"This profoundly moving and powerful music bears witness to how ancient Greek and Latin liturgical traditions were richly embellished during the Renaissance on the islands of Crete and Cyprus, all within the shared cultural space of Venetian rule. First performed by Cappella Romana at the Early Music Festival in Utrecht (Netherlands). Vocal ensemble Cappella Romana combines passion with scholarship in its exploration of early and contemporary music of the Christian East and West. Its name refers to the medieval Greek concept of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world), which embraced Rome and Western Europe as well as the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople (“New Rome”) and its Slavic commonwealth. “A sound world of unique beauty.” (Gramophone) “You’d have to have ice water in your veins to not be moved.” (Willamette Week)

Christmas with Bach: Gerhard L�ffler, the organist at the Church of St. James in Hamburg, has selected this title for his MDG debut. And to it we may add: "And with Arp Schnitger." After all, Schnitger's masterpiece of organ design in St. James is not only the largest instrument by this Northern German organ builder, whose death three hundred years ago is being commemorated in 2019, but also has what qualifies as the most important extant original pipework from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. With these resources it very much makes it's presence felt in the music and interpretation. And when captured in magnificent three-dimensional sound on this Super Audio album, it is guaranteed to spread the Christmas spirit throughout the year.

In his sleeve note to the latest CD by the Cantabile Regensburg ensemble and it's conductor Matthias Beckert, Wolfram Buchenberg writes that it is the "direct emotional access of people to each other through their voices" which fascinates him most and constantly inspires him to compose music for choir anew. The ensemble is particularly committed to exploring contemporary choral music - what a stroke of luck that this led to a collaboration with Wolfram Buchenberg whose compositions are now greatly in demand on the international choral scene. Buchenberg's compositional style, at the same time modern and yet tonal, is characterised by colorful harmonies, soloistic elements, the inclusion of spoken texts and breaking out of traditional rhythmic structures. Elements which are typically found in the choice of works - from folk song arrangements, through "Aber heidschi bumbeidschi", to the Christmas carol "O Freude uber Freude!"

In April 2019 we celebrated 50 years since the inaugural journey of the first UK-built Concorde, which flew from Filton, near Bristol, to RAF Fairford on 9th April, 1969. CRD Records has a special musical connection to this event: the Concorde March. This jubilant orchestral piece was commissioned by British Airways to mark the launch of Concorde, the first passenger supersonic airliner, a great feat of engineering and an emblem of the power of Anglo-French co-operation. Concorde March was written by the hugely popular and Grammy Award winning composer, Robert Farnon, and recorded by CRD in West Ham Central Mission (now Plaistow Memorial Community Church) with the London Symphony Orchestra and conducted by the composer, with recording engineer, Bob Auger. Originally released as a 7 inch vinyl single, the B side featured a new version of Robert Farnon's Holiday Flight.

The sonatas for violin and piano, which were composed on holidays to lakeside forests in the midst of sublime nature where Brahms loved to spend his summers, contain all the contradictions unique to the man who described himself as a wanderer: daring and discipline, na�vet� and sagacity, melancholy and joy. Pierre Fouchenneret and Eric Le Sage embark fervently on this adventure with this new volume in this crazy journey through Brahms's complete chamber music works, charted by B Records. Of the project, Pierre Fouchenneret writes: "One crazy day, a few of us decided to embark on a project which, at the time, some people deemed impossible to achieve: to perform all of Brahms's chamber music within only a few months. Every concert would be recorded... we are now a company, as in the theatre, bonded by an unstoppable urge, a definite notion of boldness, a shared perception of chamber music and a love for the repertoire."

Sir John Eliot Gardiner's personal curation of Easter Choral music inspired by his family's annual Easter Play at his home in Springhead, Dorset. A companion to the Monteverdi Choir's 1998 recording Once as I remember, which told the story of the Springhead Christmas Play. Structured around a series of tableaux, narrating through a combination of the different Gospel accounts, it is a dramatic retelling of the Resurrection story, employing disparate musical styles and frequent shifts of focus and perspective, all held together by the creative vision of a Dorset mother and her son. He writes: "This personal selection of music for Easter from the 11th to the 20th centuries tells the story of the Resurrection and Christ's appearances to his disciples. It is based on my experience of compiling and directing the music for a mimed Easter play, performed in village churches in Dorset every year between 1963 and 1984, the brainchild of my mother, Marabel Gardiner, to whose memory this recording is dedicated."

Autumn and winter bring months of cold and darkness to the North. This is why we have always so warmly embraced the Christmas season in our part of the world. For we celebrate not only the Christian festival, we also celebrate the turning of the sun and the promise of longer, lighter days to come. "Ljos" celebrates this very light — the light that shines at the darkest time, bringing warmth and hope. Fauna present a wonderful selection of Christmas songs — some familiar, some new and tantalizing to the ear — from their native Norway, which through distinctive, sensitive arrangements recreate the contrast between light and dark.

John Neumeier Collection presents four ballets by legendary American choreographer John Neumeier. Featured works include The Little Mermaid (Die kleine Meerjungfrau), Tatiana, Weihnachtsoratorium (Christmas Oratorio) and Nijinsky. “Nearly nobody else besides John Neumeier can tell stories with the bodies of his dancers. - Hamburger Morgenpost

The previous album of the leading Czech big band Concept Art Orchestra received the Andel Award in 2015 for the best jazz album of the year. The recording entitled The Prague Six featured the work of six Czech important young authors: the band s conductor and trumpeter tepánka Balcarová, saxophonist Lubo Soukup, pianists Vít Kri tan, Martin Brunner and Tomá Sýkora, and trombonist Jan Jirucha junior. The same six authors are behind this new album entitled Grown-up Christmas. The programme has been performed several times in concert and comprises originally arranged Christmas carols and songs loosely inspired by Christmas (for example poems by Czech poets Jan Skácel and Frána rámek). Concept Art Orchestra has invited singers Dan Bárta, Markéta Foukalová and Milan Cimfe to collaborate on the project. Although the binding theme for all the compositions is, indeed, Christmas, this is not a classical seasonal recording which only has a potential to enhance the Christmas atmosphere, but will bring joy throughout the year.

Shortly after taking up the position of Thomaskantor in Leipzig in 1723, Bach wrote a Magnificat in E flat major for performance at Christmas. Around a decade later he revised the work, transposing it down to D major and making it more concise. Utilizing a Biblical text, the piece is suffused with a series of memorable arias and choruses and orchestrated with spectacular grandeur. Lumen is a contemporary musical dialogue that urges empathy between the three Abrahamic religions. Translating the oratorio form into a 'unity of diversity,' Robert M. Helmschrott has converted the poetry of the Old and New Testaments, the Torah and Qur'an into an interfaith 'language of sounds and singing.'

Barokkanerne, under the direction of baroque oboist Alfredo Bernardini, rings in Christmas with German baroque music by a four-leaf clover of composers who vied for the post of cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig – a position filled by J. S. Bach after candidates Telemann, Graupner and Fasch all declined for different reasons. The ensemble serves up Advent and Christmas cantatas by Graupner, Fasch and the great Bach himself, as well as a splendid Telemann concerto led by father and daughter Bernadini. Also contributing to the album are soprano Berit Norbakken Solset, mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland, tenor Anders J. Dahlin and baritone Halvor F. Melien- all with careers spanning the globe. Barokkanerne are an Oslo-based Early Music ensemble and one of the very finest independent professional baroque orchestras on period instruments in Scandinavia. The orchestra is Norway’s most active baroque ensemble with concert series in Oslo, concert tours in Norway and abroad, countless festival performances, and continual efforts to improve competence within Early Music among youth, students, amateurs and professionals. Since 2009 Alfredo Bernardini has been a much-beloved guest leader for Barokkanerne, and he can also be heard on two of the ensemble’s earlier releases. Cecilia Bernardini is widely considered to be one of the most versatile violinists of her generation and has won prizes on both the modern and baroque violin.

The Gentlemen of HM Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace and their director Carl Jackson make their Resonus Classics debut with this album of works for lower voices by Thomas Tallis – himself a Gentleman of the Tudor Chapel Royal serving under four monarchs. Recorded in the impressive surroundings of the Chapel Royal where the choir are resident, this first release with the ensemble presents works for four and seven voices including a reconstruction of Tallis’s Missa Puer natus est nobis based on chant for Christmas Day, and the sumptuous Suscipe quaeso Domine. The Gentlemen of HM Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace sing services throughout the year in the palace’s splendid Chapel Royal, whose ceiling was installed by Henry VIII in the 1530s. There they are joined by up to eighteen boy choristers, who are drawn from schools nearby and led by Carl Jackson, Director of Music. Just as in the sixteenth century, the choir’s personnel is adapted dynamically to the occasion and the demands of the repertory. In ordinary times, there are six Gentlemen and for special occasions the ensemble can expand to as many as fourteen singers.

Also available on Blu-ray

On Christmas Eve, a young girl has a dream... Emotional awakening, physical transformation, childhood that slowly merges into adulthood... behind what seems to be a tale for children slowly emerges a danced initiatory journey. And while children revel in Drosselmeyer’s magic tricks and enjoy a good scare with the apparition of the Mouse King, the adults notice all the finesse that pervades this narrative and admire the virtuosity of the choreography. A first class company, the Ballet Company of the National Opera of Ukraine has toured all around the world: from the United States to Europe and Asia. Thanks to its rich classical heritage, the Company has managed to win the hearts of its audience thanks to its amazing technique and artistic maestria, and as in every good dance company, the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. The Company has also, over the years, establised itself as a unique talent pool, that has nurtured first class dancers such as Iana Salenko (Staatsballet Berlin), Alina Cojocaru (Royal Ballet), Maxim Beloserkovsky and Irina Dvorovenko (American Ballet Theater).

On Christmas Eve, a young girl has a dream... Emotional awakening, physical transformation, childhood that slowly merges into adulthood... behind what seems to be a tale for children slowly emerges a danced initiatory journey. And while children revel in Drosselmeyer’s magic tricks and enjoy a good scare with the apparition of the Mouse King, the adults notice all the finesse that pervades this narrative and admire the virtuosity of the choreography. A first class company, the Ballet Company of the National Opera of Ukraine has toured all around the world: from the United States to Europe and Asia. Thanks to its rich classical heritage, the Company has managed to win the hearts of its audience thanks to its amazing technique and artistic maestria, and as in every good dance company, the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. The Company has also, over the years, establised itself as a unique talent pool, that has nurtured first class dancers such as Iana Salenko (Staatsballet Berlin), Alina Cojocaru (Royal Ballet), Maxim Beloserkovsky and Irina Dvorovenko (American Ballet Theater).

The eighty young musicians of the renowned Mannheim Bläserphilharmonie, conducted by Miguel Ercolino, present a very personal Christmas album containing the favorite pieces of the orchestra members from the traditional St. Nicholas concerts. Christmas classics from Bach to Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer conjure up a festive brass Christmas. The Mannheim Bläserphilharmonie is a symphonic wind orchestra whose dedicated musicians have set themselves the task of primarily interpreting contemporary wind music at a high artistic level. With their concerts they are an integral part of the regional cultural scene; on concert tours and at international competitions they appear as culture ambassadors of the music city of Mannheim. In addition, the group awards commissions to selected composers; primarily to those from Mannheim and the region.