With a sublime cast and the revolutionary staging by Ulrich Rasche, this Salzburg Festival production of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda transforms a bel canto masterpiece into an evening of theatre. The conflict between Maria and Elisabetta becomes tangible through contrasting costumes, a constantly shifting space of rotating platforms, and projected images. Lisette Oropesa's Maria showcases 'a truly wonderful display of vocal intelligence, human warmth and a completely effortless, natural tone' (Süddeutsche Zeitung), while Kate Lindsey's Elisabetta conveys the fury and despair of the English monarch with striking intensity. Under the baton of Antonello Manacorda and with the outstanding contribution of the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, this production conquers through rhythm, movement, and physical presence as expressive forces. 'Lisette Oropesa imbues all of this with vocal mastery and emotion. Beyond pure virtuosity, she shapes the inner workings of the character into operatic drama.' (Der Standard)

Pursue Peace represents the first volume of a collection of music by Canadian Jewish composers under the 'Jewish Music at York' umbrella, curated by composer Noam Lemish. Including works by James Rolfe, Sid Robinovitch, and Lemish himself, the works rotate around themes of conflict, resolution, and peace, engaging with Jewish texts and presenting a diverse range of musical aesthetics.

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)

Jose Antônio de Almeida Prado's music is the result of a unique combination of influences, moving through different styles and techniques while always displaying a recognisably strong personal imprint. Chamber music accounts for a large part of Almeida Prado's output. The Trio de Fontainebleau is infused with the ambience of his studies in France with Nadia Boulanger. The Balada is characteristic of the composer's mature style, with textures based on resonances, free modalism, consonant 'transtonal harmony,' and alternation between simple and complex rhythms. Trio Marítimo evokes the Portuguese poetry of Fernando Pessoa, while the Cello Sonata, with it's richly expressive palette of references, was considered by the composer to be one of his greatest achievements.

The classicism that emerged in Vienna with Mozart and Haydn was later revisited by Prokofiev in Russia, Poulenc in France, and, most unexpectedly, Villa-Lobos in Brazil. Each composer reimagined this tradition through a sparkling, modern, and energetic lens shaped by their own heritage. Now, Brazilian conductor Simone Menezes leads the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien in a program that takes us back to the city where this tradition was born. Recorded in Vienna and featuring Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, Villa-Lobos's Sinfonietta 'In Memory of Mozart', and Poulenc's Sinfonietta, these performances bring the music full circle. A dialogue across continents and centuries, shaped by clarity and contrast, this is a vibrant and cosmopolitan homage.

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).

The church music Franz Liszt composed in his later years was always innovative, radical, and thoroughly idiosyncratic, yet was frequently and unjustly overlooked in the repertoire. Now, the Bavarian Radio Chorus, conducted by Peter Dijkstra, has taken on the cycle VIA CRUCIS. It was never performed during Liszt's lifetime; the composer worked on it in the autumn of 1878 as a guest of Cardinal zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, not far from Rome. The new CD from BR-KLASSIK presents a live recording of an extraordinary concert from April 2025 at Munich's Prinzregententheater. Via Crucis, the Way of the Cross, usually comprising fourteen stations of the Passion of Christ-from conviction to death to deposition to burial-has over the centuries been the subject of prayer at the traditional sites in Jerusalem, on pilgrimages, in Catholic churches worldwide, at roadside shrines, in outdoor chapels, and on Calvaries. In composing his version, Franz Liszt mainly had the Good Friday procession in the Roman Colosseum in mind, 'in that place whose ground is steeped in the blood of the martyrs.' He wrote his 14 Stations of the Cross for solo voices, choir, and organ (originally piano), yet was much taken with the idea of carrying a harmonium into the ruins of the Colosseum for his musical devotions to be sung there too: 'I would be happy if those sounds could be heard there that only faintly reflect the inner emotion that overcame me when, on my knees with the devout procession, I more than once repeated the Latin words.' It remained a mere vision, however: his late work VIA CRUCIS was neither rehearsed nor published, and met with firm rejection from the purists of the ultra-conservative Cecilian movement. It was not until fifty years later, on Good Friday 1929, that the work was finally premiered in Budapest.

A longtime member of the internationally acclaimed Anagnoson & Kinton Piano Duo, Leslie Kinton makes his solo recording debut with Beethoven: Diabelli Variations. Centred on a landmark work in the piano repertoire, the album explores Beethoven's remarkable ability to transform a simple theme into a vast and imaginative musical journey. In 1819, composer and publisher Anton Diabelli sent a short waltz theme to leading composers of the day, inviting each to contribute a variation for a planned published volume. Beethoven initially dismissed the theme as a 'cobbler's patch,' but eventually responded not with a single variation but with an entire set of thirty-three. The result is a kaleidoscopic work, at once witty, virtuosic, profound, and deeply inventive, often regarded as one of the greatest sets of piano variations ever written. Toronto-born pianist Leslie Kinton has built a distinguished career as a performer, scholar, and educator. As a member of the Anagnoson & Kinton Piano Duo, he has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, appeared with major orchestras across Canada, and recorded nine albums. The duo is heard regularly on CBC Radio and has been broadcast internationally on the BBC, NPR, Czech Radio, Hilversum Radio, Hong Kong Radio, and Radio Suisse Romande. In 2019, Anagnoson & Kinton were named Honorary Fellows of The Royal Conservatory of Music, the organization's highest distinction. He studied piano with Pierre Souvairan, Jeaneane Dowis, and Karl Ulrich Schnabel, composition with Samuel Dolin, and holds a Ph.D. in music theory from the University of Toronto. Kinton is Professor of Piano Performance at the University of Western Ontario.

As a tenor raised in Northeast Philadelphia, recording an album dedicated to Mario Lanza felt like coming home in the most profound way.' This is how Stephen Costello introduces his second album on Delos, Be My Love. A homage to the great tenor, this selection of songs showcases Lanza's sincerity in his choice of repertoire, his mastery of diction and legato, and the clarion high notes that made him ideally equipped to bring a song to a stirring finish. Indeed, the humble boy from Philadelphia rose to global stardom thanks to his glorious voice and innate charisma. As such, he has been an inspiration to countless singers, even more so for Stephen, who was born in the same city. Songs like 'Be My Love' and 'Without a Song' served as the ultimate secret weapon for the young tenor struggling through his first lessons and auditions. Constantine Orbelian and the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra join in the celebration.

With a sublime cast and the revolutionary staging by Ulrich Rasche, this Salzburg Festival production of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda transforms a bel canto masterpiece into an evening of theatre. The conflict between Maria and Elisabetta becomes tangible through contrasting costumes, a constantly shifting space of rotating platforms, and projected images. Lisette Oropesa's Maria showcases 'a truly wonderful display of vocal intelligence, human warmth and a completely effortless, natural tone' (Süddeutsche Zeitung), while Kate Lindsey's Elisabetta conveys the fury and despair of the English monarch with striking intensity. Under the baton of Antonello Manacorda and with the outstanding contribution of the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, this production conquers through rhythm, movement, and physical presence as expressive forces. 'Lisette Oropesa imbues all of this with vocal mastery and emotion. Beyond pure virtuosity, she shapes the inner workings of the character into operatic drama.' (Der Standard)

Even though Cipriani Potter's desire for lessons with Beethoven did not materialise, he benefitted from the great composer's advice and showed in his own music a thorough understanding of German models. As an admired soloist, he also introduced piano concertos by Mozart and Beethoven to Britain. Potter's Sonata in E minor shows these influences alongside some inventive flourishes and dramatic turbulence, whereas the three expertly written Toccatas reveal the influence of Bach. Enigma Variations was written in the style of five named contemporary composers, an example of witty, ingenious, and warm-hearted composition. Luke Jones' recording of the Fantasia in G major on Mayr's Chi dice mal d'amore is available for streaming and download as digital single 9.70391.

Marking Finzi's 125th birthday, tenor Nick Pritchard and pianist Ian Tindale present all three of the composer's Hardy song cycles alongside five world-premiere recordings of early unpublished songs, sourced from manuscripts held at the Bodleian Library. Till Earth Outwears, A Young Man's Exhortation, and Oh Fair to See together span Finzi's career from teenage sketches to his final completed song, setting texts by Hardy, Ivor Gurney, Edmund Blunden, Christina Rossetti, and Chaucer. Over 70 minutes of music, this is the only recording to bring all three cycles together with the addition of previously unheard works.

Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing. The Velvet Fog meets The Great White Way! Mel Torme was at the height of his powers on 1960's Swings Shubert Alley, a collection of Broadway standards backed by the renowned Marty Paich Orchestra. This stunning union of musical theatre and jazz is regarded as one of the jewels of Torme's work for Verve Records, and his unforgettable vocal delivery elevates familiar chestnuts from the songbooks of Lerner and Loewe ("On the Street Where You Live"), Rodgers and Hammerstein ("Hello, Young Lovers," "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top") and Cole Porter ("Too Darn Hot"). The Verve Vault series is all-analog, cut from the original master tapes by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound and pressed on 180-gram vinyl.

Sir Stephen Hough's new solo piano album, Stephen Hough's Piano Postcards, explores the world from the perspective of the itinerant pianist sending home musical messages from his voyages. Music from Asia includes "Spring breeze prelude" by Taiwanese composer Deng Yu-Hsien and a piano version of "Aka tombo," a children's song so beloved in Japan that it features in citywide "5-o'clock chimes" across the country. Folk and popular traditions appear in "Cielito lindo" and "Nature boy," while the final group of pieces turns to nature, with works by MacDowell, Schumann and Sinding. Alongside these musical travel diaries, he intersperses new transcriptions of songs from popular films, including arrangements he created for Lang Lang's 'Disney Book' album. This is the first chance Sir Stephen has had to include piano arrangements of songs from Frozen, Coco and Mary Poppins.

Following their critically acclaimed recording of the Faust Symphony (BIS-2510), the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, conducted by Gergely Madaras and joined by the Choeur Symphonique de Namur, now presents Liszt's Dante Symphony-a work reflecting his profound engagement with Dante's Divine Comedy. Initially planned in three movements-Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso-the Dante Symphony was ultimately cast as two symphonic poems with a choral conclusion. The Inferno opens with a stern trombone theme beneath Dante's gate inscription, moves through lyrical episodes evoking Paolo and Francesca, and ends in demonic frenzy. The Purgatorio, serene and simple, contains a central fugue evoking souls striving toward paradise, leading without pause into the choral Magnificat. Liszt's treatment of tonality anticipates Mahler and Nielsen, while his use of the tritone and whole-tone scale confirms him as a composer ahead of his time. This recording also includes the symphony's original conclusion, later abandoned at Richard Wagner's insistence. The programme concludes with John Adams' orchestration of La Lugubre Gondola II, a visionary late work inspired by a funeral gondola procession on Venice's Grand Canal. Adams' arrangement honours the structural, stylistic, and poetic dimensions of Liszt's original, placing it's Romantic language within a modern soundscape.

The Individual and the Entire Tissue was commissioned by Figura Ensemble for Figura Festspiele 2024 and is based on poems from Third-Millennium Heart by the Danish poet Ursula Andkjær Olsen. Drawing on his decades of experience in Denmark's music scene, Jakob Davidsen has crafted a unique musical meditation on the relationship between the individual and the surrounding world: part song cycle, part musical theater, part cabaret, the seven-movement work is structured with two expansive outer movements framing five shorter central movements. Each of the middle movements draws inspiration from a composer, a specific work, or a musical genre, while the outer movements are shaped directly by the poetry itself. Through this architecture, the work creates musical connections that mirror it's central themes of inner and outer relationships. Bringing Davidsen's musical vision to life are frequent collaborators soprano Signe Asmussen and performers from Figura Ensemble, DR Big Band, New Jungle Orchestra, and Davidsen's own Kammerat Orkester, creating a distinctive, richly varied, and responsive sound world. Founded in 2010 by pianist and composer Jakob Davidsen, Jakob Davidsens Kammerat Orkester is one of Denmark's leading ensembles exploring the borderland between improvisation and composition. Known for it's innovative approach to crossover music, the orchestra has performed widely in Denmark and abroad, received a Danish Music Award Jazz for Special Release of the Year in 2012, and was honored by the Danish Arts Foundation for the interdisciplinary project Lend Art Your Ear. The ensemble has collaborated with numerous international artists and has developed a particularly close artistic partnership with Figura Ensemble in recent years.

In addition to the popular potpourri overture to Johann Strauss II's operetta The Gypsy Baron (1885) and the musical joke Perpetuum mobile, the programme of the new CD from BR-KLASSIK features mostly lesser-known, yet no less rousing, compositions by the 'Viennese Waltz King,' all of them studio productions. Johann Strauss II inherited his father's entrepreneurial passion and artistic mastery. He succeeded in further refining and expanding the repertoire, particularly in the form of the grand concert waltz. This CD features the Revolutionary March, Op. 54 (1848), as well as Perpetuum mobile - A Musical Joke, Op. 257 (1861), and the Intermezzo from the operetta 1001 Nights (1871/1906). The waltz Carnevalsbilder, Op. 357 (1873), and the fast polka Vom Donaustrande, Op. 356 (1873), are both based on melodies from the operetta The Carnival in Rome. The waltz Nordseebilder, Op. 390 (1879), the overture to the operetta Der Zigeunerbaron (1885), and the Csárdás from Strauss's only opera Ritter Pásmán (1892) are also included, as is the musical prelude Klange aus der Raimundzeit, Op. 479 (1898). The CD also has several surprises in store (as bonus tracks)!

Living up to it's reputation of presenting music that is out of the ordinary and off the beaten track, SOMM Recordings is releasing Wood on the Tracks with Cellophonics, four of the UK's finest cellists who have been expanding the repertoire with a growing list of exciting new works and rediscovered lost masterpieces. The quartet-Christopher Allan, Adrian Bradbury, Ian Burdge, and Ben Rogerson-having gathered a whole concert's worth of commissions and discoveries, was invited by SOMM to record this debut album. Wood on the Tracks includes first recordings of works commissioned from Simon Baggs, Guy Barker, Roderick Elms, Julia Simpson, and Rowland Sutherland-recorded in the presence of the composers-and forgotten gems by William Alwyn, York Bowen, and Marie Dare. The works by Alwyn and Bowen are also first recordings. Amongst the forgotten gems is the first work on the programme, Suite for Four Cellos, by composer-pianist York Bowen (1884-1961). The parts and full score of the suite were discovered in manuscript by Ben Rogerson in the music library of his late grandfather Haydn Rogerson, one-time principal cello of the Halle Orchestra. Another rediscovery is a set of Two Irish Tunes for Cello Quartet by flautist, teacher, and composer William Alwyn (1905-1985). These had their first performance in 1933 in the Lecture Hall at the Royal Academy of Music, where Alwyn was a professor of composition. The third rediscovery comes from the most significant Scottish-born cellist-composer of her day, Marie Dare (1902-1976). Her distinctive set of works for cello includes Six Pieces for Cello Quartet. From these, Cellophonics performs IV. Aria. The first commissioned work on this programme is a Divertimento for Cello Quartet by Roderick Elms, who writes: 'I wanted to explore the wonderfully lush textures available for four cellos, and this approach is evident in the lyrical central section.' This is offset by rhythmic, somewhat jazz-influenced outer sections. A commission from wide-ranging composer Julia Simpson is Mariposa, which traces the incredible four-generation journey of migration made each year by the monarch butterfly, from Canada to the mountains of western Mexico and back. The multi-gifted Rowland Sutherland is a poet as well as a musician, and his poem HOPE-composed in Japanese haibun style-lends it's name and theme to the work he wrote for Cellophonics. The title work, Wood on the Tracks, is by trumpeter and composer Guy Barker, who says it was only after he completed the work that he realized he had written a piece about trains. The program ends with Soliloquy by conductor, composer, and violinist Simon Baggs. He writes, 'Although written for four cellos, the work stands as the utterance of one voice.'

On her Cantaloupe debut, Rebekah Heller explores the full range of capabilities of the bassoon-not just as a solo instrument, but also, through careful and precise multi-tracking, as a percussive and regenerative source of sound that suggests infinite musical possibilities. The album opens with a blistering take on Julius Eastman's legendary The Holy Presence of Joan d'Arc, which Heller arranged for ten bassoons based on the painstaking transcription of Eastman's 1981 live performance at The Kitchen (NYC) by cellist and composer Clarice Jensen. From there, Steve Reich's original Cello Counterpoint is reworked into Grand Street Counterpoint-again, for ten bassoons, with bassoon soloist-with Reich himself collaborating as co-producer. Heller also commissioned three composers, all of whom have explored the modern intersection of avant-garde, jazz, experimental, and classical music, to contribute their distinctive voices to the project. Jessie Cox's Sonic Cartographies and Fay Victor's Nurture (for Ingram) both tap into a wellspring of deep inspiration (with Cox drawing from his fascination with sound and movement, and Victor from her poignant memories of jazz musician Ingram Washington), while Green's piece Righteous Rage gives the album it's title: a fiery and fierce exposition on the world we're leaving for the next generation.

The music on this album grew from the idea for a new song cycle in which women-so often silent in history and mythology-were to speak for themselves and in which all material would be created and performed by women. The Ragazze Quartet found a true kindred spirit in soprano Katharine Dain. A remarkable group of female composers and librettists also joined the project entitled They Have Waited Long Enough, each contributing in their own unique and personal way. The result is a rich and diverse collage of songs by Aftab Darvishi, Annelies van Parys, Calliope Tsoupaki, Aida Shirazi, and Saskia Venegas Aernouts. What unites them is the urgency that resonates throughout: it is important-if not essential-that these stories are recorded and heard. The fact that these stories are historical or mythological does not make them any less relevant today. The female perspective carries just as much weight as the male one-and deserves to be remembered. In addition to soprano Katharine Dain, the Ragazze Quartet is joined by Raphaela Danksagmüller (duduk), Anna voor de Wind (clarinet), Osama Abdulrasol (qanun), Elif Canfezâ Gündüz (kemenche), Marianna Soroka (percussion), and Agata Kruszewska (percussion).