This album contains the earliest three of Schubert's piano sonatas Llŷr Williams included in his Cardiff series (there are eight earlier works in the genre—in varying states of completion). All three remained unpublished until after the composer's death, and together they mark Schubert's journey into composing maturity.

Throughout her life French pianist Elizabeth Sombart has sought to share classical music with the widest possible audience and with people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Here she continues her series of recordings with the RPO and conductor Pierre Vallet, inaugurating a new cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos, works she will be performing with the orchestra during the course of 2020.

Gustavo Díaz-Jerez is one of the leading composers and pianists in Spain. Here he deploys his unique brand of naturalistic tonal painting over the course of seven extended symphonic poems to evoke the very being of the Canary Islands: tapestries of 'emergent' harmony—albeit harmony not always immediately apparent—of which Caliban would doubtless have approved.

Alessio Bax plays an Italian-inspired programme, picking his favourite pieces taken from a rich history of music from one of the most romantic countries in the world.  He opens the programme with a J.S. Bach transcription of an oboe concerto by Venetian composer Alessandro Marcello, which reveals a deep insight into Bach’s mind.

Coupling powerful interpretations with path-breaking scholarship, Contrapunctus presents music by the best known composers as well as unfamiliar masterpieces. The group’s repertoire is drawn from England, the Low Countries, Spain, Portugal and Germany, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The scholarly facet of the group’s work – including the discovery of long-lost music and reconstructions of original performing contexts – allows audiences to experience the first performances of many works in modern times.

After the success of their debut disc, ‘Voyages’, Mary Bevan and Joseph Middleton present their second recital disc exploring Lieder in German and Italian by Schubert, Haydn and Wolf. The programme is woven around songs inspired by the ‘muses’ of the day, both mythological and divine.

The Choir of the West is the premier choral ensemble of the Department of Music at Pacific Lutheran University, located in Tacoma, Washington. The choir was founded in 1926 and was the third Lutheran college choir to tour extensively throughout the United States.

Schubert's two sets of impromptus, the second arguably a sonata in all but name, date from 1827, the year before the composer's death. These lovely performances were recorded live in Cardiff in 2018.

Two imposing piano sonatas—the upbeat D850 from 1825 and D958 composed in 1828 and very much a homage to Beethoven at whose funeral the previous year Schubert had been a pall-bearer—recorded during Llŷr Williams' Cardiff series in 2017/18.

Christopher Gunning has composed twelve symphonies, as well as concertos for the piano, violin, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, and guitar; many of these have now been recorded. He has also composed many scores for films and television dramas, including Agatha Christie’s ‘Poirot’, La Vie en Rose, Middlemarch, Cold Lazarus, Rebecca, Under Suspicion, Firelight, The Big Battalions, Wild Africa, When the Whales Came and Porterhouse Blue. With a career spanning 50 years, he has won 4 BAFTA and 3 Ivor Novello Awards, and BASCA’s prestigious Gold Badge Award.