Widor wrote music for a wide variety of instruments and ensembles (some of his songs for voice and piano are especially notable) and composed four operas and a ballet, but only his works for organ are played with any regularity today. These include: ten organ symphonies, three symphonies for orchestra with organ, Suite Latine, Trois Nouvelles Pièces, and six arrangements of works by Bach under the title Bach's Memento (1925). The organ symphonies are his most significant contribution to the organ repertoire.

Despite her youth, Ellen Nisbeth has received acclaim both in her native Sweden and abroad and is one of the Rising Stars selected by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) for the 2017/2018 season. A former student of London's Royal College of Music, she hails from a family of Scottish origin and feels a particular affinity for the landscapes of Scotland, and for the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. For her first recital disc Ellen Nisbeth has devised an all-British programme which includes her own transcriptions of selected songs from Songs of Travel – Ralph Vaughan Williams's settings of poems by Stevenson. The songs intersperse the remainder of the programme, and one of them – Let Beauty Awake – has also lent its title to the entire disc. Together with the eminent pianist and chamber musician Bengt Forsberg, Nisbeth goes on to perform the impassioned Viola Sonata composed in 1919 by Rebecca Clarke – a well-known piece among viola-players, but deserving of a wider audience.

When a composer is also a virtuoso player of a certain instrument, rather unavoidably his or her output mirrors such a predilection. It normally translates in a high number of works written for that instrument, in a pronounced capability to write idiomatically for that instrument, and frequently in experimental innovations and explorations.Many of these traits apply to Camille Saint-Saëns’ relationship zwith the organ, though not all of them. Saint-Saëns was one of the most prodigious child prodigies of all times in the musical field. He received his first music lessons from his aunt when he was not yet three years old, and is credited to have composed his first piano piece just one year later. By the time he was eleven, he debuted triumphally at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, performing two piano Concertos (one by Mozart and one by Beethoven), a work by Johann Sebastian Bach, and allegedly offering to the audience the possibility to choose any one of Beethoven’s 32 Sonatas as an encore!

Perfectly judged performances, intelligently planned recitals, informative booklet notes and, throughout, accompaniments from a true master of the art: this final release in the songs of Brahms epitomizes all the familiar virtues which have distinguished the series.

Paavo Järvi, Principal Conductor and Music Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich since October 2019, launches a complete recording of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies, the first in both his rich discography and that of the Swiss orchestra.
Jarvi writes: ‘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.’

Principal Conductor and Music Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich since October 2019, Paavo Järvi continues his complete cycle of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies, following a first volume devoted to Symphony no.5 and the symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini . This second volume features Symphonies nos. 2 and 4. The Fourth, composed in 1878 and nicknamed the ‘Fate’ Symphony because of its sombre colouring, which may recall the neuroses attributed to Tchaikovsky, is one of his most frequently performed. The Second Symphony, composed in 1872 and much less frequently performed in concert, is known as the ‘Little Russian’ because Tchaikovsky drew on Ukrainian folk tunes. The very first movement begins with a solo horn version of the folksong ‘Down by Mother Volga’…

To celebrate their traditional New Year's Eve Concert, Daniel Barenboim and the Berliner Philharmoniker encouraged the audience to dance. The result was a lively whirl of catchy and melodious numbers selected from over 300 years of music history - a heady cocktail of old and new that put a spring in the steps of both connoisseurs of brilliant orchestral miniatures and lovers of Latin American rhythms.

Antonín Dvořák’s music, imbued with the spirit of Bohemia, reflects a love of his native land. His String Sextet, written in the distinctive style which brought him international fame, was an immediate success at its premiere. Composed just eight years earlier, his String Quartet No. 4, unpublished until 1968, features pioneering, wild outer movements, highly unusual for the time, which foreshadowed the modernist innovations of composers decades later. A moving Andante religioso, which Dvořák made use of in future works, lies at its heart. The Polonaise exploits both the soulful and virtuoso character of the cello. Volumes 1–8 are also available.

This is the second volume in the Mandelring Quartet's series of Audite recordings of the string quartets of Brahms coupled with string quartets of his lesser known contemporaries. The earlier volume coupled Brahms' C minor quartet with Friedrich Gernsheim's A minor quartet, the later volume coupled Brahms' A minor quartet with Felix Otto Dessoff's F major quartet, and this volume joins Brahms' B flat major quartet with Heinrich von Herzogenberg's G minor quartet.

The heady, youthful tenor of Robin Tritschler is our guide through more of those musical riches which constitute Brahms’s complete song output. Volume 9 is a rewarding journey spanning more than three decades of the composer’s creative life.

Fresh from his hugely acclaimed and multi -award-winning album Johann Sebastian Bach, Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson’s third Deutsche Grammophon recording pairs works by two revolutionary French composers separated by a century and a half: Jean-Philippe Rameau and Claude Debussy.

This disc of orchestral showpieces features four of the five members of the Mighty Handful, a group of Russian composers who, during the second half of the 19th century, collaborated to create a distinct national style. The recorded works illustrate different aspects of their endeavors - both in terms of the musical means they employ and their subject matter.

During Claudio Abbado’s time as chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker, the great symphonic repertoire naturally formed the core of his artistic work, and it was almost forgotten just what an important role the music theatre of his Italian homeland played in his life – after all, he had led La Scala in Milan from 1968 to 1986. Just how special the works of Verdi were to him could be heard in the New Year’s Eve Concert from 2000 which, with famous scenes and arias, rang in the Verdi year 2001 when the music world commemorated the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death.

Starting in the 19 th century, transcription became a way of life for composers, pianists and performers, often playing a role in spreading music as middle-class families invited pianists into their drawing rooms to play a reduction of the latest symphony or opera for their relatives and friends. Franz Liszt is the inescapable reference point for the art of transcription, and his creations have become concert works in their own right. Conversely, Maurice Ravel set himself to orchestrating famous piano works by other composers (such as Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition) as well as his own repertoire. Unanimously considered ‘the greatest French orchestrator,' his transcriptions have become keystones of symphonic repertory.

Born in Italy in 2001, Elia Cecino began his studies at 9 with prof. Maddalena De Facci and at 17 graduated 'Summa cum Laude' at Cesena Conservatory as a private student. In 2020 he achieved the Specialization Diploma of the Accademia del Ridotto di Stradella with Andrzej Jasinski and he is now studying with Eliso Virsaladze at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole.