Anouar Brahem, Anja Lechner, Django Bates, Dave Holland
After The Last Sky [ ECM / CD - due 7/Mar/2025 ] Eight years after Blue Maqams, Anouar Brahem returns with a poignant project, titled after a line of verse by poet Mahmoud Darwish, which asks "Where should the birds fly, after the last sky?" Graceful chamber pieces for oud, cello, piano and bass... |
Anouar Brahem, Anja Lechner, Django Bates, Dave Holland
After The Last Sky (LP) [ ECM / 2 LP - due 7/Mar/2025 ] Eight years after Blue Maqams, Anouar Brahem returns with a poignant project, titled after a line of verse by poet Mahmoud Darwish, which asks "Where should the birds fly, after the last sky?" Graceful chamber pieces for oud, cello, piano and bass... |
Billy Hart, Ethan Iverson, Mark Turner, Ben Street
Just [ ECM / CD - due 28/Feb/2025 ] After twenty years of playing together, the Billy Hart Quartet - with Mark Turner, Ethan Iverson and Ben Street - is distinguished by its stylistic openness. "If ever there was an example of contemporary jazz that draws extensively on all the... |
Jon Balke
Skrifum [ ECM / CD - due 28/Feb/2025 ] From the very first note, Norway's Jon Balke proposes a new sonic dimension with Skrifum, continuing a line of inquiry begun with Warp (2016) and Discourses (2020), solo piano albums which also processed the acoustic environment in which the music... |
Mathias Eick, Kristjan Randalu, Ole Morten Vågan, Hans Hulbækmo
Lullaby [ ECM / CD - due 14/Feb/2025 ] For Lullaby, Norwegian trumpeter Mathias Eick draws on the quartet formation in a programme that includes some of his most exploratory and improvisatory qualities, with a cast of ECM familiars Kristjan Randalu and Ole Morten Vågan on piano and bass,... |
Mathias Eick, Kristjan Randalu, Ole Morten Vågan, Hans Hulbækmo
Lullaby (LP) [ ECM / LP - due 14/Feb/2025 ] For Lullaby, Norwegian trumpeter Mathias Eick draws on the quartet formation in a programme that includes some of his most exploratory and improvisatory qualities, with a cast of ECM familiars Kristjan Randalu and Ole Morten Vågan on piano and bass,... |
Nicolas Masson, Colin Vallon, Patrice Moret, Lionel Friedli
Renaissance [ ECM / CD - due 14/Mar/2025 ] Nicolas Masson's acquaintance with his fellow quartet travelers Colin Vallon, Patrice Moret and Lionel Friedli goes back roughly two decades - in this time the players have developed an intimate musical bond, expressed purely and beautifully on... |
ALEXANDER KNAIFEL
Knaifel: Chapter Eight Patrick Demenga, The State Choir Latvija, Riga Cathedral Boys Choir, Youth Choir Kamēr, Andres Mustonen [ ECM New Series / CD - due 14/Mar/2025 ] "It is amazing with what a deep sense of beauty this composition for church, choruses and cello is imbued" said Mstislav Rostropovich on first experiencing Chapter Eight. Basing the music on the Old Testament Song of Songs, The Song of Solomon,... |
Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith
Defiant Life [ ECM / CD - due 21/Mar/2025 ] Anchored in the idea that, despite all obstacles, the human experience casts a net of possibilities, Defiant Life - Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith second duo recording for ECM - proves a profound meditation on the human condition and both the... |
Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith
Defiant Life (LP) [ ECM / LP - due 21/Mar/2025 ] Anchored in the idea that, despite all obstacles, the human experience casts a net of possibilities, Defiant Life - Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith second duo recording for ECM - proves a profound meditation on the human condition and both the... |
Yuval Cohen Quartet
Winter Poems [ ECM / CD - due 14/Feb/2025 ] Soprano saxophonist Yuval Cohen's debut for ECM is a thrilling offering that captures the brother of long-time ECM traveller Avishai Cohen charting innovative paths through eight originals in graceful interplay with his freshly formed quartet.... |
LUDWIG van BEETHOVEN
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Volume 6: Sonatas Nos 22-26 (Incl Appassionata) Andras Schiff (piano) [ ECM / CD - released 26/May/2008 ] "Three of these middle-period works are short, but what riches they deliver, and all abundantly and robustly realised by Schiff." BBC Music Five Stars |
BEETHOVEN
Beethoven: The Piano Sonatas Volume 4: Sonatas opp. 26, 27 and 28 (Incls 'Moonlight') Andras Schiff (piano) [ ECM Records / CD - released 1/Aug/2007 ] "So, for those collecting Schiff's cycle, or for those wanting just these four sonatas, there is no need to hesitate. This one is a winner" (Fanfare September 2007) |
LUDWIG van BEETHOVEN
Beethoven: Diabelli Variations Andras Schiff (pianos) [ ECM Records / 2 CD - released 10/Jan/2014 ] GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE AWARD NOMINATION 2014 NZ LISTENER BEST CLASSICAL Recordings 2014 |
BEETHOVEN
The Piano Sonatas Volume 1 (Sonatas opp. 2 and 7) Andras Schiff (piano) [ ECM Records / 2 CD - released 1/Apr/2009 ] "Early Beethoven is maybe the toughest Beethoven to pull off: His ideas aren't always as compelling as those in his later music, and he has trouble saying what he means. You'd never think so, however, from András Schiff's superb first instalment of... |
BEETHOVEN
Beethoven: The Piano Sonatas Volume 3: Two Sonatas op. 49; Two Sonatas op. 14; Sonata No. 11 B flat major op. 22 Andras Schiff (piano) [ ECM Records / CD - released 20/Dec/2006 ] International critics writing on the first two volumes of András Schiff's Beethoven cycle have praised a particularly "sharp attention to detail" (Jed Distler in Gramophone on volume II) |
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Schubert: Sonatas & Impromptus András Schiff (piano) [ ECM New Series / 2 CD - released 12/Apr/2019 ] "Schiff is a true master of the instrument and knows how to connect its resources to his individual, yet never mannered, Schubertian vision" Gramophone Editor's Choice June 2019 |
JOHANNES BRAHMS
Brahms: Piano Concertos András Schiff (piano), Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment [ ECM New Series / 2 CD - released 4/Jun/2021 ] "What he and the OAE offer is not so much to do with authenticity as with freshness and 'detoxification." Recording of the Month Gramophone July 2021 |
J.S. BACH / TOBIAS HUME / CARL FRIEDRICH ABEL
Bach, Abel, Hume Anja Lechner (violoncello) [ ECM New Series / CD - released 18/Oct/2024 ] For her first solo-violoncello album on ECM's New Series, Anja Lechner devotes herself to a particularly unique convergence of three composers from vastly different contexts: JS Bach, Carl Friedrich Abel and Tobias Hume. In the past, her extensive... |
Anja Lechner and François Couturier
Lontano (LP) [ ECM / LP - released 12/Feb/2021 ] After their highly acclaimed 2014 debut album as a duo, Moderato cantabile, Anja Lechner and François Couturier widen the scope of music even further. The duo sings in a voice of its own, be it with original compositions, free improvisations, drawing... |