Claudio Abbado had only made a very few recordings for EMI Classics (now Warner), including Mozart's Flute Concertos with Emmanuel Pahud. This live rendition of Verdi's Messa da Requiem is definitively a major modern version of the work. In 2001, Abbado was doing his. In 2001, Claudio Abbado was soon to complete his tenure as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Berliner Philharmoniker, when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer not long before. Nonetheless, he was able to conduct this Verdi Requiem during two concerts that held a special significance, offering us a remarkable modern interpretation of the work. It featured an outstanding quartet of soloists, three of the world's most renowned choirs, and Berlin's iconic orchestra. "EMI was quite right to be on hand to record this performance in Berlin at a time when Abbado had arisen from his sick-bed to show just how much this work meant to him in the circumstances. It's conveyed in spades through the tremendous concentration and emotional thrust felt throughout this shattering interpretation. This performance has something extra that you find in Fricsay's live, 1960 account, and both come close to the spiritual element in the music. Abbado has at his bidding a superb group of specialist choirs who combine effortlessly into a cohesive whole, singing with commendable breadth, accuracy and involvement, few if any better on disc. They find fit counterparts in the players of the BPO who seem individually, in solos, and collectively intent on giving of their appreciable best for their chief. So all the big choral moments, Dies Irae, Rex tremendae, Sanctus, Libera me fugue are superbly achieved. EMI's recording is wide-ranging and immediate, the equal of any the work has yet received. If the solo singing can't be given such an unqualified encomium, much of it is impressive, especially that of the young mezzo Daniela Barcellona, even in tone and beseeching in manner. Gheorghiu does so much so well: she sings throughout in that rich, warm tone of hers and offers many long, arching phrases. She's also as dramatic as one could wish in the Libera me (...). Alagna sings with a deal of passion and authority. (...) Given it's superlative sound and special circumstances, [it] is an important addition to the work's discography." The Gramophone Classical Music Guide

DUKAS: PIANO & ORCHESTRAL WORKS ARIANE ET BARBE

Ian Bostridge and Leif Ove Andsnes have recorded many acclaimed Schubert albums together, among which was this recording of the pinnacle of the Lieder repertoire, Schubert's Winterreise. .This partnership is one of the most inspired of record-company matchmakings: the two musicians really do test and try each other at every turn, as well as being mutually supportive" The Times .[...] acuteness of colour and detail is characteristic of the performance of both artists who, more than most, highlight the mordant, ironic self-awareness that undercuts the wanderer's despair." BBC Music Magazine .It is a highly involving performance and is continually lifted by Leif Ove Andsnes's imaginative and atmospheric accompaniments. The recording is beautifully balanced, and this remains an unforgettable performance." The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music

SHE CAME TO ME - O.S.T.

Vinyl LP pressing.

In 1953, Nikolaus Harnoncourt founded the Concentus Musicus with colleagues from Karajan's Vienna Symphony Orchestra. His "ancient music" ensemble never pursued a revolution: "Musicology and historical instruments are not an end in themselves", says Harnoncourt, "I prefer an interpretation that is historically uninformed but musically alive." After decades playing and recording Baroque works on historical instruments, he extended his repertoire to Classic, Romantic and 20th-Century music, conducting Europe's top "modern" orchestras. "Mozart was no innovator, but his personal style has an unfathomable grandeur. Whoever plays his music with a modern orchestra must absolutely explore the original sound characteristics." This box set highlights both Harnoncourt's recordings with the Concentus' ancient instrumentarium, and his new approach with Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, always historically informed, groundbreaking, brimming with emotion.

The music of Brahms held an important place in Sir John Barbirolli's repertoire, and these recordings of the symphonies, made with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1966 and 1967, stand as one of the peaks of his discography. Barbirolli's relationship with this music is rooted in his time as an orchestral cellist, and these performances are notable for their rich, ripe sonorities and expansive warmth. The two mighty Piano Concertos were also recorded in 1967 in distinguished versions with Daniel Barenboim. Playing the violin concerto here, Fritz Kreisler as a young man had been part of Brahms's outer circle in Vienna and drew his approach to this music straight from the source. Last but not least is the Double Concerto, of which Geraint Lewis wrote in Gramophone, "The great underestimated Alfredo Campoli showed what a rich tone and innate musicality he had at his command alongside an equally eloquent Andr� Navarra."

Towards the end of Callas's career, there were many rumours that she was planning to perform Carmen on stage. This was never to be, but Carmen became her penultimate complete recording of an opera - and her only complete recording of a French opera. With Georges Pr�tre, one of her favoured conductors, and the ever-stylish Nicolai Gedda as her Don Jos�, she captured every facet of the role. As Gramophone said when the set was first released: 'Hers is a Carmen to haunt you.'

B�sra Kayik�i on Places: Places is a continuation of my solo piano album Eskizler (Sketches), which was the result of my first compositional endeavours, studies written in early 2019. Those experiments in music reminded me of the sketches I would make in my work as an interior architect, at the start of a new project. I was profoundly influenced by the way these two disciplines - architecture and music - work with the same principles, one addressing the ear and the other the eye. It was inevitable, therefore, that I would follow an architect's process when writing music. I devised my musical templates using methods I derived from architecture. And with this new album, Places, I feel I have taken those sketches a step further. I can hear them evolving, in a way. Sometimes I'll try to construct a specific place I have in mind, one that I miss, but sometimes it's just about an emotion. There are moments in life that make me believe places are also spaces in which we take refuge, and that we find shelter in our emotions, too. Those emotions become a shield, a roof over our heads protecting our inner peace.

This 1960 Norma represents Maria Callas's final complete documented version of her signature role. Seven recordings of the opera exist with Callas (1950-60), plus numerous snippets and scenes captured between 1949 and 1965. With 89 performances, Norma is Callas's most performed part; certainly no other 20th-century diva is more closely associated with the role, and no one since has even remotely eclipsed Callas in the perception of opera lovers. Countless moments, too numerous to catalogue here, raise this Callas Norma to the level of genius. From a haunting 'Casta Diva' to a final scene of incomparable grandeur and sweep, in every startlingly brilliant detail, Callas is Norma.

Bruckner is one of those rare geniuses, seldom to be found in the whole of European history, whose natural destiny it is to make the supernatural real, to force the divine into the strait-jacket of our human world. Wilhelm Furtw�ngler "Furtw�ngler's Bruckner interpretations were always marked above all by the intensity of his thoroughly romantic feeling and his temperament for improvisation, and his Bruckner recordings, perhaps more than any other, provide us with an especially impressive example of his own unmistakable approach to music, which itself was inclined to be basically 'ecstatic', and the main characteristic of which was the aesthetic, voluptuous flow of feeling." Walter Abendroth - The most accomplished version of Bruckner 7th performed live in Berlin in 1949, remastered in HD from the best source available by Art et Son Studio in 2023 - Bonus: Telefunken recording from 1942 remastered in 2021 at the occasion of The Complete Wilhelm Furtw�ngler on Record boxed set.

BACH / SONATAS & PARTITAS After a career break of more than a decade she has announced the decision to return to the recording studio. With this album she fulfils a lifelong dream of recording the complete violin solo works by J. S. Bach, a project very close to her heart. The album, recorded at St George's Bristol, will show case Kyung Wha Chungas the maverick of the violin that she is with her inimitable and timeless sound. Kyung Wha Chung her words.. "I'm delighted to announce that I am so happy to be returning to the recording studio after many years for a series of exciting artistic projects. The first of these is the solo Sonatas & Partitas of J. S. Bach: a monumental task. This is the unending quest of my musical journey. "

PUCCINI: TOSCA MARIA CALLAS - This Tosca was Maria Callas's final studio recording of a complete opera. In 1965, 12 years after her first recording of the opera (made in Milan Victor de Sabata) she was reunited in Paris with the Scarpia of Tito Gobbi. Both singers bring new dramatic insights to their roles. - These are the first five releases in a new line of premium releases of classic operatic recordings. - Each of these releases offers optimum sound quality. The four releases originally recorded using analogue techniques (Carmen, Die Zauberfl�te, Don Giovanni, Tosca) have all been newly remastered in 24-bit/96kHz at Abbey Road Studios using the latest technology, while La traviata benefits from it's stunning original digital recording. - In addition to the CDs, each of these releases includes a hardback, cloth-bound book of between 156 and 260 pages. This book contains: - the complete libretto (with translations) - a component now increasingly rare in opera sets; - an essay by the journalist and opera expert George Hall; - an impressive array of photographic material, with numerous pictures of the artists at the time the recording was made. - The CDs and book are contained in a glossy dustjacket featuring the original cover artwork for the release. - As George Hall writes of the series:"Although many other recordings of the same works exist, in each instance special factors are generally agreed to have given every one of these sets particular qualities that have continued to attract the highest critical praise, as well as the ongoing affection of generations of opera lovers. Having stood the test of time, the results can now be enjoyed by today's listeners in their optimum sonic manifestations."

RHYTHM & COLOURS

Following his critically acclaimed Beethoven album, Nemanja Radulovic returns this fall with a terrific J.S. Bach album. Featuring the well-known Baderie as you have never heard it before, a brilliant transcription of la Sicilienne, Erbarme Dich, from Mattha�s Passion, with Philippe Jaroussky, the Double concerto for oboe & violin BWV 1060, Concerto for violin in E Major BWV 1042,. Infused by a very personal and chamber music style approach, Nemanja's Bach sparkles. Gramophone about Beethoven: "For me, though, it's the Violin Concerto that's the prize on this disc. It's a dazzling, profoundly personal interpretation, and I'm already completely obsessed with it."