Avi Avital: Bach
Deutsche Grammophon B0016801-02

Bach: (Harpsichord) Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052 (20:32)

Avi Avital, mandolin; Potsdam Chamber Academy

Israeli-born Avi Avital has won many competitions and received awards including Germany’s Echo Award — and is the first mandolin player to receive a classical Grammy nomination in 2010. Avital’s debut Deutsche Grammophon recording is an all-Bach album, including transcriptions of concertos for harpsichord and violin in arrangements for mandolin and orchestra.

Weinberg: Complete Piano Works, Volume 2
Grand Piano GP-607

Weinberg: Partita, Op 54 (22:34)

Allison Brewster Franzetti, piano

This second volume of the complete piano works by Weinberg ranges in date from 1950–55. The Partita is notable for its alternation of the intimate and the intensely dramatic, whereas the Sonatina is lyrical, though never straightforward. The Piano Sonata No 4 fuses folk inspiration, rhythmic vivacity and melancholy in a profoundly personal way.

Orchestral Music of Weinberg
Naxos 8.572779

 Weinberg: Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes, Op. 47, #1 (13:17)

St Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra / Vladimir Lande

Weinberg is increasingly recognized as one of the outstanding composers of the second half of the twentieth century. His “Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes” is a concise medley of tunes that embrace folk influence. Scored for a large orchestra and a children’s choir, Symphony No 6 is a work of huge expression. Weinberg’s friend, Shostakovich, was so impressed that he used it as teaching material in his composition classes.

1612: Italian Vespers
Decca B0016794-02

Monteverdi & Soriano: Hymn, Ave Maris Stella (9:17)
Gabrieli: Magnificat (reconstructed by Hugh Keyte) (9:27)

I Fagiolini / Robert Hollingworth

After their award-winning recording of  Striggio’s 40-part Mass, I Fagiolini return with more music for huge forces from the year of 1612. The centerpiece is Gabrieli’s Magnificat for seven choirs – a work never before recorded as the music for five of the choirs has been lost. Conductor Robert Hollingworth and Renaissance scholar Hugh Keyte have now taken on the enormous task of reconstructing parts for the missing choirs.

Music of Adolphus Hailstork
Naxos 8.559722

Hailstork: An American Port of Call (8:33)

Virginia Symphony Orchestra / JoAnn Falletta

Award-winning composer Adolphus Hailstork is a vibrant communicator whose music speaks directly and subtly. A champion of American music, JoAnn Falletta has presented nearly 500 works by American composers, including over 100 world premieres.

Mind Meld: Works for One Piano, Four Hands
Sono Luminus DSL-92151

Shapero: Sonata for Piano Four Hands (14:59)

Zofo Duet

Since joining forces as a professional duo less than three years ago, internationally acclaimed pianists Eva-Maria Zimmerman and Keisuke Nakagoshi – Zofo Duet – have thrilled audiences from Carnegie Hall to Osaka, Japan, with their dazzling artistry and outside-the-box thematic programming for piano four hands.

L’Olimpiade: The Opera
Naïve V-5295 (2 CDs)

Various: L’Olimpiade: Excerpts (13:23)

Soloists; Venice Baroque Orchestra & Chorus / Markellos Chryssicos

In the 18th century, 1,300 years after the last Olympic Games in ancient times, the Olympic theme was highly fashionable. Many composers based operas on the libretto to L’Olimpiade by Metastasio. This recording has been structured to contain all of Metastasio’s original arias; it is a pasticcio in the sense that the music is by 16 different composers amongst the many that set the libretto between 1733 and the end of the century.

Silfra: Hilary Hahn & Hauschka
Deutsche Grammophon B0016798-02

Hauschka: North Atlantic (6:45)

Hilary Hahn, violin; Hauschka, prepared piano

Silfra is the culmination of a two-year improvisation project by American violinist Hilary Hahn and prepared-piano innovator Volker Bertelmann (Hauschka). The music on this ambitious and free-spirited collection is a tribute to the Silfra rift in Iceland, an otherworldly landscape that inspired the two musicians.