New Releases

"Through its dynamic co-operation TrondheimSolistene (the Trondheim Soloists) and 2L have always sought to stretch the boundaries of what is possible to convey to the listener, aiming for the ultimate recorded listening experience. With the Serenade the team has taken things one step further, with the TrondheimSolistene truly justifying their name. By placing each individual next to someone from a different musical voice rather than sitting in conventional sections we are working at the very outer limits of what is possible and creating chamber music at the highest level" - Øyvind Gimse.

This 2CD set is devoted to songs performed by the popular soprano Melanie Holliday, a singer who continues to have a successful and varied career on stage and in television. It includes music from light opera and musicals and features famous duets with the likes of René Kollo and Rudolf Schock. The soprano Melanie Holliday has achieved her greatest popularity in Japan, where she was seen as embodying in song the light entertainment of Europe and the USA represented by Viennese operetta and Broadway musicals. In Japan, she also became the face of the global company Seiko, which has sent sales of her recordings to stratospheric levels.

Carole Dawn Reinhart was the first woman to make a name for herself worldwide as a trumpet soloist. This 2CD set features her as soloist with the Munich Philharmonic in the trumpet concertos of Leopold Mozart, Hummel, Telemann and Haydn. It also includes important works from the Baroque era, in which she is joined by the German Bach Soloists and the Amsterdam Chamber Orchestra.

Born in America, the trumpet virtuoso Carole Dawn Reinhart began her European career in Vienna and Berlin. The performances presented here are still considered to be of a very high standard.

The three CDs presented here showcase the vocal talents of the great soprano Mirella Freni in her most successful stage roles. Pride of place naturally goes to Mimì (La Bohème), closely followed by Liù (Turandot), Micaëla (Carmen) and Violetta (La Traviata), but there are also parts like Butterfly, which she never sang on stage, and interesting recordings from the early years of her international career.

Even the normally reserved Herbert von Karajan grew ecstatic when Mirella Freni was the topic of conversation. His high opinion of her was surpassed, nevertheless, by the world elite of opera critics who spoke of the “golden rain” that her voice poured out over her listeners. Her unique voice and her consummate vocal technique put Mirella Freni in a class of her own among 20th century sopranos.

The debut album from South Korean pianist Jingsang Lee features little heard music - the Piano Sonata No 1 and Three Caprices - by Ferdinand Hiller (1811- 1885) alongside popular repertoire by Mendelssohn and Chopin. What makes this double CD especially unusual and attractive is that it pairs a studio recording of the programme performed on a modern Steinway grand piano with a live recital recording of all the same pieces played on three period Steinway pianos dating broadly from the years when the composers were active.

Jinsang Lee first performed this recital under the title ‘Music Making Among Friends’, an imaginary soirée involving three Romantic composers who had become very good friends.

The recording makes no pretence at historical authenticity - there’s no record of what the three young men may have played at their meetings in Paris and in Germany, and Hiller’s First Sonata was published in 1852, after the deaths of both Chopin and Mendelssohn - but it ponders on each composer performing their own music for each other’s enjoyment.

Born in 1981 in Seoul, Jingsang Lee was the first prize winner of the Hong Kong International Piano Competition in 2008, a triennial event organized by the Chopin Society of Hong Kong. Lee found Hiller’s music in the library of the Hochschule für Musik Köln where he was studying - the composer founded that august institution in 1850. Hiller’s compositions may be rarely performed nowadays but they are robust, musical and a delight to listen to.

The legendary recording is now back on the market in a splendid state of the Art re-mastering. The resultant sound is superb! A double CD.

Almost unknown until a few years ago, Berlin composer Johann Gottlieb Janitsch has become more familiar since Notturna began recording a series of his Sonata da quadro on the ATMA label. Janitsch was very active as a composer and contraviolonist at the court of Prussia since 1736, and left over 40 quadro sonatas which display the composer’s complete mastery of counterpoint.

R. Murray Schafer’s quartets have featured prominently in the repertoire of the Molinari Quartet since its establishment in 1997. On numerous occasions the Molinari Quartet has played several quartets by Schafer in the same concert. Played this way, as if each individual quartet was actually a single movement of a very long mega quartet, the cyclic form of the overall work becomes eloquently clear.

David Griffiths is well known as an operatic/oratorio soloist and recitalist. He has performed in recital and oratorio in Great Britain and the USA. His extensive repertoire includes a significant amount of European artsong.

This release features a cycle of songs, which represents a spiritual journey and written at a time of happiness, newly married with a baby son.