The Ariel Quartet completes it's acclaimed Beethoven String Quartets cycle with a set devoted to the composer's extraordinary late quartets: Opp. 127, 130, 131, 132 and 135. Widely regarded as among the greatest achievements in chamber music, these works reveal Beethoven at his most imaginative and adventurous. For the Ariel Quartet, this music has been a lifelong companion. Having performed as a quartet since their teenage years and lived with these works for more than two decades, they bring a combination of technical command and shared musical instinct to their performances, with interpretations shaped by years on stage together. From the expansiveness of Op.127 and the intensity of Op.132, to the dramatic sweep of Op.131 and the final questions of Op.135, this three-disc set offers a compelling conclusion to the Ariel Quartet's Beethoven cycle.

Lorin Maazel held prestigious leaderships with institutions like the Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Bavarian Radio SO, Pittsburgh SO, and New York Philharmonic. He was renowned for his phenomenal memory, razor-sharp baton technique, and precise, analytical interpretations of standard and contemporary repertoire. This 18CD set captures the brilliant versatility and stylistic breadth of Lorin Maazel across his complete recordings in the Warner Classics catalog. Spanning four decades of recording (1962 - 2002) the collection highlights Maazel's unique ability to draw exceptionally precise, vivid playing from the world's finest orchestras. It features monumental interpretations of late-Romantic symphonic cornerstones, including Bruckner's 7th and 8th Symphonies with the Berliner Philharmoniker, and iconic early recordings of Richard Strauss and Debussy & Ravel with the Philharmonia. There are collaborations with legendary soloists such as Sviatoslav Richter (Brahms, Bartok, and Prokofiev), Emil Gilels (Tchaikovsky's complete piano concertos), and Frank Peter Zimmermann (Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev violin concertos). It also includes landmark complete operas, notably Verdi's Otello from the soundtrack of Franco Zeffirelli's acclaimed film, and Bizet's Carmen, both featuring Placido Domingo. Showcases the historic world-premiere recording on Nonesuch of John Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls with the New York Phil, which swept three Grammys in 2005.

Handel's sacred oratorio Messiah is the iconic work the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists have chosen to launch their joint partnership with harmonia mundi. Directed by Christophe Rousset, they have combined forces with a stellar vocal quartet of soloists to present Handel's masterpiece in all it's dramatic power, eloquence and fervent exultation.

On her new album for Deutsche Grammophon, Philip Glass: For Cello, Camille Thomas honors the composer's 90th birthday with a personal tribute. Inspired by Glass's cello concertos, the album reimagines rare works, iconic film music, and selected ?tudes, revealing the emotional depth and hypnotic beauty of his musical language. Featuring 21 tracks on 2 CDs.

Green Shadows presents a portrait of British composer Richard Pantcheff, performed by the London Choral Sinfonia under Michael Waldron, joined by acclaimed violinist Jack Liebeck, narrator Alexander Armstrong, and a distinguished cast of soloists. Inspired by the musical and literary world of Ralph Vaughan Williams while remaining unmistakably individual in voice, Pantcheff's music combines rich lyricism, pastoral colour and emotional depth with a thoroughly contemporary perspective. The program ranges from the reflective title work Green Shadows Fall and the intimate A Prayer for the King's Majesty to the virtuosic Fantasia on Yorkshire Folk Tunes and the elegant Spring Suite for violin and string orchestra, both featuring Jack Liebeck, alongside the radiant Service of Holy Communion, chamber works for oboe, and the evocative narrated concert piece On Hearing the Oxford Bells at Eventide. Following three acclaimed recordings devoted to Pantcheff's music, Green Shadows offers a fresh perspective on one of Britain's most distinctive contemporary composers, performed by the ensemble hailed by Gramophone Magazine as "fast becoming the go-to champions for contemporary British choral music."

This is how I want these Nocturnes to appear before you - like a memory, a dream, or a vision, writes Pavel Kolesnikov. Nurtured since childhood by a deeply personal bond with Chopin, he imagines each piece as a secret world, inhabited by colors, silences, and internal echoes. This is his first album for harmonia mundi: intimately personal, and hauntingly spellbinding.

Nikki and Timothy Chooi are brothers, both Queen Elisabeth Competition laureates, and two of the most internationally active violinists of their generation. Double is their debut recording together: a program of works by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Moszkowski, Leclair, Sarasate, and Dvorak for two violins and piano, one of the lesser-documented formations in the chamber music canon. Joined by pianist Eunice Kim, the album spans three centuries of repertoire written for this combination. Between them, the Chooi brothers have performed at Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Concertgebouw, and Suntory Hall, held the concertmaster chair at the Metropolitan Opera, and hold current positions with the Wiener Concert-Verein, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the University of Ottawa. The Chooi brothers are not conventional soloists in any sense - they learned music in the same room, and their work together reflects a shared musical vocabulary built over decades. Timothy performs the 1714 "Dolphin" Stradivarius, once played by Jascha Heifetz, while Nikki performs a 1713 Stradivarius - these two extraordinary instruments, made within a year of each other, lend the duo a unity of color rarely heard in recordings of this repertoire.

Now in a complete edition: the five Piano Concertos that represent twenty years of Beethoven's creative effort, and to crown the set, the Choral Fantasy, an early version of the Ode to Joy. On period instruments Kristian Bezuidenhout and the Freiburger Barockorchester, conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado, rebalance the forces and timbres to restore all the daring that must surely have stunned the works' first audiences.

Chout - a savage farce - is one of Prokofiev's most unbridled, riotous orchestral pieces, crafted with mercurial inventiveness, it's abrasive rhythms and brilliant colours pervaded by a sarcastic, dark humour. At the head of the NDR Radiophilharmonie, Stanislav Kochanovsky here presents the rarely-recorded original full-length ballet. It's companion piece, the Classical Symphony, offers a piquant counterpoint: beneath it's ostensible Haydnesque elegance it exudes Prokofiev's irony and his quirky penchant for displacement.

What if Bach were to enter an imaginary club that played jazz as well as classical music, improvisation and contemporary sounds? Vincent Peirani and Francois Salque have invited Villa-Lobos, Mendelssohn, Brad Mehldau, Peteris Vasks, Samuel Strouk and Vincent Le Quang to a jam session with the great Cantor: a poetical, virtuosic program born of the duo's two decades of musical partnership.

Acclaimed for their expressive intensity and commitment, these performances of Beethoven's String Quartets from Cuarteto Casals reveal all the modernity, freedom and humanity of this absolute peak of the repertoire. This 7 CD complete edition collects all of the recordings made between 2017 and 2020. To quote Gramophone magazine: 'The Casals present a compelling yet familiar picture of Beethoven, generating tension and taking a forensic approach to detail in the manner of a modern police procedural. '

In a remote Spanish town, the free-spirited Carmen declares that any man she loves should beware. But even she is unprepared for what happens when she decides to seduce police officer Don Jose. Though initially uninterested in Carmen's charms, Don Jose - against the wishes of his mother and of Micaëla, the woman who loves him - soon abandons his respectable career for a life of danger with Carmen, joining her and her smuggler friends as they outrun the law. But Carmen quickly wearies of Don Jose's possessiveness, longing to return to her life of independence. When she turns her attention to the celebrated toreador Escamillo, Don Jose's jealousy and despair threaten to violently erupt. Damiano Michieletto's searing production casts scorching light on the lust, violence and passion of Bizet's ever-popular opera.

Les Chemins qui montent builds on Amel Brahim-Djelloul's first album dedicated to the Kabyle repertoire, giving it a new orchestral dimension. Thomas Keck has arranged songs by Idir, Djamel Allam, Djurdjura and Taos Amrouche, and set the poems of Rezki Rabia to music. Led by Benjamin Levy and the Cannes National Orchestra, the album presents these songs in a new light, enhanced by a focus on timbre, linguistic phrasing and rhythm. The ensemble reveals the timeless power of a repertoire that is perfectly at home in a symphonic concert.

Bela Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin was premiered 100 years ago, on 27 November 1926. The evening ended in chaos and is regarded as one of the most high-profile theatre scandals, certainly the biggest since the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring in Paris a few years earlier. Causing shock among the public - perhaps because there is nothing miraculous in the fairy-tale sense - the work is in Bartok's own words 'hellish with instruments clanging, clattering and blaring'. Today, it's realism, rhythmic melody and harmony still inspire awe. Released to coincide with the centenary of it's premiere, this second album in Cristian Macelaru and WDR Sinfonieorchester's Bartok series pairs the Mandarin with the composer's other major work for orchestra, the Concerto for Orchestra. Unlike the former, the reception was a triumph.