July 2012

At first glance, the two composers represented on this disc may seem an unlikely couple: Franz Liszt the archetypal virtuoso-composer who crisscrossed 19th century Europe mesmerizing his audiences, and Olivier Messiaen who at the age of 22 was appointed organist at the Sainte-Trinité Church in Paris, remaining there for the rest of his life. In this imaginatively constructed programme, the Swedish pianist (and neuroscientist) Fredrik Ullén juxtaposes music by the two, showing that there are closer parallels between them than might be expected. For a start, a significant role in both composers’ work was played by religious convic¬tions, and three of the Liszt pieces included here are related to saints of the Catholic Church: the composer’s own patron saint St Francis of Paola, St Dorothea and St Francis of Assisi, whose sermon to the birds is the subject of the first of the Two Legends. But both men also ventured into unexplored musical territory, with Messiaen exploring bird song (which he chose to regard as an expression of ‘religious joy’) and Hindu rhythms, for instance in Cantéyodjayâ. Meanwhile Liszt in his later years would develop an austere musical style full of dissonance, whole-tone scales, diminished and augmented chords – as striking as it is advanced, and looking ahead far into the twentieth cen¬tury. One of the prime examples of this late style is Unstern! Sinistre, disastro. On several discs for BIS, Fredrik Ullén has demonstrated not only a stupendous virtuosity, but also a striking originality in his choice of repertoire, including Ligeti’s Études and George Flynn’s unique, almost two-hour long triptych Trinity, described as ‘an utterly convincing performance of this incredible work’ on the website MusicWeb International.

Liszt Sancta Dorothea S187, St Francois d'Assise: La predication aux oiseaux S175/1, Consolations S172, Unstern! Sinistre disastro S208, St Francois de Paule marchant sur les flots S175/2
Messiaen Six Petites esquisses d'oiseaux (1985), Canteyodjaya (1949)

The common denominator of the three works presented here is the soloist Håkan Hardenberger. In 1999, the celebrated trumpet player asked HK Gruber to arrange his 3 MOB Pieces for trumpet and orchestra, and eight years later Gruber wrote the concerto Busking while his long-time collaborator Kurt Schwertsik wrote Divertimento Macchiato, both on Hardenberger’s initiative. In the 1960s Schwertsik and Gruber became known as ambassadors of the ‘Third Viennese School’ – a grouping which originated as a reaction against the total serialism of Darmstadt-centred avant-garde. One of the first manifestations of this was the ‘MOB art & tone ART’ Ensemble, in which the two composers and their friends performed new music of a delib¬erately informal, un-solemn sort. With influences as diverse as the neo-classicism of Stravinsky, the Beatles and the cabaret music by Hanns Eisler and Kurt Weill, the MOB Pieces, composed in 1968, are a perfect illustration of this. Gruber’s work has always shown a strong connection with various kinds of popular music, and his concerto Busking is another example. In each of its three movements the soloist plays a trumpet in a different key, with the accompaniment of an accordion, a banjo and strings. Often the accor¬dion and banjo join the trumpet as a solo group, with a resulting sound evocative of street musicians and New Orleans jazz. On the surface, Schwertsik has remained closer to home, by taking recourse to a form typical of the classicism of Vienna during Mozart's days. But the title Divertimento is deceptive – Schwertsik adds both melancholy and defiance to a work that appears, on the face of it, to offer easy-on-the-ear enter¬tainment, and the five-movement work ends with an epilogue for the trumpet alone – a soliloquy almost Mahlerian in its sense of loneliness and desolation.

HK Gruber 3 MOB Pieces (1968/1999, version for trumpet and chamber orchestra)
Busking (2007) for trumpet, accordion, banjo and string orchestra
Schwertsik Divertimento Macchiato Op 99 (2007)

Its overall length (upwards of 160 cm) and great number of strings (up to 16 courses) makes the chitarrone one of the more spectacular instruments of the early baroque. The name probably means ‘large kithara’, after the instrument played by the Classical Greek poets, and it was first developed as a bass lute in order to accompany singing and recitative – indeed it appears to have become the favourite instrument in Italy for accompanying the voice by 1600. It also enjoyed a short-lived but rich flowering as a solo instrument, however, to which the three virtuosi of the album title all contributed greatly, as performers as well as composers. Between 1604 and 1640, Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger (also known as Johann Hieronymus Kapsberger), Alessandro Piccinini and Bellerofonte Castaldi published a number of collections of chitarrone music, from which Jakob Lindberg has chosen some favourite dances, arias, toccatas and passacaglias. Combined into seven suites, they provide rich opportunity to enjoy the particular timbre and the special playing techniques of this splendid instrument, the chitarrone. Highly regarded both for his live performances and his many recordings, Jakob Lindberg has a long-standing interest in the many varieties of lutes, including lute mandorée, orpharion and archlute, and has now dedicated himself to researching their relative – research which informs both the performances and Lindberg’s own liner notes.

Kapsperger Arpeggiata, Canzona, Bergamasca, Canario, Passacaglia, Toccata, Gagliarda con due partite, Corrente con partite, Preludio, Toccata, Capona, Colascione, Kapsperger
Castaldi Fantasia detta Pegasea, Arpesca gagliarda, Cecchina corrente, Arpeggiata a mio modo, Cromatica corrente, La Follia, Furiosa corrente
Piccinini Toccata cromatica, Romanesca con partite variate, Corrente, Toccata, Partite variate sopra La Folia aria romanesca, Aria di fiorenze, Corrente

The First World War marked an entire generation of composers, both in England and on the continent. Of the three composers represented here, George Butterworth was killed on the Somme in 1916, while Ralph Vaughan Williams, who damaged his hearing while commanding an artillery battery, survived, but with memories that would colour many of his post-war masterpieces. Ivor Gurney, finally, also survived, but with a seriously aggravated bipolar disorder that would lead to his spending the last 15 years of his life in a mental hospital. While Butterworth composed his two song cycles some five years before the outbreak of the war, the collection of poems that he chose his texts from – A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad – was striking a resonant contemporary note with its numerous poems dealing with ill-starred young men facing death. Even earlier, in 1904, Vaughan Williams had turned to poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, for his Songs of Travel, a set of nine songs in which the wanderer-narrator philosophically accepts the mixture of joys and sorrows that are offered to him along the road. Gurney – the youngest of the three composers – was also a poet, and in Severn Meadows expressed his longing for home in both text and music. Along with In Flanders, Even such is time and By a bierside – ending with the words of the album’s title – Severn Meadows was composed during Gurney’s time in the trenches, before exposure to poison gas in September 1917 caused him to be returned to England. Interpreting these highly expressive songs is James Rutherford, who has risen to fame as a Wagnerian singer, with Hans Sachs (Die Meistersinger) at Bayreuth among his credentials, but who reserves a special place in his repertoire for English 20th-century song. On his first recording for BIS he appears with his regular collaborator Eugene Asti at the piano.

Butterworth Bredon Hill and other songs, Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad; Gurney In Flanders, Severn Meadows, Even such is time, By a bierside, The Twa Corbies (Border Ballad), Sleep; Vaughan Williams Songs of Travel

Compared with J.S. Bach’s production of church music his secular vocal works occupy a modest place in his output: today we know of the existence of some fifty secular cantatas, but only about half of these have survived in performable condition. They were occasional pieces, tailored especially to the situation that engendered them. Unlike the church cantatas they could therefore not be performed again in unaltered form, and were thus of little practical interest for Bach’s heirs. The earliest surviving secular cantata is the ‘Hunt’ Cantata, composed in 1713 in Weimar for the birthday of Duke Christian of Sachsen-Weißenfels. The Duke was a passionate huntsman and Bach’s work was performed during a birthday banquet held at the Prince’s hunting lodge. The libretto includes a modest dramatic plot in which four divinities from ancient mythology appear, and to which Bach’s music adds variety and colour through the use, in various movements, of two hunting horns, a trio of oboes and a pair of recorders. Bach must have valued the work highly: he adjusted it at least twice for performances in honour of other people, and also used ‘parody’ versions of various movements in sacred cantatas. Intended for the 1719 New Year’s celebrations in Köthen, Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht would also be recycled by Bach, who five years later transformed it into a cantata for Easter Sunday. Of a more philosophical cast than its companion piece, the cantata is set as a dialogue between Time (tenor) and Divine Providence (alto), who in the final movement are joined by a chorus wishing ‘glückseligen Zeiten’ (‘joyous times’) to the princely house of Anhalt-Köthen. Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki have previously recorded one disc of secular cantatas (BIS-CD-1411), with the Coffee Cantata and the wedding cantata O Holder Tag, Erwünschte Zeit. With this second volume, the team now picks up the thread of this series which runs parallel to the traversal of the church cantatas.

Sinfonia in F major BWV1046a/1, Was mir behagt ist nur die muntre Jagd BWV208 (Hunt Cantata), Die Zeit die Tag und Jahre macht BWV134a

With his Seventh Symphony, Dvořák had proved that he could compose a ‘respectable’ symphony (as he himself termed it), and had done so to both critical and public acclaim. Four years later, when he began to work on its successor, he apparently felt free to return to a more familiar idiom, and after the serious Seventh – which Dvořák at one stage had considered giving the nickname 'Tragic' – Symphony No.8 was a lighter work, with its roots firmly planted in the composer’s beloved Czech folk¬lore. It is probably the freest of his mature symphonies from a formal point of view, and has interesting parallels with Mahler’s First Symphony, which was premièred shortly after Dvořák had completed his own work. Imitations of the sounds of nature, pas¬toral subjects and fanfares feature in both symphonies, and both evoke a funeral march and a chorale. The work is here coupled with the symphonic poem The Golden Spinning Wheel, based on an epic poem by the Czech poet Karel Erben. Complete with a wicked stepmother, a dismembering and a magic spinning wheel of gold, this rather cruel fairy-tale is followed by the shorter Scherzo capriccioso. This consistently light-hearted piece was actually composed during one of the darkest periods of Dvořák’s life following the death of his mother in 1882. All of the other works written at this time – including Symphony No.7 – are characterized by a dark, even tragic mood and it is as if Dvořák in this Scherzo felt the need to once again express unrestrained joy. Claus Peter Flor and the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra have just released their performance of Symphony No.7 – a recording which has received top marks (‘10/10’) on the website Classics Today France, whose reviewer described it as ‘a striking disc’ offering ‘a revitalized vision of these major orchestral works’.

Symphony No 8 in G major Op 88, Zlaty kolovrat (The Golden Spinning Wheel) Op 109, Scherzo capriccioso Op 66

A modern shaman is how Veljo Tormis (b.1930) has been described. In his large production, chiefly composed for a cappella choir, he utilizes ancient chants and magic charms, as well as the typically Estonian runic songs, regilaulud. Indeed Curse upon Iron, his best-known score, even includes a shaman drum. Much of the music of Tormis, who began composing during the 1950s, mirrors his steadfast devotion to an Estonian identity in the face of Soviet occupation, with traditional ways of life, such as farming and fishing, resonating in pieces such as Helletused – based on ancient herding calls – Spell upon Flax (from the three Shrovetide songs) and Songs of the Ancient Sea.  But there are also works, such as the two Hamlet’s Songs, that seem to echo the bleak mood of Soviet Estonia, while The Viru Oath is one of Tormis’s most overtly political compositions, written in 1980 during  the so-called ‘stagnation period’ in which the thaw following Stalin’s death was halted. With Stars, from Kaksikpühendus (Double Dedication), the disc closes on a more lyrical and personal note – another strand in the composer’s rich repertoire. The informative liner notes to this selection of works for male-voice choir composed between 1962 and 1996 are by Mimi S. Daitz, author of a biography of Veljo Tormis. As she explains, even when Tormis does not use traditional tunes, he incorporates their scales and intervals into his melodies and harmonies, thus creating a unique sound. Divisions of voices into separate lines play an important part in Tormis’s orchestration of voices, and another characteristic is his rhythmic ingenuity. The various demands this places on the performers are amply fulfilled by Cecilia Rydinger Alin and Orphei Drängar, described in Choir and Organ as ‘a tremendous choir, with superb technique and an immense, expressive range’. Further variety is added by a number of guest soloists, including the internationally acclaimed soprano Elin Rombo.

Tormis Incantatio maris aestuosi (Incantation for a Stormy Sea), Kord me tuleme tagasi (Meie varjud) (Once We Will Reappear), Kolm mul oli kaunist sona (I Had Three Beautiful Words), Vastlalaulud (Shrovetide Songs), Pikse litaania (Litany to Thunder), Viru vanne (The Viru Oath), Helletused (Childhood Memory - Herding Calls), Raua needmine (Curse upon Iron), Muistse mere laulud (Songs of the Ancient Sea), Hamleti laulud (Hamlet's Songs), Kaksikpuhendus (Diptuhhon) (Double Dedication (Diptych))

This re-release of works by Gustav Holst is also part of the Hickox Legacy. Hickox was a great champion of choral music as well as neglected British masterpieces. This disc centres on The Wandering Scholar, a one-act comic chamber opera involving just four characters, and no chorus. For this rural tale Holst uses modest orchestral forces and folk-like musical material. It was premiered in 1934, shortly before Holst died. It was edited by his daughter, Imogen, and Benjamin Britten in 1968. The disc also offers two early works, the Scène de ballet (1899) and A Song of the Night (1903). BBC Music has commented: ‘Holst’s Chaucer-like farce comes up freshly minted in this lively recording… the couplings reveal Holst in light-music and Romantic modes, respectively, and throughout, Hickox inspires some full-blooded music-making.’

Richly endowed with musical qualities, Richard Hickox was a great champion of neglected music in general, and of British music in particular. His sudden death in November 2008 robbed the world of a most vital, industrious, and energising musicain, whose discographic legacy remains a treasure trove of the record catalogue. With the Richard Hickox Legacy we wish to express our gratitude to and appreciation of this great musical artist.

The Hickox Legacy
Re-released from CHAN9734

The Wandering Scholar Op 50, Suite de Ballet Op 10, A Song of the Night Op 19 No 1

The Hickox Legacy would not be representative without Elgar. Gramophone wrote of this recording of The Light of Life: ‘Hickox’s superior Elgarian credentials are immediately established in the glorious orchestral ‘Meditation’, where his conducting demonstrates a noble flexibility, sensitivity to dynamic nuance, and feeling for climax that are wholly beguiling… the LSO respond for their Associate Conductor with playing that is both warm hearted and alert; as ever the London Symphony Chorus contribute to proceedings in exemplary, splendidly disciplined fashion.’ Hickox and the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus were joined by the soloists Judith Howarth, Linda Finnie, Arthur Davies, and John Shirley-Quirk. Elgar composed The Light of Life for the 1896 Three Choirs Festival at Worcester. The text, adapted from the Gospel of St John, tells of the blind beggar whose sight is restored by Christ.

The Hickox Legacy
Re-released from CHAN9208

The Light of Life (Lux Christi) Op 29

Another re-release in our Hickox Legacy series, this disc features the Hymnus Paradisi by Herbert Howells, written in memory of his young son Michael who had died of polio at the age on nine. Although incorporating certain lines from the Latin Mass for the Dead, it is not a traditional Requiem but an intense and powerful work, nevertheless. Hickox coupled this with A Kent Yeoman’s Wooing Song, a secular cantata intended as a wedding present for the baritone Keith Faulkner and his bride, Christabel. They had to wait two decades for the work to be presented to them. Howells wrote: ‘No two people ever received a more delayed wedding present.’ This is an extrovert work set to texts dating from the 1600s. BBC Music wrote: ‘[Hickox] brings passionate commitment to his performance and shapes Howells’s long lines lovingly.’ The conductor is aided by the fine playing of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and sensitive choral singing.

The Hickox Legacy
Re-released from CHAN9744

Hymnus Paradisi, A Kent Yeoman's Wooing Song

These rarely heard works by Vaughan Williams are here re-released as part of the Hickox Legacy series. Hickox was always a superb advocate of the music of Vaughan Williams and these two works certainly deserve a fresh hearing. A Cotswold Romance was adapted by Vaughan Williams and his friend Maurice Jacobson from his ‘ballad-opera’ Hugh the Drover. It is set in the Cotswold village of Northleach during the Napoleonic wars and contains a host of identifiably ‘English’ traditions. The cantata, for tenor and soprano soloists with mixed-voice chorus and orchestra, was prepared for concert performance. The Death of Tintagiles, the incidental music to Maeterlinck’s play, is powerfully atmospheric and manifests a strong elegiac quality throughout. In five acts, the play tells the tragic fate of a young child, Tintagiles, at the hand of his suspicious and jealous grandmother. BBC Music wrote: ‘Richard Hickox directs a vivid performance with splendid support from his assembled forces… Although not major works, these are notable additions to the catalogue and the performances could hardly be better…’

The Hickox Legacy
Re-released from CHAN9646

A Cotswold Romance, Death of Tintagiles

This re-release of The Canterbury Pilgrims, along with In Honour of the City and the overture At the Tabard Inn, is part of the new Hickox Legacy series commemorating the distinguished conductor’s remarkable achievements in the recording studio. The Canterbury Pilgrims is a colourful but neglected work by Sir George Dyson, which brilliantly depicts assorted characters from the prologue of Chaucer’s famous Canterbury Tales. On the first release, the magazine BBC Music wrote: ‘Chaucer’s amusingly ironic depictions and Dyson’s memorable tunes and imaginative orchestrations are a winning combination. If you like Gerontius, Vaughan Williams, and Ireland, you’ll like Dyson. Go out and buy this disc…’ Gramophone echoed the sentiment, particularly commenting on the quality of sound: ‘This is a very fine recording… every layer in the texture is exceptionally well defined and integrated, which is no mean feat when such elaborate forces – soloists, choir, and orchestra – are involved.’

The Hickox Legacy
Re-released from CHAN9531
2 CDs for price of 1

The Canterbury Pilgrims, At the Tabard Inn Overture

This year, we celebrate the thirty-year conducting career of Neeme Jarvi with Chandos Records, as well as the conductor's own seventy-fifth birthday. We mark the occasion with this two-disc set of highlights, featuring a varied selection of concert hall rarities and core classics, along with some popular showpieces and examples of Jarvi's championing of Estonian and American music. In the course of his conducting career, Jarvi has amassed a distinguished discography of more than 440 recordings, well over 150 of them for Chandos. Jarvi has a rare ability to galvanise an orchestra into giving an interpretation of exceptional vigour and drive. Gramophone said of his recently concluded Halvorsen series (from which La Melancolie and Bojarernes Indtogsmarsch are taken): 'Jarvi finds in the music a drama and pathos that might come as a revelation even to the composer.'

Also on this disc is the 'Jester's Dance' from Tchaikovsky's The Snow Maiden, a personal favourite of the conductor, and one that Jarvi often performs as an encore at his many concerts around the world.

2 CDs for the price of 1

Dvorak Carnival Op 92, Slavonic Dance Op 72 No 2; Halvorsen La Melancolie, Bojarernes Indtogsmarsch; Mahler Nun seh' ich wohl warum so dunkle Flammen (No 2 from Kindertotenlieder); Suppe March from Fatinitza; Brahms Hungarian Dance No 19; Busoni Finale from Tanzwalzer Op 53; Bolzoni Minuetto; Kodaly Intermezzo from Hary Janos Suite; Ravel La Valse; Wagner (arr. Svendsen) Traume; R Strauss Morgen! Op 27 No 4; Weber Jubel-Ouverture Op 59; Wagner Huldigungsmarsch WWV97; Ellington Solitude; Barber The School for Scandal Op 5, Adagio for Strings Op 11; Still Animato from Symphony No 1 'Afro-American'; Eller Cantando espressivo from Five Pieces; Prokofiev Waltz from The Tale of the Stone Flower (Act II Scene 4) Op 118; Rachmaninoff Vocalise (vocal version); Shostakovich Lyric Waltz from Ballet Suite No 1, Tea for Two (Tahiti Trot) Op 16, Festive Overture Op 96; Scriabin Reverie Op 24; Part Credo; Tchaikovsky Second Song of Lei, Melodrama, and Jester's Dance from The Snow Maiden Op 12

The complete orchestral works by Frank Bridge are released here in an attractive six-disc box for the first time, as part of the new Hickox Legacy commemorative series on Chandos Records, leading up to (and continuing beyond) the fifth anniversary, in November 2013, of the conductor's untimely death. The box is released on the Chandos Classics label at mid-price - 6 CDs for the price of 4.

A couple of orchestral works aside, the repertoire of Frank Bridge was largely ignored until Hickox embarked on the complete cycle of his orchestral music, which revealed to the world what a remarkably varied and imaginative composer he was. All of Bridge's orchestral music is about something: there are nature-inspired tone poems, such as The Sea and Enter Spring; there are war-inspired works such as Oration and the Overture Rebus; and there are those pieces with a more ambiguous or 'emotional' programme, such as Dance Poem and Phantasm. The Guardian wrote of Volume 4: 'Richard Hickox's invaluable survey of Frank Bridge's orchestral music for Chandos [is] one of the most important contributions to British music on disc in the last decade.'

The Hickox Legacy
Re-released from CHAN9950, CHAN10012, CHAN10112, CHAN10188, CHAN10246, CHAN10310
6 CDs for the price of 4

Vol 1 - Enter Spring, Isabella, Two Poems for Orchestra, Mid of the Night
Vol2 - Dance Rhapsody, Five Entr'actes, Dance Poem, Norse Legend, The Sea
Vol 3 - Coronation March, Summer, Phantasm, There Is a Willow Grows aslant a Brook, Vignettes de danse, Sir Roger de Coverley (A Christmas Dance) (version for large orchestra)
Vol 4 - Rebus, Oration (Concerto elegiaco), Allegro moderato, Lament, A Prayer
Vol 5 - Suite for Strings, The Hag, Two Songs of Robert Bridges, Two Intermezzi from Threads, Two Old English Songs, Two Entr'actes, Valse Intermezzo a cordes, Todessehnsucht, Sir Roger de Coverley (A Christmas Dance) (version for string orchestra)
Vol 6 - Blow out you bugles, Adoration, Where she lies asleep, Love went a-riding, Thy hand in mine, Berceuse (song), Mantle of blue, Day after day, Speak to me my love!, Berceuse (orchestral miniature), Chant d'esperance, Serenade, The Pageant of London, A Royal Night of Variety

Born into an English musical family, organist and composer Christopher Gibbons (1615-1676) probably received early training from his famous father Orlando Gibbons. He sang in the choir of the Chapel Royal and went on to a distinguished career at Westminster Abbey and in the court of Charles II. With this showcase programme of motets, anthems, fantasias for strings, and organ voluntaries (all of which are receiving their first recording), Richard Egarr, the Academy of Ancient Music and the Choir of the Academy of Ancient Musik aim to rescue the composer from unjust obscurity.

Not unto us O Lord, Voluntarie in C, Above the Stars my Saviour dwells, Fantasy-suite in D minor, Ah my Soul why so dismayed, Organ Voluntary in C, O bone Jesu, A Voluntary for ye Duble Organ in A minor, Fantasia, The Lord said unto my Lord, Verse for the Double Organn in D minor, Fantasy-suite in F

Imogen Holst, the daughter of Gustav Holst, has long deserved recognition for her significant body of compositions, written throughout her life. Graham Ross conducts the choir of Clare College, Cambridge and the instrumentalists of the Dmitri Ensemble in these world premiere recordings of a selection of Holst's choral works ranging from 1927 to 1972, three of which have not been heard since their first performance, together with the first recording of her imaginative and skillful orchestration of Benjamin Britten's Festival Cantata 'Rejoice in the Lamb', made at Britten's own request.

Imogen Holst Mass in A minor (1927); A Hymne to Christ (1940), Three Psalms - Psalm 80 Give ear O
shepherd of Israel, Psalm 56 Be meriful unto me O God, Psalm 91 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High; Welcom Joy and Welcome Sorrow; Hallo my fancy whither wilt thou go? (1972)
Britten Rejoice in the Lamb

A Baroque 'in camera' for the classical theatre. In spite of its sub-title of 'tragedie biblique', David et Jonathas is by no means an oratorio. But if it seems to be more of an opera, this 'psychological drama' is everything but a tragedie lyrique, as it was conceived and popularised by Lully. With a prologue totally integrated into the rest of the work, and a virtually immobile stage action, almost devoid of recitative, Charpentier here succeeds in creating a counter-proposition to the Lullian model. His contemporaries were not mistaken in acclaiming this grandiose masterpiece by the most 'Italian' of French composers. This title was released for the first time in 1988.

Howe Records is pleased to announce the inaugural release of their new Collector's Edition Series from the vaults of Grammy Award-winning composer Howard Shore. Album series producer Jonathan Schultz has uncovered thousands of recordings documenting Shore's career of compoising original scores, concert pieces, chamber music and songs. Access to some of this material requires expert restoration of analog tapes in which reels are carefully baked and calibrated, splices are repaired and original balances are replicated or adjusted as needed to make this music available. Volume one launches the series with a collection of unreleased recordings, some from films and many pieces that have never been heard in any form. The first four tracks are from the score to the Martin Scorsese film After Hours and the last track is from the Diane Keaton documentary Heaven. These five tracks showcase Shore as both musician and performer. The middle tracks on the disc (tracks 5-11) have never been heard before. These compositions are unique, jazz influenced pieces with captivating solos for guitar and harmonica with orchestra. Collector's Edition Volume 1 is just the beginning - there is much more to explore.

Music from the Film After Hours, Espresso, Macchiato, Robusta, Decaf, Turkish, Instant, Cream And Sugar, Music from the Documentary Film Heaven

This third volume completes Andrew-John Smith’s series of Saint-Saëns’ Organ Music, which has been praised for the compelling brilliance of the performances, the inspired choice of instrument and the remarkable quality of the music itself. The recital ends with the formidable Fantaisie pour orgue-Aeolian, a work which makes extraordinary technical demands on the organist—in fact the composer himself wrote that it was ‘unplayable by the fingers and feet’. This led to the work being condemned to obscurity and it was as recently as 1988 that it was reconstructed and published for the first time. Andrew-John Smith’s performance defies this edict, and the translation of the original registration to the organ of La Madeleine is a feat of ingenuity.

Trois Rhapsodies sur des cantiques bretons Op 7, Dies irae, O salutaris hostia in D major, Sarabande in D major 'Offertoire', Elevation ou Communion in E major Op 13, Fantaisie pour orgue-Aeolian

This second volume of Hyperion’s newest Lieder series features the great dramatic and musical gifts of mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager. Internationally renowned on the opera stage, the concert hall and the recording studio, Kirchschlager is an ideal performer of these most varied, complex and emotionally charged songs. She is accompanied by the multi-Gramophone Award-winning Julius Drake, who curates the series. The songs recorded here encompass thirty years of Liszt’s life, with texts in German, French and Italian, and contain many examples of the hidden beauties of this undervalued and little-known strand of the composer’s works. Detailed and informative notes by Susan Youens and a beautifully intimate recorded sound complete a volume which will be indispensable to any lovers of Lieder.

Der du von dem Himmel bist S279 (First version), Ihr Glocken von Marling S328, Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam S309 (First setting, first version), Vergiftet sind meine Lieder S289 (Third version), Freudvoll und leidvoll S280( First setting, second version),Die drei Zigeuner S320 (First version), Uber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh' S306 (Third version), J'ai perdu ma force et ma vie S327, Jeanne d'Arc au bucher S293 (Third version), Es war ein Konig in Thule S278 (Second version), Muttergottes-Strausslein zum Mai-Monate S316, Und sprich S329, Ihr Auge S310 (Second version), Im Rhein im schonen Strome S272 (Second version),  Es muss ein Wunderbares sein S314, La perla S326 (Second version), Der du von dem Himmel bist S279 (Third version)

Valery Gergiev conducts Strauss' Elektra, one of the most powerful operas in the repertoire, accompanied by a superlative cast. Premiered in 1910 at Covent Garden, under the baton of Sir Thomas Beecham, Elektra is a prime example of Strauss' finest melodic writing. It showcases many of what were at the time, modernist techniques, such as dissonance, chromaticism and fluid tonality. The one-act Greek tragedy was reconstructed by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and his adapted text forms the libretto for the opera. The drama centres around Elektra and her determination to avenge her father's death. The themes of death, violence, sexual repression and revenge are omnipresent. American soprano Jeanne-Michele Charbonnet is recognised as a leading force in German and contemporary music repertoire. She has appeared at the Opera National de Paris, Teatro Real, Deutsche Oper, Teatro La Fenice, and the Teatro Comunale di Firenze. Angela Denoke and Dame Felicity Palmer both possess outstanding pedigrees in Strauss' operas. They are joined by oustanding Lieder specialist Matthias Goerne, making a rare foray into operatic repertoire. LSO LIve recently released Gergiev's recording of Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances and Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements. The label will release a box set of Gergiev's acclaimed Mahler Symphonies later in 2012.

The Armonico Consort return to disc on Signum (following their highly-regarded Naked Byrd CD series) with a new disc celebrating the glorious combination of soprano and trumpet in baroque music - featuring the soaring talents of Elin Manahan Thomas and Crispian Steele-Perkins.  Widely-praised for their imaginative and inventive programming, this disc features works by JS Bach (Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen), GP Telemann (Trumpet Concerto in D major), Alessandro Scarlatti (Su le sponde del Tebro), and a special compilation of works by Handel devised by Crispian Steele-Perkins.

Critical praise for the Armonico Consort's Naked Byrd discs on Signum (SIGCD180 and SIGCD235):
'This splendid second volume in the Armonico Consort's Naked Byrd series...but perhaps most moving of all is the 'Agnus Dei' section of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, re-scored by the composer for eight-part harmonies.' 5 stars (The Independent)
'An achingly beautiful selection' (Classic FM Magazine)

Music by Bach, Telemann, A Scarlatti and Handel

Volume 1 in a new collection of Charles-Marie Widor's Organ Symphonies, performed by Joseph Nolan on the magnificent Cavaille-Coll organ of L'eglise de la Madeleine, Paris. Bridging the generations from Mendelssohn to Messiaen, Empire to Rpublic, Widor was born to the organ. His Lyonnaise kinsfolk were organ-builders, he showed early talent for the instrument, and for decades was the embodiment of its might and splendour across the Gallic domain - his 'Organ Symphonies' were genre-defining in their influence. Joseph Nolan is an internationally renowned organist, acclaimed as 'brilliant, and such an astute musician' (Gramophone UK). He was appointed to Her Majesty's Chapels ROyal, St James's Palaces in 2004, and has since been invited to perform and record in some of the world's premiere venues - including the refurbished Organ of Buckingham Palace Ballroom (SIGCD114) and the Organ of Saint-Sulpice in Paris (SIGCD167). The Cavaille-Coll Organ of La Madeleine, Paris is a similarly renowned instrument, with former chief-organists including Camille Sint-Saens and Gabriel Faure.

"These performances are full of spontaneity yet for all Nolan's brilliance he allows the requirements of the composer always to take priority. The sympathy and expression that Nolan gives to this music and the assurance of his results will undoubtedly give this recital a special place amongst organ collectors." - Musicweb International (for SIGCD167)

Organ Symphonies Nos 5 Op 42 and No 6 Op 46

George Frideric Handel (1686-1759) is regarded as one of the greatest composers of his time. Among his most enduring and popular works are two suites of instrumental music written for royal occasions: Water Music, and the first work presented on this recording, Music for the Royal Fireworks. The latter work was written as a commission from George II, as a celebration of the end of the War of the Austrian Succession and the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. And what a celebration it was,  attracting the largest audience that Handel’s music ever received during his lifetime.  The celebration of that incredible music continues to this day and this wonderful recording featuring Jeanne Lamon and The Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra offers up a brilliant performance with its own fireworks and combines it with other, festive works, the Concerti a due Cori, Nos.1-3, HWV 331-334.

Tafelmusik are a JUNO Award Winner 1998 – “Best Classical Album: Large Ensemble”

This re-release of orchestral suites from two stage works by Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) marks the first occasion on which Jeanne Lamon, and the Tafelmusik Orchestra, Toronto’s award-winning period instrument orchestra, recorded music of the French baroque.  The two suites featured on this CD are drawn from Rameau’s epic five-act “tragédie en musique” Dardanus, and from the less familiar “opéra-ballet” Le Temple de la Gloire.   Rameau was a mature composer of fifty before he completed his first opera - Hippolyte et Aricie  (1733). Over the next six years, the dispute between the conservative Lullistes (i.e., Jean-Baptiste Lully) and the Ramistes continued to rage, climaxing with the semi-mythological tragedy Dardanus in 1739.  The furor eventually abated, however, and Dardanus was acclaimed as one of Rameau’s finest achievements. Le temple de la gloire  - a commission celebrating France’s victory over British and Imperial forces at the Battle of Fontenoy - was completed in 1745.

“Ms. Lamon and Tafelmusik have earned high marks … the music’s greatness might not be so obvious but for Tafelmusik’s fine period style …. It will have listeners wondering why this music is not as well known as works by Bach, Handel and Vivaldi.”
- The New York Times

What do modern scholars of Joseph Haydn have to say about the Paris Symphonies? Robbins Landon calls them "a remarkable fusion of brilliance, elegance, and warmth."  Charles Rosen writes, "There is not a measure, even the most serious, of these great works which is not marked by Haydn's wit; and his wit has now grown so powerful and so efficient that it has become a sort of passion, a force at once omnivorous and creative.” Parisian audiences loved the works of the Austrian Haydn, and were thrilled when the Comte d'Ogny commissioned a set of six symphonies for performance by the finest orchestra in Paris at Le Concert de la Loge Olympique. Fortunately in our time, this re-release of the Paris Symphonies also has a superb group of the finest musicians in Jeanne Lamon and the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.  CD 1 includes Symphonies  No. 82 in C major, L’Ours (“The Bear” 1786), No. 83 in G minor, La Poule (“The Hen” 1785) and No. 84 in E flat major, In Nomine Domini (1786). CD 2 includes Symphonies No. 85 in B flat major, La Reine (“The Queen” 1785), No. 86 in D major (1786), and No. 87 in A major (1785).

“Born to play Haydn … Bruno Weil and Tafelmusik perform all six “Paris” Symphonies with galvanic verve, élan and tangible joy at revealing anew that jubilance and mastery which astounded Haydn’s Parisian patrons during the 1780s.”
– Classic CD

Dorothea Roeschmann, Anna Larsson, Johan Botha, rising star Anna Prohaska, and master conductor Pierre Boulez the “grand seigneur de subtle minimalism and exquisitely beguiling sounds” (Der Standard), assembled a cast of tremendous distinction for this prestigious concert, conceived as a tribute to Gustav Mahler. After two works by Mahler´s pupil Alban Berg, featuring Roeschmann and Prohaska, the main event of the concert is Gustav Mahler´s large-scale cantata “Das klagende Lied” – a “great spectral opera for the mind´s eye (Wiener Zeitung)

Berg Lulu Suite, Der Wein; Mahler Das klagende Lied (1898-99 version)

Also on Blu-ray 711004

For generations, the bitter-sweet Schubert piano works presented here have delighted music lovers with their irresistible mix of regretful tenderness and euphoric innocence. András Schiff’s exquisitely nuanced performances of the much-loved Impromptus and Moments musicaux demonstrate to perfection why he is universally regarded as one of today’s finest interpreters of Schubert.

Impromptus Op 90 D899 and Op 142 D935, Moments Musicaux Op 94 D780

The Classic Archive collection presents two unreleased performances filmed by BBC television in 1977: celebrated pianist Martha Argerich plays Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. and the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1. Both pieces are technically demanding and prove to be an ideal vehicle for Argerich’s musical inspiration, demonstrating why she is hailed as one of the world’s leading musicians. She is joined by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by André Previn, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Sir Charles Groves, in two powerhouse performances that offer a unique glimpse into our classical music heritage.

Prokofiev Piano Concerto No 3 in C major Op 26
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1 in B-flat minor Op 23

The Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, the composer's birthplace, is internationally renowned for its innovative stagings and musically impeccable productions. This colourful and exuberant production was staged by Damiano Michieletto, 'one of the truly new voices in stage direction today' (L'Unita). Damiano Michieletto made his international debut at the Wexford Opera Festival in 2003 with a highly-acclaimed production of Weinberger's Svanda Dudak, names Opera Production of the Year by the Irish Times. Claudio Scimone, a key figure in the international Rossini Renaissance, conducts the Orchestra di Bolzano e Trento and leads a cast of Rossini specialists including Daniele Zanfardino, Olga Peretyatko and Anna Malavasi. Rossini's sparkling La scala di seta of 1812 weaves a burlesque tale of gentlemen climbing in and out of a lady's bedchamber on a silken ladder. Damiano Michieletto's modern-day production from the Rossini Festival in Pesaro sets the action in the two room apartment of the heroine Giulia, sung with 'wonderful suppleness' (Opernwelt) by Olga Peretyatko. The production also features a spectacular grand aria for Blansac (Carlo Lepore) extraneous to the work.

'Paolo Bordogna is one of Italy's finest comic singer/actors. He played the part of Germano, the servant who Dormont has engaged to keep an eye on Giulia. Every Bordogna movement is a musical delight. His diction is wonderfully clean and meaningful. He knows about taking farce seriously in order to deliver it. His aria - Amore dolciamente - had the merest hint of irony - just the kind of subtlety the composer requires.' (Seen and Heard International)