This album offers a new approach to the character of Scheherazade, with Rimsky-Korsakov's musical masterpiece transcribed for the forces of Ensemble K and a previously unpublished text, freely adapted from the Thousand and One Nights and ancient love poems, which tells the story of Scheherazade. The Franco-Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani plays Scheherazade, while Kristin Winters is her sister, Dinarzad: 'For me, this story is a literary and historical treasure of humanity. But our collective imagination has seen Scheherazade as either a seductress or a submissive woman who told stories to survive. The greatness of this character goes far beyond that, and in fact represents the ancient figure of the "hero", or rather the heroine!', says Simone Menezes, who is artistic director of this project. For this second collaboration with Alpha Classics (after Amazonia, ALPHA990), she presents two versions of the programme, one with music and texts, the other with Rimsky-Korsakov's music alone.

After the immense success of her Bach-Abel album (ALPHA783), Lucile Boulanger celebrates the French viol through the centuries: 'This transchronological dialogue traces the history of a dynasty of composers in a subjective, even emotional way', from the seventeenth century (Marin Marais, Sainte-Colombe, Nicolas Hotman) to the twenty-first, with contemporary works by Philippe Hersant, Claire-Melanie Sinnhuber and Gerard Pesson, some of which were specifically written for Lucile Boulanger: 'There is no longer any need to prove that my instrument is an integral part of our musical landscape. The viol is alive and well. For several decades now, it has inspired new compositions; it's vocabulary is constantly expanding', concludes the violist.

The great French pianist Roger Muraro joins Alpha Classics for several recording projects. Born in Lyon to Venetian parents, he was a pupil of Yvonne Loriod and is regarded as the leading specialist in the music of Olivier Messiaen, to which he has devoted much of his career. But this noted pedagogue, a former professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, is also renowned for his profound and sensitive approach to the music of Ravel, Chopin, Schumann – and Liszt, of whom he is particularly fond. He now presents a monumental masterwork by Liszt which is in his view a work of ‘universal intimacy’: ‘I admire the freedom with which the evocations of the soul, of nature, of the colors of the masters of Italian painting unfold in succession. Everything Liszt saw during his pilgrimage to Switzerland and Italy contributed to a process of reflection, a journey, a quest to bring him closer to his ideal where silence became the ultimate authority.’

REVIEW:

This realization of Années de pèlerinage can only be described as a careercrowning achievement. Muraro accomplishes it through his unflagging attention to the most minute details of Liszt’s score and, above all, by the disarming sincerity of his readings. Heartily recommended without reservation to all those interested in Liszt, as well as to lovers of fine, richly imaginative piano-playing.

— Gramophone

A bestselling recording since it's first release in 2008, Amandine Beyer and Gli Incogniti's memorable performance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons has been reissued by Alpha Classics for a second time. Using both the Le Cene edition and the Manchester manuscript, Beyer's broad understanding of the composer's markings meant that she was able to fully respect the score whilst remaining curious and experimental. This approach prompted BBC Radio 3 to state: "I would stick my neck out and say I have never heard one that satisfied me better". Beyer describes the four concertos as "an infinite source of delights" and credits musicologist Olivier Foures for the addition of three rarely recorded, or previously unpublished, concertos to the programme. These superb pieces, which throw an intriguing light on Vivaldi's different modes of composition, are a fine addition to this performance of the famous Four Seasons, which established Gli Incogniti among the top reference ensembles for historically informed performance.

Destined to be musicians? The female composers to whom Baroque violinist Sophie de Bardonneche pays tribute enjoyed very different fates: while the name elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665-1729) continued to be remembered, who knows Mlle Duval (born around 1718), the second woman to have a work presented at the Paris Opera and nicknamed 'la Legende' in her time? Her opera-ballet, Les Genies, remains a testament to her great mastery. Then there were Anne-Madeleine Guesdon de Presles and elisabeth-Louise Pellecier, composers married to composers - the latter signed her works with the name of her husband, Papavoine... Others found it easier to achieve the limelight because they were aristocrats, like Mlle de Menetou (1679-1745). No fewer than ten female composers are brought back to life in this programme of sonatas, overtures and dances devised by Sophie de Bardonneche, a founder member of Le Consort, who is accompanied on her first solo album by her partners Lucile Boulanger and Justin Taylor.

This tenth volume in the 'Next Generation Mozart Soloists' series presents works that are less frequently recorded, including a concerto for two pianos (in it's original orchestration), separate movements for violin and orchestra (an Adagio and two Rondos) and, following in the footsteps of the Baroque concerto grosso, the Symphonie concertante for oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon and orchestra. It's an opportunity to discover a superb array of soloists from very different backgrounds: the Sakamoto piano duo, 2021 winners of the prestigious ARD competition in Munich; the Syrian violinist Bilal Alnemr, a member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra; the Frenchmen Nicolas Ramez, also an ARD winner, and Gabriel Pidoux, an existing Alpha recording artist (ALPHA789); Theo Plath, principal bassoon with the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra; and Blaž Sparovec, principal clarinet with the Gurzenich Orchestra in Cologne.

After Piazzolla Reflections, (ALPHA664), Latvian accordionist Ksenija Sidorova devotes this new recording to Bach and compositions influenced by his music - starting with the famous Concerto BWV 1052, which has inspired so many adaptations for piano, violin and even heavy metal guitar, "so I don't think a version for an instrument with two keyboards will surprise anyone!" says Ksenija. The programme also includes Sergey Akhunov, a composer who featured on her previous album, with a work inspired by Bach's Chaconne BWV1004; Beyond Bach by Gabriela Montero, the Venezuelan pianist and composer famous for her improvisations; and Horizons by the Anglo-Bulgarian composer Dobrinka Tabakova. The programme is completed by Bach's Chorale Prelude Ich ruf zu dir, which has accompanied Ksenija since childhood: 'I think this organ piece works particularly well on the accordion. Both instruments use bellows, but the accordion offers a much more flexible dynamic range. You can really let the music breathe.'

'If, in a parallel universe, Wagner wrote a symphony rather than a sixteen-hour Ring, it might actually resemble my Ring Odyssey.' These are the words used by the new music director of the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Joseph Swensen, to present this anthology of Der Ring des Nibelungen for soprano, tenor, bass-baritone, male chorus and orchestra, which he composed on the basis of Wagner's monumental tetralogy. The American conductor confesses that, during a performance of Tristan, Wagner was suddenly revealed to him as 'a dreamer' full of 'humility, tenderness, vulnerability and generosity'. Swensen has made a point of following the chronology of the operas and respecting the original music: 'My solemn promise to Wagner was that, aside from the occasional solo timpani roll denoting the passage of time, I would not change or add a single note to his masterpiece.' An enthralling traversal, recorded at a memorable concert and delivered by exceptionally committed singers and instrumentalists.

For me, whenever I play the Bach suites, all of a sudden I find myself visualising Giacometti's hands incessantly moulding the earthen clay until a face appears. Getting to grips with the Bach suites is very closely related to that sense. You have to dig deeply into the string to give birth to the phrase, to make sure it breathes correctly: a phrase that is perpetually becoming, endlessly making and remaking itself. I waited a long time before recording these suites. Then one day, or rather one night, I began. Then there was my meeting with Sarah Moon. When I first felt my longing to record the Bach suites, I dreamt constantly of her images; because whenever I look at them I think of the creation of the world, the separation of the waters, the earth appearing, all before the beginning of history. Sonia Wieder-Atherton

'Joseph Haydn not only liked surprising his audiences, he also enjoyed a laugh', writes Christian Moritz-Bauer in the introduction to this sixteenth volume of the Haydn2032 complete recording of the symphonies. Take, for instance, the false conclusion of Symphony No. 90, composed in 1788: the music seems to have reached the last chord but, after a pause, the movement resumes to end with a powerful coda. Another example of Haydn's mischievous wit is the famous Andante 'with the drumstroke' that forms the 'surprise' of Symphony No. 94, a fortissimo chord designed to wake up audiences who dozed off towards the end of his concerts... In this volume focused on humour, Giovanni Antonini pays tribute to a great admirer of Haydn, Gioachino Rossini, by recording the sparkling opening Sinfonia of La scala di seta (The silken ladder), a one-act opera written in 1812.

Enchanting tales and timeless legends are the common threads running through this album conceived by Duo Jatekok: Naïri Badal and Adelaïde Panaget are transformed into sorceresses on four hands and two pianos - enchanting guides who lead us through a programme featuring a Faustian pact, magic, and the world of childhood. At it's heart is Liszt's Piano Sonata, brilliantly transcribed for two keyboards by Saint-Saens: 'It illustrates the eternal struggle between the hubris of excess and the tragic fall, between light and darkness', say the duo of this 'Faustian' masterpiece by Liszt, a great admirer of Goethe. In a more carefree but equally fantastical vein is the famous Sorcerer's Apprentice, which Paul Dukas himself transcribed in 1898. The trance-like atmosphere and frenzied dancing continues with Manuel de Falla's El amor brujo (Love the magician). Finally, Mussorgsky's Night on the Bare Mountain, a 'danse macabre between the world of the living and that of the spirits', rounds off this supernatural odyssey.

Astrig Siranossian and Nathanael Gouin pluck from obscurity three rare works that time has rendered (temporarily) invisible. The first of these sonatas for cello and piano, recorded at the La Grange-Fleuret Music Library, was composed by Jean Cras in 1901, when he was a young naval officer aged twenty-two. It displays his precocious mastery of form and texture. Pierre-Octave Ferroud's Sonata, written in 1932, four years before this promising composer died in a car accident at the age of thirty-six, evokes a very different mood. Marcelle Soulage is certainly the least-known of the three. A pupil of Nadia Boulanger, teacher, radio producer and journalist in addition to her work as a composer, she was a founder member of the Groupe Instrumental Feminin in the 1950s. Her Sonata in F sharp minor, written in 1919 when she was twenty-five, reveals inventive qualities that were already very apparent.

This album pays homage to the composer Adele Hugo (1830-1915), the fifth child of the great poet Victor Hugo. Suffering from lifelong psychological instability, she spent half of her tragic life in mental institutions, from the age of 42 until her death aged 85. Hers was an exalted and sensitive temperament; she became passionately fond of music from an early age, studying the piano and then composition. Her musical manuscripts were recently rediscovered, and the Director of the Victor Hugo Museums in Paris and Guernsey entrusted them to composer Richard Dubugnon, so as to research and reconstruct the jigsaw of these often quite fragmentary scores, which had been lying forgotten for more than a century. What has emerged is a set of fourteen of her songs on poems by Victor Hugo and verses taken from his great novel Les Miserables, as well as five songs without words. Appropriately, the Orchestre Victor Hugo and it's Music Director Jean-Francois Verdier have been involved in the project, and they invited Dubugnon to orchestrate the pieces, presented here by a multi-generational team of leading singers.

Orlando di Lasso (b. 1532 in Mons) was one of the most important and prolific composers in the whole of sixteenth-century Europe. Famed as a singer from boyhood, he escaped several kidnapping attempts ordered by princes who coveted his talent for their courts. Di Lasso is a fascinating character: an extravagant and provocative musical figure, an adventurous artist and cultivated polyglot. On being asked to provide the soundtrack for a documentary on di Lasso by Joachim Thome, Simon-Pierre Bestion became immersed in the composer's multiverse. This album, an extension of the music for that film, projects the iconoclast di Lasso into our 21st century world. As Bestion explains: 'I made a deliberate choice here to interpret this music with a great freedom of instrumentation and of timbre. What is more, even though there were no drums or saxophones in di Lasso's day, the performer was free to choose whichever or the ornamentation he wanted.' Join La Tempete for this unpredictable, fantasy-enriched exploration of the timeless realm of Orlando.

Arnaud Marzorati and his singers, 'Les Lunaisiens', are unrivalled specialists in the popular French songs of the past centuries. Here they tackle two great monuments of 19th-century France: the writer Honore de Balzac, and songwriter Pierre-Jean de Beranger, a poet and composer highly famed in his day for his genius in depicting society in all it's social diversity, from the poorest to the very richest. During this period Balzac was also making his sharply drawn portrayals of more than 5,000 characters in the course of his great opus of around 90 novels bearing the overall title of The Human Comedy. Here the 'Lunaisiens' have recorded musical settings of a wide selection of witty and often satirical verse, reflecting all the Parisian themes that obsessed Balzac: social climbing, money and greed, corruption, love and betrayal. With the participation of Lucile Richardot and Cyrille Dubois, Arnaud Marzorati and his ensemble give an enthusiastic account of Balzac's extraordinary human menagerie. As Marzorati concludes: 'The Human Comedy was greatly inspired by song.'

Volume 11 of the 'Next Generation Mozart Soloists' series presents Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major along with Piano Concertos KV 40 and KV 449. The Piano Concerto No. 3 is a very early work, derived from works by other composers, whereas No. 14 was written in 1784 by a fully mature Mozart, who was moving away from functional music towards expressing his ideas in a more dramatic structure. What links the two, says Swiss-Canadian pianist Teo Gheorghiu, is that they are both "concertos mainly joyful and optimistic in expression". French violinist David Castro-Balbi says "of Mozart's violin concertos, No. 5 has the strongest operatic character". These two soloists are accompanied by the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg under the baton of Howard Griffiths.

Jeremie Rhorer and Le Cercle de l'Harmonie launch a new collaboration with Alpha Classics, with several projects planned, following the Mozart operas released on the label in 2016 and 2017. Here they tackle a monument of the sacred repertoire that is fascinating for it's rich, complex, even 'mysterious' conception. Rhorer tells us that his interpretation pays close attention to the question of tempi, which have often become progressively slower and heavier since the post-Romantic period: the tempi have 'a direct bearing on the vocal comfort of the singers, since breath control is one of the great difficulties of this work', he says. For this recording, he has called in a quartet of top-flight soloists along with the Audi Jugendchorakademie, a remarkable German youth choir founded in 2007. In conjunction with his period-instrument orchestra, soon to celebrate it's twentieth anniversary, they offer a passionate vision of Beethoven's masterpiece.

By 2014 eric Montalbetti had amassed 20 years of experience as Artistic Director of the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, all the while he had also been composing, something he had been engaged in since childhood: an activity he did not publicly reveal until 2015. Conscious of the heritage of Debussy and Messiaen ('my very first heroes') as well as skilled in the serialism of Boulez - whose teaching courses he attended at the College de France - and fascinated by the sonic nuances of spectral music, eric Montalbetti seeks a point of convergence, a possible synthesis enabling him to blend modality and serialism, without rejecting the harmonic contours of composers such as Murail. This new album dedicated to Montalbetti's work includes a Flute Concerto, whose commission was encouraged by Emmanuel Pahud: it's telling title is Memento vivere (Remember that you must live).

Nearly a century before Gluck, another opera called Iphigenie en Tauride - same plot, same protagonists - had immense success on the opera stage. This 'first' Iphigenie has rather a curious history. The opera was sketched out by composer Henri Desmarest around the year 1695, but he was then banished from France by Louis XIV for having married a young girl without her father's consent. The uncompleted score of Iphigenie was then entrusted to Andre Campra. The opera, since lost and forgotten, was rediscovered by Benoit Dratwicki, Director of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, who marvels at it's stylistic unity: 'Campra easily adopted Desmarest's style. He just added some virtuoso arias to the divertissements, as well as the tuneful choruses that were his speciality.' Iphigenie en Tauride had it's premiere on 6 May 1704, and was revived throughout Europe from 1711. Thanks to Herve Niquet, a top-flight team of singers, an orchestra well versed in French repertoire, and all their collaborative research into the practices and specific playing techniques of the early 18th century, Iphigenie sees the light of day once more.

Carmina Burana, the staged cantata by Carl Orff, is a work unique in musical history, claims conductor Paavo Jarvi: 'The convergence of medieval texts with such daringly original orchestral colours creates a soundworld that is both archaic and yet beyond time, in which chorus, orchestra and soloists vie in splendour.' The work also has an unusual history: composed shortly after the Nazi takeover of Germany, it was at first rejected because of it's Latin texts and the erotic character of some of it's songs; yet Orff and his work subsequently became highly prized by the Reich. The composer (who was secretly 'a quarter Jewish') did not support the regime, but made the best of his success... Orff was 42 by the time he experienced this breakthrough with his Carmina, which he designated as his Op. 1, disowning all his previous compositions. Departing from the Romantic style, he now wanted to create music linked to rhythm, simple repeated melodies, and non-complex forms. This work's popular success confirmed that decision.

The Franco-American cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton has always sought to make music a language open to the world. A prizewinner in the Rostropovich Competition at the age of twenty-five, she is the interpreter of choice for many contemporary composers, among them Pascal Dusapin and Wolfgang Rihm, and has collaborated with actresses such as Fanny Ardant and Charlotte Rampling, as well as the film director Chantal Akerman. Sonia Wieder-Atherton's partnership with Alpha Classics comprises three recordings of Bach's Cello Suites, beginning with this recording of Suites Nos. 1 and 2. This and the following two volumes (Suites 3 to 6) feature photos by the great Sarah Moon: "For me, playing Bach's Suites is always at some point or another seeing the image of Giacometti's hands tirelessly moulding clay until a face appears. (...) To get to grips with the Bach Suites is an experience very close to that. It's a question of digging into the string until the phrase is born, as well as the right way to breathe it. (...) And then came the encounter with Sarah Moon. When my desire to record the Bach Suites was born I dreamt of her images. Because, when I look at them, I imagine the creation of the world, the separation of the waters, the appearance of the earth, before history begins."

In 2022, 19-year-old pianist Roman Borisov became the youngest winner of the prestigious Kissinger KlavierOlymp competition. After taking part in Alpha's 'Next Generation Mozart Soloists' collection (ALPHA991), he now presents his first solo recital in Alpha's ongoing 'Piano Stories' series, which he sees as a 'conversation with the past', featuring composers inspired by earlier styles to create new works. Born in 1870, the brilliant virtuoso pianist Leopold Godowsky composed twenty-four 'free arrangements' of music by masters of the Baroque. Among these, Roman Borisov has selected pieces based on works by Rameau, Corelli, Scarlatti and John Loeillet (whose pieces were originally mis-attributed to Lully)... In 1931, Rachmaninoff composed his last original work for solo piano: a set of variations on 'La Folia', a 15th-century dance theme that Corelli famously used in one of his violin sonatas. The encounter between the Baroque style and the harmonic richness of the Russian composer is fascinating. The superb Prelude, Chorale and Fugue composed by Cesar Franck in 1884, an obvious tribute to J.S. Bach, concludes Roman's pianistic journey through time.

Love is the common thread running through this first recorded recital by soprano Vannina Santoni; it's also an opportunity to look back over her fifteen-year career, through her leading roles, alongside her favourite musicians. With the help of the Orchestre National de Lille and Quebecois conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni, she places her sensual voice at the service of famous operatic arias featuring the amorous heroines of Gounod, Massenet, Puccini ('O mio babbino caro'), Catalini ('Ne andro' from La Wally) and Verdi (Desdemona's poignant 'Ave Maria' from Otello). The programme also includes a rare but sublime aria from Franco Alfano's Tolstoy-inspired opera Risurrezione (1904), as well as the magnificent 'Saint-Sulpice' duet from Massenet's Manon, with tenor Julien Dran. Finally, Vannina Santoni pays homage to her Corsican roots with a new orchestration of the lullaby 'O Ciucciarella' that Corsican mothers have sung to their children for generations.

Fresh from his triumphant onstage success in Paris, Berlin and Brussels singing leading roles in the operas of Rameau and Mozart, tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen presents his long-awaited first Mozart recording. Together with his ensemble A Nocte Temporis, he has devised a highly imaginative programme. From the eleven single opera and concert arias for tenor and orchestra that are ascribed to Mozart, the Belgian tenor has selected those that are entirely in the composer's hand - leaving out the ones completed or reconstructed by others, and adding an exquisite aria from Mitridate, re di Ponto. Mozart was only nine years old when in 1765, during his stay in London, he launched into his first opera aria for tenor and orchestra, to verses from a libretto by Metastasio. At the end of 1766, on his return to Salzburg, the child prodigy composed Or che il Dover - Tali e cotanti sono KV 36 for a festive celebration, making the court aware of his enormous talent. Throughout his career, alongside his own operas Mozart also wrote arias intended for insertion into the operas of other composers, hidden masterpieces that now receive revelatory performances.

On Dazzling Light Christopher Lowrey and his vocal ensemble Altera explore light in all it's forms. There is a remarkable body of choral music that evokes light's many facets: the light of morning and evening, sacred light, light as a symbol of Christ, light as the conqueror of darkness and even (thanks to the James Webb telescope) the light of distant galaxies. This programme includes works primarily from the 20th and 21st centuries, with music by John Rutter, Jonathan Dove, Matthew Martin, Toby Young, Charles Wood, Ko Matsushita, Sir William Harris, Eric Whitacre, Thomas Tallis, Michael Garrepy and David Hill. There is also an evening prayer by English composer Joanna Marsh, a work by South African composer Motshwane Pege, the winner of Altera's third composition competition, and John Cameron's arrangement of Edward Elgar's Nimrod from the Enigma Variations; this work, entitled Lux aeterna, is perfectly suited to Altera's strengths.