Giordano: Andrea Chenier - Blu-ray - "Kaufmann is performing the title role for the first time, and it's hard to imagine him bettered. His striking looks make him very much the Romantic and romanticised outsider of Giordano's vision. His voice, with it's dark, liquid tone, soars through the music with refined ease and intensity: all those grand declarations of passion, whether political or erotic, hit home with terrific immediacy." - The Guardian Presented in it's Covent Garden premiere in January 2015, this staging - directed by David McVicar and conducted by the Royal Opera's Music Director, Sir Antonio Pappano - shows a bloody tricolour daubed with the words "Even Plato banned poets from his Republic" - written by Robespierre on the death warrant of the historical Chenier, a poet and journalist sent to the guillotine in 1794 for criticising France's post-revolutionary government. Andrea Chenier was a great success at it's premiere at La Scala, Milan, on 28 March 1896. It established Giordano as a leading member of Italy's giovane scuola, and has remained Giordano's most popular opera, with occasional productions at leading opera houses. This production is the first by The Royal Opera since 1984. Of Giordano's later operas, only Fedora (1898) has attracted some continued interest.

In a release that marks the centenary of Camille Saint-Sa�ns' death in December 1921, the Orchestre National de France, conducted by it's music director Cristian Macelaru, performs the composer's five symphonies: Nos 1, 2 and 3 and two unnumbered works, the early Symphony in A major and the Symphony in F major, 'Urbs Roma'. The works span some 35 years of the composer's dazzling career - from around 1850, when he was 15, to 1886, the year that the Symphony No 3 was premiered. By far the best known of the five, No 3 famously complements the orchestra with an organ, played on this new recording by Olivier Latry.

Schumann: Cello Concerto; Bloch: Schelomo - Mstislav Rostropovich - Other participants: Orchestre Nationale de France, Leonard Bernstein This key recording is being reissued at a special price as part of the celebration of Rostropovich - "Cellist of the Century"

Jackie was always the most exciting cellist," Yo-Yo Ma, Jacqueline du Pre's fellow-cellist, has said. "It would be hard to think of another that took as many risks as she did... always for expressive reasons. There is no other artist who can transfer that sense of excitement onto vinyl." Here, with Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, du Pre performs perhaps the most widely-loved of all cello concertos, Dvorak's lyrical and stirring epic.

Wilhelm Furtw�ngler is a musical titan, one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century. Some would say he is the greatest of all. A supreme, inimitable interpreter of the Austro-German symphonic repertoire, and of Wagner's music dramas, he remains a towering point of reference for performers and audiences. The unparalleled scope of this 55CD set makes it an essential for the music-lover. Not only is it the first collection to unite Furtw�ngler's entire catalogue of studio recordings, it also encompasses every live recording he made with a view to commercial release. Painstaking research has even unearthed a treasury of previously unpublished material, recorded in Vienna and Copenhagen. The highest artistic and technical standards have been applied in curating this set: each recording has been fully and scrupulously remastered in high definition, while the accompanying commentary and documentation, both authoritative and exhaustive, further illuminates Furtw�ngler's philosophy and his genius for bringing a score to life with apparent spontaneity.

The Sound of Herbert von Karajan TITLE: The Sound of Herbert von Karajan (3CD) Portrait of an iconic conductor: He was the world's most popular podium idol - Herbert von Karajan, the "mythical Maestro'. And nearly three decades after his death he tops the pantheon of the classical music world with his legendary recordings. This 3-CD edition brings together great moments in his discography with which Karajan wrote recording history. - Herbert von Karajan is the epitome of the conductor. Who could fail to recognize his profile with it's streamlined shock of hair? Even now, almost three decades since he died at the age of 81 in 1989, the charismatic figure remains an icon. His unparalleled career took wing on the momentum of early globalization: the success of the long-playing vinyl disc was the success of Herbert von Karajan. He cut some 800 records and was instrumental in spreading Western classical music to the uttermost parts of the earth. How are we to explain the lasting fascination of the Karajan phenomenon? In musical terms, one factor is surely paramount: among the many elements that constitute an interpretation, Karajan quite clearly gave primacy to just one, namely the sound. For him, beauty and purity of tone were key. No extraneous noise was allowed to distract; there must be nothing to indicate how this ecstasy of sound came into existence. Karajan's orchestral sound has an almost hypnotic effect. Few conductors are so clearly to be recognized on recordings as he is. True, Karajan sometimes had ideas of his own about the composer's tonal language, and that is one of the peculiarities of his enigmatic personality. Any student of his biography will be struck by it's ambivalent features. Not once but twice, we are told, Karajan joined the Nazi party. It did no harm to his career in the "Third Reich", and the highly talented young man rose swiftly from provincial theatres to the Berlin Staatsoper. After the end of the war, the Russian occupying forces banned him from conducting. The constant question about the relationship between art and integrity was answered pragmatically by legendary producer Walter Legge for himself and the EMI record company: he wanted Karajan. So, shortly after the war, he travelled to bombed-out Vienna. A bottle of black-market whisky helped the pair lay the foundation stone of a collaboration that was to shape our appreciation of classical music up to the present day. Karajan's interests ranged far beyond the canon of German symphonic music. Brahms, Bruckner and Strauss were among his household gods, it is true, but so were Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Grieg. He had a marvellous feeling for the luscious sound of Debussy and Ravel. And to Dvorak's Ninth, the "New World" Symphony, he brought a stringency and tragic inevitability that dismissed all sense of complacency and cockiness from this well-loved work. Verena Fischer-ZerninTranslation: texthouse

Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Philharmonic have given us one of the finest (and certainly the best-recorded) Bruckner Sixths of all time - this represents a major landmark in Brucknerian discography. Fanfare "This is superb Bruckner sound, spacious and clear, with strings, woodwind and brass at once unerringly 'placed' and finely matched." Gramophone, about the 9th Symphony recording

The members of Les Vents Francais, which has been described as "the wind-quintet equivalent of a supergroup" join the Munich Chamber Orchestra and conductor Daniel Giglberger in five examples of the sinfonia concertante. The form flourished in the decades around 1800, particularly in Paris and Mannheim, and the works here are by Parisian luminaries Pleyel and Devienne, Mannheim resident Danzi, and a genius who visited Paris and took inspiration from the music of Mannheim: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

MOTHERLAND: DVORAK BARTOK SHOR WALTON

If you see one opera this year, make it The Exterminating Angel, ran the headline in the New York Times after the US premiere of Thomas Ades' "stunningly inventive" opera based on Luis Bunuel's surreal and satirical 1962 film El angel exterminador. Like the British composer's score, Tom Cairns' production is both spectacular and surprising. "Ades keeps the listener on edge," wrote Opera magazine, "because one never knows where his dazzling palette of possibilities will take him next." Thomas Ades TITLE: Ades: The Exterminating Angel (MET)(DVD) Label: PRX/Warner Classics/Parlophone

Vinyl LP pressing. In the 1950s, when Astor Piazzolla went to Paris to study classical composition, the tango of his native Argentina was not considered fit for the concert stages of Europe; these were the sultry sounds of the street; the music of the demimonde. Luckily, the formidable composition teacher Nadia Boulanger encouraged her Argentinian pupil to draw precisely on those roots. Piazzolla at last found his true voice as a composer and bandoneon virtuoso. Today, he is considered the father of tango as we know it today, blending rhythmic vitality with orchestral textures. This LP compilation confirms that the founder of Tango Nuevo left as his legacy a unique style of music that sounds just as fresh and vibrant today.

Limited 26 disc (21 CD + 5 DVD) edition. Over Mariss Jansons' long tenure as Music Director of the Oslo Philharmonic, from 1979 to 2002, the Latvian-born conductor rose to global pre-eminence and the Norwegian orchestra cemented it's international reputation. Trained in St Petersburg, and mentored by Yevgeny Mravinsky and Herbert von Karajan, Jansons took up his position in Oslo at the age of 36. "The artistic leader is responsible for the quality of the orchestra," he said, "He must think of the orchestra constantly". He praised the Oslo Philharmonic for it's "identity and unique sound" and "exceptionally strong work ethic and discipline... without a trace of arrogance, superficiality or routine thought". The 21CD set comprises all the Warner Classics recordings they made together and reflects Jansons' special mastery of music of the later Romantic era and the 20th century. Entirely new to the catalogue are 5 DVDs of concerts originally broadcast on Norwegian television and offering works by Sibelius, Mahler, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Strauss and Franck.

Four vinyl LP box set. The greatest cellist of the 20th century performing Bach's Cello Suites in the 1995 bestselling legendary recording.

Chopin is reserved, visionary and mysterious," says Beatrice Rana. "There are many layers to his music. It's pleasing to the ear and sincere in it's communication, but the deeper you go, the more you find..." For this album, Rana pairs Chopin's 12 op 25 etudes with his four scherzi, focusing on two musical genres that the composer, combining intellect and imagination, transformed into something new. "It was Chopin who invented the 'concert study'," explains Rana. "To me, the etudes seem implicitly connected, joined by a single line of expression, as if they are taking you on a journey. The scherzi are evocative pieces, full of contrasts... They represent three distinct stages of Chopin's life and creativity and it is easy to read stories into them." When Beatrice Rana played the op 25 etudes for her New York recital debut in 2019, the New York Times wrote: "If you can play Chopin's etudes comfortably, you can probably play anything written for the piano... and the best performances convey their musical riches. In that regard, Beatrice Rana set a new standard... She didn't just surmount the technical challenges; she made the pieces sound as poetic and colorful as anything Chopin ever wrote.

Two CDs. Mozart & Flute in Paris brings together nine captivating works, all with their origins in Paris, which feature a solo flute. Emmanuel Pahud is joined by his colleagues from 'wind supergroup' Les Vents Francais - oboist Francois Leleux (here also conducting the Orchestre de chambre de Paris), clarinettist Paul Meyer, bassoonist Gilbert Audin and horn-player Radovan Vlatkovic - and by Belgian harpist Anneleen Lenaerts. "The pieces on this album represent different golden ages of the flute," says Pahud. The earliest, dating from 1778 are two concertante works that Mozart wrote while visiting Paris. The newest, premiered in 2014 by Pahud and the Orchestre de chambre de Paris, is Dreamtime by Philippe Hersant. The intervening period is represented by pieces by Saint-Saens, Faure, Chaminade and Poulenc, composers whose music embodies France's special relationship with the flute.

This is a landmark recording dating from 1999 by Nikolaus Harnoncourt with one of the greatest orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Gramophone Magazine put this album on the top of the discography. "Harnoncourt has some distinguished Concertgebouw forebears, not least structure-conscious Sir Colin Davis and combustible Antal Dorati. This, though, beats them all. Auspicious happenings register within the first few pages: carefully drawn woodwind lines, basses that calm meticulously from fierce fortissimo to tense pianissimo, provocative bassoons and an effortless passage into the lovely flute melody. At the start of the development section, piano violins really are played leggiero (lightly), a significant detail that most rivals gloss over. [...] Harnoncourt's Largo is something of a minor miracle. Undulating clarinets register against shimmering string tremolandos and, beyond the beautifully judged approach to the Meno passage, you suddenly hear quiet second-violin pizzicato chords that you almost never notice in concert. The finale itself never sags, and for the home straight Harnoncourt treads a course somewhere between the printed Allegro con fuoco and the expressive broadening that Dvor�k later sanctioned. Most admirable about Harnoncourt's Dvor�k is it's close proximity to nature: barely a minute passes that isn't somewhere touched by verdure or sunshine."

One of the most famous recordings of Polish-British-Canadian violinist Ida Haendel, who passed away last year. After performing the Sibelius concerto in Helsinki in 1949, broadcasted on radio, Ida Haendel received a letter from the composer: "Please accept my most cordial thanks for your excellent performance of my Violin Concerto. You played it masterfully in every respect. I congratulate you upon the great success. But above all, I congratulate myself that my Concerto has found an interpreter of your standard." This 1975 recording was made under the baton of Sibelius specialist Paavo Berglund.

Sergiu Celibidache was without question one of the most important and original conductors in recent memory. He was a perfectionist who disliked what he perceived to be the synthetic sounds created in the modern recording studio, preferring the immediacy of the concert platform and the interaction with a live audience. This Bruckner recording celebrates the extraordinary legacy of his collaboration with the M�nchner Philharmoniker, from which he was Musical Director between 1979 and his death in 1996. "One of the greatest Bruckner performances I have ever heard - a truly towering act of the re-creative imagination (...). [This performance] is centred in string playing of astonishing depth, eloquence and homogeneity. As with Giulini, it is the viola and cello sections which seem to harbour the very soul of the music. The viola cantilenas in the slow movement (...) are things of rare beauty." Gramophone

Some of Stephen Hough's most exquisite recordings come from his collaborations with EMI and Virgin Classics during this early period, offering a taste of the pianist's impeccable touch, his musical and intellectual rigor, and his fondness for the short showpieces that filled late 19th-century salons and peppered the 78 rpm records of golden-age pianists. In the two all-Liszt recitals, Stephen Hough is also in his element, creating atmospheric colors, with notes flowing like streams of pearls, shaping and magnifying the dramatic depth of these works. From Mozart to Schumann, Brahms to Britten, looking back at the great virtuoso tradition while looking forward through his own arrangements, Stephen Hough presents, through these early recordings, a fascinating portrait of a young artist whose brilliant, artistic intellect and appetite for creativity remains unmatched today.

Writing Goplana, Wladyslaw Zelenski drew upon a national poet's masterpiece by design and took inspiration from a work so important for Polish culture, a story that by then was almost archetypal in tradition, as inspiration. 5906395034550 NIFC8DVD 41970751 15.99 24.95 .50 NIFCCD DIGITAL VIDEO DISC CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 11/05/2021 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/79/4002879-2739149.jpg 0 1 N L'ARPEGGIATA / PLUHAR,CHRISTINA ALLA NAPOLETANA Christina Pluhar, L'Arpeggiata and eight guest singers explore the musical highways and byways of Naples, the most intoxicating and idiosyncratic of Italy's large cities. Alla Napoletana, a double album, expresses the city's mercurial personality in music from the 17th to the 20th centuries, embracing the operatic style of the so-called Neapolitan School, which rose to prominence in the late 1700s, and popular songs and dances. Among them are several examples of the tarantella, the lively, sometimes frenzied dance that epitomizes southern Italy. 190296603617 EAO660361.2 41972885 12.80 18.98 .53 ERATO COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 11/26/2021 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/95/4003195-2739803.jpg 11 2 N DANISH NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MURDER AT THE SYMPHONY A dangerous concert experience with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Murder at the Symphony is next in line in their conceptual series, with another exciting concert full of mystery, thrill and popular film music. The Danish National Symphony Orchestra manages to merge the boundaries between classical music and film music like hardly any other orchestra. Discover soundtracks from blood dripping movies and TV series such as Psycho, Vertigo, The Silence of the Lambs, Twin Peaks and Babylon Berlin. It includes an extraordinary interpretation of the hit single Where the Wild Roses Grow, the most successful single release by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds feat. Kylie Minogue. It also features the theme song Open Spaces from movie drama There will be Blood scored by Radiohead's lead guitarist and keyboardist Johnny Greenwood. The concert includes soundtracks from hit composers such as Leonard Cohen, Hans Zimmer, Bernard Herrmann and Nino Rota. 880242652072 ERAR265207.2 41972953 12.90 18.98 .20 EUROARTS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 10/15/2021 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/03/4003203-2738437.jpg 24 1 N SAID,FATMA EL NOUR The young Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, praised for the luminosity and rich colours of her voice, makes her recording debut for Warner Classics with El Nour. Her enticing and absorbing recital programme crosses cultures, combining art songs by French, Spanish and Egyptian composers with Egyptian folk songs and popular songs from the Middle East. As she explains, 'El Nour' in Arabic means 'Light', and this album sheds light on how music that has been interpreted many times can be perceived in a different light. The idea is to connect three cultures - Arabic, French and Spanish - and to show how much, despite cultural, geographical and historical differences, they have in common when it comes to music".

Matteo's first album with Warner Classics combines solo piano and electronic synth-tracks. The album includes many melodious and catchy works, simply perfect for modern-classical piano mood playlists as well as for synch opportunities. 'This album is entirely dedicated to all forms of longing. Whether it is wistful longing of moments from the past, or the desire for future better times. The Notes of Longing premise is to accompany the listener through all of his or her intimate moments of daydreaming and longing. Therefore, this album is fully dedicated to those seeking comfort.' - Matteo Myderwyk

Nigel Kennedy is releasing his second book, titled When I'm 64. This 3CD compilation has the track listing done by Nigel himself, with excerpts from his book in the booklet.

The new vinyl "Spectrum" by the vision string quartet presents 13 songs composed, arranged and produced by the four young musicians from Berlin themselves. Inspired by folk, pop, rock, funk, minimal and singer-songwriter music, Jakob Encke (violin), Daniel Stoll (violin), Sander Stuart (viola) and Leonard Disselhorst (cello) have embarked on a journey to their very own sound and genre. The result is an unprecedented musical adventure without borders, shaped by personal experiences, new and old encounters as well as subtle impressions from various cultures. They create a whole world of sounds with just their four string instruments - from guitar, ukulele and bass to bongos or a complete drum set.

Beethoven: Fidelio (2 CD) ARTIST: Otto Klemperer The Home of Opera series offers treasures from the world's greatest opera catalogue, presenting some of the most important and admired recordings of complete operas produced by Warner Classics/EMI Classics over the last 60 years. Otto Klemperer Christa Ludwig Jon Vickers Gottlob Frick Walter Berry Ingeborg Hallstein

The Alban Berg Quartett was a string quartet founded in Vienna, Austria in 1970, named after the composer Alban Berg. It was widely considered to be the most famous string quartet in world during their era. They retired in 2008. This 2 CD set includes Beethoven String Quartets Nos: 7-11 ARTIST: Alban Berg Quartett TITLE: Beethoven: String quartets 7-11 (2CD)