Johanna Rose's continues her exploration of the music by two of the most significant composers for the viola da gamba - Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray. It was not uncommon for many 17th century painters to feature music making or musical instruments. A lute or a viola da gamba in the artist's studio, a warm instrument beside the easel and rolled-up canvases, resting on the table stained with pigments, offering aid to concentration or recognition, carrying the promise of inspiration. The music on this album is certainly not meant for domestic music making of the type depicted in contemporary paintings - it makes huge demands on the performer and was composed by two of the greatest viola da gamba players in musical history.

The Rhine hymned by women's voices A major source of inspiration for writers and painters (Hugo, Nerval, Heine, Eichendorff, Turner) and above all composers throughout Romantic Europe, the legends of the Rhine still enthral our imaginations even today. The Ensemble Pygmalion and Rapha�l Pichon invite us on a fantastic voyage through famous works (including Wagner) and others, much more rarely recorded, that are absolute gems of the repertory for female voices.

Isobel Waller-Bridge, composer and musician returns with Objects. Where her 2022 album VIII articulated a tormented mind's undoing, Objects is an act of radical stillness. It confers beauty on things the pace of our lives has taught us to ignore, inviting us to listen not as an objective experience, but as a personal and mysterious response to the world.

When Leopold of Anhalt-C�then died in 1728, his former Kapellmeister had not forgotten the five brilliant years he had spent in the prince's service. He dedicated to his memory a mourning cantata almost entirely based on the music of two major works of the mid-1720s, the Trauer-Ode and the St Matthew Passion. Although the score is lost, the wordbook and other sources of information have now made it possible to reconstruct the work. Rapha�l Pichon's first recording for harmonia mundi was voted recording of the year at the 2015 Victoires de la Musique Classique awards.

A focused portrait of Britten alongside a little-known but significant British contemporary, marking both the 50th anniversary of Britten's death and the centenary year of Arthur Oldham's birth. Under Michael Waldron, the London Choral Sinfonia pairs Britten with the one composer he privately mentored: Arthur Oldham. The program brings together familiar works by Britten with a substantial selection of Oldham's choral music, placing the two composers in direct conversation. At the center is Britten's Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, a cycle of nocturnal poetry (Tennyson, Blake, Keats and others) framed by the horn's natural harmonics in the Prologue and Epilogue. Horn soloist Annemarie Federle and Tenor Nick Pritchard trace it's shifting atmosphere, with string accompaniment from the London Choral Sinfonia. Britten's Te Deum in C appears in the rarely heard orchestrated version for strings and harp, presented here as a world premiere recording. Oldham's music completes the program: the cantata Laudes Creaturarum on the text of St Francis of Assisi (with Carolyn Sampson), the carol Remember, O thou man, and the ceremonial Sacerdos et Pontifex for chorus and organ - also recorded here for the first time.

The dramatic tones of C�line Scheen's voice combine with the music of Philippe Pierlot's ensemble to reveal clearly in song the sentiments accompanying the life of the Virgin. A poignant musical portrait, constantly moving, is created through the medium of these baroque vocal and instrumental pieces. Tenderness, unease, joy and pain are all sublimated in this most beautifully textured sound, the unique, secret gift of the musicians of the Ricercar Consort.

Celebrating Steve Reich's 90th birthday and the 20th anniversary of Colin Currie Group, this landmark release brings together a number of Reich's iconic works. United by the elegant symmetry of sextet forces, these pieces showcase the rhythmic vitality, harmonic clarity, and emotional depth that have defined Reich's music for generations. From the scintillating textures of Sextet, the driving power and poignancy of Double Sextet, and the hypnotic time-bending sonorities of Six Marimbas, the album offers a journey through Reich's unparalleled sound world. Colin Currie Group's fresh interpretation of Dance Patterns adds a lesser-known gem to this celebration, highlighting the composer's enduring fascination with movement and pattern. Recorded with the insight and precision that have become hallmarks of the ensemble, this album is both a tribute and a testament to Reich's lifelong influence and to the Colin Currie Group's deep connection with his music. These works do more than mesmerise-they uplift, entrance, and remind us why Reich remains one of the most significant voices in contemporary music.

This recording brings together three closely related works for clarinet and strings, linking Classical elegance with 20th-century English lyricism. At it's heart is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in A major, K.581, written for Anton Stadler and one of the defining masterpieces of the clarinet repertoire. From the poised opening Allegro to the intimate, aria-like Larghetto and the finely judged closing variations, Mozart places the clarinet at the centre of a richly expressive chamber dialogue. Gordon Jacob's Clarinet Quintet (1940), composed for Frederick Thurston, reflects a clear admiration for Mozart's clarity of form while speaking in a distinctly English voice. Concise, lyrical and expertly balanced, the work moves from an autumnal opening through urgency and rhapsodic reflection to a characterful set of variations. The program concludes with a rarity: the unfinished Allegro of a second Mozart clarinet quintet, completed by Duncan Druce, offering an intriguing glimpse of a work Mozart never completed. Performed by the Gaudier Ensemble with clarinettist Richard Hosford, this recording combines stylistic authority with warm, natural chamber sound, the clarinet's expressive range and it's evolution across two centuries.

In this double album, Emmanuelle Bertrand, Pascal Amoyel and the Quatuor Parisii explore the musical world of late Schubert in all it's nuanced light and shade. Here with the well-known Arpeggione Sonata, the stupendous String Quintet, and selected songs arranged for cello and piano, the album becomes a poignant journey during which we see beauty yield to the inevitability of fate.

After their first recording, Nuits parisiennes, Manon Galy and Jorge Gonzalez Buajasan open the door to the inner worlds of Romanticism. Surrounding Mendelssohn's rare Sonata in F major MWV Q 26 (his only mature violin sonata), Brahms's Second, and Grieg's Third are a few poetic and intimate gems, such as Sibelius's Berceuse and Fibich's Po�me. Between "melancholy waltz and languorous vertigo," violin and piano become the exalted yet nostalgic voice of the composers' most personal confidences.

Bach's St. John Passion is the earliest surviving Passion or Oratorio by J.S Bach and was first performed in 1724. This version consists of two sections and retains this structure in the versions and revisions that followed in 1725, 1730, 1736 and 1749. Bach added several numbers in the 1749 version, but several arias from the revisions are found only in the appendices of modern editions. So, there is no 'final' version crafted by the composer as there is for the later St. Matthew Passion, no single manuscript as there is for the Brandenburg Concertos, nor a revised printed edition as exists for the Goldberg Variations. What we do have are Bach's various attempts as he went from performance to performance, to try to grasp what he was aiming for - consciously and unconsciously. There is much that is operatic in the music, and the thought that the St. John Passion is Bach's opera is hardly an original one. This recording uses the new edition by musicologist Malcolm Bruno.

Thomas Kelly made his concerto debut performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No.24 with the orchestra of the Purcell School. He was just 9 years old. Since then, Thomas has studied with Dmitri Alexeev at the Royal College of Music, and awarded the RCM's highest accolade for a pianist, the Benjamin Britten Fellowship. Thomas has many awards from international competitions and has a wide repertoire embracing both core and lesser known areas of the piano repertoire. His debut album is a daunting program of organ works arranged by great pianists for their instrument.

The term 'spectrum' is usually associated with physics. When white light hits a prism, it breaks down into the full spectrum of rainbow colors. These colors have always existed but only become visible through refraction. Music is similar. The pieces on this album are like a prism, unfolding the fundamental human emotions into their infinite facets, and creating a tribute to the timeless power of music, that resonates with the entire color palette of the human soul. The selection of pieces therefore follows an inner logic: that of emotion, timbre, and the moment. Each piece unfolds it's own microcosm and invites the listener to lose themselves within it. Esther Birringer's new album is a must for lovers of the piano, and an essential playlist addition.

This recital brings together three late piano groupings by Franz Schubert, works that distil his distinctive blend of intimacy, lyricism and emotional ambiguity. The program centers on the complete Six Moments musicaux D.780, framed by the poignant Allegretto in C minor D.915 and the Drei Klavierst�cke D.946, composed in the final year of Schubert's life. Rich in expressive depth, the Moments musicaux move effortlessly between simplicity and complexity: gentle lyricism gives way to sudden shadows, major and minor coexist in close tension, and fleeting dance rhythms dissolve into quiet resignation. The Allegretto D.915, composed as a farewell to a close friend, exemplifies Schubert's rare gift for finding increased poignancy in moments of apparent calm. The Drei Klavierst�cke, published posthumously, stand as impromptus in all but name-restless, searching works that juxtapose turbulence with luminous stillness. For pianist Katya Apekisheva, Schubert has been a lifelong companion. This recording represents a deeply personal homage, shaped by years of performing and living with this music. Recorded on a Steinway Model D at Syde Manor, the album offers a thoughtful, finely judged reading of some of Schubert's most inward and compelling piano writing.

This new recording brings together violinist Gil Shaham, conductor Eric Jacobsen, and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra in a program exploring the violin concerto as a vehicle for cultural memory and continuity. The album pairs Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Violin Concerto in G minor, Op. 80, and Anton�n Dvor�k's Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53, with the world-premiere recording of "F. Harper," from The Famous People by Curtis Stewart. Coleridge-Taylor's concerto reveals a Romantic voice shaped by lyricism and rhythmic vitality, while Dvor�k's work reflects folk influence and communal musical expression. Stewart's F. Harper responds through a contemporary lens, engaging questions of naming, lineage, and identity. Inspired by the layered meanings of "Slavonic," the work draws parallels between European histories of enslavement and the ways Black Americans continue to shape pride and cultural legacy today. Together, these works connect past and present through sound.

After Bess's departure, what becomes of Porgy? Having fallen in love with Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, the brilliant pianist and arranger Vyacheslav Gryaznov decided to answer this question by taking up the opera's themes. With Rhapsody in Black, a concerto for piano and orchestra, he picks up the story where the opera leaves off: Bess in New York, Porgy following in her footsteps. Neither a pastiche nor a simple arrangement, Rhapsody in Black reclaims Gershwin's legacy by blending electrifying improvisations, big-band sonorities, and poetic ballads. With this New York fresco, complemented by Rhapsody in Blue, Gryaznov creates an extraordinarily vibrant diptych, superbly brought to life by the Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien and Wayne Marshall, a leading specialist and outstanding interpreter of Gershwin.

After recording some of Bach's major works, Claire- Marie Le Guay continues her exploration of the boundless territories of the composer by taking a more intimate approach. The doors to these masterpieces are left ajar, and the pianist is modestly sketching the personal history of her relationship with Bach's music. She offers us the keys to a universe rich in colors and contrasts: a diversity that rhymes with eternity.

Traetta's Ifigenia in Tauride draws us into the tragic heart of the House of Atreus. Orestes is consumed by guilt over the murder of his mother Clytemnestra, while Iphigenia bears the lasting scars of her near-sacrifice, planned by her own father Agamemnon. They are two tormented souls, profoundly alone, who find each other in a moment of overwhelming recognition. Traetta's music captures this tragic tension perfectly. Standing at the crossroads of Neapolitan bel canto and Gluck's dramatic reform, his vocal writing is never an empty display. Every line, every ornament, conveys raw, sincere emotion. Christophe Rousset leads the musicians of Les Talens Lyriques and a brilliant cast of soloists, with Roc�o P�rez delivering a deeply moving portrayal of Iphigenia, in this masterpiece by Traetta, recorded here for the first time.

Ond of which is now available. Belgian harpsichordist Mario Sarrechia plays the solo part in the two concertos BWV 105Johann Sebastian Bach wrote six harpsichord concertos and compiled them in a volume around 1738. Most of his concertos for one or more harpsichords are probably arrangements of earlier concertos, mostly by Bach himself. The 'grand seigneur of early music' Sigiswald Kuijken combines Bach's six harpsichord concertos and the three double concertos for two harpsichords with the two violin concertos and the double concerto for two violins, which Bach also arranged as harpsichord concertos. All twelve concertos appear in a series of three CDs, the sec2 & 1058, Taiwanese harpsichordist Hsiu-Tzu Ryanas in the concerto BWV 1056, and Sigiswald Kuijken himself takes the solo in the violin concerto BWV 1042. Sigiswald Kuijken casts all the orchestral parts as soloists, as is customary with La Petite Bande and as was probably also practised by Bach - a theory that Kuijken underpins with ample evidence.

The superlative Pygmalion chorus are at the center of this new recording of the St. John Passion. Their striking presence radiates throughout the work, their exemplary articulation and collective energy moulding the drama and carrying it's emotional charge. Rapha�l Pichon's flexible yet precise direction restores it's original dramatic arc, instilling the peerless team of soloists with the same demandingly high standards of musical narrative and truth. This Passion wins out through it's clarity of gesture and compellingly forceful actualization.

In 1786, Haydn composed The Seven Last Words of Christ for orchestra. Ten years later he produced a stunning choral version, which Justin Doyle and the RIAS Chamber Choir and Konzerthausorchester Berlin now invite us to rediscover. Together with four exceptional soloists, they reveal all the dramatic power of the work, it's expressive intensity and liturgical fervour.

An oceanic dialogue between two composers from the first wave of the modern musical era: such is Aline Piboule's daring new solo venture. Here the epic La Mer sprays it's rainbow of colors as idiomatically as if Debussy had written it for solo piano, like D'un cahier d'esquisses and the famous Clair de lune. In echo, John Ireland's piano triptychs, Sarnia and Decorations, conjure up the Channel Islands in bewitching musical poetry.

The empathy between Robert and Clara Schumann, Joseph Joachim and Johannes Brahms engendered one of Romanticism's most fruitful artistic friendships. With the aim of mining the precious jewels of that unique intimacy, three great artists have devised a program in the form of a poetic conversation; here chamber music once more becomes shared human emotion in it's purest expression.

This complete recording of the a cappella choral works of Francis Poulenc marks the celebration of the 20th anniversary of Ensemble Aedes and brings to a close a cycle initiated in 2009. Francis Poulenc's a cappella choral compositions form a unique ensemble, revealing a fragile interiority suffused with profound humanity. For him there was no sense of division between the secular and the sacred in his choral works: he appears to have considered them as a single entity, stemming from the same inspiration. From the Chanson � boire (1922) to the Laudes de saint Antoine de Padoue (1957), all of his compositions show the same fervor, clarity, and depth of feeling.

Revered for his Hammond organ work, soul-jazz grooves, and his three-decade career leading The James Taylor Quartet, maestro keyboard player James Taylor releases his first album of classical works. His long association with Acid Jazz Records continues, as the label also steps into the classical world for the very first time. Recorded solo on a Steinway grand piano, Taylor performs some of his favorite pieces from the classical cannon, with familiar tunes alongside lesser-known works on this beautiful, atmospheric recording. His interpretations show a deep love of classical music. Always one to evolve, just as the James Taylor Quartet introduced Herbie Hancock to the indie scene of the late '80s, Taylor in turn introduces his audience to a new repertoire, with a remarkable, fresh and modern solo classical piano album.