Zoraida di Granata, a stirring tale of love, betrayal and reconciliation, set in the Moorish kingdom of Granada in Andalusia in 1480, gave the 24-year-old Donizetti his first major operatic triumph. It marked his establishment as a true musical dramatist with a sure sense of craftsmanship and a flair for the dramatic. The opera's virtuosic central roles, fine choruses and powerful set-pieces show Rossini's unavoidable influence, though it is more a presence rather than imitation. This performance of the 1822 edition, not the 1824 revision, is performed on original instruments by Gli Originali and conducted by Alberto Zanardi.

Born in Venice around 1652, Marc'Antonio Ziani was an eminent operatic composer who, at the zenith of his career, moved to serve the Habsburgs in Vienna, where he was to die in 1715. Damira placata is the second of his operas and it's plot centres on Damira, a queen in ancient Egypt, and her struggles to win back the love of King Creonte. Conceived for the puppet theatre, the singers and instrumentalists were hidden from sight to heighten the illusion. It is a quintessential Venetian opera - declamation melts into eloquent musical gestures, recitatives are full of pathos, arias have constant rhythm, and the central characters are strongly defined.

Zoraida di Granata, a stirring tale of love, betrayal and reconciliation, set in the Moorish kingdom of Granada in Andalusia in 1480, gave the 24-year-old Donizetti his first major operatic triumph. It marked his establishment as a true musical dramatist with a sure sense of craftsmanship and a flair for the dramatic. The opera's virtuosic central roles, fine choruses and powerful set-pieces show Rossini's unavoidable influence, though it is more a presence rather than imitation. This performance of the 1822 edition, not the 1824 revision, is performed on original instruments by Gli Originali and conducted by Alberto Zanardi.

Though he was admired by figures as illustrious as Rossini and Verdi, violinist-composer Giuseppe Austri has been largely forgotten, unlike his great contemporaries Paganini, Sivori and Bazzini. These premiere recordings show how inventive and virtuosic his works for violin and piano are, suggesting that he must have been a performer of transcendent technical and expressive abilities. Austri was in the mould of the great itinerant virtuosi of his time and, though his compositions can display Paganini-like writing, he matches incendiary passages with graceful cantabile and intimate delicacy.

Boogie Woogie is an style of music that began in the 1920's, and by the '40's was the sound of popular music. It's rhythm and energy made it the perfect stepping stone in to what later became Rock & Roll. This massive 3 CD collection has 75 songs, and showcases the best of the Boogie Woogie era. Included are hits from Tommy Dorsey, Andrews Sisters, Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, and Lionel Hampton.

Who can resist this jam-packed collection of the great songs and singers from the Emerald Isle. This 3 CD set features 72 of the Irish hits, including classics like "Irish Eyes Are Smiling," "It's a Great Day for the Irish," "Too-Rah-Loo-Rah-Loo-Rah" and more, performed by Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Mitch Miller, Danny Kaye, Julie Andrews, as well as Irish singers Josef Locke and John McCormack!

Ferdinando Carulli was amongst the most important Italian guitarist-composers during the first half of the 19th century, and his Guitar Method, Op. 27 is still in use today. Marcello Fantoni's first volume of Carulli Rediscovered (Dynamic 7956) was awarded the Chitarra d'Oro Prize for best guitar album of the year in Italy in 2023, and this second volume features world premiere recordings of rarely performed works. These range from the complex Grande Sonatas to three lively Neapolitan-style Ouvertures, Op. 6 [a] brought by Carulli from Italy to his new home in Paris. The album concludes with the brief but delightfully melancholy etude in B minor, Op. 192.

Gluck's Orphee et Euridice is a masterpiece of the operatic canon, inspired by one of the most mysterious and cruel stories in Greek mythology. The gods allow Orpheus to descend into the underworld to revive his beloved wife Eurydice, but on condition that he must not look at her while returning. This production from Florence re-imagines this myth as a story for our times. It explores each character anew, highlighting the music and text as a more sophisticated psychological thriller than previously imagined, creating a moving and transformative narrative with which we can all identify.

Antonio Salieri was influential as an opera composer and later in life as a teacher to the likes of Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt - quite unlike the sinister and entirely fictional portrayal he received in the film Amadeus. Both of his keyboard concertos were composed during his early years in Vienna and reflect influences from Haydn and the galant style of Johann Christian Bach. The Harpsichord Concerto in B flat major is broader and more elaborate but lighter in mood when compared with the stormy first movement of the Harpsichord Concerto in C major. Heard here in it's world premiere recording, the Keyboard Sonata in C major presents as a suite of short independent pieces, while the short March in D major has only recently been discovered in a Berlin archive.

Gluck's Orphee et Euridice is a masterpiece of the operatic canon, inspired by one of the most mysterious and cruel stories in Greek mythology. The gods allow Orpheus to descend into the underworld to revive his beloved wife Eurydice, but on condition that he must not look at her while returning. This production from Florence re-imagines this myth as a story for our times. It explores each character anew, highlighting the music and text as a more sophisticated psychological thriller than previously imagined, creating a moving and transformative narrative with which we can all identify.

For Italian composers of the 18th century, the stage was the primary focus. However, Giovanni Battista Viotti, an exceptional violinist and composer, sought instead a career at the Concert Spirituel in Paris, where his performances seduced and astonished the public. His compositions also established the new standard in violin concertos, laying the foundation for the French violin school. This premiere complete recording of Viotti's 29 concertos reveals the full range of his technical and expressive mastery, showing why he was an influence on Paganini, and was admired by Brahms.

Saverio Mercadante was one of the pioneers of Italian instrumental music in the first half of the 19th century, a period dominated by opera. His quartets for flute and strings show his willingness to evolve and experiment in the genre, and this selection illustrates his mastery of both the Quatuor brilliant and the Quatuor concertant styles. Technical agility, a varied use of tone colours and harmonic richness mark out these very different and individual works. The performances employ the latest critical editions by Mariateresa Dellaborra.

Gli uccellatori ('The Bird Catchers') was first staged in Venice in 1759 and proved so successful that the opera was performed during the next decade throughout Italy, Spain, Poland and Germany before being performed in Vienna in 1768. It's composer was the distinguished Bohemian, Florian Leopold Gassmann, teacher of Salieri and nominated as Gluck's successor in Vienna. The plot, based on a libretto by Carlo Goldoni, concerns amorous intrigues and the buffo antics of three bird catchers and two knowing maids. Gli uccellatori is an opera with a wealth of motifs and a vibrant atmosphere, full of spirited wit and theatrical charm.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco always remained faithful to a tonal musical language. He is mostly known today for his guitar works, but his output is much richer and more varied than is widely appreciated. Castelnuovo-Tedesco selected Heinrich Heine's more ironic poems in the three collections recorded here, adding light-hearted quotes from Schumann and Verdi in his cycle The Stories of Joseph. Also included are unpublished songs such as La canzone di Usigliano with it's references to Tuscan folk songs, and the Three Sonnets from the Portuguese, which reflect the romantic and dreamy character of texts by Elizabeth Barret Browning.

Bajazet was a work of Vivaldi's late maturity, a dramatic tale that recounts the capture of the Turkish sultan Bajazet by the all-conquering Tartar, Tamerlane. It is a pasticcio, a well-established form, in which Vivaldi incorporated arias by some of the greatest young composers of his time - Johann Adolf Hasse, Geminiano Giacomelli and Riccardo Broschi, brother to the famous castrato Farinelli - to form a generous buffet of musical fireworks. Still, Vivaldi's recitatives, choruses and arias form the backbone of the opera, and constitute the majority of the music, producing a work of kaleidoscopic invention.