Joseph Daniel Unwin

Joseph Calleja, one of the world’s leading tenors, announces ‘Ave Maria’ – his first ever sacred album. Here, Calleja is joined for the first time on record by the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, with no less than four Ave Marias – by Mascagni, Massenet, Schubert and Andrea Bocelli. The album also features guest appearances by Daniel Hope on violin in (title) and French baritone Étienne Dupuis in the famous duet from The Pearl Fishers.

Joseph Calleja, one of the world’s leading tenors, announces ‘Ave Maria’ – his first ever sacred album. Here, Calleja is joined for the first time on record by the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, with no less than four Ave Marias – by Mascagni, Massenet, Schubert and Andrea Bocelli. The album also features guest appearances by Daniel Hope on violin in (title) and French baritone Étienne Dupuis in the famous duet from The Pearl Fishers.

The Viennese Court Kapellmeister Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741) is regarded in music history as the forefather of modern counterpoint, and his instructional work ""Gradus ad parnassum"" continues to influence education in this subject to the present day. But the many compositions Fux wrote for the Viennese court are largely forgotten. If at all, one still knows of sacred compositions in which Fux followed this strict, academic style. On the other hand, the composer was able to free himself from this in his opera and in his ""Componimenti sacri"", which are operatic oratorios for Holy Week (during which no operas were allowed to be performed).

Three of the greatest sets of keyboard variations ever composed are presented here, performed by three of today’s greatest artists. András Schiff, Daniel Barenboim and Yefim Bronfman go to the heart of these monumental creations in performances that are highly personal. They sensitively balance the contrasting aims of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, who were often referred to by nineteenth-century German critics as the ‘Three Bs’ because of their supposed primacy in the history of central European classical music.

Composed in feverish bouts interrupted by long periods of inaction, Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch was brought to completion in 1896. The 46 songs are settings of poems in German by Paul Heyse, after Italian folk songs – miniatures with a duration of less than 2 minutes in most cases. Heyse’s collection numbered more than 350 poems, but Wolf ignored the ballads and laments, and concentrated almost exclusively on the rispetti. These are short love poems which chart, against a Tuscan landscape, the everyday jealousies, flirtations, joys and despairs of men and women in love. Heyse’s translations often intensify the simple Italian of the original poems, and in their turn, Wolf’s settings represent a further heightening of emotion. Miniatures they may be, but many of the songs strike unforgettably at the heart.