Label: BIS - SACD 1707D
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ARTISTS: Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Dima Slobodeniouk; Christoffer Sundqvist, clarinet

Label: BIS - SACD 1968D
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Label: BIS 1405D
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ARTISTS: Noriko Ogawa, piano

Label: BIS SACD 1109
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FRENCH MUSIC FOR TRUMPET AND ORGAN: HAKAN HARDENBERGER, TRUMPET; SIMON PRESTON,ORGAN (AARHUS CATHEDRAL, DENMARK) PRIERES SANS PAROLESà SUPER AUDIO CD û SPECIAL PLAYER NECESSARY.

Label: BIS SACD 1126
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ARTISTS: John-Edward Kelly, alto saxophone; Tapiola Sinfonietta; Stefan Asbury, conductor [Nos 1 & 2]; Jean-Jacques Kantorow, conductor [No. 3]

Label: BIS SACD 1172
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Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 1 No. 3; Piano Trio in B flat major, Archduke, Op. 97 - Kempt Trio: Freddy Kempf, piano; Pierre Bensaid, violin; Alexander Chaushian, cello

Last year's recording debut of the Kempf Trio, BIS 1302, was welcomed with open arms by the critics. In Gramophone, the young (all three are still in their twenties) trio's interpretations of Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky were termed as "fine new performances, which easily match the best available" and the BBC Music Magazine reviewer went even further: "Easily the best interpretations in first-rate sound. Well, now the trio is back, with producer Jens Braun from the previous record as a guarantee that the sound will be as first-rate. In fact, given that the present disc is a Hybrid SACD with a surround sound option, chances are that the sound will be perceived as even more impressive! Having given their accounts of two highly romantic examples of the genre, the Kempf Trio now goes back to its roots. In the liner notes, Horst Scholz argues that Beethoven in the three trios from Op. 1 'took a genre that, despite substantial contributions from Haydn and Mozart, was still associated with entertaining salon music, and raised it up to rival the string quartet.' The Trio in C minor Op. 1 was in fact so revolutionary that Haydn tried to dissuade his young (23 years old!) student from publishing it on the grounds that the public would find it difficult to understand. On this occasion, Haydn turned out to be mistaken: the trio was a success, and has remained so. On this recording it is followed by Beethoven's last piano trio, composed some 17 years after the Trio in C minor and dedicated to Archduke Rudolph of Austria. The Archduke was a pupil of Beethoven, and the trio's exposed, sometimes almost concerto-like piano part was evidently composed with him in mind. Here the mature master again proves his genius in what already at the time was called 'incontestably one of the brightest green leaves in the laurel wreath that Beethoven long ago earned." (SUPER AUDIO/HYBRID)

Label: BIS SACD 1187
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Arcanum for voice and chamber ensemble (1996)

Janet Youngdahl, soprano
Absolute Ensemble/Kristjan Jarvi

Arcanum (Latin for a deep secret or mystery) is a work which takes the listener on a journey through the Bible, the Underworld, the Middle Ages and beyond in search of God, only to discover that divinity is in fact everywhere. Written in 1996, it was conceived in memory of a friend of Argentinian-born composer Ezequiel Viñao (b. 1960). The work, in two parts, is a meditation on the concept of time itself and the nature of knowledge. In it the composer examines the development of early thought, using material from philosophers and composers alike. The often very brief texts, from the Bible and the works of Parmenides, Virgil, Augustine and others, are set to music inspired by sources scattered over nine hundred years: from early mozarabic chant to late medieval and renaissance composers such as Machaut and Gesualdo, and including influences from Persian and Hindustani music. Our guides on the Arcanum journey are the Absolute Ensemble and Kristjan Järvi, a team which has chosen to integrate, rather than segregate music. The group fuses its classical roots with everything from jazz and rock to world and hip hop, often working with eminent guests from various genres. For this work 11 Absolute members - playing the oboe, trombones, strings and percussion (including tabla-drums) - are joined by soprano Janet Youngdahl in creating unforgettable soundscapes.

Label: BIS SACD 1206
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MAURICE DURUFLE: Requiem, Op. 9 (1947)
GABRIEL FAURE: Requiem, Op. 48 (1887-91, version with organ by Mattias Wager)

Miah Persson, soprano; Malena Ernman, mezzo-soprano; Olle Persson, baritone; Mattias Wager, organ
Swedish Radio Choir/Fredrik Malmberg
Musical settings of the Mass for the Dead have a tendency to dwell on the dramatic high points of the day of judgment and the trumpets of doom (Dies irae and Tuba mirum) – partly for the reason that they really are dramatic high points. With their respective Requiems, Gabriel Fauré and Maurice Duruflé wanted to express something different, something, which Fauré himself described as a ‘trust in eternal rest’. Indeed, when hearing the description of his work as ‘a lullaby of death’, Fauré approved of it. It is the eternal light and peace wished for in the Mass that both composers infused their Requiems with (to the point of actually omitting the more doomladen passages). These qualities are certainly part of the palette of the magnificent Swedish Radio Choir – the favorite vocal instrument of many of the world’s greatest conductors, including Claudio Abbado and Riccardo Muti. The choir’s previous disc on BIS (BIS 1157) consisted of works by Schnittke and Pärt and their performance was described as being ‘of commanding, awesome brilliance…with a virtuosity and commitment that are astounding’ (Int. Record Review) and ‘refulgently passionate’ (BBC Music Magazine). On this disc, the choir, directed by Fredrik Malmberg, is joined by three of Sweden’s foremost singers – all of them represented on previous BIS recordings – as well as organist Mattias Wager, who has also supplied the organ arrangement of Faurés orchestral score.

Label: BIS SACD 1263
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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART: Concerto in A major for Clarinet and Orchestra, KV622 (1791); Clarinet Quintet in A major, KV581 (1789). Martin Frost, basset clarinet/clarinet; Amsterdam Sinfonietta conducted by Peter Oundjian; Vertavo String Quartet. Mozart and Martin Frost make an irresistible pair. Here they present the Clarinet Concerto and the Clarinet Quintet - two unparalleled peaks of the clarinet repertoire - in performances of total commitment and exquisite beauty. A "true desert-island" disc. Martin Frost needs no introduction to BIS enthusiasts nor to the critics. "With extremely fine recording, marvelous solo playing and a real symbiosis between soloist and conductor, this triptych will be hard to surpass" was how Gramophone summarized his recordings of the "Benny Goodman" concertos (Copland, Hindemith, Arnold). Today Martin Frost is, quite simply, one of the leading exponents of his instrument and sought-after all over the world. A final proof of this - if such a thing was needed - is that he this year was chosen by BBC Radio 3 to participate in the BBC New Generation Artists scheme. As with all great musicians Martin Frost's playing simply compels one to listen. Not that one needs much compelling, for Mozart's Clarinet Concerto must surely count as the greatest concerto ever written for a wind instrument and the Quintet is non-pareil chamber music. But like the great musician that he is, Martin Frost makes one listen afresh, makes one discover new aspects of the "familiar" music. He is helped in this by the choice of partners. The Nieuw Sinfonietta Amsterdam, whose Mendelssohn recordings for BIS were so enthusiastically received, seem totally at one with the soloist while the understanding between the Vertavo Quartet and Martin Frost is particularly evident in the cut and thrust of the quintet. The SACD recording - allowing a surround sound option for those with the required set-up - really does benefit the music. The range of pianissimo (and below) colors that Martin Frost conjures up is miraculous and is beautifully reproduced by this disc. Indeed one is reminded by the claims made by a critic of Mozart's time on hearing the great Anton Stadler perform the concerto. 'You deserve my thanks, brave virtuoso! I would never have thought that a clarinet could imitate a human voice as effectively as the way you play it. For your instrument has such a soft and attractive tone that it is irresistible to anyone who has a heart.' (The cadenzas recorded on this disc were not heard at the time, for they are Martin Frost's own!) This is a winner of a disc - an hour of pure bliss for the connoisseur and a splendid introduction to classical music for the inexperienced.

Label: BIS SACD 1264
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HARVARD COMPOSERS - WALTER PISTON: String Quartet No. 1 (1933); LEON KIRCHNER: String Quartet No. 2 (1958); EARL KIM: Three Poems in French for soprano and string quartet (1989); BERNARD RANDS: String Quartet No. 2 (1994); MARIO DAVIDOVSKY: String Quartet No. 5, Dank an Opus 132 (1998). Mendelssohn String Quartet; Lucy Shelton, soprano. A year ago we released our first recording featuring the Mendelssohn String Quartet. (With Robert Mann as second viola in a recording of the string quintets by Mendelssohn.) The critics lauded this. Typically, the Sunday Times wrote "The US-based ensemble play both works with jubilant conviction and mastery of a wide range of color, dynamics and expressive nuance, the whole sounding wonderfully spontaneous." For almost a decade the players of the Mendelssohn Quartet were artists in residence at Harvard University. This residency naturally gave them a great familiarity with the "Harvard" composers. Harvard University has played an important role in contemporary music in the USA. Not that there is a specifically "American" musical tradition at Harvard - rather the opposite, in fact. Walter Piston, who taught there for some 35 years, had attended Harvard as an undergraduate. But he also studied in Paris with the legendary Nadia Boulanger and was powerfully influenced by the neo-classicism of Igor Stravinsky. Many of Piston's students became leading figures in the musical life of the USA, among them Elliott Carter, Irving Fine, Harold Shapero and Leonard Bernstein. The international influences on the "Harvard composers" were strengthened during the Second World War when Nadia Boulanger came to Boston to teach and Stravinsky held his famous lectures on the poetics of music at Harvard. For this disc the Mendelssohn Quartet have chosen works spanning 65 years of music by composers with a relation to Harvard: from Walter Piston's String Quartet No.1 (1933) to Mario Davidovsky's String Quartet No.5 (1998). An added bonus is that the recording is being issued as a hybrid SACD playable on all CD players and offering a surround-sound option for those with the right equipment. The huge range of expression both of the music and of the Mendelssohn Quartet really comes into its own when reproduced in surround sound. A further bonus is the American soprano Lucy Shelton who sings the three French poems set for voice and string quartet by Earl Kim. This is a disc, which will provide a host of new insights into the tradition of music in America - in which Harvard University has played an important role.

Label: BIS SACD 1291
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EDVARD GRIEG: Norwegian Dances, Op. 35 (1881); Symphonic Dances, Op. 64 (1896/98); Lyric Suite, Op. 54 (1889-91). Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ole Kristian Ruud. Another BIS first. Not the music this time but the way it is packaged. BIS breaks new ground by offering the public the first surround-sound version of Grieg's justly popular Symphonic Dances. Like all our hybrid SACD releases, this disc is compatible with all CD players but will also provide a surround-sound performance - at no extra cost! - to those who are equipped with the relevant hardware. This highly atmospheric music, which so easily removes the listener to the lonely beauty of the Norwegian fjords, gains especially from the striking realism of a musically balanced surround-sound recording. Further enticement is added by the inclusion of both the Norwegian Dances and the Lyric Suite on this disc. The performances are by Grieg's "own"* orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ole Kristian Ruud - Norwegian maestro with an international reputation. This disc follows the recently released BIS-CD-1191SA containing, among other works, the famous Piano Concerto in our Grieg-Bergen PO - Ruud cycle. *Not everyone is familiar with the fact that Grieg came from Bergen and, after many years abroad, he made this second city of Norway his home for the latter part of his life and bequeathed a large sum of money to the musical life of the city.

Label: BIS SACD 1301
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Suite No. 1, Op. 64bis (1936); Suite No. 2, Op. 64ter (1936); Suite No. 3, Op. 101 (1946) - performed in the order the music appears in the ballet score

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Andrew Litton
While containing some of the most popular and attractive music that Prokofiev ever wrote, his suites from the ballet Romeo and Juliet have often been perceived as less than satisfying. Depending on the listener, there is a feeling that the composer chose either too much or too little, or that neither of the suites fully reflects the wealth and variety to be found in the complete score. Many conductors have accordingly compiled their own sequences of movements, picking from all three of the suites. This recording presents another solution: all three suites are played, but the twenty movements (which after all are Prokofiev’s choice of his favorite bits) are performed in the order in which they appear in the ballet. Lasting a little over half the duration of the complete Romeo and Juliet, they preserve the outline of the narrative and together give a full picture of Prokofiev’s gift for bringing characters, scenes and situations to life in music of vivid, striking power: the sunny atmosphere of Shakespeare’s Verona, aggressive energy in the fight music, neo-classical elegance in the courtly dances, quirky humor in the minor roles, and above all great lyrical beauty in the music for the two young lovers and the cruel series of events that leads to their tragic deaths. All this is brought to us by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra - whose recent Grieg cycle on BIS has been a notable critical success - conducted by its music director Andrew Litton, making his first recording for BIS. The Litton/Bergen collaboration was initiated in 2003 and has been highly successful, something which not only Norwegian, but also European audiences have been able to benefit from through the orchestra’s recent tours. The 2007/2008 Season will offer further such possibilities as the team visits Concertgebouw, Royal Albert Hall, Musikverein and Carnegie Hall - four of the world’s most prestigious concert venues.

Label: BIS SACD 1339
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ULJAS PULKKIS (*1975): Enchanted Garden for violin and orchestra (2000); Concerto for Flute and Orchestra (2001); Symphonic Dalí – three paintings for orchestra (2002)

Jaakko Kuusisto, violin; Sharon Bezaly, flute
Stavanger Symphony Orchestra/Susanna Mälkki
In spite of his youth, Uljas Pulkkis (b. 1975) is firmly established in Finnish music. A number of his compositions have won prizes in competitions, such as the Queen Elisabeth competition in Brussels (for ’Tears for Ludovico’) and the Gustav Mahler competition in Klagenfurt (for ’Duett für eine’). The title work of the present disc, Enchanted Garden, is another example: subtitled ‘a musical fairy-tale in eight chapters’ this work was singled out by UNESCO's International Rostrum of Composers 2001. The solo violin – the work is sometimes described as a violin concerto – is the narrator whom the orchestral musicians comment upon and react to, and the ’fairy-tale’ itself tells of happenings from sunset to sunrise in a magical garden. The highly colorful writing in Enchanted Garden is characteristic of an early phase in Pulkkis’s development, a phase of which the work forms both the climax and the conclusion. In the following Flute Concerto, composed for Sharon Bezaly who performs it here, Pulkkis has turned full circle and uses material which, he himself claims, is as straightforward as possible. Especially in the outer movements one finds traces of a neo-classical style reminiscent of Honegger or Hindemith, though filtered through the composer’s very personal vision. The disc closes with Symphonic Dalí, a three-movement work which is the largest that the composer has written for orchestra to date. The three ‘paintings’ have the titles The Colossus of Rhodes, Shades of Night Descending and Dawn, and given the association with Salvador Dali, it is not surprising that Pulkkis in this work again changes direction, bathing the music in a Mediterranean light of Ravellian stamp. With these three highly varied works, the program forms a kaleidoscopic picture of a highly interesting young composer. The concertante works are championed by soloists Jaakko Kuusisto and Sharon Bezaly, both of whom played the respective first performances. They are supported by Susanna Mälkki, conducting the Norwegian Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, whose previous recordings of the music of Harald Sæverud and Geirr Tveitt have been highly acclaimed, and who here steps across the border to neighboring Finland.

Label: BIS SACD 1348
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Symphony No. 6 in B minor (‘Pathetique’), Op. 74; Francesca da Rimini, fantasy for orchestra, Op. 32 (1876) - Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra/Neeve Jarvi

Neeme Järvi is one of the most recorded conductors of our time – but this is the first time he records the Tchaikovsky symphonies! He does so with “his” orchestra of 22 years standing, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra: a combination whose many recordings on BIS has made huge audiences very happy indeed! That Tchaikovsky and Järvi really is a ‘dream team’ concert audiences all over the world have been able to hear for themselves over the years. A student of the legendary Yevgeni Mravinsky – whose Tchaikovsky interpretations are still considered among the greatest – Järvi here gives us a vibrant Pathétique of unusual clarity, firmly rooted in the great Russian tradition, followed up by a Francesca da Rimini of great passion and fire. We are of course extremely proud to be able to offer this unique opportunity to fans of Tchaikovsky, Järvi, the GSO – and to all other music lovers. That the recording is also one of the first multi-channel, surround sound releases of these much-loved works surely adds to the attraction!

Label: BIS SACD 1350
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WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING!!!
Edda, part 1 - The Creation of the World (Sköpun heimsins) – Oratorio

Gunnar Guðbjörnsson, tenor; Bjarni Thor Kristinsson, bass-baritone
Schola Cantorum; Iceland Symphony Orchestra/Hermann Bäumer
Few composers have been as consistently preoccupied with their national origins as Jón Leifs, who only found his calling as a composer when he encountered a collection of Icelandic folk music. From the very beginning, Iceland, its music and myths, its landscape and climate furnished him with the material for almost all of his compositions. And from the very beginning Leifs knew that he wanted to create a great oratorio using texts from the Edda, Iceland's national treasure. He started work on the libretto in 1930, and soon decided that the theme of the first section would be The Creation of the World. It wasn't until 1935, however, that he found himself in a position to start composing the music of Edda I, completing it in 1939. Largely due to the highly difficult choral writing, the work was never performed in its entirety during Leifs’ lifetime. Indeed the first complete performance only took place in 2006, in conjunction with the recording of the present disc. Disheartened by the lack of success, Leifs went on to other works, but in 1951 he returned to the subject and began work on Edda II. He completed it in 1966, but at his death two years later Edda III was left unfinished. Edda I consists of thirteen movements, each of which describes part of the creation according to Nordic mythology. As the headings of the individual movements suggest – Sea, Earth, Heaven, Sun, etc. – Leifs’ main concern is the depiction of nature. He achieves this in music which carries the hallmarks of the Leifs style, such as a liberal use of parallel fifths and irregular metric patterns. The scoring is among Leifs’ most colorful and inspired, including the composer’s signature Nordic lurs and an extended percussion section. This landmark in Icelandic music is performed by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and the Schola Cantorum choir under the baton of Hermann Bäumer – a constellation that last came together on disc on the highly acclaimed Viking’s Answer, the previous Leifs’ release on BIS.