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.

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.

This project has not been driven by the wish to add yet another complete recording of complete works to the catalogue. What it has been driven by is a real desire to redress the balance and to ensure Weber's compositions receive the attention they so richly deserve.

L’Entretien des Muses composé de Virginie Descharmes (violon), Tormod Dalen (violoncelle) et Stéphane Fuget (clavecin) nous invite à revivre avec un exceptionnel talent et un souci de véracité historique parfaitement ressuscité l’exécution des trios pour clavecin, violon et basse que Joseph Haydn composa entre 1755 et 1765. L’esprit de Haydn, qui n’est pas encore celui de la grande maturité, souffle sur ces pièces Hoboken XV (n° 1, 35, 37, 40, 41) que les interprètes abordent à égalité, chaque partenaire réussissant à faire entendre sa partie face à ses comparses. Est-il besoin de préciser que leur maîtrise instrumentale n’est nullement un problème et qu’alors seuls importent les choix interprétatifs?

The twelfth volume in the Haydn2032 series, in which Giovanni Antonini conducts the Kammerorchester Basel, is devoted to ‘games and pleasures’. The symphonies recorded here, nos. 61, 66 and 69, were composed for the daily theatrical performances held at Eszterháza Palace in the spring of 1776. For Haydn they marked the end of a festive period, before he had to return to the serious business of writing operas. The ‘Toy Symphony’, attributed to Haydn for 200 years before it was discovered that it was in all probability composed by a Benedictine monk, completes the programme in a similarly light and cheerful atmosphere.

While today it is easy to listen to almost any piece at any time and in almost any place, before the invention of the record it was quite complicated: you had to go to a concert or to the opera or you played yourself… In the emerging bourgeoisie, arrangements of the most popular works in instrumentations suitable for chamber music were popular and, of course, Mozart's famous operas were at the top of the popularity scale. In many places, publishers set about transcribing Mozart's works for small and very small ensembles. The two violinists Florian Deuter and Mónica Waisman have found a whole series of such contemporary arrangements of Mozart's operas and piano sonatas in "pocket format" for violin duo, which bring the well-known melodies into the new form with much wit and finesse. In the process, the listener can grin and observe the reduction of the full sound and delve into delightful details of house music around 1800.

Revered pianist Mitsuko Uchida presents a brand new recording of this Everest of the piano repertoire. This long-awaited, much-anticipated cornerstone of her discography was recorded at Snape Maltings, one of the world's great concert halls with which Mitsuko feels a close affinity.

Leopold Anton Kozeluch (1747-1818) gehört zu jener Generation von Böhmen, die in Wien im 18. Jahrhundert ihr Glück zu machen suchten. Schon 1781 hatte Kozeluch einen dermaßen guten Ruf, dass er vom Salzburger Erzbischof das Angebot erhielt, als Nachfolger von Mozart das Amt des Hoforganisten zu übernehmen. Seine Klaviertrios müssen sehr beliebt gewesen sein, denn von 1781 bis 1810 waren über 60 davon erschienen.

This disc offers something quite hard to get these days - Beethoven and Schubert played for their own sake under a conductor who can and does wield from the rostrum every bit of the immense authority of the best years of his cello-playing when even the intervals between the notes seemed to have been imaginatively recreated, and the phrasing presented with nothing less than perfect sensitivity and dignity, and without any desire to make points or impress by virtuoso polish. Of course his approach is of his time. But the Marlboro audience was very lucky, and so is anyone who now listens to this with an open mind. This is a great musician conducting folk who in the act of performance he treats as equals.

Rodolphe Kreutzer, a virtuoso violinist and composer, was a central figure of the French violin school. The work that brought him his most enduring fame as a composer was his forty classical Études ou Caprices for violin solo. These etudes first published in 1796, quickly established themselves in violin repertoire laying the foundations for violin technique which is why they are regarded as indispensable by virtuosos and teachers alike. The collection not only includes practice pieces that require good technical ability but also character pieces which are expressive and fun to play.

Composer, conductor, administrator, impresario, creative writer, acid critic, sometime painter, aspiring philosopher, classical symphonist, opera romantic, profound nationalist … blessed with the melodic flowering of a Mozart, the technical facility of a Mendelssohn … a man, conscious of his genius, ‘always honest and selfless in his dealings with his fellow men and with the art he loved’ (Autobiographical Sketch, Dresden, 14 March 1818) … put on a pedestal by all the post-Beethovenites, the inspiration of Mahler and Debussy, of Hindemith and Stravinsky: Carl Maria von Weber was, by universal consent, a great pianist in an age of great virtuosi.

Six feather-light divertimenti by Joseph Haydn are presented by flutist Anna Zhitnukhina on her new GENUIN album. The works are miniature gems that deserve to be distributed more widely! Moreover, it is remarkable that the young flutist has recorded all six trios twice, one time on historical, one time on modern instruments, respectively. What becomes audibly apparent here is just how strongly the interpretation of each piece of music depends on the way it is approached as well as on the choice of instrumentation. Both versions offer clarity, elegance, and expression, yet all listeners will opt for the one or the other version according to their taste - a fascinating experiment!

Mozart’s piano concertos form a set that is not just exceptional but absolutely unique in the history of music: from No. 9 to No. 27, all are definitive masterpieces. According to H.C. Robbins Landon, an eminent specialist in the composer’s life and work, ‘It is above all their immense stylistic diversity that places Mozart’s piano concertos above and beyond those of his contemporaries’. What these scores also share is their position at a crossroads for strongly impacting influences: that of the symphony, encouraging Mozart to make lavish use of the orchestra; the wind bands of the Imperial court, shaping his enhanced role for the woodwinds; and the influence of the opera, whose styles he worked into these concertos, often treating the dialogue between piano and orchestra as if they were stage characters. In this new recording, Eric Le Sage is joined by the Gävle Symfoniorkester to perform the 17th and 24th concertos for piano and orchestra by the Salzburg composer.

To Leopold Koželuh, rival and successor of Mozart, one essentially owes the abandoning of the harpsichord in favour of the pianoforte, and to Dussek / Dusík the advent of the modern piano. The second was erred only by being right too soon and writing avant-garde music before the pre-eminence of Liszt. It remains to grant them the place that they deserve for this instrument (34 piano Sonatas for Dussek), and in the sphere of forgotten piano duets.

Friedrich Abel, geboren 1723 in Köthen, gestorben 1787 in London hat seinen Platz der Musikgeschichte bisher stets als in zweiter Linie genannte Persönlichkeit gefunden. Er wirkt als »Ergänzungskraft«, wenn es gilt, das Bild in Bach- oder Mozart-Biographien abzurunden. Dabei gehört er zu Gruppe der ganz wichtigen Übergangsmusiker vom Barock zu Klassik, denen cpo schon seit geraumer Zeit große Aufmerksamkeit widmet und ohne deren »Pionierarbeit« so manche spätere klassische Großtat kaum möglich gewesen wäre.