The ECM New Series debut of Myung Whun Chung features the widely-celebrated conductor as pianist. Recorded at Venice’s Teatro La Fenice, in July 2013, the album marks the first occasion that Chung has recorded solo.
Composer: Claude Debussy (1862-1918), Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Genre: Instrumental
Subgenre: Piano
Harrison Birtwistle: Chamber Music
This album of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s chamber music and songs, mostly of recent vintage, is issued as the innovative Great British composer approaches his 80th birthday. It features an exceptional cast. Heard together and separately ...
Composer: Harrison Birtwistle
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
The ECM debut of the duo of Vera Kappeler and Peter Conradin Zumthor presents music commissioned for the Origen Cultural Festival. It is music dominated by low registers, dark hues. The Babylon referenced in the title ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Crossover Jazz
Over Tones is the highly attractive ECM debut of two exceptional folk musicians from the West of Norway – Benedicte Maurseth who plays the Hardanger fiddle and sings, and vocalist Åsne Valland Nordli.
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Crossover Jazz
Pavans and Fantasies from the Age of Dowland
John Dowland’s Lachrimae Pavans is considered one of the greatest works in the canon of English chamber music. Based upon his famous song “Flow My Teares”, the seven pavans – Seaven Teares, as Dowland called them – present an ...
Composer: John Dowland (1563-1626)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
Tigran Mansurian: Quasi parlando
Issued in the wake of the great Armenian composer’s 75th birthday, this New Series album opens with Tigran Mansurian’s fiercely-concentrated Double Concerto, composed in 1978, and proceeds to new music performed by its ...
Composer: Tigran Mansurian (1939-)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
Helena Tulve: Arboles Lloran por Lluvia
Recorded in churches in Tallinn as well as the Estonian Concert Hall, the five compositions heard on “Arboles lloran por lluvia” (Trees cry for rain) give deeper insight into the unique sound-world of Helena Tulve, into music which is ...
Composer: Helena Tulve (1972)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
Mutations is Vijay Iyer’s first album as a leader for ECM, and a recording that will widen perceptions of the pianist-composer’s work. At its centre is “Mutations I-X”, a composition scored for string quartet, piano, and electronics.
Composer: Vijay Iyer (1971)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
Le Vent, recorded in April 2013 at Oslo’s Rainbow Studio, is the second ECM album from the Colin Vallon Trio. Like the wind celebrated in its title track, the group has a subtle, insinuating power. Emerging from a still and silent place, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Modern Jazz
The second ECM album by the Billy Hart Quartet is a major musical statement, and one of the outstanding jazz albums of the season. The group’s reach – already broad on 2011’s widely-acclaimed All Our Reasons – is yet more expansive ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Modern Jazz
Erkki-Sven Tüür: Seventh Symphony - Piano Concerto
Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Seventh Symphony (2009), dedicated to the Dalai Lama, is a choral symphony like no other. It is a powerful vector-based work in Tüür’s new compositional mode, in which the orchestra only ...
Composer: Erkki-Sven Tüür (1959-)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Concertos
The music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg is finally beginning to get the hearing it has long deserved. Weinberg’s lifetime spanned the 20th century: born 1919 in Warsaw, he died 1996 in Moscow, in semi-obscurity. Along the way, his allies and ...
Composer: Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919–1996)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Concertos
“I consider this one of my most richly lyrical and consistently inspired works,” wrote Keith Jarrett of “Mirrors”, the almost half-hour long concluding piece on Arbour Zena. “Jan Garbarek’s contribution is irreplaceable and ecstatic.”
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
African Piano was a highly influential album, and it has lost none of its power – as can be heard on this HighResAudio reissue. Released for the first time under the name Abdullah Ibrahim instead of the pianist’s original „Dollar Brand“ ...
Genre: Instrumental
Subgenre: Piano
Keith Jarrett and conductor-pianist Dennis Russell Davies have been friends and musical comrades for forty years. In the mid-70s the St Paul Chamber Orchestra, under Davies’ direction presented Jarrett’s chamber music.
Composer: Keith Jarrett [Non-Classical Composer]
Genre: Instrumental
Subgenre: Piano
Between 1979 and 1982, the Miroslav Vitouš Group was the primary outlet for the abundant improvisational skills of leader Vitouš and John Surman. They made three ECM albums: this eponymously-titled disc from 1980 ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Dave Holland always described Sam Rivers’ groups as his finishing school. It was Sam who instructed him to play “all the music” – inside, outside, atonal, swing, blues, and all the hues of the jazz and chamber music traditions.
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
“Something special happens when they play together” observed Robert Palmer in the New York Times, and the participants concurred. “Playing with John is one of my favourite things to do,” said Ralph Towner.
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Mainstream Jazz
Seven Songs for Quartet and Chamber Orchestra
Sounding as fresh today as it did in 1973, Seven Songs places the Gary Burton Quartet in an orchestral context, with compositions of Michael Gibbs – inspired by Messiaen and Charles Ives as well as Miles and Gil Evans ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
