CODA - ORCHESTRAL SUITES FOR LARGE ENSEMBLE

Extending the concept initiated with his critically-acclaimed Jazz Composer’s Orchestra Update album, described by Down Beat as “pretty fantastic”, Michael Mantler radically reworks music from several phases of his career.

VILLA-LOBOS - COMPLETE VIOLIN SONATAS

Heitor Villa-Lobos’s three violin sonatas date from a key period in his career: the moment at which he matured as a composer, established his personal idiom and achieved his first professional triumphs. Each sonata shares some influence from French late Romanticism or Impressionism, as well as revealing Villa-Lobos’s skill as a string player.

NINO ROTA - CHAMBER MUSIC

Nino Rota was not only the man who wrote film scores for Fellini (La strada etc), René Clément and King Vidor. He was also a twentieth-century great composer. A child prodigy, he studied in America with Fritz Reiner, crossed paths with Toscanini, Igor Stravinsky and many others.

IVES & GANDER: PIANO WORKS

Of the two large piano sonatas composed by Charles Ives, No. 2 (’the Concord Sonata’) is by far the best-known, overshadowing its sibling. The First Piano Sonata is comparably ambitious, however, and with a playing time of more than 40 minutes, similarly expansive.

KALEVI AHO - SOLO

This first volume of Solos gathers seven pieces in all, four of which have previously appeared as part of separate discs. Aho’s Solos share the characteristic that they pose great technical, interpretative and often also physical challenges to the performer.

LOVE SONGS

Angela Hewitt’s new album is clearly destined to become a favourite. Some of the best-known musical declarations of love across the centuries, heard in transcriptions by some of the great pianists (including Angela herself); this is simply exquisite and not to be missed.

SIBELIUS - ORCHESTRAL WORKS

Following their acclaimed recordings of Schoenberg with Sara Jakubiak and Britten’s Peter Grimes with Stuart Skelton, Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic turn their attention to the music of Sibelius.