The story of the Prague Symphony Orchestra is closely related to the history of the Czech capital, which leaves an impression on their repertoire. After their successful recording of Karel Husa’s Music for Prague 1968 (Supraphon, 2021), the orchestra and its chief conductor are coming up with another album dedicated to Prague. This time, the program is focused on the late 19th century, i.e. the period when the Czech nation fought for its language, culture, and identity within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The backbone of the record is Suk’s monumental symphonic poem Praga, based on the Hussite chorale, “Ktož jsú Boží bojovníci” (Ye Who Are Warriors of God); Vyšehrad from Smetana’s famous cycle Má vlast (My Country); and a rarity: Pohádka o Šemíku (A Tale of Šemík), which is a largely unknown symphonic poem based on an ancient Czech legend connected with Vyšehrad, by Otakar Ostrcil, composed when he was nineteen. And of course, there is Antonín Dvorák. In hardly any work of his is Dvorák as explicitly patriotic as in his overture My Home (which is not very well known either). It is based on the theme of the popular song “Kde domov muj,” which later became the Czech national anthem. Another rarity of this album is Dvorák’s fanfare for the opening of the National Jubilee Exhibition in Prague. After their acclaimed recording of the composer’s Slavonic Dances, the Prague Symphony Orchestra confirm that the Czech repertoire of late Romanticism is their native and most natural language. The romantic and legendary city of Prague on a record of the Prague Symphony Orchestra.
The illustrious French organ tradition is celebrated in this album of Toccatas and Meditations, including masterpieces drawn from across the repertoire. Charles-Marie Widor was the founding father of the French Organ School, and his Toccata from Symphony No. 5 is a cornerstone of the organ repertoire. The Meditation by his contemporary Louis Vierne is among the highlights of Romantic organ works. Durufle, Boellmann and Guilmant are also represented, as is a beautiful Ravel arrangement. They're played on the magnificent Grenzing organ at Bauernkirche Iserlohn by Dariia Lytvishko - a Ukrainian-born virtuoso and one of the most lavishly gifted organists of her generation.
Ryan Chan, the First Prize Winner in the 2024 National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance, sponsored by the American Guild of Organists, is featured on his debut release on the Pro Organo label, entitled "Paris Milieu." His all French program spans 3 centuries, with standard organ literature and virtuosic organ transcriptions, performed upon the new Juget-Sinclair pipe organ in the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Richmond, Virginia USA.
Experience the rich and vibrant sounds of Europe's Romantic tradition with our latest CD featuring music by four talented composers. Discover the little-known talent of Sigurd Lie, a highly skilled violinist and composer from Norway who studied with leading teachers in Leipzig and Berlin. Immerse yourself in the enchanting folk tale inspiration of Lie's "Huldra aa'n Elland" for violin and orchestra and be captivated by the playful and seductive solo violin performed by the renowned violinist Ragnhild Hemsing. Follow in the footsteps of Lie's compatriot, Johan Svendsen, a famous violinist and composer who studied in Leipzig and Paris and is best remembered for his Romance for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 26. Svendsen's work was admired by Belgian violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe and was reprinted 65 times. This CD is a must-have for any lover of the Romantic era, the diverse sounds of Norway and Europe, and the virtuosic performances of Hemsing.
This is re-issue of the previous bestseller C756081 (4011790756127). Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's 1985 production of "Pagliacci" (and "Cavalleria rusticana") was one of the French director's last assignments at the Vienna State Opera before his untimely death 1988. The sensation of that June evening in 1985 was, however, Placido Domingo's consummate performance in Leoncavallos Pagliacci. He was more than an expressive singer with an incomparable tenor voice, he was also a truly great actor able to convey the whole world of his emotions to every member of the audience. Domingo's ability to bring out utter hopelessness transformed Leoncavallo's hackneyed opera into a highly individual tragedy from whose sway no one could escape. The dramatic intensity of his performance fired the other singers, too: thanks not least to her extraordinary vocal skills, Ileana Cotrubas was able to make Nedda's easygoing attitude as credible as her genuine feeling for Silvio and her struggle to safeguard the new love that had entered into her life; Wolfgang Schone gave Silvio an unusually clear-cut character and Heinz Zednik's presence in the cast likewise gave Peppe a whole new dimension. Finally, the French baritone Matteo Manuguerra was able to display thanks to his great and powerful voice a "terrifyingly evil" Tonio. By the end of the evening the public and the critics "were genuinely gripped"
Orazio Benevoli: Missae Angelus Domini & Dum complerentur
Coro
CD
$19.99Apr 17, 2026
Two multi-choir Masses from mid-17th-century Rome (one for Easter, the other based on Palestrina's motet for Pentecost) complete I Fagiolini's dazzling series exploring the 'Colossal Baroque' and paying tribute to the 'lost' music of Orazio Benevoli. Maestro of the Cappella Giulia at St Peter's, Rome, Benevoli's mastery of surround-sound is clear in these very different works. The sheer quality of his music shines through and, sung by a group at the height of it's powers, changes our view of 17th-century multi-choir music. All the Masses in I Fagiolini's Benevoli series are premiere recordings.
"Johann Sebastian Bach used the recorder in two Brandenburg concertos and some twenty cantatas and oratorios, but alas, he left us no sonata with harpsichord," say Julien Martin and Olivier Fortin. Arranging chamber music for a variety of instrumental ensembles was a widespread practice in the eighteenth century. Bach himself seems to have created a number of works that did not necessarily require the use of a specific instrument. Here Julien Martin and Olivier Fortin, musical partners for many years, present the Sonata in F major, originally written for transverse flute and continuo, transcriptions of the Trio Sonata for organ No. 3 in E minor, the Partita for violin No. 2 in G minor, and the Chorale 'Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland', whose extensive ornamental flourishes elongate and transform the chorale melody to the point of rendering it unrecognisable.
Spain's Siglo de Oro, the Age of Gold, gave rise to some of the greatest sacred choral music of the Renaissance. Lead, Kindly Light is devoted to the music of two outstanding Spanish composers, exploring majestic works by Cristóbal de Morales, famed throughout Europe and in the New World, and the exquisite polyphony of Sebastián de Vivanco, whose intricately crafted counterpoint adorned services at the cathedrals of Ávila and Salamanca during the late 1500s. Contrasting and complementing these 16th-century masterpieces are spellbinding settings of words by Saint John Henry Newman: Sir James MacMillan's Nothing in Vain for soloists and double choir, and the world premiere of Kerensa Briggs' Lead, kindly light, specially commissioned for this album.
The Wise Men and the Star - A Christmas Collection
Coro
CD
$18.99Oct 03, 2025
Christmas simply wouldn't be Christmas without the iconic voices of The Sixteen providing a soundtrack to the season. Celebrated for collections that provide an alternative to the customary festive offerings, this new album from the world-renown choir is no exception. No other festival in the Christian year has inspired so many composers and such a variety of musical styles as Christmas. The Wise Men and the Star features a veritable cornucopia of yuletide music from the premieres of three new works to traditional carols including Away in a manger and In the bleak midwinter, and modern classics such as Eric Whitacre's Lux aurumque and Mykola Leontovich's Carol of the bells. This new album promises something for everyone.
Handel's Messiah needs no introduction. This mighty yet majestic masterpiece is the most popular oratorio ever written and includes, arguably, the most famous chorus of all time-the iconic Hallelujah! Handel was a master chorus writer and for Messiah he certainly pulled out all the stops, placing the choir front and centre throughout. Although it has become synonymous with Christmas, Messiah was originally written as an Easter offering, bursting onto the stage of the Musick Hall in Dublin in April 1742. Taken from it's Award-winning 2008 complete recording of Messiah (COR16062), this collection from The Sixteen celebrates the wonderful choruses that have given so many singers, both amateur and professional, such joy and inspired an enduring love for this epic work.
This repertoire spans almost eighty years of classical composers' excursions into blues, folk, hip-hop, jazz, musical theater, samba, tango, techno and other genres. Each piece goes beyond mere stylistic imitation, cultivating an authentic expressivity within a transcribed musical language rooted in the Americas. ___Alexander Crosett
The harpsichord concertos of J.S. Bach form the origins of the keyboard concerto genre that was to continue to flourish through the music of his sons, C.P.E. Bach and J.C. Bach, and onwards. Here, celebrated keyboardist Steven Devine is joined by members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in this recording that features the Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052, Concerto in A major BWV 1055, and the Concerto in D major BWV1054, together with a new reconstruction by Steven Devine of the Concerto in D minor BWV 1059.
Puccini is renowned as one of the greatest opera composers of all time, and his early works - before Manon Lescaut catapulted him to international fame - offer a fascinating insight into his development as a composer. John Wilson and Sinfonia of London explore this repertoire with characteristic style and commitment, leading us on a journey through student compositions and orchestral extracts from his earliest operas. Studying under Amilcare Ponchielli at the Milan Conservatory from 1880 to 1883, he created the Preludio sinfonico (loosely based on Wagner's Prelude to Lohengrin), the Scherzo, Trio, and Adagetto, and Capriccio sinfonico, his graduation piece, which famously pre-echoes the opening of La bohème by a decade. The one-act opera Le villi was composed for a competition launched by the publisher Sonzogno (Puccini didn't win), whilst themes from the contemporaneous Tre minuetti and Crisantemi (both for string quartet) were subsequently re-cycled in Manon Lescaut. Verdi's publisher, Ricordi, bought the rights to Le villi, and commissioned a new work at the same time: Edgar, which, largely owing to the absurd plot, is arguably Puccini's only failure, despite some fully mature music easily the match of the more celebrated scores.
Jean Langlais was born on February 15, 1907, in La Fontenelle, Brittany, France. He became blind from the age of two. Sent to the Paris National Institute for the Blind Youth in 1918, he studied piano, violin, harmony and organ with great blind teachers (among others Albert Mahaut and Andre Marchal). Later on, he entered the Paris National Conservatory of Music in the Marcel Dupre's organ class, obtaining a First Prize in 1930. In 1931, after studying improvisation with Charles Tournemire, he received the "Grand Prix d'Execution et Improvisation des Amis de l'Orgue". He completed his studies obtaining a Composition Prize in Paul Dukas' class at the Paris Conservatory in 1934. In 1945, he became the successor to Cesar Franck and Charles Tournemire at the prestigious organ tribune of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris. He gave countless concerts worldwide, and was a prolific composer. He died on May 8th, 1991 in Paris. Langlais' distinctive style combined traditional harmonies with contemporary techniques. His compositions often feature intricate organ textures and colourful harmonies, influenced by his background as a church musician. Langlais was also known for his use of modes and complex rhythms, which added to the unique character of his music. His works often have a strong emotional intensity and sense of drama, with frequent shifts in mood and dynamics. This is the third volume of the complete organ works includes sonatas, suites, Noels, the Symphony "Alla Webern", and many miscellaneous shorter works. Played by 3 excellent Italian organists: Giorgio Benati, Fausto Caporali and Alessandro Perin. The extensive booklet includes information on the organs used on this album.
Blind from the age of two, a prodigiously gifted student, Jean Langlais (1907-91) produced an immense quantity of music. His organ works alone exceed in number those of JS Bach. Many have hardly ever been performed. Perhaps not more than half a dozen works are regularly played or recorded today, which is what makes this new complete survey of his organ music so invaluable, as the authoritative document of a high point in the distinguished lineage of the French organ heritage. The second volume of this complete survey opens with the third and last of his organ symphonies, among the most imposing and yet overlooked of his major works. More familiar are the Gregorian-inspired Suite medievale, the Triptyque, and the Triptyque Grégorien, whose flowing melodies share a spirit of Catholic mysticism with briefer meditations such as the Prière des Mages, the Incantation pour un Jour Saint and the Palm-Sunday voluntary Dominica in Palmis. As a collection of character pieces, Mosaique shows off Langlais's versatility, by turns solemn and joyful, songful and stormy. This sheer variety of form alone makes him stand out among French 20th-century composers for the organ. Throughout his life, Langlais wrote in many different styles and, true to his ideal, still retained the ability to surprise. This major project has been undertaken jointly by the Italian organists Giorgio Benati, Fausto Caporali and Alessandro Perin. Benati is a former student of Langlais, and Caporali has a string of successful French organ recordings to his credit. They have made these new recordings on Italian instruments, lending Langlais an 'Italian accent' while faithfully observing his expressive and registration markings in his scores. Booklet notes for each piece have been written by Giorgio Benati.
Commissioned by the Propaganda Department of the Soviet State Music Publishing House to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, the Symphonic Dedication to October eventually became Shostakovich's Second Symphony, and was first performed, in Leningrad, in 1927. It is a short, through-composed work of around twenty minutes, it's structure involving four sections. It opens with a Largo meant to portray the primordial chaos from which order emerged, and ends with a choral setting of To October, a poem by Alexander Bezymensky, praising Lenin and the October Revolution. The symphony shows a marked departure in style from Shostakovich's first symphony, and is far more modernist and avant-garde. The Second Symphony made little impression, in Russia or the West, and is rarely performed. In contrast, the Fifth Symphony received a standing ovation at it's première, one that lasted for over half an hour, and was acclaimed both by state officials (for delivering everything that they had asked of Shostakovich) and by the public (who heard it as an expression of the suffering to which it had been subjected by Stalin). The Fifth Symphony is one of Shostakovich's best-known and most performed works, and has become standard repertoire for orchestras around the globe.
Ahead of the 80th birthday of one of Britain's most singular compositional voices, this double album presents the complete organ works of Michael Finnissy a body of music as rich in intellectual depth as it is in imagination. Performed with careful nuance by acclaimed American organist Forrest Eimold, these works span over six decades and chart the evolution of a composer constantly challenging himself to think beyond presumed forms. At the heart of the collection are Finnissy's four Organ Symphonies: bold, searching works that pay homage to and wrestle with the legacies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler, while also evoking the French organ tradition of Vierne and Widor. "Why even write a Symphony?" Finnissy asks in a personal note for this release. "To explore and learn. To challenge oneself with the abiding presence of awe-inspiring history... to locate a rhetoric which fearlessly approaches the 'higher world of knowledge.'" From the youthful drama of ... ere the set of sun... (written as incidental music for MacBeth in 1965) to the industrial solemnity of Blackburn (2022), the album presents not just a body of work but a kind of inner autobiography. The Hymn-Tune Preludes - transformations of Sacred Harp and Norwegian folk melodies - offer a striking contrast: intimate, harmonically volatile, and unhitched from convention. Even the earliest works here, like the student piece Xunthaeresis, reveal the seeds of a language already driven by risk and complex expression. Forrest Eimold, a formidable interpreter of 20th and 21st century keyboard music, brings dazzling technique and interpretive depth to this music. His command of registration, colour, and pacing allows each piece - from the vast landscapes of the symphonies to the epigrammatic preludes - to speak with clarity and conviction. Recorded on a range of instruments, including the organ of the UK's Blackburn Cathedral, this is a release release which anchors Finnissy's contribution to the organ repertoire as one of bold imagination and philosophical depth. It also continues Metier's retrospective celebrations for Finnissy's 80th year, with further releases to follow.
A Thousand Charms invites listeners into two centuries of English song, from Campion's intimate ayres to Purcell's theatrical masterpieces and Handel's deeply expressive arias. The programme traces how solo song evolved from lute-inspired simplicity to richly ornamented drama, blending poetry with music of striking clarity and depth. Grace Davidson's pure, agile voice and Julian Perkins's sensitive harpsichord accompaniment bring freshness and immediacy to this repertoire, emphasising it's refinement, inventiveness and humanity. For anyone drawn to the beauty of early music, this recording offers an engaging journey through some of it's most timeless works.
Earth, Sea, Air - British Music for Cello & Orchestra
Chandos
SACD
$10.99$21.99Save 50%Jun 07, 2024
Laura van der Heijden joins the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ryan Wigglesworth for this album of British cello concertos. Frank Bridge's Oration, composed in 1929 - 30 was intended as an outcry against the inhumanity of warfare, and a tribute to the victims of the First World War. It's arch form single continuous movement exhibits the intense chromaticism typical of Bridge's output from this era. Commissioned by the Ukrainian-born cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, Walton's Cello Concerto suffered a number of difficulties with regard to first performances (Piatigorsky suffered a mental breakdown; Walton missed the UK premiere because of a nasty road accident) but it has nevertheless become a staple of the repertoire. It was with this concerto that Laura van der Heijden won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, in 2012. The young British composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School and then the University of Cambridge and King's College London, and rapidly established herself as one of the most talented and prolific composers of her generation. Earth, Sea, Air was written for van der Heijden, who gave the work's premiere in Glasgow in 2023, a week before making this recording with the same forces.
The violin, a bowed instrument with four strings, of such perfection that it has focussed the attention of composers from the Baroque to the present day. Apart from the piano, no other instrument has had so many important concertos written for it, from Locatelli and Vivaldi, to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, among many others. It might seem unimaginable that this instrument with it's one bow on four strings be able to perform polyphonic works from the piano, Lied and orchestral repertoire unaccompanied, but that is precisely what the great virtuosos of the early Romantic period right up to the modern era repeatedly saw as a challenge in their compositions. Paganini, Ernst and their successors pushed the technical possibilities of the violin to the limit. With this CD we present the most important of these works, which are otherwise pigeonholed as salon or encore pieces. The result is musical gems ranging from practically complete Lieder such as the Erlkonig, to Isang Yun's masterful arrangement of The Musical Offering by Bach. Her debut CD "1939" on Solo Musica with the Munich Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kevin John Edusei received worldwide acclaim, including reviews in BBC magazine, The Strad Magazine, Gramophone and the American Record Guide. This new release is the first solo album by violinist Fabiola Kim, hailed by the New York Times as "a brilliant soloist" who plays "with extraordinary precision and intensity". She is an energetic performer and enjoys a wide-ranging career as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher.
