Clive Bell is Britain's leading player of the Japanese shakuhachi, and a founder member of Jah Wobble's Deep Space project. DAVID ROSS was drummer for the instrumental combo Kenny Process Team. But none of this would prepare you for Mystery Lights, their first duo recording. This is a spacious, intimate music, full of colour and melody, exploratory but highly accessible. Many instruments, both acoustic and electronic, familiar and unfamiliar, weave a spell hard to resist. This album was made in collaboration with Walter & Donald the budgerigars. Recorded live at "The Earl of Kilgorlin". CD includes a video playable on any PC.

This album is the final volume in the retrospective series featuring Finn Videro, undoubtedly the best Danish organist ever. This album features the legendary recordings on the 17th century Compenius organ together with the much sought after baroque German organ works. Also included is a rare live recording from Dallax, Texas from Videro’s teaching years. Viderø was born in Fuglebjerg, Næstved. He was the organist at the Reformed Church in Copenhagen from 1928 to 1941, the Jægersborg Church from 1942 to 1947, the Trinitatis Church in Copenhagen from 1947 to 1971 and St. Andreas Church in Copenhagen from 1971 to 1977. He was guest lecturer at Yale University and held an honorary doctorate from the University of Åbo in Finland. In 1933, he co-published with Oluf Ring a widely used organ primer. His organ playing was uncompromising and many believed that Viderø's musical interpretations were as close to the authentic, artistic and historical representation intended by the composer as one could get.

Chandos Records has signed an exclusive contract with the Brodsky Quartet in time for the celebrations of its fortieth anniversary in 2012. Formed in 1972, the Brodsky Quartet quickly emerged at the forefront of the international chamber music scene. It has performed more than 2000 concerts and made more than fifty highly acclaimed recordings. This is the Quartet’s first release on Chandos, and includes many of the encores it has performed over the years, notable for their novelty and diverse range of styles and emotions. All the pieces have been arranged by past or current members of the Quartet, and together form an entertaining and original collection.

Classical Music

This fascinating release of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 stands apart from any other recording of the work. This is the first time that the magnificent piece has been recorded in HD and 5.0 surround sound, offering the most outstanding sound quality available today. Christian Thielemann leads the Wiener Philharmoniker in this moving interpretation. “Thielemann’s reading of the Beethoven symphonies stands heads and shoulders above the countless and mostly undistinguishable versions on offer.” (Die Presse) This performance is accompanied by an hour-long documentary featuring the conductor and Germany’s foremost music critic, Professor Joachim Kaiser. The film provides insights into Beethoven’s thinking, as well as interpretal comparisons from conductors like Karajan, Bernstein, and Jarvi.

This recording revives long-forgotten sonorities that once would have been very familiar: the sound of piano and organ being played together. It also presents a Sibelius premiere: the arrangement by Sigfrird Karg-Elert of the suite from ''Pelleas and Melisande''. As the popularity of domestic music-making grew through the nineteenth century, it brought first the piano and, then, often the harmonium into well-off living rooms across the western world. Composers naturally responded, with original works and arrangements: Sibelius' Andante catabile was written after a visit to relatives who had both instruments in their salon. Karg-Elert, by contrast, was one of the world's outstanding virtuosi on both harmonium and organ and composed with his concert public in mind. Annikka Konttori-Gustafsson has appeared as a soloist, chamber musician and Lied pianist in her native Finald, of course, but in concert halls across the world, performing a wealth of Finnish music and French twentieth century repertoire. Dr. Jan Lehtola is one of the most successful and progressive Finnish organists of his generation. He has given more than 150 world and regional premieres and can be heard on more than 30 commercial recordings.

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Stravinsky in Hollywood, a film by Michael Capalbo, tells the story of an "old school" European artist knocking heads with the brash New World. The documentary uses a combination of existing archival footage (some never before seen), interviews with Stravinsky and his assistant Robert Craft, and premieres several big studio film scenes of the 40s with music Stravinsky wrote for them.

Classical Music

Rarely has a production of Verdi's "Otello" taken place in such a prestigious location, the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale in Venice. Directed by Francesco Micheli, this special outdoor "event production" of the Gran Teatro La Fenice supports the claim that "Venice is asserting itself more than ever on a global scale as one of the great capitals of music" (GB Opera).

Giuseppe Verdi
OTELLO

Otello - Gregory Kunde
Desdemona - Carmela Remigio
Jago - Lucio Gallo
Emilia - Elisabetta Martorana
Cassio - Francesco Marsiglia
Roderigo - Antonello Ceron
Lodovico - Mattia Denti
Montano - Matteo Ferrara
Un Araldo - Antonio Casagrande

Teatro la Fenice Chorus and Orchestra
(chorus master: Claudio Marino Moretti)
Myung-Whun Chung, conductor

Francesco Micheli, stage director
Edoardo Sanchi, set designer
Silvia Aymonino, costume designer
Fabio Barettin, lighting designer
Recorded from the Palazzo Ducale di Venezia, 2013

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Italian, German, English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese
Booklet notes: English, German, French
Running time: 149 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Aureliano in Palmira is unique in Rossini’s oeuvre for its inclusion of the only role, Arsace, that Rossini wrote for the castrato voice. Its tale of tragic defeat and the ultimate nobility and triumph of love in seemingly impossible circumstances is a refined and highly innovative example of his style. Set amidst turbulent times in the Roman Empire, Aureliano in Palmira is packed with sublime arias, duets of haunting beauty (notably the three given to Arsace and Zenobia) and excellent choruses, Rossini himself considering this work as ‘divine music.’ Even after initial success he reused many of its melodies in later operas, most famously in Il barbiere di Siviglia. “Silvia Dalla Benetta… played the role of Zenobia and left no doubt that she was not only the Queen of Palmira, but also the prima donna of this evening! With her crisp, slender timbre and her excellent height she sang tirelessly and with brio. The Roman emperor Aureliano was sung with authority by Juan Francisco Gatell, a tenor with a clear, compact voice and a beautiful legato… Between the extensive list of singers… there is always a disappointment but not this year!”

This CD (80 minutes!) contains the complete works for two pianos by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Substantial and impressive works, these are expertly and originally written in virtuoso style (as one would expect from one of the greatest pianists of the 20th Century), music of great imagination, poetry and passion.

Pepe Romero, head of an outstanding family of folk musicians has been playing the bagpipe since he was twelve years old. He is known today, as one of the best bagpipers in Galicia. The repertoire on this album, based on self-composed themes with clear, unmistakable and genuine roots in the Galician usical tradition, is another aspect that gives a very special character to this group. (ARC Music)

American Originals is the latest release from the Cincinnati Pops conducted by John Morris Russell and features iconic American songs interpreted by a diverse array of acclaimed musical collaborators including Rosanne Cash, Dom Flemons, Over the Rhine, Joe Henry, Aoife O'Donovan and the Comet Bluegrass All-Stars. The first-ever Cincinnati Pops album to be recorded live in concert, American Originals breathes new life into the first chapter of the Great American Songbook and the music of Stephen Foster. The 94th Cincinnati Pops album includes inspiring new renditions of My Old Kentucky Home, O Susannah, Camptown Races, Aura Lee, Slumber My Darling, Hard Times, and Beautiful Dreamer, among other classic tunes. According to The Cincinnati Enquirer, The fresh arrangements and unique talents who performed them set each in a new light.

Classical Music

The Mediterranean Sea, the cradle of many great cultures and travel route between Orient and Occident, is the point of departure of this enthralling album by the Pera Ensemble. On this release, the Pera Ensemble has dedicated itself to the Early Baroque - the period of transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque period itself. The program consists entirely of Italian music adapted together with Ottoman music. This album contains numerous world premiere recordings.

Classical Music

Recorded in the beautiful acoustics of the Villa Contucci in Montepulciano (2011 - 2012), by Eleonora Contucci, soprano, and veteran forte pianist Costantino Mastroprimiano, playing a superb Graf piano from 1826, since it's build, in the possession of the Contucci family. - Norbert Burgm�ller's early death in 1836 at the age of 26 was greatly lamented by his famous contemporaries Mendelssohn and Schumann, the latter comparing the tragedy of his death with that of Schubert. He was considered a major talent, and he left a substantial oeuvre of orchestral, vocal and instrumental works. This CD features his songs, and the grand scale Piano Sonata in F minor Op. 8 in the style of Weber and Hummel. His songs remind us of Schubert in their freshness and naturalness, though not without personal touches in some of the more daring modulations.

The jazz pianist Wolfgang Mitschke appeared in Jazz magazines for the first time with Jazz masters such as Albert Mangelsdorff, Charlie Mariano, and Don Friedmann and became known to a wider audience with his Fusion Jazz record "Night Over Berlin," published by SKIP-Records. A stylistically similar album with the title "Midnight Moods" was also released by SKIP in the summer of 2008. On these albums, Wolfgang Mitschke already understood to organically employ the technical possibilities "single-handedly" with perfectly sampled sounds of the piano, e-piano, bass, rhythm guitar, strings, and the drum in such a way to produce a full sound impression.

What a colorful, jubilant Exultate Deo" effervescently resonating through the church nave in the highest and lowest tones! What rejoicing the alternation between chorus and soli voices, vocal, and instrumental music expresses - transforming the sober, light St. Mark's Church into a magnificent, brilliant Basilica di San Marco!" This was the Suddeutsche Zeitung's response to the November 2011 concert at the orpheus chor munchen with Les Cornets Noir.

Classical Music