Copies of our fourth CD, Italy versus France by The Bach Players, arrived in the office this week. It will be released to the trade in the UK on 28 March. Meanwhile, copies will be on sale at the group’s concerts this month, in Edinburgh, Warwick and Brighton.

Italy versus France continues the series established with our first release, over two years ago. We use a card packet, with CD and booklet held within one of the panels. (See now this discussion.) The booklet has notes by our esteemed friend, the composer Hugh Wood – another essay in music history written with a practitioner’s eye, with learning lightly carried and clearly expressed. This time we have added a French translation of the notes, as a first step over the Channel to where so much of this music belongs. It is a purely instrumental disc, so there are no sung texts to give. We have added photographs by Timothy Kraemer from one of the recording sessions.

The next Hyphen Press Music CD is due this autumn: Pachelbel and Bach: Christ lag in Todesbanden.