Modernists Fischer and Hume make ideal bedfellows. Remarkably true to the composers’ intentions and wonderfully conceived and created.

Music of Hildegard von Bingen and new compositions by Petter Udland Johansen, performed by Arianna Savall and her Ensemble Hirundo Maris. The new album of Arianna Savall, Petter Udland Johansen and their Ensemble Hirundo Maris is a new and outstanding approach to the music of Hildegard of Bingen. it is entirely devoted to the beauty, emotion and spiritual depth of the music of this great composer, philosopher and mystic and conveys the magic of her music in a truly affecting manner.

In its time, the high Baroque oboe concerto was the ne plus ultra of the virtuoso, the sin qua non of the soulful, and the denier cri of the tuneful. But times change and for all but the most epicurean of the cognoscenti, the oboe concertos of Johann Gottlieb Graun, Johann Ludwig Krebs, and Georg Philipp Telemann are at best terra incognito and at worst nearly persona non grata. In his day, Heinz Holliger was the crème de la crème of oboe virtuosity, the apex, the acme, and the essence of the metaphysical quintessence of oboe virtuosity. So great was Holliger's celebrity that, after he had finished recording the oboe concertos of Mozart, Bach, and Strauss, he was allowed to record the oboe concertos of Graun, Krebs, and Telemann.

Dennis Russell Davies has had a long-running and highly productive association with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra – documented on exceptional ECM recordings of repertoire from Mozart to Kancheli - and is currently the orchestra’s Conductor Laureate. Here he leads them through spirited performances of Bartók’s “Divertimento”, “Romanian Folk Dances” and “Seven Songs” (on which the orchestra is joined by the Hungarian Radio Children's Choir.) This selection of lively Bartók pieces is viewed through the prism of Wittold Lutosalwaski’s “Musique funèbre”, written in memory of the great Hungarian composer, and first performed on the 10th anniversary of Bartók’s death. It’s an important, and moving, piece (and one which also led to international recognition for Lutoslawski).

Pianist Valery Afanassiev – renowned for his strikingly individual and deeply introspective interpretations of the music of Franz Schubert – has paired two often extrovert works by the composer: the set of six Moments Musicaux and the Sonata D. 850. Recorded in September 2010 at the Auditorio Radiotelevisione Svizzera, Lugano, this is ECM’s second Schubert recording by the Moscow-born pianist, having previously released a live recording of Afanassiev performing Schubert’s final Sonata D. 960 at the 1986 Lockenhaus Festival that has become a connoisseur’s favourite.