Véronique Gens / I Giardini NUITS

                                                                            NUITS

Joyce DiDonato / Brentano String Quartet INTO THE FIRE

Recorded live at London’s celebrated Wigmore Hall, this captivating recital by Joyce DiDonato and the Brentano Quartet was conceived around Jake Heggie’s song cycle Camille Claudel: Into the Fire, a work written for DiDonato – she describes it as “one of most moving projects I’ve ever been part of”. Songs by Debussy and Strauss and a quartet movement by Guillaume Lekeu complete the programme, which prompted the Financial Times to write that “the beauty and range” of DiDonato’s singing “are surely now at their impressive peak.”

EnAccord String Quartet CAPRICCIO

The string quartet repertoire is an unending voyage of discovery and exploration. The great masterpieces of the repertoire conceal unknown jewels in their shadow; these latter works, however, seldom find their way onto a concert programme. This recording introduces our listeners to our first and highly personal anthology of splendidly varied and short pieces for string quartet. We hope you enjoy them - because there are many more such works still to be discovered and enjoyed. 

“Our CD is a collection of short stories: each piece has its own structure and mood, its own individual world. Schulhoff’s five pieces, each with its own individual character, are perfect examples of this.”
Rosalinde Kluck - alt violin

“The Lekeu piece was a real discovery. Splendid music with great depth. But what a tragedy! How many more masterpieces could Lekeu have composed, if he hadn’t died at such a young age?”
Maike Reisener - cello

“It was an immense pleasure to get to grips with these small masterpieces. Puccini’s Crisantemi is possibly the best of them for me personally. It’s like a scene from one of his operas, with so much emotion and so atmospheric. And of course I’m pleased that there’s also an important work by a Belgian composer on the CD as well…”
Helena Druwé - violin

“To make this CD was a really intriguing experience. I think it’s so amazing to have so many different styles on one CD, because you get to hear all of the different things that our quartet can do. For me, one of the best things in the CD is the Mendelssohn piece, with its warm and impassioned introduction.”
Ilka van der Plas - violin

Rachel Kolly d’Alba / Christian Chamorel LYRICAL JOURNEY

The two musicians have known each other since an early age and ever since have performed together intensely on every continent across the planet. For their second album together, the violinist Rachel Kolly d’Alba and the pianist Christian Chamorel have chosen two of the most demanding sonatas from the post-romantic repertoire. 

Linking the Belgian Guillaume Lekeu and the German Richard Strauss on the same disc is as captivating as the dialogue between their two inspired interpreters. Richard Strauss wrote his Sonata op. 18 in 1886 and Guillaume Lekeu followed him 6 years later. Besides this chronological proximity, the two composers were both 22 when they composed these works: so it’s natural to ask if these sonatas have other points in common.

Alina Ibragimova / Cédric Tiberghien RAVEL Complete Music for Violin & Piano LEKEU Sonata

Maurice Ravel’s mature works for violin and piano have established a central place in the core recital repertoire and are considered among the most popular of the genre. These diverse works acknowledge the influences of a range of musical styles from jazz to Impressionism and fuse the tonal colours of Debussy with the lyricism of Franck.

The posthumously published one-movement Violin Sonata, written by Ravel as a student, is a lyrical precursor to the composer’s stunning Violin Sonata in G major with its unique character and adoption of the ‘blues’ idiom. The spontaneity, tonal colours and exotic soundscapes in Ravel’s violin music call for immense skill in interpretation, and passages in the frenzied Tzigane test the limits of the performers’ virtuosity.

Violinist Alina Ibragmiova rises to these challenges with extraordinary verve. Recent winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s prestigious ‘Young Artist of the Year’ award, she displays a vast expressive range and interpretative maturity. She is accompanied by pianist Cédric Tiberghien, who gives elegant and flawless performances and relishes Ravel’s iridescent piano parts.

The addition of Guillaume Lekeu’s masterwork, the extensive and engaging Violin Sonata, makes this major new release a chamber disc to treasure. (Hyperion Records)