In 2019, I began to think about making concept albums. Of all the ideas I developed, one of the most potent was that of collating works that we would like to listen to in the morning and evening. This was the sentiment behind the creation of the albums Morning and Evening. Consequently, for both albums I sought out music that I found to be reminiscent of either morning or evening, choosing pieces that embodied the unique joy and melancholy of these times of day. Working on the principle that simplicity was suited to morning music, I leaned heavily towards baroque and early classical pieces for the Morning album. The Evening album features classics from the Romantic and late Romantic period. Playing these pieces, I sensed the unique rhythm of morning and evening hidden in their natural flow. I hope you will enjoy listening to them. Fazil Say

Dmitri Shostakovich composed his first symphony in 1925 as a graduation piece at the Leningrad Conservatory and his 15th symphony in 1971, four years before his death. Perhaps more than the symphonic canon of any composer in history, these works reflect the dramatic historical events of his time, in this case the 20th century and specifically the Russian Revolution, Second World War and Stalinist repression. Besides the symphonies, the cello concertos and piano concertos are also included in this set.

In choosing Movements as the title for this album of piano works, George LI highlights both their structure and their dancing spirit: the 18 movements of Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze (supplemented by his Arabeske in C major) are followed by Ravel's eight Valses nobles et sentimentales and three movements from Stravinsky's score for the ballet Petruskha. "There are intriguing and intoxicating elements in this dance programme that captured me from the outset when crafting it," says the Boston-born pianist. "Broadly speaking, I love the effects of color and harmony in these works, as well as the general feeling of an evolution, or perhaps a continuous battle, between the introverted and extroverted impulses... The Davidsbündlertänze embodies the full spectrum of human emotion - despair, anxiety, sorrow, triumph, bliss, or pure love, to name a few... Another fascinating element in this program is the motivic and harmonic threads which connect the smaller pieces into a cohesive whole. Recently, I've developed a great obsession with learning how to weave musical moments into a single overarching architectural narrative. This program offers a different challenge - giving space for each musical moment to be it's own distinct individual voice, while also still maintaining the narrative arc..."

Andr� Rieu's latest album "The Sound of Heaven" (CD + DVD) presents a selection of the most beautiful and romantic pieces of music of all time. Once again, the world-renowned violinist and orchestra conductor takes his listeners on a musical journey full of emotion and passion with truly "heavenly sounds". "The Sound of Heaven" combines a wonderful selection of classical masterpieces, romantic melodies and timeless evergreens, masterfully interpreted by Rieu and his famous Johann Strauss Orchestra. From G.F. Handel to Andrew Lloyd Webber, from Giacomo Puccini to ABBA, from Charles Gounod to John Williams - Andr� Rieu proves once again that music knows no boundaries. The new album delights with melodies from musicals such as The Phantom of the Opera, The Sound of Music or West Side Story, film music from Star Wars and Titanic, as well as popular and contemplative classical titles such as the Benedictus by Gounod and Jenkins and the famous Canon in D by Pachelbel. Of course, the dreamlike Hijo de la luna and Handel's joyful Hallelujah from the Messiah are not to be missed. As a special gift to his fans, the album also includes a brand new DVD. You can look forward to touching interpretations of classics such as "You Raise me Up" and "Amen" as well as joyful and moving performances of pieces such as "A little night music" and "The Lonely Shepherd". Rieu's unique interpretations and his charismatic presence on stage make this DVD the ideal complement to "The Sound of Heaven".

The most famous tenor celebrates not only his 60th birthday, but also 40 years of an exceptionally rich and varied, and remarkably generous career. A career spent off the beaten track, constantly regenerated, and showing an insatiable curiosity, a temperament, and an extraordinary vocal timbre. Roberto Alagna captivates audiences everywhere. Here he presents a program that is very much in his own image: showing a contagious passion, an insatiable appetite for the exploration of different repertoires and styles, ranging from opera - French, Italian and Neapolitan, German, Polish and Russian - to Italian and French songs, and crossover music with some surprises up his sleeve.

Cage and Dowland: the two Johns, four hundred years apart, share a common taste for sober expression, concise forms and intimate realization - and for the pleasure that comes from words as such. Each cultivates this desire in his own way. Cage, like a tightrope walker, approaches the essence of musical thought with humor, lightness, and depth, and Dowland aims for the expression of feelings in their purest form. Cultivating as always a fertile anachronism, the Th�l�me ensemble brings together the complete works for two voices and lute by Dowland, several compositions by Cage, and world-renowned artist Sting offers a reworking of his hit song, "Shape of My Heart", which in this new arrangement becomes a kind of 21st-century lute song, coming full circle on an album where Renaissance and present meet, mingle, and merge to transcend the boundaries of aesthetics and genres.

FALCON

Experience the iconic music from movies and series such as Babylon Berlin, The Great Gatsby and Burlesque with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Danish Radio Big Band and guests. The Babylon Hotel is the concert where the upper class meets the underworld in a melting pot of euphoria and extravagance, nostalgia and pleasure with a carefree sinfulness only seen in the exuberant nightlife of the 1920s around the world. This concert evening takes you through the fictional Babylon Hotel, where the doors are opened to a world of music from movies like The Great Gatsby, Babylon, Burlesque, the TV series House of Dreams and Babylon Berlin and the operas Porgy and Bess and Mahagonny - and much more.

The first compilation devoted to Mario Lanza's Neapolitan and Italian song recordings, representing the tenor at his interpretative peak in the genre! This collection comprises not only the highlights of his Mario! And Caruso Favorites albums, but the best of his earlier recordings of Neapolitan and Italian songs. It also includes a newly discovered rendition of "Mattinata." Bonus tracks aside, the recordings are arranged chronologically, providing fascinating evidence of the rapid darkening of Lanza's timbre during his final years, as his voice changed from a lirico spinto to a richer, pure spinto.

For those who know Lanza for his pop hits and screen roles, this will come as a revelation. The first CD to bring together his most breathtaking operatic performances (live and studio) includes selections from Puccini's Tosca and La Boheme; Verdi's Rigoletto; Leoncavallo's Pagliacci; unissued performances from Verdi's Otello; Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte, and more! Sepia.

Joseph Haydn was commissioned by a canon of Cádiz, José Sáenz de Santamaría, Marquès de Valde-Íñigo, to compose a work for performance on Good Friday 1787 in the city's Oratorio de la Santa Cueva. The result was the orchestral version of The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross, which Haydn arranged shortly afterwards for string quartet, a version that was to prove an enduring success. More recently, in 2008, the composer José Peris Lacasa, a student of Milhaud, Boulanger and Markevitch, provided a version for string quartet and soprano voice, with the latter singing the Latin text originally written by Haydn under the first violin part. Far from distorting the original piece, this version, performed here by the Prazak Quartet with the Irish soprano Helen Kearns, sheds new light on one of Haydn's great masterpieces.

The Meistersaal Sessions are a 6-part series of chamber music theme concerts with the Freigeist Ensemble at the legendary Meistersaal Berlin, conducted by Joolz Gale. The series starts with arrangements of Sch�nberg, Strauss and Mahler. Each of the four sessions in this album features one musical work that represents the roots of Freigeist Ensemble's oeuvre. Linking the musical worlds of Berlin and Vienna, these early compositions by Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg are all featured in a chamber music format. Winner of the OPUS Klassik 2021, Freigeist Ensemble is a courageous collective of supersonic soloists from German symphony orchestras that repackages symphonic music for new audiences. It's mission is to revolutionize the style, sound and setting of classical concerts. Recent winner of the OPUS Klassik, Joolz Gale is a versatile British conductor who not only offers a historically-informed approach to baroque, classical and early romantic repertoire but also an extensive knowledge of early 20th-century choral and symphonic repertoire.

A Limited Edition, Original Jackets collection showcasing the artistry of the magnificent American soprano, Kathleen Battle. Kathleen Battle enraptured opera audiences of the 1980s and 1990s. Here was a lyric soprano combining unsurpassable beauty of tone with a keen musical intelligence, a way with words and a communicative warmth that drew listeners to Strauss and spirituals alike. She has the easy phrasing of a great jazz singer combined with the breath, breadth and precise projection of a trained voice. James Levine coached her at the Metropolitan Opera, and when he accompanied her at the 1984 Salzburg Festival and DG recorded the recital as Battle's debut solo album, nothing less than a phenomenon was launched. She had been admired as a gifted singer since the age of eight, and a 1985 article in Time magazine declared that she was 'the greatest lyric coloratura soprano in the world'. Her performances at the Met of Susanna, Despina, Pamina and other lyric roles in the great Mozart operas, conducted by Levine, established her as one of the world's leading interpreters of this repertoire. Recorded near the end of her DG association, Battle and Levine recorded arias from those roles for an album which became a radiantly beautiful souvenir of an era when they formed an artistic team as celebrated and accomplished in their way as Schwarzkopf and Karajan or Nilsson and Solti. However, Battle had already recorded for several labels, and this Eloquence box uniquely brings together selected albums she made for Angel (the US branch of EMI - those which have repatriated to Universal Music Group) with the DG recitals. They include an imaginatively programmed guitar recital with Christopher Parkening and excerpts from a Messiah led by Sir Andrew Davis in Toronto. These Handel arias feature on a new compilation within the album, 'Kathleen Battle sings Sacred Music', which also features excerpts from her appearances in Levine's DG recordings of The Creation by Haydn and the C minor Mass by Mozart, as well as Poulenc's Gloria and the 'Pie Jesu' from Faur�'s Requiem. Two further albums showcase excerpts from more complete albums: one of Handel and Mozart arias, including the celebrated Semele recording with John Nelson, and another of operatic and concert arias, including a staggering 'Grossm�chtige Prinzessin' (Ariadne, with Levine) and the touching songs from the Ozawa recording of Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Featuring a new essay on the soprano and the background to her meteoric career by David Patrick Stearns, the set will be an essential acquisition for all lovers of lyric soprano artistry.

Hans Christian Andersen, the film, was produced in the spring of 1952 and released on 25 November in New York, with general release following in December that year. It was one of the top ten grossing films of the year, but was not well received in Andersen's hometown of Odense, when it was released in Denmark in September 1953. It was nominated for six Academy Awards: Best Color Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Set Decoration (Color), Best Costume Design (Color), Best Scoring of a Musical Picture (Walter Scharf), Best Song ('Thumbelina'), and Best Sound Recording. Decca (US) recorded the soundtrack in August that year and the songs were originally released as a series of four 78rpm singles, with two songs per disc, a 45rpm album, and a ten-inch LP. Danny Kaye took the lead, and when the album was reissued (on Decca and MCA) on a twelve-inch LP, four further tracks were added: Tubby the Tuba as well as it's less-well-known sequel, Tubby the Tuba at the Circus, and two additional songs written by Kaye's wife, Sylvia Fine. Now, for the first time on a Universal Music label, the original tapes have been retrieved from the archive and newly remastered for release on Eloquence.

This album reveals the multiple facets of love according to Liszt - carnal, spiritual and divine all at once - from the prophetic masterpieces of his youth to the vast canvases of maturity. B�n�diction de Dieu dans la solitude and the Sonata in B minor mark his crowning achievement, anticipating the piano music of the modern era. Tanguy de Williencourt displays all the ardour and faith these remarkable works call for.

A sound alchemist, Maurice Ravel recreated his own works for piano in orchestral versions that soon brought them universal acclaim. Jean-Fran�ois Heisser, a disciple of Vlado Perlemuter, is now part of a Ravelian genealogy imbued with elegance and emotion. Conducted from the piano, in collusion with the musicians of the Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle-Aquitaine (OCNA), the Piano Concerto in G major revives the Mozartean tradition so dear to the composer.

The Quatuor Ellipsos tells us a family story through four iconic works firmly ingrained in the collective unconscious: Carmen, Casse-Noisette, West Side Story and Rhapsody in Blue. Like a small-scale symphonic orchestra, in a spirit bordering on that of chamber music, they invite three great pianists, Marie-Jos�phe Jude, Charles Heisser and Jean-Fr�d�ric Neuburger. With the coruscating arrangements we are immersed into the innumerable timbres of their saxophones in association with the piano.

Classical Music

Classical Music

EMI Classics is proud to release a 2-CD album chronicling the best so far from acclaimed crossover boy choir Libera, including all the hits from their previous albums, as well as three brand new tracks and two tracks previously unavailable on CD! The band has established a dedicated U.S. fan base following appearances at the 2007 Kennedy Center Awards and the 2008 Papal Mass in New York, as well as their first U.S. tour in the Spring of 08. This album is the perfect introduction for people looking to learn what the buzz on this exciting group is all about!

Christmas with The King's Singers New music, old music, music from the Renaissance and Baroque, spirituals, folksongs, jazz and pop... The Beatles, David Bowie, swing, classical avantgarde, waltzes by Strauss, and musical theatre songs. Which genre of music are the King's Singers actually yet to interpret? Which style have they not yet captured within their unique global reach and within their transparent and intimate six-voiced sound world? One thing is for sure - when the King's Singers came together at the end of the 1960s in Cambridge, no one would have believed the success story that lay ahead of them. Some musical experts were scathing: a male-only vocal sextet was most likely to be found in the pop sector. But trained voices are surely better suited to a professional career either in the opera world or in mixed professional choirs. After all, the founding members came from the famous King's College Choir - one of the oldest surviving vocal institutions with nearly 500 years of history to it's name. It is with this tradition behind them that the King's Singers display the typical British musical virtues in which seriousness and humour, self-discipline, and a dash of satire all mix together so wonderfully. This is especially evident in their Christmas repertoire. Christmas carols are a special national treasure for Brits and are therefore the focus of festivities. The six voices' festive destinations also include the continent, such as Spain and Germany. "Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen" by the German early Baroque master composer Michael Praetorius has become a Christmas standard. The world famous carol "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht" ("Silent Night") comes from the German-speaking world too, written for Christmas Eve in a village near Salzburg in 1818. The simple, classical melody radiates a little of the spirit of Mozart, who was born in Salzburg. What a pity there is no musical contribution to these Christmas festivities from Mozart, the King's Singers may have thought! Perhaps that's how they came up with the idea for an amusing and cheeky Christmas medley of melodies from the great classical composer, reinforced by the harpsichord playing of English conductor Richard Hickox and the singing of guest star Kiri Te Kanawa. � Oliver Buslau, 2017 Translation: texthouse

Unique Russian Choral music

John Williams Reimagined is a project of film score producer Robert Townson, who imagined an album where John Williams famous film themes are scored for a chamber trio of flute: Sara Andon, cello: Cécilia Tsan and piano: Simone Pedroni. A double album with hits, spanning a period of more than 50 years of terrific film music from Jane Eyre to the recent The Fabelmans and including, ET, Star Wars, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park.

SHOSTAKOVICH: VOCAL CYCLES FOR BASS 1

SCHUBERT: DIE WINTERREISE