Introducing a revolutionary new CD that challenges the stereotypes and prejudices against the double bass. This tribute album showcases the full potential and versatility of the instrument, featuring compositions by renowned composers such as Myroslav Skoryks, John Rutter, Peteris Vasks, and Sergei Rachmaninov. Experience the warm, soft, and welcoming tone of the double bass as it takes center stage in this diverse collection of music. From the spiritual anthem of Ukraine, Melodie by Myroslav Skoryks, to the familiar choral sounds of John Rutter's The Lord Bless You and Keep You, this album is a love letter to the double bass and an invitation to embrace its songful and tuneful credentials.

Introducing the arrangement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, also known as the 'Eroica', for a piano quartet with an additional double bass. This awe-inspiring work was composed during a time of great personal turmoil for Beethoven, but this struggle gives the Symphony its raw, emotional power.Ferdinand Ries, a close friend and student of Beethoven, has expertly arranged the Symphony for the piano quartet, making it accessible for audiences to enjoy in intimate settings. Adding a double bass, an idea by Lars Schaper, adds an extra layer of depth and richness to the tonal space. As a result, you'll hear familiar melodies in an unfamiliar way and discover new details that may have been lost in the original orchestration.Don't miss your chance to hear the Symphony Ries believed would make "heaven and earth tremble" when performed. This is an opportunity to experience Beethoven's music's raw emotion and true essence, laid bare for all to hear.

Rachmaninoff was one of the most gifted pianists of his time. His technical skills and musical expressiveness are unparalleled and r enabled him to thoroughly explore and transcend the boundaries of possibility in his own compositions.

Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622, and Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581, are masterpieces of the period at the end of his life, and they've been recorded hundreds if not thousands of times. To come up with a standout recording at this point, and indeed without doing anything radical, is quite an accomplishment, but that's what Israeli-German violinist Sharon Kam does here. These performances can be classified with those that use modern instruments but show a distinct influence from historical performance practices; the Austrian-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonic is a small group designed for the dimensions of Haydn's work spaces at Esterházy castle, and Kam uses a basset clarinet (a modern one), with the somewhat extended range of the instrument for which Mozart wrote the two works.

Bach’s St John Passion is like an eternal cry into the void, carrying the essence of western, protestant answers to the fundamental questions in Life, in music. Our wrongdoings on Earth contrasted with higher moral principles. Nowhere else does it crystallise into music more profoundly and more beautifully than in this immortal manifestation of Bach’s genius.

Concerto Köln is one of the leading orchestras for historically informed musical performances and recordings. Recent concerts of Wagner’s “Rheingold” and an album released together with soprano Jeanine De Bique have been celebrated and praised by critics and listeners alike. The conceptual originality of their work seems endless. In their newest album “Pi – Pisendel”, baroque violinist Mayumi Hirasaki, Concerto Köln’s leading concertmaster for the past ten years is highlig hted. As an inspiration for the program served her historical role model, the violin virtuoso, composer and concertmaster himself Johann Georg Pisendel. According to Hirasaki “It should be a program that doesn't only focus on me as a violinist, but also un folds the virtuosity of the whole orchestra.” Together as a unit concertmaster and ensemble present a diverse selection of Pisendel’s pieces that stand out through their rich orchestration, stylistic variety and instrumental virtuosity. Again, the artistic vision of Hirasaki and the concerto Köln captures the imagination of the listener with an accurate recreation of the historic sound and an innovative, refreshing interpretation.

The harpsichordist Francesco Corti learned his craft at an early age, won the Bach Prize in Leipzig in 2006, and now plays in the most famous ensembles and gives concerts of his own. Corti’s Bach forms a synthesis of structural awareness and balletic grace and has wonderful surprises in store even for the most seasoned connoisseur.

„In allen meinen Taten“: Nach einem Leben, das der Musik gewidmet war und nie den Bezug zu seiner Heimatstadt Dresden und Sachsen verlor, beendet der weltbekannte Trompeter Ludwig Güttler seine Karriere zu seinem 80. Geburtstag. Diesem Anlass zu Ehren veröffentlicht er am 21. Oktober das Album „In allen meinen Taten“ inklusive DVD. Das Album reiht sich in die Vielzahl erfolgreicher Veröffentlichungen bei Berlin Classics ein. Zu hören sind musikalische Schätze aus der Vergangenheit sowie neue Einspielungen aus der Frauenkirche. Seine musikalische, politische und soziale Rolle in Dresden, aber auch sein Einfluss auf die musikalische Forschung am sächsischen Hof, die Entwicklung des Corno da Caccia und alle anderen Bereiche, die er in seinem umfangreichen Leben berührt hat, sind kaum zu überschätzen.

Perhaps Mozart sings more, but Haydn speaks, he chatters, he rejoices and talks about the really important things in life”. After Matthias Kirschnereit’s exploration with the Radio Hesse Symphony Orchestra of the middle ground between the Classical and Romantic eras in works by Hummel, Weber and Mendelssohn, the pianist now turns to Haydn. And that means he is entering the terrain, somewhat neglected even now, of the great Austrian’s piano concertos. All nine keyboard concertos that were definitely written by Haydn are now being released with Matthias Kirschnereit and the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra of Heilbronn, which he directs from the instrument. Included is the Double Concerto in F major with Lena Neudauer on the violin. As a "chamber music treat", Matthias Kirschnereit also had the Piano Trio in G major arranged and recorded. The recording is a co-production with Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

Following on from Robert Schumann and the Jörg Widmann, Ludwig van Beethoven and his pianistic duelling partner Josef Woelfl and Bach and the jazz-inspired Nikolai Kapustin, Luisa Imorde brings together two French composers on her latest CD: François Couperin and Olivier Messiaen – two musicians who have much in common. Both spent their lives in Paris; both were master musicians on the piano and organ and decisively developed the music for those two instruments; both made their mark as great teachers of music.

The oboe is said to be one of the most complex instruments there is, not only for players but for those who compose music for it, too. As a performer and professor, Celine Moinet has studied almost every single piece for the oboe in recent years. Thus she knows all too well that not every composer has been able to handle and stage the instrument in their music in a way that truly does it justice. A few stand out from the crowd, and the musician has already devoted herself to them in detail in her past album projects, including Bach, Schumann, Beriot, and Britten, to name a few. On this album, Celine Moinet turns her gaze towards her home country France to the composers whose work made her fall in love with the oboe as a young girl: Francis Poulenc, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel.

On his new album “31” pianist Fabian Müller plays the late work of Franz Schubert – the Piano Sonatas nos.19-21 as well as Drei Klavierstücke, D946. The idea behind this recording is to play the late works as a young person-in view of the fact that Schubert himself was a young man when he composed them.Müller plays the pieces lovingly, peaceful. Sad, but at the same time incredibly happy–and in his Interpretations he likes to take liberties with the tempo and sometimes leaves out repetitions. “It's important to take the composer seriously, but it's also important not to over-do it. In the end, it often remains a mystery what the composer really wanted anyway. That's why I have great confidence in making my own decisions,” Müller says.

On "Wanderlust," the new album on Berlin Classics, the Boulanger Trio explores romantic worlds of feeling, transports listeners to a wide variety of soundscapes, and takes hold of the musical walking stick. With a program that explores through different national schools of composition, they not only combine the great names of the 19th century on one album, but deliver an intelligently assembled soundtrack for a road trip. Founded in Hamburg in 2006 by Karla Haltenwanger (piano), Birgit Erz (violin) and Ilona Kindt (violoncello), the trio is now based in Berlin and Hamburg. In 2007 the ensemble won the 4th Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition in Norway, followed by the Rauhe Prize for Modern Chamber Music in 2008. The ensemble has received musical guidance from Hatto Beyerle, Menahem Pressler and Alfred Brendel.

Georg Muffat (1653-1704) may have grown up in the French border region of Alsace at a time of conflict and war in Europe, but his music represented a harmonious meeting of multiple nations, feeding his native French forms and sensibility with Italian and German inspiration. Which in turn is very much what’s on offer from the five sonatas of his Armonico Tributo, published in Salzburg in 1682.Standing as some of the very earliest examples of the Italian concerto grosso model as pioneered by Arcangelo Corelli, with whom Muffat studied, this set follows the form’s convention of contrasting tutti passages pitted against soli ones, but with each sonata having as much of a French dance suite air about it, thanks to its clearly Italian-style sections with their chordal sequences and rhythmic figures (Grave, Adagio etc) being complimented by melodically flowing dance movements such as the Menuet, Rondeau, Gavotta and Corrente.

“Mendelssohn is a challenge, because his music appears to be so deceptively easy,” says the pianist Claire Huangci, speaking about her new album. Together with violinist Marc Bouchkov she has recorded works by Mendelssohn for violin and piano: the two Violin Sonatas in F – one major, one minor – and the Double Concerto in D minor. They are accompanied in the latter work by the successful conductor Howard Griffiths and the Basel Chamber Orchestra. As Ms Huangci points out, this represents a program rich in contrasts highlighting Mendelssohn’s artistry and the versatility of such a combination of works: “A mix requiring wit and brilliance on the one hand, while also requiring the performers to go beneath the surface and reveal a deeper meaning including sorrow, compassion and nobility, and that is something that is not easy to detect at first glance. The young Felix Mendelssohn has such a feel for the dramatic.”