Andrea Bocelli -"Romanza (30th Anniversary)" Andrea Bocelli's Romanza is the album that made him a global star as his most commercially successful to date, and one of the best-selling albums of all time, with worldwide sales exceeding 19 million copies. Romanza celebrates it's 30th anniversary on CD with a never-before-seen photo from the period of the album's recording. The 16 songs include, "Time to Say Goodbye," Bocelli's spine-tingling #1 single with Sarah Brightman, and the global hit "Vivo per Lei (feat Giorgia)." The album also features a previously unreleased extended version of the classic, "Con te Partiro." Verve Label Group; Verve; Classical Crossover; Catalog.
Deutsche Grammophon presents The Poem of Life, a new album by composer, pianist, and producer Yu-Peng Chen. With this release, Chen turns to a more personal project: a symphonic suite for piano and orchestra in 12 movements, exploring different stages of life with a focus on reflection, expression and storytelling. This marks a new direction in his work, bringing together his experience in game music with a more intimate, concert-focused approach. Conceived as a reflective exploration of universal human experience, The Poem of Life traces an emotional and spiritual arc from birth to farewell. Through lyrical melodies and symphonic arrangements, Chen evokes the wonder of childhood, the trials of adulthood, and the serenity of later years - culminating in the final moments of life.
A pianist whose exceptional intelligence and sensitivity draws on her effervescent spirit, Anne Queffelec learned her craft in both Paris and Vienna. She had a close relationship with Erato and Virgin Classics, which produced a rich discography. This recording is an absolute best seller, and probably the most famous version of Erik Satie's masterpieces, the Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes. "No pianist understands the atmosphere of Satie's music or can sharpen it's wit more tellingly than Anne Queffelec." Gramophone Magazine
Ian Buckle and Sophie Rosa continue their exploration of violin sonata repertoire which always contain discoveries with ingenious and original programing. This recording features romantic violin sonatas, by three contemporaneous German composers, and one of whom was all but erased from musical history by the Nazis. All the sonatas on this enterprising album are their composer's first essays in this form. Friederich Gernsheim, born in Worms in 1839, studied with a pupil of Spohr, and went on to be praised by Moscheles and Bruch and held major positions in German musical and academic life. A composer of very fine chamber music, several concertos (piano, two for violin, and one for cello), his four symphonies stand at the centre of his output. The first predates the first symphony by his contemporary from Hamburg by several years.
Toward the Sea brings together three works for flute and guitar which explore memory, place and transformation. EMI Ferguson and Michael Poll trace a journey from the dance halls of Buenos Aires in Astor Piazzolla's Histoire du Tango, through the luminous stillness of Elizabeth Ogonek's Altair, to the meditative sound world of Toru Takemitsu's Toward the Sea. Recorded at the Stone Church in rural Massachusetts, the program reflects the duo's artistic partnership, which began through online collaborations during the pandemic before developing into live performances across the United States. Their own arrangement of Ogonek's Altair sits naturally between two landmark works, highlighting the continuing vitality of the flute and guitar repertoire. Ferguson, an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, and Poll, equally active as a guitarist and conductor, approach this repertoire as equal musical partners, allowing the distinctive voices of flute and guitar to emerge across music that ranges from Piazzolla's rhythmic vitality to Takemitsu's suspended, atmospheric sound world.
Fourth release in the Warner Classics series of Herbert von Karajan Hybrid SACDs with a new HD 192/24 remastering from the original tapes. "Karajan is a great master," wrote Jean Sibelius in 1955, while the conductor said that Sibelius "is a composer who cannot really be compared to anyone else". Gramophone added in 1981: "No living conductor has done more for the music of Sibelius than Herbert von Karajan." In the tone poems and the two symphonies in this collection, Karajan explores with the magnificent Berlin Philharmonic the music's mysteries, unfolds it's structures and releases it's exhilarating power.
The Seasons unites two visionary responses to nature across three centuries, pairing Antonio Vivaldi's iconic Le quattro stagioni with Astor Piazzolla's sultry Las cuatro estaciones portenas in Leonid Desyatnikov's electrifying arrangement for violin and strings. Violinist and director Soojin Han leads the English Chamber Orchestra in a vibrant dialogue between Venetian countryside and Buenos Aires nightlife, where birdsong and storms meet smoky tango rhythms and shifting emotional weather. Playful musical quotations blur the boundaries between the two works, with winter appearing in summer and summer in winter, suggesting that the seasons are shaped as much by memory and imagination as by the natural world. Recorded in Studio Two at Abbey Road Studios, this recording reflects the wide-ranging musical perspective Soojin Han has developed through a career spanning solo performance, chamber music and orchestral leadership. It is an approach that allows these familiar masterpieces to unfold with both the freedom of chamber music and the brilliance of a virtuoso performance.
September 15th 2026 will mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of the most influential conductors of the 20th century: Bruno Walter (1876-1962). This comprehensive box set brings together his complete HMV and Columbia Graphophone recordings. Spanning the 78-rpm era from 1924 to 1939, this collection also features the landmark 1949 magnetic tape recording of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder featuring Kathleen Ferrier, offering the first release of two previously unpublished takes. To ensure the highest fidelity, the finest available materials have been sourced, including pristine test pressings on vinyl from original metal work and near-mint superior commercial pressings. After undergoing high-definition digitization, the recordings were meticulously restored. This collection finally sheds a truer and more precise light on the artistry and genius of Bruno Walter.
Aleksander Debicz - pianist, composer, arranger, and musical director - is one of the most versatile and innovative artists on the Polish music scene. He is the creator and performer of an original style he himself describes as 'cinematic classical' - a movement that combines the language of classical music with the narrative nature of film music and the space of improvisation. 'I chose to shape these new compositions as a cycle of piano miniatures, referring to a classical tradition. I therefore treat the dream not only as a theme, but also as a form - an equivalent of the Romantic prelude. 12 Dreams is conceived as a complete cycle, yet I also enjoy performing individual dreams as independent pieces.' - Aleksander Debicz
'Heritage', presented by the Fondation Gautier Capucon, is part of the Foundation's annual recording initiative, which spotlights it's laureates and reinforces it's long-term commitment to developing emerging classical talent. This edition features Mirabelle Kajenjeri (violin) and Elias Moncado (piano), offering them a high-visibility platform as rising artists within a structured mentorship and career development ecosystem. The program combines cornerstone repertoire (sonatas by Maurice Ravel and Johannes Brahms) with shorter works by Claude Debussy and Lili Boulanger.
Kotaro Fukuma presents a magnificent collection of piano transcriptions combining virtuosity and lyricism. In addition to popular plays such as Bach-Gounod's Ave Maria, Schumann-Liszt's Widmung and Wagner-Liszt's Liebestod Isolde, the program includes Fukuma's own transcript of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik and a potpourri of French songs, "Chanson Medley". by his admirers.
Wagner defined Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as the most complete work that he had ever created. The Bayreuth Festival 2025 presents the comedy in a new production staged by Matthias Davids, whose playful irreverence stands between tradition and renewal. Under the exceptional baton of Daniele Gatti, who debuted in Bayreuth in 2008 with Parsifal, the cast showcases it's brilliance and finesse. Georg Zeppenfeld, at the core of the performance, interprets Hans Sachs with excellent vocal skills and particular sensibility. Equally remarkable performances are given by Michael Spyres and Christina Nilsson, respectively, as Walther and Eva, and by Michael Nagy as a finely drawn Beckmesser. The result is a compelling piece of music theatre: 'A comedy of manners where themes of art, tradition and human love arise naturally.' (Seen and Heard International) Michael Spyres 'has everything a Stolzing needs: he is effortlessly present, sounds light yet embodied in the upper register, a German knight with italianità.' (BR-KLASSIK)
Alessandro Scarlatti's Il Trionfo della Grazia was first performed in Rome in 1685 and was such a huge success that the oratorio was regularly revived over a period of more than twenty years. Three manuscripts of it exist, one each in Rome, Modena, and Dresden. The score is remarkably inventive and profound for a 25-year-old composer; Scarlatti continued to alter and adjust it over the years. Here Ensemble Celadon focuses on the first Roman version of the work and does not include any later additions; the result is a lively and spirited work with an acute dramatic sense, thanks to which each performer can fully display their talents.
