Brentano String Quartet, Ashley Bathgate, Lisa Moore, Elly Toyoda More Essential Martin Bresnick꞉ The Planet on The Table

Composers of the 20th and 21st centuries have done much to explore the flute's sonorities in all their variety, from virtuosity and lyricism to more robust, percussive qualities. The works on 'The Whirlwind Within', conceived and performed by Spanish flautist Roberto Álvarez and Ukrainian pianist Kseniia Vokhmianina, embrace these facets of the flute, combining its naturally melodic capabilities with innovative techniques.

Recorded live at London’s celebrated Wigmore Hall, this captivating recital by Joyce DiDonato and the Brentano Quartet was conceived around Jake Heggie’s song cycle Camille Claudel: Into the Fire, a work written for DiDonato – she describes it as “one of most moving projects I’ve ever been part of”. Songs by Debussy and Strauss and a quartet movement by Guillaume Lekeu complete the programme, which prompted the Financial Times to write that “the beauty and range” of DiDonato’s singing “are surely now at their impressive peak.”

Founded in 1992, the New York-based Brentano Quartet is known for its interpretations combining perfect technique and matchless musicality. Those qualities are even more obvious in this series of late Beethoven quartets with this first volume bringing together the Op. 127 and 131. This pure crystal of intelligence and brilliance will doubtless constitute a milestone.