Bridget Cunningham marks St. Patrick's Day with a new harpsichord album that gives a glimpse into Handel's fascinating time in Dublin. In 1741, at the age of 56, following a financially difficult time in London and with fashions turning against Italian opera, Handel went to Dublin for nine months - a thriving musical city and the secon dlargest in the British Isles after London. The story of this fascinating trip is told in both music and detailed accompanying notes by harpsichordist and musicologist Bridget Cunningham. This disc is part of Cunningham's ongoing series with the ensemble London Early Opera, which has already seen releases of esveral volumes of Handel's music, including Handel in Italy and Handel at Vauxhall.

Described by The Strad as presenting “a masterclass in unanimity of musical purpose, in which severity could melt seamlessly into charm, and drama into geniality″, the Carducci Quartet is recognized as one of today’s most successful string quartets. Performing over 90 concerts worldwide each year, the quartet’s upcoming performances of the complete Shostakovich quartets on various concert stages worldwide coincides with this CD, their second Signum release, featuring the composer’s 4th, 8th and 11th quartets.

Outstanding British-violinist Tamsin-Waley Cohen - described by the late Ruggiero Ricci following a masterclass as the 'most exceptionally gifted young violinist I have ever encountered' - performs a fittingly prodigious work by Felix Mendelssohn. The Violin Concerto in D minor was composed when Mendelssohn was just 13 and is paired with his Concerto for Violin and Piano. Waley-Cohen is joined by British pianist Huw Watkins alongside the Orchestra of the Swan conducted by David Curtis.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This new and highly-anticipated release of three symphonies of Franz Joseph Haydn follows the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Rebecca Miller's acclaimed recording of the works of CPE Bach with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment: "Self-critical perspective is clearly not a problem for these artists... The unfurling description of a lover's kisses permit all kinds of glorious opportunities for the singers' seemingly telepathic understanding for chiaroscuro, impeccable tuning and innate grammatical sense" (Gramophone, Editor's Choice, May 2015)

Gallicantus performs music surrounding the fascinating yet tragic story of Queen Mary Tudor's "phantom pregnancy". On April 30th, 1555 the city of London celebrated the birth of a health male heir, but abruptly ceased the next day after the news was revealed to be nothing but rumor. There was to be no heir, with gossip and speculation surrounding the tale of Mary's pregnancy from that day onwards. The music performed here resonates with the circumstances of the mid 1550's, including items composed outside of Mary's reign: from the royal ceremonies in which Mary participated as queen, and music directly tied to the specific events of 1554-1555. This includes a newly-reconstructed Litany which was performed during Mary's assumed pregnancy. The viewpoint shifts from the streets of London and its suburbs, through the ceremonial grandeur of the royal palaces and their chapels, to the intimacy of the Privy Chamber itself.

Subito: suddenly, or immediately. And something else besides – a moment of revelation or transformation, charged with surprise. When Witold Lutoslawski gave this title to the showpiece that he wrote for a violin competition in Indianapolis in 1994, he evoked all these qualities, and more – that delighted astonishment; the brilliant, piercing moment of musical communion between performer and listener that comes with true virtuosity. On her debut album, Julia Hwang has taken that idea – of virtuosity as communication – and embraced it from four very different directions. Grieg’s Violin Sonata No. 3 blends virtuosity with traditions both local and international, to say something unambiguously personal. Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending refines violin technique into expression as pure as the song of a skylark. Lutoslawski’s Subito creates a brief, dazzling moment whose very brilliance is its own meaning; and Henryk Wieniawski, entertainer par excellence, spins fantasy from another man’s tunes in his Fantaisie brillante sur des motifs de l’Opéra Faust de Gounod – enriching them in the process. This release continues Signum’s series of discs with St John’s College Cambridge, following their two critically-praised Choral albums of 2016.

Jeremy Filsell, a world-renowned authority and performer on both organ and piano, taps into his lifelong love of the music of Rachmaninov to create this program of new transcriptions and arrangements for the organ, centered on the Symphonic Dances, op. 45. "As a pianist, I have always been drawn to Rachmaninov's music through its sheer grandeur of line, its contrapuntal beauty, its composer's innate and callisthenic understanding of keyboard textures and indeed the considerable technical demands his music makes. Rachmaninov is the definitive pianist's pianist" (Jeremy Filsell)

11-year-old Alice lives in the not terribly exciting town of Grimthorpe. On a boring Wednesday in the summer holidays Alice’s family, wandering around town, gets caught in a downpour. They rush into the nearest shelter, which turns out to be a pet shop – much to Alice’s parents’ delight. Alice is lost in a daydream of exotic holidays... Suddenly she is jolted out of her reverie by one of the animals – a white rabbit – who starts talking to her... Opera Holland Park’s production of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a family opera by composer Will Todd and librettist Maggie Gottlieb, comes to CD for the first time after two critically praised runs in 2013 and 2014.

Lorin Maazel and the Philharmonia Orchestra perform Mahler’s Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. This four-disc box is the second set in a series that will encompass Mahler’s Nine Symphonies, featuring live orchestral recordings from London’s Royal Festival Hall of Maazel and the Philharmonia’s much-lauded Mahler Cycle.