Over a dozen albums and several compilations, American-born British resident Stacey Kent has sung standards with polish and class, but perhaps her fans might not have expected the result on this CD. A program of tunes interpreted entirely in French, Kent here fancies herself as a modern-day Edith Piaf, with a very low-key, late-night, romantic approach. Her thin, wispy voice rides very much under the radar of these selections, with a small instrumental complement including pianist Graham Harvey, guitarist John Parricelli, and in select spots her husband, saxophonist Jim Tomlinson. Most of the tracks are French pop songs, but occasionally Kent sneaks in a ringer like Antonio Carlos Jobim's always delightful "Les Eaux de Mars" (Waters of March), and adds a Brazilian flavor to the title selection or calypso on the most upbeat number, "Mi Amor"…

Greg Foat, Moses Boyd and Jihad Darwish in a classic piano trio setting. Three Superb musicians skillfully performing Foat's distinctive and endearing compositions.

One of the leading sarod players of India from Kolkata, Partho Sarothy will be joining sitarist Paul Livingstone for a tour of the Americas in the Spring of 2025. Paul and Partho have been performing together for more than 15 years performing in India, US and Mexico. They offer an extension of the tradition of dynamic interactive improvisation exemplified by their guru the legendary Pandit Ravi Shankar and his groundbreaking work with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Paul and Partho have a new record release of pure alap jor duet in Raga Jogeshwari a raga creation of their illustrious guru. Listening link above. Paul and Partho along with tabla virtuoso Abhijit Banerjee bring a cohesive and 21st century approach to the Maihar Gharana legacy of ensemble playing known as jugalbandi.

Although he had famous students (amongst whom Szymanowski) and a famous teacher, Moniuszko, few listeners know much, if anything, about Zygmunt Noskowski. And yet, for most of the 19th century, he was the primary exponent of modern symphonic music in Poland. His Third Symphony and his symphonic poem The Steppe, Op. 66 blend sweeping Romanticism with Polish folk spirit. The symphony is a journey through the seasons while The Steppe evokes Poland's vast landscapes with colourful hints of Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia.

The name of Domenico Ferrari (1722-1780) was well known throughout Europe in the second half of the 18th century. He was considered one of the finest violin virtuosos as well as a sublime composer. One of Tartini's best Italian pupils, Ferrari quickly gained fame first at the imperial court in Vienna and later at the Wurttemberg court in Stuttgart. After his successful debut at the Concert Spirituel in Paris in 1754, he was granted a ten-year royal privilege to publish his works in France, where he remained until the end of his life, never to return to his native Piacenza. During his stay in Paris, Ferrari published the six violin sontatas with continuo, Op. 3, composed in 1760. These works showcase a blend of late Baroque and Classical characteristics.

Sueye Park is no stranger to solo violin recitals. After her recording of the Paganini Caprices (BIS2282) and a recital entitled Journey through a Century (BIS2492), both critically acclaimed, she brings us another solo project, Echoes of Exile, an undertaking that finds its raison d'etre in today's very turbulent times. Park offers us different perspectives on the topic of exile with works composed between the 1920s and 1950s, by great composers who left their country as a result of political circumstances as well as by others who went into their own inner exile. Two pieces by composers who left their native lands for artistic reasons, Enescu and Ysaye, frame three substantial and very contrasting works by composers forced into exile, either because their existence was threatened or because of a feeling of alienation within their respective countries.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich’s death on August 9, the Oliver Schnyder Trio—joined by violinist Julia Fischer and violist Nils Mönkemeyer—has recorded Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57. This cornerstone of his chamber output is complemented by both of his piano trios.

Saint-Saëns, as Mats Lidström notes, did not have exclusive rights to draw inspiration from swans and this album presents twenty-four examples from a wide range of composers, written before and after the one featuring in Saint-Saëns’s menagerie. Most are heard in arrangements for cello made especially for the album by Mats, who is accompanied by his son, Leif Kaner-Lidström.

The Gesualdo Six explore different aspects of light and shade—musical evocations of dawn and dusk, the seasonal and the sacred—by composers from Saint Hildegard, writing in the twelfth century, to Owain Park in the twenty-first. The participation of trumpeter Matilda Lloyd, whether soaring above or blending with the voices, makes this a G6 album like no other. Matilda Lloyd is an exclusive artist of Chandos Records and appears here with their kind permission

Fulfillment! Singer/songwriter Dave Cousins finds a space somewhere between Bob Dylan and John Bunyan, Hudson and Ford come up with some superb hooks, and the electric sound is powerful and majestic. The music is serious - perhaps too much so - bracing, and sincere, if a bit downbeat. For most of the fans though, it represented another major step forward for the Strawbs.

Clavier Übung means 'a keyboard exercise' or 'practice', which is rather a humble term for such exquisitely-crafted music. Bach borrowed it from Johann Kuhnau, his predecessor as cantor of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, who in 1689 had published a collection called Neue Clavier-Übung consisting of seven suites of dances. Bach's Clavier Übung III was published in 1739, when Leipzig was celebrating the bicentenary of the Lutheran Reformation. The hymns on which the 12 organ chorales on this disc are based focus on the six chief parts of the Lutheran Catechism: the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, Holy Baptism, Confession and Communion.

Born in Danzig in 1626, Balthasar Erben was a cosmopolitan. When he applied for the position of Kapellmeister of the main church of St. Marien in his hometown at the age of 27, the council granted him a generous scholarship so that he could "look around the world and perfect himself as a composer". For five years, Erben traveled throughout Europe, visiting all the centres of musical culture of the time, including Rome. His compositional style, which was developed during this time, is correspondingly distinctive: a combination of different influences, cleverly interwoven. The Abendmusiken Basel offer an impressive collection of instrumental and sacred works by the composer who is unfortunately little known today.

Published in 1733, Pietro Locatelli’s L'Arte del violino for solo violin, strings, and basso continuo took both violin technique and the solo concerto as a genre into a whole new realm. The twelve concertos included in the collection also played a part in forming the image of the violin virtuoso, reaching its full bloom with Paganini towards the end of the century. While the unusually high technical demands of the solo part are obvious to the listener from the start, the great surprise comes at the end of the first and third movements of each of the concertos. Here Locatelli inserts Capriccios for the soloist alone of a difficulty previously unheard of, with a left hand technique making use of extensions, octaves, unprepared tenths, double and triple stopping, arpeggios and double trills.