Douglas Moore's opera Giants in the Earth receives it's world premiere recording with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra under the music direction of Delta David Gier. Set on the stark, uninhabited Dakota plains, the drama follows Beret and Per Hansa, whose deep love is tested by isolation and the harsh realities of pioneer life. Moore's text-driven vocal lines flow with natural expression, weaving short, expressive ariosos into a seamless melodic tapestry. Central to the story, Beret's ornate Norwegian chest serves as altar, refuge, and symbol of home, underscoring the opera's themes of memory, tradition, and human longing. Moore's tonal score contrasts strength and fragility through vocal ranges, building tension toward Beret's fateful choices amid blizzards and loss. Every nuance is vividly realized, from intimate lyrical passages to the opera's devastating climax. This landmark recording illuminates the emotional intensity, psychological depth, and lyrical beauty of a work long awaited in full, making it an essential addition for lovers of American opera. The South Dakota Symphony Orchestra excavated, engraved, and revived the opera in Sioux Falls on April 26, 2025.

Live recording of a concert from St. Georgen am L�ngsee Abbey in Carinthia on June 28, 2003: La Festa presents virtuoso Italian Baroque music with works by Monteverdi and Caccini, combined with traditional tarantellas. Passionate and extraordinarily lively, the Accordone ensemble, led by singer Marco Beasley and harpsichordist Guido Morini, conjures up the spirit of a 17th-century festival. A rousing recording full of improvisational flashes of genius!

In her fourth CD release, recorder player Clara Guldberg Ravn turns to the recorder concertos of Georg Philipp Telemann. The recording reveals the full expressive range of this music, from elegant lightness and dance-like energy to moments of quiet melancholy and subtle humor. Together with members of Concerto Copenhagen, a vivid and well-balanced overall sound emerges, clearly highlighting the dialogic character of the works. Virtuosity consistently serves musical expression. This recording offers direct access to Telemann's recorder music and invites listeners to rediscover it's emotional depth and variety.

This recording is dedicated to two voices in Romantic music history that are almost forgotten today: Heinrich Stiehl (1829-1886) and Carl Schuberth (1811-1863). Both were highly regarded musicians in their day: one as an organist, teacher, and composer in Leipzig, St. Petersburg, and the Baltic region, the other as an internationally acclaimed cello virtuoso. Their works are exemplary of a musical "second tier" that shaped the musical life of the 19th century, but whose quality can only be rediscovered today. The focus is on Heinrich Stiehl's Sonata for Pianoforte and Violoncello in A minor, Op. 37. Carl Schuberth is represented with two works that impressively demonstrate his melodic inventiveness and virtuoso approach to the violoncello: the Grand Nocturne �l�giaque, Op. 6, for two cellos and piano, and the Grande Sonate for cello and piano in D major, Op. 43, a late work that combines orchestral sonority with balladic gestures. This music is interpreted by Martin Seemann and Bettina Messerschmidt (violoncello) and Mira Lange on the historic fortepiano by Streicher & S�hne (Vienna, 1864). The historically informed performance practice lends the works a transparent, colorful sonority and allows their Romantic expression to be experienced in all it's complexity.

With Seelenfrieden, tenor Martin Platz, the lautten compagney Berlin, and their artistic director Wolfgang Katschner present an impressive recording of 17th-century sacred music. The program combines vocal and instrumental works by Johann Philipp Krieger, Heinrich Sch�tz, Andreas Hammerschmidt, Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Rosenm�ller, and Johann Theile - composers who sought musical forms of expression for comfort, trust, and inner reflection during a time of profound social, political, and religious upheaval. The album focuses on psalm settings and sacred concertos whose texts touch on fundamental existential questions: fear and distress, lamentation and supplication, but also confidence, trust in God, and hope. Martin Platz, a member of the ensemble at the Nuremberg State Theater, interprets these sacred texts with extraordinary clarity and depth. His tenor voice combines a natural, effortless tone with precise articulation and a fine sense of musical rhetoric. The words always retain their weight; emotions are not displayed, but developed organically from the text. The result is an interpretation that is both emotionally immediate and stylistically reflective. The lautten compagney Berlin accompanies and comments on the stylistically confident vocal performance with the tonal transparency and stylistic sovereignty for which the ensemble is internationally renowned. The instrumental sound remains agile, colorful, and breathing; the continuo sensitively nuanced; the lines clearly contoured. Under Wolfgang Katschner's direction, a dialogical musical performance unfolds in which words and sound interpenetrate and deepen each other.

SYMPHONIES NOS. 40 & 41

Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet (Complete)

Legendary composer for stage and screen John Williams has admired the United States Marine Band, the "President's Own," since childhood - and in recent decades, the maestro and ensemble's mutual admiration has deepened amidst a series of collaborations marking the group's major anniversaries. The culmination of this twenty-year relationship was Williams' return to conduct the band's 225th anniversary gala concert in July 2023, along with the release of this 2026 album, John Williams and 'The President's Own,' Vol. 3. Completing a trilogy of albums issued by Naxos of America, this live recording brings the outstanding virtuosity, good cheer, and moving musicianship of that 2023 Kennedy Center concert to the world.

Track Listing
1. Song After Sundown - Stan Getz/Arthur Fiedler
2. Bridge, The - Sonny Rollins
3. Runnin' Wild - Benny Goodman Quartet
4. Evans - Art Blakey
5. Blood Count - Duke Ellington
6. Ill Wind - Paul Desmond
7. Salt Peanuts - Bud Powell
8. Figurine - Johnny Hodges
9. Swinging 'Till the Girls Come - Lambert, Hendricks & Bavan
10. Sweetheart of Sigmund Freud - Shorty Rogers
11. Stratusphunk - J.J. Johnson
12. As You Make Your Bed - The Sextet of Orchestra U.S.A.
13. Tijuana Gift Shop - Charles Mingus
14. Just a Mood - Red Norvo

A good cross-section of material, but only for those who wouldn't normally purchase any solo releases or boxed sets. ~ Ron Wynn

COMPLETE RECORDINGS ON DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON

It's tempting to imagine that this is how the music might have sounded four centuries ago in the glorious surroundings of St Mark's. Certainly, any comparisons are unlikely to be to the disadvantage of these exceptional young singers from The London Oratory Schola Cantorum who excel in this repertoire.

French love songs from three centuries, interspersed with reflective lute solos, constitute an Idylle for mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre and lutenist Thomas Dunford. As they explain: "The emotions of love are explored in different forms - languor, desire, fascination, happiness." The word 'idyll', evoking a blissful, tranquil experience, derives from Ancient Greece and poetry on a pastoral theme. Desandre and Dunford spin a thematic and musical thread between eras and styles, starting with a sequence of 10 airs de cour from the 17th century. Spanning the era from the 1860s to the 1920s are arias and songs by Offenbach, Debussy, Hahn and Messager, and the album then fast-forwards to the 1960s and two iconic French chanteuses, Barbara and Fran�oise Hardy. Dunford supplies instrumental interludes in the form of two dances by Robert de Vis�e, a court musician for both Louis XIV and Louis XV, and Erik Satie's Gymnop�die No 1 and Gnossienne No 1.

GABRIEL FAURE

INNO DELLE NAZIONI / QUATRO PEZZI SACRI

SIBELIUS / PROKOFIEV: VIOLIN CONCERTOS

DANCE

Rachmaninoff For Two [2 CD]

STRAVINSKY: PETROUCHKA / DEBUSSY: JEUX & PRELUDE A

Leif Ove Andsnes is a leading pianist of his time, known for his exceptional musicianship and subtil touch, his considerable technical flair being unfailingly put at the service of his interpretations. He was a pioneer for being the first home-trained superstar pianist to have emerged from Norway. This box is the story of a 20-year partnership that has yielded a rich seam of recorded treasures, first for Virgin and then for EMI. Running through this cornucopia of 34 albums (36 CDs), we find recurring themes: Grieg (Andsnes even recorded some Lyric Pieces on the composer's own piano at Troldhaugen), Nordic music in general, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Schubert.

COCTEAU TRILOGY

BEETHOVEN: TRIPLE CONCERTO OP. 56

ZIGMAN: EMIGRE

WOLFGANG SAWALLISH COLLECTION

Thibaut Garcia pays tribute with El Bohemio to the Paraguayan guitar virtuoso and composer Agustín Barrios (1885-1944). As Garcia explains, "Barrios is an essential composer in the guitarist's repertoire. His music can be described as a skilful mix of South American popular music - inspired by the jungles of Paraguay - and the Romanticism of Chopin and Schumann, composers he idolised." El Bohemio duly complements 16 varied works by Barrios himself with three of his transcriptions of famous pieces by Chopin, Schumann, and Beethoven. In addition, the album includes readings of two of Barrios's poems: 'Bohemio', which lends the album it's name, portrays the composer as a wandering troubadour; 'Profesión de fé' (Profession of faith) honours the Guarani, the indigenous people of Paraquay.

PARSIFAL