Guillermo Flores Mendez

In an age seemingly built to overwhelm, the concepts of directness and clear intention are being lost. Exhausting maximalist concepts have become the norm in many of the arts. It can be refreshing to hear music that has purpose and clarity. That is what Guillermo Klein and Los Guachos hope to provide on their new, suite-like recording, Cristal.

Following the phenomenal success of the first Mozart y Mambo album, Sarah Willis returns to Cuba not only to record two more Mozart horn concertos but also to create a landmark original work that takes its place in Cuban music history. In Mozart y Mambo - Cuban Dances , Sarah commissions the very first Cuban horn concerto – calling on six young talented Cuban composers to each write an original dance for solo horn, strings, and percussion inspired by the most famous dance rhythms from across different regions of Cuba. Together with her beloved Havana Lyceum Orchestra conducted by José Antonio Méndez Padrón, Sarah takes us on a cross country musical road trip in this spectacular showcase of the roots and traditions of Cuba’s music and dance. Cuban Dances is Cuban music as it has never been heard before and a huge challenge for the horn player, not only technically but physically – “if you can’t dance it you can’t play it” she was told. So dance it she did! Mozart y Mambo - Cuban Dances is full of magic, energy, and passion, and Sarah’s love for Cuban music is evident in every track.

Sarah Willis is a tireless ambassador for her instrument, the French horn, which she champions around the world. A horn player with the famous Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra since 2001, she launched what was soon to become a famous TV programme, ‘Sarah’s Music’, for Deutsche Welle in 2014, interviewing personalities ranging from Gustavo Dudamel to Wynton Marsalis. The award-winning programme presents music with warmth and in all its diversity.

With this album - subtitled La Bella Cubana - the Mozart y Mambo trilogy is complete. After two critically acclaimed albums, three documentary films, two international tours and fundraising to help support classical musicians in Cuba, Sarah concludes this adventure of a lifetime with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra and their conductor, José Antonio Méndez Padrón by recording Mozart's Concerto No. 4 with its famous final Rondo. Also on the album, three of her colleagues from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Jonathan Kelly, Wenzel Fuchs and Stefan Schweigert, join her for more Mozart, performing the Sinfonia Concertante for four solo wind instruments and orchestra.

Pentatone presents a new album full of world-premiere recordings of orchestral songs by Hans Sommer, sung by an excellent quartet of soloists – Mojca Erdmann, Anke Vondung, Mauro Peter and Benjamin Appl – together with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under the baton of Guillermo García Calvo. Sommer was a Liszt student whose operas were performed and praised by Richard Strauss, but sunk into relative oblivion due to his unusual career path and independence from major publishers. The songs were discovered recently and can finally be presented to the world. Focusing mostly on Goethe poetry, combining high Romanticism with folk styles, Sommer’s songs are colourfully orchestrated, harmonically audacious, and often highly dramatic and evocative.

Under the label Alia Vox Diversa , Jordi Savall invites the ensemble Tasto Solo, founded in 2006, whose first albums were critically acclaimed : Diapason d’or, Amadeus “CD du Mois”, Ritmo & Audio Clásica “Excellent”, Pizzicato “Supersonic”, Scherzo “Exception- Nel”, France Musique “Coup de Coeur”… It brings us back to the Europe of the XVIIth Century , which experienced an unparalleled development of treatises about the art of instru- mental and vocal performance. Italy was the epic enter of a new style derived from the world of dance. This album revolves mainly around the work of composer Vincenzo Ruffo and his contemporaries. The instruments used in the present recording are typical of the Italian culture of the early Renaissance in chamber music : a small harpsichord without damper in the upper register, a simple harp, a viola da gamba and a lute.