In my opinion, film music is one of the rare territories where a composer can write freely, providing that he chooses the films and subjects that suit his personality. This is the ideology that Howard Shore, one of the most innovative film composers, has embraced for more than 40 years. This album provides the perfect synthesis of three Paris concerts, which aimed to define the mysterious contours of the composer's multifaceted output. 2 LP set.

BEETHOVEN: PIANO SONATA NO. 29 HAMMERKLAVIER

The Canadian star pianist Jan Lisiecki presents his acclaimed cycle of Beethoven's five piano concertos for the first time on vinyl, accompanied by the world-acclaimed Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and conductor Tomo Keller. 5 LP boxset.

Scriabin's 'Le Po?me de l'extase' is representative of everything he produced as a composer. The oversized nature of his compositions virtually overwhelms the listener. Writer Boris Pasternak confessed, "I could not listen to this music without tears. " Tchaikovsky describes much more earthly joys and pains in his fantasy overture 'Romeo And Juliet. ' Balakirev had drawn the composer's attention to Shakespeare's tragedy. In gratitude, Tchaikovsky dedicated the score to him. The Original Source Series is remastered by the renowned Berlin-based Emil Berliner Studios using 100% pure analogue techniques to create versions of the highest possible audio quality. Produced on 180g virgin vinyl by Optimal and housed in deluxe gatefold editions, featuring additional photos and/or recording documentation.

Benjamin Grosvenor -"Rhapsody In Blue" [Blue LP] / Celebrating the 100-year anniversary of Rhapsody In Blue, Decca presents Benjamin Grosvenor's recording with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Originally released in 2012, the album features some of the foremost romantic piano concertos accompanied by the lush textures of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Available on LP for the first time, pressed on blue vinyl.

SYMPHONIES NOS. 1-3; ROMANIAN RHAPSODIES 1 & 2

Double vinyl LP pressing. Following the release of Mahler's fifth symphony as part of The Original Source Series, the sixth by the unbeatable duo Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker now follows. The Gramophone Classical Music Guide describes the recording as "A masterly achievement by composer, conductor and orchestra alike. " Mixed and edited from the original 8-track tapes, this edition provides a breathtaking listening experience of the highest analogue sound quality. Remastered by the renowned Berlin-based Emil Berliner Studios using 100% pure analogue techniques to create versions of the highest possible audio quality. Produced on 180g virgin vinyl by Optimal and housed in deluxe gatefold editions, featuring additional photos and/or recording documentation.

Orchestre de Paris/Klaus M�kel� -"Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique; Ravel: La valse". Klaus M�kel� conducts France's premier orchestra in two classic showpieces: Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and Ravel's La valse. "M�kel� is a star, no doubt, and the proof of it is that he makes his players look and sound like stars, too," wrote The Guardian about the BBC Proms performance of the Berlioz in 2024, shortly before this recording was made. This is music which belongs to the Orchestre de Paris like no other: M�kel�'s recordings follow famous predecessors from Charles Munch, Herbert Von Karajan and Daniel Barenboim. "In taking these momentous scores back to their Parisian roots Klaus M�kel� engages his keen ears and sense of orchestral drama to hear and to project their startling innovation." - Gramophone on Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps and Firebird with the Orchestre de Paris.

KEEL ROAD

LIMITED EDITION. A meeting of minds in Amsterdam: the complete Philips recordings of Sir Colin Davis and the Concertgebouworkest made in the orchestra's acoustically optimal home and featuring classic accounts of Haydn, Berlioz, Dvor�k and Stravinsky. Davis lends these readings rhythmic impetus and unassuming authority; the orchestra and audio engineers respond with sonic warmth and transparency. Colin Davis made his debut with the Concertgebouw in 1966, and conductor and orchestra quickly established a mutual affinity. Interviewed by Niek Nelissen for a new appreciation of their legacy on record, a Concertgebouw violinist recalls his 'typically British' humour in rehearsal. Davis gave the musicians of 'the orchestra a lot of freedom. He kept control in a good way, which made him popular with the orchestra.' It took another eight years for Davis and the Concertgebouw to make their first records together, but they made up for lost time. The albums of Beethoven's Violin Concerto (with Arthur Grumiaux) and the Symphonie fantastique of Berlioz were universally praised for their rhythmic impetus, and for the kind of unassuming authority that became a hallmark of Davis's conducting. In both cases, the new recordings superseded earlier versions by the same artists (Davis's LSO Berlioz, and Grumiaux's previous Beethovens with the Concertgebouw) not least because of the warmth and the transparency of the Philips recordings, made in the orchestra's acoustically optimal home. There followed, over the next eight years, a string of artistic and commercial successes. The Concertgebouw had not recorded much Haydn before, but Davis harnessed their richness of tone and supple responses, and trained it on Haydn's late symphonies with revelatory results. Even while period-instrument performers began to bring new perspectives to Haydn, Davis's lively sympathy showed itself in the buoyant rhythms, the cultivated eighteenth-century phrasing and the exuberance which always belongs to his symphonies. Together, they recorded the complete 'London' symphonies followed by the 'Paris', and this set also features a bonus of No. 84, which Davis recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra for L'Oiseau-Lyre in 1960. This is the first time all of Davis's Haydn symphony recordings with the Concertgebouworkest have been issued collectively. Equally acclaimed was a Dvor�k series featuring the last three symphonies, the concertos for violin and cello (with Salvatore Accardo and Heinrich Schiff) and the Symphonic Variations. Throughout his long career, Davis took particular pleasure in bringing out the nostalgic side as well as the Czech-accented rhythms of Dvor�k's music, just as his approach to Igor Stravinsky never lost it's cutting edge, as displayed here in Concertgebouw recordings of the three early Diaghilev ballets. While these recordings have rarely left the catalogue thanks to their popularity, hearing them together sheds new light on the remarkable idiomatic strength of the Concertgebouw/Davis partnership. Original couplings and covers have the ring of nostalgic authenticity, complemented by Niek Nelissen's new essay and many archive photographs of conductor and orchestra.

Michael Tilson Thomas's complete recordings for Deutsche Grammophon (1970-2003) and Argo (1992-1995) encapsulate the conductor's restlessly exploratory nature and masterful handling of the modern orchestra. The recordings in this collection demonstrate his superb ear for complex rhythms and textures, an orchestral builder, as well as an inspired interpreter of the widest imaginable range of music. Even the most cynical of critics set aside their Beckmesser's slate when Michael Tilson Thomas stepped on to the international stage in the early 1970s when Deutsche Grammophon released albums of Tchaikovsky, Debussy and American music. They were made near the start of his tenure as the Boston Symphony's Assistant Conductor, and they demonstrated a preternatural assurance as well as a superb ear for complex rhythms and textures. Tilson Thomas's first period with DG was relatively short-lived - just a couple of years - but it also took in his scintillating pianism, accompanying BSO principals in Debussy sonatas, and a viscerally exact Stravinsky Rite of Spring, as well as, of course, the luminous account of Tchaikovsky's 'Winter Dreams' symphony (still considered a benchmark recording of this work). All the repertoire played to his strengths and demonstrated his considerable talents as an orchestral builder as well as an inspired interpreter of the widest imaginable range of music. Once installed as Music Director of the London Symphony Orchestra, Tilson Thomas rekindled his DG relationship with two definitive albums of music by his mentor Leonard Bernstein. On The Town and Arias and Barcarolles both feature Frederica von Stade and Thomas Hampson, who were also close and long-standing associates of the composer. The LSO/DG partnership also featured typically insightful and sympathetic performances of concertos with pianist Jean-Marc Luisada and cellist Mischa Maisky. With Il sogno, Elvis Costello's ballet score for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the conductor's skill at shaping the most eclectic range of styles comes to the fore. Finally, the set brings together for the first time the Argo recordings made by Tilson Thomas with the New World Symphony, which he founded in 1997 as a 'training orchestra' but which rapidly established itself as an international-calibre ensemble, capable of taking on the most challenging repertoire. With them, Tilson Thomas produced an exhilarating album of Latin American dances (Tangazo) a sensuous survey of Morton Feldman's orchestral music, and finally a loving tribute to his teacher from college days, the composer Ingolf Dahl. If Dahl's music is still too little known, the reissue of this album should bring it new friends. Reissued with original jackets, the set includes a new appreciation of the conductor's career by Peter Quantrill.

Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing. "Music which lulls to sleep and which sings, which is of new blood, speaking gestures, an unknown fragrance, an unsleeping bird; music of stained-glass church windows, a whirl of complementary colors, a theological rainbow." This personal definition from Olivier Messiaen points to both the purely musical and the extra-musical characteristics that he demands of himself and attributes to his works. It also serves as a brief resume of one of the most important works which Messiaen produced during his first great creative period. Mixed and edited from the original 8-track tapes, this edition provides a breathtaking listening experience of the highest analogue sound quality. THE ORIGINAL SOURCE SERIES: Remastered by the renowned Berlin-based Emil Berliner Studios using 100% pure analogue techniques to create versions of the highest possible audio quality. Produced on 180g virgin vinyl by Optimal and housed in deluxe gatefold editions, featuring additional photos and/or recording documentati

The interpretation of Edvard Grieg's two Peer Gynt Suites, combined with orchestral pieces from his Sigurd Jorsalfar, occupies an important position among the highly acclaimed recordings by the Berliner Philharmoniker and their chief conductor, Herbert von Karajan. With their brilliant and expressive interpretation, the musicians demonstrate an enormous sensitivity for the Norwegian composer's unique atmospheric tonal language. - For it's 125th birthday, Deutsche Grammophon started releasing legendary recordings with the highest sound standards: The audiophile vinyl series The Original Source presents outstanding recordings from the 1970s in a whole new sound quality. For this, the renowned Emil Berliner Studios have remastered and edited the original four-track tapes in 100% analog quality (AAA) using technologies developed specifically to produce the series. The sonic differences to the original releases are considerable: greater clarity, more subtleties and improvements in frequency response, while at the same time less background noise, distortion and compression allow for an audiophile listening experience like never before. - On 180g vinyl records and in a deluxe gatefold edition with original covers and lyrics, the copies of this series are released limited and numbered, accompanied by additional photos and facsimiles of the recording logs and band boxes, and an article explains the exact technical background. - The Original Source is one of several new initiatives introduced by Deutsche Grammophon in 2023 as part of it's 125th-anniversary celebrations. The Original Source draws on the technical innovation that has been part of the label's identity ever since it was founded in 1898 by Emil Berliner, inventor of the gramophone. - "Deutsche Grammophon's distinctive nature was forged by iconic classical artists of the past, whose recordings are of timeless quality," notes Dr. Clemens Trautmann, President of Deutsche Grammophon. "Everything we do today is embedded in the wonderful 125 years of history we're celebrating this year and, in this new series, exceptional creative content goes hand in hand with the finest engineering techniques. We're delighted to present great music to our listeners in a unique audio format that will invite them to engage in a conscious listening experience." - Rainer Maillard, recording producer and managing director of Emil Berliner Studios, explains more about the process involved in creating The Original Source series: "Sometimes many years have to pass before old treasures are rediscovered. For it's 125th anniversary in 2023, DG will be reissuing a series of legendary recordings from the 1970s, cut for the first time directly from the 4-track �-inch masters, rather than the stereo �-inch tape copies. The result will be the highest possible, audiophile quality, giving listeners the chance to enjoy this repertoire as never before. "In order to better understand the background to this extraordinary series, it is worth looking at DG's technical developments in sound recording. It started recording for quadraphonic surround sound as early as 1970. The format was 4-track analogue tape, with left, right, front and rear channels. After the recording was finished, the 4-track tapes were edited in the studio at DG's site in Hannover. The various takes were cut with scissors and joined together again with sticky tape. - "Back then, however, there was no consumer format ready for quadraphonic playback, so DG was producing for the future. The label did release these recordings on regular vinyl LPs in stereo, of course, which meant the engineers had to create a stereo downmix of the 4-track master tape. For international distribution, DG made copies of this copy and sent them around the world for local manufacturing. "A tape copy can never sound as good as the original master tape, so the idea was born to make a product of the highest quality by using the original 4-track masters instead of the 2-track copies for lacquer cutting. They sound sensational, thanks to the expert team involved back in the day, and the analogue recording technology they were using. "For the new releases, two technical aspects have to be taken into account. Firstly, 4-track tape is twice as wide as the usual 2-track tape; therefore, we need a special tape machine. This has to be able to deliver a so-called preview signal, which allows the disc-cutting lathe to etch a perfect groove on the disc. Our tape machine had to be modified for this purpose and is probably the only one of it's kind in the world right now. Secondly, we need to mix the front and rear channels down to stereo in real time. A completely new, custom-built mixing desk was required for this project. Emil Berliner Studios have designed a passive mixer, which renders the highest quality without introducing any additional noise to the signal. - "The Original Source Series means: no tape copies used, no unnecessary devices in the signal path and, of course, no digital sound processing. This is the shortest possible way from the original master to the cutter head. "Compared to the original releases, the advantages in sound for the vinyl reissues are outstanding: greater clarity, more details and a better frequency response; less noise, less distortion, less compression.

LOST TAPES - BEETHOVEN: SONATAS NOS. 18, 27, 28

ORCHESTRAL WORKS

CHOPIN: 24 PRILUDES, OP. 28 (THE ORIGINAL SOURCE)

For the first time, the complete recordings of the Austrian pianist Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000) are presented in one collection, including 84 CDs and a DVD in an Original Jackets Collection. More than 50 years of recording history: from the recordings of the 17-year-old exceptional talent, recorded in 1947 in the Decca studios in London, to the Mozart recordings made in 1999 in his own studio on Lake Attersee in Austria. Gulda's repertoire ranges from his favorite composers, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, to Chopin, Schubert, Schumann, Debussy, Ravel, Strauss and Prokofiev. The collection also includes numerous jazz recordings and his own compositions.

Double vinyl LP pressing. As the first work to express Mahler's lifelong view of the beauty of life after death and resurrection, this symphony is the first truly Mahlerian symphony. Abbado's recording of this brilliant symphony with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is one of the most impressive recordings ever. Every note is precise and well thought out: the climaxes are powerful, while the gentle, playful melodies retain their charm. For this new edition, the original 4-track tapes have been remixed and recut. THE ORIGINAL SOURCE SERIES: Remastered by the renowned Berlin-based Emil Berliner Studios using 100% pure analogue techniques to create versions of the highest possible audio quality. Produced on 180g virgin vinyl by Optimal and housed in deluxe gatefold editions, featuring additional photos and/or recording documentation.

MOZART: THE PIANO WORKS (THE DECCA COLLECTION)

LOST TAPES - BEETHOVEN: SONATAS NOS. 18, 27, 28

CHOPIN: PIANO SONATAS 2 & 3

SYMPHONY NO. 9, FROM NEW WORLD (ORIGINAL SOURCE)

For the very first time, the complete studio recordings made by the iconic conductor Carlo Maria Giulini for Columbia and HMV have been remastered in high definition from original tapes and put together in a 60-CD box. This wide-ranging collection provides a comprehensive testimony of Carlo Maria Giulini's collaborations with London's most distinguished orchestras, his beloved Philharmonia Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic, later recordings made during his legendary partnership with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and a few others with the orchestras from la Scala, the Royal Opera House, la Soci�t� des Concerts du Conservatoire or the Wiener Symphoniker.

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 20 & 21 (ORIGINAL SOURCE SERIES

MY AMERICAN STORY: NORTH