Chamber Music & Recitals

While Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was above all else a dazzlingly accomplished harpsichordist, his considerable output for flute can easily be explained by the milieu in which he worked for nearly thirty years. The Berlin court of Frederick II was in fact...

While Brahms excelled in nearly every form, he was particularly renowned for his contributions to chamber music. This 2 CD set displays Brahms' complete work in the string quartet form, gorgeously elevated by the Juilliard String Quartet to the level of...

While any of Liszt's superb transcriptions of Beethoven's first eight symphonies is a challenge for the pianist, the two-piano arrangement of the Ninth is at once spellbinding and a formidable test. This remarkable synthesis of soloists, chorus and...

While African masks are readily identified, their voices -although essential- are much less well-known: they speak and sing. The most modest masks, intended for entertainment, as well as the most powerful ones with strong supernatural power, use music...

Which 'Clavier' did Bach have in mind? Apart from a 'grand clavessin' by Michael Mietke, which he probably had at his disposal at the court in C?then, there is evidence that he knew instruments by Gottfried Silbermann. A harpsichord with a 16' stop by...

Whether you call it visceral or rockin', the music of Chicago-based composer Marc Mellits is never less than smokin' hot. In this album of ensemble works, New Music Detroit not only finds the groove, it shakes it. Smoke is the culmination of a long and...

Whether singing, conducting, dancing or acting, the Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan is a source of fascination. Alpha Classics is proud to enter her world today and to present in 2017 her very first album as singer and conductor: with the...

Whether in his original home of Vienna, as a conservatoire director in Germany, or as an ?migr? in Edinburgh, where he became one of the mainstays of musical life, Hans G (1890-1987) championed choral singing as a way of directly involving people in...

Whether in his original home of Vienna, as a conservatoire director in Germany, or as an ?migr? in Edinburgh, where he became one of the mainstays of musical life, Hans G (1890-1987) championed choral singing as a way of directly involving people in...

Whereas The Art of the Fugue remains wrapped in respectful veneration and an aura of mystery, the contemporary Musical Offering has acquired relatively longstanding popularity. This is somewhat paradoxical, however, as the work is no less complex, and...

Where next after Mozart's Clarinet Quintet? Try these duos and trios by Georg Friedrich Fuchs (1752-1821) in newly recorded period-instrument performances. Born in the German city of Mainz in 1752, Fuchs was a pupil of Haydn's before becoming a wind-band...

Where Jutland meets Germany, you will find a border country that has served as a transition and meeting point for over a thousand years, but also as a point of contention. In the border country there has always been a living mix of Danes and Germans who...