British pianist Angela Brownridge presents the second of three Challenge Classics recordings exploring classical and romantic masterpieces. Following a disc of Beethoven Pianos Sonatas, here she performs some of the cornerstones of Chopin's creative output - the Four Ballades, the Second Piano Sonata and Fantasie, Op.49.

Regular chamber partners Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov, playing on period instruments, shine new light on two major works of chamber music written at the dawn of the 20th century.

Clarinetist Kilian Herold and soprano Sarah Maria Sun pay homage to Mátyás Seiber’s eclectic compositions that take influences from jazz, Bartók and Schoenberg with More Nonsense. This collection of chamber music celebrates Seiber’s colourful career, with particular emphasis as his work as a European jazz pioneer.

A` l'occasion des 30 ans de la cre´ation de notre quatuor, nous avons souhaite´ au travers de cet enregistrement, e´voquer notre gure patronymique «Manfred». Manfred, gure essentielle et repre´sentative du romantisme europe´en, est totalement lie´ a` son cre´ateur, George Gordon Baron dit Lord Byron (1788-1824). Annonc¸ant le ce´le`bre Voyageur contemplant une mer de nuages peint l'anne´e suivante par Caspar David Friedrich, Manfred est un drame en vers publie´ en 1817.

Sometimes out of time, sometimes disorientating and hectic, Marc Mellits's music skillfully mixes sleek and diaphanous textures with passages that are totally unrestrained. In the wake of American minimalist composers such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass, the energy of Mellits's works more closely resembles rock music. Quatuor Debussy take us on an adventurous sonic journey with the world premiere recordings of the composer's String Quartets No.3, 4 and 5.