Coming from 1901, the middle 1920’s and 1966, the four wind quintets on this disc are vastly different from one another. The title of the CD is ‘German Wind Quintets’; the youthful and crackerjack Quintette Aquilon performs. The program opens with the plush romantic harmonies...

Performed by the young German brass ensemble, 10forBrass, this new Genuin CD titled “Portrait” offers some of the finest brass playing I’ve heard for some time. The group was founded in 2010 by young musicians from across Germany while they were in attendance at various music...

A program of transcriptions and original works for flute and piano, Vocalise highlights the brilliant artistry of flautist Adam Walker on a new release from Opus Arte. The human voice in song is the inspiration for the selection of music on Vocalise. Three of the six works were conceived for...

Our knowledge of music in Iceland up until the 18th century is confined to the contents of various Icelandic hymnbooks. Hymnodia sacra is the best known of these. It is also the title of this Smekkeysa Records CD and forms the basis for its contents (Smekkeysa translates to tastelessness from...

The viola continues apace advancing its share of representation as a solo instrument in the catalog of classical recordings. We generally see a half dozen or so added to the catalog each month, and if memory serves me, there are now four titles on Expedition Audio devoted to the viola as a...

Pianist Rosa Antonelli takes us on a musical tour of South America and Spain with this collection of beguiling pieces for solo piano titled Remembranza, remembrance of Latin sounds. The melancholy romantic music by Astor Piazzolla, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Ernesto Nazareth, Enrique Granados and...

The diverse choral music of Holst, Prokofiev, Beach, Rheinberger, Mendelssohn and Rossini makes for a very enjoyable program, sung by the seven women and one countertenor of the Etherea Vocal Ensemble. These eight young singers are led by their artistic director Derek Greten-Harrison on a...

I’ve had this Coviello CD out for several weeks now, intending to listen to it again. It had made a very good impression the first time through, but I hadn’t decided to review it yet. After listening to it a few times through today, I don’t know why I hesitated in the first place. Maybe...

As superb as the performances are on this recording, and as enjoyable as the program of works is (more on those later), the story of the Israeli Chamber Project should also be told. The Project is made up of a group of musicians playing an unlikely group of instruments: clarinet, cello, harp,...

Music that has long been familiar often feels newly discovered through the simple shift of colors, textures and timbre. This, of course, is the magical art of orchestration, but this same sense of transformation can be accomplished by simply transcribing music from its original, familiar...