Lost after its material records were destroyed by fire in 1883, the spectacular ballet La Source originally portrayed the idealistic vision of a magical domain in which a complex but beautiful love story of mythical figures unfolded. Jean-Guillaume Bart has long been captivated by La Source, and his new choreography retains the ballet’s romantic fascinations and its glorious music by Delibes and Minkus. Filled with exotic colour and atmosphere, Bart takes the narrative on an odyssey through near- and far-flung realms of classical dance in a brilliant production, further elevated by Christian Lacroix’s gorgeous costumes and Éric Ruf’s imaginative set designs.

The Folly - Tragedy of Erasmus of Rotterdam is the latest release on Naxos from the renowned conductor and composer Fabrice Bollon. The opera focuses on Erasmus of Rotterdam, the influential Renaissance reformer, cosmopolitan humanist and intellectual who, in old age, reflects on the events of his life. World premiere recording.

Elisabetta regina d'Inghilterra was a huge success for Rossini helping to establish him as the leading opera composer in Italy. The story revolves around Queen Elizabeth I (Elisabetta), whose romantic attachments expose her to murderous intrigues, and ends with her renouncement of love itself. This Rossini in Wildbad production features soprano Serena Farnocchia in the title role and is conducted by the eminent Rossini specialist Antonino Fogliani.

Once again, Ensemble Aventure presents a jewel of new music that has so far been little known in Europe within its series of works by Latin American composers on WERGO: "Flores blancas", chamber and ensemble music by the Argentine composer Mariano Etkin. Listeners are captivated by the raw power of “La naturaleza de las cosas”, the title of which is an apt characterization of Mariano Etkin’s compositional language, which is a celebration of the sensuous nature of sounds and of the human senses as a source of knowledge without illusions, realized with a small number of “sound objects” that appear and fade away with a sense of both beauty and pain. Each of the eight works (from 1992 to 2016, Etkin’s late compositional period) on this recording focuses in its own way on the physicality of sounds and the foundations of human existence.

In his last years, Etkin’s musical language became more densely lyrical, introspective, and focused on fundamental elements of human existence such as dreams (“Sueños olvidados”) or blood (“Le sangre del cuerpo”) and, above all, tears (“Estudios para lágrimas”). Mariano Etkin creates authentic crystals of intensity – an unflinchingly existential music that looks into the eye of darkness, but nevertheless spreads its wings. It sings, throbs, and shivers with excitement before dissolving in pain and beauty.

Austrian composer Ferdinand Rebay (1880–1953) gave the guitar a fresh identity in the world of chamber music, transforming it from a mere accompanying instrument to a soloist in its own right. His vast oeuvre for guitar, which was overlooked by leading performers like Andres Segovia and Julian Bream, has enjoyed an enthusiastic and well-deserved revival in recent years. Rebay’s refined and dignified voice has made itself heard, thanks to the music’s
solid craftsmanship but above all its sincerity. Its rediscovery dispels many clichés and reassures us that humble yet beautiful music is not necessarily destined to be unjustly forgotten.

The Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vanska bring us Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony, an extraordinary work by any standards. Scored for extended Wagnerian woodwind and brass sections, posthorn, a large array of percussion, women's chorus, alto soloist and boys' choir, the symphony has a duration of over 100 minutes and is filled with extreme emotion, revealing what the composer wanted to say about his own connection with nature and humanity's place in it: 'My symphony will be something the world has never heard before! The whole of nature will have a voice in it...' he wrote about this mammoth work. The recording was made following a concert performance in November 2022. In this musical communion with nature, we hear the beautiful voices of English mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston, the Minnesota Boychoir and women of the Minnesota Chorale. The symphony's finale, a deeply absorbing adagio, might simply be some of the most beautiful music ever written. The last work recorded by the Minnesota Orchestra and it's conductor laureate, Osmo Vanska, Mahler's Third Symphony is a fitting culmination to this complete cycle, which began in 2016.

Despite the very large number of recordings already made of this musical corpus, Minnaar and de Vriend have proved that they have something new and totally their own to say about this collection of masterpieces. And it is indeed the peculiar blend of sheer energy and esprit de finesse that can be identified as the distinctive brand or these recordings. Gramophone: "a Beethoven cycle [which] is a bold move, but one that pays off in all sorts of ways"

In a new arrangement for solo harp, celebrated harpist Gwyneth Wentink presents Dutch composer Simeon Ten Holt's Canto Ostinato and Aforisme No. 2 (a transcription by Jeroen van Veen on behalf of Simeon Ten Holt). "I first heard Canto Ostinato on piano in 2011 and I felt as if I was on fire. THIS is something I wanted to play on the harp: I clearly recall the zeal and enthusiasm I felt at the time. I was buzzing with curiosity, excitement and vitality. Exploring various musical genres, arranging music for the harp and working in interdisciplinary settings is something that has always been important to me. Playing the harp, one is being confronted with a rather restricted repertoire, and one almost evidently scans the horizon for what else one can arrange, commission and/or discover" - Gwyneth Wentink.

Klaus Mertens had long been wanting to record the ‘Geistliche Lieder’ by Johann Sebastian Bach from Schemelli’s Musicalisches Gesangbuch (1736). Ton Koopman had been looking for the right program to showcase the beautiful Teschemacher chamber organ in Oosterland and realised it would actually be an ideal match with the program his friend Klaus Mertens had in mind. So in early 2023 Mertens and Koopman spent some (rather cold but) inspired days in Oosterland to record this selection of 24 songs, interspersed with six organ works.

This disc is a double tribute. The first work, Pictured Within, is a collective effort conceived as a major project to mark the 60th birthday of conductor Martyn Brabbins, whose reputation in new music and British music is beyond reproach.

Following the pattern of Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Pictured Within is a series of 14 variations on a theme, each of which takes up the character of the equivalent variation in Elgar’s work, the difference being that here 14 different composers have each contributed a variation in tribute to Brabbins.

Also on the SACD is Jaakko Kuusisto’s Symphony, a fitting tribute to the composer, conductor, and violinist who passed away in 2022. Illness left Jaakko no time to complete his work, so it fell to his brother Pekka – who conducts here – and Jari Eskola to finish it. The result is a powerful piece, full of familiar themes and melodies derived from Jaakko’s existing compositions, to which are added autobiographical extra-musical elements. The moving conclusion is a collage of fragmented phrases inspired by the signals emitted by lighthouses and ships, as if Kuusisto’s spirit had been sent out to sea.

Cellist Nicholas Canellakis and pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown curate an eclectic playlist that is close to their hearts. Anchored by five Romances, the album features rarely heard gems alongside their own compositions and arrangements. Ranging from soulful to virtuosic to just plain fun, Romance celebrates 15 years of being affectionate, brutally honest, and creatively connected best friends and artistic collaborators.

Pietro Castrucci (1679-1752) was a student of Arcangelo Corelli. Moving to London in 1715 he became concertmaster of the newly-founded Royal Academy of Music opera house. He went on to be one of the first beneficiaries of the Royal Society of Musicians, and became a trendsetting composer. The works featured on this release are among his finest. These are wonderful, historically informed performances. The works on this release are performed by Gerald Elias, violin; Pamela Palmer-Jones, harpsichord; and Noriko Kishi, cello, this is the first complete recording in history of Castrucci’s inexplicably neglected Opus 1 sonatas, composed in 1718.

The Linos Piano Trio’s In Search of Lost Dances recording centres on the time of greatest change in Ravel’s life, juxtaposing his seminal Piano Trio, written weeks before the outbreak of the First World War, with Le Tombeau de Couperin, written between 1914 and 1917—each of its six movements dedicated to a friend lost to the war. The most important news on here is that LINOS PIANO TRIO is playing on period instruments music by Maurice Ravel – who died in 1937!! which means a grand piano from the thirties of the 20th century, gut strings and a different tunebase than today.

Santtu conducts Stravinsky is the third album from Philharmonia Records featuring two incredible works by Igor Stravinsky - the complete Petrushka (1947 version), and the Firebird Suite (1945 version) - conducted by Principal Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, these two works were recorded at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall in 2023.

In August 2020, Signum Classics began releasing Cantus’ COVID-19 Sessions. Recorded on March 17, 19, and 20 at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the COVID-19 Sessions came together quickly as society began to shut down amidst the growing outbreak in the United States. The artists recorded these 19 tracks thanks to the expertise of members Chris Foss (audio) and Jacob Christopher (video). The COVID-19 Sessions were first released on YouTube and Facebook in the spring of 2020 and racked up millions of views, prompting Signum to release the tracks internationally on digital music providers like Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, and Amazon Digital in higher-than-CD-quality audio. The artists write: “The inspiration for this project came during the week of March 8, when word began spreading of the coronavirus’ presence in the United States. As gatherings became limited, it quickly became clear that we needed to postpone our spring program... As we made those hard decisions at home, our national touring schedule was simultaneously unravelling. Presenters faced the same looming challenges and concerns as we did, and they also began to postpone or cancel all of their upcoming programs. We soon found ourselves with our earned revenue sources, which comprise two-thirds of our budget, cut off. Amidst these concerns, a more fundamental uncertainty grew with the guidelines on social distancing and the prohibitions on large gatherings. How can we, how can you, how can anyone create a sense of community during a crisis like this? We recognized we had a limited window in which to offer what we could as artists. These recordings are the result of that action — we wanted to come together in a time of great stress and uncertainty and offer what we could to the world, our community, and each other.”

Includes music by Jean Sibelius, Mari Esabel Valverde, Hildegard von Bingen, Melissa Dunphy, Eric Whitacre, Billy Joel, and more.

Emmanuel Despax's eighth release for Signum Classics delves into the dramatic and visionary world of Franz Liszt, from the great Sonata in B minor to the celestail Benediction de Deur dans la solitude. Despax offers a unique perspective on Liszt's work through a very personal connection to the composer. His musical upbringing is rooted in a lineage of mentors which traces back to Liszt, creating a deep connection to the composer's legacy. Despax comments "This lineage has deeply influenced my musical upbringing, instilling a unique perspective on interpretation, fostering an insatiable curiosity... emphasising engaging with the score with utmost integrity, without shortcuts or compromise. Above all, this tradition signifies a performance ethos... to serve as a conduit between the music and the audience".

LOOSENING is a double album of five works by award winning composer GRAHAM FITKIN. Each one has the string quartet at it's core but every work includes it's own additional soloist. The string quartet is a really homogenous group, steeped in history and tradition, in which timbrally similar instruments create a well-honed sound through trusted communication and shared purpose. Each work has clearly defined roles for the two protagonists - quartet and solist. Each piece allows for two perspectives, two distinct approaches to the material and yet each protagonist is affected by the other. Approaches often evolve through the works, perhaps the quartet splits their honed homogeneity to focus more on individual constituents or conversely maybe they subsume the incomer into their group creating a larger group. An album of world premiere recordings: Four of the five works have never been recorded before, and the fifth is a new arrangement (also never recorded). DISTIL won the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Prize for Chamber Works in 2015.

By the time of the ‘Ottocento’ (19th century), opera was the dominant force in Italian musical culture, with bel canto composers such as Rossini and Donizetti creating a public appetite for opera that eclipsed achievements by Italy’s musical sons in other genres. Some of these composers who focused their energies instead on instrumental music, swimming against the operatic tide, remained in their native land, while others found a home (or were forced to find one) abroad.

Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909) is one who stayed. A gifted pianist, he bypassed the operatic path and wrote music with a kind of fluent synthesis of Italian lyricism and German, dialectic approach to form that reached an early peak in his Cello Sonata of 1880. Yet Martucci, as a teacher of composition in Bologna and then Naples, urged the teenaged Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) to study abroad.

Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880-1968) is among the few composers in this set whose entire career centered in Italy, and he wrote a substantial body of instrumental music.

Before the war and eventual exile, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) succeeded in reinventing an essentially Romantic model (of both form and harmony) for his own time with his Cello Sonata Op. 50 of 1928.

From seven years earlier, Ildebrando Pizzetti’s Sonata of 1921 is a more gloomy, even tortured affair. The Cello Sonata of Francesco Cilea (1866-1950), while unmistakably cast as an ‘operatic’ work from its opening solo, features a protagonist scarcely burdened by the existential angst to be found in comparable works from northern Europe.

Like Cilea, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876–1948) is known for his operas but unlike Cilea’s cello sonata, Wolf-Ferrari’s Op. 30 dates from the final three years of his life and belongs to a mature output of instrumental music.

Virtuoso cellists Alfredo Piatti (1822-1901) produced many trifles and showpieces to display his artistry to his adoring public in London. He was most proud of the set of six sonatas included in this set. In 1844 he made his first appearance in the English capital and soon settled there, playing both as a soloist and in one of the first celebrity string quartets.

The Cello Sonata by Mario Pilati (1903-1938) is another product of the fast-moving 1920s, formed in a Romantic tradition but inflected – like the music of Casella, Pizzetti, and Castelnuovo-Tedesco – by contemporary trends in impressionism and futurism.

From the next generation of composers, the Cello Sonata composed in 1948 by Eliodoro Sollim (1926-2000) fluently incorporates the kind of modal harmonies and cross-rhythms adopted by the likes of Bartók and Janáček from the folk traditions of their own cultures.

Their third duo album on Signum Classics, husband and wife Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung unite to bring an album of French works by Debussy and Ravel in versions for piano duo and four hands. With arrangements by Dutilleux and Ravel himself key works include ‘Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune’ for four hands and La valse for two pianos.

Any attempt at dating J.S. Bach’s three sonatas for viola da gamba and obligato harpsichord (BWV 1027 – 1029) is a very complex issue. According to the most recent research, Bach’s gamba sonatas are dated 1736 – 41, and therefore could have been written for Carl Friedrich Abel (1723–1787). Here the Viola da gamba Sonatas are performed by two musicians who have a wide experience and deep knowledge of period instruments and late Baroque performing practice. They focused their attention on the instruments to play. Sergej Istomin chose a viol built by Jacob Stainer in 1655, whose sound is especially brilliant and resonant. Sofronitzky very unusually decided to play these late pieces by Bach on a Silbermann fortepiano copy, built by Paul McNulty. A new instrument at that time, the fortepiano was approved and appreciated by Johann Sebastian Bach during his visit to Gottfried Silbermann in 1747. Paul McNulty’s copy of Silbermann’s 1749 instrument represents the final stage of the builder’s development, seventeen years after the first fortepiano he had built following a description of Christofori’s original design. These two instruments’ blend of tones and colors conjure up for a unique, singing and invigorating account of well-known works.