An intriguing, evocative and exotic recital in which Janet Baker joins The Melos Ensemble for a journey through some of the twentieth century’s most alluring French compositions for voice and chamber ensemble.

When these recordings were made (in the 1960s), Schoenberg’s music was comparatively rare on record. It represented then, the typical daring of both this ensemble and of the L’Oiseau-Lyre label for which it was originally recorded. In the extended Schoenberg Serenade, the ensemble was joined for one of the movements by baritone, John Carol Case. […]

The Weber Clarinet Quintet is well known and it’s good to welcome back this recording to the catalogue, notable especially for the wonderful clarinet playing of Gervase de Peyer. But the real finds on this recording are the superb Septet and Quintet of Hummel. The Piano Concertos of Hummel are now becoming a little more […]

A delectable release of some of Schubert’s most popular chamber works, including the two Piano Trios in the famed 1966 performances by the Beaux Arts Trio –  the other-worldly ‘Notturno’ and the early one-movement B flat major Trio, written when the composer was 15. Coupled with these are the first appearances on CD of the […]

Beethoven was most distressed when he discovered that of all his recent compositions, it was his Septet that was gaining greatest favour by Viennese audiences. He considered it somewhat unworthy of himself! Yet, the music continues to endure and this marvellous recording is now coupled on CD with the more intimate ‘Serenade’ as well as […]

An undisputed masterpiece of the Russian repertoire – Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet – is joined by the little known Prokofiev Quintet which had a vexed gestation together with a rarity from the Hungarian-born Matyas Seiber who lived most of his life in Britain. In it, Peter Pears takes the role of narrator of passages from the […]

Two slimmer works of Austro-German chamber repertoire – Mozart’s popular ‘Kegelstatt’ (Skittles) Trio and Weber’s lesser known but quite virtuoso, Flute Trio, preface Brahms’s magnificent Horn Trio on these rare L’Oiseau-Lyre recordings from The Melos Ensemble. All represent first releases on CD.