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Forward to the future, proud of the past

A new sampler means looking back to those recordings that have appeared since our last compilation. Every track represents a brief ‘sample’, not only of the technical side of the SACD, but also of the artists’ musical interpretation. Many music lovers like these samplers because the tracks can be completely different from one another in instruments and styles. Always a surprise!

Channel Classics continues to be fully committed to the Super Audio CD format. We believe that offering the highest quality of sound recordings to the public is a logical answer to the changing circumstances in the recording industry. For whatever medi- um the public uses in the future, at least the original recording will be of the highest quality in stereo and multichannel.

Channel has been developing ties with China during the last two years by introducing SACD technology and recording in Beijing and Shanghai. We have created a sub label for these recordings called ‘Channel of China’. By recording traditional instruments like the Erhu, the Pipa along with the China National Symphony Orchestra, we are indeed looking forward and backward by creating a new series of recordings with some of the most talented newcomers on the Chinese musical scene.

also available:

CCS SA SEL 2603 volume 1 CCS SA SEL 3404 volume 2 CCS SA SEL 3705 volume 3

‘All of this is presented in multi-channel SACD that is as brilliant and natural as you will hear anywhere’ ..... ‘a superb multichannel listening experience’ ..... ‘The recording quality is excellent’ ..... ‘in SuperAudio Surround it could be sensational’ ..... ‘excellent SACD mastering’ ..... ‘a crystal-clear SACD recorded sound’ ..... ‘more presence and sparkle’ ..... ‘wholly natural balances’ ..... ‘the best sounding SACDs on the planet’ ..... BOOKLET_CCS SA SEL 4606 24-10-2006 14:55 Pagina 4

CCS SA 23005 track 1 •Gramophone: CD of the Month Amsterdam Sinfonietta Candida Thompson, artistic leader

LUDWIG VON BEETHOVEN String Quartet opus 135 in F major (1826)

SIR WILLIAM WALTON for Strings (1971/73)

Amsterdam Sinfonietta concentrates on the scintillating pre- (...) The rhythmic precision of sentation of sensitively chosen programs, based on the emo- the Amsterdam Sinfonietta is tional power of the stringed instruments. The core of Amster- simply astounding (...) dam Sinfonietta is an ensemble of 23 string players which Classics Today performs chamber works and, more especially, compositions scored for string orchestra. (...) a terrific performance (...) great delicacy and sweetness (...) Gramophone

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CCS SA 24106 track 2 Paolo Giacometti, piano

ROSSINI ‘Album de Château’ complete works for piano, vol.7

Prélude Prétentieux Spécimen de Mon Temps Valse Anti-Dansante Prélude Semipastoral Tarantelle pur Sang (avec Traversée de la Procession) Un Rêve Prélude soi-disant Dramatique Spécimen de l’Avenir

instrument: Pleyel (1858)

Paolo Giacometti records exclusively for Channel Classics. His impressive discography has been widely acclaimed by the international press. His recordings include Rossini’s com- plete piano works, a remarkable project that started in 1998. In Rossini’s homeland, critics say: “... Rossini has finally found his pianist ...”. For the third recording of this series Paolo Giacometti was distinguished with the Edison Classical Music Award 2001. • NEW RELEASE

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CCS SA 22805 track 3 Gary Cooper, , violin

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART for Keyboard and Violin VOL. 2

Sonata in C Major, KV 303 (293c) Sonata in D Major, KV 7 Sonata in G Major, KV 301 (293a) Sonata in F Major, KV 30 Sonata in E flat Major, KV 481

Instruments: Fortepiano: Anton Walter, Vienna 1795; copy by Derek Adlam, 1987 Violin: Pesarinius 1739

In recording these Mozart Sonatas, a paradox quickly beca- (…) again, warmly me apparent. I feel Mozart’s music is aimed at the heart. recommended. (...) Approaching his music instinctively comes most naturally to International Record Review me: it seems so effortlessly composed, and communicates to us directly. After all, why do children react so positively to (...) Mozart grows up, as Cooper this music of the heart? And yet I also found my experience and Podger impress. (...) of Performance Practice in helped me find a Gramophone way of understanding and appreciating Mozart’s style.

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CCS SA 22905 track 4 Budapest Festival Orchestra Iván Fischer, conductor

MAHLER Symphony no. 6 in a minor

We continue our series with Fischer with Mahler’s 6th (...) lithe and alert, without Symphony. Again, well-known repertoire in a performance necessary sounding (...) trans- that will surprise you by it’s spontaneity and passion. The parent sound (...) recording took place in the beautiful new concerthall in Gramophone Budapest, the ‘ Palace of Arts’. (…) expressive balance (...) marvellous Budapest players (...) BBC Music Magazine

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CCS SA 80206 track 5 channel of china Yu Hong Mei, erhu Wulin, konghou (chinese harp) Liu Yin Xuan, yang qin (chinese cymbalo) Chen Zhe, piano

ERHU CHANT

Idyllic Tune, Weeping River of Sorrow, Celebrating the Harvest of Grapes, Ode to Shanmenxia Gorge, Birdsong echoing in a quiet valley, A Bunch of Flowers Moon reflected in the Twin- spring Lake, Ballad of North Henan Province

The erhu is the most popular and typical stringed instrument of the huqin (bowed string instrument) family among the graet variety of traditional Chinese instruments. On this recording you can hear Yu Hong Mei who -as an excellent performer in the world of Chinese music- has attracted wide attention and is considered to be one of the most talented erhu soloists.

• NEW RELEASE

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CCS SA 23306 tracks 6 channel crossings Vocal Ensemble THE GENTS leader Peter Dijkstra

IN LOVE.... popsongs & folk songs from the British Isles

Michelle, Lullabye, Blackbird, And so it goes, With a little Help from my Friends, Misschien niet de Eeuwigheid, Omarm, Dansen aan Zee, Londonderry Air, ‘Danny boy’, The Oak and the Ash, Molly Malone, Ca’ the yowes, The Turtle dove, Hey Jude, If I fell, A groovy Kind of Love, And I love her

Peter Dijkstra: “ it gives me great pleasure to present this CD, (...) one of the world's top vocal which appears in response to repeated requests. At last we ensembles. (...) have taken the opportunity to record this repertoire. How Classics Today.com often we have had to disappoint members of the audience when we tell them that, unfortunately, there are no recor- (...) great joy in singing (...) dings available for the arrangements of Billy Joel’s ‘Lullabye’ Audiophile Audition or Toni Wine’s ‘Groovy Kind of Love’. Here they are at last!

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CCS SA 21005 track 7 Florilegium

GEORG PHILIPP TELEMANN Paris Quartets (1738) vol. 3

Quatuor No. 4 in b minor Quatuor No. 5 in A major Quatuor No. 6 in e minor Deuxieme Suite in b minor

Regular performances in some of the world’s most presti- (...) Florilegium and Telemann – gious venues have confirmed Florilegium’s status as one of a match made in Baroque Britain’s most outstanding period instrument ensembles. heaven (...) The ‘Paris’ Quartets (1730) and ‘Nouveaux Quatuors’ (1738) Gramophone are a fine example of Telemann’s contribution to instrumental music in the Baroque era. (...) mightily impressive and alluring (...) International Record Review

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CCS SA 80106 track 8 channel of china Zhang Hong Yan, pipa solo

AMBUSH ON ALL SIDES

Dragon Boat, Falling Snow Flakes Dotting the Verdant Trees, Moonlit Night by the Flowery Spring Lake, High Spring and Pure Snow, Great Waves Wash Away the Sand, Ambush on all Sides, The Rising Moon, A Homesick Song from the War Frontier, King Chu doffs his armour

The pipa is also known in the west as a four-stringed Chinese or four-stringed Chinese guitar. It is one of the oldest Chinese musical instruments, and appears in Chinese written texts of the second century BC. There were once extensive repertoires of pipa music in Chinese history. These pieces, in all their beauty and elegance, have finally been revealed to the public after having slept for a thousand years. • NEW RELEASE

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CCS SA 20306 track 9 La Sfera Armonioso with Anne Grimm & Johannette Zomer, soprano

FRANÇOIS COUPERIN Leçons de Ténèbres à une et à deux voix

including instrumental works by Marin Marais, Robert de Visee and Jean-Henry d’Anglebert

on period instruments

In these ‘Leçons’, François Couperin used only the simplest (...) meditative austerity (...) of means: one or two voices plus basso continuo. Within this their blend in the third Leçon is setting, however, he achieved a high degree of expression by exquisite (...) means of his subtle declamation of the text and illustration of Independent on Sunday individual words.

note! upsampling from 44.1

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CCS SA 23906 track 10 Bart Schneemann, oboe Paolo Giacometti, piano Rombouts Quartet

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Quartet in F, KV 370 (368 b) Sonata in F, KV 377 Quartet in d, KV 421

on period instruments

Mozart had a kind of superior ease in composing. If your abi- lity is that great, and you have that kind of breadth to your soul, then apparently you can do anything: from amusement to the deeply serious, from polite to satirical, from profound to mundane, from dramatic to flip. And this all applies to the three works which we recorded for this CD.

• NEW RELEASE

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CCS SA 23206 track 11 Meridian Arts Ensemble

BRINK

David Sanford: Corpus

Elliott Sharp: Beyond The Curve

Nick Didkovsky: Slim in Beaten Dreamers

All three of these pieces draw on various styles of music (...) ‘Brink’ is an impressive calling- available to today’s listener, from free improvisation in a card for the performance abilities of densely notated art-rock setting to evocations of African the Meridian Arts Ensemble, an vocal polyphony, from oblique references to 1970’s televi- American brass quintet that’s given sion themes to the rhythms and intonations of a sermonizing extra lift by John Ferrari’s kit preacher. Yet each piece creates its own unique style and drumming (...) language. Philip Clark

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CCS SA 24006 track 12 • editor’s choice gramophone The Netherlands Bach Society Jos van Veldhoven, conductor

Anne Grimm, soprano 1 Johannette Zomer, soprano 2 Peter de Groot,, alto Andrew Tortise, tenor Bas Ramselaar, bass

D. BUXTEHUDE Membra Jesu Nostri, BuxWV 75 Fried- und Freudenreiche Hinfahrth, BuxWV 76

(...) In fact, we know unusually little about this great musi- (...) a superb multichannel cian; no personal letters or anecdotes have survived. His listening experience (...) music speaks to us all the more powerfully – especially the Audiophile Audition Membra Jesu Nostri, with its highly personal combination of introverted expressivity, deliberately simple declamatio and (...) Magnificent (...) great harmonic richness. Gramophone

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CCS SA 24206 track 13 Matthew Wadsworth, lute and theorbo

MASTERS OF THE LUTE

works by: John Dowland, Giovanni Gieralomo Kapsberger , Robert de Visée, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber

Instruments: 8 course lute by Stephen Gottlieb, 2002 theorbo by Klaus Jacobsen, 1990 13 course baroque lute by Klaus Jacobsen, 2004 Temperament 6th comma Strings gut, made by Aquilla in Italy and Daniel Larson, U.S.A.

We are happy to announce a new artist in our family of artists: Matthew Wadsworth, lutenist, and in great demand as a soloist, continuo player and chamber musician. Masters of the Lute is an anthology of lute and theorbo pieces from late Renaissance - beauty of harmony, balance and an eloquent regard for structure - till early Baroque, when composers developed a taste for personal expression and theatrical rhetoric. • NEW RELEASE

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CCS SA 80406 track 14 channel of china Chinese National Symphony Orchestra, Li Xin Cao, conductor

SOLILOQUY AT COLD MOUNTAIN TEMPLE

Girls from Mt. Alishan, Songtseyala, Soliloquy at Cold Mountain Temple, Riddle-gues- sing song, Moon Reflection on the Twin-Spring Lake, Peacock fans its tail, Journey beyond Xikou, Overture no.2

The China National Symphony Orchestra is China's premier professional symphony orchestra. Founded in 1956 as the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of China, the ensemble was restructured and renamed the China National Symphony Orchestra (CNSO) in 1996. This release marks the 50th anniversary of the orchestra, and is the first recording of the orchestra that will be commercial- ly available in the West. • NEW RELEASE

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CCS SA 22705 track 15 Paolo Giacometti, piano

GIOACCHINO ROSSINI ‘Bolero Tartare’ complete works for piano vol. 6

Un Cauchemar Plain-Chant Chinois Valse Boiteuse Une Pensée à Florence Marche Spécimen de l’Ancien Régime Prélude Pétulant-Rococo Un Regret Un Espoir Bolero Tartare

instrument: Piano Erard 1858

Rossini’s prolific output of compositions for piano is a great (...) Between the instrument gift. This is already the sixth CD documenting our voyage of and the engineering, every note discovery through the compositions of this exceptionally cre- seems to wear a velvet bed- ative spirit. I am gradually coming to see Rossini as almost room slipper. No doubt Rossini more of a piano composer who occasionally composed a few would have approved! operas, rather than the other way around. International Record Review

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CCS SA 23606 track 16 • editor’s choice gramophone Gary Cooper, fortepiano Rachel Podger, violin

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Sonatas for Keyboard and Violin VOL. 3

Sonata in Bb, KV 454 Sonata in C, KV 28 Andante & Fugue in a, KV 402 Andante & Allegretto in C, KV 404 Sonata in Bb, KV 8 Sonata in Eb, KV 380

Instruments Fortepiano: Anton Walter, Vienna 1795; copy by Derek Adlam, 1987 Violin: Pesarinius 1739

The popularity of his sonatas, variation sets, and concerti for (...) The most enjoyable Mozart the piano has tended to overshadow his violin compositions, disc so far this year. (...) but the first sounds that his baby ears received probably came from his father’s violin. Until Wolfgang moved to Vienna in 1781, the sound of the violin had accompanied him (...) The playing is superlative, virtually every day of his life. as is the give and take between the duo. (...) Early Musica

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CCS SA 23506 track 17 • gramophone: cd of the month • diapason d’or Budapest Festival Orchestra Iván Fischer, conductor

The Hungarian Radio Choir Kálmán Strausz, chorus master Lisa Milne, soprano Birgit Remmert, alto

MAHLER Symphony no. 2 ‘Resurrection’

(...) and best of all Fischer really breathes in the atmos- Mahler’s Second Symphony, ‘Resurrection’ (1894) is a phere of Mahler’s precipitous gigantic work of enormous proportions, extreme contrasts, flight to enternity (...) and a score that surpasses even his First Symphony from Gramophone two years earlier. Ten horns, eight trumpets, two harps, organ, five percussionists, two vocal soloists (soprano and (...) one of the best recordings alto), as well as a large mixed chorus, fill the podium. And of the ‘Resurrection’ Symphony behind all this, invisible, is a ‘Fernorchester’ (distant orches- ever made (...) tra) as a symbol of ‘the resurrection’. The Washington Post

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technical information Microphones Bruel & Kjaer 4006, Schoeps Digital converter DSD Super Audio/Meitnerdesign A/D-D/A Pyramix Editing/Merging Technologies Speakers Audio Lab, Holland Monitoring Bowers & Wilkins 805 www.bwspeakers.com Amplifiers van Medevoort, Holland Cables Van den Hul* www.vandenhul.com Mixing board Rens Heijnis, custom design

* exclusive use of van den Hul cables The INTEGRATION en The SECOND® The SECOND® Currently van den Hul’s number one product, available in both coaxial and balanced interlink configuration as well as a near to perfect microphone cable for extremely critical recordings. A first and final buy for the most demanding audio lovers amongst us. This cable has a very natural, spacious signal transmission. It delivers a real, natural and, most important unelectric feel to acoustic music. One word to describe The SECOND® is “smooth”.

The INTEGRATION A van den Hul metal innovation called Fusion Technology is the basic conductive material in this cable. An amorphous combination of copper, zinc and silver, free from intercrystalline boundaries, is applied in four separately isolated conduc- tors, coated with Linear Structured Carbon and three further different screens produce detail, extreme resolution and excel- lent space. Like most of our cables the outer jacket is made of HULLIFLEX®, another van den Hul patented innovation. for more information visit www. channelclassics.com FRNT–CCS SA SEL 4606 24-10-2006 14:58 Pagina 1

SUPER ARTISTS ON SUPER AUDIO vol.4 •19 channel classics artists •13 composers •71 minutes •17 tracks 1 CCS SA 23005 F. Couperin: Leçons de Ténèbres Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Candida Thompson •Excerpts from Première Leçon de L. van Beethoven Ténèbres pour le Mercredi •Excerpts from String Quartet opus 135 in F major 10 CCS SA 23906 2 CCS SA 24106 Bart Schneemann, oboe & Rombouts Quartet Paolo Giacometti, piano Pleyel 1858 W.A. Mozart •Quartet in F KV 370: Adagio •17 tracks G. Rossini: Complete works for piano, vol.7 11 CCS SA 23206 CHANNEL CLASSICS CHANNEL CLASSICS •Album de Château: Prélude Semipastorale Meridian Arts Ensemble •71 minutes 3 CCS SA 22805 BRINK CCS SA SEL 4606 CCS SA SEL 4606 Rachel Podger, violin & Gary Cooper, fortepiano Nick Didkovsky •An Idle Saint Remembers & 2006 •13 composers W.A. Mozart: complete sonatas for keyboard and violin, 12 CCS SA 24006 Production & Distribution vol. 2 •Sonata in D major KV 7 Allegro molto The Netherlands Bach Society Channel Classics Records bv •19 channel classics artists 4 CCS SA 22905 D. Buxtehude: [email protected] Iván Fischer & Budapest Festival Orchestra Membra Jesu Nostri Bux WV75 www.channelclassics.com G. Mahler: Symphony nr. 6 in a minor ‘Tragische’ •Ad pedes: Ecce super montes STEMRA SUPER ARTISTS ON SUPER AUDIO •Excerpts from Allegro energico, ma non troppo 13 CCS SA 24206 5 CCS SA 80206 Matthew Wadsworth vol. 4 Yu Hong Mei, erhu Masters of the Lute Erhu Chant •John Dowland: Forlorn Hope Fancy •Idyllic Tune 14 CCS SA 80406 6 CCS SA 23306 China National Symphony Orchestra SURROUND/5.0 Vocal Ensemble The Gents, Peter Dijkstra •Soliloquy at Cold Mountain Temple, ‘In Love’: love and folksongs Girls from Mt. Alishan •A groovy kind of Love 15 CCS SA 22705 7 CCS SA 21005 Paolo Giacometti, piano Erard 1858 Florilegium G. Rossini: Complete works for piano, vol. 6 Telemann, Paris Quartets, vol. 3 •Bolero Tartare: Un Espoir •Quator no. 5 in A major: Pas Vite 16 CCS SA 23606 8 CCS SA 80106 Rachel Podger, violin & Gary Cooper, fortepiano Zhang Hong Yan, pipa W.A. Mozart: complete sonatas for keyboard and violin, Ambush on all Sides vol. 3 •Sonata in Eb, KV 380 Rondeau: Allegro •High Spring and Pure Snow 17 CCS SA 23506 9 CCS SA 20306 Iván Fischer & Budapest Festival Orchestra La Sfera Armoniosa & Johannette Zomer & G. Mahler: Symphony nr. 2 in c minor: ‘Resurrection’ Anne Grimm, sopranos •Excerpts from Allegro maestoso