Grieg: Peer Gynt Suites 1 & 2 / In Autumn / Sakari Oramo Composed by Edvard Grieg / Conductor Sakari Oramo / Orchestra City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. As soon as the strings respond to the flute near the beginning of Peer Gynt's 'Morning' you sense this is a quality production. A bolder Grieg than we're used to hearing, less perfumed than dramatic and with impressive orchestral playing from the Birmingham orchestra.

PIANO CONCERTO NO.1 & HANDEL V

Pianist David Frey brings together solo keyboard works of Bach & Boulez in a program that works astonishly well.

BELLINI: LA SONNAMBULA - HLTS

The "Earth Requiem" is a gigantic work performed and recorded in Beijing in May 2011 in remembrance of the devastating Sichuan earthquake in 2008. This is the first Chinese Requiem ever composed. This massive work by renowned Chinese composer Guan Xia is scored for 100 instrumentalists, a choir of 150 singers, an organ and 4 vocal soloists. The well-established China National Symphony Orchestra invited the legendary French conductor Michel Plasson, who has long had a close association with EMI Classics, to work on the project. This partnership between West and East gives the recording a universal breadth as well as an overarching theme: The Earth. The emotional strength of the work is empowered by it's gargantuan scale.

Entre Elle Et Lui / Natalie Dessay, Michel Legrand - Composer: Michel Legrand Performers: Natalie Dessay, Michel Legrand, Catherine Michel, Pierre Boussaguet, After her triumphs in the world's great opera houses, Natalie Dessay crosses over. A tribute to the legendary Michel Legrand who has scored some of the most famous musical soundtracks.

Puccini Arias & Songs / Te Kanawa, Composer: Giacomo Puccini, Performer: Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Roger Vignoles, Conductor: Kent Nagano, Orchestra/Ensemble: Lyon Opera Orchestra, Date of Recording: 05/1996, Venue: National Opera House, Lyon, France. Madame Butterfly, La Boh�me, Turandot, Tosca and more performed by Kiri Te Kanawa.

Vivaldi: Orlando furioso Original recording reissued Antonio Vivaldi (Composer), Claudio Scimone (Conductor), I Solisti Veneti (Orchestra), Marilyn Horne (Performer Orlando), Victoria de los Angeles (Performer Angelica ), Lucia Valentini Terrani (Performer Alcina), Carmen Gonzales (Performer Bradamante ), Lajos Kozma (Performer Medoro), Sesto Bruscantini (Performer Ruggiero ), Nicola Zaccaria (Performer Astolfo) Lucia Valentini-Terrani, of course, is often considered a bridge performer between the old days and the new, and her performance here, though containing some touches now considered quaint, is close enough to the modern style to pass muster. As for Bruscantini, he was a famous buffo baritone known for rapid patter but not for Baroque music. He copes surprisingly well, not as scrupulous as the distaff side of the cast but still ably working his way through difficult runs and, yes, even a trill here and there. Horne sings through the first act with her usual flawless technique and impassioned, all-purpose energy, but toward the end of act II she suddenly erupts in dramatic outbursts. Where did that come from? And she continues to surprise with more dramatic outbursts in act III. Granted, she's not Janet Baker, but it's still better than average Horne.

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 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.

Conducted by Philippe Jordan, this recording of Ravel's complete score for Daphnis et Chlo� followed performances of the ballet at Op�ra Bastille in Paris. The staging evoked the heady days of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes as it brought together Jordan, the choreographer Benjamin Millepied and the designer Daniel Buren. Jordan had never conducted a ballet production before: "When I work on a symphony, it's different," he said, "Here, the sense of phrasing, the physicality that dancers bring, make it something else. "Completing the CD is another work by Ravel that was originally conceived for Diaghilev's Ballets Russe, the intoxicating and haunting La Valse. Famously, Diaghilev rejected the score after it was first played to him in a two-piano reduction; the performers were Ravel himself and the legendary Marcelle Meyer.

Mikhail Pletnev, a virtuoso pianist of the Russian school, rose to global fame after winning the 1978 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition. Known for his formidable technique and deep musical insight, his Erato recordings (formerly Virgin Classics) showcase his remarkable versatility and unique ability to bring emotional depth and fresh perspectives to works by Chopin, Haydn, Rachmaninov, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Mussorgsky. Despite his reserved nature, Pletnev's deeply personal interpretations continue to captivate listeners, solidifying his reputation as one of the most thoughtful and imaginative musicians of his generation.

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.

Maria Tipo's extraordinary talent was so evident from a young age that she was nicknamed the "Neapolitan Horowitz." After her early success at the Geneva International Music Competition, she rose to international acclaim within a decade of her recording debut, performing over 300 concerts in the United States. While she later chose to limit her concert activity, Tipo became a revered teacher in Geneva, Bolzano, and Florence, with Martha Argerich once recommending her to Nelson Goerner as "wonderful for you." She also made a decisive contribution to the legacy of Muzio Clementi, declaring: "I want to show that he is the one who opens the door to Romanticism, which leads directly to Franz Liszt." Tipo's recordings - from her legendary Scarlatti and Bach albums to her pioneering complete Clementi sonatas and her deeply lyrical Chopin Nocturnes - remain a precious testimony to an artistry combining astonishing technique with profound human sensitivity.

Two of the world's leading string quartets, the Eb�ne and the Belcea, come together to perform octets written 75 years apart by two phenomenally gifted teenage composers, Felix Mendelssohn and George Enescu. The two ensembles, the Eb�ne based in Paris and the Belcea in London, first joined forces almost a decade ago and have developed their collaboration since then. When they played the Mendelssohn and Enescu octets in Philadelphia in November 2024, The Strad - an authoritative voice in the world of string music - wrote: "The phrase 'luxury casting' gets tossed around a lot, but seemed entirely appropriate here, as these two distinguished groups effortlessly fused their expertise - and had a blast doing it. The gutsy results had many people in the audience standing before the interval..."

The spectacular score for Daphnis et Chlo� is Ravel's most ambitiously scaled work. First performed in 1912 and designated a 'symphonie chor�graphique', it runs for about an hour and calls for a large orchestra (including miniature bronze cymbals, castanets and a wind machine) and a wordless chorus as it portrays the adventures of a pair of young pastoral lovers in ancient Greece. When the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, conducted by Aziz Shokakhimov, performed Daphnis et Chlo� in concert in 2024, R�sonances Lyriques admired "a euphoric soundscape", citing the "opalescent timbres... captivating unity and legato in the upper strings; controlled, noble amplitude in the lower strings; impeccable, often seemingly weightless woodwind; brass that was not so much keen-edged as embracing; multicoloured percussion... and harps that were both intense and aristocratic."

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.

In Bertrand Chamayou's words, Ravel Fragments is "a personal contribution to the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of a composer who has been with me constantly since I was a child". An album of solo piano music, it ranges from Ravel's own transcriptions of La Valse and extracts from Daphnis et Chlo� - both, of course, spectacular orchestral works - to Chamayou's own transcriptions of vocal works by the composer, and to pieces that pay tribute to Ravel. Five of these are by composers of the past - Arthur Honegger, Joaqu�n Nin, Alexandre Tansman, Xavier Montsalvatge and Ricardo Vi�es (the pianist who championed the music of Ravel, Debussy and other major figures in the early 20th century), and three by composers of our own time - Betsy Jolas, Salvatore Sciarrino and Fr�d�ric Durieux.

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 Capu�on's cello becomes the voice of the Earth in an inspired album of world premiere recordings: Ga�a. 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: "Ga�a is an album dedicated to the Earth, inspired by it's beauty, fragility, and strength."

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 Morin�re, this album offers a fresh take on Bach's masterpiece Goldberg Variations, now reimagined for two guitars. The arrangement, from Garcia and Morini�re 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.

Christina Pluhar's new album, Terra Mater, is a hymn to nature. "This wonderful program is exposed to the four winds, in which you will hear the chirping of the nightingales, sweet birds, cuckoos, frogs and chickens, the whispers of the winds, heavy storms and the rumbling of the seas." Baroque repertoire, traditional music and improvisations are at the base of Terra Mater, recorded with L'Arpeggiata and the wonderful Swedish mezzo soprano Malena Ernman.

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 Morin�re, this album offers a fresh take on Bach's masterpiece Goldberg Variations, now reimagined for two guitars. The arrangement, from Garcia and Morini�re 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.