Basque National Orchestra, Asier Polo, Carlos Mena, Alfonso Gómez & Juanjo Mena Gabriel Erkoreka Cello Concerto, Tres Sonetos de Michelangelo & Piano Concerto

Contemporary composer Fernando Velázquez presents Viento, together with the Basque National Orchestra, the choir Kup Taldea and international star cellist Johannes Moser. After multiple international successes as a film composer, Viento shows Velázquez’s skill in genres such as the symphonic poem, cantata and cello concerto. The album opens with his cello concerto, which combines an elegiac, Stabat Mater-like opening movement with a heroic, rock-inspired middle movement and a finale that employs the Basque Zortziko dance rhythm. Moser’s masterly interpretation brings out all the colours and episodes of this exceptional score.

Robert Trevino's first album together the Basque National Orchestra featuring orchestral works by the great French-Basque composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) received an excellent response. The program in this second volume is perhaps more 'French' in nature, but the Basque orchestra is giving dazzling performances of these works by their own national composer. While the first album was focused on some of Ravel's most popular orchestral works, this album includes some rarities, including Ma mère l'Oye (Mother Goose) in it's complete ballet version, as well as one world premiere recording: Pierre Boulez's orchestration of Ravel's World War I era piano work, Frontispice.

A remarkably intimate recording of Schumann's Cello Concerto in A minor, this performance by Anne Gastinel and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège, directed by Louis Langrée, may be a little too forward for the average listener's comfort. Direct Stream Digital engineering places Gastinel front and center – almost in one's living room – and the orchestra is not far behind. Such "living presence" may be an audiophile's delight, but others may find the proximity disconcerting, especially because Gastinel's bowing seems overly resinous up close. However, this is the only complaint worth making about this disc, for Gastinel is wonderfully expressive and the orchestra is extraordinarily balanced and clear in its timbres, no mean achievement in Schumann's problematic, thick orchestration. The remaining performances are less forwardly recorded and sound pleasant and natural, with a fresh spontaneity that feels more like a recital than a studio session.

For her debut album on the yellow label Camille has chosen music full of youthful invention – uplifting and positive. She brings her own sensitive interpretation to the French Romantic works for cello and orchestra by Saint-Saëns and Offenbach, including the former’s First Cello Concerto, a masterpiece of its genre, and a delightful excerpt from the latter’s Harmonies des bois “Les Larmes de Jacqueline”. The album was recorded with the Orchestre National de Lille and Alexandre Bloch, and also includes guest appearances by tenor Rolando Villazón and violinist Nemanja Radulović.

Robert Trevino's first album together the Basque National Orchestra featuring orchestral works by the great French-Basque composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) received an excellent response. The program in this second volume is perhaps more 'French' in nature, but the Basque orchestra is giving dazzling performances of these works by their own national composer. While the first album was focused on some of Ravel's most popular orchestral works, this album includes some rarities, including Ma mère l'Oye (Mother Goose) in it's complete ballet version, as well as one world première recording: Pierre Boulez's orchestration of Ravel's World War I era piano work, Frontispice.

All four American composers on this new album by the Basque National Orchestra and conductor Robert Trevino wrote music that was known, played and esteemed during their lifetimes, but none of them ever had a huge 'hit': the pieces here are likely familiar only to musical scholars. Yet while it is uncommon enough to find Charles Martin Loeffler, Henry Cowell, Carl Ruggles and Howard Hanson sharing the same album, the conductor Robert Trevino has taken his exploration still further, into the recesses of their repertory – complete with a Hanson piece, Before the Dawn, that has had to wait a century for this, its premiere recording. Robert Trevino’s debut album with the Basque National Orchestra on Ondine featured orchestral works by Maurice Ravel and has received excellent reviews in music media around the world.