Henry Mancini Centennial is a celebration of the legendary Film Composer’s music on his 100th Anniversary. Featuring José María Moreno conducting Orquesta Filarmónica de Málaga on the IBS Classical label.

Edwin Barker’s playing is described as “timeless,” “vibrant,” and “compelling,” three descriptors that could not be better suited for his recording of J.S. Bach’s Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011 and Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Sonata Op. 108 for solo double bass. Elegantly capturing Bach’s suite in his arrangement for double bass, Barker navigates the challenging and unwieldy passages of the Prelude’s fugue with the same measured and tolerant musicality innate to the immortal tenderness of the Sarabande. Despite a grand leap in time and place, he inspires equal personality — and often spouts of well-placed capriciousness — in Weinberg’s Sonata, honoring the high technical demands of the work while carving out a unique appreciation for Weinberg’s stylistic traditions. BASSO PROFUNDO is a prime example of a master at work, a recording that will surely inspire another extensive list of descriptors risen in Barker’s praise.

Sentimental, dynamic, exuberant, multi-talented and extremely eclectic, Francisco Mignone, whose Italian background brought a sense of universality to his musical nationalism, was a leading figure in the Brazilian music scene during the 20th century. The Clarinet Concertino and Bassoon Concertino share a nationalist idiom: the dialogues between soloist and orchestra extend into expressive duets with the exciting use of rapid embolada – a Brazilian form of poetry and song. The elegant Guitar Concerto is filled with drama and vitality, while the Violin Concerto was summed up by one critic as ‘the greatest work of this challenging genre in the history of Brazilian music.'

Franco Margola (1908–1992) was an Italian composer who was active throughout the 20th century. During his lifetime, he dedicated himself to composing pieces for musicians in the academic sector, where he found fertile ground and was widely commissioned for both pedagogical and non-educational purposes. His career included various teaching and leadership posts at several Italian conservatoires, not least the Conservatorio di Musica ‘Arrigo Boito’ in Parma, where he taught composition from 1963 to 1975. Here, thanks to a collaboration with the guitar teacher Renzo Cabassi, he began to compose numerous works for guitar (approximately 250 opus numbers).

Wolf-Ferrari was a composer of great artistic merit, Italian by nationality but raised in Germany, unfairly forgotten and deserving of rediscovery. His works meld compositional and spiritual elements with a preference for melodic purity and smooth harmonies, a passion for clear and linear forms inspired by Classical-era Vienna, and a meticulous approach. His aversion to complexity and his love of clarity and simplicity – as far removed from the operatic verismo movement as from the experiments of the avant-garde – meant he was, in a certain sense, an isolated figure, yet he knew that, despite the nostalgia in his writing, he had his own vibrant and original voice. His writing for strings displays expert compositional technique and a thorough technical knowledge of the instruments.

As part of the Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Series, Hadewych van Gent explores innovative voices of the cello repertoire in a bold first album on Linn. The warm, intimate opening piece is Hadewych’s own take on Colla parte by Dutch cellist and composer Ernst Reijseger who continues to inspire Hadewych to this day. Pianist Yupeng He joins Hadewych for Rebecca Clarke’s passionate Sonata, which was originally composed for the viola; Hadewych is one of the first cellists to record the work. The album ends with Pianissimo, the second movement of Grāmata čellam by Pēteris Vasks which combines, as in Colla parte, singing with cello playing, thus creating an authentic form of expression and adding Hadewych’s own voice to the composer’s.

Rising star violinist Chloe Chua presents a recording combining Chen Gang and He Zhanhao’s Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto with Niccolò Paganini’s First Violin Concerto, performed together with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Rodolfo Barráez and Mario Venzago. The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto was written in 1959, and inspired by a tale often called the Romeo & Juliet of ancient China. Chen and He deftly combine a Western classical idiom with elements from Chinese opera, such as grace notes and portamento effects, and the work has become one of the most famous and acclaimed pieces of Chinese classical music. This album also features an interpretation of Chen Gang’s Sunshine over Tashkurgan, which adds Central-Asian maqam to the stylistic palette.

William Grant Still (1895-1978) from Little Rock was a pioneer in many ways. He was the first African American to successfully depart from the generally acceptable genres of jazz and pop. He lived to see a symphonic work and an opera of his performed, he conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic and directed an important Southern orchestra. The respect that he acquired is reflected in two Guggenheim fellowships and five honorary doctorates, as well as a growing number of top-quality recordings of his works. This album is dedicated to the composer's impressive art songs. Two dozen works, including simple spirituals, expansive, declamatory and captivating scenes, touching miniatures and provocative challenges paint a portrait of a self-assured man asserting his musical authority.

After his latest recording, devoted to Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas in his own arrangement, Franz Halász returns to Spanish music with this recital devoted to Federico Moreno Torroba. The composer of many of the best-known zarzuelas, Moreno Torroba did not initially seem destined to specialize in guitar music. It was his symphonic poems that caught the attention of the legendary guitarist Andrés Segovia, who commissioned Moreno Torroba’s first compositions for guitar despite the composer’s unfamiliarity with the instrument. The compositions gathered here showcase a composer who, although deeply rooted in the Spanish musical tradition, was attuned to what was being done elsewhere, including the music of Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky, and who created a personal language marked by impressionism that would later influence guitar music throughout the twentieth century, from Heitor Villa-Lobos to Leo Brouwer.

At a time when the world situation is changing drastically and fear, worry and negative thinking reign, many people feel tired and overwhelmed. With their new album HOPE, the Duo Praxedis would like to set an antipole to let hope and confidence flow into people's hearts. To this end, they perform 23 spirituals and gospel songs in their own versions for harp and piano.

For her first album on Linn soprano Cassandra Wright has recorded a programme that offers a musical exploration of various facets of human nature. In the Twilight encompasses composers as varied as Barber, Joseph Marx, Debussy, Grieg and Korngold. In Cassandra’s own words, ‘Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, which was the initial inspiration for this collection of songs, evokes the innocence and wonder of childhood through its enchanting description of a carefree summer evening. The exploration of human longing is reflected in two richly coloured works written by the 23-year-old Korngold, who was profoundly impacted by the First World War and his forbidden romance with a young actress. Continuing towards the more hopeful and optimistic nature of night and dreams, we explore uplifting songs by Marx, Grieg and Debussy.’ This luminous album, with pianist Harry Rylance, is part of the Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Series.

The Arcadia Quartet’s acclaimed survey of Weinberg’s String Quartets continues with this fourth volume containing Quartets Nos 6, 13, and 15. Quartet No. 6 was composed in 1946 in Bïkovo, a town some twenty miles from the south-eastern perimeter of Moscow. Weinberg dedicated it to his friend Georgiy Sviridov, whom he had met in Shostakovich’s circle. The Quartet is a summit of his early achievements, and its musical language is strikingly advanced in relation to traditional Soviet works in the genre. It was banned by the authorities, and as a result, Weinberg wrote no more quartets until after the death of his mentor Shostakovich, in 1975.

Katia et Marielle Labèque, the famous pianist sister duo with a career spanning more than fifty years, release their new album dedicated to the music of Philip Glass, completing his operatic triptych composed between 1993 and 1996, based on the films by Jean Cocteau. After their much-acclaimed recording of Les Enfants Terribles in 2020, the pianists now present the remaining two works in the Cocteau Trilogy: Orphée and La Belle et la Bête, arranged by Glass’ music director Michael Riesman for Katia and Marielle Labèque. Katia and Marielle Labèque will be touring extensively throughout 2024 and performing the program in several markets, including France, Germany, UK and Ireland.

Cellist János Starker with the complete concertante recordings he made under the baton of Walter Susskind, a conductor praised for his abilities as an accompanist and with whom Starker shared close aesthetics conceptions. Their refined, chamber rendition of masterpieces of the repertoire by Dvořák, Dohnányi or Prokofiev is a superb token of Starker’s deep inwardness.

Vytautas Bacevičius’s life was defined by exile and migration during the turbulent first half of the 20th century, but his impressive catalogue represents a remarkable creative spirit undimmed by adversity. Composed while studying in Paris, the youthful Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 represent Bacevičius’s nostalgia for his native Lithuania in their unselfconscious and spirited use of folk melodies, all of which contribute to their light and celebratory nature. Written not long after his arrival in the United States in 1944, the Third Symphony expresses an early optimism for the composer’s new home in its energetic, positive and confident tone, culminating in a citation of The Stars and Stripes Forever.