Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers is the landmark work of early Baroque music. It sits at the crossroads of Renaissance polyphony and the new dramatic style heard in his first opera, L'Orfeo. 'The Vespers' redefined what sacred music could sound like - emotionally immediate, virtuosic, both looking back to the past and driving forward into the future. Monteverdi specialists I Fagiolini and Robert Hollingworth have waited until their 40th birthday to record the 1610 collection. This is a lifetime's work with every nuance of drama and colour brought out in their one-to-a-part performance.

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).

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS of three works by Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023) from soprano Anu Komsi, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sakari Oramo, including the composer's final orchestral work, Vista, inspired by a scenic Interstate 5 highway to San Diego.

For it's first album on Linn, Solomon's Knot performs one of Bach's most fascinating works. Although not a single note of the Kothener Trauermusik survives, almost every other detail of the performance does: we know it's date, the first performers, the librettist and the libretto. Reconstructed by Chad Kelly from various sources, chief among them Bach's first version of the Matthaus-Passion, this work was commissioned for both performance and this live recording by Solomon's Knot. Kelly's reconstruction does not claim to be definitive; such certainty is unattainable and beside the point. Instead, he uses carefully considered creative licence to bring to life two elements central to the original: the sincerity of the text, and the context of the occasion for which it was written. As 'one of the UK's most innovative and imaginative ensembles' (The Observer), the Baroque music collective Solomon's Knot is in full swing in this performance recorded at the Dreieinigkeitskirche during the Tage Alter Musik Regensburg festival.

The prizewinning guitar duo Bluvenduo present a versatile selection of transcriptions for two guitars, several of which have never previously been arranged for this format. The freshness and sense of discovery in Schubert's Sonata in A major is a product of the music's inherent songful lyricism, perfect material for a guitar duo. So, too, is Franck's Prelude, fugue et variation, a work of variety, elegance and light textures. The three Rachmaninov Preludes provide subtly contrasting moods, while Schumann's Kinderszenen offers a wealth of intimacy, excitement and expressive refinement.

Music for children plays an important role in Miloslav Kabelac's artistic oeuvre. Especially in the early days after the communist coup in 1948, the composer devoted himself to this genre: 'I regard composing for children as a 'touchstone' not only for all creative abilities, but also for the human qualities of the composer. That is why I take this work as seriously and as importantly as any other". In his music, Kabelac creates powerful atmospheric images with a playful sensitivity for language, some of which is highly onomatopoeic. His serious engagement with children's works is once again evident in the fact that Kabelac repeatedly quoted motifs and melodies from children's works in larger symphonic works.

Olle Adolphson (1934-2004) is one of the most important representatives of the Swedish ballad during the second half of the 20th century. He wrote long series of ballads that are loved by the Swedish people. Many of them have become so well-known that they can now almost be considered Swedish folk songs. Olle was inspired by and associated with great cultural figures of the time such as Evert and Sven Bertil Taube, Lars Forssell, Beppe Wolgers, Carl Fredrik Reutersward, Stig Claesson, Monica Zetterlund, Monica and Carl-Axel Dominique and others.

This album - the third to be released on Alpha Classics - is entitled Nui (a Korean word meaning 'sister'). The Esme Quartet pays tribute to Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, with Fanny's Quartet in E-Flat major, written during the final year of her life, which finds a poignant echo in Felix's Quartet No. 6 in F minor, written in the aftermath of his sister's sudden death: The Esme Quartet hears in Fanny's Quartet an 'intimate and penetrating voice, reaching outwards with urgency, tenderness and vulnerability.' The programme also features a new work commissioned from the Korean-American composer Juri Seo, inspired by the traditional Korean song Eommaya nunaya ('Mother, Sister'). 'This song evokes a peaceful, distant place where loved ones gather and the heart finds rest, offering a quiet sense of comfort that resonates naturally with the emotional landscape of the Mendelssohns,' concludes the Esme Quartet, which is celebrating it's tenth anniversary with this new recording.

Recognisable throughout the world and marked by an unmistakable authenticity, Astor Piazzolla's musical language has achieved a truly universal resonance. Following on from Carlos Gardel, the Argentine bandoneonist and composer reinvented the tango in the 1950s, giving it a new aesthetic identity. Such was it's force that it ultimately moved beyond the dance itself and became the foundation of all Piazzola's musical creation. His style requires a kind of initiation: it is shaped by an improbable meeting between European art music and a popular art born in the barrios of Buenos Aires. By embracing it, Xavier Phillips and Les Solistes de Lausanne are cultivating a passionate relationship with this music, which breathes the soul of that city, poised between melancholy and exaltation.

Alessandro Rolla (1757-1841) was widely acknowledged in his time as a violin and -especially- viola virtuoso, composer and teacher. He gained great fame as a teacher of Paganini and some of the technical innovations that Paganini later used, such as left-hand pizzicato, chromatic ascending and descending scales, the use of very high positions on violin and viola, octave passages, were first introduced by Rolla. In 1782 Alessandro Rolla was appointed principal viola and the leader of the Ducale Orchestra in Parma, playing violin and viola until 1802. He travelled around Europe both as a soloist and conductor and became known also abroad. His works were published in Paris and Vienna. In 1802, Rolla was offered a position as leader and orchestra director of the La Scala Orchestra in Milan, where he remained until 1833. Here he conducted the first Milanese performances of Mozart's Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Clemenza di Tito and Nozze di Figaro and Beethoven's first Symphonies. During this period he also conducted about eighteen operas of the then most loved opera composer, Gioacchino Rossini, as well as operas by Donizetti and Bellini, whom he got to know personally. Rolla's compositions are characterized by elegant melodies, clear structures, and increasing emotional depth, bridging the clarity of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the expressive intensity that would later define Ludwig van Beethoven. This delightful program presents chamber music in which the clarinet plays the leading role: a sextet, several duets of clarinet with other instruments, and a concerto for basset horn and string quartet. Brilliantly performed by Luigi Magistrelli, one of the leading clarinet players of Italy, seconded by a fine selection of Italian soloists. Magistrelli made many recordings for Brilliant Classics with works by C.P.E. Bach (95307), Giuliani (95541), Kummer (94472), Archduke Rudolph (94952), Rebay (94171) and Fuchs (96305). 'Luigi Magistrelli is a skilled artist, with the fingers and the enthusiasm for Weber.' Gramophone.

The Canadian-American cellist Elinor Frey performs and conducts Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's three cello concertos with the Accademia de' Dissonanti. These dramatic works, rich in turbulent exchanges yet also in tender moments, bear witness to C. P. E. Bach's fiery imagination, where emotion and melody take precedence. In Bach's time, personalising a performance was both common and expected. The question of 'how a cellist premiering these works would have approached these concertos' lies at the heart of this recording. Drawing on a vocabulary of ornamentation and melodic analysis derived from the music of the composer and his contemporaries, Frey has reconstructed the social milieu and instrumental practice of Bach's time, in order to approach the way in which this music was once heard and felt.

This album is built around a remarkable instrument: the Guarneri del Gesù 'Sainton Betti' violin, once played by Prosper Sainton. More than a solo voice, the violin shapes both the repertoire and the narrative of the project. From this starting point a journey through the golden age of the Romantic violin unfolds. Works by Niccolo Paganini, Gioachino Rossini, Hector Berlioz and Richard Strauss reflect the musical world Sainton inhabited, while bringing renewed attention to this fascinating yet overlooked figure. At the heart of the project, violinist Dmitry Smirnov reveals the instrument's full expressive range, joined by Victor Jacob and the Kammerorchester Basel. Together, they create a vivid dialogue between soloist and orchestra. A programme that connects repertoire, instrument and history into a single, coherent musical narrative.

Pierre Fevrier (1696-1760) was a French composer and harpsichordist active during the late Baroque period, a time when France cultivated a highly refined keyboard tradition. Fevrier served as organist at the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres in Paris, a prestigious position that placed him within an important musical and cultural center. His work reflects the elegance and ornamentation characteristic of French Baroque music, while also demonstrating a personal sensitivity to melody and structure. Fevrier's writing is firmly rooted in the French harpsichord tradition as shaped by Louis Couperin and d'Anglebert, codified by Francois Couperin, and enriched by Rameau's harmonic innovations. Like his contemporaries, Fevrier adopts the structure of the suite or ordre, based on sequences of stylized dances-Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue, Minuet, Gavotte-augmented by character pieces with evocative titles (La Sonore, La Delectable, L'Intrepide). At the same time, his musical language reveals a perceptible evolution: textures become clearer, and often more homophonic, melodic lines grow increasingly songful, and counterpoint-still present-is never ostentatious. It yields primacy to a measured eloquence in keeping with the French ideal of bon goût. This aesthetic of restraint situates Fevrier at the threshold between late Baroque and emerging galant style, without ever abandoning the formal rigor inherited from his predecessors. This is another enterprising recording by Fernando de Luca, who has done a great deal to revive forgotten names from 18th-century music with complete surveys of their music on Brilliant Classics, among them Dufour, Foucquet, Jollage, Gravier and Siret. '[De Luca] thinks outside of the box, and he clearly is a man with discerning tastes. These extend to his playing, which is clear-headed and disciplined, but never rigid. 'Charm' is such an overused word, but I cannot think of a better one to describe this music and these performances.' (Fanfare on the Jollage album, January 2024). Fernando de Luca plays a French harpsichord after Blanchet (1754).

In Celtic mythology, the 'Banshee' is a messenger between worlds. The four musicians of The BanXhies have come together around this figure, seeking to use music as a conduit from the outer world to the inner world. For their very first album, Roxana Rastegar, Yaore Talibart (violins), Suzanne Wolff and Louise Acabo (harpsichord) have chosen to explore the aesthetic connections between Venice and Vienna through the figure of Antonio Caldara Vienna, 48° North: It was here that Antonio Caldara settled, at the end of a journey that began much further south, in Venice, where he was born in 1670. Recognised from a very early age, Caldara's career was marked by decisive encounters and constant travel. In Venice, he was influenced by the works of Giovanni Legrenzi and crossed paths with Antonio Vivaldi, who, like him, would later make the journey to Vienna. There, Caldara joined a cosmopolitan and flourishing milieu, where the influence of travelling musicians such as Georg Muffat had already paved the way for a dialogue between Italian and Germanic styles.

The Chinese baritone Wang Huandong has conquered stages across Europe with golden tone, magnificent projection and dynamic stage presence. In this debut recital on record, he presents a personal selection of arias from the bel canto repertoire, including both audience favourites and rarities. Having graduated from his initial training in Beijing, Wang Huandong continued his studies with the tenor Angelo Lofrese. He won prizes in several European competitions before making impressive debuts with major companies such as the Arena di Verona and the Opera National de Bordeaux. He is undoubtedly one of the most exciting operatic talents to emerge from China in recent years, and has specialised in the Romantic Italian tradition from Donizetti to Puccini. This album thus makes a captivating showcase for Wang Huandong, and for the full range of his technical abilities and musicianship. The authenticity of it's style is further enhanced by the participation of the Orchestra Filarmonica della Calabria, who are steeped in this style. The conductor Filippo Arlia has his own extensive experience in the field of Italian opera; as does the producer Ra?aele Cacciolla, the resident sound engineer for the Opera alla Scala in Milan. The album opens with the showpiece for Enrico in the first act of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. The sombre atmosphere of 'Cruda e funesta smania' dissolves into the furious outburst of virtuosity in the cabaletta, 'La pietade in suo favor'. Much less familiar is the first-act scena for Severo in Donizetti's Poliuto. Then the aria 'Resta immobile' captures the moment of highest tension at the heart of Rossini's Guillaume Tell, as the eponymous hero attempts to shoot an apple placed on the head of his son. Wang Huandong returns to Donizetti for a pair of contrasting scenes from La Favorita, and then the superb Romanza from the composer's final opera, Dom Sebastian. On more familiar territory, he also presents 'Ah per sempre io ti perdei' from Bellini's last opera, I Puritani. Further demonstrations of Wang Huandong's versatility, adventurousness and Italianate feeling include excerpts from Bellini's Il pirata and Donizetti's Il duca d'Alba, before this showcase concludes in time-honoured fashion with the celebrated 'Largo al factotum' from Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia.

The Rieger organ recently installed in the Musiikkitalo (Music Center) in Helsinki is the largest modern concert-hall organ in the world. In it's first-ever solo recording Jan Lehtola puts the instrument through it's paces. His unusual programme consists of nine sets of variations on Christmas melodies by four French composers, one Franco-Lebanese and an Englishman using what is probably the only well-known Ukrainian tune. The meeting of old and new in these variations shows off the splendours of the new instrument, the virtuosic writing ranging from gossamer delicacy and sumptuous harmonies to statements of colossal power.

The LP version: When Baroque Meets Folk Energy In 'folk baroque', the music of Georg Philipp Telemann encounters the vibrant dance traditions of central Europe. The program grew out of a collaboration between recorder virtuoso Erik Bosgraaf and the Italian ensemble filoBarocco during the Gottingen International Handel Festival, initiated within the European support programme EEEMERGING+. At the heart of the project lies the fascinating Rostock Manuscript, a historical source long associated with Telemann's fascination with Central European folk traditions. For Bosgraaf and filoBarocco, the manuscript offers the perfect point of departure for exploring the meeting ground between Baroque repertoire and living folk music traditions. The ensemble shares a deep enthusiasm not only for historical performance practice but also for music that retains the energy, spontaneity, and expressive freedom of traditional dance music. Telemann himself was renowned for his openness to musical influences from across Europe. During his travels he encountered Polish and Hanna folk traditions that left a lasting impression on him. In his autobiographical writings, he vividly describes the impact of this music: it's rhythmic vitality, it's improvisatory spirit, and it's powerful melodic expression. These qualities fascinated him and found their way, sometimes subtly, sometimes quite directly, into his own compositions. Yet reconstructing the sound world of the eighteenth century presents a unique challenge. Unlike music from the twentieth or twenty-first centuries, there are no recordings to tell us exactly how this repertoire once sounded. Historically informed performance with this repertoire therefore requires re-composition. Musicians must piece together clues from written scores, historical treatises, instrument research, and contemporary descriptions. On the recording 'folk baroque' the musicians expand this process further by drawing inspiration from living folk traditions. Many rhythmic patterns, ornamentations, and expressive gestures that appear in Baroque music still survive today in Central European dance music. These traditions offer valuable insights into how such musical gestures might function in performance. The goal is not to recreate a supposedly 'authentic' past because that would be inherently impossible, but to create a musical interpretation that feels convincing, vibrant, and alive for modern listeners inspired by the timeless melodies of the Rostock Manuscript. For this reason, the program includes elements of improvisation and experimental playing techniques. While this approach may initially seem unusual in a Baroque context, it reflects the spirit of exploration that shaped the music of Telemann's own time. The musical notation in the Rostock Manuscript often provides only a framework rather than a fully fixed sound image. It invites performers to engage creatively with the material and rediscover it's inherent energy. The result is a concert experience that feels both historical and contemporary. The music is rooted in eighteenth-century sources, yet interpreted by musicians who are equally at home in the traditions of early music and in modern sonic experimentation. Ultimately, what connects this repertoire with today's audience is emotion. Instruments and styles may change over time, but the fundamental human passions expressed through music remain the same: joy, melancholy, longing, passion, and the irresistible urge to dance. When listeners begin to grasp the expressive language behind these works, the music suddenly feels remarkably immediate. It ceases to be merely a historical artefact and becomes a living experience, almost as if a sleeping frog had been awakened with a kiss

A comprehensive, budget-priced introduction to the world of a Dutch master of the early Baroque, in modern and critically acclaimed recordings. Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621) stands at the head of the North German school of composers which produced Dieterich Buxtehude and the Bach family. We know next to nothing about the specific circumstances for which he wrote most of his music, as organist at Amsterdam's Oude Kerk from the late 1570s until his death over 40 years later. Amsterdam during this time was a colourful, cosmopolitan port, full of international influences and religious diversity, and Sweelinck's keyboard music mirrors this culture. Even more than a contemporary such as William Byrd, Sweelinck delights in dividing and subdividing his melodic material such as chorale hymns, accumulating intensity through rapidly moving variants on a given theme. Faster music sometimes passes by in a virtuoso flourish, and sometimes stretches the musical arc in search of greater expression. In his complete recording, first released in 2020, Daniele Boccaccio pays careful attention to the details of old fingering techniques; the resultant variety in phrasing and articulation gives new life to figurations that with a more modern legato approach can seem plain. At times, he applies discreet ornamentation to enhance the music's impact and elsewhere let's Sweelinck's notes speak for themselves. Particularly in the fantasias, he captures some of the freshness with which Sweelinck's music must have struck it's first listeners. Sweelinck's psalm settings were likely written with professional singers in mind, such as the voices of the Netherlands Chamber Choir. The sense of bejewelled light and brilliance is nearly unrivalled in music of the time save in the Venetian school exemplified by the Gabrieli family. When the NCC undertook the major project of recording Sweelinck's complete psalm settings, they engaged an array of early-music luminaries, each of whom contributes their own refined musical intelligence to the colour and articulation of these pieces. According to Fanfare's original review, 'Less expert ensembles need not apply. Let the Netherlands Chamber Choir do it. Very highly recommended.'

A generation before the now iconic Dinu Lipatti died of cancer at the age of 33, a much less remembered Polish pianist, Karol Szreter (1898-1933), died of the same disease at almost the same age. A pupil of Egon Petri, so of the Busoni school, his brief career began in central Europe and by the time of his death he was becoming acknowledged as a major figure in the pianistic world. His first recordings were made acoustically for VOX, where he recorded both as accompanist and soloist, and we have included one example. He was then taken up by the sister labels Parlophon and Odeon and the majority of these recordings are presented here. Of note is the first electrical recording of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 4 and three further sonatas, and - reflecting a different side of his art - five brilliant Strauss transcriptions where he reveals his stupendous technique.

With this recording, the Gaechinger Cantorey turns to Johann Sebastian Bach's motets, works widely regarded as a pinnacle of sacred vocal music. Emerging from an intensively prepared series of concerts and recorded at the TauberPhilharmonie Weikersheim, the album combines tonal transparency, expressive power, and vibrant historically informed performance practice at the highest level. Bach's motets rank among the most impressive works in the choral repertoire. Between intimate devotion and the splendor of double-choir writing unfolds a musical cosmos filled with contrapuntal mastery, emotional intensity, and eight-part virtuosity. Finely balanced instrumental colours complement the choral sound, lending the works remarkable transparency and flexibility. For many years, the Gaechinger Cantorey has played a defining role in the performance of Bach's music with a sound that is at once precise, agile, and immediate. Under the direction of Hans-Christoph Rademann, the ensemble's interpretations understand historically informed performance practice as a means of rediscovering the emotional power and complexity of this music. The ensemble's distinctive artistic profile is especially evident in the motets: transparent in sound, closely attuned to the text, and driven by great musical energy. With this release, Accentus Music continues it's long-standing collaboration with the Gaechinger Cantorey, which has already resulted in several highly acclaimed Bach recordings.