Here is charming and completely diverting music. These melodious chamber works by Johann Christian Bach, known as "The London Bach" overflow with catchy melodies that will put a smile on the face of any music lover. This is not music with a message other than to entertain and the youngest son of Johann Sebastian was an imaginative composer who embraced the new Classical era. He was among the earliest masters to perform solos on the then newfangled pianoforte. Mozart took lessons from J.C. Bach and was much influenced by him. Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert play these beguiling works with a sense of joy and delight.

As Sir András Schiff turns 70 (in December 2023), this 78-disc edition celebrates an artist who has made a significant contribution to shaping Decca’s history through an array of artistic endeavours. Neatly divided into four sections – solo, concertante, lieder and chamber music, the set includes several currently unavailable recordings; the first international release of Beethoven’s complete Violin Sonatas, with Sándor Végh; four CDs’ worth of material recorded on Mozart’s fortepiano; and the booklet includes an interview with Misha Donat in which Schiff tells the story of his journey with Decca.

Un rayon de soleil traverse l’azur du petit matin et réchauffe le cœur d’une douce caresse… Dès le premier mouvement (largo) du Trio en la Majeur, Sébastien Marq expose son jeu doux et velouté, léger et transcendant. Et l’on s’émerveille, béat, devant la beauté du son, la justesse des sentiments, et ce toucher si délicat qui vous berce et vous emmène dans un jardin d’Eden. Le voyage s’achève sur quatre mêmes notes, plus suaves et doucereuses que les précédentes.

An ECM New Series debut for a Danish composer of great originality. "Sørensen’s music is dreamscapes without boundaries," Nordic Sounds has written. "Down to the last detail of its structure it wishes to accommodate itself to the lyrical leaps and irregular rhythms of consciousness." On "Birds and Bells" Sørensen plays continually with spatial depth in the music, inviting the listener to experience it from unusual and changing perspectives as glissandi sweep through the ensemble sound and composed "echoes" reverberate. The music is well served by an exceptional pan-Scandinavian cast under the direction of Christian Eggen.

E.T.A. Hoffmann was a ‘man for all seasons’. In addition to composing music, he was an illustrator, writer, and attorney who attained a position on the Court of Appeals in Berlin. His primary legacy is in the area of German literature. He wrote many novels and stories concerned with supernatural elements and their impact on humans. Hoffmann’s most famous writings are the stories on which the French composer Jacques Offenbach based his opera "Tales of Hoffmann".
When I read a Hoffmann story, I think of the supernatural operas of Carl Maria von Weber, not Hoffmann’s most well known opera "Undine". The fact is that Hoffmann’s reputation as a composer is slight, and recordings of his works are infrequent. Even during his own lifetime, he had great trouble getting his music published.

…The King's Consort under the direction of Robert King perform the Overture-Suites from the Second and Third Productions of Telemann's anthology…I find the new issue delightful, both musically and from a performance standpoint. The players capture the spirit of the Overture-Suite in D major (Second Production) with pleasing tempos, crisp articulation, taut rhythms and fine ensemble. The trumpet has an important role in this Suite and here it is played with finesse by Crispian Steele-Perkins—resonant, authoritative but never overbearing. Oboes are kept busy, too, as indeed is the leader, Roy Goodman who gives a lively account of the several concertante passages for violin. His presence has contributed much to the ultimate success of this project.

It is well documented that Telemann’s contemporaries marveled at his command of the French, Italian and even Polish national musical idioms he incorporated into his works. The ‘Paris’ Quartets (1730) and ‘Nouveaux Quatuors’ (1738) are a fine example of his contribution to instrumental music in the Baroque era. While they reflect his mastery of Corelli’s Italian Sonata/Concerto forms and Lully’s French Suite influences, they also provide a departure point for the forward-looking conversational galant style.

The fruitful partnership between the Alpha label, the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel and the Palazzetto Bru Zane continues with this set of chamber music by Anton Reicha, performed by the musicians of the Chapel, young talents of an exceptionally high standard, ready and willing to take up the challenge of this music. A key figure of the early nineteenth century, this Czech composer who became a naturalised French citizen did not leave his contemporaries indifferent. Both his music and his theoretical writings set zealous partisans against fierce detractors.

This exciting Baroque instrumental group using period instruments performs with passion and integrity music primarily from Telemann's "Essercitzii Musici" and "Tafelmusik."

German guitarist Franz Halász displays a fine sense of tone and pacing in this revealing overview of Takemitsu's solo guitar music. Takemitsu wrote for the concert stage in an original avant-garde idiom, created over 100 film soundtracks, and produced arrangements of Japanese folk tunes and Western popular music. This range, except for the soundtracks, is represented here. The title tracks are from the concert work All in Twilight – Four pieces for guitar (1987), inspired by Paul Klee's painting of the same name. Here Halász's beautiful touch is shown in contrasting and subtle timbres on the composer's rich, jazz-like harmonies, sometimes brooding, sometimes in quickly flowing passages like those of the third movement. Next, the first six of "12 Songs" introduces some technically challenging, but aesthetically straightforward arrangements – Sammy Fain's classic Secret Love, four tunes by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and George Gershwin's Summertime in which Takemitsu spectacularly manages to reduce the best orchestral parts to the limits of the guitar and to improvise in a free-flowing manner.

After a string of failed attempts to establish himself as a pianist and composer in the capitals of Europe, Ferdinand Ries was brought to London in 1813 by the same impresario who had imported Haydn 20 years earlier, Johann Peter Salomon. All three works were written during this time in England while Ries enjoyed the favor of the upper classes and looked for a wife. Presumably, he composed these works for himself on piano with the other parts to be played by wealthy amateurs. The pedestrian string writing in the first two works substantiates the premise that they were composed for London's dilettantes.