Warmhearted but clear-eyed, the Schubert Ensemble of London's recordings of the Piano Quartets of Fauré are anything but French performances. Where French performers can parse their emotions down to the most infinitesimal gradation of feeling but are intellectually profoundly superficial, these English performers are intellectually clear and lucid, but their interpretations are still deeply felt.

David Ponsford is an organist, harpsichordist, musicologist and conductor, and an authority on keyboard music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He was extremely fortunate to be able to study organ with Peter Hurford, Lionel Rogg and Piet Kee, and harpsichord with Kenneth Gilbert and Gustav Leonhardt. Since 2021, he has taught organ and harpsichord & organ continuo at the Royal Academy of Music, London. The present CD is volume 8 in the series ‘French Organ Music from the Golden Age’, performed by David Ponsford on French historic organs. This eight disc series emerged from David Ponsford's seminal book French Organ Music in the Reign of Louis XIV (Cambridge University Press, ISBN: 9781316620748) "This book is a must-have for any serious organist." Choir and Organ "Invaluable to understanding and appreciating its subject.' Early Music

In his music, if not in his life, Schubert was able to reconcile his innermost longings with the realities of life, to overcome the fear of death and restore the “lost paradise” of innocence and beauty. Very few artists have expressed their inner wo rld, their vision of heaven, with such lucidity and conviction. Schubert composed a n incredible amount of music during the last year of his life, as if knowing that he was running out of time. These works represent the pinnacle of his creativity, summing up his exploration of different musical forms, genres, and manner of writing. Among his finest compositions from this period are two sets of Impromptus and the Musical Moments that are included in this recording. Vladimir Feltsman is one of the most versatile and constantly interesting musicians of our time. His vast repertoire encompasses music from the Baroque to 20th-century composers. A regular guest soloist with leading symphony orchestras in the United States and abroad, he appears in the most prestigious concert series and music festivals all over the world. “Vladimir Feltsman probes Schubert’s inner world more deeply than most in Volume One of his new cycle for Nimbus” © Bruce Reader

Vladimir Feltsman is one of the most versatile and constantly interesting musicians of our time. His vast repertoire encompasses music from the Baroque to 20th:century composers. A regular guest soloist with leading symphony orchestras in the United States and abroad, he appears in the most prestigious concert series and music festivals all over the world. A dedicated educator of young musicians, Mr. Feltsman holds the distinguished Chair of Professor of Piano at the State University of New York, New Paltz, and is a member of the piano faculty at the Mannes College of Music in New York City.

Martin Jones has been one of Britain’s most highly regarded solo pianists since first coming to international attention in 1968 when he received the Dame Myra Hess Award. The same year he made his London debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and his New York debut at Carnegie Hall, and ever since has been in demand for recitals and concerto performances. He has made over 90 recordings with Nimbus Records exploring music that is not often played including the complete works of 18 composers. Adrian Farmer trained as an accompanist at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester following a music degree at Birmingham University. Adrian has made several recordings with other Nimbus artists: bass-baritone Shura Gehrman, pianists Nina Walker, Simon Callaghan, and Martin Jones. It is with soprano Charlotte de Rothschild that he has found his most enduring partnership releasing albums which include the premiere recording of the songs of her ancestor, Mathilde de Rothschild.

Pianist and conductor Vladimir Feltsman is one of the most versatile and constantly interesting musicians of our time. His vast repertoire encompasses music from the Baroque to 20th-century composers. A regular guest soloist with leading symphony orchestras in the United States and abroad, he appears in the most prestigious concert series and music festivals all over the world. Born in Moscow in 1952, Mr. Feltsman debuted with the Moscow Philharmonic at age 11. In 1969, he entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory of Music to study piano under the guidance of Professor Jacob Flier. His debut at Carnegie Hall established him as a major pianist on the American and international scene. A dedicated educator of young musicians, Mr. Feltsman holds the Distinguished Chair of Professor of Piano at the State University of New York, New Paltz, and is a member of the piano faculty at the Mannes College of Music in New York City.

Baritone Simon Wallfisch is in international demand as concert and opera singer. Highlights of 2023 include his debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin as 5 Richter in Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane. He also makes his debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Deputati Fiamminghi in Verdi’s Don Carlos. In 2022 he appeared at Berlin Philharmonie Grosser Saal as baritone soloist in Orff’s Carmina Burana with Choralspace and conductor Sergi Gili Solé, he also performed in the Berlin Philharmonie Kammermusiksaal as soloist with Kammerphilharmonie Berlin in Max Reger’s ‘Der Einsiedler’ with the JEB Choir (Weissenberger). In the UK, he curated the programme and appeared as soloist with BBC Singers at London’s Barbican Centre a programme of songs and choral works written in the Terezin Concentration Camp 1942-1944, he also performed a song recital with Julius Drake at Temple Music of Ullmann and Haas songs. In 2021 he made his Konzerthaus solo debut in Puccini’s Gloria with JEB (Weissenberger).

The British pianist Martin Jones had been among the most versatile and prolific players on the current scene. He has specialized in, but not restricted himself to, British, Spanish, and Eastern European music. Jones was born on February 4, 1940, in Witney in England's Oxfordshire region. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where his teachers were Guido Agosti, Guy Jonson, and Gordon Green. Early recognition came in the form of the Dame Myra Hess Award in 1968. That year, he made prestigious debuts at London's Southbank Centre and Carnegie Hall in New York.

In collaboration with the renowned Bach Choir conducting by David Hill this recording features a sound that is distinct from the original Requiem, while still retaining the heart of the piece. “Who would not wish to perform Verdi’s Requiem in the composer’s masterful original orchestration!

"Saint-Saëns Duos for Harmonium and Piano, is performed by award-winning acclaimed classical Accordionist Miloš Milivojević and Pianist Simon Callaghan. The rise in popularity of the harmonium in the second half of the nineteenth century brought with it a large repertoire of chamber music, especially in France, where the instrument had been developed and refined.

Charlotte de Rothschild writes: "I never imagined, when I learnt my very first Japanese song Karatachi no hana -Quince Flower - by Yamada Kohsaku in 1991, that thirty years later I would be bringing out my fourth release of these beautiful songs. This is the third CD with piano accompaniment and like the other two, is a mixture of "kakyoku", the Japanese equivalent of Lieder or Chanson, and of "douyou", popular songs that are sung in schools and then throughout life. It has truly been a wonderful journey of discovery and the songs on this album show that the art of composition of these western-style songs continues on into the present day."

Nimbus Alliance is excited to release a stunning new project with featuring Emma Johnson, Britain’s most renowned clarinettist, with great international acclaim. This project features Emma’s performances in two very different ways, first with a collection of Songs of Celebration which contains a variety of fantastic pieces leading up to the Christmas period in collaboration with conductor Adrian Partington and the Choir of Gloucester Cathedral. The second part of this release is ‘The Pied Piper’, which creates a verbal and musical recreation of the original Pied Piper story, with Emma both playing and reciting the story in conjunction with the Choir of Gloucester Cathedral and John Lenehan accompanying on the piano. This telling of the Pied Pipers story is dripping with horror and tension recreating the dark atmosphere of the original story.

Loss of hearing forced Smetana to leave his position at the Provincial Theatre and withdraw from social life and his musical career. In 1876 he moved to his daughter Zofie's house in Jabkenice. Here he was able to enjoy the calm and quite needed so that he could focus on his compositions. The change in his circumstances made him reflect on his life and he captured his feelings in his String Quartet No. 1 in E-minor, "From My Life". Smetana described the work as “intimate and private music for four instruments talking about my life”. However, the opposite was true of this epic score of programme music. Until this time the techniques used by Smetana in this quartet had only been used by composers writing for symphony orchestra. He used symphonic techniques with brilliant effect for chamber music.

CANTAR ALLA VIOLA, the art of accompanying the voice with the viola da gamba, is the largely-forgotten technique of using a bowed instrument to play polyphony and harmony as an accompaniment to the voice. The rediscovery of these methods inspired Nadine Balbeisi, soprano, and Fernando Marín, viola da gamba, to create their duo of the same name.

Simon Blendis writes: “Max Jaffa (1911-1991) was the pre-eminent light music violinist of his generation, a universally popular figure with a career spanning seventy years, famous as leader of the Palm Court Orchestra and of his trio, and a household favorite through his regular radio broadcasts. Since 2000 I have been playing on a wonderful Peter Guarnerius violin that previously belonged to him. About three years ago I was offered his sheet music library by his family (whom I’d got to know well in the intervening years), reuniting it with the violin, and during the first Coronavirus lockdown in 2020 my wife, Saoko, and I combed through the violin and piano pieces, discovering and performing in online concerts a huge number of gorgeous salon pieces, some well-known but many forgotten or undiscovered.”