New & upcoming releases from Nimbus Records
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May 2026 – all releases on May 1st
Nimbus is pleased to present the next two titles of a short series of recordings sitting on the shelves of the Nimbus archive that were ‘rediscovered’ during the 2020 COVID shutdowns. In those quiet days idle hands and minds posed the question: ‘So, do we have anything unissued that we can use to construct a release programme?’ This casual enquiry initiated a full investigation that has continued for five years and revealed more than fifty recording projects that, for one reason or another, never made it into the world. Some of these recordings go back to the founding of Nimbus in the late 1960s. There is no single reason to account for their neglect, and in every case, we have found no justification for holding them back any longer.
NI7118 Rediscovered Recordings: Maurice Clare – Telemann Fantasias
The session notes for this 1974 recording show that the Fantasias were recorded on Monday 26, Tuesday 27 and Thursday 29 August. In these early days it was Nimbus’ practice to assemble masters quickly after recording and given the founders fierce commitment to ‘unedited’ takes it is a reasonable bet that the master was assembled from the best whole takes of each movement. Apart from the Recording Agreement itself there is no general correspondence in the Nimbus archive to explain how Maurice Clare found himself at Nimbus’ Birmingham studio, nor why Telemann was the chosen repertoire.
NI7119 Rediscovered Recordings: Shura Cherkassy Vol. 2
Shura Cherkassky was introduced to Nimbus by Wilfred Stiff, then a director of the London agent Ibbs & Tillett. Wilfred recognised a young label pushing ahead fast at the transition point between LP and CD, one with a fondness for artists whose careers were waning. Accordingly, he dispatched one of his most prestigious names to the Nimbus Studio. Cherkassky was at that time acknowledged as one of the ‘great’ generation whose undoubted king was Horowitz, but after a long, notable career that began in his mid-teens, his popularity in the concert hall and recording studio had fallen. Shura’s late career was in need of a final boost.
Cherkassy’s first visit lasted four days – 31 January to 3 February 1981, the results of that session were released on LP, but never on CD. They are once again available in Volume 1 of this series (NI 7112). For this second session once again he stayed in the big house, having taken one look at Monmouth’s finest hotel – The King’s Head – and declared ‘Oh no, I won’t be happy here!’. The studio and piano, a 1969 Hamburg Steinway, were set up as before. It was a studio so completely unlike the characterless spaces he had famously grown to decry. Here there was no sterile barrier to his inspiration. The grand Victorian reception room at Wyastone Leys served as a spectacular performance space, its full-height windows framing commanding views down the Wye Valley. Shura loved it, signing a copy of his Picture at an Exhibition LP, ‘To everyone in Nimbus with love and the most wonderful feeling of inspiration’.
Shura’s behaviour in the studio was entirely his own. He usually began with a very, very slow warm up, consisting of the work he was about to record, played at a quarter speed, or slower. I once heard him play the Liszt Sonata at this agonisingly slow speed. Why? He was planning his arm, hand and finger movements, a real choreography that at speed helped to eliminated unnecessary movement and aided accuracy.
Scores from Nimbus Music Publishing
Gavin Higgins – Sedimentary
Augusta Read Thomas – Light pearls Through Prisms
Richard Blackford – Cello Concerto
From other labels in the Nimbus group
CRD3561 Epitaph for a Green Lover
During our 2022 Continuo Foundation supported tour of music from the manuscripts of Margaret of Austria (1480-1530), which we entitled Epitaph for a Green Lover, it became clear that there was keen demand for the programme. After every performance of this beautiful and unrepresented music, the audience asked if we had made a recording; in the end, we took heed. Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands, was a great patron of the arts who loved to dance and sing. But, above all, she loved her green parrot. Our programme’s title comes from the remarkable chanson Soubz ce tumbel with its tragic text by Margaret’s court poet, Jean Lemaire de Belges. In this song, we find a text drawn from de Belges’s Epitaphe de l’Amant Vert in which the amant vert (‘green lover’) refers to the beloved green parrot. This chanson, along with all the songs featured on this album, come from the two extant songbooks or chansonniers of Margaret of Austria, which are now housed in the Brussels Royal Library. Alongside the songbooks, Margaret’s library consisted of over 350 treasures, including the Très Riches Heures de duc de Berry, the Sforza Hours and an exquisitely decorated book of basse dances on black-stained vellum with silver and gold calligraphy. Such a collection gives a sense of how Margaret was a linchpin in Renaissance culture. Our aim is to transport the modern-day listener to Margaret of Austria’s court through music. Our programme even allows us to give insight into her character since some of her own poetry was set to music by her favourite musicians; we have featured a selection on this album. We have had such pleasure exploring this music and sharing it with audiences in concert, and are thrilled to now bring this stunning repertoire to listeners through this recording.
RTS4438 Tony Bennett I Left My Heart
2026 marks the centenary of Tony Bennett, one of the undisputed ‘all time greats’ among singers (close friend Sinatra called him “the best singer in the business”). His extraordinary career spanned 70 years, from 1950 through his remarkable revival in the 1990s to not long before his death in 2023 at the age of 96. Retrospective’s tribute presents the 57 finest from his glorious 1950s and early 1960s heyday (prior to his later 60s decline in popularity). From the earliest success, Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, and the cream of his huge early 50s hits, such as million-sellers Because Of You, Cold, Cold Heart, Rags To Riches and Stranger In Paradise, the selection then gives emphasis (24 tracks) to his development into one of the great jazz vocalists of the age, working with Ralph Burns, Ralph Sharon and, especially, the Count Basie orchestra (Jeepers, Creepers, Strike Up The Band! . . .). He also became possibly the supreme champion of the Great American Songbook (e.g. Speak Low, Tenderly, April In Paris. . .). And, naturally, there is his 1962 triple triumph of I Wanna Be Around, The Good Life and Tony Bennett’s eternal signature tune, I Left My Heart In San Francisco.
