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Recorded in Amsterdam in May 2024 for Decca, BBT Fellowship winner Lucie Horsch achieved a long-held ambition to breath life into Frans Brüggen’s collection of historic recorders, now in the safe hands of his widow, Machtelt Brüggen Israëls. The resulting recording – The Frans Brüggen Project – is released on 8 November: this year marks what would have been his 90th birthday year, as well as the tenth anniversary of his death. Lucie and Machtelt offer insights into the collection of 17 exquisite instruments from the late 17th and 18th centuries and describe the thrill of making them sound again for a new generation of music lovers.

After Beethoven comes Brahms: that’s the trajectory followed by enterprising Trio Sōra in turning to Brahms’ Complete Piano Trios – released on La Dolce Volta on 26 April – after its acclaimed Beethoven cycle. As cellist Angèle Legasa says: “We started at the beginning: who was Brahms? How did he grow up musically? He began his musical career with a Gypsy violinist; he’s the spiritual son of Beethoven… that’s how we worked with Pierre Colombet and Gabriel Le Magadure [from Quatuor Ébène], who helped us to delve into all the harmonic colours of Brahms’ music, to surpass ourselves and express deep emotions, with a warmth of sound so typical of Brahms”. Here the trio plays Brahms’ song Wiegenlied arranged by former member of the Ébènes, Mathieu Herzog.

Trio Isimsiz commissioned, with BrittenPears Arts and Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical Madrid, Francisco Coll’s Piano Trio. Delayed by a year, the world premiere was given in Madrid in January 2022 and the UK premiere was given at the Britten Studio in Aldeburgh in June 2022. In August 2022 the Trio took it into the recording studio for Rubicon Classics, where its musical bedfellows were Brahms’ C major Trio Op 87 and Korngold’s Piano Trio – his Op 1. We were there to film the rehearsals and first day of the recording at The Menuhin Hall, interviewing all three members of the Trio and composer Francisco Coll. The CD – completing Trio Isimsiz’s Brahms cycle – is released on 8 December 2023.

As part of his 19th-century horn odyssey, Alec Frank-Gemmill turns to the Cor solo he uses for Saint-Saëns’ Romance Op 67 on his BIS debut recording, with pianist Alasdair Beatson: A Noble and Melancholy Instrument (BIS SACD 2228).  Made by Marcel Auguste Raoux in Paris in 1823, Alec compares this solo instrument to the cor d’orchestre he uses for Beethoven’s Horn Sonata Op 17 (see film 1) and offers an insight into practical difficulties in pitching certain notes on the instrument.