Like Chopin’s Barcarolle, Fauré’s work shows equal measures of limpidity and gravity, brightness and great depth. Finding the right words to describe music such as this, which is not at all descriptive, is far from easy, and it puts us on unsafe ground. In answer to a lady who asked him in what sunny climes he had written his Sixth Nocturne, the composer replied ‘In the Simplon tunnel’. An apt quip! But we are touched by this music, which is very secretive, yet very human, because of its élan, its aspiration to something vast, and at the same time its inner poetry. Not a single page of the thirteen Barcarolles is lacking in that inspiration, which so movingly brings them together as a set of thirteen poems.

The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Netherlands Radio Choir, under Chief Conductor Karina Canellakis, present Rachmaninoff: The Bells & Symphonic Dances, a powerful and deeply expressive interpretation of these late masterpieces by Sergei Rachmaninoff. In The Bells, radiant choral textures and richly coloured orchestration trace a journey from youthful shimmer and lyrical warmth to ominous tolling, overwhelming drama and a final vision of serene transcendence.

Bach's Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord hardly lack for excellent recorded versions in the period instrument department, including these sensitive and musicianly collaborations between Giuliano Carmignola and Andrea Marcon. Tempos rarely move faster than the music can sing, and cultivated vocalism characterizes Carmignola's sweet, silvery timbre, which differs from Andrew Manze's grittier approach. Indeed, you hardly notice Carmignola's bow arm at all in the way his long, sustained notes seem to materialize from within the harpsichord. A genuine give and take prevails as the musicians effortlessly adjust to each other's foreground and background roles.

Only 20 years old, Johan Dalene has already been hailed as ‘a musician of special sensibilities’ (Gramophone) in possession of ‘a rare fire’ (Diapason), and his début disc, with the concertos of Tchaikovsky and Barber, was described as ‘one of the finest violin débuts of the last decade’ in the BBC Music Magazine.

The symphonies presented on this CD are all quite different in their compositional intentions and basic stylistic traits, but they do evidence certain parallels in their formal design (two works in one movement, two times three movements), their origins and in several other aspects.