Although Mozart composed them in his early twenties, the three symphonies presented here can in no way be regarded as early works. Written around the time of his departure from Salzburg for Vienna, these symphonies show that Mozart could deliver attractive, varied, orchestrally colourful and characterful music to suit a variety of public tastes. They also show a young and ambitious composer seeking to forge an impregnable reputation in Europe’s musical capital city. These symphonies truly opened a new chapter in Mozart’s symphonic output, as he demonstrated his absolute mastery of orchestral writing. In addition to the three symphonies as we know them, this recording also includes a Minuet that may have been intended to form part of Symphony no.34.

This is Volume 2 in the series ‘British Clarinet Sonatas’, in which Michael Collins is joined by the pianist Michael McHale. BBC Music awarded five stars to Volume 1, and wrote: ‘Collin’s clarinet-playing mesmerises the ear: the closing phrase of Stanford’s ‘Caoine’ movement shows what a player in this league can convey in just two quiet notes. Without snatching the limelight, Michael McHale’s accompanying finds a range of keyboard colours in, above all, the works by Ireland and Howells, making their individual sound-worlds seem unexpectedly subtle and rich.’ On this disc the pair turns to works for clarinet and piano by Arthur Benjamin, Edward Gregson, Joseph Horovitz, Sir Malcolm Arnold, and Arnold Cook.

This is Volume 1 in a new series of British Clarinet Sonatas, featuring the exclusive Chandos artist Michael Collins in works by Bax, Bliss, Howells, Ireland, and Stanford. He is accompanied by the pianist Michael McHale. Their ‘Lyrical Clarinet’ disc received much praise, among others from BBC Music which noted: ‘It’s hard to imagine this programme better played than it is here by Collins and McHale… technically impeccable.’

On Synergy, flautist Sharon Bezaly and her musician friends demonstrate that one plus one can be much greater than two. Featuring works that celebrate the coming together of like-minded musicians, this project is a reminder, after more than two years of a pandemic that has affected all of us, that true musical synergy can only be achieved 'face-to-face’, rather than ‘remotely’.

The Brodsky Quartet present the first of two albums that will feature Brahms’s complete string quartets. This recording includes the String Quartet Op. 51 No. 2 with the Clarinet Quintet in B minor. The second string quartet was written alongside its contrasting companion, the String Quartet Op. 51 No. 1.

On this album, the exclusive Chandos artist, Michael Collins, plays the clarinet in three works for clarinet and orchestra by Weber, as well as conducting the City of London Sinfonia. The disc also includes Weber’s horn concertino, featuring the soloist Stephen Stirling.

The two concertos performed here by Michael Collins and the Philharmonia Orchestra were both intended for a specific player – Mozart composed his for Anton Stadler and Richard Birchall for Michael Collins himself. Both works – as well as Mozart's Clarinet Quintet – were also written for a particular instrument: the basset clarinet, a slightly larger and deeper clarinet than the one in A which soon after Mozart had written his concerto became the standard. At the very core of the clarinet repertoire, the two works by Mozart have until recently been played on the A clarinet, with necessary adjustments being made to the solo part. Nowadays, however, they are more and more often performed on the instrument they were intended for.

Friends of long standing as well as regular partners in chamber music, Michael Collins and Stephen Hough bring their combined musical insights and expertise to bear on Johannes Brahms’s sonatas for clarinet and piano. Together with the composer’s trio for clarinet, cello and piano and clarinet quintet, the sonatas are among the most treasured works in the repertoire of the instrument – but it is partly down to good luck that we have them at all.

The links between Breguet and classical music are as strong as they are long established. The composers Giovanni Paisiello, Gioachino Rossini and Serge Rachmaninoff and the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, to mention only a few notable personalities, were all the happy owners of timepieces whose faces bore the signature of Breguet. Hence musical patronage has quite naturally become one of the key facets of the social and cultural activities of Montres Breguet.

Up until around 1900 the clarinet repertoire was dominated by music from the German-speaking lands, largely due to the influence of three outstanding clarinetists. Inspired by Anton Stadler, Heinrich Bärmann and Richard Mühlfeld respectively, Mozart, Weber and Brahms composed some of the finest clarinet works ever written.