It took András Schiff over 40 years to acquire his first clavichord, but the long wait was worth it. His love for the harpsichord's ‘little sister’ began in the late 1960s, when Schiff met the English pianist, organist, composer and conductor Georg Malcolm: ‘He showed me how to play Bach's polyphony with my fingers alone, without using the sustain pedal’.Unlike the harpsichord or piano, a note (string) played on the clavichord resonates for as long as the key is held down. As a result, playing this instrument is unique in that you can influence the sound even after a key has been struck, allowing for techniques such as vibrato.Historically, the clavichord was widely used as a practice instrument and a composition aid, and it was often only played in front of small groups. This doesn’t detract from its importance and significance, however, as evidenced by its frequent use by composers such as Bach.András Schiff takes to this intimate, personal instrument to offer recordings which— together with those of Friedrich Gulda or Gustav Leonhardt—constitute one of the rare complete recordings of Bach's keyboard music for clavichord. He performs the Inventions, Sinfonias, Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue BWV 903, among others, with dedication and precision, and he’s not afraid to put his own mark on the music. Schiff tends to be less known for his historical performances, but he astonishes here with an impressive recording in which he remains true to himself and to Bach. © Lena Germann/Qobuz

Relatively unknown until a short time ago, the Piano Concerto in A minor, composed by Clara Wieck at the age of fourteen, long before she became Frau Schumann, today enjoys immense popularity. The number of recordings multiplied, while her other works dragged on behind. Her career as a composer was shattered by the macho attitudes of the time, which inevitably considered that women belonged in the kitchen or raising children. While living with an extremely depressed husband, she fell pregnant eleven times in just thirteen years. Consequently, Clara Schumann had very little time left to compose...Coming from a family of musicians, the young German pianist, Luisa Imorde, approaches Clara Schumann's Concerto opus 7 from an almost Beethovenian perspective, skipping the pure virtuosity of the writing to better extract gravity, subtle transitions, and permanent reinventions. Her programme is completed by five Lieder (by Robert), written for solo piano by his wife, and four pieces by Carl Maria von Weber, a composer whom the latter played throughout her long career as a pianist after Schumann's death.It is from this historical perspective that this album ends with Weber's Concerto No. 1 in C Major. Luisa Imorde performs it with the Bremen Philharmonic under the direction of the French conductor, Marie Jacquot, who was Kirill Petrenko's assistant before being appointed Music Director of the Royal Danish Orchestra from 2024 and Principal Guest Conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Krzysztof Penderecki's Symphony No. 6 ("Chinese Songs") is actually his final work in the genre, having been completed after the Symphony No. 7 and Symphony No. 8 in 2017. The work has not been performed or recorded much, but conductor Antoni Wit, a Penderecki specialist, makes a good case for it here with the Nörrkoping Symphony Orchestra. The symphony is definitely inspired by Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and could easily be programmed with it. Penderecki sets translations into German by Hans Bethge of Chinese poetry, just as Mahler did; Penderecki sets eight poems to Mahler's six, and none overlap with Mahler. His treatment of the orchestra is quite Mahlerian, with the orchestra divided up into small groups of instruments and not really coming together as a whole. Penderecki enters new territory with actual aspects of Chinese music, including erhu solos that are not entirely convincingly spliced in from Hong Kong. Surely, it was possible to find an erhu player in Sweden, but the work itself is intriguing. Somehow, it seems uncharacteristic of Penderecki, which might or might not be a point of interest. As preface to the symphony, there are two concertos, a trumpet concerto and a Concerto doppio for violin, cello, and orchestra; both of these are in a Shostakovich vein, with the double concerto a bit more astringent. Baritone Jarosław Bręk, who passed away before this album was released, gives beautifully controlled performances in the symphony. This album landed on classical best-seller lists in the autumn of 2023, partly because it rounds out Wit's cycle of Penderecki symphonies but also due to the intrinsic interest of the main attraction.© James Manheim /TiVo

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Over the years, the Verbier Festival has earned a global reputation for bringin together the world’s biggest stars and promising young artists. Recently, the Swiss festival joined forces with Deutsche Grammophon and announced the launch of the Verbier Festival Gold label, which intends to publish the festivals vast archives at a rate of one publication per month. After Verdi’s Requiem conducted by Gianandrea Noseda and an album dedicated to pianist Yuja Wang, here we have Bryn Terfel’s recital which he performed in the Alps with pianist Llyr in 2011.In the nineteenth century, the beautiful Swiss mountains inspired the imaginations of numerous writers, painters and musicians. A regular at this festival, Bryn Terfel focused his recital programme on a small number of Schubert Lieder, including the sumptuous Liebesbotschaft (“Love message”), as well as Schumann’s great Liederkreis, Op. 39. It was fitting that he performed this with the Swiss Alps as a backdrop.The Welsh baritone had already recorded the vast Schumann cycle for DG with Malcom Martineau in 1999, and his vocals are equally breath-taking in this Verbier recording. His sensational diction and phrasing are coupled with beautiful expression. Something that really stands out on this recording is the increased power in his vocals, likely a result of the audience’s support and his recent involvement with Wagnerian operas that no doubt helped expand and strengthen his bass tone. Somewhat curiously, this high-level recital continued with Jacques Ibert’s Chansons de Don Quichotte and the Five Shakespeare Songs by British composer Roger Quilter. Bryn Terfel and his pianist generously provided numerous encore performances, appeasing the insatiable audience that kept asking for more. © François Hudry/Qobuz

The pairing of soprano Dorothea Röschmann and pianist Mitsuko Uchida is a somewhat odd one, but it seems to have been enthusiastically undertaken by both parties. This recording was made live, drawn from a tour in which the pair performed this exact program on both sides of the Atlantic. They know the music well and get deeply into it. Röschmann is a soprano much prized these days by those who value sheer richness of tone; she doesn't interact much with the great Eichendorff texts of the Liederkreis, Op. 39, although somehow she seems to connect more with Berg's Seven Early Songs; their Straussian flavor fits her voice perfectly. Uchida, as accompanist, is entirely different: her lines seem to flow like a river with its own energy beneath the text, and she is quietly probing in her playing. This combination gets to the similarity between the otherwise divergent Schumann and Berg; Schumann's songs, as much as those of the much later Berg's, are conversations between singer and pianist. Whether that conversation occurs here may be a matter of individual reaction, but the performance has both beauty and distinctiveness. Decca's engineers have gotten near-studio clarity from London's Wigmore Hall and captured the live excitement.© TiVo

On their new album "Closer to Paradise", Spark form a unique partnership with the internationally acclaimed countertenor Valer Sabadus to produce, in musical form, a feeling of longing, that wonderful, painful yet bitter-sweet emotional state ’twixt melancholy and happiness. The spectrum of works ranges from the classical masters such as Antonio Vivaldi, Robert Schumann, Gabriel Fauré, Erik Satie and Kurt Weill through to French chansonnier Leo Ferré, Italian cantautore Lucio Dalla, American singer-songwriter Barry Manilow, British synth-rock-group Depeche Mode and the German cult band Rammstein. Rounded off with some compositions by the Spark musicians themselves, the pieces blend into an aural study of emotions, the fruit of an exciting musical collaboration and a consistently thrilling recording project. The archetype of happiness, a sanctuary of peace and harmony, the focus of our longings: the innovative chamber-music formation Spark quickly recognised "Paradise" as the central topic at the heart of this album. The works, specially arranged, re-worked, completely re-orientated, or even totally new, all underscore aspects of longing and rapture – thereby creating a link to a star singer with a vocal register that will take your breath away. Countertenor Valer Sabadus, a frequent performer on all the great stages around the world, turns premonition of out to be the perfect companion for Spark’s journey closer to paradise, whether when languishing in Vivaldi’s intoxicating aria "Vedrò con mio diletto", sensing the powerful yet fragile death in Rammstein’s Seemann or yielding to the French insouciance of Youkali: Sabadus and Spark are a match made in heaven. The arrangements, tailor-made for his voice, offer him the opportunity to demonstrate a truly stupendous versatility. From Romantically whispered passages through to forceful, rock-laden melodies, the global star pulls out all the stops of his vocal art and is thoroughly persuasive – not least because he never resorts to pretence and also because the intelligently conceived sounds of Spark provide precisely the right framework for his highly emotional interpretations. Yet again, the Classical Band shines in the role of classical chameleon – as a group able to engage sensitively with its guest and while simultaneously celebrating a stylistic diversity that is truly second to none. Classical masterworks, folk songs, chansons and rock songs – all are mixed up with wild abandon, Spark’s innovative concept providing them with their own coherence that is aurally persuasive and dramaturgically convincing. The natural blend of classical and modern music brings an astonishingly fresh aura to this classical album. In their new context, the individual works have gained a sense of timelessness. In just the same way that the feeling of longing is all-embracing and timeless. © Berlin Classics