This richly varied collection of meditative sacred music takes it's name, Agnus Dei, from the opening item, a setting for voices of Samuel Barber's celebrated and deeply expressive Adagio for Strings. The hauntingly melodic choral masterpieces that fill these two vinyls span five centuries and are the work of such composers as Bach, Mozart, Allegri, Albinoni, Faure, Rachmaninov, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Elgar and, from nearer our own time, John Tavener and Henryk Gorecki. They are performed by the choir of New College Oxford, an exemplar of Britain's great choral tradition.

This LP Vinyl of popular short pieces provides a memento of the first French lockdown in 2020: Renaud Capucon and pianist Guillaume Bellom performed on social media each day, raising the spirits of their fans. Ideal for streaming, the collection includes music by Enrico Morricone, Charlie Chaplin, Carlos Gardel, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Schumann.

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."

PIANO CONCERTOS NO 2 / VOCALISE / 2 PIEVCES FOR 6

Life meets art Joyce DiDonato stars in a live world-premiere recording of an opera written for her: Great Scott by Jake Heggie In Great Scott, the Kansas-born mezzo-soprano, one of today's best-loved classical singers, creates a role conceived specifically with her in mind. The character she plays, Arden Scott, just happens to be an opera star, and she is the lynchpin of what Fred Plotkin of WQXR, the USA's leading classical music radio station, welcomed as a "deeply moving and musically brilliant work" that "should enter the standard repertory just as Heggie's two previous masterpieces - Dead Man WalkingandMoby-Dick - already have". Jake Heggie, who has been described as US opera's most successful composer, chose the celebrated playwright Terence McNally as his librettist for Great Scott. The two previously collaborated on the gripping Dead Man Walking, which has become something of a modern classic since it's premiere in 2000. Joyce DiDonato first performed it's central role, Sister Helen Prejean, at New York City Opera in 2002 and will do so again in concert stagings in London and Madrid in January/February 2018 coinciding with the album release of Great Scott.

The programme for Alexandre Tharaud's first album of Schubert comprises the four Impromptus D 899 (op 90), the six Moments musicaux and, in Tharaud's own transcription for piano, four excerpts from the stage music for Rosamunde. When Tharaud performed the Impromptus at London's Wigmore Hall in 2014, The Guardian wrote: "He got to the heart of the beauties and abysses of this music."

CANTATAS BUXWV 39 46 51 77 & 79 / CANTATA BUXWV75

Recorded live in June 2017 at the magnificent Liceu Theatre in Barcelona, this DVD is the companion to Joyce DiDonato's award-winning album In War and Peace: Harmony through Music. Seeking answers to the existential question "In the midst of chaos, how do you find peace?", it makes a compelling piece of music theatre as DiDonato journeys through arias by Handel, Purcell, Monteverdi, Leo and Jommelli with Il Pomo d'Oro and conductor Maxim Emelyanychev. On stage, In War and Peace: Harmony through Music makes a compelling piece of music theatre. In Barcelona, as on the European and North American tours she made in late 2016, DiDonato was joined by the baroque orchestra Il Pomo d'Oro and it's principal conductor Maxim Emelyanychev. May and June 2018 bring further performances in Portugal, France, Germany, Turkey and Hungary. Includes Bonuses: Joyce DiDonato presents "In War & Peace" project. Joyce DiDonato in Athens with el Sistema Greece directed by Josh Allott. Video Clip Lascia ch'io pianga directed by James Darrah.

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 LP Vinyl of popular short pieces provides a memento of the first French lockdown in 2020: Renaud Capucon and pianist Guillaume Bellom performed on social media each day, raising the spirits of their fans. Ideal for streaming, the collection includes music by Enrico Morricone, Charlie Chaplin, Carlos Gardel, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Schumann.

Arvo P�rt's music takes us from darkness to light, says Renaud Capu�on. "It looks relatively simple on paper, but each note needs to have it's own life as it undergoes change. This music is not just relaxing - it has a depth and drama." In Autumn 2021 Renaud Capu�on becomes Artistic Director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. His first recording with the ensemble is devoted to the Estonian composer Arvo P�rt and among the eight works on the album are Spiegel i'm Spiegel, Tabula Rasa and Silouan's Song.

The first joint album from countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and guitarist Thibaut Garcia, � sa guitare takes it's name from a song by the 20th century French composer Francis Poulenc. But it's frame of reference is extraordinarily wide - both culturally and stylistically. It's 22 tracks range across 400 years and music by composers and songwriters from France, Britain, Austria, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Argentina and the USA. "The album is a journey between different cultures, different continents and different languages," says Philippe Jaroussky, "but each piece is a world in itself. The idea was to take some risks... sometimes moving to a completely different world between one track and the next." "We can evoke hugely different colours as we juggle between renaissance music and a song by Barbara," explains Thibaut Garcia. "It's our job to play with a palette of colours to produces something unique... We put a great deal of thought into the album, but we also put our hearts into it."

An album with a mission to defy classification, BariTenor is a tour de force for Michael Spyres. It ranges wide, encompassing repertoire normally assigned to both tenors and baritones. Programming 18 arias by 15 composers, it covers three centuries of opera in Italian, French and German, setting mainstream works beside relative rarities, and rediscovering Etienne Mehul's Ariodant, first heard in 1799. Michael Spyres has achieved renown as a multi-faceted tenor, but 'baritenor' is the term he uses to describe his voice, which balances brilliant high notes with a robust lower register. "Having started off as a baritone, I spent 10 years turning myself into a tenor. Voices like mine have existed as long as opera has existed, and the entire programme of this album is linked by the baritenor technique. I am making an honest attempt to explore the baritenor as a forgotten vocal phenomenon... For me, this album is more than a dream come true." Joining Spyres are the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg under it's Chief Conductor Marko Letonja, and the male singers of the chorus of the Opera du Rhin.

Faure: Piano, Chamber Music, Orchestral & Requiem TITLE: Faure: Piano Works & Chamber Music (9CD) - Gabriel Faure, whose long and influential life spanned the eras of romanticism and early modernism, enriched a diversity of genres with music of proverbial subtlety. It tantalises and captivates the listener with it's discreet beauty and it's highly personal language and expression. His works are performed in this collection by an array of artists whose credentials in French repertoire are beyond question.

RHAPSODY: CELLO SONATAS

HEROES: OPERA ARIAS

PIANO CONCERTOS

OPIUM: MELODIES FRANCAISES

VERTIGO

Gautier Capucon's triple album is a collection retracing his career on the label with highlights of his most important recordings both in chamber music (Schubert trio and quintet, Saint-Saens "Le cygne" from Le carnaval des animaux), and in concertos (Haydn, Dvorak, Schumann, Tchaikovsky). It features new recordings of J.S. Bach's Cello Suite No. 2, Dutilleux's 3 Strophes, Kodaly's Cello Sonata, and Campos's Ambre Cello.

WORKS FOR PIANO

ERATO RECITALS

CARMEN

LE GRAND THEATRE DE L'AMOUR

MUSIC FOR A WHILE - IMPORVISATIONS ON PURCELL