Franz Liszt was 67 when he composed his Via Crucis, yet it did not receive it's first performance until 1929, 43 years after the composer's death. This work of his mature years is in 15 sections, retracing the Stations of the Cross that mark the stages of Christ's Passion, from being condemned to death to being laid in the tomb. Combining Gregorian chant, the Lutheran liturgy and the Latin, German and Aramaic languages, the Via Crucis shows real formal originality. A devout believer, Liszt gives us here his most important sacred work. He composed several versions: for mixed choir, soloists and organ (with the organ part optionally transcribed for piano), for piano solo, organ solo, and two pianos. After an album devoted to Janacek, the Collegium Vocale founded by Philippe Herreweghe is once again conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw in this new Alpha recording.

"A new talent, an Alpha discovery! For his first Alpha label recording, pianist Sergey Kasprov, has chosen to create a dialogue between great Baroque geniuses and Russian Romantics. A Moscow Conservatory trained artist, Mr. Kasprov has won several competition 1stprizes and concertized across Russia and continental Europe. Mr. Kasprov's digital dexterity, appropriate use of ornamentation and wide sound palette are highlights of his playing."

After the success of the Red, Yellow, Blue and Pink collections (a total of 56 reissues), which brought the pearls from the Baroque catalogues of the house labels back into the spotlight, here are fourteen new titles offering a chance to rediscover more Baroque treasures and rarities. Like the last series, this fifth installment also opens up to the Classical (Mozart) or Renaissance (Dufay) repertories - recordings that are an integral part of Alpha's identity and history. This series' reissues are performed by the finest musicians in the field; most of these recordings received one or more awards on their first release. The albums come with proper booklets, including notes in three languages (French, English, German). Photographers from many different backgrounds illustrate the covers of the series with their works: this time the main theme is the color white. The present album features Johann Sebastian Bach's Sonatas for violin and harpsichord, BWV 1014-1019 performed by Blandine Rannou and Florence Malgoire.

Although Lully never held any post in the Chapelle du Roi, his influence on the development of the grand motet, so emblematic of the Grand Si�cle, was of decisive importance. He wrote imposing motets celebrating the glory of God and the King for the great ceremonies at court. Of the many royal funerals, that of Queen Marie-Th�r�se in 1683 was among the most grandiose. Lully's Dies ir� and de profundis were sung there. But his most celebrated motet was undoubtedly his Te Deum, which rang out for the first time in 1677 and became the king's favorite. In 1687 Lully directed it once again, but struck his foot violently with the heavy walking stick he used to beat time. The wound became infected and the gangrene gradually spread, causing the surintendant's death on 22 March. Such was the tragic destiny of the man who was capable of conveying the most brilliant glory but also all the anguish of death in the same vein of grandeur. That theatrical grandeur is the characteristic of this version recorded in the Chapelle Royale of the Ch�teau de Versailles. Lully is in the limelight again in 2019, on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the Acad�mie Royale de Musique (Paris Op�ra), of which he was director from 1672 until his death.

The Re-Sound Beethoven collection brings the Beethoven's symphonies back to the locations of their Viennese premieres. Four of these six venues still exist today, as do the eight Viennese halls and theatres where the composer's orchestral works were performed in his lifetime. The orchestral forces of the Wiener Akademie correspond in size and instrumentation to those Beethoven used."We want to add to the possibilities of historical instruments the sound and the aura of the concert halls in which the composer himself conducted and experienced his works." (Martin H�selbock)

For several years now, the guitarist and lutenist Björn Colell and the Baroque violinist Georg Kallweit, Konzertmeister of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, have formed a noted duo called Ombra e Luce: "With only two musicians and two instruments, we aspire to a perfect rapport and a permanent dialogue. We have access to a rich repertory of original pieces from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries for violin and lute/theorbo: this was a widespread combination, essentially before 1700. We work a great deal on tone colours and nuances, spontaneity and improvisatory playing – a flexible and sensual interpretation of the works we perform, giving full value to chiaroscuro: ombra e luce! We are convinced that, played in this way, our “early music” can speak directly to the hearts even of listeners who are hearing it for the first time. This new recording, “Passagio”, is the result of our recent musical journeys. Setting out from Italy to go farther north, we have virtually and musically crossed the Alps with our instruments. The works on this recording shed a different light on the music of the courts of Modena, Bologna and Venice."

Alpha begins a complete cycle of the symphonies by Sibelius with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and it's new musical director, Finnish conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Originally a percussionist, the 33-year-old trained at the famous Sibelius Academy. His career took off after he stepped in at the last minute to conduct the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In the great tradition of Finnish conductors Santtu-Matias Rouvali is known for his extremely physical and organic interpretations: "Music unmistakeably flows from him," commented The Sunday Times. When Bachtrack asked him how he shapes the orchestral sound, he replied: "I sing it, I move my hands the way I want it... The conductor should be able to show tempo somewhere in the body... I was also a drum kit player, so my feet and hands can do different things at the same time. When you read the score, you sing it in your head... I think it's the sense of inside groove that you get from playing percussion which is very important in Sibelius's music." In the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra he finds a prestigious cohort of musicians with an impressive discography, and joins a line of their illustrious musical directors, notably Neeme Jarvi, the orchestra's principal conductor from 1982 to 2004, but also Gustavo Dudamel- who made his first major recordings with the GSO- Christoph Eschenbach, Kent Nagano, and others.

After the success of the Red, Yellow, Blue and Pink collections (a total of 56 reissues), which brought the pearls from the Baroque catalogues of the house labels back into the spotlight, here are fourteen new titles offering a chance to rediscover more Baroque treasures and rarities. Like the last series, this fifth installment also opens up to the Classical (Mozart) or Renaissance (Dufay) repertories - recordings that are an integral part of Alpha's identity and history. This series' reissues are performed by the finest musicians in the field; most of these recordings received one or more awards on their first release. The albums come with proper booklets, including notes in three languages (French, English, German). Photographers from many different backgrounds illustrate the covers of the series with their works: this time the main theme is the color white. The present album features selections from the Libro de don Luis Rossi, considered a source of primary importance for early seventeenth-century Italian music, performed by Ensemble Poiesis and Marion Fourquier.

Classical Music

The Quatuor Voce is fifteen years old! To celebrate this anniversary, the four musicians present an album focusing on two composers, Mozart and Schubert, but only one number: 15! This milestone, an age imbued with both ardour and maturity, is therefore embodied in the respective fifteenth quartets of these two geniuses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Mozart composed his Quartet No. 15 in 1783, as the second in the set of six quartets dedicated to Haydn. Schubert wrote his Quartet No.15, his last work in the genre, in 1826. He composed it in only ten days but did not live to hear it's first performance, which took place twenty-three years after his death.

Alexandre Bloch juxtaposes two French composers on this release. First of all, Maurice Ravel, with the Rapsodie espagnole, his first major work for orchestra alone, written at the age of thirty-two, and La Valse, premiered thirteen years later and which he himself described as a 'fantastical and fatal whirlwind.' And then Benjamin Attahir, born in Toulouse in 1989, one of the most gifted and prominent composers of the new generation. Commissioned by the Orchestre National de Lille and recorded here for the first time, it is a concerto for serpent that showcases the splendid sound of this low wind instrument, a member of the brass family even though it is made of wood covered in leather. "Adh Dhohr is part of a cycle I wanted to write focusing on the Salah, the daily rhythm of Muslim devotion," says Benjamin Attahir. "This piece refers to the noon prayer, when the sun is at it's zenith... The musical form is constructed around this zenithal moment and unfolds concentrically around it... I wanted- as in oriental music- to return to the strictest monophony, which is a rather unusual project in concertante music. Soloist and orchestra share a single voice between them."

Building on the success of the first two installments of their cycle devoted to Beethoven's sonatas for piano and violin (Alpha 240, Diapason d'Or of the year, and Alpha 407), Lorenzo Gatto and Julien Libeer conclude this complete series by recording the remaining four sonatas. Composed between 1797 and 1801, these sonatas are dedicated to Emperor Alexander I of Russia, except for op. 12 no. 3, which Beethoven dedicated to his teacher Antonio Salieri. Lorenzo Gatto and Julien Libeer's feeling for melody and tempo works wonders in these pieces, which they recorded in the ideal surroundings of the Salle de Musique of La Chaux de Fonds (Switzerland) and the Flagey Studio (Brussels, Belgium).

Some music lovers are familiar with Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne, Liszt's symphonic poem based on Victor Hugo. But who knows that, ten years earlier, C�sar Franck was inspired by the same poem? This early piece is recorded here by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Mikko Franck. They couple it with the famous Symphony in D minor, dedicated to Henri Duparc and premiered, without much success, in 1889. Even if the score is quite well-known today, in the end it is performed quite rarely, which is a pity, because it really has all the characteristics of a masterpiece: melodic and harmonic inspiration, refined orchestration, variety of mood, an ingenious structure. Two works by Franck... by Franck! This album marks the beginning of a collaboration between Alpha and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, which will focus on very varied repertories

The Voce Quartet writes: "Playing the demanding and constantly shifting string quartet repertory is enough to fill up four lives. Buoyed up by this heritage, we wanted to explore less well-known territories. In the early years of the twentieth century, Bartok and Kodaly roamed the villages of Hungary and Romania, collecting, transcribing and recording hundreds of folk tunes and songs. Building on a number of encounters with leading figures of jazz and world music, we asked five instrumentalist-composers to write us pieces inspired by musical worlds to which they feel close. In addition to these new compositions, we wanted to record Escalay by the Egyptian oud player Hamza el Din who died in 2006, a nod to the Kronos Quartet whose approach is an inspiration to us." The Voce Quartet is Sarah Dayan and Cecile Roubin (violins), Guillaume Becker, and Lydia Shelley.

This live recording of Strauss's Metamorphosen and Beethoven's Eroica Symphony marks the birth on record of the 'Sinfonia Grange au Lac', an orchestra created in July 2018 on the occasion of the Rencontres Musicales d'�vian, the prestigious festival created by Mstislav Rostropovich in 1985 and revived since 2014. A musical ambassador intended to promote the excellence of it's parent festival worldwide, the Sinfonia Grange au Lac consists of musicians from leading European orchestras (in Amsterdam, Berlin, Frankfurt, Leipzig, London, Lucerne, Munich, Paris, Salzburg, Valencia and Vienna) as well as existing groups such as the Trio Kar�nine and the Quatuor �b�ne. And it was a stroke of genius to manage to secure the services of Esa-Pekka Salonen. The brilliant Finn became a passionate supporter of the project, checking the list of members one by one. He told Diapason magazine: 'Our work together made me understand what guided Claudio Abbado when he created the Lucerne Festival Orchestra: the pleasure of working with handpicked musicians and making music with great freshness.'