Donizetti's Don Pasquale is one of a triumvirate of 19th-century Italian opere buffe - L'elisir d'amore and Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia being the others - that continue to enchant the world's stages. Don Pasquale represents the high point of the opera buffa tradition, employing figures taken from commedia dell'arte - the blustering old man, his lovesick nephew, the wily widow and the scheming doctor - and brings new life to the genre in this beautifully constructed comic opera full of cabalettas, cadenzas and coloratura, gently tinged with melancholy. This production employs a new critical edition of the work and stars the seasoned baritone Roberto de Candia in the central role, alongside Giulia Mazzola as Norina.

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.

Donizetti's Don Pasquale is one of a triumvirate of 19th-century Italian opere buffe - L'elisir d'amore and Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia being the others - that continue to enchant the world's stages. Don Pasquale represents the high point of the opera buffa tradition, employing figures taken from commedia dell'arte - the blustering old man, his lovesick nephew, the wily widow and the scheming doctor - and brings new life to the genre in this beautifully constructed comic opera full of cabalettas, cadenzas and coloratura, gently tinged with melancholy. This production employs a new critical edition of the work and stars the seasoned baritone Roberto de Candia in the central role, alongside Giulia Mazzola as Norina.

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

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.

The 21st edition of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, dedicated to the piano, came to a close on Saturday 31 May 2025 in a packed Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, pulsing with the energy of the twelve finalists. A flagship event on the Belgian and international music scene, the Competition highlights exceptional young artists every year. The 2025 4-volume collection gathers the most striking moments from this edition. First Prize winner Nikola Meeuwsen succeeds Jonathan Fournel, Lukas Vondracek, Boris Giltburg, Denis Kozhukhin, and Anna Vinnitskaya. He shines here in Prokofiev's Concerto No. 2, accompanied by the Brussels Philharmonic under the baton of Kazushi Ono, as well as in Mendelssohn's Variations serieuses. Other orchestral performances on the album include: Rachmaninov's Concerto No. 3 by Valere Burnon (Third Prize, VRT Canvas-Klara audience prize and Musiq3 Prize), Brahms' Concerto No. 2 by Wataru Hisasue (Second Prize), and Schumann's Concerto by Arthur Hinnewinkel (Fourth Prize). The collection closes with Mozart's Concerto No. 27 performed by Jiaxin Min, accompanied by the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie conducted by Vahan Mardirossian. A prominent place is given to solo and contemporary repertoire: the two compulsory works, Music for the Heart by Kris Defoort - performed by Yuki Yoshimi - and Two Studies by Ana Sokolovic - by Shiori Kuwahara - precede Liszt's Reminiscences de Norma by Masaya Kamei (Fifth Prize) and Brahms' Sonata No. 1 by Sergey Tanin (Sixth Prize), recorded at Flagey. A vibrant testimony to this unforgettable edition, to be discovered and rediscovered with each listen.

As a boy, Francesco Cavalli was a member of San Marco Basilica's Chapel, then directed by Claudio Monteverdi, from whom he probably received tuition. In time Cavalli's fame as an operatic composer spread across Europe and he succeeded Monteverdi in San Marco to reach the apex of success in Venice. He also wrote sacred music, published in two great printed collections. The first collection, published in 1656, contains his Missa a 8 voci Concertata, an imposing and magnificent work of exceptional complexity for eight soloists, two four-voiced choirs and many instrumentalists. In this recording it is performed in the context of an All Saints' Day liturgy by Ensemble Locatelli, directed by Cavalli scholar, Bruno Gini.

Bauer's song cycle Afterimages. A progression for voice and piano takes up Schoeck's cycle Nachhall, op. 70 and transfers it to the present day. Immediately after each song by Othmar Schoeck follows the corresponding progression by Michael Emanuel Bauer. Bauer's adaptation does not stop at the texts by Matthias Claudius and Nikolaus Lenau. In the tradition of Raymond Queneau and the Oulipo group, the texts are deconstructed in a formal-lettristic manner and reassembled.

On 5 September 1723, Emperor Charles VI, the father of his legendary successor Maria Theresia, was crowned King of Bohemia in St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. After this magnificent ceremony had already gone on for several hours, the Golden City held a series of festivities that one can hardly imagine today. Among other things, a new work by the Vienna court composer Francesco Conti was performed. The serenata Il Trionfo della Fama, in which the goddess of fame (and rumour) celebrates the ruler of the world together with all parts of the earth known at the time. His Majesty was surely greatly pleased by the one-act opera. With timpani and trumpets, sprinkled with glorious arias for the allegorical figures representing the emperor's character traits, the "Triumph of the Goddess of Fame" has not lost anything of it's entertaining impact even three hundred years after it's premiere.

CORO: inspired by Luciano Berio's 31-song composition of the same name, George de Decker painted a cycle of 31 canvases. The key sentence Berio took as his starting point comes from a poem by Pablo Neruda: 'Venid a ver la sangre por las calles' (Come and see the blood in the streets) - a caustic reference to General Pinochet's seizure of power in Chile in 1973. For the exhibition of this cycle of paintings, de Decker wrote a composition for female voices. On the soundtrack, he incorporated vocal recordings of Els Van Laethem, Anne Marie Honggokoesoemo and Herlinde Ghekiere. At the request of pianist Geert Callaert, he added a piano part, so that CORO ultimately became a composition for solo piano, with a soundtrack with female voices. CORO is preceded by two new scores in the same sound idiom.

Henriette Bosmans' mother was a pianist and her father played principal cello in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw Orchestra, so it is no wonder that both of these instruments were lasting influences on her musical thinking and sensibilities. Her friendship with cellists Marix Loevensohn and Frieda Belinfante did the rest to guide this Dutch composer's imagination towards the expressive possibilities of the "little violone". In addition to various pieces of chamber music, the somewhat Iberian-spiced Poeme as well as two concertos were written in the early 1920s. Despite their relative proximity in time, Henriette Bosmans succeeded in not repeating herself. The works are marked by imaginative forms, wildly varied tasks demanded of the soloist and a sophisticated treatment of the orchestra. Despite these works' success, they had disappeared into the annals of history for far too long.

Indeed, Vienna is so rich in composers [...], that it is but just to allow it to be, among German cities, the imperial seat of music, as well as of power. Sir Charles Burney, the famous observer of European music, was quite correct. This city on the Danube was bubbling over with talents and masters who all made their livelihood there. This included Johann Baptist Wanhal, one of the innumerable Bohemians that tried their luck in the shadow of the court palace. He contributed many beautiful pieces to his preferred medium of instrumental music. The small selection of the present production alone well demonstrates that Wanhal was able to hold his own in the symphonic genre next to Joseph Haydn, who was seven years his senior. Subtle orchestral colours, a fine sense for dramatic events, especially in the minor keys, and striking melodies are characteristic of the creations that were enjoyed not only in the old imperial city.

In this debut album, baritone Jonas Muller and the Tomasi Musso Guitar Duo have recorded Schubert's Winterreise. The arrangement for two guitars creates a special new three-dimensional chamber music constellation, which certainly demands a different approach to singing from the singer, who must now internalise what the piano used to bring out. This is particularly in keeping with the idea that Winterreise is not simply a collection of songs composed by a travelling French horn player, but that the existential encounter between the stranger and the hurdy-gurdy man gives rise to new songs that have never been heard before and can only be sung together.

While cpo is currently preparing a box set with all of Austrian composer Egon Wellesz' nine symphonies, the Aron Quartet has begun recording a cycle of his string quartets. This contemporary of Alban Berg and private pupil of Arnold Schoenberg had a remarkable life and career, both in that genre as well as in orchestral music. His career began at the end of the post-Romantic period, whose signs of harmonic dissolution could no longer be overheard, but whose Romanticism was expounded upon in all of it's autumnal charm. Later, we witness a constructive reorientation that reveals the strict architectural underpinnings of chamber music without compromise. The interplay, migrations and transformations of motifs, the shifting force fields between the individual voices, the dynamic urge to break new ground - all invite the listener to participate with intensity and fascination.

Alfonso Rendano was at the forefront of Italy's instrumental composition renaissance in the late 19th-century but remains less well known than his near-contemporaries Giovanni Sgambati and Giuseppe Martucci. He was also a prominent pianist who performed with the illustrious violinist Joseph Joachim. The rhapsodic Piano Concerto, recorded here for the first time in it's original edition, was premiered in a version for two pianos in which the composer was joined by Franz Liszt who called it 'a vigorous, remarkable work, one I greatly appreciate'. The Allegro in A minor was rediscovered in 1969 and dates from Rendano's artistic maturity. The Piano Concerto is performed in Vito Cristofaro's edition and performed by him with Rendano's leading contemporary exponent, Daniela Roma.