There is an indisputable historical link between Beethoven and Indian culture: in his quest to fathom the depths of this culture, and captivated by the translation of the Upanishads that was published in Germany in 1816, he immersed himself well and truly in these ancient texts, just as Schopenhauer did, or like Goethe discovering the great Persian poet Hafez when writing his last major collection, the 'West-Eastern Divan'. We see here a mystical Beethoven, scrutinising man and the cosmos and especially curious about other cultures.
With Airlines, flautist Emmanuel Pahud transports the music of composer Alexandre Desplat to new horizons. The album includes unreleased recordings including revisited versions of music from Desplat's films, including the Oscar-winning The Shape of Water (2018) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Pahud is accompanied by the National Orchestra of France, conducted by Alexandre Desplat himself.
Vilde Frang, partnered by pianist Michael Lifits, has assembled a programme that juxtaposes music by two violinist-composers of the early 19th century, Franz Schubert and Niccolo Paganini. While they lived vastly different lives and inhabited diverse aesthetic worlds, there are links to be found between them. Through the juxtaposition, Frang wants to highlight Schubert's capacity for virtuosity and Paganini's musicality and sensitivity. "It's the contrasts that appeal to me," she says. For her, the key connection between Schubert and Paganini is the inspiration they both found in the human voice. The album includes variations that Paganini wrote on themes from operas by Rossini (Tancredi) and Paisiello (La molinara), and the 'grand caprice' that the violinist Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst - considered Paganini's greatest successor - based on one of Schubert's most thrilling songs, Erlkonig. It sets a poem by Goethe that tells of a frantic night-time horse-ride by a father and his young son, who is tempted by a wicked spirit, the Erlking. When they reach their destination, the child is dead. "This Erlkonig is a gift to the violinist. There is such precision and accuracy in Ernst's transcription - it works so well that it sounds like it was written for the violin. And then there is the challenge of characterising the galloping horse, the father, the son and the Erlkonig himself."
'Paris, I love you' A wonderful collection of songs inspired by the city. Songs selected around the themes of Paris city of light, the Paris suburbs, the roaring 20s, Paris by night, and revolutionary Paris. Includes renditions of Jacques Brel's 'Vesoul', Charles Trenet's 'Menilmontant in a Disney style', 'April in Paris' famously sung by Ella Fitzgerald, Bourvil's 'Les Ponts de Paris'. The Chour de l'Arme Franaise is accompanied by the Orchestre de la Garde Rpublicaine under their charismatic director major Aurore Tillac.
Sir John Barbirolli began as an orchestral cellist, and played under Elgar's baton in the premiere of the Cello Concerto. Encouraged by Elgar, he moved into conducting and made his mark with the composer's Second Symphony in 1927. After Elgar's death, Barbirolli vowed to make the composer's music his special mission in life and to do his utmost to make it known all over the world. From the performances here, we can judge how well he kept his promise.
The 22 year-old winner and Dame Fanny Waterman Gold Medallist at the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition 2018 begins his Warner Classics exclusive contract with an exquisite new recital featuring Chopin's 24 Preludes, Schumann's Ghost Variations, and Brahms' Intermezzo No. 1, Op. 117
A prestigious name since it came into being in 1945, the Philharmonia was established by legendary producer Walter Legge as a high-calibre house orchestra for EMI. It's history of collaboration with the world's greatest musicians includes numerous landmark recordings now in the Warner Classics catalogue. The performances here cover the period between 1946 and 1964. Conducted by such figures as Karajan, Furtwangler, Toscanini, Klemperer, Giulini and Cantelli, they have been extensively remastered from the original tapes, gaining a new immediacy. As a further bonus, this collection includes a recording from 2018 and a CD of music and interviews that provides fascinating insights into the Philharmonia's relationship with four major conductors.
The album features two string quartets which thematically deal with the subject of death. Schubert's 'Death and the Maiden, No. 14 in D Minor', a key piece in chamber music repertoire, dates from 1824. Mendelssohn's 'String Quartet No. 6 in F Minor, Op. 80' was composed in 1847. He composed the piece as an homage to his beloved sister Fanny who had died on 17 May 1847 and it bore the title 'Requiem for Fanny'. Vision String Quartet have won awards in numerous competitions, have studied with members of the Artemis Quartet and the Alban Berg Quartet. They are known for their excellent interpretations and for their innovative concert formats, working with choreographers, light designers, etc.
This enticing album of sonatas by Ravel, Enescu, Ysaye and Prokofiev emerged from violinist Diana Tishchenko's victory at the 2018 Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition. Born in Ukraine, and trained in Kiev and Berlin, she has been noted by The Strad for her "power to mesmerize the audience with her large gesture and strong personality". Her musical partnership with the Hungarian pianist Zoltan Fejervari is extraordinarily close and potent. In the words of the French online journal Toute la musique, they are "not two interpreters playing together, but a true musical entity, an artistic fusion... They played as if each note were being created in real time... deploying an infinitely large palette of colours and nuance - the possibilities were inexhaustible."
The first album of our new collaboration with ONTC, Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, and their Ossetian musical director, Tugan Sokhiev, features Shostakovich's 8th symphony: an "opera for the Orchestra" composed with an unheard dramatic power. ONTC world famous for their work on French repertoire, is opening up to new horizons under the influence of their Ossetian chief conductor, Tugan Sokhiev. The 15 symphonies of the soviet composer are a major common theme throughout the seasons for the ONTC & Tugan Sokhiev. Tugan Sokhiev was one of the lasts students of the conductor and excellent pedagogue, Ilya Musin, who was one of the first conductors to conduct Symphony n° 7 « Leningrad » (Ilya Musin also trained a generation of Russian chefs like Valery Gergiev, Teodor Currentzis, Yuri Terminakov).
Elisabeth Leonskaja is one of the most celebrated pianists of our time, remaining true to herself and to her music, and in doing so, is following in the footsteps of the great Russian musicians of the Soviet era, such as Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels."A kaleidoscopic Mozart with a lifetime's wisdom and experience behind it" according to The Arts Desk after a Wigmore Hall concert
The collection gathers the best relaxing tunes from the piano repertoire performed by most eminent musicians: Piotr Anderszewski, Leif Ove Andsnes, Daniel Barenboim, Bertrand Chamayou, Aldo Ciccolini, Samson Francois, Helene Grimaud, Stephen Kovacevich, Nicolai Lugansky, Maria-Joao Pires, Maurizio Pollini, Anne Queffelec, Alexandre Tharaud and Alexis Weissenberg.
Hector Berlioz, France's greatest Romantic composer, exemplifies the spirit of his age - yet his genius was also ahead of it's time. Reflecting his colourful life, his music is astonishing for it's originality and ambition, and for orchestration of groundbreaking brilliance. « J'ai la passion de la passion. » « L'amour et la musique sont les deux ailes de l'ame. » Berlioz "I have a passion for passion." "Love and music are the soul's two wings." Berlioz
2018 release, the official soundtrack to Callas in Concert · The Hologram Tour. Forty years ago, Maria Callas shrugged off the earthly binds of temporal life, leaving a bereft world longing for her presence, her performances, her voice. Now she returns to the stage, in all her grandeur, confirming her immortality to stunned audiences. Introducing Callas in Concert, a triumphant event that brings the beloved La Divina to the stage via hologram, singing to the accompaniment of a full live orchestra. As this unprecedented performance unfolds, you will surrender all notions of what is real and get lost in the magic of perhaps the best opera singer of all time.
If you see one opera this year, make it The Exterminating Angel, ran the headline in the New York Times after the US premiere of Thomas Ades' "stunningly inventive" opera based on Luis Bunuel's surreal and satirical 1962 film El angel exterminador. Like the British composer's score, Tom Cairns' production is both spectacular and surprising. "Ades keeps the listener on edge," wrote Opera magazine, "because one never knows where his dazzling palette of possibilities will take him next." Thomas Ades TITLE: Ades: The Exterminating Angel (MET)(Blu-ray) Label: PRX/Warner Classics/Parlophone Language: English Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish Number of discs: 1 Run Time: 142 minutes
French-born Canadian pianist and composer Alain Lefvre makes his Warner Classics debut with 'My Paris Years'. The album brings together a collection of classic piano pieces written by some of the most beloved French composers: Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie, and Csar Franck. 'My Paris Years' is, in essence, a hymn to the city where Lefvre spent some of his most precious years of learning. From the rolling waters of the Seine to it's calm banks above, from the subdued mood of the streets to their sometimes intense flurries of movement - every piece plays it's part in depicting the scene that is Paris and recreating the multifaceted spirit of this city in music.
The elegant, but impassioned musicianship of Augustin Hadelich evokes the violinists of the 'golden age' of the early and mid-20th century. Winner in 2015 of the inaugural Warner Music Prize, Hadelich now releases his first recording for Warner Classics: Paganini's 24 Caprices for solo violin. These works of proverbial virtuosity were conceived by the flamboyant Nicolo Paganini to test and showcase every aspect of a violinist's skills. AsGramophonehas written, Hadelich "meets and surmounts all obstacles, yet it's not technical wizardry that most impresses but his musicianship."Hadelich's musical personality has been summarized by the Washington Postas "distinct and nostalgic, never a dizzying exhibition of skill devoid of substance". Similarly, Gramophonehas written that Hadelich "meets and surmounts all obstacles, yet it's not technical wizardry that most impresses but his musicianship. He makes the musical sense of each piece crystal clear, and his playing has an inner life, each phrase, each note, is felt as it's played." Described as a "brilliant violinist" by The New York Times, in the words of The Stradhe is "a masterful musician".
For his first album with Warner Classics, Lahav Shani conducts the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in Symphony No. 7 and plays Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4: two pieces which come from Beethoven's so-called middle period. The classical harmonic tension contributes to the drive of the music as much as the rhythmic propulsion. This music features a clarity of texture and, above all, a unity between the melodic motive and the accompaniment. Acclaimed for his 'instant chemistry' with the orchestra, Lahav Shani is considered the shooting star amongst conductors - as Der Tagesspiegel puts it: 'The young maestro is simply sensational'.
