2020

1 CD

Luigi Zenobi, a virtuoso cornettist known as ‘Luigi del cornetto’, was born in Ancona in the mid-sixteenth century. He later moved to Vienna, where he entered the service of the Emperor Maximilian II. His reputation grew and he subsequently worked for the Este family in Ferrara, where he was the most respected and best-paid musician at court up to that time, so sought-after were his talents. Luigi was also a painter, poet, miniaturist and music scholar. An eyewitness recalled the delicacy of his playing: ‘softer than the harpsichord when its lid is closed’. Giovanni Sansoni, a composer and cornettist probably originally from Venice, was born around 1593. He was engaged by Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in Graz in 1613 and followed him to Vienna when he became Emperor in 1619. He sent his compositions to Saxony, and the young Schütz sent him former choirboys to be taught the cornett and the bassoon, two instruments on which he was an absolute master. Sansoni became the inspiration for the great instrumental composers of the first half of the seventeenth century in Vienna.

Our two legends of the cornett have one thing in common: they were both knighted by an emperor, Zenobi even calling himself ‘Cavaliere del cornetto’.

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FÜRCHTET EUCH NICHT SYNTAGMA AMICI VOX LUMINIS PAULIN BÜNDGEN COUNTERTENOR JULIE ROSET SOPRANO ‘Fear not...’ The Angel’s words to the shepherds suggest the daring premise of this recording, which, for Ricercar’s fortieth anniversary, enriches in highly original fashion the series dedicated to the discovery of early instruments and their repertory. The cover illustration, depicting two angels playing the bass shawm and the bassoon, perfectly portrays the subject of this disc devoted to the original repertories written for the two instruments in seventeenth-century Germany, whether it be the ceremonial music of the Stadtpfeifer (town musicians), chamber music or even sacred compositions.

RIC420

1 CD

13 NOVEMBER 2020

FOR HISTORICAL INSTRUMENTS BARTHOLOMÉE TOMBEAU DE MARIN MARAIS (HISTORICAL RECORDING) TOCCATA & SCENA

FOCCROULLE L'USCITA DELL'INFERNO

MERNIER FANCY UPON TEARES

CLÉMATIS INALTO L'ACHÉRON

RIC421 13 NOVEMBER 2020

1 CD

In the 1960s, the blossoming interest in the rediscovery of early music was due in part to instrumentalists who also played a very active role in creating the newest contemporary works. It was in this context that Pierre Bartholomée wrote a Tombeau de Marin Marais for the musicians of the Alarius ensemble (Janine Rubinlicht, Robert Kohnen, Wieland and Sigiswald Kuijken) who played in the Musiques Nouvelles ensemble at the same time. The musicians of that generation are in a sense the ‘ancestors’ of those who became the first artists on the Ricercar label. This recording, released as part of Ricercar’s fortieth anniversary celebrations, thus pays tribute to Bartholomée’s pioneering initiative by reissuing a remastered version of his composition alongside recent works written for the period instruments of some of the label’s key ensembles in 2020.

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