'Claude Debussy is still the greatest musical enigma that has ever existed,' said Aldo Ciccolini. 'You never get to the bottom of his music. That is perhaps why he will never be forgotten: people will never give up trying to make sense of him. Debussy never fails to surprise you and his music has a charm that is quite indefinable.' Ciccolini, though born in Naples, confessed to having a French soul and he distinguished himself as a supremely subtle and illuminating interpreter of the composer who described himself as 'musicien fran�ais'.

Conductor Laurence Equilbey is fascinated and inspired by the unconventional, hybrid character of Beethoven's 'Choral Fantasy' and 'Triple Concerto'. She sees it as 'the root of their originality, which gives them a special place in Beethoven's output and in the history of music as a whole'.

Limited 14CD set. Best known as the duo partner of violinist Christian Ferras, Pierre Barbizet was notable for bringing integrity, vitality and generosity to all his music-making. Born in Chile in 1922, he trained at the Marseille Conservatory and later returned to the institution as it's director. Among his students was H�l�ne Grimaud, who has said: "He only had to sit at the piano and play for a few minutes to widen your horizons." In addition to Ferras, Barbizet's colleagues in this collection include his good friend Samson Fran�ois, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Andr� Cluytens (conducting the Piano Concerto No 1 by Serge Nigg, a pupil of Messiaen and Leibowitz), and members of the Quatuor Parrenin, who join him in Schumann's Piano Quartet, an interpretation making it's first appearance on CD. Another CD premiere is Barbizet's 1979 reading of Beethoven's 'Appassionata' Sonata, while, in the words of Gramophone magazine, his 1982 recording of Chabrier's piano works is "graced with playing that combines vivacious characterization with great interpretative subtlety".

In themselves, Beethoven's quartets represent an odyssey, a round-the-world voyage," says Quatuor �b�ne. The French ensemble is marking the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth with a global tour of 21 countries. In the course of their Beethoven Around the World tour, the �b�ne will make live recordings in seven different cities: Vienna, Philadelphia, Tokyo, S�o Paulo, Melbourne, Nairobi and Paris. This first release, recorded at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, comprises the first two 'Razumovsky' Quartets, op 59 No 1 and op 59 No 2.

2021 marks 100 years since the death of Camille Saint-Sa�ns, one of the acknowledged masters of French music. Pianist Bertrand Chamayou, violinist Renaud Capu�on and cellist Edgar Moreau salute him with this album of three of his finest chamber works: the Violin Sonata No 1, Cello Sonata No 1 and Piano Trio No 2. "These are splendid works," says Bertrand Chamayou, "but only relatively rarely performed and recorded. This is essential French Romantic chamber music and French performers of our generation have a duty to share it with audiences."

In Summer 2020 the Salzburg Festival celebrated it's 100th anniversary with Mozart's Cos� fan tutte in a production entirely conceived under pandemic conditions. Created in a matter of weeks by a team led by award-winning stage director Christoph Loy and conductor Joana Malwitz, it was hailed by the German newspaper Die Welt as "The best Mozart at Salzburg for decades." The three female singers in the cast are all closely linked with the Erato label - soprano Elsa Dreisig and mezzo-sopranos Marianne Crebassa and Lea Desandre. They are joined by tenor Bogdan Volkov and baritones Andr� Schuen and Johannes Martin Kr�nzle in an ensemble that was praised for it's balance, harmony and dramatic credibility. "We are delighted," says the Salzburg Festival's artistic director Markus Hinterh�user, "that this production - which allows audiences to hear and experience the miracle of Mozart in all it's delicacy and grace, and realised with the greatest theatrical and musical intelligence

Classical Music

2019 release. "The most dramatic piece that Berlioz ever wrote," is how conductor John Nelson describes La Damnation de Faust. The composer designated this thrilling hybrid of oratorio and opera a 'l�gende dramatique'. Following in the triumphant footsteps of Les Troyens, also recorded at the Auditorium Erasme in Strasbourg, this performance reunites Nelson and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg with singers Michael Spyres, Joyce DiDonato and Nicolas Courjal. This recording was made in the Auditorium Erasme in Strasbourg in April 2019, two years after Nelson, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and a superb cast including Joyce DiDonato, Michael Spyres and Nicolas Courjal brought Berlioz's Les Troyens to life in the same venue. The associated Erato recording of the huge two-part opera has gone on to win unalloyed praise and multiple major prizes. As the New York Times wrote: "Berlioz's epic opera has rarely been given such luxury treatment as in this magnificent live recording from France."

Natalie Dessay is a dazzling opera singer. Her charisma, captured on the stages of the world's great opera houses and in the recording studio, illuminates the opera arias and scenes in this collection. From Mozart's furious Queen of the Night or Offenbach's robotic Olympia to Strauss's flirtatious Zerbinetta and Delibes' devoted Lakm�... Handel's mercurial Cleopatra to Donizetti's desperate Lucia... Thomas's fragile Oph�lie to Massenet's capricious Manon and Verdi's passionate, tragic Violetta... Natalie Dessay proves irresistible in repertoire that spans three centuries and a wealth of musical and dramatic possibilities.

Soprano Diana Damrau assumes the crowns of three different Tudor queens, the central characters in operas by Donizetti: Anne Boleyn (Anna Bolena), Mary, Queen of Scots (Maria Stuarda), and Elizabeth I (Roberto Devereux). With Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra and Chorus of Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, she performs the substantial and climactic final scene of each work. When Damrau sang Maria Stuarda at the Zurich Opera, the Neue Z�rcher Zeitung wrote: "She commands a voice that seems to have no limits. Her coloratura is stunning, her vocal range impressive, and her dynamic shadings are breath-taking. Damrau is in a class of her own."

2020 release. Expressing his own cultural identity, guitarist Thibaut Garcia combines Rodrigo's archetypally Spanish Concierto de Aranjuez with a declaration of l'esprit fran�ais: Alexandre Tansman's neoclassical Musique de cour, inspired by the court of Louis XIV. Garcia's heritage is Spanish, but he is French, born in the city of Toulouse, where this album was recorded with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and the young British conductor Ben Glassberg. It is completed by four solo pieces by Regino S�inz de la Maza, the guitarist who gave the premiere of the Concierto de Aranjuez in 1940.

Mozart: Le Nozze Di Figaro / Barenboim, Tomlinson, Rodgers, Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Performer: John Tomlinson, Phyllis Pancella, Joan Rodgers, Richard Br�nner, Conductor: Daniel Barenboim, Orchestra/Ensemble: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin RIAS Chamber Chorus, "Barenboim continues to favors a forceful, big-scale reading with often deliberate speeds for the slower numbers, a musically accomplished, thought-through account of the crucial finales to Acts 2 and 4, lively treatment of the recitative, finely-honed playing of the wind, alert rhythms and an avoidance for the most part of appoggiaturas... John Tomlinson is much better suited by Figaro than he was by Alfonso, but still wants in tonal focus... but he does at all times create a lively personality, a force to be reckoned with... Sir Geraint Evans is even more individual in his characterization - listen to the recitative before his Act 4 aria - and has the more agile voice, helped by the fact that it tends more towards the baritonal." - Gramophone

Claudio Scimone directs the Ambrosian Singers and I Solisti Veneti, never overshadowing the singers in this recording of Rossini's Zelmire from Erato Disques.

ENTRE ELLE & LUI (DVD) - LIVE

In this exciting new disc, Virgin Classics countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic breaks the 200-year-old tradition of female mexxo-sopranos incarnating male characters. Paving the way for countertenors to sing what were once exclusively "trouser roles", Cencic and director Michael Hofstetter offer arias and overtures from Rossini operas spanning from TANCREDI, Aurelliano in PALMIRA, DONNA DEL LAGO, until the climax of the composer's Neapolitan Era with Semiramide. The results are fresh and revelatory, making a strong case for more men taking on these parts.