Chamber Music & Recitals

The lute was a very popular instrument in Bach's day. The various types of lute had for centuries been influential in shaping the development of music. Certain musical terms are in fact directly derived from lute-playing technique, including the...

The lush foliage of Juan Esquivel's 'enclosed garden' is expertly tended by de Profundis, who reveal the neglected output of another master of the Spanish Renaissance.1. Esquivel: Regina Caeli 2. Rodrigo de Ceballos: Hortus Conclusus 3. Esquivel: Missa...

The love of nature and Sufi poetry are the threads running through the production of this album. I've been looking for a way to connect these two themes to music for a long time. At the age of thirteen, my first guitar teacher, Leo van Rutte, introduced...

The love for the Latvian landscape is audible in the piano works of Latvia's greatest living composer, Peteris Vasks (b. 1946), especially in his Seasons, the composer's most frequently performed piano work. For this album pianist Reinis Zarin has...

The Loreley is one of the most famous figures of the romantic era, and even today the massive rock in the Rhine is notorious for threatening the river's skippers with shipwreck. The legendary female figure with her seductive beauty today no longer haunts...

The long-awaited Beethoven year has turned out different from what everyone expected. The major project of Nike Wagner, artistic director of the Beethoven Festival in Bonn, has also had to be postponed for a year. It was to include amongst other things...

The long overdue rediscovery of Emilie Mayer naturally earns her the near-universal label of "female Beethoven", which she was called even by her contemporaries. On the one hand that is a great honor, for Mayer is indeed considered the most successful...

The long life of Don Pietro Gnocchi remains largely a mystery. We know the precise periods during which he worked at the Cathedral in Brescia, first as Maestro di Cappella, from 16th June 1723, and then as organist, from 10th April 1762 until his death;...

The long and vibrant tradition of art-song in England has seen many great composers from Finzi to Vaughan Williams, Gurney to Moeran and Warlock and countless more. The small Dunelm Records label released many albums of English song in limited...

The London-born Peter Racine Fricker was once a prominent figure on the British musical landscape but slipped from view after he took up a teaching post in California in 1964. This first-ever survey of his organ music reveals a vigorously contrapuntal...

The London-based chamber choir Sonoro, with conductor Neil Ferris, follow up their acclaimed debut album with an absorbing and characterful programme of works for Christmas. Striking a balance between new compositions, re-setting of familiar texts and...

The London Haydn Quartet continue their critically acclaimed series celebrating their namesake, which The Guardian raves has, 'too many pleasures to enumerate.' This volume, featuring the String Quartets of Op.64, is another unmissable double-disc set...