This was something I'd had in mind for a long time..." says pianist Alexandre Tharaud, "to put together an album for the sheer pleasure of it, in collaboration with dear friends and paying tribute to the wonders of the piano duet repertoire." The aptly named 4 Hands offers 18 tracks, each just a few minutes in length, each featuring Tharaud sharing a piano keyboard with a different partner. The repertoire ranges wide - from Bach to Glass by way of such composers as Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Fauré, Satie, Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, and Piazzolla. 15 of Tharaud's fellow performers are celebrated pianists - among them the late Nicholas Angelich, Mariam Batsashvili, Bertrand Chamayou, David Fray, Víkingur Ólafsson, and Beatrice Rana. The other three, all stars in their musical fields, are shown in a new, pianistic light: cellist Gautier Capuçon, countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and singer-songwriter Juliette. "The piano duet is one of life's miracles," continues Tharaud. "First and foremost, it is the most intimate way of playing chamber music... It was a joy to record this album... If hearing these pieces prompts people to buy some sheet music and enjoy playing duets together - just as we did in the recording studio - then I will have achieved my aim.

The first album from Nathalie Stutzmann as conductor features Dvořák's well known Symphony No. 9" From The New World" and the lesser known American Suite. Nathalie Stutzmann studied conducting with legendary Finnish teacher Jorma Panula, and has benefited from the mentoring of Simon Rattle and the late Seiji Ozawa. She holds two major posts in the USA - Music Director at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra - and has guest engagements with the London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Bayreuth Festival amongst others. Simon Rattle told the NY times: "Nathalie is the real thing. So much love, intensity and sheer technique."

Intense, passionate, and impeccable in its musical disciplines, the Berlin-based Artemis Quartet "consistently finds a balance between projecting musical structure and conveying immediacy." Confirming that verdict from the New York Times is this 23CD collection, encompassing all the recordings the ensemble made between 1996 and 2018.

The Artemis Quartet began life in 1989 and developed a particular reputation in the central Austro-German repertoire. If Beethoven justly asserts a powerful presence, the scope of this collection extends as far as Eastern Europe and South America and well into the 20th century. Over the period of nearly a quarter of a century documented in this box, there were changes in the Artemis Quartet's lineup, but as founding cellist Eckart Runge explains, this "brought new inspiration - an opportunity to broaden horizons and introduce fresh ideas."

The ensemble suffered a tragic loss with the untimely death of violist Friedemann Weigle in 2015. Just days earlier, the Artemis had completed a recording of Dvořák's lyrical and poignant 'American' Quartet; it is now released for the very first time. This landmark box is completed by a comprehensive booklet which includes reminiscences from members of the Artemis Quartet and from sound engineers who collaborated with them.

Renowned bass-baritone Adam Plachetka celebrates the Year of Czech Music with an anthology of Czech evening songs by Antonin Dvorak, Bedrich Smetana, Zdenek Fibich and Josef Suk. All based on love poems for Vitezslav Halek's Vecerni pisne (Evening Songs), these songs provide a panorama of great Czech music, also zooming in on lesser-known repertoire. Plachetka performs them together with pianist David svec. Bass-baritone Adam Plachetka frequents the world's most prestigious opera houses, and is a MET regular, equally at home in dramatic and comic repertoire. He returns to PENTATONE after having released Molieri, combining opera arias by Mozart and Salieri, in 2022.

The Czech Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor and Music Director Semyon Bychkov present a new recording of Antonín Dvořák's Symphonies 7, 8, and 9, coupled with the composer's concert overtures In Nature's Realm, Carnival, and Othello.

The album is part of the 2024 Year of Czech Music. Dvořák's final three symphonies show him at the peak of his compositional power and international fame, and exhibit an astonishing range of style and expression. The three concert overtures were initially conceived as the Nature, Life, and Love trilogy, but eventually published separately. They share Dvořák's audible love for nature and fascination for human life and passion. Presenting this core Czech repertoire allows the orchestra and maestro to once more demonstrate their congenial collaboration and full command of Dvorak's abundant sound world.

The Czech Philharmonic is one of the world's orchestral gems, recognized for it's rich tradition with the Czech masters as well as European repertoire. Semyon Bychkov, who is internationally renowned for his interpretations of the core repertoire, began his tenure with the orchestra at the start of the 2018/19 season. Together, they have so far recorded for PENTATONE Mahler's First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth Symphonies, part of the complete Mahler cycle to be released by the label. The Orchestra is also featured on the albums Folk Songs (2023) and Czech Songs (2024), recorded by Magdalena Kožená and Simon Rattle.

First-ever issues of performances which extend our appreciation for the art of the conductor Launy Grondahl. Recorded towards the end of his long career as conductor of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, these broadcasts (1950-56) present Grondahl in both rare and standard repertoire, as a stylish concerto accompanist and as a dedicated servant of Danish composers. A pair of tantalisingly incomplete Sibelius performances testifies to the conductor's deep feeling for the elusive flow of this music, taken from a concert given to mark the composer's 85th birthday

In the 20th century Antonin Dvorak was essentially performed in what is now currently numbered as Symphony No. 9 which at the time was called Symphony No. 5; based on the old catalog numbering. However; it was the New World Symphony and except in rare cases; the previous symphonies were rarely recorded. However; at the end of the 1950s Barbirolli recorded the last three Symphonies; 7; 8; 9; with the new stereo technique; plus a selection of the Legends and the Scherzo capriccioso; an initiative that greatly contributed to broadening the Bohemian composer’s range of discography. These recordings; made from 1957 to 1959; are of excellent sound quality and are still considered among the best by the most demanding collectors; despite all the integral editions that followed in the following years. This 2-CD box set is a reissue of the old Urania catalog code WS 121.135; which has long been sold out and has always been reordered.

The Philharmonie Sudwestfalen and it's chief conductor, Nabil Shehata, offer us repertoire rarities of the highest artistic quality and one of the milestones of the repertoire. On the orchestra's second recording with GENUIN, the agile North Rhine-Westphalian state orchestra presents works by Antonin Dvorak on a double CD. In addition to the "Symphony From the New World", the album includes the early, lush 3rd Symphony of the Bohemian master and two of his late symphonic poems: "The Noon Witch" and "The Water Goblin". A fascinating cross-section of Dvorak's work, from his Richard Wagner-influenced beginnings to maturity.

Previous albums on Piano Classics by Leonardo Pierdomenico have won enthusiastic praise from the international critics. Of his debut Liszt recital including the Csardas macabre (PCL10151), Fanfare noted: 'scrupulous performances, featuring exceptional textural clarity and rhythmic resilience, coupled with an often striking attention to harmonic nuance.' Gramophone awarded it Editor's Choice: 'His highly developed technique and cultivated sound, both adaptable to a variety of effects, are wedded to those twin essentials for artistic Liszt playing: imagination combined with thoroughgoing, scrupulous musicality.' Such qualities illuminate his new recording of the Piano Concerto by Dvor�k, made in the Czech Republic with an orchestra who live and breathe the composer's music. One of his most neglected works, the Piano Concerto requires particularly devoted advocacy as well as formidable virtuosity to overcome the technical shortcomings of Dvor�k's piano writing, but the effort is rewarded with episodes of no less ardent lyricism than the high points of his concertos for violin and cello. The Piano Concerto, however, burns with a ferocity all it's own, more similar in that regard to Schumann's impassioned writing for soloist and orchestra. The unusual pairings draw on the talents of the Pardubice orchestra's front desks, with two equally unfamiliar concertante miniatures by Dvor�k, the Mazurek for violin and orchestra (dedicated to Pablo de Sarasate) and the Rondo for cello and orchestra intended for Hanus Wihan, who would in time inspire Dvor�k to compose the Cello Concerto. Thus the album will complete a Dvor�k concerto collection on CD as well as offering a further demonstration of Leonardo Pierdomenico's artistry.

Rusalka, a water spirit, lives with her family in the pure waters of the forest lake. When she falls in love with a Prince, she sacrifices her voice and leaves her home in the hope of finding true love in a new world - a world that does not love her back.�Natalie Abrahami and Ann Yee create a poetic, contemporary new staging of Dvorak's lyric fairy tale, revealing our uneasy relationship with the natural world and humanity's attempts to own and tame it. Semyon Bychkov conducts an all-star cast featuring Asmik Grigorian in the title role.

Rusalka, a water spirit, lives with her family in the pure waters of the forest lake. When she falls in love with a Prince, she sacrifices her voice and leaves her home in the hope of finding true love in a new world - a world that does not love her back.�Natalie Abrahami and Ann Yee create a poetic, contemporary new staging of Dvorak's lyric fairy tale, revealing our uneasy relationship with the natural world and humanity's attempts to own and tame it. Semyon Bychkov conducts an all-star cast featuring Asmik Grigorian in the title role.

Magdalena Kozena presents a recital of Czech songs, together with the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. The first impression of Czech songs may be atmospheric nature scenes, or stories about pretty peasant girls and village pranks, but the selection on this album demonstrates that the imagination of Czech song composers stretched far wider. For example, Bohuslav Martinu's Nipponari were inspired by Japanese culture, whereas his folksy Songs on One Page obtain a deeper meaning knowing that he wrote them in the US, having fled the Nazi threat. His colleagues and contemporaries Hans Krasa and Gideon Klein did not manage to get away, and both died in concentration camps. Krasa's German-language Four Orchestral Songs show a fascination with nonsense verse typical of avant-garde circles in the early 1920s. Klein's Lullaby can be traced back to Jewish folk songs, yet it's musical realization displays an openness to French musical styles. And no Czech song recital would be complete without good old Antonin Dvorak, whose Evening Songs and Songs, Op. 2 are included. Many of these works are best known with piano accompaniment, but are presented here in orchestrations. The Czech Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle marvellously bring out all the colours, while Kozena once more showcases her mastery in vernacular song.

The story of the Prague Symphony Orchestra is closely related to the history of the Czech capital, which leaves an impression on their repertoire. After their successful recording of Karel Husa’s Music for Prague 1968 (Supraphon, 2021), the orchestra and its chief conductor are coming up with another album dedicated to Prague. This time, the program is focused on the late 19th century, i.e. the period when the Czech nation fought for its language, culture, and identity within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The backbone of the record is Suk’s monumental symphonic poem Praga, based on the Hussite chorale, “Ktož jsú Boží bojovníci” (Ye Who Are Warriors of God); Vyšehrad from Smetana’s famous cycle Má vlast (My Country); and a rarity: Pohádka o Šemíku (A Tale of Šemík), which is a largely unknown symphonic poem based on an ancient Czech legend connected with Vyšehrad, by Otakar Ostrcil, composed when he was nineteen. And of course, there is Antonín Dvorák. In hardly any work of his is Dvorák as explicitly patriotic as in his overture My Home (which is not very well known either). It is based on the theme of the popular song “Kde domov muj,” which later became the Czech national anthem. Another rarity of this album is Dvorák’s fanfare for the opening of the National Jubilee Exhibition in Prague. After their acclaimed recording of the composer’s Slavonic Dances, the Prague Symphony Orchestra confirm that the Czech repertoire of late Romanticism is their native and most natural language. The romantic and legendary city of Prague on a record of the Prague Symphony Orchestra.

Franz Liszt, musical genius and piano titan. When he first came to Prague in 1840, he heard and remembered Josef Theodor Krov's melody "Tešme se blahou nadejí", which was then misinterpreted as an old Hussite song. Franz Liszt, inspired by this song, has written the "Hussiten-Lied". Another Liszt’s composition you will find on this CD that is inspired by Czech/Slavic culture is "Slavimo slavno slaveni!". Naturally, Liszt left an indelible mark among Czech musicians, so you will also find Czech composers on this album.

Simon-Pierre Bestion has chosen to mirror two Stabat Mater that are more than 150 years apart: "in these two works I can feel the same tonal language, the same expression of sorrow" says the founder of La Tempête… "I have decided to ‘augment’ Scarlatti’s orchestration and ‘diminish’ Dvorák’s, so they can meet on even ground. To the Scarlatti I have added string parts sometimes doubling the vocal lines, colla parte, as was often done at the period: this not only allows the sound to be amplified, but adds an extra timbre to the voice. For the Dvorák, I have transcribed the original piano part into its minimum orchestral dimension, that is, for strings. This creates a common sound world between the two works – I would even say they have the same kind of lyricism in common, with just the timbres of the piano, organ and theorbo standing out."