The Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble is – as the name implies – based in Stockholm, and consists of five of the city's leading musicians. Project-based and often inviting guest performers, the SSE is known for its imaginative programmes built around a particular event or concept and bringing together music from various genres and eras. For its first album on BIS the ensemble has taken Brett Dean’s Voices of Angels as their point of departure, a work scored for the same forces as Schubert’s ‘Trout quintet’ and inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s first two Duino Elegies: ‘Angels (it’s said) are often unable to tell whether they move amongst the living or the dead.’

This pair of single-movement viola concertos written for Yuri Bashmet justify his renown. In both, he is able to draw an impressive variety of expressions from his instrument with seeming ease. On the other hand, it's obvious there was a lot of thought and care put into his interpretations. The concertos need thoughtful interpretations by the soloist and the conductor, not because the pieces are necessarily complex in rhythm or harmony, but they are complex in tone and color.

Russian Roots is the Trio Gaspard's debut recording for Chandos records, for which they are joined by soprano Katharina Konradi for a diverse and rewarding program that explores the Russian influence across almost 200 years of music. A selection of Russian folksongs set by Beethoven, Shostakovich's first Piano Trio, his Seven Romances on poems by Blok and Weinberg's Jewish Songs form the backbone of the recital. These are interspersed with Vocalises (wordless songs) by Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Gubaidulina and Auerbach.

Diese CD bietet eine breite Palette russischer Komponisten, die in der Tradition orthodoxer Kirchenmusik komponierten. Sie reicht von Michail Glinka, Peter Tschaikowsky, Sergej Tanejew und Sergej Rachmaninoff bis zu Alfred Schnittke und Sofia Gubaidulina, von romantisch-expressiven Vertonungen bis zu den expressiven Klängen der beiden neueren Komponisten.

This collection is one with which a love/hate relationship is nearly inevitable. To really listen to this music requires energic concentration - you'll be emotionally exhausted. On the other hand, other than the first piece "In croce", you may put the music on and continue about your other work - treating it almost as ambience. While Gubaidulina has obviously been influence by chromaticism, and her choice of instruments, bayan, reflects her background Turkic Russian, she writes with a firm independence. The cello, bayan and strings are used in a way that make you think this is exactly the correct instrumentation - even after reading that "In croce" originally used an organ.

This CPO disc contains four pieces by Sofia Gubaidulina, a Russian-Tartar composer of singularly original and individualistic music. These are her three string quartets written up to 1993, and her "String Trio". Performances are given by The Danish Quartet, the ensemble of Tim Frederiksen (violin I), Arne Balk-Moeller (violin II), Claus Myrup (viola), and Henrik Brendstrup (cello). Sofia Gubaidulina's works for string quartet and string trio have always seemed to me to lie at the outskirts of her oeuvre, even though they contain the elements common to all her work that we have come to love. This is perhaps because of their intensity, a single-minded dedication to certain mystical principles without the variety of longer or larger works.