SOMM Recordings' Elgar from the Archives series is creating a stir amongst Elgar lovers and historic performance enthusiasts alike, with Music Web International's Nick Barnard remarking, 'SOMM's presentation is it's usual excellent self.' The series draws on the Elgar Archive of producer and master restoration engineer Lani Spahr, and SOMM is now pleased to release Volume 5, which features the oratorio The Apostles, Op. 49 (1903) and the song cycle Sea Pictures, Op. 37 (1899). Since his youth, Edward Elgar had conceived of a large-scale work depicting the disciples of Jesus and their response to the extraordinary events they witnessed. When the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival commissioned him to write a new choral work, he began to compose an intended trilogy. While the third part remains only in sketches, the first two-The Kingdom and The Apostles-are monumental contributions to British oratorio. SOMM's May 2026 release of The Kingdom (ARIADNE 5048-2) featured Sir Adrian Boult conducting The BBC Symphony Orchestra as part of the 1957 centenary celebrations for Elgar's birth. This present live recording of The Apostles is from a BBC Home Service aircheck at the Royal Festival Hall, London, on 12 June of that year. This also features The BBC Symphony Orchestra, here conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent-who, along with Boult and Sir John Barbirolli, was strongly associated with the promotion of Elgar's music in the years following World War II. As principal conductor of The BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sargent threw himself into celebrating the Elgar centenary, when the BBC broadcast all three of the major oratorios. In addition to The Dream of Gerontius, Sargent considered both The Apostles and The Kingdom to be masterpieces, which should have been much more widely known. About Sargent's 1957 performance of The Apostles, Stanley Bayliss wrote, 'the closing pages are magnificent and give us something that cannot be found even in Gerontius. This was fully understood by Sir Malcolm Sargent, who was the hero of the evening.' Included in this album is a first CD release, newly restored by Lani Spahr, of Elgar's Sea Pictures for contralto and orchestra with Gladys Ripley and George Weldon conducting the then recently formed Philharmonia Orchestra. This was recorded in 1946 for EMI. Elgar was no doubt one of Weldon's favourite composers. In 2008 SOMM first released the Sea Pictures with Gladys Ripley and the London Symphony Orchestra (SOMMCD 073, George Weldon conducts Elgar). This was recorded in 1954 at EMI's Abbey Road and produced by the late Brian Culverhouse.

Clarinet, voice, and percussion trio Sputter Box releases their debut album featuring composers Martha Callison Horst, Allison McIntosh, Filippo Scaramucci, Daijana Wallace & Kakia Gkoudina, Bethany Younge, and Brendan Sweeney. As the first full-length album entirely composed of works for this unique instrumentation, this album showcases their mission to build and expand the repertoire for the trio with tracks ranging from contemporary art songs to absurdist music theater.

The medieval vocal works on this recording-most of which are world-premiere recordings-come primarily from Swiss monasteries and cathedrals. They were composed in the 13th and 14th centuries, an era in which spiritual and secular power were virtually inseparable. Switzerland's religious communities maintained close ties with the major cultural centers of the time and their musical innovations. In Paris, the intellectual center of the 12th and 13th centuries, outstanding figures were active, including Philip the Chancellor (c. 1160-1236), one of the greatest scholars of his time. It is precisely this connection between European exchange and local tradition that defines the special character of the Swiss sources gathered here: St. Gallen, Lausanne, the Abbey of La Maigrauge, and the Basel Song Manuscript were explored by the singers of the Ensemble RESONEZ and recorder player Marie Verstraete through exciting musical testimonies of that era.

Trio Azura's Storytellers launches the Colburn Collection: an exclusive new recording partnership between Delos and the Colburn School, Los Angeles, whose main design is to be a powerful springboard for the next generation of musicians. Nearly a century separates the works on this album, yet Charles Ives, John Harbison, and Jennifer Higdon share a distinctly American spirit of curiosity and individuality. Their music questions, provokes, implies, jokes, challenges, and explores, always searching for new ways to tell a story. Their singular compositional voices are realized in these performances by Trio Azura, praised by Gramophone for their 'intelligence and imagination' and 'profound emotion.' Ensemble-in-Residence at Colburn, Trio Azura was named the winner of the 2025 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions and the organization's first Ensemble-in-Residence, as well as the Grand Prize winner of the 2024 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Trio Azura consists of Canadian violinist Duncan McDougall, South Korean cellist Yejin Hong, and Chinese pianist Yanfeng (Tony) Bai.

Twenty years have passed since the release of The Seasons, The Months & Other Divisions of Time - I (ALPHA1289, also reissued) by the violist Sophie Watillon, who died prematurely a year after the album's release. Lucile Boulanger and the ensemble she named Les Lucioles have decided to record the second half of this programme-the fantasies from July to December and the two remaining seasons-composed by Christopher Simpson (born c. 1602-1606, died 1669), an English violist and leading music theorist. This album pays tribute to Sophie Watillon: 'Her serene and never ostentatious virtuosity, her freshness and her sense of musical warmth made her both one of the most memorable female role models of my childhood and also a profound inspiration to most budding violists,' says Lucile Boulanger. With the expert collaboration of Myriam Rignol, Manon Papasergio, Gabriel Rignol, Elisabeth Geiger, and Josh Cheatham, Lucile Boulanger and Les Lucioles bring Simpson's music back into the spotlight, elevating the viola da gamba to a level of virtuosity that is almost unrivalled.

The renowned recorder quartet Flautando Köln is celebrating it's 35th anniversary this year. To mark the occasion, AEOLUS now releases a live recording of a Flautando concert from November 2025, which was entitled Light and Darkness. The ensemble invited the minstrel Holger Schafer to perform as a guest artist for this project. The program spans music from the 14th to the 21st century, including works written specifically for Flautando. The recording was produced in stereo and 5.0 surround sound, promising a special experience that captures the live atmosphere.

Admired by Beethoven, Friedrich Kuhlau (1786-1832) made the four-hand piano genre his own. From the buoyant early Sonata in F major, Op. 8b, to the Beethovenian struggle of the late Allegro pathetique, Op. 123, this is melodically rich music, formally adventurous, and by turns convivial and dramatic. Marie-Luise Bodendorff and Xenia Kandel Frederiksen present the complete works, including several world premiere recordings, which together form a cornerstone of the Danish four-hand piano repertoire.

Tenebrae - The Journey marks the choir's 25th anniversary with a programme built around the theme of passage and transformation. Conductor Nigel Short pairs three new commissions-from Jason Max Ferdinand, Joby Talbot, and Joanna Marsh-with established works by Eric Whitacre, John Tavener, Max Richter, and others. Sarah Henderson's piece, winner of Tenebrae's inaugural Undiscovered Voices composition competition, also features. Recorded in February 2026, the album demonstrates the choir's characteristic blend of precision and warmth across repertoire spanning gospel-inflected anthems, intimate meditation, and large-scale choral drama. Music, as Short puts it, that rewards attentiveness-the more you listen, the more you hear.

In a triumph of creative teamwork, the UK's Phaedra Ensemble presents the group's Cantaloupe Music debut Realms - recorded and produced in collaboration with renowned composer and singer Meredith Monk. The album collects, for the first time, Monk's only stand-alone string quartet (Stringsongs), together with one of her rarely performed instrumental works for small ensemble (Backlight), and the multi-layered Realm Variations, scored for six voices and mixed ensemble.

Zampa enjoyed a triumph at the Opera-Comique on 3 May 1831. This was probably because Melesville's libretto displayed some resemblances to Mozart's Don Giovanni: a godless and lawless protagonist, the pirate Zampa, attempts to force Camille, betrothed to Alphonse, to marry him, but the statue of Alice Manfredi, one of his earlier victims, comes to life and carries him off to Hell. The action skilfully combines tragic and comic elements. In musical terms, Herold responds to the Romantic sensibilities of his time: he incorporates a few discreet 'Gothic' touches, plays on local colour (the plot unfolds in Sicily), and exploits the dramatic resources of orchestration and harmony (Berlioz noted 'chords of a wild, fantastical appearance'). Zampa amplifies the opera-comique through borrowings from grand opera: vocal styles blending French and Italian elements, spectacular events such as the eruption of Mount Etna (recalling the denouement of La Muette de Portici in 1828), and the contrast between collective and intimate scenes. The work is clearly a response to the concurrent gestation of Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable.

The sixteenth volume of the 'Next Generation Mozart Soloists' series-the penultimate instalment in this collection dedicated to the younger generation of performers, produced in collaboration with the Orpheum Foundation-is fast becoming iconic. This instalment features a unique and already highly acclaimed soloist: the French pianist Marie-Ange Nguci. Under the baton of Howard Griffiths, she has recorded two of Mozart's major concertos, including the Concerto in D minor KV 466, the first piano concerto Mozart composed in a minor key, dated 10 February 1785 and performed the very next day to great acclaim by Mozart himself on a pedal piano played in a similar way to an organ. The programme also features the Concerto in E-flat major KV 482, composed at the end of that same year, 1785.

Long before Bach's genius came to the fore, a line of intrepid minds patiently paved the way for the dawn of the Baroque violin in the Holy Roman Empire, lifting it out of the shadow of the voice to establish it as a commanding solo instrument. From the contrapuntal rigour of Samuel Capricornus to the theatrical brilliance of Biber, via the elegance of Krieger, Schmelzer, Westhoff, and Vilsmayr, this album unfolds an evolving Germanic musical landscape. With infinite delicacy, Louise Ayrton unearths these forgotten roots and celebrates these visionaries, who laid the foundations for the violin to finally become the absolute master of it's own musical narrative.

For his Cabinet of Delights, lutenist Eduardo Egüez has compiled a collection of French lute music centred on the composer Franz Philipp Le Sage de Richee. Virtually nothing is known about his life, except that he presumably had to flee France and subsequently found employment in Breslau. However, he occupies a central position in lute music because he brings together various styles and trends of French lute music and already foreshadows the later international style of composers such as Sylvius Leopold Weiss, Corelli, or Handel. His music survives only in his collection Cabinet der Lauten from 1695, from which Egüez performs a suite in B minor. In his preface to this collection, Le Sage de Richee states that he was a pupil of Charles Mouton and acknowledges the influence that the famous masters François Dufaut, Denis Gaultier, and Jan Antonin Losy von Losinthal had on his work. Egüez has also compiled a suite from each of these four French lute masters, thereby offering the listener a wonderful panorama of 17th-century French lute music.

Active in the musical milieu of the mid-eighteenth century, Christoph Schaffrath belonged to the circle of composers who shaped the distinctive artistic profile of the Prussian court under Frederick the Great. A highly regarded keyboard virtuoso, Schaffrath served for many years as harpsichordist to Princess Anna Amalia, Frederick's sister and an important musical patron in her own right. His music reflects the stylistic transition of the mid-eighteenth century: while grounded in the structural clarity and contrapuntal discipline of the late Baroque, it increasingly embraces the melodic immediacy, expressive contrasts, and rhetorical gestures characteristic of the Empfindsamer Stil. In this recording, the Polish harpsichordist Anna Firlus joins forces with the period-instrument ensemble {oh} Orkiestra Historyczna, directed by Martyna Pastuszka. Their historically informed interpretation illuminates the elegance, expressive nuance, and vibrant musical imagination that characterize Schaffrath's contribution to the eighteenth-century harpsichord concerto.

The fourth instalment in The Mozartists' projected seven-volume series, conducted by Ian Page, pairs two turbulent minor-key symphonies by Kraus and Haydn with operatic scenes featuring soprano Alexandra Lowe. Kraus's rarely heard Symphony in C minor, which Haydn predicted would be regarded as a masterpiece for centuries, sits alongside Haydn's own celebrated Farewell Symphony. Lowe brings both fire and pathos to arias from Antigona by Traetta and La finta giardiniera by Mozart, and to the climactic scene from Benda's melodrama Medea, a work Mozart so admired that he briefly hailed it as the future of opera.

Friedrich Kleinhapl writes in the booklet accompanying this CD: For me personally, Ennio Morricone is a discovery. His ability to move listeners through simplicity and restraint, his story-perhaps because it reminds me of my own younger years and the reception of Friedrich Gulda's Cello Concerto-ranges from initial criticism, asking how anyone could lend themselves to such a thing, to enthusiastic acclaim a few years later. Following Pasión Tango, Gulda meets Shostakovich, and Gran Pasión Tango, this album is yet another look beyond the familiar boundaries that enriches my approach to classical music.

Kristian Bezuidenhout and the Freiburger Barockorchester pursue their lively exploration of Mozart's concertos. From the early impulses of the Concerto No.5 K.175 to the incandescent drama of the Concerto No.20 K.466, via the daring formal novelties of the Concerto No.14 K.449, these works reveal a myriad facets of Mozart's genius, always wondrously inventive, theatrical and profoundly modern.

These recordings, originally released in the early 1980s, are foundation stones for the rediscovery of Marc-Antoine Charpentier's sacred works that was set in motion by William Christie et Les Arts Florissants. For the most part devoted to Christmas music, these pieces radiate all Charpentier's fervor, freshness and elegance, showing him to be truly French, yet nurtured by the sunlight of Italy.

Emilie Mayer's works bear witness to an indomitable personality, despite having languished for so long in the shadow of her male peers. The musicians of the Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin have resolved to do her justice with this revelatory symphonic triptych of recordings. They begin with two of her most remarkable works played on period instruments, including a wondrous Bluthner piano handpicked by the soloist here, Alexander Melnikov.