This is not Julien Libeer's first Ravel recording, but for a long time he has wanted to explore the whole of Ravel's piano works, even a little more. For only the complete works, or nearly, are essential in order to square the circle. "And yet, we keep studying them with 'all we can bring as an offering', as Lipatti used to say. His music - lucid, ardent - wakes you up, keeps you on the edge. In passing, it seems to make amends for all that's imperfect about the world."

The fruit of a long-standing collaboration between Jean-Guihen Queyras and choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (whose acclaimed production Mitten wir i'm Leben sind has had over 100 performances worldwide), this new recording of Bach's Cello Suites arrives 17 years after his first reading that quickly set the standard. Profoundly influenced by his close connection to dance, the cellist has drawn fresh inspiration from the source. Today, he is ready to offer his latest look at the iconic cycle.

A memory of family evenings, this album created with the renowned musician and producer Rob Mounsey goes far beyond a simple recital: it is an intimate gathering, at the crossroads of ancestral recollection and musical imagination. Yiddish song, Romantic lied, opera arias, jazz, and Broadway musicals: a tenor already well-versed in early music ventures here across continents, generations, and repertoires. Each piece becomes the echo of a story shared between nostalgia, invention, and transmission.

This third and final album of the impressive complete set from the Cuarteto Casals immerses us in the twilight world of Shostakovitch's last three quartets. Legacy works of the years 1970-74, movingly marked by signs of his illness and acute awareness of approaching death, they strike the ear with their condensed formal daring and raw emotion.

The music for Assassin's Creed is here re-invented for piano, with the inspired playing of Nicolas Horvath. Recorded on a historic piano that formerly belonged to Nadia Boulanger, this album presents the iconic themes of the saga in a new artistic dimension, while totally respecting the milieu of the game. A landmark event, uniting musical demands with the culture of the video game.

Brigitte Engerer recorded several albums for harmonia mundi that stand as benchmarks today. This box set brings together her complete recordings for solo piano - and what a pleasure it is to listen once again to these performances - so powerful, so colorful, and so absolutely right. From Beethoven to Mussorgsky via Schumann, and including her unmissable Chopin Nocturnes, this is a tremendous panorama of the artistry of this great pianist, lost to us far too soon.

For this, the eleventh volume of his complete edition, Benjamin Alard has assembled all the keyboard masterpieces that Bach published under the heading Clavier-Ubungen I and II - the six Partitas, the Italian Concerto and Overture in the French Style, supplemented here by the brilliant Duetti from Clavier-Ubung III. Two remarkable harpsichords lend their voices to these expert readings: the sumptuous Hass of 1740, and for the first time in this recording venture, an English Kirkman built in 1757.

For their first CD exploring the world of Bach, Sebastien Dauce and his Ensemble Correspondances give new life to the young composer's first sacred cantatas - BWV 4, 106 and 131 - written in Muhlhausen. Combining the Lutheran tradition with a faint breeze from Italy, these works already reveal the dramatic invention and formal rigour of a fully functioning creative mind.

Between the passing flirtations of an evening and solemn oaths of eternal love, Gwendoline Blondeel and Quito Gato invite us on a piquant sentimental journey, to the sounds of the theorbo, the baroque guitar and the vihuela, the lute's Aragonese cousin. From Spain to Italy, via France, they animate the map of love with villanelles, madrigals and other love songs of the early Baroque.

Soprano Giulia Semenzato and guitarist Jadran Duncumb team up for this passionate and poetic program, from Schubert and Rossini to the even more private songs of Giuliani, Sor and Doisy. Far more than just a recital, here is a probing exploration of wide-ranging emotions, seen through the prism of an amorous interplay between voice and guitar - and a vibrant encounter between bel canto and the beginnings of Romanticism.

The time of eternity The Kanon Pokajanen (Canon of Repentance), premiered in March 1998, is Arvo Part's most monumental composition. It's prolonged genesis, a meticulous process of assimilation of the text in Church Slavonic, the austerity and subtlety of it's style embody the same sincerity, the same spiritual and contemplative radiance as icon painting. It is a dialogue with the Sacred in which time stands still.

In a program teeming with contrasts and discoveries, the Trio Wanderer explores the many different faces of French chamber music around the year 1900. From the ardent lyricism of Lalo to the shimmering refinement of Ravel, via the freshness of the young Debussy and the poetry of Mel Bonis, each work reveals some unusual facet of this golden age, creating a wondrous panorama that combines neglected treasures with pillars of the repertoire.

As a tribute to the artistry of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (1954-2006), this retrospective gathers together many of the finest recordings of arias and duets made during her acclaimed association with harmonia mundi. "A riveting singer known for her fearsome vocal and dramatic power, whether in opera or the cantatas of Bach." (The Los Angeles Times)

In this third volume, Cedric Tiberghien completes his tour of the art of variation in Beethoven and his later avatars. Taking in the experimental daring of Ligeti (Musica ricercata) and the poetic games of Kurtag (Jatekok), this sweeping survey is completed with the Diabelli Variations, the absolute peak of Beethoven's piano music.

Sebastien Dauce has totally rethought the score of La Calisto, with thirty-five instrumentalists instead of the original six who played at the opera's premiere in Venice in 1651. Under his lively and flexible musical direction, alert to the tiniest nuances, the Ensemble Correspondances performs absolute wonders. (Le Monde).

Bartok's 44 Duos go well beyond the scope of their original purpose of illustrating a graded violin method. Sensitively alert to the popular origin of these pieces, based on folk songs from Central Europe to Algeria, Antoine Tamestit and Alexandra Preucil present a strikingly free and fresh reading for violin and viola. As preludes to their performances, they have interspersed several original recordings captured by Bartok during his field-trips.

Camille Saint-Saëns, virtuoso pianist, organist and conductor, was also a great admirer of Liszt. His Symphony No.3, which adds both his chosen keyboard instruments to the orchestra, and his Piano Concerto No.4 utilize the codes of the old master, the better to transcend them. As partner of Les Siècles since 2017, harmonia mundi felt it was a must to reissue these fiery readings of two masterpieces in the great French Romantic tradition, for which François-Xavier Roth invited two eminent soloists.

The funeral of Louis XIV mirrored his reign: grandiose and filled with pathos. For this video, Raphaël Pichon has chosen the setting of the Chapelle Royale in Versailles, built for the Sun King, to present a musical reconstruction of the event, with chiaroscuro lighting designs by Bertrand Couderc. Solemn motets like the De profundis and Dies irae of Michel-Richard de Lalande and the poignant Marche funèbre pour le Convoy d Roy by André Danican Philidor are juxtaposed with rarely heard music by Jean Colin, Louis Chein and Charles d'Helfer. This outstanding performance by Pygmalion was filmed on the occasion of the tercentenary of the event in November 2015.

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REVIEW:

The tercentenary of the Sun King's exequies was a perfect opportunity for a commemorative concert filmed at Chapelle Royale in Versailles. In numerous ways, this is not a reconstruction but instead a quasi-liturgical presentation that places two magnificent grands motets by Lalande among plenty of plainchant.

This conjectural fantasy affords creative license for Pygmalion and Raphael Pichon to create a beguilingly musical experience. The elegantly sensual orchestral playing and choral singing are sensational from start to finish. Five soloists sing with impeccable gracefulness and fluency.

– Gramophone

Victoria: Tenebrae Responsories The office of Tenebrae, from the liturgy of Holy Week, has always fascinated the public and, above all, offered a fertile terrain for composers to exercise their gifts. Such was the case with Victoria, whose exclusively sacred output was nourished by multiple influences during his years in Rome. These Responsories, performed by world-renowned vocal ensemble Stile Antico, display unparalleled expressive power and amply justify his reputation as the greatest polyphonist of the Spanish Renaissance. Stile Antico (Artist, Orchestra), Tomas Luis de Victoria (Composer), None (Conductor)

Bach’s six violin sonatas are remarkable not only because of their musical richness, but also due to their innovative scoring. Based on the Baroque trio sonata form, they transcend its conventions, representing a prototype for the violin-piano sonata form of the Classical and Romantic periods. These sonatas collectively explore the many possibilities of what was then a unique instrumental combination. They present a nuanced and vibrant dialog between the performers – attributes that are conveyed perfectly by the stellar combination of violinist Isabelle Faust and harpsichordist Kristian Bezuidenhout.

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REVIEW:

Faust and Bezuidenhout played these sonatas a lot in concert before taking them into the studio and it shows – both in the detail and the trust that allows for real risk-taking. Can I find fault with this set? No, I cannot. It’s an eloquent and beautifully recorded homage to the composer and demands to be in the collection of all Bach lovers post-haste.

– Gramophone