​In this album Clara Andrada, solo flutist of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, performs three 20th century flute concertos together with the orchestra conducted by Jaime Martín. Malcolm Arnolds delightful Flute Concerto No. 1 makes a pleasant addition alongside Nielsens and Iberts flute concertos. Jaime Martín, himself an excellent flutist, is a perfect companion to these works. This is the orchestras second album for Ondine, and continues the fruitful collaboration between Jaime Martín and Ondine that has already produced three albums previously.

Composed in 1911, Bluebeard’s Castle is Béla Bartók’s only opera – a radical masterpiece which has secured a place alongside the other innovative music dramas of the same period, from Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande to Berg’s Wozzeck. Planning to write a one-act opera, Bartók settled on a libretto by Béla Balázs with the kind of surreal and/or macabre themes that would soon feature in his two ballets, The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin. The main source for the libretto text was a play by Maeterlinck, a retelling of Perrault’s gruesome tale of Barbe-Bleue, the sinister yet strangely seductive wife-killer.

​The Concerti of the violinist-composer Francesco Venturini (c.1675-1745) are a real discovery - melodious, virtuosic, elegant and dance-like, combining Italian and French stylistic elements to form a "mixed taste", as Telemann described this mélange. Inspired by the pulsating cultural and intellectual life at the Hanoverian court, Venturini wrote ambitious orchestral music full of joie de vivre, defined by numerous concertato passages for both wind and string instruments.

The so-called "Anna Maria Partbook" consists of an elegantly bound volume in red leather containing the violin parts of 31 violin concertos, of which 26 are by Antonio Vivaldi. It was the personal repertoire of Vivaldi's most gifted pupil, the famous "Anna Maria della Pieta", who played also the viola d'amore, the mandolin, the theorbo, and the harpsichord. Anna Maria's partbook represents an extraordinary collection of violin concerts of high virtuosity. 20 of the 26 Vivaldi concerts are also known from other manuscript sources. The remaining 6 are known only from the source of Anna Maria, and therefore incomplete: they are divided into 3 concerts for violin and 3 concerts for violin and organ, a pair of instruments widely used by Vivaldi and the Pieta.

Simply MARI is the name of the Deutsche Grammophon debut of Norwegian violinist Mari Samuelsen. Recorded with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin under the baton of Jonathan Stockhammer, MARI's music reflects the contradictions of life in our time - the feeling of haste in everyday life, of being driven by constant communication, of being uprooted in a boundlessly mobile world, but MARI also refers to the longing for peace and quiet, for a place in nature to find oneself again.

This is a sort of self-portrait of the Great Organ of the Royal Chapel of Versailles, delivering all its aspects, enhanced by the choice of a repertoire emblematic of the baroque era: the major classic French organ works (Couperin, Marchand, de Grigny, Corrette) composed to glorify the very specific aesthetics of instruments like that of Louis XIV's Chapel; but also to reveal its other sound riches, transcriptions of chefs d'oeuvres, from Le Sommeil d'Atys by Lully, to the contredanses of Rameau's Boréades. To add a new dimension to the organ's sound universe and to enhance its orchestral qualities, modern editing and "re-recording" processes were gently used to serve the superposition of musical voices, as if invisible hands filled in for the organist in certain works, which are true Proust's "madeleines" for Gaétan Jarry. He goes all out to play the instrument of Versailles "for the Glory of God and the King"!

Karl Fasch, the son of the famous Kapellmeister of the court of Zerbst, Johann Friedrich Fasch, was harpsichordist at the Prussian court from 1756 until his death. Underemployed by Friedrich II and underestimated by musicologists, he has been forgotten for a long time. Philippe Grisvard is preparing to rectify this injustice with a program consisting of world-premiere recordings that will make it possible to discover an original and visionary composer. The Arts Desk said of Grisvard's previous release on Audax of Handel's keyboard works: 'And what Grisvard does so well is recreate what a contemporary observer described as Handel's uncommon brilliance and command of finger that amazing force and energy.

The banning of opera performances during Lent in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Rome meant that composers had to turn their attention to biblical subjects. However there is no sense that either composer or librettist felt at all limited in their subject matter, judging from the extraordinarily inventive oratorios that were produced during this time. Scarlatti’s work tells the dramatic story of David and Goliath. Whilst the biblical account relays the story in a few sentences, the anonymous librettist of Davidis pugna et victoria expands upon these to create an extensive libretto, with the characters fully developed and explored.

Working in 17th-century Venice soon after the worlds first public opera houses opened there, composer Francesco Cavalli had no tradition to follow. He gave his fertile imagination free rein, tinkering with the brand-new art form to create the lively Venetian style of opera, with its melodious arias, sprightly dance rhythms, free-wheeling mythological or historical plots and generous dollops of comedy. Like most of Cavallis operas, Ilpermestra wasnt performed between the late 17th century and recent years. Ilpermestra was written on the occasion of the birth of King Philip IV of Spains first son in 1658. It was one of the most magnificent operas to have ever been staged. This is the world premiere recording of the opera, made after a live stage performance in Utrecht in 2006.

The Finnish-American composer Alex Freeman has been described as being ‘as comfortable in the realm of the pop ballad as in that of the concert hall’ and yet his songs ‘are imbued with the craftsmanship and care one would expect of a composer of his formidable academic training, just as his concert works carry the emotional immediacy of popular music.’ Himself a choral singer, Alex Freeman has written a number of works for choir: music that aims to be sonorous and melodic, but is carefully crafted to avoid the clichés that can burden conventional tonality.

Canadian ensemble Notturna offers a charming instrumental version of the opera L'Amant jaloux (the jealous lover) by André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry (1741-1813). This anonymous arrangement for flute, oboe, violin, viola, and bass was found in the Biblioteca Estense di Modena. Though undated, it was likely transcribed in 1778, the year Grétry composed the opera. Founded in 2006 and directed by oboist Christopher Palameta, Notturna is a chamber collective whose spirited and sensitive playing (Early Music America) draws on the transparency and expressiveness of early wind instruments to paint fresh pictures of an unexplored historical repertoire.

Shirley Verrett makes a deeply impressive Orfeo, firm and pure in sound, classically restrained in expression; and her "Che farò", at a moderate, beautifully judged speed, is very finely sung, poised and quietly moving. The set is conducted by Renato Fasano, whose pacing of the score shows a very sure touch. The dance music has a grace and lightness, and a stylistic command, that one might not have expected from an orchestra which in those days seemed to be fed chiefly on a diet of Vivaldi.

Paul Ji, winner of the Prodiges competition in 2019, is a 16-year old pianist, born in Chicago, USA to a Chinese family and raised in France since the age of five. This album, contains a selection of 16 romantic masterpieces for the piano.

Naples was famous throughout Europe in the 17th century for the variety of musical performances that took place during the course of the church year. Christmas was one of the feasts that was celebrated with particular splendour. On the present CD, the Ensemble Odyssee under the direction of Andrea Friggi introduces Nocturnes and Pastorals composed by Gaetano Veneziano (1656-1716) for the liturgy of Christmas services.

Christmas celebrations are thought to go all the way back to the formidable feasting of the Vikings at midwinter, when in true Nordic fashion yuletide was toasted in. The celebration of the birth in Bethlehem is more subdued and spiritual, but it is of a far more recent date. We do not know if the Vikings celebrated yuletide with music, but music at Christmas has been a popular tradition since the Middle Ages. Today, practically all peoples around the world celebrate midwinter with special religious and cultural rituals; the precise times vary, but gifts, decorations, festivities, candles, bells and special Christmas music are apparently always part of this. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Christmas was the busiest time of the year for church composers.