JOHANNES BRAHMS
Brahms: Clarinet Sonatas (with Jorg Widmann: Intermezzi for piano) András Schiff (piano) Jörg Widmann (clarinet) [ ECM New Series / CD - released 2/Oct/2020 ] Two great artists, pianist András Schiff and composer/clarinettist Jörg Widmann, join forces for the first time on record, performing Brahms's late masterpieces, the clarinet sonatas op. 120, written in 1894. In between the sonatas Schiff plays... |
GEORGE I. GURDJIEFF
Sacred Hymns Keith Jarrett [ ECM New Series / CD - released 31/Dec/2008 ] The exact date on which George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was born into this world is unknown. This is fitting, for to one who spent his life trying to unravel it, such mundane details would have been unnecessary in the grander scheme of things. Born in... |
VARIOUS COMPOSERS
Officium Jan Garbarek (soprano and tenor saxophones) / The Hilliard Ensemble [ ECM New Series / CD - released 1/Jan/1994 ] A hauntingly beautiful combination of medieval unaccompanied choral music and jazz saxophone. |
ARVO PART
Symphony No. 4 / Kanon Pokajanen Los Angeles Philharmonic / Esa-Pekka Salonen [ ECM New Series / CD - released 16/Sep/2010 ] "Arvo Part evokes symphonic serenity for the City Of Angels" (William Dart NZ Herald) |
SCHNITTKE / SHCHEDRIN / RIHM
Elusive Affinity Anna Gourari [ ECM New Series / CD - released 19/Jul/2019 ] In this imaginatively shaped and sensitively played album - her third for ECM - Russian pianist Anna Gourari explores musical connections and influences extending across the arts. Three suites of contemporary music are heard here. Alfred Schnittke's... |
MEREDITH MONK
Piano Songs Bruce Brubaker / Ursula Oppens [ ECM New Series / CD - released 2/May/2014 ] Celebrating Meredith Monk as composer, these Piano Songs give us a world at once playful and serious. Written or derived from work composed between 1971 and 2006, the pieces inhabit Monk's unique universe, as played by two of new music's most... |
JOSEPH BRODSKY
Elegie an John Donne Christian Reiner [ ECM New Series / CD - released 25/Aug/2017 ] In the winter of 2012/13, Viennese actor and voice artist Christian Reiner attracted much acclaim for his interpretation of Friedrich Hölderlin's "Turmgedichten". "Reiner is able to coax the music out of the words", German newspaper Frankfurter... |
Danish String Quartet
Last Leaf [ ECM New Series / CD - released 22/Sep/2017 ] "This recording of sublime beauty consists of old hymns, such as Now Found is the Fairest of Roses (1732), and a variety folk songs, all exquisitely set for string quartet." AudAud Best of 2017 |
LUDWIG van BEETHOVEN / DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH / J. S. BACH
Beethoven/Shostakovich/Bach: Prism I Danish String Quartet [ ECM New Series / CD - released 21/Sep/2018 ] For its third ECM release, the prize-winning Danish String Quartet inaugurates a series of five albums with the overarching title of Prism, in which the group will present one of Beethoven's late string quartets in the context of a related fugue by... |
THOMAS ADES / ER NORGARD / HANS ABRAHAMSEN
Ades: Arcadiana / Norgard: Quartetto Breve / Abrahamsen: 10 Preludes The Danish String Quartet [ ECM New Series / CD - released 15/Apr/2016 ] "The Danish are remarkable, as ever - capable of intense blend, extreme dynamic variation (in which they seem glued together), perfect intonation even on harmonics, and constant vitality and flow" Gramophone Award Nomination 2017 - Chamber |
Eleni Karaindrou
Tous des Oiseaux [ ECM New Series / CD - released 25/Jan/2019 ] The new release on ECM New Series by composer Eleni Karaindrou brings together the original music written for Wajdi Mouawad's play All Birds and the music for the film Bomb, A Love Story by Iranian actor and director Payman Maadi. |
HILDEGARD VON BINGEN
Ordo Virtutum Ensemble Belcanto, Dietburg Spohr [ ECM New Series / CD - released 5/Aug/2013 ] This is the second New Series album to feature the Stuttgart-based Ensemble Belcanto |
VICTORIA / PALESTRINA
In Paradisum: Music of Victoria and Palestrina The Hilliard Ensemble [ ECM New Series / CD - released 1/Jan/2000 ] "In Paradisum" combines music from three sources: the Officium Defunctorum of Victoria, polyphony by Palestrina and Gregorian chant from a 17th century manuscript. Placing the work of the Spanish and Italian religious composers in a historically... |
VARIOUS COMPOSERS
Officium Novum Jan Garbarek (soprano and tenor saxophones) / The Hilliard Ensemble [ ECM New Series / CD - released 20/Sep/2010 ] "Over the immanent, limpid voices Garbarek improvises equally immaculate counter-melodies. His contributions tend to be somewhat predictable, more decoration than improvisation in the fullest sense, but his tone is so pleasing...and the melodies so... |
Jan Garbarek / The Hilliard Ensemble
Remember me, my dear [ ECM New Series / CD - released 18/Oct/2019 ] 25 years on from the release of Officium, the groundbreaking alliance of Jan Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble, comes Remember me, my dear, recorded during the final tour the group made in October 2014. The program is emblematic of the range of... |
JOSQUIN / VICTORIA
Secret History - Sacred Music John Potter, Anna Maria Friman (vocals) [ ECM New Series / CD - released 25/Aug/2017 ] "Anna Maria Friman lends her pure soprano to some of Josquin's motets, reworked as vocal duets, and the linking passages of chant or of solo vihuela give this pared-back disc a flowing, almost improvisatory feel." The Guardian |
ANONYMOUS / CAMPION / BANKS / PICFORTH
Amores Pasados John Potter (voice) Anna maria Friman (voice) Ariel Abramovich (lute) Jacob Heringman (lute) [ ECM New Series / CD - released 26/Jul/2015 ] For this innovative attempt to bridge the gap between art song and pop song, John Paul Jones (of Led Zeppelin fame), Sting and Genesis-keyboardist Tony Banks were commissioned to write new lute songs. "Asking a rock music composer to set existing... |
SAMUEL BARBER / BELA BARTOK
Barber / Bartok: Piano Concertos Keith Jarrett (piano) / Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken, New Japan Philharmonic, Kazuyoshi Akiyama & Dennis Russell Davies [ ECM New Series / CD - released 10/Jun/2015 ] For much of the 1980s, Keith Jarrett balanced his improvisational activities with performances of classical music and contemporary composition. On this disc, with concert recordings from 1984 and 1985, he is heard playing Samuel Barber's Piano... |
J. S. BACH
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier Book I Keith Jarrett (piano) [ ECM New Series / 2 CD - released 14/Jun/2019 ] "These are performances in which tempos, phrasing, articulation and the execution of ornaments are convincing," wrote Gramophone of Jarrett's first recorded account of The Well-Tempered Clavier. "Both instrument and performer serve as unobtrusive... |
MORTON FELDMAN / JOHN CAGE / ERIK SATIE
Rothko Chapel Kim Kashkashian (viola) / Houston Chamber Choir, Robert Simpson, with Sarah Rothenberg (piano) & Steven Schick (percussion) [ ECM New Series / CD - released 25/Oct/2015 ] "The Houston choir's singing is warm and percussionist Steven Schick creates a great sense of space and ritual." The Guardian |