At long last, CPO is able to release Auguste Fauchard’s complete organ works in these congenial interpretations by Friedhelm Flamme.

Fauchard was highly successful as a student in Paris, where Vincent d’Indy was his composition teacher and André Marchal and Louis Vierne were his organ teachers. Vierne had the greatest influence on Fauchard the composer. Four symphonies representing the highest compositional standards and the most demanding playing technique form the heart of Fauchard’s organ oeuvre, and in them we repeatedly catch glimpses of his Vierne's model.

Research in the manuscripts of the Vercelli archives has led to the attribution of known and unknown works to Luca Marenzio, one of the great masters of the late Renaissance in Italy. These works, recorded for the first time here, share a common thread: the composer’s activity in Rome and Poland. Missa Jubilate, a parody mass, is one of the most sumptuous creations of its time and a masterpiece of melodic invention whilst Magnificat sexti toni exemplifies Marenzio’s sophisticated use of echo effects. Both versions of Magnificat octavi toni and Jubilate Deo are also premiere recordings. On this recording, Don Denis Silano leads La Cappella Musicale della Cattedrale di Vercelli.

This album showcases sacred Scottish choral music, much of it little known, from the repertoire of the University of Glasgow Chapel Choir. From reformation psalms to contemporary motets, this selection illustrates the rich and vibrant choral music of Scotland.

The mass that Mozart composed in 1779 for the Easter service in Salzburg Cathedral is shrouded in legend. From the very first bar onwards, it exudes the stately tone that would, much later on, earn it the sobriquet "Coronation Mass". Soon after Mozart's death, it became the Viennese court orchestra’s favorite mass for coronation ceremonies.

This new release from BR-KLASSIK is a live recording of a concert, performed on May 21, 2022 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz. That concert of sacred music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart included three other, lesser-known compositions that were also written during his time in Salzburg. Here they are woven in between the short movements of the Coronation Mass, and thus connected to the Mass in a way that might have been required by the practical performance conditions of a Salzburg church service.

In his "Vesperae solennes de Dominica", composed during the same year as the Mass, Mozart fulfilled the Salzburg prince-archbishop's demands for the greatest possible brevity in a tongue-in-cheek manner, by means of various compositional tricks as well as a particularly sonorous score. The album is rounded off by the "Epistle Sonata" for orchestra with obbligato organ in C major, K 329, written to accompany the "Coronation Mass", as well as by the solemn offertory "Alma Dei creatoris" for soloists, choir and orchestra in F major, K 277.

The first-rate cast of soloists consists of Katharina Konradi (soprano), Sophie Harmsen (mezzo-soprano), Steve Davislim (tenor) and Krešimir Stražanac (bass). The soloists and the excellent Bavarian Radio Chorus are accompanied by the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, one of the most renowned orchestras in the field of historical and historically informed performance practice. The conductor is Howard Arman.

With this CD begins the publication of the complete Bach's organ works by the Italian organist Massimiliano Sanca. The compositions that have been selected for this first CD are pieces of different character: austere and severe nature works – and works that describe the serenity and peace. The Prelude and Fugue BWV 546, Fantasy and Fugue BWV 537, Prelude and Fugue BWV 549, Chorale BWV 658,“represent”, through the music, suffering, pain and difficulties of humanity in a cosmic sense; on the other hand, the Chorales BWV 676 in the Trio and BWV 676 Manualiter, Chorale BWV 668, Fugue on the Magnificat BWV 733 are works that describe the serenity and peace of God’s kingdom with Mary, his mother, and the angels, as expressed in the Holy Scriptures.

As a result in this recording everything converges, once again with the Bach music, into a profound union between human and divine nature, and in fact between Heaven and Earth. Massimiliano Sanca plays on the beautiful organ made by Ilic Colzani in 2007 for of the Sanctuary of the "Madonna of Mangher" in Vallio Terme (Brescia, Italy).

The award-winning East Carolina University Chamber Singers, under the direction of James Franklin, perform a nuanced musical meditation of hopeful celebration and comfort. The album represents a journey through a period of silence; isolation gives way to the sounds of voices singing.