Chopin is reserved, visionary and mysterious," says Beatrice Rana. "There are many layers to his music. It's pleasing to the ear and sincere in it's communication, but the deeper you go, the more you find..." For this album, Rana pairs Chopin's 12 op 25 etudes with his four scherzi, focusing on two musical genres that the composer, combining intellect and imagination, transformed into something new. "It was Chopin who invented the 'concert study'," explains Rana. "To me, the etudes seem implicitly connected, joined by a single line of expression, as if they are taking you on a journey. The scherzi are evocative pieces, full of contrasts... They represent three distinct stages of Chopin's life and creativity and it is easy to read stories into them." When Beatrice Rana played the op 25 etudes for her New York recital debut in 2019, the New York Times wrote: "If you can play Chopin's etudes comfortably, you can probably play anything written for the piano... and the best performances convey their musical riches. In that regard, Beatrice Rana set a new standard... She didn't just surmount the technical challenges; she made the pieces sound as poetic and colorful as anything Chopin ever wrote.
Two CDs. Mozart & Flute in Paris brings together nine captivating works, all with their origins in Paris, which feature a solo flute. Emmanuel Pahud is joined by his colleagues from 'wind supergroup' Les Vents Francais - oboist Francois Leleux (here also conducting the Orchestre de chambre de Paris), clarinettist Paul Meyer, bassoonist Gilbert Audin and horn-player Radovan Vlatkovic - and by Belgian harpist Anneleen Lenaerts. "The pieces on this album represent different golden ages of the flute," says Pahud. The earliest, dating from 1778 are two concertante works that Mozart wrote while visiting Paris. The newest, premiered in 2014 by Pahud and the Orchestre de chambre de Paris, is Dreamtime by Philippe Hersant. The intervening period is represented by pieces by Saint-Saens, Faure, Chaminade and Poulenc, composers whose music embodies France's special relationship with the flute.
One of the most famous recordings of Polish-British-Canadian violinist Ida Haendel, who passed away last year. After performing the Sibelius concerto in Helsinki in 1949, broadcasted on radio, Ida Haendel received a letter from the composer: "Please accept my most cordial thanks for your excellent performance of my Violin Concerto. You played it masterfully in every respect. I congratulate you upon the great success. But above all, I congratulate myself that my Concerto has found an interpreter of your standard." This 1975 recording was made under the baton of Sibelius specialist Paavo Berglund.
Sergiu Celibidache was without question one of the most important and original conductors in recent memory. He was a perfectionist who disliked what he perceived to be the synthetic sounds created in the modern recording studio, preferring the immediacy of the concert platform and the interaction with a live audience. This Bruckner recording celebrates the extraordinary legacy of his collaboration with the Munchner Philharmoniker, from which he was Musical Director between 1979 and his death in 1996. "One of the greatest Bruckner performances I have ever heard - a truly towering act of the re-creative imagination (...). [This performance] is centred in string playing of astonishing depth, eloquence and homogeneity. As with Giulini, it is the viola and cello sections which seem to harbour the very soul of the music. The viola cantilenas in the slow movement (...) are things of rare beauty." Gramophone
Some of Stephen Hough's most exquisite recordings come from his collaborations with EMI and Virgin Classics during this early period, offering a taste of the pianist's impeccable touch, his musical and intellectual rigor, and his fondness for the short showpieces that filled late 19th-century salons and peppered the 78 rpm records of golden-age pianists. In the two all-Liszt recitals, Stephen Hough is also in his element, creating atmospheric colors, with notes flowing like streams of pearls, shaping and magnifying the dramatic depth of these works. From Mozart to Schumann, Brahms to Britten, looking back at the great virtuoso tradition while looking forward through his own arrangements, Stephen Hough presents, through these early recordings, a fascinating portrait of a young artist whose brilliant, artistic intellect and appetite for creativity remains unmatched today.
The young Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, praised for the luminosity and rich colours of her voice, makes her recording debut for Warner Classics with El Nour. Her enticing and absorbing recital programme crosses cultures, combining art songs by French, Spanish and Egyptian composers with Egyptian folk songs and popular songs from the Middle East. As she explains, "'El Nour' in Arabic means 'Light', and this album sheds light on how music that has been interpreted many times can be perceived in a different light. The idea is to connect three cultures - Arabic, French and Spanish - and to show how much, despite cultural, geographical and historical differences, they have in common when it comes to music".
Matteo's first album with Warner Classics combines solo piano and electronic synth-tracks. The album includes many melodious and catchy works, simply perfect for modern-classical piano mood playlists as well as for synch opportunities. 'This album is entirely dedicated to all forms of longing. Whether it is wistful longing of moments from the past, or the desire for future better times. The Notes of Longing premise is to accompany the listener through all of his or her intimate moments of daydreaming and longing. Therefore, this album is fully dedicated to those seeking comfort.' - Matteo Myderwyk
The new vinyl "Spectrum" by the vision string quartet presents 13 songs composed, arranged and produced by the four young musicians from Berlin themselves. Inspired by folk, pop, rock, funk, minimal and singer-songwriter music, Jakob Encke (violin), Daniel Stoll (violin), Sander Stuart (viola) and Leonard Disselhorst (cello) have embarked on a journey to their very own sound and genre. The result is an unprecedented musical adventure without borders, shaped by personal experiences, new and old encounters as well as subtle impressions from various cultures. They create a whole world of sounds with just their four string instruments - from guitar, ukulele and bass to bongos or a complete drum set.
Beethoven: Fidelio (2 CD) ARTIST: Otto Klemperer The Home of Opera series offers treasures from the world's greatest opera catalogue, presenting some of the most important and admired recordings of complete operas produced by Warner Classics/EMI Classics over the last 60 years. Otto Klemperer Christa Ludwig Jon Vickers Gottlob Frick Walter Berry Ingeborg Hallstein
The Alban Berg Quartett was a string quartet founded in Vienna, Austria in 1970, named after the composer Alban Berg. It was widely considered to be the most famous string quartet in world during their era. They retired in 2008. This 2 CD set includes Beethoven String Quartets Nos: 7-11 ARTIST: Alban Berg Quartett TITLE: Beethoven: String quartets 7-11 (2CD)
Following the success of her albums of Romantic and Late Romantic repertoire, Vilde Frang has recorded Mozart's Concertos Nos. 1 and 5 Turkish and the Sinfonia Concertante K364, enabling music lovers to hear the Norwegian violinist perform Classical repertoire on disc for the first time. The impetus for this album was a 2012 orchestral tour of Asia conducted by Jonathan Cohen in which Vilde performed Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5. The vibrancy of their musical collaboration was something both artists were keen to repeat and commit to disc. Vilde Frang is joined by Jonathan's Cohen's chamber orchestra, Arcangelo, and by violist Maxim Rysanov in the Sinfonia Concertante.
2016 three CD collection that features beloved arias from Bellini's "Norma;" Puccini's "La Boheme," "Madame Butterfly" and "Gianno Schicchi;" Verdi's "La Traviata" and "Aida;" Bizet's "Carmen" and much more! Opera singers come and go, but just a few - the legends - live on. And Maria Callas was the great-est legend of them all, though not just for the wonder of her voice. She changed the way people thought about opera, but she also became famous as the glamorous celebrity who fell in love with Aristotle Onassis, leaving her elderly husband to live with him on his yacht Christina and enjoy the high life with the international jet set. Of course it ended badly. She lived her life like one of her own tragic heroines who (as women tend to do in opera) sing, suffer and die. And her own death came at just 53, after a dazzling but short career that took in heavy roles alongside decorative, nightingale-like ones - ignoring the established rules of vocal health and probably explaining why her voice finally gave out as it did. But in that time she did extraordinary things, using the muscle of those heavy heroines to em-power the nightingales with strength and depth of feeling nobody had thought to offer them be-fore. She gave them credibility as drama. Her performances were absolute and self-exposing: she held nothing back. And she was even tougher on herself than she could be on others - which is why her voice was never quite the flawless instrument singers are meant to cultivate. Her personality was far too volatile and too self-sacrificing in it's love affair with risk. In the mythology of opera, though, that's what the audience demands. We want the diva to be both a goddess and a slave: to give her life for art. We thrill to the dimension of that sacrifice. And Callas dutifully obliged.
Chopin is reserved, visionary and mysterious," says Beatrice Rana. "There are many layers to his music. It's pleasing to the ear and sincere in it's communication, but the deeper you go, the more you find..." For this album, Rana pairs Chopin's 12 op 25 etudes with his four scherzi, focusing on two musical genres that the composer, combining intellect and imagination, transformed into something new. "It was Chopin who invented the 'concert study'," explains Rana. "To me, the etudes seem implicitly connected, joined by a single line of expression, as if they are taking you on a journey. The scherzi are evocative pieces, full of contrasts... They represent three distinct stages of Chopin's life and creativity and it is easy to read stories into them." When Beatrice Rana played the op 25 etudes for her New York recital debut in 2019, the New York Times wrote: "If you can play Chopin's etudes comfortably, you can probably play anything written for the piano... and the best performances convey their musical riches. In that regard, Beatrice Rana set a new standard... She didn't just surmount the technical challenges; she made the pieces sound as poetic and colorful as anything Chopin ever wrote.
Two CDs. Mozart & Flute in Paris brings together nine captivating works, all with their origins in Paris, which feature a solo flute. Emmanuel Pahud is joined by his colleagues from 'wind supergroup' Les Vents Francais - oboist Francois Leleux (here also conducting the Orchestre de chambre de Paris), clarinettist Paul Meyer, bassoonist Gilbert Audin and horn-player Radovan Vlatkovic - and by Belgian harpist Anneleen Lenaerts. "The pieces on this album represent different golden ages of the flute," says Pahud. The earliest, dating from 1778 are two concertante works that Mozart wrote while visiting Paris. The newest, premiered in 2014 by Pahud and the Orchestre de chambre de Paris, is Dreamtime by Philippe Hersant. The intervening period is represented by pieces by Saint-Saens, Faure, Chaminade and Poulenc, composers whose music embodies France's special relationship with the flute.
Sergiu Celibidache was without question one of the most important and original conductors in recent memory. He was a perfectionist who disliked what he perceived to be the synthetic sounds created in the modern recording studio, preferring the immediacy of the concert platform and the interaction with a live audience. This Bruckner recording celebrates the extraordinary legacy of his collaboration with the Munchner Philharmoniker, from which he was Musical Director between 1979 and his death in 1996. "One of the greatest Bruckner performances I have ever heard - a truly towering act of the re-creative imagination (...). [This performance] is centred in string playing of astonishing depth, eloquence and homogeneity. As with Giulini, it is the viola and cello sections which seem to harbour the very soul of the music. The viola cantilenas in the slow movement (...) are things of rare beauty." Gramophone
Mahler: Kindertotenlieder / Kathleen Ferrier Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) Henry Purcell, George Frideric Handel, Christoph W. Gluck, Maurice Greene, Performer: Isobel Baillie, Gerald Moore (Piano), Conductor: Charles Bruck, Bruno Walter, Number of Discs: 1
