A charismatic presence, [Casals] embraces each work with the passion of a devoted horticulturist tending his most precious flowers … I can't think of any other interpreters who so successfully underline the sheer inventiveness of Beethoven's writing.

Borbely says “Why am I attracted to such ‘insurmountable peaks’ as Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge? I have always been captivated by researching complex musical structures and the regularities of music as language. Working on such a monumental and searchingly demanding work is challenging for me primarily because it is at this level that I can confront my own limits, my own “finiteness”. It becomes evident here that we, humans, can only aim at Perfection but will never be able to achieve it. This is the reason I never feel that my interpretation is “ready”. I would even abhor the idea. Why? Because one’s approach to a work will never be and can never be final. Bach’s music is also a continually forming, changing, infinite “game”, renewing itself again and again. Bach placed musical variability into divine invariability.

2020 saw the release of the first instalment in this three-disc traversal of Beethoven’s violin sonatas – a disc which has garnered distinctions such as Choc de Classica and Cum Laude (Luister), with performances that ‘wed classical verve to a profoundly Romantic spirit’ (Gramophone) in ‘recordings that are conversations by a perfect instrumental pairing’ (BBC Music Magazine). As Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen open the second disc, they do so with the iconic Spring Sonata, Op. 24. Completed in 1801, the work proved immediately popular with a second edition appearing only months after the first publication.

After the "scandalously successful" (Sunday Times) Symphony No. 10 in 2015, "the sheer expressive beauty" (Gramophone Magazine) of Symphonies Nos. 5, 8, 9 from 2016, and the "overbearing vividness" (The Guardian) of the most recent Symphonies Nos. 4 & 11, Nelsons and the BSO continue the Grammy-winning cycle with Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7. The symphonies are complemented by two other works by Shostakovich, the Suite from the Incidental Music to King Lear, Op. 58a and the Festive Overture, Op. 96.

Hans Leo Hassler was roughly contemporary with Palestrina and wrote in a similarly transparent style. Though he was Lutheran, he set numerous Latin texts, including the Mass. " Missa super Dixit Maria is a "parody" based on Hassler's famous motet Dixit Maria ad angelum. That motet isn't included here, unfortunately, but you can clearly hear its themes recurring in the various Mass movements. The motets on this disc include several penitential items with a striking chromaticism Palestrina wouldn't have touched. Vater unser, a setting of Luther's versification of the Lord's Prayer, seems dull in this company.

Australian composer Mark John McEncroe and Navona Records present SYMPHONIC SUITE NO. 3: THE FOREST AND THE MOUNTAINS featuring three orchestral movements that draw inspiration from the natural world—”Meandering in the Forest I,” “Running Mountain Streams II,” and “Wandering in the Mountain Wilderness III.” Brought to life by Zagreb Festival Orchestra, McEncroe’s unique voice and filmic quality flow throughout, with musical illustrations painted by striking crescendos and gentle string and woodwind melodies.

"Whether it is necessary, or even right, to follow conventions (the beaten track) when recording music, for example, or whether the performer can claim the right to show the listener the world he lives in, the world he knows best, with all its beauty and its countless oddities, even risks? Should he let the listener into his own territory, that is, into a strange and individual dimension that the audience may not have known existed until now? Nowadays, a carefully crafted recording gives the listener the illusion of a world believed to be flawless, a care that is fundamentally designed to cater to the perfectionism of the audience. A 'different' kind of care is therefore needed, one that can breathe life into even a recording. Our intention in making this record was therefore to create the most natural, realistically transcendent material possible, capable of speaking to the audience." (Szabolcs Szilágyi)

Blue sound. Deep focus. Encompassment. This is what awaits the listener on this recording. Not compression or complex harmonies, rather the sound characterizes this recording. The tone, the sound here is carried by the spirit of internalization. The silence between the notes connects. The album is a search for simplicity and the essential, which looks inward and decelerates the listener.

Forty years have passed since Gidon Kremer created a little musical oasis in the Austrian town of Lockenhaus in 1981. The violinist’s open-minded attitude has left its mark on this event, which has become a must in the concert calendar, and the cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, who took up the torch in 2012, continues the same philosophy. For this fortieth anniversary, he has decided to call on composers who have come to Lockenhaus or had works performed there in the past ten years. Hence the programme contains two premieres – the cello concertos of Raphaël Merlin and Helena Winkelman – but also short pieces by Erkki-Sven Tüür, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Lera Auerbach, Patkop, Maja Ratkje, Matan Porat, Kurt Schwertsik and Johannes Fischer. Musical postcards that celebrate the anniversary while foreshadowing the next forty years!