Worldwide acclaimed pianist Sebastián Forster ventured into accomplishing a lifetime-legacy major project of immense proportions: the recording of the 32 Piano Sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven, in an ongoing creative effort during 10 albums, from 2009 to early 2012.

Sebastián is a true Beethovenian, he breathes and experiences Beethoven's every single emotion, of true love, drama, passion, desperation, beauty and darkness. Living Beethoven with every key stroke is an experience of monumental inner impact, only at reach for the daring soul and the truly talented soloist.

Famous for his deeply moving and highly original interpretations and dazzling mastery of his repertoire, Sebastián continues this travel through the universe of Beethoven in this Volume 8 with three Sonatas from 1814 and 1816.

Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90 was written in the summer of 1814 - Beethoven's late Middle period - and was dedicated to Count Moritz von Lichnowsky. Unlike a typical sonata, this piece consists of two highly contrasting movements.

Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101, was written in 1816 and was dedicated to the pianist Baroness Dorothea Ertmann. This piano sonata runs for about 20 minutes and consists of four movements.

Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106 (known as the Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier, or more simply as the Hammerklavier) is a piano sonata widely considered to be one of the most important works of the composer's third period and among the greatest piano sonatas. It is also widely considered to be Beethoven's single most challenging composition for the piano, and it remains one of the most challenging solo works in the classical piano repertoire.

Hear Beethoven as you have never heard it before, getting lost in the world of invigorating ideas and emotional virtuosity that has made Sebastián Forster one of the outstanding interpreters of the classical repertoire currently working on the world stage today.

An evolution of a modular synthesizer patch that resulted in another track recorded on the same day ("hydrogen beta (original version)", which appears on the album helium), hydrogen beta is a moment of suspended time: neither departing nor arriving, but simply existing.

This remarkable performance was recorded live in one take and captured just as you hear it: without editing.

Together, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber von Bibern (1644 - 1704) and Johann Jakob Walther (1650 - 1717) are possibly the most significant composer-violinists of the late 17th century. Both wrote music for a virtuoso technique including the extensive use of doublestops and arpeggios, their works also display a wealth of formal compositional devices.

All the known facts of Walther's life and activity are from the Musikalischen Lexikon (a dictionary from 1732) by Johann Gottfried Walther (Johann Sebastian Bach's cousin). J.J. Walther was born in Witterda bei Erfurt. Between 1670 and 1674 he is said to have been employed as a violinist in the orchestra of Cosimo III of the Medicis in Florence. From 1674 he was concertmaster at the court of Dresden. After the death of his patron, John George II, in 1680 he became the Italian secretary at the elector's court in Mainz, where he would remain until his death.

Biber was born in the small Bohemian town of Wartenberg, Biber worked at Graz before he illegally left his Kremsier employer (Prince-Bishop Carl- Liechtenstein-Castelcorno) and settled in Salzburg. He remained there for the rest of his life, publishing much of his music but apparently seldom, if ever, giving concert tours.

Dieterich Buxtehude (1637/39 - 1707) was a Danish-German organist and composer. His organ works represent a central part of the standard modern organ repertoire. He composed in a wide variety of vocal and instrumental idioms; his style strongly influenced many composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach. Buxtehude's last post, from 1668, was at the Marienkirche, Lübeck which had two organs, a large one for big services and a small one for devotionals and funerals. There he succeeded Franz Tunder and (following in the footsteps of his predecessor) married Tunder's daughter Anna Margarethe in 1668 - it was a common practice! Buxtehude and Anna Margarethe had seven daughters who were all baptized at the Marienkirche.

In France, 1740, the aristocratic violist da gamba, abbot and lawyer, Hubert Le Blanc wrote a strange book, published in Amsterdam by Pierre Mortier entitled "Défense de la basse de viole contre les enterprises du violon et les prétentions du violoncello" (Defense of the bass viol contrary to the enterprises of violin and the pretensions of the violoncello.)

Who could be interested in a sarcastic and eccentric book with cultivated arguments applauding the wonders of the family of viols, yet disparaging the ever-increasing popular violin and cello?

What lay behind this harmless conflict?

The viols were an emblem of the aristocracy. Instruments attributed with an ease of playing a refined melancholic language which was suitable for events in the halls of castles and reserved for guests of prestige.

The performers of viols did not need to impress the audience with flashy or very difficult artistry. Performances comprised of lyrical, polyphonic passages with few sixteenth notes and no necessity to go into the treble. It was acceptable to use the smaller viola and always remain in the harmonious sounds of the first position. This display of skill was considered the virtue of a plebeian.

But enter the Italians, les buffons, with their wagon theaters and their comic operas, larmoyant. All you could access. It was enough to pay admission. The artists, in order to survive, had to impress with their skill. They bring their violins and cellos with powerful sounds and skills of unmatched speed, doubles and exaggerated extensions.

French musicians leave their violas and to learn from Neapolitans, Romans or Venetians.

This is a great insult and come one, two, three querelle des buffons.

The Enlighteners don't wait.

Yet, an anti-aristocratic Diderot (1713-1784), more concerned with music, defended vigorously the Italian style.

Since Bastille Day in 1789, marking the beginning of the revolution and the extermination of the nobility, there was an immediate decline of viol and a triumphant advance of the new instruments of the bourgeois society.

This album is the story of this change.

Music by: Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, Michel Corrette, Jean Baptiste Sèbastien Brèval, Jean Barrière, Martin Berteau.

It was made for the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the birth of Diderot and in collaboration with the Alliance Francaise.

Eternal Jazz Project is a Swedish Jazz Band, now presenting their fifth album "Genuine", consisting of all original compositions. The feeling you get when listening is that of a Scandinavian jazz timbre, with a fresh, yet mystic flow.

But if you want a more solid description; it's plain modern jazz, with great melodies and great improvisations performed with grand piano, double bass, saxophone, drums and electric guitar. It leans towards slower jazz, with mosaic harmonics, but EJP can perform fast numbers too. Recorded in two days, live in the studio. Enjoy!

The songs on this album are united by the theme of spiritual search, the search itself, and love. Musical arrangements of the songs, in addition to unusual and modern experiments with sound, rooted in classic English pop, rock, folk and psychedelic type of the late sixties and seventies.