Raphael Quartet

Raphael Feye and the Karski Quartet have collaborated on an exhilarating new album, paying a tribute to Luigi Boccherini's string quintets. These selected quintets showcase the composersexceptional ability to craft melodies that are both elegant and emotionally resonant while maintaining a graceful interplay between the instruments. To enhance the recording's excitement, the musicians decided to vary the distribution of the parts, ensuring each piece possesses a unique and distinct character.

This disc, very well recorded and issued originally in 1983, brings together all of the works for solo cello written by Tchaikovsky and as Tchaikovsky originally intended. They are all played with assurance and sensitivity by Wallfisch. Undoubtedly the most important work here is the Rococo Variations. This has suffered for most of its existence from the interference from its dedicatee, Wilhelm Fitzenhagen who made numerous alterations to the score including the deletion of the 8th variation and re-ordering the rest. He also added repeat marks and changed various dynamics.

It is often forgotten that Bernhard Romberg not only was a virtuoso but also as a composer was once numbered among the most important representatives of his generation. Statements to this effect are easy enough to find: Romberg was "one of the leading violoncello players on earth, also as a composer and an expert in the art of music" (Hamburg, 1801); he was regarded as "one of the most outstanding composers and as the most consummate of all cellists now living" (Leipzig, 1807).

Though a pupil of the great orchestrator Rimsky-Korsakov, and in turn a teacher to the likes of Rachmaninov, Glière, and Scriabin, Anton Arensky himself is a composer often forgotten when contemplating the Russian greats. Productive in many genres, it is perhaps in his chamber music that this unduly neglected composer truly shines. His writing has much of the same textural sophistication and melodic beauty as his close friend, Tchaikovsky. In fact, the theme on which the Second Quartet's Variations are based is drawn from a Tchaikovsky quartet. Performing Arensky's First and Second string quartets, along with the Piano Quintet, is the Ying Quartet. This ensemble's playing is characterized by a surprisingly precise, consistent uniformity of sound and exactness of articulation, making it seem as if a single instrument were playing as opposed to four independent parts. All aspects of their technical execution are polished and refined, which only enhances their equally enjoyable musical effusiveness, rich, deep tone, and understanding of Arensky's scores that casts them in the best possible light.

The Ensemble Pygmalion directed by Raphaël Pichon commences its collaboration with Harmonia Mundi with this new recording of J.S. Bach’s lost music to the Köthener Trauermusik (Cöthen funeral music), BWV 244a. Founded in 2006 at the European Bach Festival, Ensemble Pygmalion is a combination of choir and orchestra - all young performers with experience of authentic instruments and period-informed performance. Its repertoire concentrates primarily on Johann Sebastian Bach and Jean-Philippe Rameau.