The "Brahms Festival" was the beginning of the anniversary season 2021/22, which the Cappella Aquileia gifted its audience and itself for its 10th anniversary. All four symphonies as well as two piano concertos by Johannes Brahms were heard. The highlight of the festival is on this recording: Brahms’ 1st Symphony conducted by Marcus Bosch in a brilliant live recording.

The trumpet at the movies *Move *– the name of this album – is also the title of a concerto written by Baptiste Trotignon and here receiving its recording premiere; the work pays tribute to major composers of film music, whose iconic scores form the backdrop in this “audiofilm” starring the trumpet of Romain Leleu. Taking us on a cinematic journey with stops to admire Rota’s The Godfather and Ennio Morricone’s Wild West, Rochefort and Chinatown, Elevator to the Gallows and Dingo (both films with a direct connection to Miles Davis), the young French trumpet player skilfully navigates between a jazz line-up and full orchestra, in the company of stellar associates. Roll film!

The incidental music to König Stephan, Op. 117, must be among Beethoven's least often performed works, with only the overture making regular appearances on concert programs. The music was written for a play marking the opening of a theater in what is now Budapest; it was a festive event that drew from Beethoven no profound response. However, aficionados of the transition to Beethoven's late style will be glad to have this recording, one of just a few available. Compared with, say, the incidental music to Egmont, Op. 84, the music is striking in its simplicity, and there are a few hints, notably in the first part of the "Geistlicher Marsch," of the mystical musical language to come.

Handel's oratorio Alexander's Feast, composed in 1736, is English to the core, with its talky text by John Dryden and straightforward, clearly structured arias and choruses. The victory of Alexander the Great in the Persian city of Persepolis (an impressive ruin today) in 330 BCE was said to have been followed by a feast that gave Dryden the excuse for a sort of ode to the power of music (rendered in mixed language as "the power of musik" in the booklet of this German release), with arias illustrating the various affects. There isn't really any plot or action; the piece is more an extended secular cantata than an oratorio, especially inasmuch as the soloists (the soprano and the tenor are the prominent ones) do not represent characters in the story.