Alberto Franchetti and Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari shared a dual heritage, and all three of the works on this album were written while the composers were respectively in Germany. Late Romantic and cast in the German symphonic tradition, Franchetti's Symphony in E minor is a colourful, evocative and majestic work, heard here alongside Nella Foresta nera, which was inspired by the wild beauty of the forests of the Rhine valley. Wolf-Ferrari's expansive Sinfonia da camera rounds out the programme.

This album offers a new approach to the character of Scheherazade, with Rimsky-Korsakov's musical masterpiece transcribed for the forces of Ensemble K and a previously unpublished text, freely adapted from the Thousand and One Nights and ancient love poems, which tells the story of Scheherazade. The Franco-Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani plays Scheherazade, while Kristin Winters is her sister, Dinarzad: 'For me, this story is a literary and historical treasure of humanity. But our collective imagination has seen Scheherazade as either a seductress or a submissive woman who told stories to survive. The greatness of this character goes far beyond that, and in fact represents the ancient figure of the "hero", or rather the heroine!', says Simone Menezes, who is artistic director of this project. For this second collaboration with Alpha Classics (after Amazonia, ALPHA990), she presents two versions of the programme, one with music and texts, the other with Rimsky-Korsakov's music alone.

The Eiger Trio was founded in 2020 by Filipa Nunes, Kateryna Tereshchenko and Maria Clement after many years of playing together at the Zurich Opera House. Their diverse backgrounds (Portugal, Ukraine and Russia) allow them to combine their experience and temperament to achieve this enriched musical language.

Nadia Anjuman (1980-2005) was an Afghan poet writing during a period of turmoil. In 1995, when the Taliban captured Herat, her birthplace, women's liberties were drastically reduced. A gifted student, Nadia faced a future with no hope of education. With other women she attended an underground educational circle called the Golden Needle Sewing School. Meeting under the guise of learning how to sew, the meetings were in fact discussions on literature with Herat professors. The project was dangerous: if caught, the punishment could be imprisonment, torture or hanging. Nadia was 21 when the Taliban was ousted. While earning her degree in literature she published her first book of poetry. She married into a family who believed that, since she was a woman, writing brought disgrace on their reputation. Yet she continued to write. At the age of 25 she was beaten to death by her husband. The five poems I chose are wide-ranging and cover extremes of emotion: from love; to delight in being a poet; to despair at her lack of freedom; and even contemplation of suicide. � Richard Blackford

Nadia Anjuman (1980-2005) was an Afghan poet writing during a period of turmoil. In 1995, when the Taliban captured Herat, her birthplace, women's liberties were drastically reduced. A gifted student, Nadia faced a future with no hope of education. With other women she attended an underground educational circle called the Golden Needle Sewing School. Meeting under the guise of learning how to sew, the meetings were in fact discussions on literature with Herat professors. The project was dangerous: if caught, the punishment could be imprisonment, torture or hanging. Nadia was 21 when the Taliban was ousted. While earning her degree in literature she published her first book of poetry. She married into a family who believed that, since she was a woman, writing brought disgrace on their reputation. Yet she continued to write. At the age of 25 she was beaten to death by her husband. The five poems I chose are wide-ranging and cover extremes of emotion: from love; to delight in being a poet; to despair at her lack of freedom; and even contemplation of suicide. � Richard Blackford

Dvořák’s Legends and Slavonic Rhapsodies, recorded by Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, Tomáš Netopil, marks the Orchestra’s fourth recording featuring Czech composers in 2024’s Year of Czech Music. Dvořák wrote his Slavonic Rhapsodies just before the Slavonic Dances that catapulted him to world fame, and they share their colorful orchestration and appealing folk dance melodies, even if the Rhapsodies have more expansive, ambitious forms. The Legends are at least as ingenious, with a smaller orchestra giving the pieces a more intimate, introspective quality. These lesser-known gems are now presented in a glorious idiomatic interpretation by the Czech Philharmonic, arguably the world’s best orchestra for this repertoire.

The Czech Philharmonic is one of the world’s orchestral gems, recognised for its rich tradition with the Czech masters as well as European repertoire. Together with their chief conductor and artistic director Semyon Bychkov, they have so far recorded for PENTATONE Mahler’s First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth Symphonies (2022-2023), part of the complete Mahler cycle to be released by the label, as well as Smetana's Má vlast and Dvořák's Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Symphonies (2024). The Orchestra is also featured on the albums Folk Songs (2023) and Czech Songs (2024) recorded by Magdalena Kožená and Sir Simon Rattle. Principal Guest Conductor Tomáš Netopil makes his Pentatone debut.

The Dresdner Philharmonie and Marek Janowski present a recording of Antonin Dvorak's Stabat Mater, together with the MDR Leipzig Radio Choir, Hanna-Elisabeth Muller (soprano), Roxana Constantinescu (mezzo-soprano), Christian Elsner (tenor) and Tareq Nazmi (bass). In terms of scope and duration, Dvorak's Stabat Mater is the largest setting of this sacred text to date. Likely inspired by the tragic death of all his three children - in the timespan of just two years - the work is heartrending, yet establishes a gradual path from darkness to light, from despair to peace and hope; ascetic and restrained, yet full of suspense. This recording, made in connection to a live performance commemorating the bombing of Dresden, offers a rendition that never drags, avoids excessive sentimentality, and is all the more moving as a result. Marek Janowski is one of the most celebrated conductors of our time and has a vast PENTATONE discography, chiefly consisting of German operas and symphonic works. From 2019 to 2023 he was Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Dresdner Philharmonie. Dvorak's Stabat Mater is his seventh PENTATONE recording with this orchestra, with whom he recently released Schubert's Unfinished and Great Symphonies (2023), Schumann's complete symphonies (2024), as well as Haydn's Die Schopfung (2024). The MDR Leipzig Radio Choir also appeared on that recording, has frequently featured on other PENTATONE recordings and starred on Bruckner Haydn Motets (2021) and Mendelssohn Choral Works (2023). Hanna-Elisabeth Muller released Reine de coeur (2018) and Sinnbild; Strauss Songs (2022) on PENTATONE. Roxana Constantinescu featured on PENTATONE recordings of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and Puccini's Il tabarro (both 2020), as well as Kodaly & Bartok (2023). Christian Elsner also has a longstanding relationship with the label, including his solo recording of Schubert Lieder (2015). Tareq Nazmi appeared on the beforementioned recording of Die Schopfung.

In Buenos Aires, Tango is described as the forbidden dance and in this performance the violin and piano capture not only the sound but also the essence of Tango creating an evocative dance between the instruments. The violin has the lead melodic material and the piano has some really exciting riffs and plays the supportive role guiding their interplay. Clarissa's Tango starts with a short, cadenza-like introduction on the solo violin, the tango is cast in rondo form, with the central C section moving from the home key of D minor to D major. It's an ebullient duet that makes virtuoso demands on the solo violin, from extreme high tessitura passages and multi-stops to fast passage work as the violin elaborates on the main tango melody. [Richard Blackford]

No one has surpassed Marais: only one has equalled him, and that is the famous Forqueray: with these words, in 1752, a contemporary praised one of the last great virtuosos of the viola da gamba. Known for his formidably difficult and technical musical style, Forqueray's world is nonetheless immensely rich: through the works of the father Antoine, his son Jean-Baptiste and his nephew Nicolas-Gilles, an august lineage emerges whose grace and genius never ceased to inspire. At times proud, even bellicose, at other times deeply tender, the viol pieces by this Forqueray family plunge us into a flight of expressions of passions whose vivacity is equalled only by their intensity. Myriam Rignol, as a distant granddaughter, accompanied by her exquisite Timbres, delivers in this complete work a powerful homage to these 18th-century chamber music icons who, in their image, could never be anything other than virtuoso.

The Bremen-born painter and sculptor Hugo Körtzinger (1892 - 1967) was a close friend of his much more famous colleague Ernst Barlach. Both were in the favor of the well-known Hamburg art patron Hermann F. Reemtsma. In 1937, Reemtsma financed a new workshop for Hugo Körtzinger in the small town of Schnega (Wendland), where he saved sculptures of his friend Barlach, which were considered "degenerate art", from being melted during the Nazi era. In 1937, Germany's most important organ-building company at that time, E.F. Walcker, built a new 3-manual instrument for Körtzinger's studio as their Opus 2576 - at the request of the customer with many unusual timbres. The instrument was continuously extended in individual construction steps until 1947.

A few years ago, the studio and the organ, which had been completely unplayable for many decades, were renovated thanks to the support of the Hermann F. Reemtsma Foundation. Martin Schmeding presents the instrument on a double SACD with music by baroque composers, played in the style of the 1930s aesthetic, as well as with original works from the time the instrument was built. This program gives an impression of the works that may have been played in the Körtzinger atelier between 1937 and 1967. The program is supplemented by Schmeding's improvisations on sculptures by Ernst Barlach.

USP: the first recording of an organ that is probably one of the largest private organs in Germany. Very comprehensive booklet (48 pages) with many illustrations and descriptions of Körtzinger and the recorded music. Double SACD in stereo and 5.1 surround sound. Rarely heard works from the 1930s and 1940s.

Roberto Fabbriciani's journey continues into the depths of the work of Luis de Pablo (1930-2021). After the CD dedicated to the flute works of the great Spanish composer, the CD Pensieri is now released which sees Roberto Fabbriciani, a flautist who has collaborated with the major composers of our time, engaged with the Basque National Orchestra directed by José Ramon Encinar. At the opening is the piece that gives the album its title, Pensieri, Rhapsody for flute and orchestra composed in the years 2013-2014, in four movements. Followed by Flauta, tú voladora from 2020 for flute in C, Solo Kunst (2000-2017), Three fugues from “Die Kunst der Fuge” by J.S. Bach for clarinet solo in the flute version by Roberto Fabbriciani and, at the end of this intense listening journey, Sólo un paso (1974) for a flutist and an actor, with the elaboration of the flute part by Roberto Fabbriciani. Between unexpected sounds and very personal musical solutions, the album presents a program of great expressive richness, and offers itself as a heartfelt homage to a central figure in the history of Spanish music and, more generally, of the contemporary musical panorama.

Le Retour des Dieux sur la Terre and Le Caprice d'erato are part of the tradition inherited from Louis XIV of occasional pieces that served to illustrate major events at Court: Composed four years apart, the first to celebrate the wedding of Louis XV and Marie Leszczynska in 1725 and the second for the birth of their first son in 1729, these two divertissements are veritable little concert operas in which splendid grand narratives, triumphal overtures, surprising dances, solemn choruses and grandiose finales follow one another. Alexis Kossenko invites us here to savour the delights of these musical evenings, which gradually spread to all the salons of the 18th century, and where everything seems to invite us to celebrate!

Quatuor Diotima celebrates the bicentennial anniversary of Anton Bruckner with a recording of his String Quartet in C Minor, Rondo in C Minor and Theme with Variations in E-Flat Major, alongside the String Quartet in E-Flat Major from his pupil Friedrich Klose. Bruckner wrote these pieces as composition exercises, yet they adumbrate the originality and power of his later works, as well as pay tribute to the glorious Viennese quartet tradition. Like Bruckner, Klose strongly sympathized with Wagner and the proponents of programme music, and chamber music had not appealed to him very much up until the moment he embarked on his only string quartet composition. Sarcastically, he subtitled it a "tribute paid in four instalments to my stern German schoolmasters", yet he demonstrates a full mastery of the conventions of musical form, paired with an almost unprecedented wealth of musical ideas. This album, recorded at and in close cooperation with the Brucknerhaus Linz, shall be one of the most original contributions to the Bruckner year 2024, highlighting his achievements in the field of chamber music as well as his compositional legacy. Quatuor Diotima is one of the most in-demand chamber ensembles in the world today, and has worked in close collaboration with several of the greatest composers of the late twentieth century. Reflected in the mirror of today's music, the quartet projects a new light onto the masterpieces of the 19th and 20th centuries. The quartet returns to PENTATONE after their acclaimed Metamorphosis Ligeti, released in 2023.

Destined to be musicians? The female composers to whom Baroque violinist Sophie de Bardonneche pays tribute enjoyed very different fates: while the name elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665-1729) continued to be remembered, who knows Mlle Duval (born around 1718), the second woman to have a work presented at the Paris Opera and nicknamed 'la Legende' in her time? Her opera-ballet, Les Genies, remains a testament to her great mastery. Then there were Anne-Madeleine Guesdon de Presles and elisabeth-Louise Pellecier, composers married to composers - the latter signed her works with the name of her husband, Papavoine... Others found it easier to achieve the limelight because they were aristocrats, like Mlle de Menetou (1679-1745). No fewer than ten female composers are brought back to life in this programme of sonatas, overtures and dances devised by Sophie de Bardonneche, a founder member of Le Consort, who is accompanied on her first solo album by her partners Lucile Boulanger and Justin Taylor.

Renowned bass-baritone Adam Plachetka celebrates the Year of Czech Music with an anthology of Czech evening songs by Antonin Dvorak, Bedrich Smetana, Zdenek Fibich and Josef Suk. All based on love poems for Vitezslav Halek's Vecerni pisne (Evening Songs), these songs provide a panorama of great Czech music, also zooming in on lesser-known repertoire. Plachetka performs them together with pianist David svec. Bass-baritone Adam Plachetka frequents the world's most prestigious opera houses, and is a MET regular, equally at home in dramatic and comic repertoire. He returns to PENTATONE after having released Molieri, combining opera arias by Mozart and Salieri, in 2022.

The Orchestre symphonique de Montreal and it's Music Director Rafael Payare celebrate Arnold Schoenberg's 150th birthday with a recording of two of his late-Romantic masterworks: Verklarte Nacht and Pelleas und Melisande. Both pieces are based on stories evolving around love, jealousy, acceptance and forgiveness, and showcase Schoenberg's expressive harmonic language and scintillating, multifarious orchestration. The album booklet features unique photography and paintings by Arnold Schoenberg, sketching a vivid picture of this extraordinarily versatile artist. After their acclaimed PENTATONE recordings of Mahler's Fifth Symphony (2023), as well as his Ruckert-Lieder and Strauss's Ein Heldenleben (2024), Payare and the orchestra further explore this late-Romantic repertoire that fits them like a glove.

Zuzana Ferjencíková starts her complete recording of Jean Guillou's organ works with AEOLUS with this recording of symphonic poems. The Slovakian concert organist studied for many years with Jean Guillou (1930 - 2019) and performed his complete organ works in several concerts at the Saint-Eustache church in Paris a few years ago. The 5-manual instrument there was conceived by Jean Guillou in the late 1980s and built by the firm Van den Heuvel (NL) in 1989. Fortunately, we were able to make the recordings for this double SACD (stereo and 5.1 surround) on precisely this spectacular instrument. In addition to Jean Guillou's own symphonic poems, Zuzana Ferjencíková has also recorded here all the transcriptions of works by Franz Liszt that Guillou made. His arrangement of Liszt's "Tasso" is available as a world premiere recording.

Le Carnaval du Parnasse, Mondonville's heroic ballet, was a dazzling triumph at its premiere in 1749, eclipsing Rameau's Zoroastre, which premiered the same year. Dedicated to the Marquise de Pompadour, muse of the arts and the omnipotent favorite of the King, this whimsical carnival is nothing short of a delicious marivaudage: on Mount Parnassus, Apollo and his Muses indulge in feasts of the senses and entertainments of the heart… Mondonville displays prodigious virtuosity throughout, depicting unheard-of orchestral colors and imagining unbridled dances and vast ceremonial choruses comparable to those in his great motets. Alexis Kossenko and his ensemble Les Ambassadeurs ~ La Grande Écurie, joined by the eminent vocal power of the Chœur de Chambre de Namur, have made an exceptional rediscovery of this masterful reincarnation of the splendors of the Court of Louis XV, then at its apogee.

The CD "Agua & Vinho Sentimentals: Moods for Flute and Guitar" offers a wide and varied anthology of pieces by different authors, from classical to contemporary, revisited by the personal sensitivity of Carolina Dello Iacono (flute) and Antonio Grande (guitar). In the intense instrumental dialogue, the publication becomes a singular musical story that explores different artistic languages, from the song by Egberto Gismonti (that gives the album’s title) to works by Ada Gentile, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Francis Poulenc, and others, between enveloping atmospheres and moments that open up unexpected sonic horizons. The protagonists of this particular listening journey, in a polyphony of ideas, voices, and creative instances, are Carolina Dello Iacono and Antonio Grande, musicians with great experience and extensive artistic activity.

Mael Bailly's music undoubtedly bears the imprint, rather than the weight, of his composer mentor Gerard Pesson, for the elder Bailly is gifted with a wellknown benevolence and generosity. A respectful distance from a heritage that has been accepted and fulfilled, and a singular and facetious imagination, encourage emancipation. Mael Bailly's musical style is already clear. Numerous works are emerging, with instrumentations and styles as eclectic as they are surprising. Mael Bailly is resolutely of his time. He is one of those who develop a form of living discourse that offers at every moment many possible paths towards his own future. (Brian Ferneyhough) The musical flow is leaping, bouncing, stomping, boiling. The sound textures whirl around in a wide spectrum of fumaroles of colours, both finely chiselled and sometimes melting like magma. In this game of hands or sonic hopscotch, as Mael Bailly himself calls it, the sounds develop, continue and imitate each other in a rhythmic whirlwind that is at times relentlessly robotic and at other times endowed with a suspenseful elasticity that gives the discourse a new dimension. At other times, they are endowed with a suspenseful elasticity that gives the discourse the singular impression of hesitating, especially when it evolves in an open form. The improvising spirit is often lurking in the shadows.

Conceived on a grand scale, Lloyd's late choral works build fruitfully upon his previous experience in other genres. They share with his operas an innate lyricism, natural affinity with the human voice and feeling for the long line, while their structural balance, intensive working out of motifs and rich orchestral palette owes a significant debt to his prolific symphonic output. Lloyd produced the final score of his Requiem a month before his death. It is inscribed 'to the memory of Diana Princess of Wales'. Compassionate, reassuring and even, at times, joyful, this is a conscious leave-taking on the part of the composer.

Conceived on a grand scale, Lloyd's late choral works build fruitfully upon his previous experience in other genres. They share with his operas an innate lyricism, natural affinity with the human voice and feeling for the long line, while their structural balance, intensive working out of motifs and rich orchestral palette owes a significant debt to his prolific symphonic output. Lloyd's compact and cogent setting of Psalm 130 constitutes, arguably, his most fluently effective use of a cappella choral writing.

The surviving work of a mystery composer from the late French Baroque, in a new recording by a highly accomplished young early-music keyboardist. Nothing is known of Le Bret beyond the volume of keyboard pieces reproduced here, which analysis of both musical style and ancillary details has dated to the 1730s or 1740s. Whoever he was, Le Bret was clearly inspired by Fran�ois Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau, and his style is comparable to that of the harpsichordists who followed in their footsteps between 1720 and 1740, such as Jean-Fran�ois Dandrieu, Fran�ois d'Agincourt, Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, Bernard de Bury and Jacques Duphly in his first two books. Like them, Le Bret alternates dances and character pieces. On the other hand, he makes no concessions to the taste for pastoral and country music, does not seem influenced by opera music, and does not overdo descriptive effects and virtuosity. All in all, Le Bret remains faithful to the subtle and poetic language of the harpsichord; as he says in his preface, he has 'always endeavored in composing them to adorn them with the most graceful songs, knowing from our most illustrious masters that this is the beauty of this instrument.' As Simone El Oufir Pierini observes in his booklet essay for this album, one evident example of Le Bret's knowledge of 'our most illustrious masters' arises in the piece titled L'Embarassante, a stylish homage to Les Cyclopes by Rameau. Born in Rome in 1996, Simone El Oufir Pierini studied piano at the conservatoire of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Developing a particular interest in historically informed piano practice, he attended masterclasses led by Alexei Lubimov and Andreas Staier, before undertaking specialised study of harpsichord and basso continuo with such teachers as Andrea Coen and Giovanni Togni. He has made several wellreceived albums for Brilliant Classics, both solo and with colleagues.

Schubert: Arpeggione

For me, whenever I play the Bach suites, all of a sudden I find myself visualising Giacometti's hands incessantly moulding the earthen clay until a face appears. Getting to grips with the Bach suites is very closely related to that sense. You have to dig deeply into the string to give birth to the phrase, to make sure it breathes correctly: a phrase that is perpetually becoming, endlessly making and remaking itself. I waited a long time before recording these suites. Then one day, or rather one night, I began. Then there was my meeting with Sarah Moon. When I first felt my longing to record the Bach suites, I dreamt constantly of her images; because whenever I look at them I think of the creation of the world, the separation of the waters, the earth appearing, all before the beginning of history. Sonia Wieder-Atherton