In a time that did not favor culture and concerts, Pavel šporcl did not hesitate and recorded a new album paganiniana for the prestigious German label hänssler Classic.

The phrase memento mori has its origins in classical antiquity, but the injunction to remember one’s own mortality has been a feature of different cultures and religions throughout the ages; just as death is universal, so is our need to adjust to this fact, and to consider our lives with it in mind. The arts are, and have been, an important means in helping us to do so, which is why the laments gathered on this album speak to us all.

The Eliot Quartet has already been showered with prizes, including awards at the German Music Competition, the Mozart Competition in Salzburg, and the Melbourne Competition. It's new GENUIN release presents two milestones of the string quartet repertoire: Ludwig van Beethoven's Razumovsky Quartet, Op. 59 no. 1, and Sergei Prokofiev's thrilling Second Quartet. Both works deal with East European folklore, and the four musicians bring out their melodic colors and rhythmic peculiarities with great accuracy and homogeneity of sound.

For a string player, Beethoven’s 16 quartets are of an importance similar to that of his sonatas to a pianist, or his symphonies to a conductor. As a body they form the culmination of all the chamber music composed before them, and to this day they remain a benchmark for every composer of string quartets. The Chiaroscuro Quartet begin their cycle of these works at the same place as Beethoven did, with the Op. 18 set which occupied him intensively for the best part of two years (1798 – 1800).

A mere dozen or so printed viola concertos are known of from the Viennese Classical era, contrasting with countless violin, cello, and flute concertos. There can be only one explanation for this: there were relatively few players available of truly virtuoso ability. Alongside two emblematic viola concertos of the time, those by Hoffmeister and Stamitz, this album includes the 1802 transcription for viola of Mozart’s A major clarinet concerto.

The present release is a special live recording of the Staatskapelle Dresden's 1st symphony concert of the season in the Semperoper on September 1, 2017. Christian Thielemann’s engagement with the symphonic work of Anton Bruckner takes him in Vol. 52 to the composer’s early years.

Kent Nagano was a close associate of the French composer Olivier Messiaen, whose music is notable for its sense of mysticism and sensuous sonorities. Few conductors know Messiaen’s works as well as Nagano, who is now continuing his Messiaen cycle with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra with one of his mentor’s most radical pieces, the colourful Chronochromie for orchestra.