Mozart: Variations (12) on ‘Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman' in C major, K265

With his incomparable charm and erudition, André Previn plays 'Piano Pieces for Children', a collection of pieces by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Mussorgsky and Goddard Lieberson, played by one of the most versatile musicians of our day.

Recently awarded Canada’s prestigious Governor General’s Performing Arts Award 2012 for Lifetime Achievement in Classical Music, pianist Janina Fialkowska presents her second Mozart CD on ATMA with two rarely heard Mozart concertos.

Based in Ottawa, The Chamber Players of Canada is a group made up of some of the best musicians from across Canada.

Please note that the whole text of the CD and of the enclosed booklet is ONLY IN ITALIAN LANGUAGE.

The Arp Schnitger organ in St. Ludger’s Church in Norden is among the most important baroque instruments of its kind.

The artists perform an appealing programme designed to demonstrate the strengths of the instrument.

This is Luchterhandt and Janssen’s third release on “their instrument”.

2012 sees the 70th birthday of Daniel Barenboim, surely one of the greatest of all living musicians as pianist and conductor. He began what has grown into his vast recording career as a young teenager, with these recordings, first issued in the early months of 1956, when the boy pianist was just 13 years old. They are beautiful performances of a wide range of music, from Bach to Shostakovich, and we are pleased to present this complete collection of Daniel Barenboim's first-ever recordings as a memento of his gilded youth - recordings which have not been available now in any form for more than 40 years - and which all admirers of this great artists will wish to possess.

At the age of ten Zhu Xiao-Mei entered the Peking Conservatory where her brilliant studies were interrupted by the years of the Cultural Revolution. She was sent to a re-education camp on the border of Inner Mongolia for five years. On returning to Peking, she completed her studies and left China as soon as the regime gave its first signs of opening to the outside world. In 1980 she emigrated to the United States, settling in Paris in 1984. Zhu Ziao-Mei gives few concerts, appearing in public usually to perform demanding works: ‘mountains of the soul’.

The winner of numerous international competitions, the brilliant young accordion player Ksenija Sidorova here presents her debut recording; a recital for solo classical accordion.

A particularly accomplished artist, Ksenija has collaborated with many leading musicians (including the Belcea Quartet, and Valergy Gergiev with the CBSO), and won numerous awards and accolades.

“one of the real finds of this series” The Times

Still an underexploited resource in western classical music, the accordion has had a fast-increasing amount of music written for it since the mid-20th Century. Here, Ksenija Sidrova brings a varied recital featuring some of the best contemporary compositions for the classical accordion, alongside transcriptions of well-known works.

No composer has been transcribed more often than Bach; but the accordion - heard here in Bachʼs Overture in the French Style - brings an advantage that few other instruments can offer; itʼs notes do not die away as soon as they are sounded. This allows an array of colouristic possibilities, denied to other musicians.

Amongst the contemporary works here, Arne Nordheimʼs Flashing, written in 1985 for solo accordion, has become a classic of the accordion repertoire. Nordheimʼs music has a real sense of physicality, of movement and change on a large scale. In contrast, Luciani Berioʼs Sequenza XIII opens with a compressed melody which is gradually developed amid splashes of complex harmony and virtuoso filigree.

Yuji Takahashuʼs Like a Water-Buffalo is preceded on this disc by the poem that inspired it. Well-known in Takahashiʼs native Japan, it is a moving, heartfelt piece, strongly transmitting the sounds of freedom.

This recital CD also features a ʻbonus trackʼ - Astor Piazzollaʼs “Asleep”, the first of the composerʼs Five Tango Sensations, performed by Ksenija Sidorova with the exuberant young Sacconi Quartet.

“an amazingly accomplished artist” Classical Source

Composers featured in this stunning recital include: Nordheim, Berio, Schnittke, Takahashi, Piazzolla, Scarlatti, Bach and Mozart.