Beethoven: Sym 3 / Mihul: Les Amazones - Overture - Les Siecles / Francois Roth -Xavier - HARMONIA MUNDI 2021 release.

After Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Prokofiev, Vadym Kholodenko continues his exploration of the Russian repertory with a pair of rarely recorded works: Tchaikovsky's two solo piano sonatas. Imaginative, colorful and dreamy, capable of an infinite range of emotions, he reveals both the masterly architecture and the subtleties of the writing that are often sacrificed to mere demonstration of virtuosity.

This electrifying performance gives vivid testimony to the multifaceted partnership of James Gaffigan and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and invites us to explore the conductor's American roots. The program features Leonard Bernstein's mischievous dances from West Side Story, Charles Ives's spiritual Symphony No.3, the dramatically potent dissonance of Ruth Crawford's Andante for strings and Samuel Barber's boldly athletic Toccata for organ and orchestra.

KRISTIAN BEZUIDENHOUT - BEETHOVEN: PIANO CONCERTOS NOS. 1 & 3 Kristian Bezuidenhout, Pablo Heras-Casado and the Freiburger Barockorchester close their Beethoven trilogy with the classical, yet eminently personal, Concerto No.1, and that masterpiece of intensity and drama, Concerto No.3. Once again, period instruments and historically informed performance practice reveal the astonishing modernity that early listeners found in these works.

Delving into black magic and folk culture, Weber created with Der Freisch�tz a new aesthetic that was to nourish the imaginative world of a whole generation of composers. Ren� Jacobs has gone back to the sources of the initial project and here offers us a completely new reading of the very first German Romantic opera. The prologue initially conceived by the librettist is restored to it's original place, giving due symbolic and structural weight to the character of the Hermit. This is a fascinating rediscovery.

Timothy Ridout gives us the opportunity to discover the splendid viola version of Elgar's famous Cello Concerto - an arrangement approved by the composer, who conducted it's premiere in 1930. In addition to this deeply moving work, he gives us a powerful, poetic reading of Bloch's all too rarely performed Suite for Viola and Orchestra, in which the Swiss composer indulged his fascination with the Orient.

These two works represent the alpha and omega of Mozart. With these performances of Die Entf�hrung aus dem Serail (1782), probably the composer's first absolute masterpiece, and Die Zauberfl�te (1791 - the year of his death), Ren� Jacobs penetrates to the heart of Mozartian singspiel. Featuring singers, a chorus and an orchestra ideally suited to the works, these two complete recordings are now among the benchmarks of the discography.

These twenty-four preludes and fugues have become so closely associated with the personality and playing style of their 'official interpreter', Tatiana Nikolaeva, that history has decided that that's the way to perform them without looking any more deeply into the matter. Yet this Op.87 is brimming with fascinating answers for anyone who takes the trouble to ask the right questions; and it is not the least merit of Alexander Melnikov to have approached the work from first principles and come up with his own, eminently musical solutions.

After a period-instrument reading of the Symphony No.1 that received unanimous acclaim from the critics, Fran�ois-Xavier Roth and Les Si�cles return to Mahler. Joined by the luminous voice of Sabine Devieilhe for the famous finale, they offer us their vision of the Fourth Symphony, which in it's own way marks the composer's transition to modernity, and reveal unsuspected colors and instrumental balances. We still have much to learn about the polyphonic transparency possible within Mahler's big orchestra.

Following an acclaimed disc of cello concertos and symphonies by C. P. E. Bach, the musicians of the Ensemble Resonanz continue their exploration of eighteenth-century orchestral music. For several years now, under the direction of its inspired conductor Maestro Riccardo Minasi, the ensemble has taken up the challenge of playing contemporary instruments with complete mastery of historically informed performance practice. Forty years after what has been called 'the Baroque revolution', what a pleasure to rediscover these nine orchestral movements literally inhabited by the last words of Christ on the cross - and displaying that rhetorical skill of which Joseph Haydn was a peerless exponent.

This collections celebrated Akademie f�r Alte Musik Berlins' forty years of excellence with and around the Bach family. In addition to such famous works as the Brandenburg Concertos and Orchestral Suites, this anniversary set invites you to explore the golden age of a veritable dynasty, from Johann Sebastian's distant cousin Johann Ludwig to his sons Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian - from the finest works of the Baroque era to the first examples of the Classical style: simply breathtaking.

Paul Lewis's recording of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas at once took it's place as one of the great modern sets. To celebrate twenty years of collaboration with the British pianist, harmonia mundi invites you to rediscover some of the finest sonatas from this monument, each with it's own unique character. A splendid opportunity to admire Paul Lewis's infinite range of touch, with it's combination of rigor and imagination, which brings out all the poetry of these famous works.

Pell�as et M�lisande has taken it's place as one of opera's greatest masterpieces. Debussy deployed a unique style in this work, flexible and natural, never forcing the prosody of words and phrases. In this new historically informed interpretation, Fran�ois-Xavier Roth and Les Si�cles have endeavored to do justice to this music that is at once so strong and so delicate, supported by a handpicked cast of today's finest French singers.

Four symphonies were enough for Robert Schumann to leave his mark. Without allowing himself to be overawed by Beethoven's shadow, he succeeded from the outset in coining a highly personal idiom, with an astonishing combination of formal rigour and freedom of inspiration. Pablo Heras-Casado and the M�nchner Philharmoniker offer their interpretation of this corpus, more mysterious than it appears, which tells of it's composer's passionate and tormented soul.

Bruno Philippe conceives Bach's Suites for solo cello as a veritable existential journey, from life to death and resurrection. Forgoing metal strings for their historical gut equivalents, the young French artist offers us an inward, deeply moving reading of this monument of instrumental music.