With this new album the award-winning Latvian Radio Choir conducted by Sigvards Klava is turning its attention to the music of Alexander Grechaninov (1864–1956), one of the masters of Russian liturgic music. Grechaninov’s All-Night Vigil is a fitting continuation to the choir’s albums of sacred music by Sergey Rachmaninov and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Together with the two latter names, Grechaninov’s All-Night Vigil, completed in 1912, belongs to the central repertoire of Russian liturgic music. Unlike the Vigils by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, Grechaninov’s work was written primarily for concert use. Grechaninov’s All-Night Vigilis a bright, optimistic work full of light.

In 1996, the label Musique en Wallonie published an album with works for Lute by Jacques de Saint-Luc (c. 1616-1708). These pieces were brilliantly performed by Stephen Stubbs. Recent studies allow us to affirm that the present release, the second to be devoted to works by a Saint-Luc, consists of music, not by Jacques, as it was wrongly mentioned in the first album, but by his son Laurent de Saint-Luc (1669 – after 1708). In addition to two traditional suites, the present programme offers two ensembles of pieces either chosen from certain suites or free-standing – including the mournful allemande in G minor – all taken from manuscripts of lute pieces preserved in Vienna or Prague.

In recent years, the jazz-like, classical and modern music by the Ukrainian composer Nikolai Kapustin (*1937) has become an inside tip on classical concert stages. During a visit to Nikolai Kasputin in Moscow ten years ago, the composer entrusted the cellist Eckart Runge with the notes for his Cello Concerto No. 1 op. 85, which, unlike the second one, had neither been performed nor recorded. The work vibrant with energy combines in unparalleled manner colorful symphonic music with the groovy sound of the big band tradition and the virtuosity of a Charlie Parker with the chamber music intimacy of a Miles Davis into a new and fulminant musical diction.

Three suites, including an ‘English’ Suite quite as ‘French’ as its counterpart that actually bears the name; a brilliant Italianate Toccata; a Prelude and Fugue displaying the most complex German counterpoint . . . In this programme, Céline Frisch offers a wide-ranging panorama of the protean genius of Bach the harpsichord composer.

Music appreciation textbooks and timelines in magazines often name Guillaume Dufay as the first great composer of the European Renaissance, but one might equally call him the last great composer of the Middle Ages. This disc presents all 13 of Dufay's isorhythmic motets–the final masterpieces of a very medieval-minded genre. During the Middle Ages, music was considered a science (just like mathematics), and isorhythmic motets are constructed according to strict arithmetical principles. In addition, each voice generally has a different text, while the fundamental voice (called the tenor) usually has no text at all and is often (as here) performed by instruments.

The casting of the radiant Helen Donath as Gretel, the theatrical Christa Ludwig as the witch, the vibrant Anna Moffo as Hansel, and the noble but lovable Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as the father would have been sufficient to secure this recording's fame as the best version of "Hansel and Gretel" ever committed to disc. However, to cast Lucia Popp as the Dew Fairy and Arleen Auger as the Sandman was a master stroke. And, the excellent Charlotte Berthold is an added bonus as the mother. Leading this array of vocal riches, Kurt Eichhorn produces a reading that accentuates the detail and color of the score more than any other, drawing out the richness of the orchestration with astonishing success.

Though it lacks a first movement, the 1944 Karajan Bruckner Eighth is both a notable performance and an astonishing piece of engineering. The finale, which was recorded in the studios of Berlin Radio in September 1944 in experimental 'two channel' sound, has occasionally been available on LP or CD, though never in such spectacular sound. For what we have here, as I understand it, is not the reproduction of a rough dubbing of the original mastertape but a transfer from the 30ips mastertape itself, part of a recently released hoard of tapes the Russians confiscated after the fall of Berlin in 1945. As for the second and third movements, recorded in mono towards the end of June 1944, these have never previously been released.

The Haydn series continues with the Paris Symphony no 87. Julien Chauvin and his orchestra keep shaking us up with historical instruments listening Haydn’s works and several other forgotten scores from the same period. All of them were commissioned for the Concert de la Loge Olympique - ancestor and model for Julien Chauvin and his musicians - and all of them sank into oblivion during the 19th century, except for Haydn’s symphonies. The release offers an opportunity to experience some rare works of Grétry, Lemoyne and Ragué and to revive the success that they once knew.

Swedes are proud of Elfrida Andrée. She was the first woman that conquered the position of cathedral organist. Even reactionaries that were appalled at having a woman playing from the gallery capitulated at hearing her skill. Critics that reviewed her compositions found positive words for her – even for her first symphony, premiered in 1869, which the composer later disparaged as an "early work". The Fritiof Suite, on the other hand, was an unqualified success. In 1909, Elfrida Andrée made a suite of five movements based on her (only) opera Fritiof Saga. Unlike the staged work of 1898, these ‘scenes’ were once very popular – a fantastic piece of incidental music for the Fritiof epic by the poet Esaias Tegnér, which practically every child in Sweden knew.

This is a remarkable debut disc by a 25-year-old pianist… he is a sensuous player with brilliant articulation and gleaming sound quality……this disc establishes a new benchmark. It includes an outstandingly wise performance of that miniature tone poem, L'isle joyeuse, arguably Debussy's single greatest piano piece.–Adrian Jack of BBC Magazine

”It takes a very skilled musician to play the violin part, for Bach knew the resources of that instrument and spared it as little as he did the harpsichord” (Forkel). With these sonatas, it is the first time that a composer sets both instruments on a equal footing.

Alexandre Tharaud follows his dazzling album of Scarlatti sonatas with another fusion of modern and historically informed performance styles. Joining him in this new collection of Bach keyboard concertos is the dynamic period-instrument ensemble Les Violons du Roy, under its director Bernard Labadie.

On this recording, the Britten Sinfonia's Associate Leader Thomas Gould directs the ensemble in Dmitry Sitkovetsky's beautifully realized and heartfelt arrangement for strings of Bach's great keyboard work, the Goldberg Variations. Sitkovetsky penned the transcription in 1985 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Bach's birth. It was inspired by Glenn Gould's remarkable 1981 recording of the work, and the transcription is dedicated to Gould's memory.

Composer cycles have become a dime a dozen, mostly because they often fall into the trap of focusing on the printed page to the exclusion of all else. Apart from the score, there are other less tangible elements to consider. Brahms’s two piano concertos stand as prime examples, partly because they were both premiered by Brahms himself, partly because they come from such different times in his life that, beyond their respective compositional styles, their intentions and spirit remain poles apart. That belief clearly fuels Hélène Grimaud’s new recording, with Andris Nelsons conducting two vastly contrasting orchestras. There may be better performances of these concertos out there but it would be hard to find a pairing that draws a greater distinction between the two.

Guillaume de Machaut was one of the great composers of a pivotal period at the intersection between the late medieval times and the Renaissance. His works include sacred compositions, such as his Messe de Nostre Dame, which took polyphonic music to new summits, as well as popular dances and songs that reveal the influence of the trouvères.
Yet this disc actually contains little music by Machaut. Only the last two pieces are by him. This leads to a bit of confusion: is Calliope trying to use Machaut’s name to sell a compilation of medieval music? This barely seems necessary, yet there is clearly some ambiguity.