In addition to his reputation as a dancer, the Sun King was also a musician. Under the enlightened influence of his mother, Anne of Austria, the young Louis XIV learned to play the lute and then the guitar. Once relegated to commoners, this instrument became a symbol of royal refinement. Beyond simple entertainment, this musical craze served a political purpose: to seduce the court and the people, and to weave harmony between French, Italian and Spanish cultures. Like a new King David, monarch-musician par excellence, Louis XIV crafted the image of an Apollonian sovereign, master of the arts as much as of power. Together with exceptional musicians, Lea Masson reveals this forgotten facet of the guitarist king!

Since the creation of their ensemble La Nereide in 2019, the three sopranos Camille Allerat, Julie Roset and Ana Vieira Leite have wanted to tell stories about women, women who are courageous, vulnerable, passionate, powerful, secretive - and sometimes all of these at once. Le Coeur et la Raison imagines the fate of a young noblewoman sent to the Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr, where she received a meticulous education, particularly in music; she took part in services and sang works by it's organist Louis-Nicolas Clerambault (1676-1749) - including his magnificent Miserere - and by Jean-Francois Lalouette (1651-1728), a pupil of Lully. When she returned to her family, however, she sang the melodies of fashionable court airs, which she then shared with her fellow students at Saint-Cyr, to the great disapproval of the religious authorities. She and her colleagues then rewrote the song texts transforming the declarations of love into statements of faith. Today, these three friends and artists present an emotionally charged programme, accompanied by a first-rate instrumental trio.

A unique achievement in Jean-Philippe Collard's discography, this piano programme devoted to Busoni's transcriptions of Bach's organ works is the result of a deep desire and represents a great accomplishment. Jean-Philippe Collard has been driven by three objectives : to immerse himself in Bach's organ music, to which he has always been attached; to reconnect this passion back to a youth nourished by the great sacred works of the Cantor; and to pay tribute to his musician father, who instilled this culture in him and continues to inspire him today. There is also the ambition of creating an innovative project, outside of the repertoires that have established his talent, following some sixty recordings, and at the height of an artistic career that calls for a form of synthesis, not of his career, but of a family history with the piano, of which Bach seems to him to be the greatest common denominator. The accomplishment is therefore multifaceted. Firstly, it is a sound that fully satisfies the performer, whose memories of organ works are enhanced by the breadth they acquire on the piano thanks to Busoni. It also embodies the very idea of recording itself, to which this extraordinary pianistic material gives, more than anything else, it's justification, according to Jean-Philippe Collard. For him, it is still a matter of perfecting the pianistic gesture, through an almost physiological notion of harmony between the writing and the music that is etched into the hand. Finally, it is the pianistic skill that this programme displays, serving the pleasure of a sound craftsman who feels that he has come full circle. What more could one ask for, he ponders. Borrowing from organ terminology, the expression 'full organ' here symbolically expresses the notion of plenitude and the magnitude of a total pianistic undertaking.

Following his recent heroic Met debut as Hermann in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, Arsen Soghomonyan makes his solo recording debut for Delos. A fast-rising figure in the dramatic repertoire, the Armenian tenor has enjoyed success at major opera houses such as Bayerische Staatsoper, Teatro di San Carlo, Bolshoi Theatre and Staatsoper Wien. In his album Bridges of Voice and Soul, Arsen lends his powerful voice to some of the greatest Italian arias; "Nessun dorma" and "E lucevan le stelle" by Puccini, Verdi's "Niun mi tema" and "Vesti la giubba" by Leoncavallo are some of the delights that comprise this operatic feast, enlivened by the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra and conductor Constantine Orbelian.

RossoPorpora made it's Arcana debut with an album dedicated to Luca Marenzio, which received widespread critical acclaim, including the German Record Critics' Award, Classic Voice's Disc of the Month, a Diapason rating of 5, and five-star reviews from Musica and Amadeus. It was described as "magnificent" by Early Music Review and hailed as "a desert island disc" by Forum Opera. Now, with it's second album, the ensemble turns to one of the cornerstones of 17th-century music: Claudio Monteverdi's Sixth Book of Madrigals. In a deeply immersive exploration of the composer's inner world during his final years in Mantua, RossoPorpora delivers a profoundly moving interpretation of the many masterpieces contained in the collection-Lamento d'Arianna, Lagrime d'Amante sul sepolcro dell'Amata, Zefiro torna, Oime 'l bel viso, Qui rise o Tirsi-which together mark one of the highest achievements in the history of the madrigal.

Edward Cowie is one of the most notable voices in contemporary music and considered by many to be the "leading contemporary composer of music that is related to the natural world" (Fanfare). A remarkable polymath, Cowie is renowned as a composer, visual artist, and natural scientist. Because They Have Songs is the fourth in Cowie's epic series of duo-works featuring cycles of stunning 'sonic portraits' of birds he has encountered on his travels across the world, exploring the relationships between the bird singers, and where and how they sing. It follows three highly acclaimed releases featuring birds of the UK (Bird Portraits MSV 28619), Australia (Where Song Was Born MSV 28620) and the US (Where the Wood Thrush Forever Sings MEX 77104), each highlighting 24 distinct bird species. This latest release, the fifteenth to feature his music on the Metier label, is devoted to 24 avian wonders of Africa. The title of the album is taken from a traditional African text which says, "Why do birds sing? Because they have songs". Edward Cowie went on safari to remote parts of Botswana, across dense bush and open plains where giraffe, wildebeest, zebra and antelope roam, through vast wetlands, majestic rivers and lakes, and shrub-dotted deserts. On his journey he sketched what he saw (included in the album booklet) and transcribed the natural sounds of insects, the noises of animals in movement, and the magnificent and powerful voices of African birds in all their moods and colours. The result is a vibrant and awe-inspiring interweaving of not only the sounds of singing creatures but also the rich environment in which they sing. The album has revelatory performances from Gerard McChrystal, justly hailed as a "magician" on saxophone, partnered with Richard Shaw's superb craftsmanship on piano, a comprehensive coupling of technique and imagination. Cowie's earlier albums in the bird song sonic portrait series received resounding praise worldwide and are poised to become iconic chamber masterpieces on the global stage: "You may well be thinking 'but Messiaen has already done it'. But Cowie's approach is gentler, almost more loving." -MusicWeb "imaginative, captivating and really very moving" -The Strad "Cowie is an endlessly inventive composer and this is a treat" -BBC Music Magazine

As the founding father of Finnish music, Jean Sibelius is the measure of all things to such an extent that an outside observer may easily miss the abundance of talented masters who also practiced the art of composition quite successfully in the land of a thousand lakes. One of them was Erkki Melartin. Not ten years younger than the composer of Finlandia, he also left us a significant oeuvre that repeatedly begs a comparison to his older colleague - of course, it is a comparison whose results are subject to debate. To be fair, we can discover a phrase here or there that reminds us of Sibelius; occasionally, some of Mahler's vocabulary may have sneaked in as well; but the persona whose legacy is six mighty symphonies has blazed his own independent trail away from the Romantic tradition, leading us relentlessly to an unheard cosmos.

In the first of several projects for Fuga Libera, Spanish double bassist Uxia Martinez Botana invites us to hear Mendelssohn as never before. By placing her instrument at the heart of the string quartet and replacing the traditional cello, she opens up a world of unexpected textures and emotional depth. Her brilliant career as a soloist and as principal double bass of Kremerata Baltica (at just 23) and the Weinberger Kammerorchester makes her the natural instigator of this innovative ensemble. Together with three exceptional musicians, she reshapes the balance of the ensemble with subtlety and imagination while remaining faithful to the spirit of the music. From the warmth of Mendelssohn's joyful moments to the raw power of his grief, the double bass becomes both foundation and voice. This is not only a tribute to a great composer, it is also an artistic statement, offering a fresh lens on this beloved repertoire, and a moving exploration of how tradition can evolve without losing it's soul.

Metier presents a landmark 4-disc box set from pianist�Ian Pace�in commanding performances of music by composer�Michael Finnissy (b. 1946). Finnissy is widely regarded as one of Britain's most important living composers. Pace, one of the leading interpreters of Finnissy's work, presents an album focused around Finnissy's epic cycle for piano, the Verdi Transcriptions, alongside the second complete recording (after the composer's own) of the iconic English Country-Tunes, and works inspired by music of the late-18th and 19th. The result is a broad view of Finnish's extensive output of piano music in relation to romantic aesthetics. The album is released in anticipation of the Metier label's upcoming celebrations of Michael Finnissy's 80th birthday in 2026. Finnissy's four-book cycle of Verdi Transcriptions re-imagines Verdi's operas through a modern lens. As Finnissy states in his liner notes, "Transcribing sound into a written form (notation) involves making significant choices. The choices can colour the ongoing exploration of that sound as 'composition'." The result of those choices is a monumental, late-Romantic epic. Finnissy's English Country-Tunes has long been considered one of his signature and most technically demanding cycles. There is a similar line of composition through transcription as the Verdi Transcriptions, only in these works, the source material is English folk music. Written in celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee, the work work can also be seen as a commentary on the spirit of British patriotism at the time. Ian Pace's readings reflect decades of study: he first performed�English Country-Tunes�in the 1990s and has played Finnissy's complete piano oeuvre in cycles (1996 and 2016). The set includes extensive liner notes by both Pace and Finnissy, offering rare insight into the compositional ideas and performance choices behind these demanding works. In Pace's recording of Michael Finnissy's other epic piano cycle, The History of Photography in Sound (MSV 77501), BBC Music raved, "Pace's intimate acquaintance with the totality of History is apparent in his commanding performance... this is a magnificent achievement for both composer and performer," and Gramophone hailed Pace ass "Finnissy's David Bailey, each note shaded to perfection, structures translucently and sharply lit, defining sonic images of our time."

The reconstruction of the compositional chronology of Georg Friedrich Handel's repertoire for flute is extremely complex. There are various reasons for this, stemming from two essential factors: on the one hand, the typical tendency for much of Handel's music to transmigrate from one instrument to another and the consequent impossibility, at times, of determining precisely which version of a particular piece is the original; on the other hand, the proliferation, at a time when no copyright regulations existed, of diverse printed editions. Many of these, unauthorised, generated different versions, errors or misinterpretations, which were possibly also passed on over time. For this CD recording, which features a substantial part of the complete corpus of the sonatas for recorder and transverse flute, we compared the two earliest printed versions containing sonatas for solo instrument by Handel. Both were published by the London publisher Walsh, although for a long time the first of the two editions was attributed to the Amsterdam publisher Roger, but then, thanks to the studies of Terence Best and David Lasocki, it turned out to be a 'pirate' publication by the same publisher Walsh (who probably had not yet obtained Handel's permission to publish).

This Ondine debut album by the award-winning Lithuanian mezzo-soprano Justina Gringyte, one of the foremost rising stars of the opera world, and pianist Malcolm Martineau is her first solo album and the complete recording of Georges Bizet's (1838-1875) long-forgotten masterpiece, Vingt Melodies (20 Songs), Op. 21. Year 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of the death of Bizet, one of the greatest French composers of all time. During his short career of little more than twenty years Bizet composed a substantial quantity of music, including 15 operas. Bizet has been compared with Mozart in his sensitivity to the human voice and understanding of it's expressive potential. Several of Bizet's operas predate his twenty songs Opus 21, written between 1854 and 1872. Anyone new to these songs, a collection including many masterpieces, may wonder how music of such consistent quality could be so neglected! Clearly, they must be ranked among Bizet's most representative works.

On the path to true faith and it's practice to please God, there have been regular heated debates over the role of music. Reactionaries repeatedly closed the lid on excessive cheer. This was also the case in the Netherlands of the 17th century. The reformist spirit of the Frenchman John Calvin led to an almost complete ban of music during worship services, despite the fact that the psalms of David ("Sing unto the Lord") provide unassailable proof to the contrary. Shortly before 1600, the great Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck discovered how these psalms could be, and were permitted to be, set to new music. The "Orpheus of Amsterdam" succeeded in transforming imposed restrictions into acoustic wonders. Our small selection of psalms, alternating with several organ works, proves once again the victory of the spirit over heavy subject matter

SOMM Recordings is immensely proud to present newly restored releases of Siegfried Wagner (1869-1930) conducting the music of his father, Richard Wagner (1813-1883). These recordings of the younger Wagner leading the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, the Berlin State Opera Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra were made soon after the introduction of the electrical recording process in April 1925. The painstaking audio restoration of these recordings by long-time SOMM collaborator, Lani Spahr, has been so expertly and stunningly achieved that it is difficult to believe they come from a century ago. Siegfried Wagner was named for the young hero in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle and immortalized in the Siegfried Idyll, included on this release. He was born to Richard Wagner and his future wife, Cosima (nee�Liszt), on 6 June 1869. Although Siegfried considered following a profession outside music (and, as a youth, studied architecture in Berlin and in Karlsruhe), it was inevitable that he would follow a career in music given the lineage of both his parents and his grandfather, Franz Liszt. In addition to receiving instruction in music from Liszt, the thirteen-year-old Siegfried began his advanced musical studies in Frankfurt with Engelbert Humperdinck, a true disciple of Richard Wagner. Siegfried became an assistant at Bayreuth in 1892, immersing himself in his father's music under the strong influence of Cosima Wagner and the conductor Hans Richter. In 1895, he made his debut at Bayreuth conducting a complete Ring cycle. The debut was a considerable artistic success, and Siegfried's future as the true guardian of the Wagner inheritance was assured, as he took a greater share in the direction of the Bayreuth Festival. With Cosima's full endorsement, Siegfried assumed the general directorship from his mother in 1908. Siegfried's busy professional life was devoted in the main to Bayreuth in the 1920s, but it was also during this time that he began a recording career devoted almost exclusively to his father's and his own works. Apart from his evident qualities as a conductor of his father's music-heard here in the recorded legacy he left of his performances at Bayreuth and in Berlin and London-he was equally keen to establish himself as a composer. The first of his twelve completed operas, Der Barenhauter (Bearskin) inspired by the German fairytale, met with public and critical acclaim when it was produced in 1899. The acoustic recording of the overture is heard here. Among the Richard Wagner works conducted by Siegfried Wagner on this historic release are well-known selections from Das Rheingold and Die Walkure from the Ring Cycle. Also included are a suite from Parsifal and selections from Tannhauser, Lohengrin, and Tristan und Isolde.

Following his first album of French lute music, Alban Tixier invites us to join him as he explores the byways of European music dating from the 13th to the 15th century.

'No!' exclaims Nunciata, the stubborn Corsican grandmother, when she is begged to put an end to the vendetta between her family, the Fabiani, and their enemies, the Pietra Nera clan. Set against a backdrop of tragic deaths, voracious lust for vengeance and passionate love at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, this 'lyric drama' composed by Saint-Saens in 1906 was premiered at the Opera de Monte-Carlo and dedicated to Prince Albert I, who had commissioned it. Saint-Saens demonstrates here the full range of his style, interweaving Debussyan chords, melodic lines a la Massenet and aggressive rhythms worthy of Prokofiev. Above all, he displays a feel for the theatre eminently characteristic of French opera, and one can only imagine how successful this score would be if it found it's way back onto the stage. It was not without reason that after it's triumphant premiere in Monte Carlo, L'Ancetre was staged in several cities in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany, as well as Algiers (February 1911) and Cairo (February 1912), before two further performances in March 1915 in the theatre where it had come into existence.