This though provoking and beautiful recital from Yuval Zorn reflects the Zeitgeist of our troublesome times. "This album was created during a time of war, the full impact of which is yet to be understood, and it's making provided me with a much-needed safe haven from the turbulence outside. Much like Debussy's "and the moon descends on a past temple" (from Images II), the music here embodies not only the decay of an old order but also the potential growth of a new one, with it's hopes and perils', says Yuval Zorn.

London, 1760. Handel had just died and George III acceded to the throne. During the reign of this monarch and his queen Charlotte, both discerning musicians, musical life in the British capital was to enjoy an exceptional revival. Virtuosos and composers from all over Europe flocked there, vying with each other in originality and modernity. La Reveuse offers us a chance to sample the heady climate of the age.

Seven years after their album, Debussy et le jazz, the artists of the Quatuor Debussy have conceived the idea of celebrating Ravel in three quite different ways. They have recorded a transcription by Alain Brunier of the French composer's famous Quartet, Ma mere l'Oye (the Mother Goose suite), as well as inviting vibraphone virtuoso Franck Tortiller to join in the fun by combining the original score of Le Tombeau de Couperin with jazz improvisations - an approach that Ravel, from all we know of him, would have greatly relished.

A visionary composer, Domenico Scarlatti pushed beyond the frontiers of keyboard writing, fusing radiant melodies with spirited rhythms and daring technical feats. In this compendium of his most attractive sonatas, Javier Perianes employs his consummate virtuosity with audible enjoyment, revealing all the richness and inventiveness of his adoptive compatriot's musical language.

The Far Flung Trio are Katherine Hunka (violin), Dermot Dunne (accordion) and Malachy Robinson (double bass): the name reflects their sense of fun and the eclecticism in their programing and performances. All leading Irish players, the trio is fueled by the sheer joy generated in playing together. This evident rapport is one of the elements that particularly delights audiences, and their aim has always been to deliver the highest calibre of musicianship in a way that is appealing and accessible to all. The trio's new album, Umbrellas, delivers a track list of their favorite pieces, by Gershwin, Piazzolla, Brahms and many more, performed with a freshness and fun that mark the Far Flung Trio apart.

Celebrated accordionist Bjarke Mogensen showcases the full expressive power of the classical accordion in this compelling album of 20th and 21st-century concertos. Concertos & Movements spans diverse sound worlds, featuring music by Ihor Shamo, Anders Koppel, and Ole Schmidt-three composers united by their innovation and curiosity. The centrepiece is Shamo's Concerto for Accordion and String Orchestra (1981), a rarely heard Ukrainian work blending cathedral-like sonorities with folkloric flair. Two movements from Anders Koppel's Accordion Concerto No.2 receive world-premiere recordings: the introspective Cadenza for solo accordion, and the rhythmically charged Allegro con brio, arranged for chamber ensemble. Ole Schmidt's Concerto No.2 (1963), another world premiere, is a virtuosic and jazzinflected work that was decades ahead of it's time. Across all works, Mogensen's dynamic interpretations are supported by Denmark's finest ensembles, including the Aarhus Chamber Orchestra under Magnus Plejdrup.

To mark it's tenth anniversary, The Fourth Choir presents Songs of Ourselves - a powerful and diverse collection of choral works that reflects the ensemble's mission to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community and it's commitment to artistic excellence, inclusivity, and amplifying underrepresented voices. Spanning five centuries, the program features first studio recordings of works by living composers such as Kerry Andrew, Shruthi Rajasekar, and Stuart Beatch alongside Renaissance gems by Raffaella Aleotti, Caterina Assandra, and Vicente Lusitano. From the ecstatic longing of Emily Dickinson's "Wild Nights" to the poetic resistance of Mahvash Sabet in "The Imaginary Garden", these songs explore love, identity, nature, and protest. The music is united by a spirit of liberation and individuality while The Fourth Choir delivers a richly expressive, a cappella performance that honors the past while speaking urgently to the present. This is an album of courage, beauty, and choral artistry-offered with pride.

For their very first album with harmonia mundi, Robin Pharo and his ensemble Pres de votre oreille explore the highly poetical and personal world of William Lawes, the brilliant heir to Byrd and Gibbons. The gifted Lawes carried the instrumental arts and vocal music to an incredible height of perfection. This is a rediscovery to make the heart rejoice.

Forbidden love, the extremes of passion, and a soaring lyricism are all on display in Piramo e Tisbe. One of Hasse's very last operas, he broke the rules of opera seria and created a masterpiece. With a prestigious team of soloists, the Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin restores it to life in all it's vivid colors, this work of astonishing modernity that was greatly admired by Mozart.

Brahms' Cello Sonata No.1 was composed at a time of great emotional upheaval in 1865. His mother was dying, and the composer having visited her in Hamburg, had immersed himself in the music of Bach for solace. The finale of the sonata has an uncanny resemblance to Contrapunctus XIII from The Art of Fugue. The second sonata is a product of the tranquil summer holiday Brahms spent in the scenic lakeside suburb of Hofstetten, outside Thun in Switzerland in 1886. The work is on a large symphonic scale in four movements, and in contrast to the earlier sonata's pensive and unsettled nature, is bathed in afternoon sunlight. Stanford composed his Ballata and it's companion, the Ballabile in 1918 for cello and orchestra. This is the product of the end of his compositional career, after his 7th and final symphony, and the large scale concertos. Effectively a cello concerto minus a first movement, Stanford made the version for cello and piano the same year. The Ballata is a delightful slow movement.

From the moving gentleness of a farewell to the world of childhood (Ma mere l'Oye) to the savage power of rituals from pre-Christian Russia (The Rite of Spring), Ravel and Stravinsky explore musical horizons of incredible modernity. The Kolesnikov-Tsoy duo offer a powerful yet poetic interpretation of these two masterpieces.

For their first harmonic mundi album, Florent Albrecht and his Ensemble L'Encyclopedie explore the mischievous world of the Mozarts, father and son. Whether in the well-known Toy Symphony, the tinkling bells of Leopold's A Musical Sleigh Ride or the 'How to compose all wrong' tutorial of Wolfgang's A Musical Joke, joy and fantasy are mixed with a portion of subtle wit - qualities shared by the polished stylistic approach of the performers.

Depicting the arc of a musician's day in Paris, from Chanson du Matin to Chanson de Nuit, Lumiere du Temps is the debut album from Italian violinist Lucilla Rose Mariotti. A laureate of numerous international competitions and already a veteran of concert halls worldwide, Lucilla Rose has been celebrated for her performances at iconic venues including the Royal Albert Hall, Sydney Opera House and Carnegie Hall, as well as performing for King Charles at Highgrove. Lumiere du Temps features intimate works from the Belle Epoque era, including pieces by Elgar, D'Ambrosio, Rachmaninov, Debussy and Boulanger. Each miniature evokes the essence of the period, weaving lyrical elegance with deep emotional resonance and wistful reflections on the past.

Completely contrary to the usual image of J.S. Bach as a recluse in his ivory tower, Amandine Beyer and Gli Incogniti reveal his lively admiration for the Italian music of his time, particularly that of Vivaldi and the brothers Marcello. Here Bach discovered sunlight and luminous colours that never ceased to nourish and inspire his musical imagination.

Two German Romanticism enthusiasts, Raphael Severe and Adam Laloum, have planned a trip for us on the wings of song. Transcribing for clarinet and piano some of the most beautiful lieder of Schumann, Wagner, and Brahms, without the help of words they have unveiled all their poetry and their indescribable colors.

A hymn to a sublime contralto: the complete Philips recordings of Aafje Heynis, remastered and compiled together, with original jackets, for the first time. Aafje Heynis grew up as a church singer, and her faith and modesty radiate from her performances, which began to capture the ears of Dutch audiences after the war. A momentous debut with the Concertgebouw and Eduard van Beinum produced an account of the Alto Rhapsody by Brahms - it hardly betrays her nerves on the occasion, despite her misgivings, and launched her international career. There followed a career path not dissimilar to her recent and eminent predecessor, Kathleen Ferrier, with Philips recording her in folk song and Lieder as well as sacred and spiritual repertoire. When Bernard Haitink made his first recording of the 'Resurrection' Symphony by Mahler, Heynis was the obvious choice to sing the pivotal 'Urlicht' movement, which she did with the grace, the nobility and gravity of expression she brought to all her performances. This Mahler Second has scarcely left the catalogue since it's first issue. Much less familiar now are Heynis's albums of Bach cantatas, and her contributions to Dutch-made recordings of the Dettingen Te Deum and Dixit Dominus of Handel. Rarer still are the short 'EP' albums of sacred arias, accompanied by the organists Pierre Palla and Simon C. Jansen, which were primarily issued for the local Dutch market. A Beethoven Ninth under Igor Markevitch, and a Lieder album with Irwin Gage, hint at what might have been, if Heynis had chosen to embrace the calling of a truly international career. Likewise, we have a single record of Heynis in opera, singing the role of Orpheus in excerpts from Gluck's opera, recorded in 1973. Compiled and remastered from rare sources, and issued as an Original Covers collection with extensive photographic illustration as well as a new and moving tribute to the life and art of Heynis by Jean-Charles Hoffele, this set will attract all collectors of great singers. Heynis could touch the heart of the listener like few others, and her voice, once heard, is never forgotten.

Double Concertos brings together three works by composer and conductor Eric Nathan, each exploring the expressive possibilities of paired solo voices in dialogue with space, memory, and one another. Written between 2019 and 2023, the pieces on this album grew from Nathan's long-standing fascination with how two individuals interact through sound-coming together, diverging, supporting, and remembering. The Double Concertos for violin and clarinet, and for two violas, are shaped by close personal relationships between the soloists, while Just a Moment for two antiphonal oboes reflects on distance and connection, both physical and emotional. Across the album, Nathan sets present-day musical language in conversation with older forms and gestures, drawing on spatial placement, texture, and timbre to create music that is intimate in scale yet expansive in feeling. Themes of mentorship, partnership, love, and loss run quietly through these works, performed here by long-time collaborators and musicians closely connected to the music's origins.

Schubert: Piano Trios marks the first official album of Trio Moreau, uniting Edgar, David, and Jeremie Moreau in their personal statement of identity as an ensemble. The program combines Schubert's Piano Trios No. 1 & 2 with Lieder arrangements for piano, cello and violin. The two Schubert Piano Trios stand as cornerstones of the chamber music repertoire, as they reveal an extraordinary sense of space, emotional depth and melodic richness from a composer celebrated above all as a master of song. To frame these trios, the Moreau brothers have created their own arrangements of some of Schubert's most beloved Lieder (Du bist die Ruh, and the celebrated Hirt auf dem Felsen). In these versions, violin, cello and piano share the melodic line, each taking turns to "sing" in a dialogue of lyricism and color.

A cinema project for the Insula orchestra conducted by Laurence Equilbey, 'Musiques de Cinema' showcases classical music masterpieces by Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Purcell, Handel, and others. These iconic pieces have been featured in films such as Stanley Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon' and 'A Clockwork Orange', Wes Anderson's 'Moonrise Kingdom', David Fincher's 'The Social Network' and 'Seven', and Martin Scorsese's 'The Wolf of Wall Street...'

A compelling introduction to the choral works of Simon Beattie, this album showcases a fresh yet deeply rooted voice in British music. Entirely self-taught, Beattie draws on the English choral tradition with a rare sensitivity to text and vocal colour. His settings range from medieval Latin liturgy to contemporary poetry by Rowan Williams and Carol Ann Duffy, as well as Beattie's own English translations of Rilke and Heine. Highlights include Advent Calendar, first broadcast by St John's College, Cambridge; the evocative Missa Sanctae Annae for upper voices; and poignant standalone works such as A Remembrance and The World to me. Whether writing for massed voices or just two lines in counterpoint, Beattie's music is marked by narrative clarity, lyrical precision, and emotional resonance. Performed by the London Choral Sinfonia under Michael Waldron, this album includes many premiere recordings and affirms Beattie's growing reputation as a distinctive choral composer.