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.

Classical Music

Classical Music

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

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Six CD set. Compilation of 100 of the greatest Beethoven compositions in preperation for the celebration of 'The Beethoven Year' (250th anniversary of his birth will be in 2020).

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.