Alban Berg Quartet - The Complete Recordings Limited 70 CD box set.

'Mozart - it's always been Mozart. There are endless composers whom I admire, but I couldn't get along without Mozart.' If Andr� Previn's name is often identified with large-scale works of the 19th and 20th centuries, Mozart remained close to his heart. Partnered by the London Symphony Orchestra, of which he was principal conductor from 1968-1979, he is soloist in the moody 'Piano Concerto 20, K466', a work much admired by the young Beethoven. In the more consistently sunny 'Concerto for Two Pianos, K365', Previn and the LSO are joined by Radu Lupu - an interpreter of proverbial refinement.

His third album 'Retronyms' sees Carlos Cipa bring together his background as a classically trained pianist and composer with his interest for experimental forms and pop music. After numerous live performances throughout the years, a slew of collaborations and, amongst others, works for film and theatre performances, he invited different musicians to his Munich studio to record the eight pieces. On 'Retronyms', improvisation goes hand in hand with the high art of composition while acoustic (and partly unusual) instruments like the celesta meet with electronic production methods or analogue synthesizers. Between the avant-garde aesthetics of the opener 'Fanfare' to the orchestral 'Senna's joy' and the closing improvisational piece 'Paon', Cipa proves to have radically expanded his approach as a composer. Each note on this album is meticulously thought through and yet 'Retronyms' radiates with visceral liveliness.

As Anneleen Lenaerts proves, Nino Rota brought the same gifts to his music for harp as he did to such unforgettable film scores as 'The Godfather', 'La Dolce Vita' and 'Romeo and Juliet'.

Compilation of 50 of the best Ludwig Van Beethoven works to celebrate 250 years since the composer's birth.

Best known for it's poignant tenor aria, Federico's Lament -E la solita storia del pastore' - L'Arlesiana is a tragic story of love, frustration and obsession. The young Enrico Caruso sang the role of the provencial farmer Federico at the opera's premiere in Milan in 1867. The Alphonse Daudet play that forms it's source, the titular girl from Arles', never appears. It is Federico's fixation with her, and his relationship with his forceful mother, that lie at the heart of the drama.

Aurora, a new album dedicated to Maxence Cyrin's own compositions, brings together a series of 16 pieces performed on the piano (two grand pianos, a Steinway and a Fazioli), which are joined by a string trio as well as various more understated devices, sounds and electronic effects. Four of the pieces, however, are performed using an upright piano, whose tones, created using the mute pedal, take on a deliberately intimate dimension, using cinematic, mysterious colours. Composed over a period of more than two years - a time he describes as "years of solitude" - Aurora, as it's title suggests, marks a new departure for Maxence Cyrin. "I wanted to go beyond the solo piano of my early work and draw once again on minimalism, film music and new wave. So each of the pieces on this album is as short as a pop song. I have a 'pop brain' when I compose, even if my inspirations are still Beethoven and Debussy on the classical side and, closer to home, Philip Glass, Arvo P�rt and Ryuichi Sakamoto."

The origins of this album - the Artemis Quartet's first recordings of Shostakovich - lie in the ensemble's long-established relationship with the great pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja. For years, the quartet had been wanting to record the Russian composer's Piano Quintet with her. It is coupled with Quartets No 5 and No 7, multi-faceted works which are expressive of the composer's private persona.

Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna star in this 2008 Metropolitan Opera production of the Puccini opera conducted by Marco Armilliato.

Classical Music

Warner Classics' final release for Beethoven's 250th anniversary year is a charming programme of chamber music with flute. The four works, all dating from the earlier years of the composer's career, were recorded in June 2020 in Berlin's Pierre Boulez Saal by a distinguished group of musicians led by Daniel Barenboim, here in his role as pianist, and flautist Emmanuel Pahud. Joining them are two of Pahud's colleagues from the Berliner Philharmoniker, the orchestra's First Concertmaster Daishin Kashimoto and it's Principal Viola, Amihai Grosz, and two players with links to the Wiener Philharmoniker, it's Principal Bassoon Sophie Dervaux, and Silvia Careddu, formerly it's Principal Flute.

Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the most prominent musical figures of the 20th century. He is renowned not only as a groundbreaking composer but also as an outstanding performer. In honor of the 40th anniversary of his passing in 2015, Warner Classics is releasing this 2-CD set of the composer playing his own music, which includes material previously unreleased on CD.

The exploration of Beethoven's piano works still continues to astonish me," wrote the Viennese pianist Rudolf Buchbinder in 2014, introducing his book Mein Beethoven: Leben mit dem Meister. "Even pieces that I have performed hundreds of times never lose their freshness to me." Buchbinder recorded this collection of Beethoven's complete works for solo piano - which includes a number of rarities - between 1973 and 1981. At it's heart, of course, are the sonatas. As Buchbinder has said: "There are, I believe, no more personal statements of a human being than those we find in these 32 piano sonatas, which are also the crowning glory of Beethoven's oeuvre.

2014 Maria Callas remastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96 kHz remaster, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. Tosca was the role in which - in 1965, the year this recording was made - Callas gave her last complete performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera and the Paris Opera. This was her final complete recording of an opera, and, 12 years after her first version of Tosca, it reunited her with the Scarpia of Tito Gobbi. They were joined by Carlo Bergonzi as Cavaradossi. Gramophone praised 'a thrilling and very complete interpretation, with scene after scene, bar after bar, brought to life by sheer intelligence and dramatic insight'.

Deluxe 70 CD box set including each individual release (complete opera or recital CD) presented in it's original artwork, 136 pages hardback book containing essays, a biography and chronology, rarely-seen photos and also reproductions of revealing correspondence between Maria Callas, Walter Legge and other EMI executives. Librettos and texts are included on a CD-ROM, and individual albums carry new notes on the specific recording.

Mr Hadelich increasingly seems to be one of the outstanding violinists of his generation, wrote the New York Times after Augustin Hadelich played Dvor�k's Violin Concerto under Czech-born Jakub Hru�a's baton in 2017. Hadelich and Hru�a have now recorded the concerto with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. Bohemian Tales pairs the concerto with works for violin and piano by Dvor�k and two other major Czech composers of the late 19th/early 20th centuries, Leos Jan�cek and Josef Suk. The pianist is Charles Owen.

2014 Maria Callas re-mastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz re-master, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. As she demonstrated in both Il barbiere di Siviglia and Il turco in Italia, Callas, the great tragedienne, could also turn her skills to comedy. As it happened, the 1956 La Scala production of Rossini's most popular opera did not prove a great success with audiences, but it's stars - Callas, Tito Gobbi and Luigi Alva - reassembled in London the following year for this recording. Callas sang the role of Rosina at it's original mezzo-soprano pitch and her version of 'Una voce poco fa' - punctuated by an unforgettable 'ma' ('but') in the cabaletta - is a miracle of both elegance and wit.

2014 Maria Callas remastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz remaster, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. 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 Pretre, one of her favored conductors, and the ever-stylish Nicolai Gedda as her Don Jose', she captured every facet of the role. As Gramophone said when the set was first released: 'Hers is a Carmen to haunt you. '

Early in his career, Claudio Abbado gained attention as both a pianist and conductor in his native Milan. In these rediscovered recordings, dating from the years between 1954 and 1962, he interprets concertos by J.S. Bach (as a harpsichordist), Giuseppe Tartini, and, in a first-time CD release, Giuseppe Cambini. The 'Piano Concerto No 3' by the Paris-based Italian composer is conducted by Abbado's father, Michelangelo, a noted Tartini scholar and founder of the Orchestra D'archi di Milano.

Perfectly cast, magnificently performed and superbly recorded, this is one of Karajan's most stylish performances. Under his direction everyone is inspired to give of their best.

Written over a some two decades, Beethoven's five piano concertos exemplify the constantly astonishing scope of his creativity. In Andr�s Schiff's words, 'Beethoven's music is cosmic and metaphysical. Each of the concertos has a unique character. Every note has to be played with responsibility and spiritual gravity.' Schiff and Haitink here perform with the Staatskapelle Dresden, an orchestra whose great tradition extends over more than four centuries.

Compilation of the 50 best Giuseppe Verdi compositions including arias from 'La Traviata', 'Don Carlo' and 'Otello'.

Classical Music

Trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary makes a musical transatlantic crossing with her second album for Warner Classics. 'Mademoiselle in New York' majors on American and French composers and songwriters - Bernstein, Gershwin, Ravel and Aznavour among them - featuring music from 'West Side Story', 'An American in Paris' and 'Candide'. Lucienne is joined by the BBC Concert Orchestra and Tony Award-winning music director Bill Elliott, and, in Bobby Hebb's song 'Sunny', by her brothers Phil�mon (on double bass) and Bartholom� (on guitar).

I send up a loud 'Ole'. This is a kind of gramophonic miracle which one never ought to take for granted. What a shock of pleasure it is when recognised'