Since his 2014 victory in BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, Martin James Bartlett has built a considerable international reputation. "Love and Death", with it's imaginatively conceived programme, gives proof of his artistic range. In creating the programme, Bartlett's starting point was Liszt's transcription of Schumann's passionate song 'Widmung' ('Dedication'), set to a poem by Friedrich R�ckert. "It is a love song that also speaks of death," he explains, "and it concludes with a quote from Schubert's 'Ave Maria', introducing the idea of heavenly love." These themes are explored throughout the album.

The talented sisters return with an album of enjoyable classics, containing songs popular in France over the last 25 years: it Includes Halliday's Sang pour sang and Que je t'aime, Gainsbourg's La javanaise, Brel's Vesoul and Coldplay's Viva la Vida. Star guests are Madame Monsieur, Nicolas Fraissinet, and Insa Sane.

Martin Kohlstedt creates dazzling musical pieces, tapestries of sound that grow organically from the keyboards of his piano and synthesizers. Such is the reputation that he has built in his native Germany that his latest album, 'Str�me' (currents), has been created in collaboration with the chorus of one of the country's most revered musical institutions, Leipzig's Gewandhaus. 70 voices blend and intertwine to mesmerising effect with the sounds created by Kohlstedt himself.

Composed over a period of nearly 50 years, Dmitri Shostakovich's 15 symphonies are astonishingly diverse in conception and expression, reflecting the composer's personal experiences, the history of the 20th century and the tensions and struggles of an artist under the Soviet regime. These recordings fulfil a promise that Mstislav Rostropovich made to the composer, a close and long-standing friend, before he left Russia as an exile in 1974. 'These symphonies mark fifteen stages in our lives,' he said. 'The emotional history of our country, my history, his history, our history.'

Classical Music

At the heart of this program of Beethoven songs performed by Ian Bostridge and Sir Antonio Pappano is the song cycle An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved). Bostridge describes it as "the distillation of Beethoven as lover". Among the other items are the rapturously lyrical 'Adelaide', the sombre 'In questa tomba oscura' and a selection of Beethoven's settings of folksongs from the British Isles, which elicit the participation of violinist Vilde Frang and cellist Nicolas Altstaedt. "When we all play together," says Pappano, "it's like a family making music at home."

Separated by 7,800 kilometres, connected by culture - this is the motto of 2019, a year full of anniversaries. It is the 30th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between Poland and South Korea. And Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra is also celebrating it's 35th anniversary. For this occasion, we proudly present the Mo�bius album, containing works by Penderecki, Lee and Ryu, performed by piano virtuoso Mackenzie Melemed (1-3), and Sinfonia Varsovia directed by Ralf Gothoni (1-4) and Grzegorz Nowak (5).

He painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, observed nature with scientific understanding and helped mankind with his visionary ideas to advance towards a number of innovative technologies. Leonardo da Vinci was one of the most important polymaths of all time - and a man who lived at a time of tremendous upheaval. That is apparent from the music that surrounded him: on 39 tracks the double album The Da Vinci Sound captures the sound of the Renaissance - with masses and motets, with songs, dances and madrigals.

'Dreamtime' is a spellbinding collection of works for flute and orchestra which, in Emmanuel Pahud's words 'expresses and gives form to the composers' most personal, spiritual or dreamlike visions'. The album ranges wide both culturally and chronologically, embracing works by Mozart, Reinecke, Busoni, Takemitsu and Penderecki, and inhabits a dimension populated by incantations and prayers, in which imagination is woven together and then unravels, and where desire is roused by fantasy. Pahud is partnered by the Munich Radio Orchestra and it's principal conductor, Ivan Repusic.

A classic recording of a classic pairing of French song cycles. Composed some 60 years apart, Berlioz's Les Nuits d'�t� and Ravel's Sh�h�razade both visit romantic, mysterious and exotic locations, evoking a wealth of moods and sensations. Janet Baker, an irresistible storyteller, is accompanied on her journey by Sir John Barbirolli, conducting the New Philharmonia Orchestra with sensitivity and imagination.

A compilation of 50 of Mozart's greatest works including pieces from 'Symphony No. 40' and 'Violin Sonata K304'.

Rudolf Kempe's recordings of Richard Strauss have long been prized for their unparalleled clarity and subtlety in music that has come to define the late-romantic temperament and it's expression of highly strung emotions. Strauss loves the complex textures that Kempe and the Staatskapelle Dresden clarify with the utmost skill and symphony.

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Intimate and inspiring communication is of the essence in chamber music. Here Beethoven's characteristically masterly works in the genre are interpreted by musicians who defined their era as star soloists and were also close collaborators and friends: Barenboim, du Pr�, Perlman, Zukerman, Harrell and others. Dating from the years around 1970 and from the early 1990s, these recordings do full justice to the spirit and scope of Beethoven's genius.

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Doomin Kim, who makes his recording debut with this album of piano music by Mendelssohn, is a 16-year-old from South Korea, currently on a programme for exceptionally talented students at Paris's �cole Normale de Musique. 'Mendelssohn's music is like reading a book, a romantic story, a fairy tale or a poem. I hope that people will find peace in their hearts when they listen to it.' The best-known works on the programme are the mercurial 'Rondo capriccioso in E major' and the 'Fantasia in F sharp minor', known as the 'Scottish Sonata'.

Classical Music

The piano duo and twin sisters, Christina and Michelle Naughton, pay tribute to their homeland with the album 'American Postcard'. It offers music by four US composers: John Adams, Aaron Copland, Conlan Nancarrow and Paul Schoenfield. As the sisters explain, 'These pieces show the diversity and variety of American music, but one thing that ties them together is an exuberance that, to us, feels deeply American.'

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The world is looking forward to seeing Paris's Notre-Dame restored to it's familiar physical glory. In the meantime, the musical joys of the great cathedral can be experienced with the singers of it's choir school, Ma�trise Notre-Dame de Paris. Backed by more than 800 years of choral tradition, the Ma�trise offers training and performance opportunities to talented children, teenagers and adults. On Cath�drale d'�motions they and the professional singers of the Ensemble vocal de Notre-Dame de Paris perform music that spans the entire history of the cathedral, including works premiered at Notre-Dame in the 21st century.

Classical Music

Dating from the years between 1928 and 1948, the recordings in this collection were all made during the lifetime of Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). They can be credited with playing a substantial role in propagating his works around the world and in cementing his international reputation as one of the towering figures of 20th century music. The seven CDs constitute a wide-ranging survey of the composer's music. Rightly, the seven symphonies are at the heart of the collection. Symphonies No.s 1, 2, 3 and 5 are conducted by the Finn Robert Kajanus, whom Sibelius described in 1934 as "the best conductor my music ever had... he worked and studied and sought unceasingly to play my works exactly as I wanted them to sound." Kajanus was Creating a biographical panorama of his career, the British tenor Ian Bostridge has personally selected each track in this 7CD Autograph collection. With a focus on both song (in German and English) and opera (from Monteverdi to Ad�s by way of Handel, Mozart and Britten), it demonstrates just why he is recognized as one of today's most distinctive, intelligent and compelling singers. The tenor also complements his performances with an exclusive and illuminating audio interview. This is the fourth release in the Autograph series, launched earlier in 2015 with collections devoted to Angela Gheorghiu, Thomas Hampson and Jos� van Dam. Each box focuses on a single artist, providing a biographical panorama of his or her career through a series of thematically programmed CDs and fascinating documentation. Each collection is devised in collaboration with the featured artist and includes a newly-recorded exclusive interview, Illustrated with musical extracts and conducted by the distinguished journalist and broadcaster Jon Tolansky, discussing his or her life and work. Bostridge, a former Oxford academic who has written three books and has been described as "something of a polymath" by the New York Times, can be relied upon to provide articulate and stimulating opinions on his career and the music he performs. Bostridge is a highly distinctive artist, an interpreter of exceptional intensity who uses his fundamentally lyrical voice to powerful dramatic effect. When he appeared in recital at Carnegie Hall in 2011 the New York Times wrote: "... this was a Dichterliebe in which an insightful vocal artist had a compelling idea about the words and music of every phrase." [Schumann's song cycle Dichterliebe appears on CD6 of this collection.] Bostridge expressed his philosophy as a performer to the Financial Times in an interview in 2013: "It may not be obvious at first why such music is enjoyable but it is consciousness-raising. It makes you think about what is valuable in life - the things music ultimately wants to address... Art is part of the good life but it's also part of what it means to be a human being... Art has transcendent value and if you live in a democratic society, you want to bring it to as many as possible."

The oboe has held a special place in France's culture since the time of Louis XIV, and on Bienvenue en France the oboist Fran�ois Leleux, partnered by pianist Emmanuel Strosser, performs works originating from the 20th century. The composers are Debussy, Saint-Sa�ns and Dutilleux, the lesser-known Piern�, Bozza and Sancan, and the contemporary Thierry P�cou. This music could not find a more eloquent advocate than Leleux, praised by The Scotsman as "a remarkably charismatic, flamboyant performer, matching immaculate technique with a dazzlingly vivid identification with his music