“[Bach] speaks to us in his work in such clear terms that we may quite well call these fugues poems. (…) These have warmth, quiet joy, love. And running through all the poems, dressed in different guises, is the main theme, creating order, binding the work as a whole together: it is a safe bond in all its diversity. Over all lies the proximity of death.” (Enzio Forsblom). In this new recording, Bach’s final magnum opus is played by Aapo Häkkinen on a harpsichord built in 1614 by Andreas Ruckers the Elder (1579–?1652) and which belonged to the composer John Blow (1649–1708), organist of Westminster Abbey and former teacher of Henry Purcell. A tradition exists that G.F. Handel had also played this harpsichord.

William Byrd’s keyboard music has always stood in the shadow of his vocal compositions. Drawing simultaneously on English and Italian Renaissance traditions, Byrd created a remarkable musical language that was flexible and entirely refined keyboard instruments of his time.

William Byrd’s keyboard music has always stood in the shadow of his vocal compositions. Drawing simultaneously on English and Italian Renaissance traditions, Byrd created a remarkable musical language that was flexible and entirely refined keyboard instruments of his time. Both keyboard instruments used on this recording are original pieces.

Wanda Landowska’s excellent essay on the Goldberg Variations (La Revue Musical, 1933) serves as liner notes for this release. She describes the variations as “tyrannical in their exigencies; the relentless contrapuntal speculations require a mathematical distribution of light and shadow”. Häkkinen has clearly taken her words to heart. He uses every tool at his disposal to make Bach’s meticulously calculated chiaroscuro apparent to the listener. Gracefully placed agogic accents in the first variation give the music a feeling of weightlessness. … There are innumerable such treasures of interpretation here.

Mozart’s friend Franz Xaver Dussek (in whose summer villa he completed Don Giovanni) was a pianist, celebrated teacher and the leading composer of instrumental music in Prague. Like his compatriot Vanhal, Dussek completed his musical training in Vienna and, unsurprisingly, his works reflect the strong influence of composers such as Hofmann, Haydn and Dittersdorf. Dussek’s symphonies, most of which appear to have been composed in the 1760s and 1770s, are works of great charm and vivacity, cleverly orchestrated and full of striking melodic ideas as this recording amply demonstrates.

This new album by the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and Aapo Häkkinen together with the Audi Jugendchorakademie and bassoonist Jani Sunnarborg featuring late works by composer Bernhard Henrik Crusell (1775–1838) makes an important addition to the recordings of Nordic Classical period works and of early Finnish music. Highlight of the album is the world première recording of Crusell’s Viking-themed ‘The Last Warrior’ (Den sista kämpen), the composer’s last large-scale composition.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) was the most famous and successful son of the great Johann Sebastian. He was a protagonist of the Empfindsame Stil, intended to express true and natural feelings, featuring sudden contrasts of mood and emotions.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was widely known for his passionate, incomparable improvisations on the clavichord, most characteristically in the form of free fantasia. His compositions were unique in style, full of contrasts, and universally admired by several generations; the Vienna Classicists, even Beethoven and Schubert, considered him their musical father.

Joseph Martin Kraus was one of the most talented and progressive composers of the 18th century, and regarded by Haydn as one of the only two geniuses he knew, alongside Mozart. Following the successful audition of his opera Proserpin, Kraus became closely associated with the court of Gustav III in Stockholm. The highly dramatic Begrafnings-kantat overture was the composer’s emotional response to the assassination of his sovereign. The vocal pieces include works performed for the first time in over two centuries, ranging from Italian concert arias to rare survivals from the Royal Dramatic Theatre.

Sparkling new accounts of Schubert’s violin-and-piano music from two luminaries of the Finnish period-instrument scene.

Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata has today become part of the cello repertoire but it was originally written for the arpeggione, a form of bowed guitar invented by the Viennese maker Johann Georg Staufer in 1823. With a unique ethereal sound, this instrument reveals the true beauty of Schubert’s initial conception. The Piano Trio No. 2 was performed at the Vienna Musikverein on the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death—its extremes of urgent drama and sublime bittersweet lyricism are characteristic of Schubert’s artistic surge during his final year.

This album by the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra playing on period instruments under the direction of Aapo Häkkinen includes Ludwig van Beethovens complete incidental music to Goethes Egmont. This complete music includes parts sung by soprano Elisabeth Breuer as well as spoken texts narrated by Robert Hunger-Bühler.

Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir led by Aapo Hakkinen join their forces together with an impressive vocal cast, Carolyn Sampson, Benno Schachtner, Werner Gura, Jonathan Sells and Cornelius Uhle, in this unique release of rarely heard choral works by Robert Schumann (1810-1856). This recording includes the world premiere recording of Schumann's 17-minute Adventlied, Op. 71 for soloists, chorus and orchestra, four choral ballades based on texts by Emanuel Geibel, and Schumann's version of Bach's Cantata BWV 105. Robert Schumann wrote in 1850: "Keep in mind that there are also singers, and that the highest in musical expression is achieved through the chorus and orchestra."