William Skeen is one of the world’s premiere Baroque cellists. He serves as Principal Cellist with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Voices of Music, and was Principal Cellist of the American Bach Soloists for nearly two decades. He is a founding member of the New Esterházy Quartet, the Cantata Collective, and La Monica. Mr. Skeen taught baroque cello and viola da gamba at the University of Southern California for two decades. Mr. Skeen has received two Grammy nominations. He continues to perform regularly with major orchestras and Baroque groups around the world.

San Francisco-based album producer Lolly Lewis founded her recording production company Transparent Recordings in 1980. Notable projects include Anthony Davis’s opera Tania, a premiere recording of orchestral music by Harlem Renaissance composer Florence Price with the Women’s Philharmonic Orchestra, and a Berlioz series with San Diego Symphony. In recent years, Ms. Lewis has been particularly focused on period instrument performance and has produced six albums with the New Esterházy Quartet. This new release of the Six Cello Suites was beautifully recorded by famed multi-GRAMMY®-winning engineer Leslie Ann Jones at Skywalker Sound in Marin County, California. It was mastered by RR’s own multi-GRAMMY®-nominated engineer, Sean Royce Martin.

William Skeen, Cello and Violoncello Piccolo

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“Discovering Mahler’s music is akin to discovering life itself. Experiencing it, is to be drawn into his world and values. What emerges from his music, his letters and, the testimonies of those who knew him is the duality of this man. Being a creator and interpreter all at once, he invents the sounds which re-create the world of nature and humans.”- Semyon Bychkov

The Czech Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor and Music Director Semyon Bychkov continue their acclaimed Mahler cycle with a Double Album of Mahler: Symphony No. 3, the composer’s Third Symphony. Working together with mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison, the Prague Philharmonic Choir and Pueri Gaudentes.

In this monumental work, Mahler combines a text from Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra with the folk song inspirations of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, culminating in eternal bliss in the closing Adagio. To Bychkov, this longest Mahler symphony offers his “least hysterical” music, and hearing it for the first time as a 10-year-old choirboy kindled his life-long fascination and love for this composer. With this recording, it comes full circle.

Catriona Morison, Mezzo-Soprano (tracks 4 & 5)
Prague Philharmonic Choir (track 5)
Lukáš Vasilek, Choirmaster
Pueri Gaudentes (track 5)
Libor Sládek & Jan Kyjovský, Choirmasters

Czech Philharmonic
Jan Mráček, Concertmaster
Jan Perný, Trombone Solo (track 1)
Walter Hofbauer, Post Horn Solo (track 3)
Conducted by Semyon Bychkov

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1) The young alumnus of the Royal Conservatory of Ghent, Patricia Gil Jiminez was asked to write a work for clarinet and electronics. The piece is a top addition to the contemporary repertoire!

2) The Ghent composer Johan Duijck (former conductor of the “Flemish Radio Choir” and the “Choir of Saint Martins in the Fields”) was asked to create a new composition for the special combination of 3 clarinets, piano and large mixed choir.

3)Last but not least, the Flemish composer Erik Desimpelaere was commissioned for a concert work for clarinet and orchestra.

Julien Chun-Yen Lai
Martim Barbosa
Yebin Seo
Sabine Meyer
Reiner Wehle
Desguin Quartet
Zemlinsky Quartet
Ghents Madrigaalkoor
Panagiotis Marios Giannakas
Seoyoung Lee
Flanders Symphony Orchestra

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Under Daniel Reuss’ artistic direction of over thirty years, the choir has garnered numerous accolades, including an Edison Klassiek Award for In Umbra Mortis (2021). This album was followed by David Lang: the writings (2022), Schnittke: Psalms of Repentance (2023) and Tales of song and sadness (2024), a tribute to those two giants of Dutch music culture, conductor Frans Brüggen and composer Louis Andriessen.

Professional chamber choir Cappella Amsterdam brings classical choral music, independently and in collaboration with others, under the artistic direction of Daniel Reuss for over thirty years. They are very much aware that what they do touches the core of humanity, that singing is a universal language. Cappella Amsterdam keeps this language and the rich choral canon alive at the highest level and gives choral music its place in the 21st century.

Cappella Amsterdam
Daniel Reuss, Conductor

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The opera was sketched out by composer Henri Desmarets around the year 1695, but he was then banished from France by Louis XIV for having married a young girl without her father’s consent. The uncompleted score of Iphigénie was then entrusted to André Campra.

The opera, since lost and forgotten, was rediscovered by Benoît Dratwicki, Director of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, who marvels at its stylistic unity: ‘Campra easily adopted Desmarest’s style. He just added some virtuoso arias to the divertissements, as well as the tuneful choruses that were his speciality.’

Iphigénie en Tauride had its premiere on May 6, 1704, and was revived throughout Europe from 1711. Thanks to Hervé Niquet, a top-flight team of singers, an orchestra well versed in French repertoire, and all their collaborative research into the practices and specific playing techniques of the early 18th century, Iphigénie sees the light of day once more.

Véronique Gens – Iphigénie
Reinoud Van Mechelen – Pylade
Thomas Dolié – Oreste
David Witczak – Thoas
Olivia Doray – Électre
Floriane Hasler – Diane
Tomislav Lavoie – L’Ordonateur, L’Océan
Antonin Rondepierre – Un Habitant de Délos, Triton, Le Grand Sacrificateur
Jehanne Amzal – Isménide, Première Habitante de Délos, Première Nymphe, Première Prêtresse
Marine Lafdal-Franc – Seconde Habitante de Délos, Seconde Nymphe, Seconde Prêtresse

Le Concert Spirituel
Hervé Niquet – Musical Direction

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Wei-Lian Huang & Gwendoline Blondeel – soprano
Isabelle Druet – mezzo-soprano
Andrea Gavagnin – countertenor
Pierre Derhet & Emanuele Petracco – tenor
Nicolas Achten – baritone, chitarrone in G & A, theorbo in A, colascione, Italian guitar, Spanish guitar in E, double & triple harp, harpsichord, organ
Justin Glaie – lute in A & G, bass lute in D, theorbo in A, cittern, Spanish chitarrino in A, Spanish guitar in E, bass viol
Francois Dambois – bass lute in D, chitarrone in A, theorbo in D, A & low D, Spanish chitarrino in A, Italian guitar in E, Spanish guitar in E, Spanish chitarriglia in high E
Beniamino Paganini – harpsichord, spinet & organ
Lies Wyers – tenor & bass viol, lirone
Clemence Schiltz – treble & bass viol
Benoît Vanden Bemden – violone

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Nevertheless, its identity is teased by countless contradictions: it appears to cover the entire Ordinary of the Catholic Liturgy, but in Bach’s Lutheran environment the complete Latin text was seldom sung as a whole; it seems to have the characteristics of a unified work, yet its origins are perhaps the most diverse for any of Bach’s large scale compositions; it was written in an age when composers generally prepared music for specific occasions, yet we have no firm evidence that the whole work was designed with a performance in mind.

Somehow, a mystique grew around the Mass soon after Bach’s death, and C.P.E. Bach performed the Credo section during the 1780s; but it was nearly a century before it was available in print. The first performances in the early decades of the nineteenth century were presented by institutions of which Bach could hardly have conceived – amateur choral societies with a vast number of performers. And, over the last century it has often been at the center of major disputes in the field of Bach scholarship: the question of its original function, its chronology, the legitimacy of the various manuscripts and, of course, its performance practice. Even the title ‘Mass in B Minor’ was not applied until the nineteenth century.

Bach’s autograph contains four discrete sections: the Kyrie and Gloria are together entitled Missa, these movements being the regular part of the sung Lutheran mass of Bach’s time; the second section is called Symbolum Nicenum – the Nicene Creed. Then follows the Sanctus – again an independent manuscript (a slightly modified version of a pre-existing setting); the fourth section contains the remaining texts of the Mass, ‘Benedictus’ to ‘Dona nobis pacem’. The fact that Bach gave each of these sections.

Miriam Feuersinger, Soprano I 
Hana Blažiková, Soprano II 
Carlos Mena, Countertenor 
Jakob Pilgram, Tenor 
Tobias Berndt, Bass 
La Cetra Basel
Andrea Marcon, Musical & Artistic Direction

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The story is brought to life by celebrated American soprano Marnie Breckenridge (as Jacqueline) and former du Pré protégé and world-renowned cellist Matt Haimovitz, playing the role of her constant companion: her cello.

Grammy nominated composer Luna Pearl Woolf and Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist Royce Vavrek chart the development of great prodigy and, ultimately, great tragedy. Told in four movements – I. Star Birth; II. Super Nova; III. Meteorite; IV. Impact – the opera references Haimovitz’s personal recollections of du Pré herself.

Colorful and at times funny, raw, joyful and audacious, the form of the work echoes du Pré’s iconic interpretation of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, using the concerto’s four-movement structure to navigate a prismatic and passionate, if all too short, life in music.

Commissioned by Tapestry Opera. Dramaturgy and direction by Michael Hidetoshi Mori

Marnie Breckenridge, Soprano
Matt Haimovitz, Violoncello

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Recorded live in September 2022 by multi-Grammy award winning engineer Christopher Willis, conducted by Dame Jane Glover, and performed by Chicago-based Music of the Baroque Chorus & Orchestra. This marks the first American commercial recording of Jephtha, Handel’s most sublime, emotionally intense work and an absolutely gorgeous baroque masterpiece.

Now in its fifth decade, Music of the Baroque is one of the leading professional ensembles in America devoted to 17th and 18th-century works. The Chicago Sun-Times writes, “Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra may be the big guys on the local classical music scene, but in terms of sheer quality of performance… Music of the Baroque inhabits the same stratosphere.”

Acclaimed British conductor Jane Glover, named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2021 New Year’s Honours, has been Music of the Baroque’s music director since 2002. Jane Glover has conducted all the major symphony and chamber orchestras in Britain, as well as orchestras in Europe, the United States, Asia, and Australia. She has worked with the period­ instrument orchestras Philharmonia Baroque and the Handel & Haydn Society. A Mozart specialist, she has conducted all the Mozart operas all over the world regularly, and her core operatic repertoire also includes Monteverdi, Handel, and Britten.

David Portillo, tenor (Jephtha)
Lauren Snouffer, soprano (Iphis)
Clara Osowski, mezzo­-soprano (Storgè)
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, countertenor (Hamor)
Neal Davies, bass­-baritone (Zebul)
Katelyn Lee, soprano (Angel)

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Weiss: Selected Works for Lute features Evangelina Mascardi on Lutes. In more than three hundred years of lute literature, from the mid-fifteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, only a select few composers, such as Francesco da Milano, John Dowland, and Silvius Leopold Weiss, have had their fame exceed their lifetime.

The transient nature of a musician’s fame was primarily due to the impossibility of preserving sound content for future generations, leading to a fate shared by almost all. Music existed only in the present moment, more than any other artistic manifestation. For lutenists, the challenge was exacerbated by the use of tablature, an ancient script that indicated the finger positions needed to produce a sound rather than the actual notes themselves. This script could only be read by those who played the instrument, making its contents inaccessible to other musicians.

While paintings, sculptures, and books outlived their authors, music remained a dead letter on score paper. It is not difficult to understand why, in spite of all this, Silvius Leopold Weiss was still remembered and mentioned many years after his demise. He was a world-famous virtuoso, admired, highly sought after, and among the highest paid of his time. Silvius Leopold Weiss was born on 12 October 1687 in Grottkau near Breslau, the capital of Silesia (today Wroclaw in Poland). His father, Johann Jacob, was also a lutenist of some renown. Johann Jacob was probably the sole person responsible for his, his brother Johann Sigismund’s, and his sister Juliana Margaretha’s education. While still in his teens, Silvius Leopold started playing the violin at the courts of Breslau and Innsbruck.

Evangelina Mascardi, Lutes

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