Linn is absolutely thrilled to launch a new recording partnership with the Consone Quartet. The first period instrument quartet to be selected as BBC New Generation Artists, the ensemble will embark on a complete Felix Mendelssohn string quartets cycle. Playing on gut strings, thus creating a warm, grainy soundworld akin to analogue photography (as violinist Agata Daraškaitė puts it), the four musicians have drawn inspiration from editions of the time, including Ferdinand David’s own scrupulously marked-up parts, to present fresh accounts of the E flat major quartet ‘1823’ and Op. 44 No. 3. These two works paired together – the former is an early work, the latter is the composer’s penultimate achievement in the genre – allow for some revealing comparisons between styles at different points in Mendelssohn’s life.

This is the third and final instalment of the Well-Tempered Consort series (5 Diapasons, Gramophone Editor’s Choice, BBC Music Magazine Chamber Choice). In this programme devised by its director Laurence Dreyfus, the viol consort Phantasm continues to shine new light on the fugues from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier interspersed with some of the composer’s most harmonically adventurous experiments from the Clavierübung III. This polyphonic feast also includes two works from the Inventions and Sinfonias as well as the Fantasia in G major BWV 572, or Pièce d’orgue as it is sometimes called, which boasts an extraordinary closing pedal point. A fitting end to a remarkable journey!

The magnificent Orchestral Suites, known as "Ouvertüren" in German, form the final instalment in Dunedin Consort’s long-running Bach masterworks series for Linn, a series lauded as "nothing short of sensational" by "Gramophone".

Linn is thrilled to commence a new collaboration with one of the most renowned orchestras in Germany, Cologne based WDR Sinfonieorchester, with the fast-rising star of the conducting world, Cristian Măcelaru, at the helm.

As a recipient of the Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Scholarships scheme, British bass-baritone Ossian Huskinson explores the powerfully appealing archetype of the vagabond in its various iterations across English Song. Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel forms an ideal starting point, containing the complete cycle of a hero’s journey: the adventure, the highs and lows, and the return home as a changed person. Inspired by the same vagabond theme, a younger generation has perpetuated the tradition; Ossian interprets songs by Farrar, Warlock and Head.In 2022, four exceptional recipients of the Academy’s 2020/21 Bicentenary Scholarships scheme – Julie Park, Camilla Harris, Ossian Huskinson and Charlie Lovell-Jones – will each release a new album to coincide with the Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary celebrations.

Continuing their investigation into the wealth of forgotten Baroque music from Ireland, the Irish Baroque Orchestra and its Music Director Peter Whelan now explore music by Cousser and Purcell.

Jonian Ilias Kadesha has worked with leading artists and orchestras such as Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Nicolas Altstaedt, Steven Isserlis and Patricia Kopatchinskaja to name but a few. For his debut album on Linn, he has recorded a high-flying recital of solo violin pieces spanning five centuries. One of the oldest pieces of music written for solo violin, Biber’s angelic and absolutely mesmerizing Passacaglia stands alongside Bach’s enduringly famous Second Partita, whose last movement is the starting point for the Ciaccona for Violin Solo by Swiss composer Helena Winkelman, which receives its first commercial recording here. Twentieth- and twenty-first-century works by Schnittke, Kurtág and Lera Auerbach, all heavily inspired by Bach’s music, complete the programme which augurs a fruitful partnership with a promising young talent.

This colourful journey across different times and places marks the first recording of Italian conductor Alessandro Crudele and the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Linn. At the helm of the flamboyant LPO the versatile conductor has recorded a compendium of programmatic works spanning the artistic life of Ottorino Respighi.Starting with one of his first masterpieces, the evocative and at times epic Pini di Roma is a botanical journey through Rome at different times of the day. The more impressionistic, travelogue Impressioni brasiliane, the result of a trip Respighi made in Brazil, is suffused with local music and culture and dates from the mature years of the composer. Much in the same vein, the late ballet Belkis, regina di Saba describes a mythological voyage this time; the little-known work recounts the Queen’s route across the desert to meet Solomon, King of Israel, with whom she is in love.

Linn welcomes back lute virtuoso William Carter in a programme of works by another virtuoso, Esaias Reusner (1636-79), who worked and performed across Europe. Born in Silesia, he was considered to be one of the best lute players of his time and his influence was extensive. "Some may be drawn to the brilliance and noise of thunder and lightning, but ever since my youth, the soft and sweet sonorities of noble music has been my only pleasure", so writes Reusner in the preface of his major work, Delitiae testudinis.This collection, introspective in essence, is outstanding not just for its exceptional quality but because it contains the very first dance suites - for any instrument! - published in Europe. This sequence of dances (Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue) was a form used by virtually every Baroque composer who followed, including Bach and Haendel. Carter has recorded three of these suites and also pieces from later publications, some of which are premiere recordings.

"Lectures différentes" is the brainchild of Kebyart, a young, energetic Spanish ensemble comprising four talented saxophonists who are revitalizing the way classical music is communicated. For its debut recording the group has unabashedly arranged works from the standard repertoire, creating new and refreshing accounts: from Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, a modern take on eighteenth-century music, to Joan Pérez-Villegas’s Fantasy on García Lorca’s "Canciones antiguas españolas" and Haydn’s String Quartet Op. 33 No. 3. The programme also includes the premiere recording of Eötvös’s own Lectures différentes.The idiosyncratic approach of the saxophones - enhanced by the ensemble’s own arrangements - highlights different facets of the works. Kebyart’s passion for chamber music and fresh approach to classical music led it to be selected as "ECHO Rising Stars" for the 2021/22 season.

Poursuivant son long compagnonnage avec Haendel, commencé en 1996 au Festival de Glyndebourne avec une production de Theodora mise en scène par Peter Sellars, Harry Bicket et ses musiciens de The English Concert s’attaquent cette fois à l’oratorio La Resurrezione, après leur enregistrement de Rodelinda salué par la critique en 2021. Avec une équipe bien soudée de solistes excellents dans l’ensemble, Bicket nous livre une interprétation haute en couleurs, avec ses rythmes accusés et ses timbres instrumentaux goûteux.

Returning to his beloved bassoon Peter Whelan takes a fresh look at the two surviving works by Mozart for the instrument: Concerto, K. 191 and Sonata, K. 292. These attractive early works were most likely composed during the composer’s time in Salzburg. The Concerto is the earliest of his woodwind concertos, and has become a staple work for every bassoon player: it showcases the tremendous capabilities of the pre-nineteenth-century instrument, its agility, extraordinary range and tone colour.

The miracle of Bach’s music is that you can arrange it for any type or number of instruments, and it’ll still come out shining. This joyful album features a selection of the composer’s keyboard works framed by two movements from the Musical Offering, usually performed by flute and strings. Phantasm, a consort of five viols—early versions of the modern cello—bring aspects of Bach’s thrilling counterpoint to light with expressive touches here and there, and often a lightness and variety of texture that’s hard or impossible to achieve midflow on the organ, harpsichord or piano. Rarely have Bach’s fugues sounded so dancelike, light and fleet, especially the great E-flat Prelude and Fugue BWV 552 or the Prelude No. 24 from Book 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier.