Tenor Charles Castronovo celebrates his first Delos solo album with an all Verdi programme which showcases the composer's spellbinding use of theatrical devices. Noble Renegades offers a collection of complete scenes from operas such as Don Carlos, Luisa Miller and I Lombardi which encompass the emotional arc the protagonists experience as the story unfolds, very much epitomizing Verdi's vision of opera as a true "operatic theater". This album shows Verdi's profound influence on Charles's career, featuring roles he has performed all over the world. He is accompanied by "the singer's dream collaborator" Constantine Orbelian and his Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra. Distinguished singers Kristin Sampson, Tomas Pavilionis and Tadas Girininkas, as well as the Kaunas State Choir join in.

Ilya Shmukler was the winner of the prestigios Geza Anda Competition in Zurich in 2024. On this album he presents a broad variety of composers and musical styles.

Anatolijus senderovas, one of the most interesting voices in Lithuanian music, passed away in 2019. This production presents all the string trios by the composer, who was awarded the European Composer Prize in 2002. Senderovas had a lifelong friendship with cellist David Geringas, who can be heard here as cellist of the Grand Trio Vilnius. The piano trios represent the most important phases of senderovas' work: Beginning with Piano Trio No. 1, which the 26-year-old wrote while still under the influence of Dmitri Shostakovich's music, to the late works "Song and Dance" and "Pages from a forgotten book," which reveal a composer who has grappled intensively with the roots of his Jewish heritage.

The popularity of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik is a testament to the work's unique elegance and refinement, maintaining it's status as one of the most popular pieces in the classical canon. The transformational skills that resulted in this masterpiece have their roots in Mozart's adolescent travels where he assimilated various musical traditions. Also featured are the three delightfully original Divertimenti, K. 136-38, which are a celebration of Mozart's experiences in Italy and a prelude to the musical treasures to follow.

For this album, Narek Hakhnazaryan has selected works that showcase the characteristics of cello playing: it's tonal warmth, emotional depth and versatility. The interplay of original works and arrangements has resulted in a program that sees the cello as a unifying voice - inspired by the figure of the medieval minstrel in Glasunov's Chant du menestrel Op.71.

Around the central work of the CD, the "Friedenskonzert" by Daan Manneke, Gudrun Sidonie Otto, soprano, and the cathedral organist of the Basel Minster, Andreas Liebig, present a very multifaceted and expressive programme. The "Friedenskonzert" is part of the Baseler Psalms, which were commissioned for the millennium celebrations of the Basel Minster. In the programme, it is framed by two chorale arrangements on the Lutheran chorale "Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir", one by Johann Sebastian Bach, the other by Max Reger. Furthermore, Gudrun Sidonie Otto sings two extremely demanding works, "Aus den Visionen der Hildegard von Bingen" by Sofia Gubaidulina and "Djamila Boupach�" by Luigi Nono. The whole programme is framed by two of the most important works of organ music, Bach's Fantasia et Fuga g-minor, BWV 542 and the organ sonata "Der 94. Psalm" by Julius Reubke, both masterly played at the organ of the Basel Minster by Andreas Liebig.

The fact that Niels Wilhelm Gade became famous as a composer primarily for his symphonic and concertante music is probably one of the reasons why his piano music, despite being widely published in print during his lifetime, has been relegated to the shadows. Marie-Luise Bodendorff presents a selection of Gade's piano works here, which makes it clear that we should revise our image of Gade.

Since his student days, the German-Taiwanese pianist Marcel Mok has hardly studied any other work as frequently and intensively as Bach's Goldberg Variations BWV 988. It was therefore only logical not only to conclude his studies with this variation cycle, but also to make his recording debut with it. The result of this exploration absolutely proves him right!

SOMM Recordings is delighted to build upon it's critically acclaimed discography with violinist, Adrian Butterfield, and the London Handel Players in a new collaboration featuring the Op. 7 set of six Violin Concertos by the French violinist-composer, Jean-Marie Leclair. The London Handel Players, praised by the New York Times for their "soulful depth" and "consummate skill and musicianship," have previously released five Handel discs with SOMM, along with recordings that celebrate Geminiani, J.S. Bach, and Telemann. The group's co-founder and director, period-instrument violinist Adrian Butterfield, has been described as "a marvel" by Gramophone for his recordings of Leclair's first three books of violin sonatas. The solo concerto emerged in Italy in the early 18th century through composers like Torelli, Albinoni and, particularly, Vivaldi. J.S. Bach acquired a copy of Vivaldi's popular set of twelve concertos, L'Estro Armonico, to transcribe and study, and he put his own stamp on concerto writing with works that are larger in scale, making use of more detailed contrapuntal development and a greater degree of harmonic variety. When Jean-Marie Leclair met an untimely death on 23 October, 1764 in a still-unsolved murder in Paris, he left behind a stellar reputation as the founder of the French violin school, along with a collection of works for violin that includes four volumes�of solo violin sonatas and two volumes of violin concertos; his Op. 7, heard here, and Op. 10, to follow in the near future. These virtuosic and elegant violin concertos are something of an amalgam of the Italian concerto style and of Bach's formalistic innovations. Leclair was born in Lyon in 1697, and his dream was to become a solo violinist in his own country. But, at this time in France, violin playing was the province of country fiddlers and orchestral players, while the viol was the chosen instrument for the French upper classes. When the Italian violinist-composer, Arcangelo Corelli, published his iconic set of Op. 5 sonatas in 1700, no French violinist was equipped with the technique to perform them. Having spent a year studying dance and composition in the Italian city of Turin, Leclair moved to Paris, where he soon published his first set of twelve violin sonatas. For a couple of years, he commuted between Paris and Turin in order to study with a former student of Corelli's, and, over the course of two decades, published three more sets of sonatas, along with the two sets of violin concertos. The concertos are justly celebrated for their blend of French elegance and Italian virtuosity, reflecting not only Leclair's skill as a renowned violinist, but also his background, which drew on a variety of Europe's national styles. In the early 1910s, Holst became interested in astrology, and he conceived the idea of a suite for orchestra based on the solar system's individual planets. Originally, he composed�The Planets on the piano, using the instrument in his newly-built, sound-proofed room in the music wing at St Paul's Girls School as well as the piano at his home in Thaxted. This version for four hands, two pianos was scored by two of his colleagues at St Paul's, Vally Lasker and Nora Day, who acted as amanuenses, because Holst suffered intermittently from painful neuritis in his right hand. Following the resounding success of the orchestrated version of The Planets, the original piano duet score was overlooked, though it was eventually published separately in 1949-51. In 1979, Holst's daughter, Imogen, reissued the complete two-piano arrangement in one volume, and Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman perform this version here. Elgar's renown was such that, at the height of his fame, several established musicians were commissioned by publishers to make piano transcriptions of his orchestral music. This was no mean feat, given that Elgar's scores are scrupulously marked as to how he wanted every phrase-sometimes even every bar or note within that phrase-to be played. It was the composer, arranger, and conductor, Otto Singer II, who made the transcription for piano four-hands of Elgar's 1905 Introduction and Allegro, scored originally for solo string quartet and string orchestra. Singer's insight and skill are evident in techniques like transferring string double-stopping to spread keyboard chords, and his piano four-hands version is admirably true to Elgar's evolving contrapuntal and harmonic ideas. In Victorian England, the marriage of a tradesman's son to the daughter of a Major-General in the British Army, who was eight years his senior, might not have appeared a perfect match. Yet, the marriage of Edward Elgar and Caroline Alice Roberts turned out to be a love-match. In 1888, as a wedding present, Edward presented to Carice, as he called her, Salut d'Amour. This enduring melody has inspired numerous arrangements for widely varying instrumental combinations, including this one for piano duet.

While the three composers featured on this recording are not, in the public perception and sometimes even in that of the performers, among the most significant exponents of Viennese music in the first half of the twentieth century, their remarkably expressive and virtuoso writing is deeply rooted in fin-de-si�cle Vienna. They were banned by the dictatorships of the 1930s and then blacklisted in the aftermath of the Second World War by the young European avant-garde, and it is only in recent years that the beauty and opulence of their works have been rediscovered. Vienna-born conductor Sascha Goetzel writes about the works performed here with the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire: 'With Korngold, Schreker and Krenek, we're not just hearing music - we're entering a dialogue between past and present, tradition and rebellion, myth and modernity [...] Korngold embodies the emotional sincerity and creative ambition of the late Romantic tradition. Schreker immerses us in the subconscious - mythical, unstable, and rich in feeling. Krenek breaks through the facade, injecting irony, jazz and fragmentation into the orchestral form [...] In their own ways, each composer pushes back against inherited conventions to discover new languages of sound.'

This deluxe, 21st anniversary reissue of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's legendary recording of the character Irene's arias from George Frideric Handel's Theodora - plus the composer's cantata La Lucrezia and the evergreen aria "Ombra Mai Fu" from Serse - evokes vivid memories of the mezzo-soprano's galvanizing musicianship and opens the ears of a new generation of music lovers to appreciate the timelessness of Lorraine's poignant interpretations. Specially remastered for this CD and newly available digitally in Dolby Atmos, the longevity of these performances is a testament to Lorraine's unique voice and soul. Conductor and leading Baroque specialist Harry Bicket recalls the immediate musical connection he and Lorraine shared from the time they first met in 1996 during rehearsals for Theodora at Glyndebourne. When Peter Seller's staging of the cantata was revived in 2003, it seemed obvious to go into the studio to record Lorraine's Theodora arias. A maverick musician and a riveting performer, Lorraine died in 2006 due to complications from cancer at the far-too-young age of 52. This recording, one of her last, preserves her consummate musical persona for posterity. The New Yorker's classical columnist Alex Ross characterised the album as "pull-down-the-blinds, unplug-the-telephone, can't-talk-right-now beautiful. She's singing it again; I have to go."

Spain and the guitar - an inseparable combination. Serenades of Spain goes beyond cliches, unveiling the rich musical heritage of both the country and the guitar, and takes the listener on a journey through three guitars: baroque, romantic, and classical - both solo and in duo with voice or cello. Featuring works by Spanish composers and those inspired by Spain, this album blends Flemish Renaissance court music, Baroque dances, expressive romanticism, neocasticismo, impressionistic colors, and folklore - a vibrant mosaic of Spain's musical history and the guitar.

This album reflects the long-standing artistic friendship between Maze and Denis Rouger and showcases the close musical bond between the composer and the chamber choir. The CD presents spiritually rich works like the Trois Choeurs mystiques and expressive psalm settings that blend timelessness with emotional depth. Inspired by liturgical, biblical, and poetic texts, Maze's music ranges from simple to provocative, always marked by inner reflection and power. Highlights include the Messe � double choeur, Psalm 8, and solo performances by tenor Martin Hohler and baritone Georg Benz. Celebrating Maze's 70th birthday, the recording captures the choir's artistic joy and brings his multifaceted choral language vividly to life under Rouger's direction.

The renowned Genova & Dimitrov Piano Duo celebrates it's 30th anniversary in 2025. The duo has been honoured with numerous international awards and recordings. With the recording of all of Debussy's works in three volumes for piano duo, the Genova & Dimitrov Piano Duo is now appearing on the Oehms label. The programme includes both well-known and lesser-known works, some of which are versions of orchestral works such as the famous La Mer. The recording was made in co-operation with WDR Broadcast.

Perhaps now overshadowed by his earlier ballet Checkmate, Miracle in the Gorbals was a tremendous hit for Bliss and the Sadlers Wells Ballet company. First performed in 1944, it was repeated in every season through to 1950. Based on a scenario by Michael Benthall (inspired by Jerome and Dostoyevsky), the ballet features the appearance of a Christ-like figure amid Glasgow's most infamous slum. This mysterious Stranger performs a miracle, reviving the Girl Suicide, who in despair had earlier thrown herself into the Clyde. The locals rejoice, but an Official (Benthall had in mind a priest) is jealous and, after a failed attempt to cast doubt on the virtue of the Stranger via the local Prostitute, has him slashed to death by a razor gang. Bliss's score employs a wide range of styles and harmonic language, and also exploits Leitmotifs for the principal characters. Originally titled Variations for Orchestra, Bliss' Metamorphic Variations was composed towards the end of his life, during a late surge of creativity. Two of the 16 movements were dropped at the first performance (given by the LSO and Vernon Handley in 1973) and for some reason were not re-instated at any of the work's later performances until that given by Michael Seal and the BBC Philharmonic in February 2025, the day before they made this recording.