This new volume in the 'Next Generation Mozart Soloists' series features Mozart's very first piano concerto (K. 37), composed when he was just 11 years old, and his very last, the Concerto K. 595, finished on 5 January 1791, exactly 11 months before his death. "The combination of the naive and youthful first concerto with the mature last concerto and it's reflection of how much Bach's music had affected him shows just how extraordinarily his brilliant mind had developed", says pianist Mishka Rushdie Momen, who performs them under the baton of Howard Griffiths. She studied with Joan Havill, Imogen Cooper, Richard Goode and Andras Schiff at the Kronberg Academy. Bla� sparovec, principal clarinettist of the Gurzenich Orchestra in Cologne, takes on one of Mozart's very last works, the famous Clarinet Concerto K. 622, "a concerto that can only be compared to an opera in which the basset clarinet plays all the roles", says sparovec.

For her new recording, entitled Or (light), cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton has devised a two-part narrative, "like freeze frames, like incursions into time": first, Couperin's Les le�ons de t�n�bres or the Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah. Prophecies are the time before. Before destruction and tears: "We hear the song of the prophet lamenting, but the possibility that this will not happen still exists." Then comes "our time": "With his dramatic force, Vivaldi confronts us with our present. He says, 'This is now.'" Sonia has chosen several excerpts from operas as well as two violin concertos. She transcribed most of the pieces in this programme for solo cello or two cellos, two voices that she plays herself. She also imagined bridges to other lights, those of Mahut's percussion and Marius Atherton's electric guitar and MS20 synthesiser.

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Greek-Russian pianist Sasha Stychkina, born in December 2003 in Moscow into a family of musicians and filmmakers, is the youngest finalist and winner in the history of the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition in Paris in November 2019. Today she presents her first recital, recorded at the Teldex studio in Berlin under the artistic direction of her teacher, the charismatic and renowned pianist Kirill Gerstein. A decidedly varied programme-Weber, Bartok, Ravel, Chopin, Liszt-it is by turns virtuosic, dance-like and spiritual. Sasha Stychkina also introduces us to a little-known composer, Alexei Vladimirovich Stanchinsky (1888-1914), a mystical figure, considered mad - he spent a year in a psychiatric hospital - who drowned at the age of twenty-six. A student of Taneyev, encouraged by Scriabin, and introduced to Tolstoy, the composer nevertheless had a bright future ahead of him. The Five Preludes (1907-1912, published posthumously in 1928), chosen by Sasha Stychkina, are particularly evocative and visionary.

French soprano Julie Roset is one of the rising stars of the younger generation. Winner of both the Operalia First Prize in 2023 and the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition in 2022, Julie Roset was nominated for the Victoires de la Musique Classique in the Revelation Lyrique category in 2025. This is her first recital and the start of a multi-project collaboration with the Alpha Classics label. With pianist Susan Manoff, she has devised a highly personal programme of French melodies that showcase her vocal qualities as a coloratura soprano and her mischievous, sparkling personality. It includes well-known melodists such as Debussy and Poulenc, as well as works by rarer composers such as Isabelle Aboulker, Mel Bonis and Louis Beydts.

Anne-Sophie Mutter is launching her own series of recordings on Alpha Classics, ASM Forte Forward, devoted to the music of our time: it will exclusively feature contemporary works written for her. In 2026 and 2027, this exceptional artist is celebrating her jubilee: 50 years on stage, driven by curiosity, passion and commitment to the future of music. The first opus in this new series, East Meets West, includes works by four composers from diverse origins. The programme moves from solo violin, through duo and chamber repertoire, to concerto with orchestra. It opens with Likoo for solo violin by Iranian-Dutch composer Aftab Darvishi, followed by Gran Cadenza for two violins by Unsuk Chin, a South Korean composer living in Berlin, J�rg Widmann's String Quartet No. 6, entitled Studie �ber Beethoven; and concludes with Thomas Ad�s' concerto for violin and orchestra, Air-Homage to Sibelius, premiered in 2022 and recorded here with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the British composer himself.

For his third solo album for Alpha, keyboard polyglot Anthony Romaniuk returns to the piano, exploring the seven modes: derived from the major scale, the basis of ancient Greek music but nowadays endemic in folk, jazz, and beyond, each one containing a world of character and mood. Starting with John Adams' Phrygian Gates, Romaniuk devised a programme comprising music by P�rt, Ligeti, Radiohead, and Bj�rk, with his own original compositions; arrangements of traditional Catalan and English/Scottish music; and improvisations. Continuing his search for a personal and original sound, Romaniuk uses two pianos, including a Klavins upright grand piano (from the collection of Nils Frahm), which, thanks to it's massive soundboard and four-metre-long bass strings, overwhelms the listener. The addition of various analogue and digital audio effects, together with innovative recording techniques, brings the listener into a unique sonic landscape, approaching that of a sound installation.

Pianist Lukas Geniusas pays tribute to the fantasy, a form synonymous with freedom, dear to the Romantics. Schubert sets the figure of the wanderer to music in his Lied Der Wanderer, which, a few years later, would give rise to a large-scale instrumental work: the Fantasy in C major, D. 760 (1822), later known as the "Wanderer" Fantasy. It's four-part structure could be that of a four-movement sonata cycle, but these sections follow one another without interruption in a continuous process, like an uninterrupted journey. Fascinated by this work, Liszt wrote his transcription for piano and orchestra in 1851, two years before his famous Sonata in B minor, which is also monothematic and unfolds as a single, vast movement. More in line with the classicists, Tchaikovsky cultivates virtuosity and instrumental brilliance in his Concert Fantasy of 1884. With the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen, conducted by Modestas Pitrenas, Geniusas offers a rare (if not unprecedented) pairing of these two fantasies, separated by just over six decades.

The fifteenth volume of the Haydn2032 cycle is entitled 'La Reine'. One might think that this nickname refers to Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, queen of numerous territories, but in fact the monarch honoured by the popular title of Symphony no.85 is her daughter, Marie Antoinette. It was said to be the favourite of 'La Reine de France', which is the full nickname of the work. The new volume also includes Symphony no.50, which delighted the Empress's ears when she visited Prince Nicolaus Esterhazy at his 'Hungarian Versailles' in 1773. Symphony no.62, which dates from 1780, the fortieth anniversary of Maria Theresa's accession to the throne and also the last year of a life as eventful as it was glorious, rounds off this latest instalment of the complete recording of the symphonies conducted by Giovanni Antonini, here at the helm of the Basel Chamber Orchestra.

Paavo J�rvi and the Tonhalle-Orchester Z�rich continue their recording of Mahler's complete symphonies with the Seventh, considered one of his most complex and challenging symphonies: "The Mahler we encounter in Symphony No. 7 is more complex, darker, and more philosophical than the Mahler we know from his earlier works," says Paavo J�rvi. Mahler, who was extremely busy in his role as director of the Vienna Opera, composed this symphony on the shores of Lake W�rthersee in Austria during the summers of 1904 and 1905. Also known as Song of the Night, this symphony is characterized by rich instrumentation (including a guitar and mandolin in the fourth movement) and spectacular orchestral effects: "Here, nature roars," Mahler said of the tenor horn solo at the beginning of the work.

Anne-Sophie Mutter is launching her own series of recordings on Alpha Classics, ASM Forte Forward, devoted to the music of our time: it will exclusively feature contemporary works written for her. In 2026 and 2027, this exceptional artist is celebrating her jubilee: 50 years on stage, driven by curiosity, passion and commitment to the future of music. The first opus in this new series, East Meets West, includes works by four composers from diverse origins. The programme moves from solo violin, through duo and chamber repertoire, to concerto with orchestra. It opens with Likoo for solo violin by Iranian-Dutch composer Aftab Darvishi, followed by Gran Cadenza for two violins by Unsuk Chin, a South Korean composer living in Berlin, Jorg Widmann's String Quartet No. 6, entitled etude sur Beethoven; and concludes with Thomas Ades' concerto for violin and orchestra, Air-Homage to Sibelius, premiered in 2022 and recorded here with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the British composer himself.

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.

The young German baritone Konstantin Krimmel won the prestigious Preis des Deutschen Musikwettbewerbs in 2019, in addition to the Helmut Deutsch Prize. He joins Alpha for a number of recordings, starting with this programme of lieder conceived with his longstanding partner, the pianist Doriana Tchakarova. This lover of words, a particularly expressive performer in concert, wanted to 'tell a story' for his first album: he chose to record a selection of ballads, because 'they are genuine operas in just a few minutes... mini-sagas that permit great interpretative freedom'. Among the great poets present here are Schiller, Goethe and Heinrich Heine. As to the composers, alongside the indispensable Schubert and Schumann, this programme presents a great master of the genre, Carl Loewe, who wrote several hundred ballads: the works recorded here, inspired by Scots poems or Danish legends, are especially eloquent. There is also a chance to discover the much more rarely recorded Adolf Jensen, a great admirer of Wagner, whom he met in 1861: 'To translate Wagner's ideas of Beauty and Truth to smaller forms has been my aim in all my later compositions.'

After a first album devoted to Mozart quartets (awarded a ‘Choc de Classica’ and a ‘Diapason Découverte’), a second to French music (Debussy, Ravel and Chausson) and a third to two quartets by Schubert, nos.10 and 14 (the mythical Death and the Maiden), the group founded by Nicolas Van Kuijk returns to its first love by recording more Mozart. This recording is the second part of an eventual triptych that will contain the six string quartets dedicated to Haydn: no.14 in G major, K387, the first of them, was composed in 1782, when Mozart had just arrived on the Viennese musical scene; no.15 in D minor K421, the second, is the only one in the minor mode and was completed in 1783 while his wife Constanze was in labor – she related that the rising intervals of the second movement recalled her cries from the room next door as he composed.

Firenze 1616

For his first release on Alpha, the clarinetist and conductor Jörg Widmann celebrates the music of a composer who wrote some of the finest pieces ever devoted to his instrument: Carl Maria von Weber. With the ensemble of which he is principal conductor, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, he has recorded the Clarinet Quintet (in its version with string ensemble) and the Concertino, composed in 1811 and 1815 respectively, along with the ever-popular Overture to Der Freischütz. The pianist Denis Kozhukhin joins Widmann to perform the Grand Duo concertant. This album is the first in a series of recordings that will also give us a chance to meet Jörg Widmann in his role as one of the most active composers of his generation.

Armide, premiered in 1686, was the last joint work of Lully and the poet Philippe Quinault. It immediately became a pillar of the Opéra’s repertory, which it finally left only in 1766, when it was removed to make room for a new wave of composers, Philidor, Grétry, Gossec and soon Gluck. A few attempts to restore former tastes still allowed audiences to hear such works as Persée, revived in 1770 (and recorded in that version by Hervé Niquet, ALPHA967). But these operas were profoundly modified in order to increase the role of the orchestra and tailor the vocal numbers to the singers of the day. This was the context for the fascinating and unpublished version of Armide that has lain dormant in the Bibliothèque Nationale for more than two centuries. The revisions to the original are by Louis-Joseph Francœur, nephew of the celebrated François Francœur, one of Louis XV’s court musicians. This recording of the 1778 version of Armide, made at the Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles in collaboration with the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, is not merely the first modern performance but the work’s world premiere, since none of its music was ever actually played at the time. It enables us to grasp the evolution of the ideas and practices of French music over a whole century.

After the success of the recent recording of works by Veress and Bartók, which won both a Gramophone Award and a BBC Music Magazine Award in 2020, the Lockenhaus Festival series, curated by its artistic director Nicolas Altstaedt, continues its journey through central Europe with Antonín Dvorák and his famous ‘Dumky’ Trio, named after a genre of Slavonic folksong generally performed by blind wandering minstrels who accompanied themselves on the kobza or bandura (twelve-string lute). Dvorák, whose father played the zither, immersed himself in this music and creatively translated its substance into his own music. The trio was premiered in 1891 and, in response to its ecstatic reception, Dvorák decided to perform it during his grand farewell tour before leaving for the United States. Zoltán Kodály’s Duo for violin and cello (1914), which completes the program, also bears witness to the influence of folk music.

REVIEWS:

Barnabás Kelemen has the passion, the imagination, the intelligence, the sense of place and ethnicity, the style, and the allfacilitating technique to bring the 'earth and-air' masterpieces of Bartók and Kodály fully to life, the loose-limbed manner of his phrasing as flexible as any folk fiddler, his tonal range and the agility of his bow varying from bar to bar. No player currently treading the boards is quite as exciting and this extraordinary disc finds him in intimate and animated musical conversation with like-minded musicians.

– Gramophone

Every phrase is carefully considered, and each one is communicated with passion. Everywhere there is a wealth of fascinating detail…Some may find the players’ approach a little too intense, but for wholehearted commitment these performances are outstanding.

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.

For her third album on Alpha, Patricia Kopatchinskaja is joined by a highly talented pianist whose approach to music is as extremist as hers, Polina Leschenko. Together they explore pieces that have many points in common. The Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Arányi, grandniece of Joseph Joachim, was a ‘muse’ to both Bartók and Ravel. In 1922 and 1923, she premiered the two Bartók sonatas for violin and piano and Ravel dedicated Tzigane to her. He wrote to Bartók: ‘You have convinced me to compose for our friend, who plays so fluently, a little piece whose diabolical difficulty will bring to life the Hungary of my dreams; and since it will be for violin, why don’t we call it Tzigane?’ Of course, Tzigane by Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who has been playing and dancing this music since her childhood in Moldova, does not sound like salon music . . . After a much-fêted recital at Wigmore Hall in 2017, the Financial Times wrote: ‘In another life, Patricia Kopatchinskaja might have been a rock star. This is a violinist who loves taking risks . . . But the final reward was worth waiting for: a denouement of astonishing force.’

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REVIEW:

The performances brim with personality, individuality, and panache. Every reading here works like a dream; no doubt in part because the three main works’ Hungarian folk roots are a perfect partner to her own Moldovan folk heritage.

– Gramophone

Vittorio Ghielmi, one of today’s most admired viola da gamba soloists, comes from a family of musicians (his brother founded Il Giardino Armonico with Giovanni Antonini). In parallel with his erudite and virtuoso readings of Marais or Graun, Vittorio Ghielmi is an artist who enjoys crossing borders. With his ensemble, Il Suonar Parlante, he seeks new musical languages and collaborates with leading figures of jazz (Uri Caine) and the masters of traditional music (Khaled Arman, Dhruba Ghosh). With Gypsy Baroque, he and his gypsy friends present a dazzling album bubbling over with life. He has gone to Transylvania in search of the gypsy music of the eighteenth century that was played on the frontiers of the Ottoman and Austrian Empires – music that influenced composers like Mozart and Haydn for their famous ‘Janissary’ pieces. For this recording, he places these gypsy tunes (only the melody is written) in perspective with orchestrations of the period. The Baroque specialists of his ensemble are joined by longstanding guest artists (the soprano Graciela Gibelli and the recorder player Dorothee Oberlinger) and traditional musicians like the Slovak violinist Stanislav Palúch and Marcel Comendant, a virtuoso exponent of the cimbalom and of improvisation. Going beyond the ‘documentary’ aspect, already fascinating, here is a genuine musical recreation!

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

Alpha Classics continues its collaboration with the Ensemble Intercontemporain and presents a programme devoted to compositions by its conductor and artistic director, Matthias Pintscher. bereshit, ‘in a beginning’ in Hebrew, is a piece on the subject of divine creation. The architecture of the work refers to the idea of the growth of the elements out of nothingness to their finished state: the colours, the harmonies are therefore always redefined by what precedes and follows them. Songs from Solomon’s garden – still in a highly spiritual dimension – explores amorous passion through the shir ha shirim (Song of Songs). The poetic density of this text is underlined here, with the only repeated phrase of the work taking on a quasi-incantatory signification: ‘she-cholat ahava ani’ (for I am sick of love).

Pergolesi: Stabat Mater - Marian Music from Naples

‘The dreamer! That double of our existence, that chiaroscuro of the thinking being’, wrote Gaston Bachelard in 1961. ‘The old is dying, the new cannot be born, and in that chiaroscuro, monsters appear’, adds Antonio Gramsci. Sandrine Piau has chosen to use these two quotations as an epigraph to her new recording: ‘My family and friends know about this obsession that never leaves me completely. The antagonism between light and darkness. The chiaroscuro, the space in between . . .’ This program, recorded with the Orchestre Victor Hugo under its conductor Jean-François Verdier, who is also principal clarinettist of the Paris Opéra, travels between the chilly Rhenish forest of Waldgespräch, a ballad by Zemlinsky composed for soprano and small ensemble in 1895, the night of the first of Berg’s Seven Early Songs (1905-08), and the sunlight of Richard Strauss’s Morgen, which are followed by the Four Last Songs, composed in 1948, the first two of which, Frühling and September (evoking spring and autumn respectively) are also, as Sandrine Piau concludes, ‘the seasons of life’.