Fantasymphony II - A Concert of Fire and Magic, a must-have for all fantasy fans, available on Blu-ray, CD and digital (also in Dolby Atmos). The hit concert Fantasymphony is back. Rejoice in epic music from the greatest fantasy movies, series and games. The Danish National Symphony Orchestra opens the gates to the magic worlds. From The Lord of The Rings, Game of Thrones, The Hobbit, The Witcher, Skyrim, League of Legends, and many more. Fantasymphony II features spectacular music and lighting effects. Conductor Christian Schumann is a recognized specialist for film music - "A shining star of the new German conductor generation" - Neue Zuricher Zeitung

Fantasymphony II - A Concert of Fire and Magic, a must-have for all fantasy fans, available on Blu-ray, CD and digital (also in Dolby Atmos). The hit concert Fantasymphony is back. Rejoice in epic music from the greatest fantasy movies, series and games. The Danish National Symphony Orchestra opens the gates to the magic worlds. From The Lord of The Rings, Game of Thrones, The Hobbit, The Witcher, Skyrim, League of Legends, and many more. Fantasymphony II features spectacular music and lighting effects. Conductor Christian Schumann is a recognized specialist for film music - "A shining star of the new German conductor generation" - Neue Zuricher Zeitung

Debussy & Strauss is the first album to be released on the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's own record label, in partnership with LSO Live. For this debut recording, the MSO and conductor Jaime Martin are joined by outstanding Australian soprano Siobhan Stagg, the MSO's 2023 Artist in Residence. Together, they present two song cycles from opposite ends of life, exploring loves with vastly different essences. Debussy and Strauss inhabit such different musical worlds that it comes almost as a surprise to see them side by side and recognize they were members of the same generation. The fact that Debussy was more overtly modern in his work while Strauss was much longer lived-still writing halfway into the 20th century-reminds us that music history is a tangle of human lives and not a neat progression of movements and styles. Debussy's Ariettes oubliees (Forgotten Songs) is a 24-year-old's depiction of first love, the kind of thing that feels unbearably important at the time, but inevitably stumbles toward breakup and fades into the past. Strauss' Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) is an 84-year-old's last word on a nearly 55-year marriage that ended only in death.

In the late 1980s, William Christie and Les Arts Florissants recorded galvanizing versions of two masterpieces of early English opera: Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and The Fairy Queen. These two seminal interpretations are now available again, coupled for the first time in a single boxed set.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Get ready to enjoy music from the Indiana Jones films, The Mummy, Angels and Demons, The Adventures of Tintin and Lawrence of Arabia with music by John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Hans Zimmer and many more.

Get ready to enjoy music from the Indiana Jones films, The Mummy, Angels and Demons, The Adventures of Tintin and Lawrence of Arabia with music by John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Hans Zimmer and many more.

This is the complete video release of Brahms' chamber music with several reference recordings. Moreover, the 16 hours of SD-quality video materials presented here on a single Blu-ray disc are equivalent to about eight standard DVD releases. This edition features great performances by today's most outstanding artists showcasing their thrilling artistry in inimitable performances. A must for any Brahms aficionado!

CD + Blu-ray edition. In celebration of their 20th Anniversary, ground-breaking classical crossover group Il Divo, perform a very special evening of music at the Taipei Music Center, Taiwan. Delivering timeless pop classics and traditional standards, Il Divo raise the bar, reinforcing their status as performers and vocal power-houses. Comprising Urs Buhler (tenor) of Switzerland, Sebastien Izambard (tenor) of France, David Miller (tenor) of America, and new member Steven LaBrie (baritone) of America, the quartet present a truly cinematic musical experience that will remain a bench mark in audio visual performance for decades to come. Complementing the music, Il Divo also document the first 20 years of their career, set against the modern cosmopolitan metropolis of Taipei, as they take us through the journey so far and future aspirations. Presented in glorious 4k video and 5.1 audio.

In celebration of their 20th Anniversary, ground-breaking classical crossover group Il Divo, perform a very special evening of music at the Taipei Music Center, Taiwan. Delivering timeless pop classics and traditional standards, Il Divo raise the bar, reinforcing their status as performers and vocal power-houses. Comprising Urs Buhler (tenor) of Switzerland, Sebastien Izambard (tenor) of France, David Miller (tenor) of America, and new member Steven LaBrie (baritone) of America, the quartet present a truly cinematic musical experience that will remain a bench mark in audio visual performance for decades to come. Complementing the music, Il Divo also document the first 20 years of their career, set against the modern cosmopolitan metropolis of Taipei, as they take us through the journey so far and future aspirations. Presented in glorious 4k video and 5.1 audio.

CD + DVD. Jonas Kaufmann's latest album brings together two of Schumann's most profound song cycles-Dichterliebe and Kerner-Lieder-performed with exceptional sensitivity and vocal finesse. Accompanied by pianist and long-term collaborator Helmut Deutsch, Kaufmann explores the emotional and poetic nuances of these Romantic masterpieces. These works are complemented by "Doppelganger", a strikingly original stage adaptation of Schubert's Schwanengesang (Swan Songs), directed by Claus Guth. This production reimagines the cycle through a contemporary theatrical lens, adding a powerful visual and narrative dimension to Schubert's final songs. As a special bonus, the release includes six previously unreleased recordings from Kaufmann's private archive: selections from Dichterliebe recorded in 1994 during his student years. The DVD features the acclaimed theatrical production of Doppelganger, directed by Claus Guth and staged at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. Taking it's name from the final song, "Der Doppelganger"-in which a soldier confronts the haunting realization that he did not survive the war-this Armory commission poignantly explores the longing for life's beauty and the idea that death is not an abrupt end, but a final, reflective journey.

The Estonian composer Mihkel Kerem - born in Tallinn in 1981 and Joint Assistant Leader in the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra since 2015 - used the Covid lockdown to produce no fewer than four symphonies, two of them, his Seventh and Eighth, conceived as a contrasting pair. Kerem's dark and ominous Seventh Symphony, like that of Sibelius, plots a huge sonata-form arch, growing from and back into it's opening material. It's soundworld sits somewhere between Sibelius and Schnittke, combining a sense of natural symphonic growth with dramatic twists of kaleidoscopic textural variety. No. 8, which also nods to Sibelius' Seventh by quoting it's celebrated trombone theme, is a vast, unhurried accelerando, it's three linked movements tapping into the Nordic-Baltic tradition of using the controlled power of the orchestra to suggest the vastness of nature.

Since 1822 the Royal Academy of Music has inspired generations of musicians to connect; collaborate and create. This recording of Bach Partitas continues this mission; reuniting renowned harpsichordist and conductor Trevor Pinnock with students from the Royal Academy of Music and The Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory in Toronto. Following the success of Goldberg Variations (arr. for small orchestra by Józef Koffler); the Principal of the Academy; Jonathan Freeman-Attwood commissioned ‘re-imaginings’ of three of Bach’s most celebrated keyboard Partitas for the same scoring; by alumnus composer Thomas Oehler. The creative challenge – to bring a fresh perspective to some of Bach’s most elegant resourceful and refined keyboard writing – pays off in the hands of wonderfully talented musicians; and reveals how Oehler’s faithful response to Bach’s score allows the music to glow as brightly as ever.

With this album, fittingly entitled Traum der Jugend, the young musicians of Kebyart see a longstanding dream come true. Drawn by its eagerness to reveal new soundworlds, the saxophone quartet has interwoven works from different epochs and given them a new, unconventional guise through its own arrangements. Taking Jörg Widmann’s 7 Capricci as a starting point – a work specially written for the quartet which sparked the idea of this recording – Kebyart draws a myriad of musical connections that journey from Felix Mendelssohn, one of Widmann’s favourite composers, to Johann Sebastian Bach, himself a source of inspiration to Mendelssohn. The programme culminates with a tribute to Fanny Mendelssohn, whose skilful compositions played a key role in developing the musical personality of her brother Felix.

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra has long been known for championing British contemporary music and, following two albums entirely dedicated to Thomas Wilson, the orchestra now turns to other leading composers of the contemporary scene. Devised by conductor Rory Macdonald, the programme includes works that share the themes of loss, love and life: Jay Capperauld's Our Gilded Veins takes centre-stage, alongside Within Her Arms, Anna Clyne's 'fragile elegy' (The New Yorker), James MacMillan's legend-based The Death of Oscarand the commemorative For Zoe, Martin Suckling's Meditation (after Donne) - which features church bells from across Scotland - and Peter Maxwell Davies's Farewell to Stromness (in an arrangement for strings by Rosemary Furniss), which arguably features the composer's most recognisable tune.

The American critic Robert Reilly described the music on Volume One of this cycle of the complete string quartets of David Matthews (b. 1943) as 'some of the most concentrated, penetrating writing for this medium in the past 30 years or more. It is musical thinking of the highest order and quartet writing in the great tradition of Beethoven, Bartok, Britten, and Tippett'. The three works in this sixth volume of Matthews' complete string quartets cover a quarter of a century but share the same basic features, not least a mastery of counterpoint, an impassioned lyricism, a sublimated hint of folksong and occasionally a sly sense of humour, all deployed to touch something essential in the listener. Matthews begins his booklet note with this release by saluting 'my now nearly 30-year relationship with the Kreutzer Quartet, which has been as invaluable to me as Shostakovich's with the Beethoven Quartet, or Beethoven's with the Schuppanzigh Quartet'.

The Second Symphony of the Swiss composer Richard Flury (1896-1967) is deeply bound up with his personal life. In 1932 his first marriage broke up, and his wife and four children left Solothurn in the north to settle in Ticino, in the south. Through visits to his family in Lugano Flury grew to know the area well, so much so that he decided to celebrate their new surroundings in his Second Symphony, the movements of which are based on the carillon of the Flury family's local church and three Ticino folksongs. Structurally, the work belongs to the Brucknerian tradition, but it also has points of contact with the orchestral nature-painting of Flury's good friend Joseph Marx. The landscape of the Poeme nocturne is an interior one: it is an expansive dream-fantasy of occasionally violent passions, a worthy cousin of Richard Strauss' tone-poems.

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.

Johann Sebastian Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge, Bwv 1080

Gustav Mahler's Sixth Symphony is perhaps the darkest work he ever wrote-it's nickname is "The Tragic." And there is something almost destructive about the final movement. "But strangely enough," says Simon Rattle, "it is also a very classical symphony. Yes, it is extreme, but for long stretches it is less wild than other works of his-although of course it does convey a harrowing message. But it's like a lot of great works: there are always different ways of reading them. I've been conducting the Sixth for forty years now, and over time I've come to realise that it also contains hope." Mahler composed his Sixth Symphony during the summers of 1903 and 1904 at his "composer's cottage" in Maiernigg, near Klagenfurt. At the Vienna performance in 1907 (the third under his baton), he called it the "Tragic Symphony"-a nickname that soon became the stuff of legend. In particular, the darkness and devastating hopelessness of the finale-written at a time when he was at the high point of his life, both professionally and personally-are puzzling. Even his wife Alma could not quite explain the contradiction. As always, it was in and through music that Mahler came to terms with his experiences, exploring themes such as farewell, the meaning of existence, death, redemption, the afterlife, and love. More than other Mahler works, the Sixth Symphony is committed to "classical" symphonic form: it is in four movements and has no vocal parts. Despite all the liberties it takes, the opening movement follows sonata form. The Andante draws on the rondo form, as do the Scherzo and the Finale. Very unusually, even the Scherzo has march-like features and seems like a parodistic paraphrase of the opening, with a change of perspective. The march, which sets the tone from the very first note of the first movement, plays a major role.

The motet for solo voice and two dessus, usually two violins, and the cantata with instrumental accompaniment originated in Italy at the dawn of the 17th century. The genre was introduced to France by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and by travelling Italian musicians and rapidly became one of the key showpieces of Italian taste and style. The genre was deployed superbly in the early 18th century by two magnificent composers who were practically contemporaries: Andre Campra and Nicolas Bernier. Campra's natural attraction to Italian music is easily explained, as he was the son of an Italian doctor living in Aix-en-Provence and was also a pupil of the great Poitevin in the same city. Bernier, if we are to believe certain sources, was a pupil in Rome of the Venetian Antonio Caldara, one of the most important composers of his time.

Dazzling as the Queen of the Night, deeply moving in Lucia di Lammermoor and La Sonnambula, Natalie Dessay also made her mark on the operatic stage in the roles of Olympia, Manon, Musetta and Cleopatra. After training at the Atelier Lyrique de l'Opera National de Paris and pursuing an international operatic career, Natalie Dessay decided to devote herself to spoken theatre, chansons and the song repertory. The duo she formed in 2011 with her artistic partner Philippe Cassard has given one hundred and thirty-five performances around the world, completely reinventing the song recital as a unique moment of expression, embodiment and shared emotion. Ten years after her last appearance at the Opera Bastille in La Fille du regiment, she has chosen to give her farewell performance on the stage of the Palais Garnier on 31 March 2025. This is the last album from this legendary duo, a fitting way to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of one of the greatest sopranos of her generation.

Pierre Boulez's early ambitions to become a concert pianist provided the impetus to write piano music as a composition student at the Paris Conservatoire. The Theme et variations pour la main gauche and Trois Psalmodies reveal his extraordinary talent in their compelling mix of energy, drama and playfulness. Presenting these works alongside two later compositions provides a unique glimpse into the full arc of Boulez's musical journey. These pieces are powerful, their emotions raw and unfiltered, offering listeners a chance to experience the early foundations and mature reflections of a master composer.

Although it has been clearly established for which instruments the Musical Offering and the Art of Fugue were intended, the Musical Offering has continued to be the object of realisations for other instruments, such as Anton Webern's orchestrated version of the Ricercar a 6. Here Cindy Castillo marks the completion of a new organ in the German baroque style by Dominique Thomas in the church of Saint-Loup in Namur with her own realisation of this work, a monument to the late Baroque style.

Known in his lifetime as ‘the north German Schubert’, Carl Loewe (1796–1869) is remembered today chiefly as a composer of songs and ballads. Yet there is a considerable body of piano music that is strikingly innovative in content, expression and harmony, containing the germs of ideas later taken up by composers such as Wagner and Liszt. Loewe was unquestionably a brilliantly original talent, a major figure in ushering in the Romantic era – with the remarkable Four Fantasies of 1854 heard here ‘documenting’ in music the contemporary emigration of German families to the United States. This third volume of Linda Nicholson’s survey of his piano music on historical instruments concludes its first-ever complete recording on any kind of piano.

Their names were Laura, Livia, and Anna. Together, they were known in the late 1500's as the Tre Donne di Ferrara - the three ladies of Ferrara. Their ensemble was praised by contemporary poets and won highest renown throughout Italy and Germany. However, women were not supposed to become famous for their professional achievements. And so, one of them was murdered by her husband - a count - who went unpunished. Thus, this is a tale of revolutionary women ahead of their time, living in an era when women had no protections. In this album, it has been my pleasure to collaborate with three extraordinary ladies of today - named Amanda, Amanda, and Amanda. The Amandas and I are proud to offer this homage to the unstoppable Italian women who broke the glass ceiling in 1580. We hope that their brilliance and boldness resound through this recording.

At a time when castrati reigned on Europe's stages, a few composers dared to write for female voices. Vivaldi, Porpora, and Porta explored the subtleties of this repertoire to create some of the finest sacred music scores of their era. Marina Viotti revives this forgotten heritage, placing the power of her voice at the service of the rich and moving melodies gathered here. Accompanied by Andres Gabetta and the Orchestre de l'Opera Royal, between theatricality and sacredness, Marina Viotti accomplishes the feat of bringing back to life the golden age of 18th-century sacred music, while paying tribute to all the women who, through their art, embodied the soul of the masters.

The album features archival recordings of an outstanding Polish violinist and teacher associated for years with Hanover, Adam Kostecki, a musical heir of such great violinists as David Oistrakh, Isaac Stern and Nathan Milstein. There are also new recordings, showing two versions of Johann Sebastian Bach's famous Chaconne - traditional, for solo violin, and in the artist's own arrangement, with the accompanying viola acting as a harmonic basis. The remaining compositions on the album are well-known virtuoso pieces, in which the violinist is partnered by chamber orchestras from Sopot and Hanover, as well as by guitarist Carsten Petermann. The CD's leitmotif is the phenomenon of Bach's Chaconne, a timeless that can still be interpreted anew. The album takes the listener into the world of slightly forgotten performance aesthetics; it also allows us to admire the sound of an old Italian instrument and a mature interpretation of the Bach masterpiece, although full of passion and fresh.

Giulio Caccini played a decisive role in the birth of the solo madrigal. He not only accompanied himself as he sang them, but also formed the Concerto Caccini with his wife and children; this ensemble would go as far as to leave it's mark on the French court. This double album features some of Caccini's finest works as well as pieces by his two daughters Francesca and Settimia. It also provides the perfect opportunity for Scherzi Musicali to assemble some thirty instruments and to present the combinations of instruments used for the continuo group that developed around 1600.

Conductor Simon Crawford-Phillips leads the Västerås Sinfonietta on their new concept album; 'Scotland'. The principal work is Mendelssohn's famous 3rd Symphony; the 'Scottish'; coupled with two interesting contemporary works with strong bonds to Scotland: Helen Grime's "Elegiac Inflections"; and Peter Maxwell Davies' 'Strathclyde Concerto No. 10'.