On the occasion of its 40th anniversary (1974-2014), the Arditti Quartet, one of the most famous groups in contemporary music, has chosen to record, for the second time and this is an occurrence sufficiently rare that it bears emphasizing , the complete string quartets of Brian Ferneyhough. The pieces on these discs immediately weave an auditory spell and well illustrate this composer's brand of complexity, i.e., writing reputed to be unplayable for the instrumentalists but providing a definite pleasure for the listener, caught up in the headiness of a universe without limits or vanishing point. This 3-CD set will not only be one of the indispensable releases of 2014 but also the best way to apprehend the music of a fundamental composer whose intense writing, emancipated heir of Schoenberg, remains radically expressive, chaotic in appearance but sublimated here by the freedom and excellence of the interpretation.

This is the first ever recording of Arvo Pärt’s wonderful vocal music performed by a boys’ choir. The year of release of this album is also the year when the Estonian composer celebrates his eightieth birthday. More than four decades ago, the musician Arvo Pärt fell silent, and went into retreat for eight years. His silence gave rise to a new kind of music, which has gained him international fame. “I have discovered that it is enough if a single note is beautifully played,” Pärt once said. Based on his study of the cathedrals of sound of the Renaissance or even earlier periods, the composer has developed a very personal and original style: music inspired by spirituality, striving to accomplish the ideal of perfect simplicity, of laying bare the pure essence. An everlasting stopping and pausing: eternity. At the same time a continuous flowing and being carried away: the transitory nature of time.

A collection of musical gems by great contemporary composers of the minimalist and postminimalist trend. Music of Steve Reich (Vermont Counterpoint, New York Counterpoint - first recording of the saxophone version), Arvo Pärt (Pari Intervallo), Hans Otte (Eins), Ludovico Einaudi (Quattro Passi), Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (For you Ann Lill, Op.58), skilfully interpreted by Andrea Ceccomori and Goffredo Degli Esposti on the flutes, Paul Wehage on the saxophones, Cecilia Chailly on harp and Fabrizio Ottaviucci on piano.

Grigory Frids politically and morally ambitious operas have made him known to a broader public even outside his native Russia. His chamber music is not so popular, but it too holds discoveries in store, as John Finucane and Elisaveta Blumina impressively demonstrate on this recording premiere of his two clarinet sonatas. Musical wit, tonal beauty, and virtuosity in the treatment of tonality and instrumentation reveal a compositional talent stimulated by exchanges with the greatest of Frids times. Elisaveta Blumina is especially fond of much too little known music from the twentieth and twenty first centuries.

PREMIERE RECORDING An-lun Huang's piano trios dazzlingly demonstrate that contemporary music in no way has to be accessible only to a sworn community of experts. With his skill this Chinese-Canadian composer combines the best traditions from several world regions to produce a euphonious and harmonious whole - and does so with great class. The premiere ensemble for the Trio No. 2 from 2015 lends this first recording a special measure of authenticity. As a composer and as a teacher An-lin Huang is sought after throughout the world.

Sensational organ transcriptions have made Jean Guillou famous far beyond his native France. Taught by Marcel Dupré, his command not only of organ playing but also of the piano and composition is demonstrated by the absolutely boundless technical and intellectual demands posed by his oeuvre. In Zuzana Ferjen 269;iková, Guillou now has found more than just a worthy heir: the first volume in our series featuring Guillou's organ works includes a recording premiere and reveals the profound emotional affinity uniting these two exceptional artists.

One of the continuing appeals of Hans Werner Henze's music is his ability to use the formidable arsenal of twentieth century musical innovations in works that have immediate aural appeal, while probing ambiguous or disturbing layers of meaning lurking beneath the surface. The complexity of his music is generally not so much apparent on its surface as in its psychology. While Henze has written in virtually every genre of music in his long and remarkably productive career, he is essentially a dramatic composer, and it's for his operas, ballets, music theater pieces, vocal music, and film music that he will be most remembered.

After what seems like years of delay, Mode has released this CD of chamber and vocal music in time for Elliott Carter's 95th birthday, which fell on Dec. 11, 2003. It was worth the wait. The Quintet for Piano and Strings (1997) is one of the two or three pinnacles of Carter's prolific eighties. Though undeniably an example of the his late style, it harks back to the First Quartet (1951!) in its long-lined writing for strings. The music is expansive and concise, light-hearted and dramatic all at once, and it is played to perfection by Ursula Oppens and the Arditti Quartet, the performers for whom it was written.

Hilda Paredes provides a family portrait on Cuerdas del destino, her latest CD. The works are written for violinist Irvine Arditti, her husband, countertenor Jake Arditti, her son, and the Arditti Quartet, with whom she has enjoyed more than twenty years of artistic partnership. This CD is also significant in that it celebrates the Arditti’s fortieth anniversary.

Jorg Demus is perhaps better known as a pianist than a composer– having recorded more than 350 LP's, compact discs, and videos. He has performed throughout Europe and the Americas and has played under the baton of conductors like Herbert von Karajan, Joseph Krips, Seiji Ozawa, and others. His output as a composer appears to be relatively small and confined to chamber works– but what a first-rate composer he is!

Ned Rorem (b. 1923) is one of our most distinguished composers, perhaps best known for his songs; certainly he is one of the finest composers we have when it comes to word-setting. But this disc is given over to chamber works, and a fine disc it is; it features the British chamber group Fibonacci Series, which consists of seven instrumentalists (led by violinist Jonathan Carney, brother of the American String Quartet's second violinist, Laurie Carney).

Luca Francesconi is one of the most prominent Italian composer of his generation with a substantial and varied output to his credit. The release under review provides a good idea of his output although all the works recorded here are already some ten or twenty years old. Da Capo (1986) for small ensemble is the earliest work here and is probably one of Francesconi’s best-known and most popular. It is not difficult to understand why. It is a brilliantly scored, colourful piece full of nice instrumental touches and lively rhythms, although it opens and ends in a rather subdued manner. The other works were all composed at about the same time: between 1994 and 1995. They, too, display a considerable variety of means and moods. Etymo is the most substantial both in length and in content. The title, Etymo (as in etymology) is about the search for the origin and development of language. It sets texts from various poems from Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal for soprano, large ensemble and electronics. The final words are drawn from Baudelaire’s Carnets intimes.

Given how often these chamber works by John Harbison are played in concert, it is somewhat surprising that this is the first CD to offer them on one program. At once highly abstract, completely accessible, and intensely personal, Variations and Twilight Music were written in the 1980s and have become classics in their own right, fitting comfortably alongside the likes of Bartók’s Contrasts and Brahms’ and Ligeti’s respective Horn Trios. Although both pieces on this recording were taken from live performances by the fine members of Spectrum Concerts Berlin, the sound is not compromised in the slightest.

Viola Space in Tokyo is one of the world’s most important musical festivals dedicated to the viola and the music composed for it. Founded by Nobuko Imai – well-known to BIS followers as well as to lovers of the viola – it celebrates its 10th anniversary, and BIS was invited to document some of the 150 works that have been performed over the years. The program spans over more than 70 years, and the list of composer includes Schnittke, Per Nørgård, Penderecki and Oedoen Partos. Nobuko Imai herself performs two of the most exciting works on the two discs: György Ligeti’s Sonata for Viola Solo and Toshio Hosokawa’s Voyage VI for Viola and Strings. This last piece was composed only last year, and is dedicated Nobuko Imai. It forms part of a series of concertos “in which the soloist symbolizes man while the ensemble represents the universe, nature and world that surrounds us within and without”, in the composer’s own description. Among these a modern classic such as György Kurtág’s Hommage à R. Sch. – in which violist Junji Suganuma is joined by a clarinet and a piano – may be mentioned, as well as Viola, Viola, a constantly surprising duo by George Benjamin.

The “Earth Requiem” is a gigantic work performed and recorded in Beijing in May 2011 in remembrance of the devastating Sichuan earthquake in 2008. This is the first Chinese Requiem ever composed. This massive work by renowned Chinese composer Guan Xia is scored for 100 instrumentalists, a choir of 150 singers, an organ and 4 vocal soloists. The well-established China National Symphony Orchestra invited the legendary French conductor Michel Plasson, who has long had a close association with EMI Classics, to work on the project. This partnership between West and East gives the recording a universal breadth as well as an overarching theme: the Earth. The emotional strength of the work is empowered by its gargantuan scale. A concert and press conference will be held in May 2013 in Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts to mark the 5th anniversary of the Sichuan Earthquake.