Classical Music

A household word when speaking of repertoire, legendary flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal devoted just as much effort to establishing the masterpieces in their rightful place as to unearthing countless works from the baroque, classical and romantic eras. As far as concertos are concerned, cornerstones by Bach, Mozart and Vivaldi thus gained worldwide fame, and it went the same way for Ibert, Jolivet and Nielsen. Unfailing lyric sense, purity of style, magnificent tone, grace of phrasing, fabulous virtuosity, tremendous commitment... Critics, colleagues and the public were all running out of superlatives. Immediately valued as references, his recordings still fascinate and often leave the listener exhilarated. This 12 CD set tries the challenge of surrounding these marvels with some of the most dazzling rediscoveries, offering famous and less famous music, but equally glorious interpretations.

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.

A musician as loved as he was admired, the pianist Nicholas Angelich died in Paris in April 2022 at the age of 51. Angelich was a modest, thoughtful man who brought tremendous integrity, depth and insight to the most demanding repertoire. His association with Warner Classics lasted some 20 years, and the label pays tribute to him with this 7CD collection of previously unreleased recordings of solo, chamber and concerto repertoire. Made either in the concert hall or for radio broadcast between 1999 and 2016, they range wide, including works by Bach, Bart�k, Beethoven Berg, Brahms, Franck, Haydn, Liszt, Mussorgsky, Ravel, Rachmaninov and Zemlinsky. Appearing with Angelich are Martha Argerich, Quatuor Eb�ne, Myung-Whun Chung and the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, and Tugan Sokhiev and the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse.

The Catalan cellist Pablo Casals (1876-1973) was first to bring to wider notice the works that open this set, J.S. Bach's solo cello suites. Thereafter we hear his celebrated partnership with Horszowski in Beethoven and the groundbreaking piano trio formed with Thibaud and Cortot in Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn. From the symphonic repertoire come the concertos by Dvořák (with George Szell) and Elgar (Adrian Boult). Finally, an enchanting disc of encores and - with Casals's own street-band or cobla - seven examples of the sardana, the national dance of the great artist's beloved homeland.

This box set comprises all the operas and sacred works Otto Klemperer conducted for EMI Columbia and HMV. Oratorios by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Handel are accompanied by operas of Beethoven, Mozart and Wagner. There are also rehearsals and listening playback sessions for the recording of Mozart's Don Giovanni and a Bonus CD with recollections from artists who sang in Klemperer's opera performances. Otto Klemperer deeply loved both the theatricality of opera and the spirituality of oratorios, and these performances from his great Indian Summer represent the fruits of his lifetime of thought and experience in this repertoire.

His exceptional touch and sense of phrasing, his deep and personal understanding of the most varied repertoires, or even the legendary trio he formed together with Jacques Thibaud and Pablo Casals, made Alfred Cortot the greatest pianist of his time. Master of many disciples, notably the brilliant Dinu Lipatti, Samson François and Clara Haskil, Cortot also had a lasting influence on the Russian piano school through Samuil Feinberg and Heinrich Neuhaus, the latter himself being the revered teacher of Sviatoslav Richter.

All of the recordings in this set had undergone careful sound restoration in 2012, in order to respect as closely as possible the original sound. The remastering was carried out under the expert control of Mr. Guthrie Luke, a former disciple of Alfred Cortot who attended many recording sessions by Cortot. These recordings do not represent a "complete" edition: the many rolls engraved by the artist for Duo-Art, Aeolian and Pleyela labels have not been reproduced here, most of them doubling the 78-RPM repertoire. The first recordings are acoustic; and the ones with an electric microphone appeared as early as 1926.

We're worried by it, stressed out from it, frightened of it - and yet we're fascinated by it. Chaos has always been perceived as a threat, but also as the foundation of life. Various creation stories explain how the world arose out of disorder, out of "mayhem". In like manner, it is anarchic spirits in particular that are credited with the ability to create masterpieces of creative art. This conception was perhaps most neatly expressed by Friedrich Nietzsche: "You must have chaos within you, if you are to give birth to a dancing star." The present album is made up of works which, if you like, harbour the sound of chaos. Originally written for a wide variety of instruments, these pieces are arranged here for string quartet and are connected by improvised interludes - linking passages for which the Hungarian composer Samu Gryllus has provided the basis. The Chaos String Quartet emerged from the iconic violist joke: "Well-established, world-famous string quartet looking for a new first violin, second violin... and cellist." That's exactly how it happened. On Cornwall's rugged coast, during a Prussia Cove masterclass, after an illuminating lesson, a sight-reading session, and a candlelit dinner, Sara invited Susanne to form a quartet. After that first conversation, it took some time to find two other brave musicians, both beyond their mid-twenties, who were willing to embark on the exciting, sometimes complex, and risky adventure that is a string quartet. Fortunately, Eszter and Bas joined soon after, with great enthusiasm. As usual, naming proved a challenge. Some suggested using the first violinist's surname; others, a Greek god. A few warned, "Don't start with A - there are too many." Then came a provocative idea: why not call it Chaos? Furthermore, the quartet enjoys inspiring the next generation, sharing it's experience as Young Artists in Residence at Vienna's University of Music and Performing Arts, cheekily sparking a little chaos among the artists of tomorrow. Their recognition as BBC New Generation Artists (2023-2025) and regular appearances at venues like Wigmore Hall, Musikverein, and Concertgebouw illuminate a journey where unpredictability becomes inspiration-reminding us that from the origins of chaos can emerge music of unique order and profound beauty.

Making and listening to music as an act of resistance against the relentless 24/7 rhythm of our era: with his beautifully clear new recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, released by GENUIN, Milosz Sroczynski offers a deliberate counterbalance to the accelerating pace of modern life. In an accompanying essay, he reflects on music as a response to the late-capitalist demand for constant productivity and endless wakefulness. His interpretation - with which he made a highly acclaimed debut at the Davos Festival 2024 - is shaped by filigree lightness and long, seamlessly flowing musical arcs: transparent, weightless, and deeply focused. A reflective artist at the piano, Sroczynski gives us time to listen - inviting us to immerse ourselves, variation by variation, in this music.

Finnish harpsichordist Aapo H�kkinen plays Book I of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier on the Christian Vater harpsichord preserved in Nuremberg and on an equally historic clavichord. Two of the 24 pairs of Preludes and Fugues are even presented in an alternative instrumentation on the historic North German organ of Backemoor. Aapo H�kkinen, not least through his acclaimed AEOLUS recordings of Bach's harpsichord concertos, continues to reveal the richness and expressive possibilities of these masterpieces.

Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonaten und Partiten Vol. 1 (BWV 1003, 1004) Denis Goldfeld, violin Johann Sebastian Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin are among the most important works in the violin literature. Probably composed in Kothen around 1720, they combine profound musical expressiveness with technical brilliance. The collection consists of three sonatas in the traditional church form (four movements: slow-fast-slow-fast) and three partitas, which vary the dance movements. The Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor is particularly well-known, a monumental work that is considered the pinnacle of Baroque solo violin art. In these compositions, Bach demonstrates a masterful combination of polyphony, structure and emotional depth - on an instrument that seems barely capable of polyphony.

Under the title "Bach Organ Landscapes", a new complete recording of Bach's organ works will be released over the next few years. It is based on ten historical organ builders who were relevant to Johann Sebastian Bach. With no other instrument like the organ are space and sound so closely linked. The further we look back into the history of music, the more regional developments play a role. Traveling has been part of the world of organists from the very beginning.

Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of Fugue) is the fifth album in the Bach series by Jorg Halubek and his ensemble il Gusto Barocco - the think tank for the music baroque master Johann Sebastian Bach. The new recording is led by Jorg Halubek, who plays the historic German Silbermann Organ from 1737. Together with the Early Music ensemble il Gusto Barocco, they present a unique interpretation of the world famous Bach composition "The Art of Fugue".

At the age of 15, Johann Sebastian Bach attended the Latin school at St. Michael's Monastery in Luneburg for two years. There is also evidence of at least one trip to Hamburg during this time. The young Bach must have been impressed and inspired by the North German music scene with it's large organs and independent pedals, the diverse reed stops, the clear and "sharp" mixtures and, last but not least, his musical experiences in Hamburg's Gansemarkt Opera House. Bach's chorale partitas bear clear traces of the North German environment, for example in the operatic-ariose elaborations with French ornaments or in the very individual virtuoso arrangements of the variations, which suggest the text interpretations of individual song verses. In contrast to this is the Orgelbuchlein, composed in the somewhat later Weimar years, which forms the foundation for Bach's monothematic composition: Here, the sound of a chorale is formed using just one characteristic motif. The roots of this compositional aesthetic can be traced back to Bach's early encounter with Georg Bohm in Luneburg. The history of the large organ in St. Michael's, which can be traced back to the 15th century, is eventful: in 1708 the Schnitger pupil Matthias Dropa built a new organ and extended the existing instrument by Niehoff (1553) - the young Bach may have been able to follow the plans. After numerous alterations, the current specification corresponds to that of 1708, and a precise historical restoration is currently being planned. The tremendous richness of color and the tonal spirit of the Baroque period can be clearly heard despite the equal temperament. The Klapmeyer organ in Altenbruch (1730), on which Dropa also worked from 1697-1700, gives an authentic impression of the sound of this organ landscape in Luneburg thanks to the restoration by Jurgen Ahrend (2004). The specifics of the historical sounds become tangible when comparing the two instruments.

Maurice Steger, the virtuoso and world-renowned recorder player and conductor Conductor, has arranged works by Johann Sebastian Bach for recorder and orchestra for his new album with the La Cetra Basel has arranged works by Johann Sebastian Bach for recorder and orchestra.

At the highest level VISION. BACH Vol. 8 "Hans-Christoph Rademann as director of the Gaechinger Cantorey implements this in an exemplary manner with his ensembles and the soloists. The choir consists of a small chamber ensemble of up to four accomplished voices per register, including the solos. This potential forms an exceptionally high-quality chamber choir, is technically absolutely unchallenged in the demanding opening choruses, is agile and fresh, at the same time full of vocal power and affective clarity, precise and easily comprehensible in it's diction at all times. The chorales are tackled decisively and with the necessary grandeur, without ever seeming statuesque - however, with the right amount of Lutheran vigor and conviction. " Klassik. Com

Marked by a profound dramatic and spiritual intensity, the St John Passion was composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1724. Based on the Gospel according to St John, it recounts the last moments of Christ's life, from his arrest to his burial in the tomb. The Cantor's Passion is one of the most sublime works in his repertoire, drawing the listener into a mystical and contemplative reflection. Ga�tan Jarry conducts the Orchestre de l'Op�ra Royal and the child singers of the T�lzer Knabenchor, to restore this treasure of sacred music to it's rightful place.

Bach: Tenor Arias Johann Sebastian Bach wrote more than 200 cantatas. This recording explores a selection of 12 tenor arias from his cantatas, ranging in instrumentation from rich tutti orchestra to intimate obbligato instruments. Leif Aruhn-Sol�n has been in demand internationally as a tenor in the field of early music for over 20 years. He is an acclaimed Evangelist and tenor soloist in Bach's oratorios and cantatas with both modern symphony orchestras as well as some of the world's foremost baroque orchestras: the Camerata of St. John, Brisbane; the Netherland Bach Society; the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; Concerto Copenhagen; the Oslo Philharmonic; New Trinity Baroque, Atlanta. G�teborg Baroque has established itself as one of the leading Scandinavian baroque ensembles. Founded in 2003 by it's artistic director Magnus Kjellson, who conducts the ensemble from the keyboard of an organ or a harpsichord in a historically informed way, the ensemble regularly performs important and well-known works as well as re-premiering works that have been ignored or forgotten for hundreds of years. The recording was made possible thanks to a generous donation by Alfred Hagen and through the joint generosity of more than 160 individuals in an unprecedented Swedish crowdfunding campaign for a classical music recording.

The 'Juvenilia' programme centres around the early works of Johann Sebastian Bach. While much attention is given to his later works, his youthful keyboard compositions remain vastly underappreciated, being seldom performed and even more seldom recorded. Despite this, they exhibit a richness of inventiveness, youthful spirit and experimentation, while simultaneously foreshadowing the compositional hallmarks of his mature style. This album contains early compositions by Bach as well as pieces by Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Adam Reincken and Georg B�hm, who had a significant impact on Bach's artistic development and musical identity. The programme is rounded off by two anonymous and never-before-recorded pieces from the Andreas Bach Buch.

Following the departure (of his own accord) of it's founder Damien Guillon, Le Banquet C�leste has reinvented itself as a collective of musicians and singers, all committed to continuing to explore the Baroque repertoire with the stylistic rigour that has established the ensemble's reputation. For this first recording by the "new" Banquet, Bach is in the spotlight, with Cantatas BWV 85 and 115 featuring violoncello piccolo obbligato: "Smaller in size, the violoncello piccolo has a truly special timbre that can be grave and passionate, but also wiry and sensitive. In the arias where it engages in concertante dialogue with the vocal soloist, it most often embodies the voice of tenderness and consolation, and the confident promise of the hereafter," writes musicologist Corinne Schneider. The Sixth Suite for Cello, BWV 1012, completes the programme: "Radiant and joyful, it sounds like a deliverance, in perfect accord with the themes developed in these two cantatas," she concludes. C�line Scheen, Alexander Chance, Thomas Hobbs and Beno�t Arnould are the vocal soloists, and Julien Barre plays the piccolo cello.

For her debut solo album of music by J. S. Bach's contemporary Gottlieb Muffat, Gramophone praised pianist and harpsichordist Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya as "an ideal advocate for the music". Now, for her second solo recording for Linn, she turns to Johann Sebastian Bach in Transformations, revealing him as the supreme reinventor who continually refashioned existing material into striking new creations. The recital includes Bach's brilliant reworkings of concertos by Vivaldi and Marcello, expanded with a colour and vitality well beyond the originals. The other works on the programme are extraordinary arrangements of Bach's own music (Adagio in G major and Sonata in D minor), pieces initially written for a different instrument (Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E-flat major) and a concerto without orchestra (the Italian Concerto).

In 2018, four friends studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London decided to form an ensemble they called Th�odora. Mariamielle Lamagat (soprano), Louise Ayrton (baroque violin), Lucie Chabard (harpsichord) and Alice Trocellier (viola da gamba) explore French Baroque music and it's ramifications. For their first recording, part of Alpha Classics' "Baroque Stories" series, they decided to trace the French style in Germanic lands in the 18th century, where the dance forms, dotted rhythms, modulations and harmonies in vogue at the court of Louis XIV inspired composers to create numerous transcriptions, works and new instrumental practices. Johann Fischer and Johann Philipp Krieger make no secret of their admiration for Campra and Lully, whose music enjoyed considerable success across the Rhine. This programme features their magnificent "Duo de la paix et de la f�licit�" (Duet of Peace and Happiness), in a version preserved in Berlin, performed here with mezzo-soprano Ad�le Charvet. Bach is, of course, included: he admired the French organ school, particularly Jacques Boyvin, whose superb R�cit tendre, from the Second Livre d'Orgue (1700), Th�odora has transcribed for violin, viola and basso continuo.

Star conductor Herbert von Karajan is best known today for his studio recordings. However, although as a media pioneer he recognised the technical possibilities for creating recordings, he always considered the live concert to be the ideal, the radio recordings with the Berliner Philharmoniker, which were made in Berlin between 1970 and 1979 and which we present to you in this edition.

Following the success of Bach: Tenor Arias (2020), tenor Leif Aruhn-Sol�n and G�teborg Baroque under the direction of Magnus Kjellson return with a new recording: Bach: Tenor Arias, Vol. 2. This album presents twelve more tenor arias from Johann Sebastian Bach's vast cantata output-a repertoire rarely heard in concert halls. With these carefully curated selections, the recording sheds new light on Bach's extraordinary vocal writing for the tenor voice and highlights gems that, despite their brilliance, have long remained in the shadow of his more familiar works. For over 25 years, Leif Aruhn-Sol�n has been in demand internationally with a special focus on baroque repertoire, and G�teborg Baroque has established itself for more than 20 years as one of Sweden's leading baroque ensembles. Together they continue their exploration of Bach's endlessly rich musical universe.

Two violoncellos piccoli, one with four strings, the other with five, making a total of nine strings: it is as if a new instrument were born, an organ with strings instead of pipes, to perform virtuoso polyphonic masterpieces with a larger, enriched sound palette. Taking Gustav Leonhardt's keyboard transcriptions of the Suites, Sonatas and Partitas as his point of departure, Mario Brunello adds a new sonic dimension to three of Bach's solo pieces for unaccompanied violin and cello, making the polyphony previously confined to only four strings audible. He is partnered by his longstanding friend the specialist Mauro Valli, who has already appeared on Arcana with his personal reinterpretation of the Cello Suites (Bach in Bologna A459, 2019).