This recording was made under the direction of Reinbert de Leeuw in December 2019, two months before his death. A few weeks before that, he had called Thomas Dieltjens, artistic director of Het Collectief, to tell him: ‘Since our concert in mid-July 2019 at the Saintes Festival, I’ve been haunted by Das Lied von der Erde". I’m totally under its spell, and every day I discover new things in this masterpiece by Mahler. Wouldn’t it be a dream if we could record this music with the outstanding group of instrumentalists and soloists we had in Saintes? And preferably as soon as possible?’ Reinbert himself made the arrangement for fifteen instrumentalists and two soloists and invested all his remaining strength in the recording of this music, which encompasses the whole of life, from the freshness of birth to the moment of farewell… A testamentary album, with the moving mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot, which gives us an opportunity to pay tribute to one of the key ambassadors of twentieth-century music.

After their exciting interpretations of Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert, the Chiaroscuro Quartet now turns to Mozart’s Prussian Quartets, his last compositions for this formation. These quartets were written for Friedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and amateur cellist, and offer that instrument an unusually prominent role. The first of the three was composed fairly quickly, in June 1789, but the next two were not completed until the following year, and in the end Mozart’s plan for a set of six came to nothing.

The ‘Prelude’ here is again a song arrangement – ‘Songs my mother taught me’, in which ( joined by the pianist Juho Pohjonen) Vogler pours out smooth, warm tone with unindulgent restraint…The focus, however, is on two of Dvořák’s great chamber works, in performances that conjure up the spirit of the Moritzburg Festival, where Vogler is director.

In this recording, the virtuoso Phoebe Carrai joins Beiliang Zhu to probe the art of London’s forgotten cello masters. The programme and its execution are equally superb, as Carrai and Zhu roll out one world-premiere recording after another…Infusing this project are two ingredients rare in glitzy big-name recordings: the soloists’ long friendship (Zhu studied with Carrai) and their trust in non-canonical music.