Described by the Gramophone Magazine as ‘virtuoso of power and poetry’, Eldar Nebolsin is considered one of the most versatile and interesting musicians of his generation.

Carl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787) was born in Köthen, a small German city, where his father, played viola da gamba and cello in the court orchestra. In 1723 Abel senior became director of the orchestra, when the previous director, Johann Sebastian Bach, moved to Leipzig. That the young Abel later attended the Leipzig Thomasschule and was taught there by Bach is not finally confirmed. What is known, however, is that he joined Johann Adolph Hasse's court orchestra in Dresden on Bach's recommendation in 1748, where he remained for nine years. On Bach's recommendation in 1748 he was able to join Johann Adolph Hasse's court orchestra at Dresden, where he remained for fifteen years.

An innovator and a revolutionary composer, its thanks to the Red Priest that the solo concerto made its way through Europe, influencing the likes of J. S. Bach and Handel and the subsequent course of music history. Published in 1714 (or 1716 as most scholars today tend to believe) and reprinted illegally numerous times in pre-copyright Europe, La Stravaganza, Op. 4 contains 12 solo concertos which can be defined as unsurpassed models of their kind, and the manifesto of Vivaldis aesthetic.

From the earliest planning stages for this recording, Andreas Scholl had only one orchestra in mind: the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. It's no surprise that Decca was skittish about the idea–there are, after all, many good baroque-instrument bands much closer to London–yet the star countertenor insisted that his rapport with this group was special and that it would be well worth the trouble to make the record in Sydney. Well, from the very first notes, it's clear that Scholl was right: conductor Paul Dyer and the ABO launch into the opening of Nisi Dominus with an energetic gusto that you'd sooner expect from Rinaldo Alessandrini's Concerto Italiano than from an Anglo-Saxon band. Scholl responds in kind: his vocalism is as smooth, clear, and assured as ever, but he goes beyond that–his innumerable subtle inflections of tone and timing are more reminiscent of a good orator than an opera singer.

This well recorded disc from 1987 delivers truly exciting performances of all three works in typically crisp manner by Zimerman. Ozawa and the Boston orchestra give excellent support. The emphasis here is on excitement largely created by fast speeds delivered with clarity. The more gentler parts of all three works are played with due regard to sensitivity but there is no denying that in these recordings these works are seen as primarily as virtuoso display works and that is what we are given.

Rantala’s roots are in jazz. He began his piano studies at the Käpylä Music Institute and continued his studies at the Oulunkylä Pop/Jazz Institute and the Jazz Department of the Sibelius Academy. In 1991 he turned his attention to classical piano at the Manhattan School of Music for two years. Rantala is the founder and pianist of Trio Töykeät, Finland's most prominent jazz band. They have performed in more than forty different countries over five continents. Jazz and contemporary rub shoulders in his music, blending, melting and reasserting their identities.

A large number of saxophone concertos have been written, but only a handful are regularly performed. With these premiere recordings Olli-Pekka Tuomisalo showcases five works that, had circumstances been different, might easily have established themselves as repertoire pieces.

Kirill Kondrashin is one of the few Russian conductors to celebrate an international career, next to Eugen Mravinsky, Igor Markewisch and Jascha Horenstein. In 1943 he became principal conductor at the Bolshoi theatre, an institution so important for Soviet musical life, to which he would belong for 13 years. In 1956 he was appointed chief conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic. This position opened doors for him internationally and Kondrashin was able to accept tour invitations from western countries.

Grieg was inspired to write his Piano Concerto in A minor op.16 as a student when he heard Clara Schumann play her husband Robert's piano concerto in Leipzig in 1858. He became a great admirer of Schumann. Grieg chose the same key as Schumann, A minor, for his own piano concerto, which was written 10 years later in Denmark. When Grieg met Franz Liszt in Rome in 1870, the latter played his piano concerto - a great honour and joy for Grieg - and the piano concerto and the two Peer Gynt suites are among the most beautiful and popular piano works of Romantic music. Margarita Hohenrieder has known the Icelandic composer Hjalmar Helgi Ragnarsson and his music for several years.

After Igor Levit, Christian Thielemann, and the Vienna Philharmonic performed Brahms’ First Piano Concerto at Vienna’s famous Musikverein in April 2024 the Viennese newspaper The Standard wrote: “During these fifty minutes, an irresistible dose of emotion was conveyed – but at the same time the sophisticated structure of Brahms’ masterpiece remained crystal clear.” Four months earlier after their performance of the Second Piano Concerto, the Austrian newspaper Die Presse had declared that “Igor Levit sets a new gold standard for Brahms.”

Traveling to Poland in 1829, Chopin gave his first concert in public just a short time before completing his Concerto in F Minor. He presented this concerto in concert for the first time on February 7, 1830 in front of a small group of special guests: "Experts greatly appreciate this new piece comprised of so many new ideas; it is perhaps counted among the most beautiful of recent works. ” The Concerto in F Minor was not published until 1836, thus becoming known as the “second concerto” compared with the “first” Concerto in E Minor, which he wrote and edited in 1833. October 11, 1830, before leaving for Vienna, Chopin gave a farewell concert at the National Theater in Varsovie during which he performed Concerto in E Minor and The Polish Fantasy.

Janine Jansen releases her first concerto album in nine years, pairing the iconic Violin Concertos of Sibelius & Prokofiev. Janine is joined by Klaus Mäkelä and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra for this album, forming the ultimate classical dream team. “The highlight of the program was the Sibelius Violin Concerto, in the hands of the Dutch Janine Jansen… Jansen and Mäkelä recorded this concert together last summer… and it promises to be a true reference, based on what was heard in Oslo.” - Platea

This disc of Vivaldi concertos celebrates ten years of the French label Zig-Zag Territoires. The fulsome paean contained in the booklet, sometimes flowery in its prose, sometimes fanciful in its content – ‘Long may our CDs continue to stir this life force within you!’ etc. – may not win new friends, but the playing of Ensemble 415 certainly should. Director and founder of the group, Chiara Banchini has chosen the four Concertos for four violins from Vivaldi’s first and most varied printed sets, L’estro armonico (1711), as well as two further works that, along with the greater number of his concertos remained unpublished during Vivaldi’s lifetime, a Concerto in F major for three violins (RV 551) and in B flat for four (RV 553).

Ries’s aptitude for Beethovenian sturm und drang is phenomenal. The impression is inescapable in the Overture from “Die Räuberbraut” where it is moderated by the Schumann of the Fourth Symphony. That particular flavour is varied with a touch of storminess redolent of Berlioz’s Le Corsair towards the end. The Overture from “Liska oder Die Hexe von Gyllensteen” is a shade more balletic, with a dash of Weber’s Oberon and Euryanthe and even a foreshadowing of Tchaikovsky.

With this album - subtitled La Bella Cubana - the Mozart y Mambo trilogy is complete. After two critically acclaimed albums, three documentary films, two international tours and fundraising to help support classical musicians in Cuba, Sarah concludes this adventure of a lifetime with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra and their conductor, José Antonio Méndez Padrón by recording Mozart's Concerto No. 4 with its famous final Rondo. Also on the album, three of her colleagues from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Jonathan Kelly, Wenzel Fuchs and Stefan Schweigert, join her for more Mozart, performing the Sinfonia Concertante for four solo wind instruments and orchestra.