Reint Jan Renes

Jan Garbarek is, of course, one of ECM’s longest standing composers and saxophonists, yet he is first and foremost a spectacular improviser who often manages to reach farther than (I imagine) even his own expectations in touching new melodic concepts. Paired with the Spheres-like church organ of Kjell Johnsen, he plumbs the depths of spiritual and physical awareness in a way that few of his albums have since. Here more than anywhere else, he shapes reverberation into its own spiritualism, exploring every curve of his surrounding architecture, every carved piece of wood and masonry.

"The Nymphs" tells the story of a wandering mortal who ends up in the realm of the Queen of the Nymphs. The late Scottish entertainer Jimmy Logan narrates the story, interwoven with hauntingly beautiful music composed by Jan Kisjes and magical poems recited by Bryan Maguire. The combination of story, music and poems results in a fairytale decor. The package also contains a second music-only CD.

Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki (1933–2010) achieved an international success in the mid-1990s, with his Symphony No. 3, “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”. Since then, Gorecki’s name has been associated almost exclusively with this piece. However, his music is much more than this one brilliant work. Gorecki never looked at musical fashions, but consistently created his own sound universe. In the 1980s Gorecki, feeling misunderstood, stepped back from the official concert life in Poland. He reached out to simple folk and church melodies, making their choral arrangements.

Keith Jarrett does not actually play on this CD; rather, he composed three angst-ridden pieces of varying lengths for string orchestra, over which Jan Garbarek improvises on tenor and soprano saxes. The concept is not unlike that of Stan Getz's Focus, but this music is far more static, downcast, and free of the pulse of jazz. As was characteristic of his writing then, Jarrett's string parts are mostly turgid and thick-set, indulging in weird, sliding microtones on "Windsong," weighted down by some kind of emotional burden.

The survival of classical music may hinge on its ability to appear prominently outside the standard venues of concert halls and recording studios, thereby reaching a much larger audience of listeners who might otherwise never be treated to the masterworks of the canonical repertoire. New York-based ensemble the Knights seeks to do that by coupling its impressively broad repertoire (ranging from classical to jazz to world music) with a desire to play in locations where one might not expect to see an orchestra.

Jan Nigges gives concerts internationally as a soloist and with his ensemble. In the past three years he has been a guest at the Opus Amadeus Oda Müziği Festivali in Istanbul, the Riga Early Music Centre in Latvia, the Festival d’Ambronay in France, the Centro Musica Antica in Italy, the Narodowe Forum Muzyki (NFM) in Poland, the Stiftung Mozarteum in Austria, the Merano Festival in South Tyrol, the Vesperali Festival Lugano in Ticino and the MA Festival Brugge in Belgium.

NICOLA PORPORA'S Germanico in Germania is the latest Baroque opera seria to get worked over by a conductor who confuses over-caffeination with excitement. There’s little drama, shape or contrast when everything’s so loud and frantic, and the whole work sounds like one long string of agitated arie di tempeste. Even without understanding Italian, it’s easy to tell what a Baroque aria is about by the instrumental setup and the vocal writing.

Jazzland is proud to present the brand new opus from two of the brightest luminaries on the Norwegian scene. "Snow Catches on her Eyelashes" emanates musical authority, a hyperconscious layering of textures and musicality, at once evocative of some otherworldly space, yet familiar at a deep human level that resonates with each sonic flourish.

Riemuitkaamme! is an imaginative and unconventional selection of choral music associated with Christmas as it is celebrated in Finland. Several of the pieces are by Finnish composers - Sibelius, Rautavaara and Madetoja, to name a few - while others have become part of the Christmas traditions of the country despite their international background. Among these Berlioz The Shepherds Farewell and Tchaikovskys Christ, when a Child are quite late additions compared to the medieval hymns Puernatusin Bethlehem, Ecce novum gaudium and Angelus emittitur. All three of these were included in the collection Piae cantiones from 1582, the oldest Finnish music publication. Here, they are performed in settings by various composers from different countries and eras forming a kind of soundtrack of Christmases past and present, distant and close. Contemporary music forms an important part of the activities of the Helsinki Chamber Choir and Nils Schweckendiek, and true to form, the team includes a world premiere recording in their celebrations: Aattoilta, by the Canadian-born composer Matthew Whittall.