The Royal Ballet’s The Nutcracker is the quintessential Christmas ballet. When her nutcracker toy comes to life, young Clara is transported by the magician Drosselmeyer to a magical world of excitement and delight. Lauren Cuthbertson and Federico Bonelli dance the exquisite Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince; Francesca Hayward and Alexander Campbell take the roles of Clara and the Nutcracker; and Gary Avis is the mysterious, kindly Drosselmeyer. This performance celebrated Peter Wright’s 90th birthday and a production that has been in The Royal Ballet’s repertory for more than thirty years. With sumptuous period designs, spellbinding stage effects and of course Tchaikovsky’s iconic score, The Nutcracker continues to enchant audiences of all ages. Filmed in High Definition and recorded in true SS. "fresh and reinvigorated - Nutcrackers come and Nutcrackers go but the Royal Ballet's version is a hardy perennial. " (The Stage) "The Royal Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker, always handsomely traditional, has become a tradition of its own." (The Independent) "Francesca Hayward and Alexander Campbell make an enchanting couple, " (The Daily Telegraph)

DETAILS:

Format: NTSC
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Dubbed: None
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

For over fifty years, Britain’s foremost recorder player, John Turner, has composed a carol and sent the score as his Christmas Card. Until now just a personal gift to his friends, John was persuaded to record a selection, which has led to this beautiful album. Presented by the chamber choir Intimate Voices (which also performs as Voces Intimae) and featuring sopranos Sasha Johnson Manning, Eleanor Gregory and Philippa Hyde in solo and duet pieces, with obbligato harp and oboe in some, this is a lovely mixed programme of Nativity carols, composed very much in traditional style, in new settings of ancient texts. John Turner is a fine composer but is chiefly known as a recorder player and champion of contemporary composers, with dozens of recordings to his credit, many from Divine Art and Métier.

Troels Jensen has finally established his dream project: a large band consisting of rhythm, reeds and voices—respectively The Healers, The Blues Horns and The Belles of Joy—Miriam Mandipira is now a featured member. Together they let the music roll along like a well-oiled freight train, through rockers and ballads, be they originals or standards. The Dane Troels Jensen started out as a cornetist in a New Orleans band, then moved on to bluegrass, country and western. With his bottleneck guitar in hand, he was spotted by legendary blues and gospel singer and guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She spurred him to follow her way, which he did as a vocalist, pianist and guitarist in the Delta Blues Band, a mainstay on the European scene for half a century. Miriam Mandipira was born and grew up in Zimbabwe. As a small girl, she became interested in music and through television, she became smitten by blues, gospel, jazz and soul. She studied classical music, lieder and musicals at school and became well versed in technique and performance. Before her graduation she had to make a choice, and returned to her first love in music, the one that had grabbed her emotions. Professionally, she sang jazz and blues in Zimbabwe, then Africa, before she reached Denmark ten years ago. Her voice carries the legacy of the greatest singers of jazz and soul like Billie Holiday, Etta James and Aretha Franklin. Mandipira and Jensen has performed together on numerous occasions to great critical acclaim. Their new project My Love promises to bring together the best from the jazz and soul tradition with a lively, modern spirit produced by a large band where each member gives their all to the music.

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists celebrate Christmas with a mixed programme of J.S. Bach’s sacred choral works. As we approach the 500th Anniversary of the Lutheran Church, these works transport listeners to 18th-century Leipzig for a traditional Christmas celebration. The programme moves from the intimacy of “Süßer Trost” to the vast celebration of joy that is Bach's Magnificat. The Bach at Christmas project is dedicated to the memory of philanthropist and patron of the Monteverdi choir, Sir Ralph Kohn. The concerts from which these recordings were taken took place at the Alte Oper, Frankfurt, in December of 2016.

The more you lose yourself in the wonderful world of the Christmas Carols, the deeper you want to dive into them. It was like this with the MDR Radio Choir, and we can be happy that the much-loved Geniun album of this top ensemble and its leader, Philipp Ahmann, will be followed by a second. What treasures are there to discover: an endless variety of songs with a broad range of expression and mood, sung lovingly and with the highest level of musical skill! Carols such as Macht hoch die Tur (“Life up your heads”) or O du frohliche (“Oh how joyful”) stand side by side along treasures from England, France, Japan, and many countries. At the latest from the second verse on you will begin to hum along.

“Choral Music for Christmas” presents the very best of Advent and Christmas choral music from the Carus catalog. Contemporary arrangements of popular Christmas carols by composers such as Fredo Jung and Giacomo Mezallira feature alongside works by well-known composers including Handel, Bach, Heinichen, and Mendelssohn Bartholdy. The performers, including the Calmus Ensemble, the Kammerchor Stuttgart conducted by Frieder Bernius, the Dresdner Kammerchor conducted by Hans-Christoph Rademann, and the ensemble L’arpa festante, guarantee an absolute choral treat.

The Cincinnati May Festival Chorus, the official chorus of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops, performs a capella traditional Christmas carols under the direction of Robert Porco. The May Festival Chorus has earned acclaim locally, nationally, and internationally for its musicality, vast range of repertoire and sheer power of sound. The Chorus of 145 professionally trained singers is the core artistic element of the Cincinnati May Festival as well as the official chorus of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops. Founded in 1873, the annual May Festival is the oldest, and one of the most prestigious, choral festivals in the Western Hemisphere. In this release, the Chorus performs sublime a capella arrangements of traditional Christmas hymns and carols.

Throughout the world Christmas is celebrated – and everywhere, singing Christmas carols is part of the celebrations. This limited special edition offers over 100 of the most beautiful German and international carols: For the first time, the “Weihnachtslieder” (German Christmas Carols) as well as the “Weihnachtslieder aus aller Welt” (Christmas Carols of the World) of the prize-winning LIEDERPROJEKT are being issued together in an incredible four-release set. The LIEDERPROJEKT is a charity project produced by Carus and Southwest German Radio. For every album set sold, 2 EUR will be donated to projects which promote singing with children.

New chamber compositions by Telemann made available to the concert world by intensive research and in modern score editions form the focus of the Magdeburg Sunday Concerts, in German: the "Sonntagsmusiken." klassik. com described our first album with Advent and Christmas cantatas as "A treasure trove of brilliant sacred arias!" The arias on the second portion of this series involve pieces taken from "complete" sacred compositions and performed in Hamburg’s principal places of worship during the church year 1726-27. The two arias contained in a particular sacred composition were removed from their context for the purposes of publication. The Eisenach court secretary Johann Friedrich Helbig was the author of the texts for the church compositions and the arias included in them. Telemann packed a great deal into the concentrated aria space. We might say that he balanced the minimum of the ensemble with compositional intensity and complexity in respect of melodic formation as well as with the thematic design of the basses, forceful declamation and rhythmic scheme, and the large spectrum of keys and harmonic manifoldness.

Pianist and composer Alexander Scriabin, according to one calendar, was born on Christmas Day, 1972. His highly idiosyncratic figure as both man and musician endeared him to the poets of his time, who were able to understand him, but made him unpopular with contemporary composers, who were too different from him. He was a small man, with genteel and affected mannerisms. He studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory and graduated in 1892 with perfect marks and a medal for merit. He was often struck by nervous fits and tormented by dark thoughts. He was a strange man, who walked with an unusual skip. His early musical production reflects his great skill as a pianist (which was universally acknowledged.) His writing builds on the tradition of Chopin and Liszt. In Scriabin’s vision there is a creator Spirit that permeates matter with light and the matter brought to life becomes “waves” (A in Russian, a word that evokes a cadenced flow). Sound, which exists because it propogates through spherical waves, and color, both constituitive elements of matter, are defined by their vibrations. Sound and color fill up the cosmos, a cosmos made of time and space.

Expanded Edition: This album contains new tracks that were not available on the original, limited release version, released on-demand in 2015

The essence of The King’s Singers has always been live performance. On Christmas Presence, the beloved acapella group gives the listener the experience of being at a live King’s Singers concert in one of the world’s most beautiful buildings, from the comfort of their own home. The program for this special holiday concert takes the listener through various ages and styles of music, from the Renaissance to the present day. A sublime accompaniment to the holiday season, the King's Singers open with sacred music, move through modern carols, and end with festive musical favorites.

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REVIEWS:

This live performance catches The King’s Singers in particularly fresh, spontaneous fettle, as their 50th anniversary approaches.

– BBC Music Magazine

Recorded live at King’s College, Cambridge in 2015, the King’s Singers are as alluring as ever. All is given with that familiar, deliciously fragile refinement.

– The Sunday Times (UK)

This cleverly planned new recital represents a uniquely valuable addition to the catalogue and focuses attention on English piano music which is less well known but no less delectable. Our programme ranges from some of the most famous names in music to those best-known in other areas of the art - and has been carefully chosen to present a uniquely fascinating conspectus of piano music by British composers of the last 100 years. There are such rarities as Benjamin Britten's brilliant early suite 'Holiday Diary', the great composer in lighter mood, and the magnificent virtuoso set of Six Studies for Piano by Kenneth Leighton, alongside a rare collection of Impressionist pieces by Gustav Holst - showing him to be as much a master of the keyboard as his 'Planets' suite is of the orchestra. John Ireland (Britten's teacher) is represented by his haunting Ballade of London Nights, and we have a significant premiere recording of Ireland's most famous song - Sea Fever - arranged for solo piano by Roderick Williams, best-known as one of the finest of all living British singers, now appearing on disc in a new light. Both the world premiere Goodwood-by-the-Sea and the piano arrangement of Sea Fever were written by Roderick Williams especially for Maria Marchant and dedicated to her. Ronald Stevenson's 'Peter Grimes Fantasy' takes us back to Benjamin Britten - a wonderful homage from one major British composer to another.

Thys Yool is a four-part programme of medieval music in which four images central to the Christmas story are brought together. Beginning with a sometimes melancholy picture of earth-bound humanity (Winter and Wassail), the record moves through nativity songs (A Child Is Born) towards the point at which Christian and pagan traditions come together in an adoration of the Virgin which is often expressed in the passionate language of the courtly lover. A sense of human perceptions being profoundly altered by the events of Christmas is evoked in Mary’s Son, Goodwill on Earth and a French 12th century conductus touches on the theme of Rebirth. Thys Yool has been a popular Christmas title in the Nimbus catalogue for many years. The Martin Best Ensemble, led by English singer, lutenist, and guitarist Martin Best, specializes in early music, minstrel songs, and French troubadour traditions.

Colonel Lowell E. Graham and the United States Air Force Band and the United States Air Force Singing Sergeants present this cheery album of old and new Holiday classics. Originally released in 2000, this album has stood the test of time and will be just as enjoyable this holiday season as it was nearly two decades ago. Traditional songs include sing-a-long favorites Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Up On The Housetop, Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, and others, while newer pieces include Pat Ballard’s Mister Santa and Barry Manilow’s Because It’s Christmas. What better way to say "Season's Greetings" than with this special collection of music from The United States Air Force Band that appeals to the youthful, more playful side of our human experience?

The Wiegenlieder-Projekt (Lullaby Project) bu Carus Verlag in 2009 succeeded in drawing broad public interest for singing together in the family and in rejuvenating many of the songs that have been handed down. This marked the start of the Liederprojekt, which was pursued successfully in the following years. A unique, high-quality archive of German-language songs was developed that has been expanded since then to include international repertoire. Following the various themes such as lullabies, children's songs, folk songs, Christmas songs and love songs, the Liederprojekt now devotes itself to some of the oldest song forms alive today: the psalms. One composer, whose oeuvre finds an exceptional variety of equally impressive and moving psalm settings, is placed here front and center: Heinrich Schutz. The ''father of German music'' created a ''psalms project'' of a breadth and depth unlike any other composer through the musical arrangement of the Becker Psalter and of many other works. He is thus representative of all composers who have devoted themselves to the psaltery over the centuries, with the aim of continually reaching people - whether as singers or as silent listeners - through the settings of these oldest songs.