Mompou: Damunt de tu, nomes les flors

Although no longer a regular guest, José Carreras was in the 1970s and ’80s one of the great, up-and-coming singers and he returns in 2012 once more for a song recital in Salzburg on August 30. Accompanied here by Edoardo Müller, his recital of 1981 takes us from the French song with piano by Massenet and Fauré via the tenor “classics” of Tosti to the canciones of De Falla, Mompou and Turina – and all sung with a secure sense of style and with great subtlety.

Carreras’s encores delighted adherents of the brilliant tenor repertoire, and can be appreciated on this recording too.

Another CD in the Portrait Series. The radiantly bright and supple soprano voice of Christane Oelze has made her into a Mozart singer par excellence. Her love of opera is matched by her commitment to sacred music and lieder. The versatility of her voice can be clearly heard in this exclusive collection.

Arcadi Volodos is one of the world’s best pianists, celebrated as a “genius” and the “new Horowitz” for the unique combination of outstanding virtuosity and profound and expressive musicality.

Volodos devotes his new CD to the hardly known Catalan composer Frederic Mompou. He believes that Mompou’s solo piano works are of outstanding quality and open new worlds.

The fact that Mompou’s music is hardly known is a key to success for this CD. It can only reveal its deep und unique quality in the magnificent interpretation of Volodos.

The music of Catalonian composer Federico Mompou (1893-1987) is almost completely unknown today. Unjustly so, in the opinion of Russian star pianist Arcadi Volodos, who has devoted his new solo CD to this remarkable musical personality.

Carrying on the tradition established by his Spanish colleagues Enrique Granados and Isaac Albéniz, Mompou's works are subtle and delicate, mysterious and intimate, with a shimmering Impressionist palette. Mompou's role models are always in evidence in his many piano pieces: Chopin and Scriabin, Satie and Debussy. Yet in quiet, unobtrusive fashion, Mompou evolves a musical cosmos entirely his own from these models: his music is a true discovery.

Volodos has chosen for this CD pieces from the Mompou cycles Scènes d´Enfants (1915-18), Charmes (1920/21) and Música Callada (1959-67), which were among the composer's own favourites. In the last few years, Arcadi Volodos has regularly played works by the Catalonian composer in his recitals, prompting the Süddeutsche Zeitung to refer to his "deep sensitivity for inspired nuance".

Following his recovery from leukaemia in 1988 the great Spanish tenor José Carreras performed a series of comeback concerts, and this recording presents a collection of excerpts from these very special events. It includes not only operatic arias but also art-songs and items from Zarzuela, revealing the whole broad range of his repertoire.

Spanish tenor José Carreras unquestionably numbers among the most important tenors of the second half of the twentieth century, yet in the consciousness of many people his biography is not only marked by his outstanding artistic achievements. The apparent tragic end of the career of the then 41-year-old singer as a result of a life-threatening illness, his triumph over death, and the entirely unexpected re-commencement of his career as singer have become just as much a part of public memory as the appearances with his tenor colleagues Domingo and Pavarotti who, as ‘The Three Tenors’, delighted an audience of millions throughout the world. José Carerras went on to establish a foundation that has collected millions of euros used to alleviate the suffering of the sick and provide scientists with financial support for their research into leukaemia.

This first volume in the series “Piano Rarities” is guaranteed to thrill questing music lovers. On this CD Cyprien Katsaris visits the vast realm of piano transcriptions and adaptations. Here, you will find well-known and well-loved works like the Lieder of Schumann, Schubert, Wagner and Richard Strauss, Mahler's Fifth Symphony, the Waltz from Coppélia and Rachmaninov's Vocalise : in solo piano interpretation, they lose nothing of the emotional and poetic impact of their originals. A tireless explorer, Cyprien Katsaris challenges our curiosity and unveils true masterpieces, including works by Latin-American and Spanish composers like Tárrega, Barrios Mangoré and Mompou. Who could resist the magnificent transcription of the Prelude and Allegro in the Style of Pugnani by Kreisler which opens the programme, or the sparkling Valse by Reinhold Glière which brings it to its close? Here, through his choices and his interpretations, Cyprien Katsaris emerges once more as a thrilling man of music.

The appeal of this album owes much to the transcriptions of Professor Karol A. Penson, an eminent practising scientist whose contribution to the enrichment of the art and the repertoire of the piano is extraordinary.

Spanish Love Songs takes a whirlwind tour of Iberian culture, from the mystically introspective to the opulently romantic.

Decades before Spain had its own repertoire of classical songs, French and German musicians mined Spanish themes and folklore for their newly burgeoning canon of art songs. On Spanish Love Songs we hear the great masters Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf and Maurice Ravel, fascinated by the beauty of Spanish culture, along side the music of Spain's greatest composers of song.