Elsa Barraine, a notable and politically intrepid figure in her lifetime (1910-1999), is a composer whose distinctive voice is being heard again. Under it's music director Cristian Macelaru, the Orchestre national de France performs four works by Barraine: the Symphony No 1, completed in Italy in 1931; the compact, but powerful Symphony No 2, composed in 1938 and ominously subtitled 'Voina', the French transliteration of the Russian word for 'war'; Song-Koi (Le Fleuve rouge) - an eight-movement evocation of the Red River which flows through Vietnam, composed in 1945, the year Vietnam declared it's independence from France, and, dating from 1959, Les Tziganes, which, as it's name implies, takes inspiration from gypsy culture. Rooted in tonality, Barraine's music is confidently and soberly crafted, it's orchestral palette both clearly defined and subtly shaded as it reflects it's times and the composer's philosophical and spiritual concerns.

David Fray stands out as one of today's most distinctive French pianists, widely acclaimed for his profound interpretations of Bach. Each of his recordings is considered a major event, making this new release all the more anticipated, as it marks his return after several years of silence. This new album features masterpieces from Rameau to Scarlatti, including lesser-known composers like Royer, with a strong focus on Bach. The repertoire includes original keyboard works as well as piano transcriptions by legendary pianists such as Siloti, Kempff, Busoni, and Stradal. Additionally, the album also includes the world premiere recording of Monsaingeon's arrangement for piano of Bach's Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, BWV 1003: Andante.

Songbook is the title of French clarinetist Pierre Genisson's new album, recorded with pianist Bruno Fontaine, and several surprising guests. Featuring a laid-back mix of repertoire taken from the American Songbook and from French popular repertoire. Terrific lineup of artists includes Monica Bellucci on "I Got You Under My Skin", Lambert Wilson on "My Funny Valentine", Thibaut Garcia on Salvador's "Syracuse" and on "Smile", Youn Sun Nah in "La Javanaise", Kimberose on "What A Wonderful World".

Terrific debut album for Huw Montague Rendall, showcasing his multifaceted talent and stylistic sensitivity. Contemplation spans three centuries, the idioms of opera, operetta, Broadway musical, lied and melodie with arias and songs by Mozart, Thomas, Gounod, Duparc, Messager, Mahler, Korngold, Rodgers and Britten. In a duet from Mozart's Die Zauberflote the baritone is joined by Canadian soprano Elisabeth Boudreault.

Dido's famous lament, 'When I am laid in earth' has long featured in Joyce DiDonato's repertoire - and she has triumphed as the tragic Queen of Carthage in Berlioz's Les Troyens - but it was in early 2024 that she first performed Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas in it's entirety. With Il Pomo d'Oro, conductor Maxim Emelyanychev, and a cast including Fatma Said as Dido's companion Belinda, DiDonato toured extensively in Europe. This recording was made in Essen's Philharmonie, where Michael Spyres took the role of Aeneas. The two stars have been through this all before, as Spyres sang Enee to DiDonato's Didon in the prizewinning Erato recording of Les Troyens, conducted in 2017 by the late John Nelson.

Alexandre Tharaud's new album features three world premieres on record - three piano concertos written for & dedicated to him by three of the most exciting contemporary composers active today. A deeply engaging, virtuosic tour-de-force of an album.

With Pianosong, Alexandre Tharaud pays homage to the great French singers and songwriters of the 20th century (Brel, Piaf, Barbara, Gainsbourg, Trenet, Ferre, Berger) by transposing their songs into a new pianistic and symphonic language. This is not a cover album, nor a tribute in the conventional sense. It is a collection of musical metamorphoses, through improvisation, arrangement, orchestration, and interpretation.

Thibaut Garcia is one of the most acclaimed classical guitarists of his generation, praised for a playing style that combines virtuosity and poetic sensitivity. Born from a deep artistic friendship with guitarist Antoine Morinere, this album offers a fresh take on Bach's masterpiece Goldberg Variations, now reimagined for two guitars. The arrangement, from Garcia and Moriniere themselves, is the result of a full year of work during which, quoting the artists, they focused on "how to adapt the keyboard work for two guitars, while preserving the illusion of a single performer". Twin guitars helped in their artistic endeavour: the album is recorded on two guitars cut from the same tree, and realized especially for the project by French luthier Hugo Cuvillier.

This album, which focuses on arias from Handel's more rarely-performed operas, is the first that Philippe Jaroussky has devoted entirely to the composer - though his Erato discography already includes complete recordings of Faramondo, Partenope and, on DVD, Alcina, and arias by Handel feature on the countertenor's Carestini: A Castrato's Story. Praising Jaroussky in Handel, the New York Times has described him as "incomparable... thrilling of voice." Now, for the first time, Jaroussky brings his impeccable Handelian credentials to an entire album devoted to arias by the composer, who produced thirty-five operas for the London stage between 1711 and 1741. For all Handel's current popularity, comparatively few of his operas are performed with great regularity. Works such as Giulio Cesare, Alcina, Ariodante, Agrippina, Serse, Rodelinda, Rinaldo, Partenope, Orlando, and Tamerlano have achieved varying degrees of currency, but, apart from an aria from Rodelinda, Jaroussky's new album puts the emphasis on operas we are less likely to hear in the theatre or concert hall: Amadigi di Gaula; Arianna in Creta; Flavio, re di Longobardi; Giustino; Imeneo; Radamisto (represented by no fewer than four arias); Riccardo primo, re d'Inghilterra; Siroe, re di Persia and Tolomeo, re di Egitto. A number of these operas were written for the famous castrato Senesino, who created many leading roles for Handel.

Five superb singers - Lisette Oropesa, Joyce DiDonato, Paul-Antoine Benos-Djian, Michael Spyres and John Chest - portray the characters in Handel's Theodora under the direction of Maxim Emelyanychev, Chief Conductor of the instrumentalists and choral singers of Il Pomo d'Oro. An elevated and moving oratorio, Theodora tells the story of Christian martyrs in ancient Antioch under Roman occupation. Handel considered it among his best works. This recording was made at the end of a concert tour that visited Vienna, Milan, Paris, Luxembourg and Essen. "An evening of top-flight singing of a kind that is only rarely experienced," was how one German reviewer summed up the performance, while in France it resulted in "a state of bliss".

Laurence Equilbey, conducting her period-instrument Insula Orchestra, champions more music by Louise Farrenc, a prominent and pioneering composer in 19th century Paris. This set completes the cycle with Symphony No. 2 in D Major Op. 35 and two overtures: Overture No. 1 in E minor, Op. 23 and Overture No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 24. The Financial Times states,.The score is so well written that it deserves a prominent place in the history of the early Romantic symphony... Equilbey and the Insula orchestra gave it a fleet, fiery performance. Their crusading spirit lived up to the day's billing".

For me, the Elgar Cello Concerto is about passion," says Gautier Capucon, who has now recorded the work with the London Symphony Orchestra - which played at the concerto's premiere in 1919 - and it's new Music Director, Antonio Pappano. The companion piece for the Elgar is William Walton's cello concerto, premiered nearly 40 years later in 1957. "The Elgar is the quintessence of deep emotions, and the cello is exactly the right instrument to transmit them," continues Capucon. "The Walton Cello Concerto is absolutely gorgeous, a magical piece It's very challenging, very difficult. There are the two cadenzas, which are very demanding on the cellist, and like the Elgar, structurally, the second movement is an extremely virtuosic dialogue with the orchestra." As Antonio Pappano explains, "This is not the first time the Elgar, which is a very strong, dark piece, has been paired with the Walton, and it's a wonderful coupling. Walton uses a richer harmonic palette, a more diverse orchestra, more colourful forces: vibraphone, celesta, harp. The music twinkles and has the mystery of the night about it. But it sings. It sings the way Elgar's concerto sings. At the end of the day it is a mood piece, and I think it shares that with the Elgar. And you can see the history of English music and how it progressed. I believe English music really has a lot to say if it's done with full-on intensity and drama, and the London Symphony Orchestra can produce that like no other.

Six virtuoso vocal soloists and the instrumentalists of Les Accents rise to the dramatic and expressive challenges of Serpentes ignei in deserto - 'Fiery Serpents in the Desert' - a biblical oratorio by Johann Adolf Hasse. As the conductor and violinist Thibault Noally explains: "Hasse was probably one of the most famous composers of his time - as famous as Handel, or even more famous than Handel in some countries." Born near Hamburg in 1699, Hasse studied in Italy and was active in such musical centers as Naples, Vienna, Dresden and Venice, where he composed Serpentes ignei in deserto. The central role of Moses is taken by countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, who is joined by soprano Julia Lezhneva as an Angel, sopranist Bruno de Sa, and three further star countertenors - Jakub Jozef Orlinski, Carlo Vistoli and David Hansen. "The score is demanding for all the singers," continues Thibault Noally. "Every character is very different from the others and each of our soloists has a unique personality and a unique vocal timbre. The result is a huge variety of temperaments and colors."

A pianist whose exceptional intelligence and sensitivity draws on her effervescent spirit, Anne Queffelec learned her craft in both Paris and Vienna. She had a close relationship with Erato and Virgin Classics, which produced a rich discography. This recording is an absolute best seller, and probably the most famous version of Erik Satie's masterpieces, the Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes. "No pianist understands the atmosphere of Satie's music or can sharpen it's wit more tellingly than Anne Queffelec." Gramophone Magazine

September 15th 2026 will mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of the most influential conductors of the 20th century: Bruno Walter (1876-1962). This comprehensive box set brings together his complete HMV and Columbia Graphophone recordings. Spanning the 78-rpm era from 1924 to 1939, this collection also features the landmark 1949 magnetic tape recording of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder featuring Kathleen Ferrier, offering the first release of two previously unpublished takes. To ensure the highest fidelity, the finest available materials have been sourced, including pristine test pressings on vinyl from original metal work and near-mint superior commercial pressings. After undergoing high-definition digitization, the recordings were meticulously restored. This collection finally sheds a truer and more precise light on the artistry and genius of Bruno Walter.

Recorded in late 2020 at the Philharmonie in Paris, home city of Quatuor Ebene, this complete DVD cycle of the Beethoven String Quartets, directed by Sebastien Glas, complements the complete audio cycle recorded by the Ebene in 2019 and early 2020; entitled Beethoven Around the World, the CDs drew on performances in Paris and six other great cities on five continents. The impact of the Ebene's approach to Beethoven - both exhilarating and illuminating - was summed up by the respected magazine The Strad, which spoke of "white-hot interpretative intensity and fantasy" as the players "peel back layers of stultifying accretion and rediscover the shock value of this music for a contemporary audience... they play not as they should, but as they feel they must."

Recorded in late 2020 at the Philharmonie in Paris, home city of Quatuor Ebene, this complete DVD cycle of the Beethoven String Quartets, directed by Sebastien Glas, complements the complete audio cycle recorded by the Ebene in 2019 and early 2020; entitled Beethoven Around the World, the CDs drew on performances in Paris and six other great cities on five continents. The impact of the Ebene's approach to Beethoven - both exhilarating and illuminating - was summed up by the respected magazine The Strad, which spoke of "white-hot interpretative intensity and fantasy" as the players "peel back layers of stultifying accretion and rediscover the shock value of this music for a contemporary audience... they play not as they should, but as they feel they must."

This album dedicated to Ernest Chausson gathers some of the finest French interpreters of today, a rare collaboration between violinist Renaud Capucon, Quatuor Ebene and pianist Nicholas Angelich. The program offers a comprehensive look at Chausson's genius, pairing the intricate chamber music of Concert Op.21 with the sweeping Poeme for violin and orchestra. This album also serves as a tribute to the late Nicholas Angelich, timed as it is to coincide with the anniversary of his passing on April 18, 2022.

An invocation - a prayer, plea, appeal, entreaty or supplication - can take many forms. So can Elsa Dreisig, praised by Gramophone as "one of her generation's most eloquent and engaging singers". Since 2015, when she first gained international attention, the Paris-born soprano has given ample proof of the breadth and diversity of her talent, in the opera house and concert hall, and with her recordings for Erato. On Invocation she sings 15 arias and two songs - from 'greatest hits' to rarities - written by 14 composers to texts in six languages. She performs with conductor Massimo Zanetti and the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova.

In the Renaissance and Baroque eras Seville, already a cultural melting pot, became Spain's principal port for the routes to South America. Named after the twelve-sided 'golden' tower that dominates the River Guadilquivir in Seville, La Torre del Oro, is the latest album from Christina Pluhar's ensemble L'Arpeggiata. Tracing and mixing the musical cross-currents that run between Spain and Central and South America - Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina and Chile - it takes the 1500s as the starting point for a captivating journey that reaches the modern day. For La Torre del Oro singers Celine Scheen, Luciana Mancini and Vincenzo Capezzuto join the 13 instrumentalists of L'Arpeggiata, led by Christina Pluhar on the theorbo. Among the other instruments to be heard are baroque guitar and harp, Venezuelan cuatro and harp, cornetto, harpsichord, accordion and maracas.

In what was one of the great modern feats of classical recording, American-born organist and harpsichordist Scott Ross recorded all 555 of Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas between June 1984 and September 1985. Released in nine volumes, these recordings were widely acclaimed by critics and the public alike; they appear here at a super budget price ($7 per CD before our discount)! "This is quite simply a magnificent recording of magnificent music "- Gramophone.

Luka (violin) and Leo (cello) Ispir (laureates 2023 of Fondation Gautier Capucon) are two award-winning musicians, trained at prestigious institutions such as the Conservatoire de Paris and the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel. Fondation Gautier Capucon is dedicated to supporting emerging young musicians, helping them launch their professional careers with mentorship, visibility, and opportunities to perform: fondationgautiercapucon. Com. This album showcases a diverse program, blending masterpieces by Bach and Mozart with a tribute to Ravel's iconic Sonata for Violin and Cello, in the year of 150th's anniversary of the composer's birth. It also features the world premiere recording of Street of Memories, Op. 115 by Turkish composer and pianist Fazil Say.

Pianists Bertrand Chamayou and Leif Ove Andsnes join forces to record Schubert's magnificent Fantasia in F minor, presenting a landmark Schubert 4 Hands album. This release arrives 40 years after Radu Lupu and Murray Perahia's legendary CBS recording and 60 years after Benjamin Britten and Sviatoslav Richter's historic Aldeburgh Festival performance. The duo delivers breathtaking interpretations that could establish this recording as the new reference for Schubert's Fantasia. The album pairs the Fantasia with other Schubert four-hand works composed in 1828, the year of the composer's death, offering a deeply intimate and historically informed program.

I believe this project is one of the most important of my life as a keyboard player. On the one hand, because of it's extraordinary richness and prolific content, and on the other hand, because of the strong and so right relationship that Louis Couperin and his work had with the harpsichord and the organ. He knew how to make these instruments sing and vibrate like no one before him and probably no one after him either. Jean Rondeau. A monumental project unlike any other on the market today, Louis Couperin The Complete Works feature all his works, but Jean Rondeau has also selected works by composers Couperin considered his masters and students. The set comprises 10 albums and 1 DVD - a 66 minute film by Erwan Ricordeau, features Rondeau in Colmar's Unterlinden Museum, one of the locations of the recording. He explains the instrument, and his relationship and admiration for Couperin. It provides fascinating insights which are a perfect accompaniment to this Complete Works set. (DVD: region-free NTSC format- picture format: 16:9 anamorphic- sound format: stereo PCM 2.0 language: French, subtitles. English)

For Quatuor Arod, the six string quartets in Haydn's opus 76 "represent the apogee of the Classical style, but they are also ageless, "presenting almost infinite possibilities". This Haydn project has been close to Arod's heart for a long time. "Haydn, the founding father of the string quartet, composed the op. 76 quartets in his mid-sixties. Representing Haydn in all his maturity, achievement and mastery as he exploits a broad expressive palette, they constitute a turning point in the history of the quartet as a genre." Within this Classical repertoire, the Arod's players sought to be "faithful to both the spirit and letter of these works... The modern bow, invented after the time of Haydn, did not allow us enough flexibility and lightness, which are defining features of his writing..." Arod's solution was to commission a new set of bows, based on models produced in the 1770s by the celebrated Tourte brothers. The players' instruments, which date from the 17th and 18th centuries, remained configured for modern practice. "The impact of the Classical bows was immediate: the articulation became more natural, the responses more flexible, the sound more transparent. The bows transformed our playing, which became lighter, more open and more free."

Gautier Capucon's cello becomes the voice of the Earth in an inspired album of world premiere recordings: Gaia. Uniting seventeen world-premiere works by sixteen contemporary composers, this project - which takes it's name from the Greek goddess of Earth and mother of all life - sets out to explore humanity's relationship to nature through a multifaceted lens, drawing from different musical genres, aesthetics, and cultural influences as well as the formidable contrasts of the natural world. The recordings showcase diverse new works by innovative contemporary composers, from luminaries in the field - Max Richter, Ludovico Einaudi, Joe Hisaishi, Bryce Dessner - to brilliant emerging talents. In Gautier's words: "Gaia is an album dedicated to the Earth, inspired by it's beauty, fragility, and strength."

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, Bartok, Beethoven Berg, Brahms, Franck, Haydn, Liszt, Mussorgsky, Ravel, Rachmaninov and Zemlinsky. Appearing with Angelich are Martha Argerich, Quatuor Ebene, Myung-Whun Chung and the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, and Tugan Sokhiev and the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse.

These 16 CDs offer a comprehensive and meticulously curated journey through Bizet's major works, bringing together exceptional performances by top-tier artists. Operas: 9 CDs, featuring two versions of Carmen the legendary 1964 version by Maria Callas and Nicolai Gedda under the baton of Georges Pretre, and the original version restored by Fritz Oeser in 1964, recorded in 2012 by Simon Rattle with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Magdalena Kozena and Jonas Kaufmann. Orchestral Works: 3 CDs Piano Music, Songs, Choral Music, and Arrangements: 1.5 CDs (including the two Carmen Fantasy his famous opera inspired to both Pablo de Sarasate and Franz Waxman) Historical Recordings dating from 1903 (!) to 1943: 2.5 CDs Booklet includes an extensive biography by French specialist Francois Laurent.

Renaud Capucon recognises Vivaldi's Four Seasons as "a highlight of the violin repertoire", but it has taken him some time to add it to his discography. "For years, I refused to play it," he explains. "I'd heard it too much in the corridors of the Metro in Paris and as holding music on the phone. But once I'd accepted to play it, I was blown away by the power of the music... I realised that it's famous because it's amazing! It's a masterpiece. I've now played it frequently with Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and it feels fresh and new every time." He has chosen to complement Vivaldi's four concertos with two sparkling concertos composed in Paris some 40 years after Vivaldi's death. They are by Chevalier de Saint-George (1745-1799), born in Guadeloupe of French and African descent, who became a prominent and influential figure in Paris. He has been described in the New York Times as a composer who holds a "truly unique place in Western classical music history".