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.

MIKHAIL PLETNEV / CHOPIN & SCRIABIN: PRELUDES - The legendary pianist, Mikhail Pletnev, proudly presents his first Deutsche Grammophon recording in decades: Chopin & Scriabin: Preludes. The renditions captured reflect a master's perspective on two masterpieces of the piano repertoire. In a historic milestone for DG, the engineering team captured the performances on a pure analog vinyl format (AAA), the first time since the 1980s that this has been done for a frontline release. The analog version was recorded on a Studer tape machine with two custom-made Sennheiser microphones, while at the same time an 11-channel microphone setup was used for the digital CD version. The tape was cut and pasted with the virtuosity of earlier sound engineering, so to speak "by ear" at the Emil Berliner Studios, while the same cuts had to be made visually on the computer.

With the attention given to Rameau's harpsichord pieces and operas, we often forget that he was also an accomplished violinist: William Christie and Theotime Langlois de Swarte have therefore devised this imaginary concert in which the violin and harpsichord vie with each other in creative inventiveness. The program naturally draws on the best-known opera scenes and arias by Rameau, but also includes some of his contemporaries, in a poetic journey between the theatre, dance and song.

Francois Couperin's Pieces de violes comes alive in this deeply expressive new recording by La Bellemont, revealing the viola da gamba at the height of it's emotional and rhetorical power. Written in 1728, these works are among Couperin's final publications and blend the refinement of the French Baroque with striking intimacy, elegance, and imagination. Through two contrasting suites - from the tender melancholy of the E minor Prelude and Sarabande to the radiant brilliance of the A major suite - the album explores a world of subtle emotion, poetic silence, and richly colored harmony, where every phrase speaks with the nuance of the human voice.  Performed with exceptional sensitivity by La Bellemont, this recording highlights the ensemble's celebrated warmth, precision, and expressive depth. The musicians illuminate Couperin's unique ability to move beyond virtuosity in search of something more profound and human, - music that, in Couperin's own words, 'touches rather than surprises.' With it's refined interplay of viola da gamba, theorbo, baroque guitar and harpsichord, the album offers an immersive journey into one of the most beautiful and sophisticated sound worlds of the French Baroque.

For this fifth volume in the Lockenhaus Festival series, under the artistic direction of Nicolas Altstaedt, the cellist presents two works by the Finnish composer Olli Mustonen (born 1967, a student of Rautavaara), including Heavenly Lights (Taivaanvalot) for tenor, cello, and piano, performed here by Ian Bostridge, Nicolas Altstaedt, and the composer at the piano. The English tenor premiered the work in 2016 in it's original chamber version, recorded here for the first time. Mustonen will create an orchestral version in 2020, but the original piece is nevertheless titled Symphony: 'This work was a revelation to me the moment I discovered it. We are immersed in the era of Finnish bards and the folk poems of the Kalevala, a legendary and mystical world whose stories touch us all, regardless of our country of origin,' says Altstaedt. 'A closeness to folk art like the one Kodaly sought and found': his Sonata, Op. 4 (1909-1910), his Sonatina (1920), and the Sonata that Mustonen wrote in 2006-all for cello and piano-also make up this exhilarating and spellbinding program.

Macedonian pianist Simon Trpceski continues his critically acclaimed piano concertos series on Linn Records with a 'spectacular' (Bachtrack) live recording of Saint-Saens' Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 5, both performed at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall with Thomas Sondergard conducting the colourful and energetic Royal Scottish National Orchestra. It took Saint-Saens just seventeen days to compose the Second Concerto and practice for the premiere under the baton of Anton Rubinstein! A feat as impressive as the quality of the work itself whose well-balanced movements look back on Faure and Bach. The Fifth Concerto is the composer's answer to Wagner mania. Indeed, the work can almost be taken as a hint to his compatriots that there were plenty of other sources of inspiration available, such as the Nubian love song that Saint-Saens had heard sung by boatmen on the Nile and the sound of croaking frogs, which feature in the second movement and give the work it's title: 'The Egyptian'. This Concerto is a showcase of virtuosity for both composer and pianist.

Viola Concertos presents three 21st-century Danish concertos, written for Rafaell Altino by Karsten Fundal, Christian Winther Christensen and Soren Nils Eichberg. In these works, the viola moves from intimate lyricism to dazzling virtuosity, weaving it's way through both tender dialogues and dramatic exchanges with the orchestra. Altino's masterly playing brings out each composer's distinctive voice and reveals new facets of the viola, revealing the instrument's full expressive range, shifting between neo-Romantic hero, indifferent loner and shadowy foil.

This album brings together piano sonatas by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Schumann that reflect a specifically German approach to the form, distinct from the Viennese Classical tradition. Pianist Tianxu An explores works composed within a 26-year span, a period in which composers redefined the sonata through structural experimentation and greater performative expression. Central to the recording is a focus on the composers' detailed markings, including dynamics, pedalling, and phrasing, and how these shape interpretation in performance. Recorded in 2024, the release presents An's considered engagement with this repertoire and his interest in it's intellectual rigour and expressive breadth.

REFERENCE RECORDINGS proudly presents a landmark recording, the first commercial project to feature Joel Thompson's music exclusively, which brings together this ascendant composer and the Kansas City Symphony led by Michael Stern. The career of composer Joel Thompson has seen a meteoric rise since the premiere of his breakout choral work Seven Last Words of the Unarmed in 2015. Each of it's seven movements sets to music the last words of an unarmed Black man before he was killed. Joining them are some of the most important performers of today focused on the same crucial topics: cellist Yo-Yo Ma, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and the Sphinx Organization's vocal ensemble Exigence, led by Eugene Rogers. This is powerful music of profound insight and uncompromising conviction, brought to life by the passion and artistry of eminently skilled collaborators.

John Williams Legacy is a landmark collection featuring the maestro conducting his most iconic film scores, including beloved classics from Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, E.T., and more. Performed by world-renowned orchestras, including Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, and the Recording Arts Orchestra of Los Angeles, these definitive high-fidelity recordings capture the composer's vision with unparalleled authenticity. Featuring liner notes by acclaimed journalist and author John Burlingame, this collection is a powerful celebration of one of film music's greatest careers and an essential addition for fans old and new. CD Digipak.

At around the same time as George Frideric Handel, Johann David Heinichen, a pupil at St Thomas's School in Leipzig, set off on a grand tour to Italy in 1710. The trained lawyer could no longer resist his urge for music and was promptly and richly rewarded for his grand tour. He was swept along by the musical trends of the day. The music of Antonio Vivaldi, Alessandro Scarlatti and Francesco Gasparini had an immediate effect on him, whilst the masters of the time, such as Monteverdi and Carissimi, exerted a more indirect influence - and when he returned home in 1716, he was no longer the same man. He soon became Kapellmeister at the Dresden court, to which he made significant contributions until later in life (1729). Among other things, Heinichen left behind some fifty solo cantatas. Five of these enchanting, Italian-inspired opera scenes in pocket-sized form make up the programme of this production, whose soloist has mastered emotions in all of their facets and transformed them into sound.

Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan, renowned for their definitive interpretations of Bach's vocal music, have also garnered critical acclaim for their recordings of major choral and orchestral works, including Mozart's Requiem and the Mass in C minor, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Symphony No. 9, and Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem. Their latest venture sees them turn their expertise to Felix Mendelssohn's symphony-cantata, Symphony No. 2 'Lobgesang' (Hymn of Praise). Scored for soloists, choir, and orchestra, the work comprises three symphonic movements and a final chorus-a design that clearly echoes Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Yet Mendelssohn takes this concept further, with the concluding cantata section occupying two-thirds of the entire work's duration. It's text draws from biblical excerpts and specially commissioned poems. The initial symphonic movements, steeped in German Romanticism, deftly alternate with chorale-like passages, establishing a profound link to the ancient cantata tradition that defines the monumental finale. Premièred at St Thomas' Church in Leipzig (the same church where Mendelssohn's hero, Johann Sebastian Bach, once worked), the work celebrates the 400th anniversary of Gutenberg's invention of the printing press. It proved an immediate and resounding success, quickly becoming one of the most frequently performed works during Mendelssohn's lifetime.

Frank Martin's chamber music oeuvre may not take up much space on the shelf, yet it spans an entire artistic life. Together with pianist Ilona Timchenko; the Utrecht String Quartet dedicate themselves to three key works that impressively bring together tradition and modernity in the 20th century. His early piano quartet from 1919 clearly echoes influences from Bach to Franck, as well as folk melodies he had heard whilst stationed in the Savoy countryside during the First World War, though it is repeatedly enriched by dissonances that hint at more advanced harmonic ambitions. Martin quickly reached the limits of the traditional major-minor system, although he felt that music without tonality would be like architecture ignoring gravity. He combined Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique with a fine sense of sound and harmonic sophistication, particularly evident in the two outer movements. It was not until the age of 75 that Martin turned to the supreme genre of chamber music: the string quartet. Combining his inspirations from a long artistic career, his unique voice can be recognised in the chord progressions, musical flow and vivid rhythms, which the Utrecht String Quartet bring to life with natural ease.

Hidden for decades behind the gender-neutral pseudonym N. Lago, the music of Swedish composer Laura Netzel finally emerges in full light. This recording brings together her complete works for violin and piano: intimate, refined, and richly melodic pages shaped by Nordic folklore, daring harmonies, and the expressive freedom of the late Romantic era. Far from mere virtuoso display, these works speak in a voice of quiet intensity, where elegance conceals deep emotion. Violinist Agata Kawa-Cajler and pianist Aleksandra Dallali reveal the subtle balance of strength and delicacy that once fascinated Netzel's contemporaries, restoring to this remarkable composer the place she deserves within the Swedish neo-Romantic tradition.

Tenor saxophonist Andrew Rathbun and pianist Gary Versace-longtime collaborators on several acclaimed SteepleChase sessions-meet for the first time as a duo on Episodes, revealing a striking new dimension in their musical partnership. Versace's chameleon like ability to shift color, texture, and groove pairs seamlessly with Rathbun's ever evolving compositional voice, whose pieces here range from unmetered shapes to baroque tinged counterpoint and driving ostinati. The duo's interplay is vivid and deeply attuned: Versace favors linear, wriggling motion over harmonic cushions, while Rathbun's improvisations unfold with narrative clarity, balancing modern language with melodic focus. Across the surreal, atmospheric 'Episodes' series and the contrasting standalone works, the two push themselves into unfamiliar territory, crafting music that feels exploratory and quietly daring-an inspired debut for a duo with limitless potential. 'Rathbun is a unique voice on saxophone with a style and sound of his own.' (Ed Sapiega - Jazzview) 'All For Now (SCCD 31933) makes a solid case for what an all-around inventive player Gary Versace is. ' (DownBeat)

With this remastered edition of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde from the 1952 Bayreuth Festival, Note One label launches it's new series Note One Heritage, which makes important historical recordings in music history accessible again. The legendary performance on 23 July 1952 at the Bayreuth Festival Theatre is considered one of the most striking documents of the early post-war years and the artistic renewal of the festival in the era of the so-called New Bayreuth. At the podium is Herbert von Karajan, whose conducting steadily intensifies the dramatic tension of the score, ultimately culminating in an almost ethereal Liebestod. At the centre are two extraordinary singers: Martha Modl, one of the most dominant dramatic voices of her time, and Ramon Vinay, whose powerful, passionate Tristan ranks among the greatest interpretations of this role. Their encounter unites two contrasting temperaments in an electrifying musical dramaturgy - from eruptive passion to meditative introspection. The cast is complemented by outstanding Bayreuth forces such as Hans Hotter as Kurwenal, Ludwig Weber as King Marke and Ira Malaniuk as Brangane. The Bavarian Radio recording - long out of print and now remastered - reveals the atmosphere of a performance whose intensity and immediacy were celebrated as extraordinary even at the time. Note One Heritage's first release invites listeners to rediscover a pivotal moment in the history of opera and the festival.

Paul Smith had previously recorded two albums of my solo guitar music, so with more than enough new pieces ready, a third album seemed destined. He also kindly introduced me to Ekaterina Skliar, who has joined him for two works, playing mandolin and domra. This latter instrument comes from Russia. It has three strings tuned in fourths, and it's sound resembles both the balalaika and the mandolin. David Loeb

Louise Farrenc won the admiration of her contemporaries as one of the most respected pianists, composers and pedagogues in 19th-century Paris. She was acclaimed as a performer of Beethoven's music, and her graceful Melodie in A flat major was included in an 1846 anthology of works by an array of composers inspired by the music of Beethoven. Farrenc's Impromptu in B minor appeared in another publication, Vogt's Musical Album of Autographs, alongside compositions by 62 other musicians including Berlioz, Gounod and Liszt. The Fugues were never published in Farrenc's lifetime and are heard here in a world premiere recording. '[Stratigou] has a full mastery of Farrenc's romantic style and a technique to match' (American Record Guide on Volume 3, GP942).

Vinyl LP pressing. The second installment of the Batiste Piano Series sees multi-Grammy and Oscar winner Jon Batiste reinterpret Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's most beloved melodies as Black American classical music, infused with influences from jazz, rags, stride, blues and stomps. The result is a vibrant conversation without words - not about genre, but pure expression.

Mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack presents a deeply personal exploration with Sur, an album shaped by memory, identity, and the enduring pull of home. Inspired by a vivid childhood recollection - listening from the back seat of her father's car - Mack traces her first encounter with the electrifying sound world of Astor Piazzolla. His music, brimming with colour, grit, and intensity, left an indelible mark, one that continues to resonate in her artistry today. Known for her versatility across the operatic spectrum, Mack finds in Piazzolla's reimagined tango a natural meeting point between classical discipline and expressive freedom, bringing to these songs both technical finesse and emotional immediacy. As an Argentine artist living abroad, Mack reconnects with the spirit of Buenos Aires through music that invites vivid storytelling. Each piece unfolds as an intimate vignette, enriched by arrangements of her collaborator JP, whose work honours Piazzolla's legacy while adding a distinctive, personal voice - including his tender Dulce suenos. Together, they create a sound world that is at once nostalgic and immediate, rooted in tradition yet alive with reinvention - an invitation to experience music that, in it's depth and universality, speaks to all. This album marks Daniela Mack's debut on PENTATONE.

Between 1972 and 2018 the Ukrainian composer Yevhen Stankovych - born in 1942 and now the senior figure in Ukrainian music - produced a series of seventeen Chamber Symphonies, many of them doubling as concertos. This substantial body of music has remained largely unheard until now, even inside Ukraine, and should prove a major discovery for audiences everywhere. These works cover a kaleidoscopic range of moods - lyrical, rhythmically propulsive, bashfully hesitant, buoyantly assertive, elegiac, optimistic - expressed in a direct language with it's distant roots in the mild modernism of Berg, Britten, Janacek, Shostakovich and like composers. Stankovych's achievement is unparalleled in the history of music not simply because of the sheer number of his Chamber Symphonies - they also contain some of the finest music of the past half-century.

The voice of baritone Matteo Mencarelli - accompanied by Filippo Farinelli on the piano - magnificently interprets the chamber music anthology presented in this release: a journey through Italian lieder repertoire spanning the transition from the 19th to the 20th century. The overview of the featured composers (including a world premiere recording of works by Francesco Morlacchi) traces an intriguing path in which the use of poetic texts by both ancient and contemporary authors defines the thread running through the CD. From the literary sources employed by the composers of the Italian Historical 20th century - ranging from Dante Alighieri to Gabriele D'Annunzio, via 19th century German poetry and unique figures such as the Neapolitan poetess Laura Beatrice Mancini-Oliva - spring musical masterpieces in which the composers seek and find emancipation from the dominance of 19th-century theatrical melodrama, thereby realigning the genre of vocal chamber music with the European lied tradition.

Completely forgotten today, Friedrich Schwindl (1737 - 1786) was a highly esteemed violinist and composer in his time. His name appears repeatedly in the writings of Leopold Mozart, Charles Burney, and Daniel Schubart, yet his biography can only be reconstructed in a very fragmentary way. Born in Amsterdam, the stages of his life can be traced along the Rhine, from the Netherlands to Switzerland. The focus of his work was instrumental music, especially symphonies, of which 31 survive. They are influenced by the compositions of the Mannheim School but have a more folk-like character. A fascinating discovery of music history, brought to life virtuously and authentically by the musicians of the L'Arte del Mondo orchestra under Werner Ehrhardt.

In 1776, during a spell in Italy early in his career, the Ukrainian composer Dmytro Bortniansky (1751-1825) wrote Creonte, an opera seria based on Sophocles' tragedy Antigone and poised, like early Mozart, on the cusp between Baroque and Classical styles. Although a success in it's day, Creonte then vanished for 250 years, until it was discovered by chance in a Portuguese library. It may have been hidden there because it's tale of love versus power ends with a surprising democratic twist - a daring move in those autocratic times. Since it is the first surviving opera by a Ukrainian composer, it's revival in Kyiv in 2024 became a gesture of defiance, a symbol of national importance underlining the continued vigour of Ukrainian culture even in wartime. This remarkable recording then followed, made in sessions between Russian bombing, black-outs and power cuts - itself a testimony to Ukrainian national resilience.

Hailed for their "beautifully nuanced performances" (Gramophone Magazine), Camerata Tchaikovsky was founded in 2004 by Yuri Zhislin to bring together soloists and leading chamber musicians, touring worldwide and recording to great critical acclaim. Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante and Strauss's Metamorphosen are both works of remarkable emotional depth, heard here in chamber form revealing an entirely different perspective. The Camerata Tchaikovsky continue their long-term recording partnership with Orchid by exploring these masterpieces through the intimate sound of the string septet. At the center of the album is Yuri Zhislin's new transcription of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, created from a desire to preserve the grandeur and expressive richness of the original while allowing for the immediacy of chamber music. Alongside it sits Rudolf Leopold's striking septet realisation of Strauss's Metamorphosen, based on the composer's earliest conception of the work and illuminating it's haunting counterpoint and emotional intensity.

Third release in the series of Herbert von Karajan Hybrid SACD releases with a new HD 192/24 remastering from the original tapes. The cycle of Franz Schubert's symphonies recorded by Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic in the late 1970s remains an essential staple of the catalogue. The recordings capture the Berlin "signature sound" of that era: a silky legato and incomparable orchestral fluidity, impressive power in the brass and percussion, and a spacious recording quality achieved within the generous acoustics of the Berlin Philharmonie. It is in the final two symphonies that Karajan's conducting fully flourishes. In the "Unfinished" Symphony, he excels at establishing a mysterious and tragic atmosphere. The "Great" Symphony is undoubtedly the jewel of the cycle, where Karajan maintains a constant rhythmic pulse without ever sacrificing the plastic beauty of the sound, with the finale being a true demonstration of controlled power.

Pianist Lukas Geniusas pays tribute to the fantasy, a form synonymous with freedom, dear to the Romantics. Schubert sets the figure of the wanderer to music in his Lied Der Wanderer, which, a few years later, would give rise to a large-scale instrumental work: the Fantasy in C major, D. 760 (1822), later known as the "Wanderer" Fantasy. It's four-part structure could be that of a four-movement sonata cycle, but these sections follow one another without interruption in a continuous process, like an uninterrupted journey. Fascinated by this work, Liszt wrote his transcription for piano and orchestra in 1851, two years before his famous Sonata in B minor, which is also monothematic and unfolds as a single, vast movement. More in line with the classicists, Tchaikovsky cultivates virtuosity and instrumental brilliance in his Concert Fantasy of 1884. With the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen, conducted by Modestas Pitrenas, Geniusas offers a rare (if not unprecedented) pairing of these two fantasies, separated by just over six decades.

Under Italian skies, the young Handel chiselled the human soul into music, providing Roman palaces with secular cantatas of incandescent virtuosity. This theatre of passions explores the thousand faces of love: from the torments of the dizzying Il delirio amoroso, to the lightness of Sans y penser, through to the chains of Un'alma innamorata and the lamentations of Crudel tiranno amor. Soprano Marie Lys lends her exquisite voice to the heroines of the "dear Saxon". Under the baton of Gaétan Jarry, the Orchestre de l'Opéra Royal revives this baroque ardour with supreme elegance.