SACDs - Ravel

If there's one period to which we feel specially attracted, it's the time when Ravel and Bartók wrote their sonatas and rhapsodies. Music styles from all corners of the world were blowing across the European continent, taking root as folk dances, blues rhythms and exotic melodies in the hearts of classically trained musicians. How very similar to our own situation!

We were formed by Beethoven and Schubert, but with American colleagues, Indonesian forefathers and pop and jazz musicians as close friends our musical world was equally determined by Radiohead, Brad Mehldau and Indonesian gamelan. Bartók and Ravel show us how traditional craftsmanship can be combined with the sounds of other cultures. In their music we can give full rein to our craft, the flame of our ensemble playing and our love for our instruments. At the same time, we recognize in it the groove, the catch in the voice and the raw expression, which captivate us beyond the concert hall. All these elements are brought together in masterly fashion. And so this CD is not only a homage to Ravel and Bartók, but also to the unbounded world of music, in which we both feel free and happy. Enjoy our recording!

Rosanne Philippens & Yuri van Nieuwkerk In 2001 Yuri and Rosanne met at a summer school high up in the mountains of Switzerland. Playing together, it became clear that they had much in common in their musicianship. On returning to Holland they decided to form a duo, and this has been a great success. Today they continue to play together and their musicianship - both as individuals and as a duo - is recognised increasingly. The duo was awarded the Netherlands Programming Foundation Duo Prize at the National Violin Competition, and has broadcast on Dutch classical radio and TV. At the latest Vriendenkrans/het Debuut they won Het Debuut, and with it a grant for further studies and a series of ten concerts at leading chamber music venues in Holland in 2013. The duo has also performed in Switzerland, Germany and Liechtenstein.

Pierre Monteux conducts the LSO in classic recordings from 1959 and 1961, remastered and edited from stereo analogue tapes. In 1911 he was invited by Diaghilev to conduct his Ballet Russes and he led the premieres of 'Daphnis and Chloé', Debussy's 'Jeux', 'Petrushka' and the 'Rite of Spring', the last of which caused a notorious riot.

He became the musical director of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1961, at the age of 86, and had one of the longest musical careers exceeded perhaps only by Stokowski and Casals.

A tribute to Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, a veritable mythic and unpredictable Italian pianist,; a perfectionist with a carefully chosen repertory in which Scarlatti's works joined those of Debussy and Ravel, while the great German romantics, from Beethoven to Brahms, were magnified and exalted, showing the soundness of their construction. The number of his recordings is limited, with mostly works by Debussy and Ravel and a few by Beethoven. He used to buy pirate live discs of his concerts as presents for his friends instead of his 'official' recordings! Here is a French anthology collecting legendary renderings of his inimitable touch easy to recognise by its ductile nature and the purity of his style. A revived masterpiece.

Recorded Live May 22 1960 London [Gaspard, Concerto], February 12 1952 [Valses], June 3 1960 [Debussy]

On this new disc, Maxim Rysanov and Ashley Wass present works illustrating the striking affinity between the timbre of the viola and the colours in French music.

The disc includes arrangements of music by Ravel, Fauré and Debussy: Alongside two Pavanes, the programme includes perennial favourites such as Après un rêve and Clair de lune.

Rysanov and Wass also perform two contemporary pieces by the Swiss-French composer Richard Dubugnon. Incantatio and Lied, both for viola and piano, are adaptations by the composer of existing works made especially for Maxim Rysanov.

For BIS Rysanov has previously recorded a solo disc with three of Bach’s cello suites and his own arrangement for viola and orchestra of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations.

BIS is proud to present a new disc from star pianist Yevgeny Sudbin who here combines works by Liszt, Ravel and Saint-Saëns under the themes of Love, Delirium and Death.

Funérailles is Liszt’s elegy for his Hungarian countrymen who died in the 1849 uprising against Habsburg Rule. Death also appears in Ravel’s depiction of a hanging – Le Gibet (The Gallows) from Gaspard de la Nuit – and closes the programme in Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre.

Love is present in the Petrarch Sonnets – originally song settings of poems in which Petrarch immortalises, the object of his unrequited passion – and Ravel’s Ondine – the tale of a water nymph tempting a mortal to join her in the depths of the lake.

Delirium is present throughout the disc, especially during the nightmarish portrait of the goblin Scarbo.

Yevgeny Sudbin has received considerable critical acclaim for his recordings on BIS. His disc of music by Scriabin was described in BBC Music Magazine as being ‘as terrifyingly changeable and emotionally all-engulfing as the music itself’.