Discover the allure of Gran Teatro La Fenice, one of Italy's most iconic theatres and among Europe's grandest opera houses. Known for hosting groundbreaking opera premieres in the 19th century, La Fenice has staged legendary works from the masters of the Bel Canto era-Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi. Each year, a quarter-million visitors from around the globe are drawn to this historic venue, while the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro La Fenice now perform worldwide, including a celebrated appearance at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie in July 2024. Now, Teatro La Fenice proudly presents a collection of it's finest opera recordings from the past 30 years, available for the first time on CD. Featuring between 10 and 15 carefully selected operas each year, these recordings bring the magic of La Fenice's world-renowned performances to your home. Indulge in the timeless beauty of Italian opera at it's best.

In the Netherlands in the first half of the 19th century, musical life was still in it's infancy. There were no orchestras of international stature, and the dividing line between the inspired amateur and the professional musician was as yet unclear. Two musicians, Johann Wilhelm Wilms (1772-1847) and Johannes Meinardus Coenen (1824-1899), played an important role in the gradual establishment of a professional musical life. Johann Wilms may be counted among the leading Dutch composers of his generation. His many activities as a composer, musician, organist, and organizer have been of invaluable importance to musical life in the Netherlands. Wilms is chiefly remembered as the composer of Wien Ne�rlands bloed, which served as the Dutch national anthem before Wilhelmus. Wilms' compositions were published in Germany, Britain, and Denmark, as well as the Netherlands. In his Concertino in G minor for flute and orchestra (c. 1814), Wilms balances on the borderline between the classical and the romantic. At times, the piece displays a Beethovian flair. Theodoor Verhey (1848-1929) seems to have been of a somewhat less ambitious disposition than Johann Wilms or Johan Coenen. After attending the School of Music in his home town Rotterdam and the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, Verhey studied for four years with Woldemar Bargiel, a stepbrother of Clara Schumann and a member of the Leipzig circle around Schumann, Brahms, and Joachim. Verhey's music moves comfortably within the musical conventions of his day. He preferred to use classical forms and harmonies. The strength of his flute concertos lies in their almost disarming simplicity and in the efficient vehicle they provide for the flute to show off it's expressive powers through the registers in a virtuoso display. The gypsy manner ('alla zingara'), which Verhey often uses, naturally invites such a display. Played with great virtuosity, flair, and sensitivity by Jacques Zoon, one of the world's foremost flute players. He was solo flutist of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Luzern Festival Orchestra (handpicked by Claudio Abbado), and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Discover the allure of Gran Teatro La Fenice, one of Italy's most iconic theatres and among Europe's grandest opera houses. Known for hosting groundbreaking opera premieres in the 19th century, La Fenice has staged legendary works from the masters of the Bel Canto era-Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi. Each year, a quarter-million visitors from around the globe are drawn to this historic venue, while the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro La Fenice now perform worldwide, including a celebrated appearance at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie in July 2024. Now, Teatro La Fenice proudly presents a collection of it's finest opera recordings from the past 30 years, available for the first time on CD. Featuring between 10 and 15 carefully selected operas each year, these recordings bring the magic of La Fenice's world-renowned performances to your home. Indulge in the timeless beauty of Italian opera at it's best.

Principally surveying the Pr�ludes and Images, the first two volumes of Alessandra Ammara's Debussy survey have attracted praise for their affinity with the composer's elusive but painterly idiom. According to Fanfare, "Ammara reveals her sensitivity to the Debussy sound world, rife with blurred outlines of objects and infiltrated with variegated light, in the manner of the painter J. M. W. Turner." For Volume 3, her focus turns principally to the set of 12 �tudes, which miraculously took shape over the course of just two months, in August and September 1915. Plagued by ill health following the diagnosis of rectal cancer in 1909, presented with the pressing need to increase his earnings through editing and performing, Debussy wrote the �tudes while staying in a town near Dieppe, on the Normandy coast. Emerging from a period of severe depression, he once more took inspiration from the sea in a sudden and final burst of creativity, which also saw the composition of the suite for two pianos, en blanc et noir, and the Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp. However, it is the 12 �tudes which have come both to define Debussy's late style - on the piano, as a counterpart to his ballet for Diaghilev, Jeux - and to present both a model and a challenge to later composers of piano �tudes from Tansman to Ligeti. Debussy himself said that they were "a warning to pianists not to take up the musical profession unless they have remarkable hands". While the dry titles of the individual �tudes serve to conceal their rich and turbulent inner landscape, aspects of their invention are prefigured by the earlier works on Alessandra Ammara's album. The three movements of Estampes are as much "studies" in their way as the �tudes - of particular kinds of movement refracted through the images of a Japanese pagoda, a Spanish evening, and a garden in the rain. From 1904, and capturing the passion of his affair with Emma Bardac, L'isle joyeuse references both the island of Jersey and a painting by Watteau, but it also serves as a study in superimposed scales.

Discover the allure of Gran Teatro La Fenice, one of Italy's most iconic theatres and among Europe's grandest opera houses. Known for hosting groundbreaking opera premieres in the 19th century, La Fenice has staged legendary works from the masters of the Bel Canto era-Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi. Each year, a quarter-million visitors from around the globe are drawn to this historic venue, while the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro La Fenice now perform worldwide, including a celebrated appearance at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie in July 2024. Now, Teatro La Fenice proudly presents a collection of it's finest opera recordings from the past 30 years, available for the first time on CD. Featuring between 10 and 15 carefully selected operas each year, these recordings bring the magic of La Fenice's world-renowned performances to your home. Indulge in the timeless beauty of Italian opera at it's best.

Christopher Tin -"Song Offerings: Choral Works by Christopher Tin" Christopher Tin's album, Song Offerings, contains two distinct choral works with the Kantorei Choir (Song Offerings and Transfigurations) celebrating communal love, peace, cosmic spirituality and transcendence. CD Softpak, 24-page booklet.

Luciano Pavarotti - "Novanta". Decca presents NOVANTA - the ultimate greatest hits package of the world's favorite tenor. This release includes his most popular, signature arias and songs, iconic live moments from some of the biggest concerts ever to take place, alongside rarities, new discoveries, and previously unreleased tracks. 80 minutes of music: 20 tracks, spanning opera, Italian song, and sacred music, plus duets with Tracy Chapman and Andrea Bocelli, and 2 previously unreleased arias from Llangollen (1995). Also, available for the first time on Decca, "Adeste Fidelis" from the 1978 concert at the Notre-Dame Basilica, Montreal.

Alexandra Whittingham - "Letters from Paris". From melancholy miniatures to the soaring melodies of French chansons, this is an album which gives us the space to contemplate, marvel and hope. Letters from Paris features specially commissioned new arrangements and guest appearances from other musical stars of Alexandra's generation.

The Kanneh-Masons - "River of Music". "This is a story about our family and the sources of our music. Music runs like a river through the generations, and our passion for listening and playing music comes from our grandparents, and from their stories, flowing from the places and dreams they passed on..." - Konya Kanneh-Mason, Grandad's Dream. From their Welsh grandmother following love across the sea to Sierra Leone, to their Antiguan grandad passing on his own dashed hopes of a musical career, this album celebrates the musical threads of the Kanneh-Mason family. Surrounding Schubert's Trout Quintet, which they all grew up playing, are new arrangements of classical favorites most loved by their grandparents, Welsh folk songs and spirituals, performed and often arranged by the seven siblings. The album is pulled together with a story by writer Konya, called 'Grandad's Dream.'

Samuel Mari�o - "Lumina". Premiere recordings of arias sung by a male voice, featuring Samuel's own arrangements of the traditional Last Rose of Summer and "Ba�l�ro" from Joseph Canteloube's folk song collection, Chants d'Auvergne. Famous arias inspired by nature, voice and emotion, recorded alongside Ben Palmer & Covent Garden Sinfonia as well as pianist Jonathan Ware. "I want to open the doors for the next generations of male sopranos and say 'listen, I did it, and so can you.'" - Samuel Mari�o

Sensitive and talented, Marc Andr� is one of the few classical musicians to have chosen the double bass as a solo instrument, bringing it out of the orchestral ranks and into the spotlight. Playing a modified double bass - with a sound closer to that of a cello - for this debut album, Marc has chosen an eclectic program spanning eras and styles. From well-known melodies by Gluck to Piazzolla, with Tchaikovsky in between, the repertoire showcases the instruments full expressive range in arrangements for piano and double bass. Marc is also accompanied on two tracks by the guitarist Gabriel Bianco.

There is something wondrous in the music of Sergei Prokofiev, says Nemanja Radulovic, "as if it constantly moves between light and shadow, searching for truth through contrast, sarcasm, magic, love, irony, and beauty." Now the violinist - praised by The Times for both his "lyric delicacy" and "super-virtuosity" - has recorded an entire album devoted to Prokofiev. It embraces a variety of musical genres: the Violin Concerto No 2 (with the Philharmonia Orchestra under it's principal conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali); the Sonata for Solo Violin; the Sonata for Two Violins (with Johan Dalene), and (with pianist Laure Favre-Kahn), the Five Melodies Op.35bis and arrangements of excerpts from the ballets Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella, the opera The Love for Three Oranges, and the 'Classical' Symphony.

Recorded in Salzburg with the city's Mozarteumorchester and conductor Howard Griffiths, Bartlett performs Bach's Keyboard Concerto No 1 in D minor, Mozart's 'Jeunehomme' Piano Concerto and Britten's Young Apollo, which is scored for piano, string quartet and string orchestra. "When I began shaping this album, I started with Benjamin Britten," explains Bartlett. "He was a brilliant pianist, remarkable for his purity of intention, clarity of touch, and emotional honesty... When programming his own Aldeburgh Festival, Britten would often give the works of Bach and Mozart special attention. He also showed his deep admiration in the way he allowed them to influence his own compositions."

A profoundly personal and curated new recording of duets by violinist Daniel Lozakovich, joined by pianist H�l�ne Mercier, inspired by his own reflections on childhood and the redemptive power of music. The album combines cornerstones of the Romantic repertoire (Vocalise, Apr�s un r�ve, Nocturne, La fille aux cheveux de lin) with rare incursions into chanson (La chanson d'H�l�ne, Autumn Leaves, Youkali).

Fazil Say brings together two, highly contrasted Viennese piano sonatas, composed at either end of the Romantic era. Conceived on an epic scale in four movements, Schubert's Sonata in B flat major was written shortly before his death in 1828, while in 1909 Alban Berg ushered in Modernism with his opus 1, the compact, haunting Piano Sonata in B minor. "Schubert was only thirty when he died," writes Fazil Say. "There is unique depth of sorrow and melancholy here, the pain of parting from this world. At the same time, we feel Schubert's joy of life, his vitality, his attachment, his passion, even his defiance." While the Schubert sonata is a recent addition to Say's repertoire, he explains that "I first encountered Alban Berg's piano sonata at the age of 15, and I performed it as a student in Ankara... he became one of the main figures who opened the door for me to contemporary music... His opus 1, while anchored in B minor, sails boldly toward atonality and modern expression... The piano is used almost orchestrally, full of colour and intensity. It is a remarkably beautiful piece."

In this Schumann anthology, Elisabeth Leonskaja displays the full extent of both her love for the composer and her artistry, with the expressiveness and clarity that characterize her playing, making this recording a true Schumann-esque testament from this great lady of the piano. Many of these works are cycles of short pieces (Papillons, Variations, Symphonic Etudes) or sequences of miniatures, sometimes light and dance-like, sometimes virtuosic, but always imbued with poetry and depth.

Experience the enchanting sounds of 'Orfeo Son Io' featuring Rolando Villazon, L'Arpeggiata, and Christina Pluhar. This classical masterpiece, released by Deutsche Grammophon, showcases a unique blend of operatic vocals and instrumental artistry. Perfect for both classical enthusiasts and new listeners alike.

Aristo Sham - "Timeline" - Gramophone acclaimed his performance at the Van Cliburn Competition as "inspired a well-deserved ovation." Aristo Sham won also the Audience Award, voted by music lovers globally, demonstrating that his artistry captivated both the jury and the public. Within just two months, he was mentioned in over 800 news articles, and his Cliburn performance videos were streamed over 2 million times across 125 countries.

The German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter is celebrated for her exceptional talent and unwavering dedication to her craft. A child prodigy, she rose to international acclaim under the mentorship of Herbert von Karajan. Throughout her illustrious career, Mutter has collaborated with renowned orchestras and conductors, showcasing her versatility and technical brilliance. This LP features two of the most celebrated concertos for two instruments: Bach's Concerto for Two Violins and Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, recorded in the 1982 and 1991. Anne-Sophie Mutter magnifies them with her powerful and distinguished playing, still imbued with a youthful energy in Bach (she was only 19 at that time). Her interpretations are marked by a perfect balance of sensitivity and power, making her a true icon in the world of classical music.

Shani retains the joy without over-forcing the music's physical impact... The Rotterdam Philharmonic possesses an appealing inner glow and warmth that radiates a strong sense of collegiate endeavour. (BBC Music Magazine) The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and it's chief conductor Lahav Shani open this Mendelssohn album with Mendelssohn's Symphony No 3, the 'Scottish', that was inspired by his first visit to Great Britain in 1829. The overture Meeresstille und gl�ckliche Fahrt (Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage), first heard in 1828, was inspired by two short poems by Goethe. The album closes with 3 of Mendelssohn's Lieder ohne Worte Op.19b, orchestrated by maestro Shani.