ESO Records releases its second album, with live recordings of Sibelius's Symphonies No. 6 and No. 7, and symphonic poem Tapiola, on 25 April 2025, with the English Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Woods (ESO2502), in partnership with Ulysses Arts.

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Denis Delair is known today as a theorist and the author of the Traité d’Acompagnement pour le Theorbe, et le Clavessin, first published in 1690. Despite mention of his instrumental compositions in the 1724 edition of his treatise, Delair’s compositions have - until now - fallen into obscurity.

In looking through the catalogue of the Düben Collection, a Swedish musical manuscript collection started in the 1640s, members of The Levée came across seven ‘Sonates à Violino seul’ by a ‘Mr De L’air’. When we began studying these sonatas, we were captivated by Delair’s unique style of composition: the rich harmonies, his rhetorical, vocal writing for instruments, the heavy chromaticism and surprising modulations.

These sonatas are an excellent counterpart to Delair’s theoretical writing: they are the perfect vehicle for the application of ideas from the treatise, and they feature examples of the harmonies
that Delair mentions in his chapter on ‘Acompagnemens [sic] extraordinaires’.

DELAIR’S SONATAS IN SWEDEN

While no other copies of Delair’s Sonatas have yet been found, their appearance in the Düben Collection suggests that the works circulated amongst musicians.

The Sonatas were copied by the Swedish church musician Carl Hintz. Hintz held positions in churches in Sweden and Latvia, but there is no evidence that he travelled to France. In the 17th century, the Swedish court had a taste for French aesthetics, and many artists were sent to Paris for educational purposes. Hintz was employed as a copyist under the Hofkapellmeister Anders von Düben to copy parts from French stage works by composers like Lully for performances of a French troupe of actors and musicians resident in Stockholm from 1699 to 1706. It is possible that these French musicians brought Delair’s sonatas to Sweden, and that Hintz was tasked with making a copy. Hintz died in either 1710 or 1711, so Delair’s sonatas must have been written and circulated before this date.

'Unearthed elegance'. Read more on Continuo Connect.

Delair: The Violin Sonatas, on France Musique

The Levée is an early music ensemble formed to bring forgotten music back to life and to explore new stories of music history. They want to interrogate why some music had a continuous performing tradition, and why other music remained untouched. They find that relatively unknown music presents exciting challenges to modern historical performance practice and understanding of music history.

The Ensemble reflects the interests of its constituent members in its focus on the ‘unwritten’ aspects of music which bring it to life: historically informed ornamentation, improvisation, and basso continuo realisation. Works like these Delair’s Sonatas on their debut album break down preconceptions about what we now categorise as Italian, French or German national styles,  and are of particular interest to the group.

The Levée takes its name from a painting and engraving of the same title in William Hogarth’s series A Rake’s Progress (1732-35). The eight painting series depicts the machinations of a spendthrift, hedonist son of a wealthy merchant who comes to no good but enjoys himself along the way.

The Levée, the second painting in Hogarth's series, shows the protagonist "Tom Rakeford" indulging in sport and artistic luxuries. Present at Rakeford’s levée (morning ceremony) is a harpsichordist thought to represent Handel or Porpora, alongside a dancing master holding a small violin.

The Levée comprises founding members:
Marguerite Wassermann - Baroque Violin    
Josef Laming – Harpsichord
Niels Pfeffer – Theorbo
Martin Jantzen – Viola da Gamba

Guest artist (Delair album)
Elise Dupont - Baroque Violin

The Levée on CONTINUO CONNECT

Instrumentalists Marguerite Wassermann (violin), Martin Jantzen (viola da gamba) and Josef Laming (harpsichord) studied together in Switerzland at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and benefitted from coaching from professors such as Amandine Beyer, Eva Saladin, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher and Thomas Leiniger. The Levée made this recording in St John's Church, Loughton, in the UK, where they also presented a showcase concert of selections from Delair's Opus, followed by performances of their 'Delair in Context' programme in the UK, Germany and Switzerland.

ALBUM LAUNCH CONCERT: BASEL, SWITZERLAND, 24 APRIL 2025
Zunftsaal Schmiedenhof, Rümelinsplatz 4, 4001 Basel, 7:30pm

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Nimbus Records releases Discover Jean Françaix: The Best of Martin Jones, on 2 May 2025 (NI.7732). The album is a compilation of Martin Jones's acclaimed three-volume set of Jean Françaix's complete piano music.

Jean René Désiré Françaix was born in Le Mans on 23 May 1912 into a musical family – his father was a composer and pianist, his mother a singing teacher.

Françaix was a prolific composer, whose output amounts to over 200 works in a wide range of genres. His œuvre includes symphonies and cantatas, but he was most prolific in writing for the forces of soloist and orchestra. He first made his name in 1932, with a performance of his Eight Bagatelles for piano and string quartet at the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in Vienna. His language is resolutely tonal, with a generally restricted but effective harmonic vocabulary… Charm wit and elegance, often with a sense of wry detachment, inform his scores, which are distinguished by their precision and clarity. Though an archetypally French composer, he exhibited a cheerful eclecticism, ranging over the Western musical tradition in all its diversity, which chimes with the ‘magpie’ instincts of his compatriots Poulenc and Ibert, for example.

The piano occupies a prime position in Françaix’s output, whether as a concertante instrument or in the more intimate forms of chamber music and instrumental pieces for solo piano and duets. He used it principally as a vehicle for exhibiting his virtuosity, yet his piano scores contain several examples of introspection and nostalgic reflection.
© Paul Conway

Celebrated British pianist Martin Jones recorded the complete piano music of Jean Françaix (1912-1997) in 2012 on 3 CDs. This is a compilation of his best music, in which wit, sophistication and extreme virtuosity combine in one of the twentieth century’s instantly recognisable voices.

Martin Jones has been one of Britain’s most highly regarded solo pianists since first coming to international attention in 1968 when he received the Dame Myra Hess Award. The same year he made his London debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and his New York debut at Carnegie Hall, and ever since has been in demand for recitals and concerto performances on both sides of the Atlantic.

He is a prolific recording artist and his many major projects include the complete solo piano works of Mendelssohn, Brahms, Debussy, Grainger, Stravinsky, Korngold, Szymanowski, Granados, Guastavino, Mompou, Ernesto Halffter, Joaquin Nin, Has Gál, Jean Françaix, Jean Roger-Ducasse, and Alan Richardson.

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Lyrita Recorded Edition releases British Piano Concertos on 2 May 2025, with music by John Addison, Philip Cannon and Francis Chagrin, performed by soloist Simon Callaghan with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by William Boughton (SRCD.444)

Philip Cannon’s Concertino for piano and strings (1951) dates from his formative years. It was written for the Petersfield Festival, where it was premiered on 27 January 1951 by soloist Joseph Cooper, with the Petersfield Orchestra conducted by Kathleen Merritt. This lively, neo-classical piece has achieved over a thousand performances internationally.

Though John Addison’s Concertino for piano and orchestra is, for the most part, couched in a light-hearted language, it is the product of a serious, and unfailingly inventive, approach to keyboard and orchestral writing. Speaking of the work to Lesie Ayre of the London Evening News, the composer remarked that, ‘it is a real concerto in the full sense of the word...I would not be ashamed to show the work to any first-class pianist’.

Francis Chagrin maintained an intensely practical and unpretentious attitude towards his own craft, observing that, ‘My music is not for first performances– it is just to be played’. His Piano Concerto was first performed by soloist Franz Osborn, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer, at an SPNM Experimental Rehearsal held at the Royal College of Music on 4 February 1944.

Conversation Piece by John Addison was written in 1958 to a commission from the BBC Concert Orchestra for that year’s British Light Music Festival. John Addison felt that, by the late-1950s, too great a divide had opened up between serious and light music: ‘Concert goers think contemporary music is so alarmingly serious that when confronted with a mildly witty turn of phrase, they assume something has gone wrong. I remember the astonished sigh of relief when, in the course of introducing one of my chamber works, I told the audience I would not mind if they smiled’. In Conversation Piece, Addison exploits to the full his talent to amuse and divert.

Simon Callaghan performs internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, in parallel with a highly successful career as a recording artist. A favourite performer at the internationally-renowned Husum Festival of Piano Rarities in Germany, Callaghan’s recent sell-out concert was praised by VAN Magazine as a “cleverly curated recital full of discoveries” and by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as “technically brilliant”.

Callaghan has developed a wide following and appears on a regular basis in the UK’s major concert halls, and on tours to Asia, North America and Europe. Recital partners have included Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Nicholas Daniel, Adrian Brendel, Feng Ning, Samuel West, Prunella Scales and Timothy West. BBC Young Musician of the Year Finalist Coco Tomita and Callaghan have a successful duo partnership which saw their first record released in 2022 on Orchid Classics. He is also a founding member of the London Piano Quartet, joining colleagues from the renowned Piatti Quartet to showcase the repertoire for piano quartet with a particular focus on revivifying works that have fallen into obscurity.

Electronic press kit for reviewers and radio presenters available from Ulysses Arts.

English Symphony Orchestra Records announces the release of its first album, with live recordings of Elgar Symphony No. 1 and In The South conducted by Principal Conductor and Artistic Director Kenneth Woods, on 28 March 2025, in partnership with Ulysses Arts (ESO2501).

'From my first contact with the ESO, it was clear this music was in their blood. My predecessor, Vernon Handley, was as fine an Elgarian as there’s ever been, and a protégé of Elgar’s preferred conductor, Adrian Boult. Yehudi Menuhin, possibly Elgar’s closest collaborator at the end of his life, was our Principal Guest Conductor for the last decade of his life.

With the memory of their contributions to the orchestra’s Elgar legacy still fresh, it felt from day one that Elgar here is no distant historic figure of the past. Unlike Gustav Mahler, whose own performances only survive on a few piano rolls, we can even see and hear Elgar the conductor. These performances are informed deeply by the many revelatory lessons I have gleaned from listening to his definitive and thrilling interpretations of his own music.

There are studio recordings aplenty of Elgar’s major works. Our aim with these Elgar Festival Live recordings is not simply to share a performance of a piece, but to share a memory of an occasion and a flavour of this magical place. Each is a record of a single performance that grew out of a week’s immersion in all things Elgar, down to the sights he saw, the streets he walked and the air he breathed. I never take for granted that I get to stand on the same spot in Worcester Cathedral that Elgar did so many times, not so long ago. I hope the passion and virtuosity of my incredible colleagues, the intensity of our audience’s listening, and the magical acoustics of this great building all help you to feel closer to Elgar.

Elgar Festival Live is to remind us that Edward Elgar is someone whose personality remains fresh in the memory. He is somewho whose legacy is very much alive, whom the listener can think of more as a friend of a friend.'

Kenneth Woods, ESO Principal Conductor and Artistic Director

Pre-Release Singles

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Nimbus Records releases Julius Röntgen Piano Music Volume 6, performed by Mark Anderson, on 4 April 2025 (NI 8117).

'I must confess that I’ve been following this series since it began and I’ve been very impressed with all of the discs so far.' Jonathan Welsh, MusicWeb International

This recording provides the listener with a chronological overview of Julius Röntgen’s creative output, from his earliest published composition, written in 1864—when he was just nine years old—to pieces written as a mature composer five decades later. The latter reveals a composer of outstanding skill, diverse influences, and a master of musical forms and compositional techniques. It has been said that “One would look in vain for anything truly original or shocking in Röntgen’s output....”. However, there are works included on this recording that dispel that assumption. This pianist would argue that three works stand out, which are truly unique and powerfully original. The first is a short Toccata, which is something of a mystery work having never been published and lacking a date of composition. The others are the Sonata in C Minor from 1877 and the Passacaglia and Fugue of 1911. It is the latter that most decidedly distinguishes Röntgen as having a truly original voice. Julius Röntgen composed over 600 works and is especially known for his concertos, symphonies and chamber music. His piano music has remained unjustifiably neglected since he died in 1932. © Mark Anderson

Mark Anderson
 
Pianist Mark Anderson’s recordings and performances have met with widespread critical acclaim. Since his successes at the 1993 Leeds (U.K.) and 1994 William Kapell (U.S.) International Piano Competitions, Mark Anderson has appeared frequently as recitalist, soloist and chamber musician. He has performed in Japan, throughout much of Europe and Great Britain, Ireland and North America. Mark Anderson has collaborated with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Nicholas McCegan, William Boughton, George Cleve, and Adam Fischer. Mark given recitals at New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Weill Hall, the Kennedy Centre and the Phillips Gallery in Washington D.C., London's Wigmore Hall and Zurich's Tonhalle and elsewhere throughout Europe and North America. His solo and concerto performances are complimented by chamber music work, most recently with the newly formed Röntgen Piano Trio.

More pre-order and streaming links will be published here.

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J.A. Monteiro's Limehouse Mass, performed by the Happenstance Singers conducted by Matthew Swann, is released by Ulysses Arts as an EP on 21 February 2025 (UA250020). The release also includes Monteiro's And Ruth said, Ave Maria, and organist James Gough playing Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem.

Pre-Release Singles

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Luminate Records releases Brett Dean's Eclipse (String Quartet No.1) on 24 January 2025, performed by the Slate Quartet (LR246707). This EP is Luminate's first recording released in partnership with Ulysses Arts.

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RTF Classical releases Paris 1913: L'Offrande lyique - music by Auric, Boulanger, Caplet, Chaminade, Debussy, Durey, Fauré, Grovlez, Hahn, Milhaud, Ravel, Ropartz, Saint-Saëns and Satie, in partnership with Nimbus Alliance, on 7 February 2025 (NI 6455).

The world première recording of Louis Durey’s L’Offrande lyrique Op. 4, six songs set to texts by Rabindranath Tagore (recipient of the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature) in French translation by André Gide, is a highlight of this collection. Inspired by the atonality of Arnold Schoenberg’s The Book of Hanging Gardens, and often credited as the first piece of free twelve-note technique in French music, L’Offrande lyrique navigates a harmonic language which can hold clarity and vivid colour in Lumière ! ma lumière !, or blur into dark heavy clouded gesture in Les nuages s’entassent, effectively supporting Tagore’s language. At times, the words seem to muse over seemingly unconnected piano motifs, before meeting - sometimes harmonically, sometimes not - sometimes walking the same path, other times meandering separately again. For Paris 1913 to include a world première recording of such important music, written over a century ago, is thrilling, and places Durey firmly alongside his contemporaries in the cafés and salons of pre-war Paris. Far from being overshadowed by the better-known composers in this anthology, these songs stand as a testament to the strength of French melodies of the era. © Andrew Matthews-Owen & Claire Booth
 
Claire Booth
British soprano Claire Booth is renowned for the vitality and musicianship that she brings to the operatic stage and concert platform, with a versatility that encompasses repertoire spanning from Monteverdi and Handel, through Rossini, Berg and Strauss, to a fearless commitment to the music of the present day... A champion of lesser performed vocal repertoire, Booth has released a series of vocal retrospectives of Grainger, Grieg, Mussorgsky and Schoenberg. Her discovery of Durey’s ‘L’Offrande Lyrique’ fits squarely into this narrative, and she is extremely happy to partner with long-time friend and collaborator Andrew Matthews-Owen for this inaugural recording of Durey’s work. © www.claire-booth.com
 
Andrew Matthews-Owen
Welsh-born pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where he received numerous prizes and has been elected an honorary Associate. He now enjoys a busy career partnering some of the most successful classical singers of our time, on the concert platform, on acclaimed commercial records, on broadcasts and as a vocal coach. Andrew has partnered singers including Patricia Bardon, Susan Bickley, Claire Booth, Susan Bullock and many more.

RFT Classical is a record label owned by the Richard Thomas Foundation, aiming to bring interesting and occasionally challenging pieces of contemporary music to new audiences. Our first recording of songs with Claire Booth and Andrew Matthews-Owen (and Susan Bickley) was Songs and Vexations (2019) including songs by Debussy, Fauré, Satie and Jonathon Dove, which went on to win the ALLMUSIC.COM “2019 Vocal Recording of the Year”.

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Lyrita Records releases British 'Cello Works Volume Three with music by William Hurlstone, Felix Swinstead, Doreen Carwithen and Frank Bridge, with Lionel Handy, 'cello and Jennifer Walsh, piano, on 7 February 2025 (SRCD 441).

William Hurlstone’s Cello Sonata in D major (1899) was written for the noted cellist and composer May Mukle. In his review of the score, Havergal Brian opined that Hurlstone’s sonata ‘shows ripe and mature musicianship... The Adagio Lamentoso is unusual in its sustained eloquence... the slow movement and the lovely final Rondo standing out in a rare and attractive work’.

The manuscript of Felix Swinstead’s Cello Sonata was discovered by the pianist Clive Williamson, while he was clearing the house of Vivian Langrish and his wife Ruth Harte, Swinstead's friends. It is possible that this F major Sonata might have been written just before the composer’s death and never performed in public. According to Lionel Handy, Ruth was ‘a second study cellist and Swinstead may have thought a run-through, if not a performance, might be possible, but there is no record of any performance nor date of composition as yet’.

Doreen Carwithen’s 'Cello Sonatina (1944) draws upon the stringed instrument’s sonorous, lyrical qualities. The often-striking piano material is crucial to the unfolding narrative, rather than offering mere accompaniment and creates a genuine dialogue between the two protagonists.

Frank Bridge’s two-movement Cello Sonata was begun in 1913, but not completed until 1917. Bridge always looked fondly upon the Cello Sonata, which has proved to be one of the composer’s most popular chamber works and remains the most regularly played of all his substantial pieces for two players.
 
Lionel Handy
 
“Lionel Handy was principal cellist at the Academy of St Martin for ten years with whom he recorded and toured extensively throughout USA and Europe... As a soloist he has played as guest principal cellist with many of the UK’s leading orchestras including the Philharmonia, LSO, RLPO, LPO, ECO and Halle.”  © Royal Academy of Music
 
Jennifer Walsh
 
“Jennifer Walsh is a collaborative pianist and duo coach who performs across the UK and internationally.  She has given recitals at venues including Wigmore Hall, Sala Verdi Milano, Oslo Opera Housel and Xinghai Conservatory, China.” © Jennifer Walsh, 2023

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Lyrita Records releases a double album of Gavin Higgins, The Fairie Bride,  with Marta Fontanals-Simmons, Roderick Williams, The Three Choirs Festival Chorus and BBC National Orchestra Orchestra of Wales conducted by Martyn Brabbins, and Horn Concerto and Fanfare, Air and Flourishes for solo horn, with soloist Ben Goldscheider, and the BBCNOW conducted by Jaime Martin, on 7 February 2025 (SRCD 440).

Gavin Higgins’ music is bursting with authenticity. Everything he writes speaks in some way of where he comes from, of the land, of the community, of the family which formed him. He grew up in a working-class former mining community in the Forest of Dean, a borderland between England and Wales with its own dialect, a liminal place where Welsh songs and stories as well as English are in the air. It’s a place where brass band music is the chief legacy of the coalmines, the last of which closed a decade before Gavin was born and where the forest, with its sounds, its colours and its stories was a constant presence. Gavin has spoken evocatively - and perhaps romantically - about the music of the forest which surrounded him: sounds of foxes and deer mingled with brass bands, church choirs and occasional illegal raves. Nature and music, he says, are powerfully linked in his mind. © Gillian Moore
 
Horn Concerto
“… the pieces on this disc which feature the French horn -Horn Concerto and Fanfare, Air and Flourish- mark the first time that he has highlighted his own instrument in the solo slot. As ever, it was a personal connection which sparked the idea of the Horn Concerto - an approach from the horn virtuoso Ben Goldscheider, made in the full knowledge that this would reunite Gavin with his younger self. The Horn Concerto connects to the past in other ways. It’s written in E-flat, the key of famous Horn Concertos by Mozart and Strauss. It also amplifies and expands the sound of the solo horn by giving it a prominent relationship with the quartet of horns in the orchestra, calling to mind Robert Schumann’s blazing Konzertstuck from the middle of the 19th century and Gyorgy Ligeti’s Hamburg Concerto, written at the turn of the 21st.”

The Faerie Bride
Gavin looks west ward from the Forest of Dean to a Welsh tale from the Red Book of Hergest, an important mediaeval manuscript of Welsh history, poetry and stories. The legend of The Lady of the Lake tells of a water spirit who emerges from Llyn y Fan Fach in the Brecon Beacons and marries an earthly man, having insisted on a clear prenup agreement: if he strikes her three times (she uses the curious and ambiguous phrase ‘heart’s blow’ which suggests mental rather than physical cruelty) she will go back into the lake and take everything she has brought to the marriage with her. Tales of watery spirits who take human form to lure men to doom are abundant in European culture… but, Gavin says, ‘The Welsh myths are empowering, with strong female characters who set their own agenda. There is no coercion, theft, or kidnap but rather misunderstandings and cultural differences.’

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