Les Itinerantes, the acclaimed female vocal trio, make their PENTATONE debut with HYSTERÆ, an imaginative and deeply personal exploration of the many faces of the Feminine. Mothers, queens, witches, workers, saints, fairies and enchantresses come together in a rich tapestry of stories, archetypes and emotions that have shaped cultures across the world and throughout history. Through melodies from diverse musical traditions, original compositions and rarely heard works by women composers and writers, the album gives voice to figures who have been revered, feared, idealised, silenced and misunderstood. Renowned for their captivating a cappella performances and their unique repertoire spanning fifty languages, Manon Cousin Cipriani, Pauline Langlois de Swarte and elodie Pont create a sound world where borders, eras and genres dissolve. HYSTERÆ is both an intimate journey and a universal celebration, embracing the contradictions that define the human experience: tenderness and rage, fragility and strength, creation and destruction. Blending influences from early music, world traditions, sacred song and contemporary composition, Les Itinerantes invite listeners on a powerful voyage of self-discovery, liberation and imagination.

Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic present two of Dmitri Shostakovich's most powerful symphonic statements: the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies. For Bychkov, no music is more essential or closer to the bone than that of Shostakovich. He and the composer share a home city (Leningrad/St Petersburg); Bychkov grew up surrounded by people who had known the composer; and he was obsessed with Shostakovich's music from an early age. Bychkov has been conducting Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 he was a student at the Leningrad Conservatory in the early 70's. He first conducted it with the Czech Philharmonic in 2022 and, subsequently took the work on tour with the Orchestra conducting concerts in London, Amsterdam, Vienna and Paris. Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 also has special resonance for Bychkov, whose mother lived through the 900 days of the siege of Leningrad, still ravaging the city at the time of the second performance in the city. Bychkov first conducted the work with the Czech Philharmonic to open the 2021-22 season. This release continues the acclaimed partnership between the Czech Philharmonic and PENTATONE. Previous recordings with Semyon Bychkov include Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 1-5, released individually between 2022 and 2026 before being joined by the remaining symphonies in a complete Mahler box set; as well as the acclaimed recordings of Smetana's Ma vlast and Dvorak's Symphonies Nos. 7, 8 & 9 (2024).

Under the direction of Music and Artistic Director Rafael Payare, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal presents two landmark works created for Sergei Diaghilev's legendary Ballets Russes: Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe and Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. This prestigious company played a decisive role in shaping the image of an artistic modernity that challenged established norms in the early decades of the 20th century, with these two works leaving a lasting mark on the history of ballet and music. Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe, described by the composer as a 'choreographic symphony', is a vast musical fresco built on a refined orchestral palette, subtle harmonic writing, and a sophisticated blending of instrumental colours. Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, with it's innovative rhythmic language, harmonic construction, and powerful evocation of ancient rituals, became a landmark work of the 20th century. Together, these scores reflect the extraordinary creative energy surrounding the Ballets Russes and the composers who transformed the musical landscape of their time. This release extends the exclusive recording partnership between the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal with Rafael Payare and PENTATONE, including Mahler's Symphony No. 5 (2023), Mahler's Rückert-Lieder with Sonya Yoncheva and Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben (2024), Schoenberg's Pelleas und Melisande and Verklarte Nacht (2024), and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and Le carnaval romain (2025).

Ensemble Altera, directed by it's founder Christopher Lowrey, presents The Four Elements, a journey through wind, earth, water, fire and, finally, quintessence-the ancient idea of a fifth essence. Across five chapters, music from the Renaissance to the present explores these forces not as fixed substances but as living metaphors: breath and inspiration, rootedness and belonging, stillness and flow, passion and transformation, and what may lie beyond the material world. Known for imaginative programming and a warm, focused transatlantic sound, Ensemble Altera brings together music by William Byrd, Charles Villiers Stanford, Eriks Esenvalds, Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen, Owain Park, Rebecca Dale and others. The programme pairs choral landmarks with new commissions and fresh arrangements, including world-premiere recordings of Michael Garrepy's Flame of Love and Daniel Gledhill's For the beauty of the earth, winner of Ensemble Altera's 2021 Composition Competition. The result is a vividly shaped meditation on nature, humanity and imagination, moving from the first breath of wind to the stillness of quintessence.

On Mozart Horn Concertos, Ben Goldscheider joins the Munchener Kammerorchester in performances of all four concertos by Mozart, combining clarity, energy, and a strong sense of musical direction. Written for Mozart's friend, the horn player Joseph Leutgeb, these works remain central to the horn repertoire, balancing virtuosity, lyricism, with a uniquely conversational relationship between soloist and orchestra. For Goldscheider, these concertos have been a constant presence throughout his musical development, accompanying him from his early years as a horn player to major international solo appearances. This long familiarity informs an interpretation shaped by both experience and curiosity. Presented in reverse order, from the Fourth Concerto to the First, the album offers a fresh perspective on their overall arc. Ben Goldscheider makes his PENTATONE debut with this release, while the Munchener Kammerorchester appeared on the acclaimed recording of Four Seasons with Arabella Steinbacher in 2020.

In Addio Amore, Kammerorchester Basel, soprano Jeanine de Bique, and countertenor Terry Wey present a programme of searing intensity and refined expressive beauty, exploring the fragile threshold between love and loss in 18th-century opera. Inspired by a world in which singing was not merely an expression of virtuosity, but the most direct language of the heart, this recording explores the emotional core of the farewell moment-when lovers, friends, and heroes are torn apart, and music becomes the only source of consolation. Across arias and duets of striking intimacy, the album reveals how composers from Albinoni to Hasse transformed separation, abandonment, and death into some of the most poignant musical utterances of their time, creating a shared language of expressive extremes where tenderness and grief exist side by side. For Jeanine de Bique and Terry Wey, this is a debut album on PENTATONE, while Kammerorchester Basel appeared on Anime Immortali (2023) and Haydn Stabat Mater (2023).

Following the 2025 release of Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 and Intermezzi Op. 117 - an album that received rave reviews worldwide - Francesco Piemontesi, conductor Manfred Honeck, and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig continue their Brahms journey with a compelling new recording of the composer's Piano Concerto No. 1. A work of striking emotional force and symphonic grandeur, it was born from a profound personal and artistic crisis. Composed in the aftermath of Robert Schumann's tragic collapse, the concerto reflects Brahms' struggle for artistic identity, as well as his confrontation with grief, responsibility, and expectation. From it's monumental opening - once likened to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - to the deeply introspective slow movement, often understood as a portrait of Clara Schumann, this interpretation reveals the work's extraordinary psychological depth. Complementing the concerto are Brahms' Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118, works of introspection, farewell, and concentrated expression. Composed more than three decades after the concerto, these miniatures distil a lifetime of experience into music of remarkable intimacy and emotional restraint. From the consoling warmth of the Intermezzo in A Major to the desolate introspection of the Intermezzo in E-flat minor - often regarded among Brahms' darkest utterances - these pieces form a poignant counterpoint to the youthful turbulence of the concerto. Together, they trace a path from struggle to reflection, offering a profound insight into Brahms' artistic evolution and inner world. Francesco Piemontesi, one of today's most-cherished pianists, presents the sixth release in his exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, following the widely praised Schubert - Last Piano Sonatas (2019), Bach Nostalghia (2021), Schoenberg, Messiaen & Ravel (2022), Liszt Transcendental Etudes & Piano Sonata (2023), and Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 & Three Intermezzi Op. 117 (2025).

Signum Quartett presents the album the earth trembled, recontextualising the visionary string quartets of Leos Janacek alongside the striking String Quartet Op. 8 by Vitezslava Kapralova. Janacek's lifelong engagement with folk traditions shaped these works profoundly; he lays bare an extraordinary spectrum of feeling, exposing the innermost reaches of his psyche with an almost unsettling immediacy, music in which the earth really does tremble. Set against this, Kapralova's quartet offers balance: a strikingly youthful yet assured voice emerging from the same cultural milieu, opening an equally compelling emotional range. Interspersed throughout are fragments of Janacek's folk song arrangements and intimate miniatures from his album for Kamila Stosslova, whose absent voice subtly haunts the programme, weaving a fragile, imagined narrative between the works. This recording offers a fresh perspective on works that have accompanied the Quartett for many years and remain among the most emotionally overwhelming in the repertoire. Signum Quartett is frequently hailed as one of the most adventurous and outstanding ensembles of today. This is the quartet's fourth album with PENTATONE, after the Schubert cycle including Aus der Ferne (2018), Ins stille Land (2020), and Lebensmuth (2023).

The internationally renowned pianist Yulianna Avdeeva presents Metanoia, a profound exploration of the late piano works of Franz Liszt, tracing his radical transformation from virtuoso to visionary. Liszt's late works mark a decisive break with traditional musical language and form, opening the door to 20th-century modernism through bold harmonic experimentation, compressed structures, and strikingly dissonant sonorities. Stripped of conventional melodic development, these brief but intense works convey deep existential reflection, touching on themes of faith, mortality, and the human condition. Initially met with resistance, they would later become a major influence on composers such as Bartok, Scriabin, Debussy, and Ravel. The album unfolds in reverse chronology, culminating in Liszt's Sonata in B Minor and Legende No. 2. The Sonata in B Minor stands as one of the most important works in the piano repertoire: a single-movement structure of extraordinary dramatic and philosophical scope, where contrasting themes emerge, collide, and transform into a journey from darkness to transcendence. For Avdeeva, Liszt's music is never purely virtuosic, but an existential inquiry into the deepest aspects of human experience - light and darkness, faith and doubt, life and death - revealing a composer who continually expanded the possibilities of musical thought and expression. Yulianna Avdeeva returns to PENTATONE after a string of critically acclaimed releases: her label debut Resilience (2023), followed by Chopin: Voyage (2024) and Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 (2025). Together, these recordings have garnered international awards and widespread acclaim across the globe.

Violinist Patrick Yim presents an album of world-premiere recordings, Bamboo Grove, featuring the music of Chen Yi and Zhou Long - two of the most distinguished voices bridging Chinese and Western musical traditions. Rooted in a profound artistic lineage and shaped by lived history, this recording captures a rare moment of creative intimacy: works brought to life during a residency at the University of Notre Dame in April 2024, enriched by close collaboration with the composers themselves. Their stories - spanning the Cultural Revolution, formative studies in Beijing, and artistic refinement in New York - resonate through music that is at once deeply personal and culturally expansive. Drawing on an encyclopaedic knowledge of Chinese musical heritage alongside a command of Western compositional technique, Chen and Zhou reimagine the expressive potential of string instruments with striking originality. Across the programme, the violin and viola are transformed into evocative vessels of ancient sonorities: echoes of the guqin, erhu, pipa, and xiao emerge through intricate textures, extended techniques, and a vivid palette of colour. Zhou Long's Bamboo Grove unfolds as a poetic meditation on the nonconformity and spontaneity of the Seven Sages, while Chen Yi's works-from the pioneering Xian Shi to the richly imaginative Suite for Viola and Chamber Winds-blend folk traditions with bold experimentation. Tales from the Nine Bells conjures an otherworldly soundscape inspired by myth and poetry, it's shimmering textures and percussive energy revealing a unique sonic vision. Throughout, narrative depth and timbral invention intertwine, creating a sound world that feels both ancient and immediate. With exceptional sensitivity and virtuosity, Patrick Yim brings this music to life, offering a compelling portrait of cultural confluence and artistic imagination.

Mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack presents a deeply personal exploration with Sur, an album shaped by memory, identity, and the enduring pull of home. Inspired by a vivid childhood recollection - listening from the back seat of her father's car - Mack traces her first encounter with the electrifying sound world of Astor Piazzolla. His music, brimming with colour, grit, and intensity, left an indelible mark, one that continues to resonate in her artistry today. Known for her versatility across the operatic spectrum, Mack finds in Piazzolla's reimagined tango a natural meeting point between classical discipline and expressive freedom, bringing to these songs both technical finesse and emotional immediacy. As an Argentine artist living abroad, Mack reconnects with the spirit of Buenos Aires through music that invites vivid storytelling. Each piece unfolds as an intimate vignette, enriched by arrangements of her collaborator JP, whose work honours Piazzolla's legacy while adding a distinctive, personal voice - including his tender Dulce suenos. Together, they create a sound world that is at once nostalgic and immediate, rooted in tradition yet alive with reinvention - an invitation to experience music that, in it's depth and universality, speaks to all. This album marks Daniela Mack's debut on PENTATONE.

Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Gil Rose present the world premiere recording of Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess, an opera by Mark Adamo. Far removed from the fa-miliar outlines of Aristophanes' ancient comedy, this daring reimagining reshapes a ca-nonical text into something far more psychologically intricate and musically electrify-ing. Set within a richly variegated score of shifting textures and mercurial transformations, the opera unfolds as a labyrinth of mirrored themes - where melodies change alle-giance, identities blur, and every gesture carries double meaning. The familiar premise of women withholding intimacy to halt war becomes the starting point for a deeper ex-ploration of desire, power, and identity. Adamo's libretto dismantles classical certain-ties, replacing caricature with complexity, and recasts Lysistrata as a figure who must confront not only the politics of war, but the far more disquieting ambiguities of love itself. Under the leadership of conductor Gil Rose, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project has become an unsurpassed advocate for 20th and 21st century American music. Alongside Adamo, this marks their collective return to PENTATONE, following their GRAMMY-nominated recording of John Corigliano's The Lord of Cries (2023).

The Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum, under the direction of Reinhard Goebel and outstanding soloists such as Max Volbers on recorder and Clemens Röger on horn, present the first instalment in the series The Leipzig Collegium Musicum, Vol. 1: Music before Bach, offering a vivid exploration of a formative musical world. The term Collegium Musicum refers to an assembly of musicians who gathered regularly, under direction, to study and perform vocal and instrumental works, an idea that flourished in many cities, yet found particular resonance in Leipzig. By the early 18th century, this landscape of competing ensembles and personalities stood on the threshold of transformation, as musical life gradually evolved towards the later institutional structures that would shape the city's enduring legacy. In practice, however, these societies existed within a complex and often unsettled environment, where overlapping groups, shifting roles, and competing interests made the musical scene difficult to define and reconstruct with certainty. This programme offers a glimpse into that dynamic and, at times, elusive world, where music was shaped as much by collaboration and exchange as by individual voices. The works presented reflect a period before Bach's arrival in Leipzig, when compositional language was still evolving and stylistic boundaries were fluid. Drawing on influences from across Europe while asserting their own character, these pieces reveal a rich interplay of invention, contrast, and expressive immediacy. Composers such as Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Friedrich Fasch, and Georg Melchior Hoffmann were part of this environment, where musical ideas were shared, adapted, and developed through collective practice.

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Darrell Ang and Joshua Tan, presents a compelling programme that explores the rich and often unexpected dialogue between film and concert music, featuring works by John Williams, Bernard Herrmann, and Hugo Friedhofer. Once considered distinct spheres, these worlds are brought together through compositions that reveal the breadth and depth of three composers whose artistry extends far beyond the screen. At the centre of the programme is Williams' Concerto for Solo Flute, Strings and Percussion (starring Singapore Symphony Principal Flutist Jin Ta), a work of striking imagination and expressive range, complemented by his Essay for Strings (1965), an early yet already assured statement of his concert voice. Alongside these works, Herrmann's Souvenirs de Voyage for clarinet quintet, here heard in the late Hans Sørensen's adaptation for clarinet and string orchestra, receives it's world premiere recording with clarinettist Ma Yue, offering a vivid example of the composer's distinctive harmonic language in a concert setting. Friedhofer's Suite for 5 Woodwinds, also presented in a world premiere recording, further enriches the programme with it's inventive textures and stylistic range. Together, these works highlight a shared spirit of exploration, brought to life with clarity and refinement by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in a release that continues it's distinguished collaboration with PENTATONE.

Countertenor John Holiday presents Over My Head, a striking and deeply personal debut that reflects both the breadth of his artistry and the clarity of his artistic voice. Praised as one of the finest countertenors of his generation, Holiday brings together a thoughtfully curated programme spanning spirituals, contemporary works, and art song. From intimate moments at the piano to collaborations with pianist Kevin Miller, the album includes works by Hall Johnson, Robert L. Morris, H. Leslie Adams, world premieres by Theo Morrison and Carlos Simon, and arrangements by Holiday himself, highlighting repertoire shaped by curiosity, individuality, and expressive depth. Rooted in themes of resilience, faith, and love, Over My Head offers a heartfelt musical journey that speaks with both intimacy and conviction. Each work has been selected for it's emotional resonance and it's ability to connect across time and experience, forming a narrative that feels both personal and universal.

Douglas Moore's opera Giants in the Earth receives it's world premiere recording with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra under the music direction of Delta David Gier. Set on the stark, uninhabited Dakota plains, the drama follows Beret and Per Hansa, whose deep love is tested by isolation and the harsh realities of pioneer life. Moore's text-driven vocal lines flow with natural expression, weaving short, expressive ariosos into a seamless melodic tapestry. Central to the story, Beret's ornate Norwegian chest serves as altar, refuge, and symbol of home, underscoring the opera's themes of memory, tradition, and human longing. Moore's tonal score contrasts strength and fragility through vocal ranges, building tension toward Beret's fateful choices amid blizzards and loss. Every nuance is vividly realized, from intimate lyrical passages to the opera's devastating climax. This landmark recording illuminates the emotional intensity, psychological depth, and lyrical beauty of a work long awaited in full, making it an essential addition for lovers of American opera. The South Dakota Symphony Orchestra excavated, engraved, and revived the opera in Sioux Falls on April 26, 2025.

On her Pentatone debut album, young German star soprano Anna Lucia Richter explores the heart-wrenching, timeless and universal feeling of Heimweh (homesickness) through a collection of extraordinary Schubert songs. Richter approaches the notion of Heimweh from several perspectives: from that of queens, young girls and shepherds to that of soldiers, dwarfs and gravediggers. The repertoire consists of the original, German-language version of Ave Maria, three Mignon songs (Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, Heiss micht nicht reden and So lasst mich scheinen), the sinister Der Zwerg, the expansive flower ballad Viola and many others. Richter is accompanied by pianist Gerold Huber, with whom she has formed a congenial Lieder tandem in the last years. They are joined by clarinetist Matthias Schorn on the final song of the program, the quasi concert aria Der Hirt auf dem Felsen.