Volume 8 of our complete Brahms songs proves the ideal platform for Harriet Burns in her debut album. As usual, Graham Johnson’s scholarly booklet notes are an indispensable companion.

Hélène Grimaud made her first five CDs for the Denon label, when the pianist was in her mid-teens through early 20s. Brilliant Classics has reissued them as a super-bargain boxed set. Even in her formative years, Grimaud’s world-class pianism and first-rate musical mind seemed fully sprung. Listen as she fearlessly tears through Rachmaninov’s Second Sonata, or notice the way she brings out the symphonic underpinnings of the same composer’s Op. 33 Etudes-Tableaux and Liszt’s Dante Sonata and you won’t doubt that a mature artist is at work. She makes Chopin’s G minor Ballade colorful and exciting by playing it as the composer intended, rather than re-writing his dynamics, phrasings, and ritards. Sonically, her 1992 Rachmaninov Second scores over her later traversal on Erato (see my review by typing Q3366 in Search Reviews), while fans of her terrific Erato Ravel Concerto should find the earlier Denon version equally incisive and commanding.

In these works, written for the Chapel Royal, Lully is inspired to paint a whole sweep of emotions, at once melancholy, sweet, tragic, noble and victorious. Observe his mastery of color. Listen to how choral and orchestral textures, now in five, now in ten parts, change with the rhythm of the text. Note how subtle touches of orchestral color highlight the meaning of a word or the sweetness of a modulation.

Heinichen’s last Mass, composed in the style of the high baroque as a ”number mass,“ is imposing as a result of its architectonic force and its inexhaustible originality. The basis for the brilliant, festive character of Bach's Magnificat is the scoring for trompets, timpani and a choir which here is expanded to five voices.

Before the early 20th century, any list of significant Western composers would have included Benedetto Marcello. Through his advocacy of a return to the proportional values and simplicity of ancient Roman civilization, he helped set the stage for the Classical era in Western music, soon to unseat the aesthetic norms of the Baroque in which he lived.

The Gramophone Award-winning Silesian Quartet present a double-album of the complete works for string quartet by compatriot Henryk Gorecki. All three of his numbered string quartets were written late in life – the first in 1988 – and all three were commissioned by the Kronos Quartet. The First Quartet is a single-movement work, based on a sixteenth-century song by Wacław of Szamotuły.

Celebrated violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter introduces a new concerto by her friend and frequent collaborator John Williams, with the legendary composer himself conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Composed especially for Anne-Sophie Mutter, John Williams's Violin Concerto No. 2 is the culmination of several years of collaboration and friendship between two of the world's most celebrated musical artists.

Harnoncourt hat mit dieser wunderbaren Aufnahme etwas nicht nur Ergreifendes, sondern auch ganz Wunderbares geschaffen. Die Johannes-Passion, die ja viel dramatischer ist als die vier Jahre später entstandene Matthäus-Passion, interpretiert er so packend und mitreißend, dass einem besonders bei den "Turbae"-Chören eine Gänsehaut über den Rücken läuft.

The music of the Court of Dresden is of special interest to Hans-Christoph Rademann and his two Dresden ensembles. Johann David Heinichen’s Missa No.11 is presented in a manner in which the musicians can display the entire majestic sound of this festive court music from the baroque era.

Although all of the quartet's original members with the exception of violist Josef Kluson have moved on since its 1972 founding, the Prazák Quartet has maintained many of its original traditions. For starters, the Prazák Quartet has long distinguished itself as an ensemble almost obsessed with technical precision. From its earliest recordings to the present, intonation, articulation, balance, phrasing, and even the matching of vibrato have been among its trademarks. All of these technical proficiencies have never come at the expense of musical integrity. Quite the contrary, in fact; the performances are typically quite passionate and musically sating.

In her fine Gramophone Award-winning debut disc (of Pieces de clavecin by Jacquet de la Guerre), Carole Cerasi brought a sparkling immediacy and character to music usually the esoteric domain of a minority. Now, she turns her attention to six sonatas by CPE Bach in another recital of natural flair and discernment. The achievement is perhaps all the more striking in that this Bach son is an especially tricky customer: his light, unpredictable sensibilities depend on a strong undercurrent of logical reference, mainly a rhythmic and contrapuntal presence inherited from his father. Strong artistic instincts are the critical adhesive.

Ristori was born in Bologna and after some success with the Venetian opera, went to Dresden in 1715. From the 1720s he was responsible, along with Heinichen and Zelenka, for the music at the religious services at the Catholic court. He was appointed as church composer after Zelenka died. The first work on this CD was composed for the Royal Chapel and he second was written for teaching figured bass.

This collection of songs published in the year following Schubert’s death in 1828 is not a true cycle, nor were these pieces intended as a set by the composer. Even the title, which refers to the Romantic notion of a swan’s ability to sing one enchanting song only at its death, was assigned posthumously by the collection’s publisher. Nevertheless, all but one of these 14 deeply emotional songs (in the best Romantic tradition of desperation, lost love, longing, and wistful, painful remembrance) are set to the poems of two writers, Ludwig Rellstab and Heinrich Heine.

Martin Frösts new album is a baroque adventure based on the question: What might Vivaldi have composed for the clarinet if it had been more fully developed? For this recording three clarinet concertos have been newly composed, made up of music drawn from Vivaldis most beautiful opera and oratorio arias. Performed on the mellow, songlike chalumeau the predecessor of the modern clarinet and the brilliant, virtuosic clarinet of today, Martin Fröst and Concerto Köln create a wonderful symbiosis between the old and the new.

A l'occasion du tricentenaire de la naissance de C.P.E. Bach, Olivier Vernet a enregistré l'intégrale de son oeuvre pour orgue qui est complétée par la réédition des deux Concertos pour orgue et orchestre qu'il avait gravé en 1998 avec l'Orchestre d'Auvergne placé sous la direction d'Arie Van Beck et salués alors par 5 Diapasons. La plus jeune soeur de Frédéric II, la princesse Anna Amalia de Prusse (1723-1787) possédait une vaste collection de compositions de C.P.E. Bach suggérant ainsi que ces oeuvres étaient régulièrement jouées à la cour d'Anna Amalia.