Alessandro Scarlatti wrote a huge number of chamber cantatas – about 600, in fact – most of which are, like the five delightful examples on this disc, for solo voice. These ones are sung by countertenor Brian Asawa with stylish support from members of the Arcadian Academy, who provide varying types of accompaniment, sometimes with continuo alone, at other times with a larger instrumental colloquium. Only one of the five cantatas here, Clori vezzosa, e bella, is written for voice and basso continuo throughout, the others calling for two violins and, on occasion, viola. The first work in the programme is the most elaborate of the group with its three-movement instrumental introduction and four each of alternating recitatives and arias.

Nirgendwo könne ein Komponist seinen Stil besser entwickeln als in der Kirche, wo die Übel des Kunstbetriebes, Applaus und Erfolgsdenken, keinen Platz besäßen, bekannte Camille Saint-Saëns einmal, und er wußte, wovon er sprach: Er selbst war zwanzig Jahre lang als Organist an der Pariser Madeleine tätig gewesen. Die Werke dieser CD belegen Saint-Saëns' These. Sowohl das Requiem als auch die Psalmvertonung verblüffen durch einen ganz eigenen Tonfall, der eine eingängige Melodik, raffiniert chromatische Harmonik und klangsinnliche Instrumentation verbindet.

Now unfairly stigmatised (due to Pushkin and the film Amadeus) as Mozart’s sinister Nemesis, Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) enjoyed the more successful career as an opera composer. His comedy Trofonio’s Cave, written to a clever libretto by Giambattista Casti, was staged at Vienna’s Burgtheater in October 1785, just a few months before Figaro debuted there, and kept its place in the repertory for 30 years. If posterity gave the palm to Mozart, his contemporaries preferred Salieri. And indeed the Italian’s attractive score to this text describing the effects of entering a magic cave upon two pairs of lovers – one quiet and earnest, the other noisy hedonists – is full of good things.

In recent years the Storioni Trio has established itself as the leading Dutch piano trio. On this disc they perform two of Beethoven’s major works, the Triple Concerto opus 56, and the “Archduke” Trio opus 97. They are joined in the concerto by the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra and conductor Jan Willem de Vriend.

Jan Ladislav Dussek was perhaps Europe's greatest pianist until Beethoven came along, and much of his music involves the piano. He wrote works in many genres, however, including some substantial choral music at the end of his life that, in places, looked forward to Schubert. Consider this Messe Solemnelle in G major, an hourlong work that receives not only its world premiere recording but possibly its first performance in any form; it was discovered by Academy of Ancient Music director Richard Egarr in a Florence library. Physical CD buyers will get a weighty scholarly apparatus, but even online listeners will find an enjoyable work that could easily find its way into the choral repertory.

The present CD contains previously unpublished, virtuoso violin music from the first half of the 18th century. As its concert master, Pisendel directed the famous Dresdner Hofkapelle. His violin sonatas, a challange for every violinist, as well as compositions by Heinichen, W. F. Bach and Hasse, convey an impression of the transition which occurred between baroque and pre-classic.

Karin Krog is one of Europe's leading jazz singers with a career stretching back to the 1950s. She is a unique song artist with a great international reputation possessing her own recognizable style and voice. Her constant creative approach towards contemporary jazz has never been bound by tradition, even though her music bears a deep respect for its forms. Karin is equally at home with jazz standards, blues or electronic experimental techniques. Originally released by Sonet Records this reissue of a 1966 session features an all-star line-up. A young Jan Garbarek is featured on two tracks and the stellar rhytm section is made up of Kenny Drew on piano, Niels Henning-Orsted Pedersen on bass and Jon Christensen on drums.

The Vision Bleak return in grand style: The German duo's seventh full-length "Weird Tales" constitutes a monumental tribute to the eponymous American pulp magazine and other tales of mystery and dark imagination. The album consists of a single track that is divided into internal chapters, which are each inspired by weird tales, poems, and other literature of horror and the macabre. On "Weird Tales", The Vision Bleak are referring to eminent writers of the legendary magazine such as H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, but also allude to authors that were never featured in the magazine, for example Edgar Allen Poe and Lafcadio Hearn, whose "Fantastics and Other Fancies" was very influential for this album. The Vision Bleak are pulling every register of their enormous musical prowess…

Out of curiosity, we asked the 'artificial intelligence' to write a press release for the latest new release. Question for the AI: Please write a press release for a CD with the complete works for violin and piano by Gabriel Fauré in a length of approx. 75 words. Matthias Lingenfelder, violin and Peter Orth, piano.

Zoe Knighton and Amir Farid present their seventh cello-piano collaboration — this time from the composer Johannes Brahms. The program includes his sonatas for cello as well as three songs where the cello presents the vocal line wordlessly.

Mr. Corea, a jazz pianist, composer and band leader of enormous repute and success, was commissioned to write his septet by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, six of whose members joined him in this performance. The composer’s gifts were abundantly evident, both in his manipulation of the instruments and in his own keyboard work, which was characterized by powerfully insistent rhythms and rich embroidery.

Work on preparing this album began in 2019, when I first encountered Mykola Dyletsky’s music – we performed fragments of his Requiem Liturgy with Wrocław Baroque Ensemble in Kyiv. At that time, they made a great impression on me, which, along with my subsequent work as a conductor on this artist’s works and subsequent concerts, strengthened my feeling that I was dealing with a unique repertoire. Dyletsky’s work is a fascinating encounter between the East and the West – the language, liturgy and melody of the Eastern Church harmonise with Western compositional techniques and musical styles. There are clear inspirations from the Venetian polychoral style and stile concertato, and tutti sections are often intertwined with figurative fragments in a solo ensemble.

Golem is widely regarded to be a lost psychedelic masterpiece among the sorts of people who are interested in such things, numbering David Tibet, Steven Stapleton, and Julian Cope among its more outspoken champions. This German band was produced by Klaus Schulze. Their sole album Golem, was released in 1974. The music is somehow folk, but also cosmic rock inspired, reminiscent of Ash Ra Temple and Cosmic jokers, thanks to Schultze's influence who mixed it using "Artificial Head Stereo Sound", the aim was "to get an illusion of perfect surrounding space. The idea was brilliant but unfortunately not the sound." The album has indeed been pressed again three times, as the band was not satisfied with the result.

Blancmange's first ever instrumental album, Nil By Mouth was originally released on 25 September 2015. The album consists of 12 tracks, all written and performed by Neil Arthur except for the 2005 re-record of Holiday Camp from the Irene & Mavis EP (1980) which features original member Stephen Luscombe.
In many ways Nil By Mouth goes right back to the roots of the band when they experimented with art student film soundtracks and improvised music created by primitive synths and cassette recorders. But there's also a melodic flair throughout the album, and a palpable sense of freedom.