Major Thomas

The Chopin Project is Franco-Belgian cellist Camille Thomas' most ambitious project to date, comprising a trio of albums that pay tribute to Chopin's favorite instrument.

Harpsichordist Thomas Ragossnig devotes this recording to Bach's Inventions and Sinfonias, delivered in an altered order from the typical ascending scale arrangement. Ragossnig presents his musically more meaningful and attractive sequence on this album for the first time, mixing the Inventions and Sinfonias in the same key and performing them in groups of two or four. The result is an exciting programme that provides an opportunity to linger longer in each key, as in a Baroque suite. Ragossnig zestfully interprets the various musical affections in these miniatures, so that these complex works function as a meaningful and stimulating cycle and not only as contrapuntal references.

Keziah Thomas performs The Harp Four Seasons. A fresh take on Vivaldi’s enduring classic in the stunning setting of Dorchester Abbey

As described by the New York Concert Review as ‘Stupendous…totally original and engaging’, British harpist Keziah Thomas enjoys a reputation of a lively and engaging concert artist. Discover Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, in her new arrangement for harp.

Swiss cellist Thomas Demenga returns to Bach’s suites. “To me, Bach is the greatest musical genius who has ever lived. His music is pure, sublime. It possesses something divine and each musician has a lifetime in which to discover new ways of interpreting it.” Demenga previously recorded the cello suites for ECM between 1986 and 2002, juxtaposing them with contemporary composition in albums that count as milestones in the early history of the New Series.

On this double SACD, "Paths into Impressionism" are taken: starting with the two important Sonatas for Violin and Piano by Gabriel Faure, the first of which was already described as a masterpiece by Camille Saint-Saens, and four other short pieces by Faure, the great Salzburg violinist Thomas Albertus Irnberger and the German pianist Michael Korstick…

Thomas Zehetmair has fashioned a highly successful and broadly eclectic career. He is a virtuoso violinist of international repute, a chamber player who has founded a critically acclaimed quartet, a conductor of front-rank status, and a musician whose repertory in any role reaches from Baroque-era fare to the contemporary. As of the mid-2020s, Zehetmair held the conductorships of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre National d'Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, and the Irish Chamber Orchestra. He also holds the title of conductor laureate of the Royal Northern Sinfonia. Zehetmair was born in Salzburg, Austria, on November 23, 1961. He began violin lessons at five with his parents, both talented violinists. His advanced studies were at the Salzburg Mozarteum under his father, Helmut. He took further instruction on the violin from Nathan Milstein and Max Rostal.

“It cannot be easy to write for solo piano: so many magnificent sounds of the 18th and 19th centuries abide in the ears of today’s pianists and concertgoers.

The established Salzburg violinist Thomas Albertus Irnberger has already played with the greatest musical personalities and leading ensembles of our time such as the Royal Philhamonic Orchestra. For his most recent recording featuring the Violin Concerto in D by Igor Stravinsky, the versatile virtuoso Irnberger can refer to the collaboration with another world-class orchestra: the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Doron Salomon. In addition to this work from 1931, the Concert Fantasy on Russian themes in B minor, Op. 33 by Stravinsky’s teacher Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov is included on this album. Together with Paul Kaspar, piano, with whom he shares a long artistic collaboration, Irnberger also interprets Stravinsky's Suite Italienne, the Duo concertant for violin and piano as well as the Danse russe (from Petrushka) and Chanson russe (from Mavra), borrowed from stage works.