These recordings, originally released in the early 1980s, are foundation stones for the rediscovery of Marc-Antoine Charpentier's sacred works that was set in motion by William Christie et Les Arts Florissants. For the most part devoted to Christmas music, these pieces radiate all Charpentier's fervor, freshness and elegance, showing him to be truly French, yet nurtured by the sunlight of Italy.

Emilie Mayer's works bear witness to an indomitable personality, despite having languished for so long in the shadow of her male peers. The musicians of the Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin have resolved to do her justice with this revelatory symphonic triptych of recordings. They begin with two of her most remarkable works played on period instruments, including a wondrous Bluthner piano handpicked by the soloist here, Alexander Melnikov.

Combining the vigorous forces of the Insula Orchestra and Insula camerata, Laurence Equilbey revives a historic tradition: that of the double orchestra. Beethoven, who was familiar with this principle, composed with the great festivals in mind at which orchestras could muster large numbers, often exceeding a hundred players. A unique musical experience.

Mozart's piano sonatas reveal an extraordinary range of character, from effortless lyricism to profound emotional intensity. In the third volume of his complete survey, pianist Jae-Hyuck Cho performs three contrasting sonatas which form an arc from light into shadow, before emerging into light once more. Opening with the luminous Sonata in C major, K. 330, the program moves to the dramatic A minor Sonata, K. 310, one of Mozart's most emotionally charged keyboard works, before concluding with the freshness and wit of the G major Sonata, K. 283. Together, these three sonatas reveal Mozart's ability to combine elegance, theatrical instinct and deep humanity. Cho approaches these works with a distinctly vocal perspective, shaping each phrase as though sung and drawing on Mozart's close relationship with opera. The result is a performance of warmth, clarity and expressive freedom that allows each sonata's individual voice to emerge while revealing the broader narrative that connects them. This third instalment continues a thoughtfully conceived cycle that places musical character and storytelling at it's heart.

Saehyun Kim's recording debut will pay homage to the first European city where he ever performed, also the home city of his new label: Paris. "It was where my life changed," he says. The program is dedicated to solo piano works by Gabriel Faure and Frederic Chopin, two iconic figures in the history of the City of Light who helped shape the innovative musical landscape of the 19th and early 20th centuries. While Chopin has long been a part of the young pianist's repertoire, his interest was piqued in Faure more recently, while preparing to perform in Paris; he admires the music's mesmeric "charm and delicacy", contrasted with the riveting "poetry and drama" of his Romanticist predecessor. The program features Chopin's set of 12 Etudes, Op. 25, alongside one of his most beloved nocturnes (No. 8). From Faure's early repertoire, he has included the Barcarolle No. 1, Valse-Caprice No. 1, Impromptu No. 2, as well as his very own arrangement of "Apres un reve", part of the Trois Melodies set written for voice and piano. In a final nod, the album closes with French singer-songwriter Charles Trenet's dreamy "En Avril a Paris" (1953).

From the spirited wit of the Viennese stage to the quiet sanctuary of his most private sonatas, this collection captures the multifaceted genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Journey through the vibrant energy of The Marriage of Figaro, the ethereal dialogue of the Flute and Harp Concerto, and the heartbreaking solemnity of his final Requiem. Whether it is the playful charm of Papageno's aria or the sublime tranquility of the Piano Concerto No. 23, each track has been carefully curated to showcase a legacy that remains as vivid today as it was over two centuries ago.

Once established in London, Handel devised a new kind of music drama that won over the English audience and modernized the operatic stage: the oratorio. Revolutionizing English traditions, he imported the drama and color of Italy, and the voices of it's greatest operatic castrati. Carlo Vistoli now presents this heritage, reviving some of the greatest Handel arias first sung in London by his illustrious compatriots.

Anton Bruckner's Eighth Symphony stands among the largest and most ambitious works in the orchestral repertoire. Completed after the success of his Seventh Symphony and extensively revised before it's eventual premiere in 1892, it unfolds on an epic scale, combining monumental architecture with moments of profound introspection. Recorded by the Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Karl-Heinz Steffens, this new album presents the 1890 Nowak edition of the symphony, and continues Steffens' exploration of the Austro-German symphonic tradition with one of Bruckner's most expansive and richly scored works.

The album 'out into the open', featuring four works composed for Trio Accanto by Brice Pauset, Rebecca Saunders, Misato Mochizuki and Beat Furrer, documents a collective journey into the unknown and, at the same time, marks the conclusion of an intense triangular relationship that has bound Nicolas Hodges, Marcus Weiss and Christian Dierstein together over the course of twelve years. Before Nicolas Hodges left the trio in 2024, the three went into the studio for a final recording session: with four works that span even more than just their time together. Brice Pauset's 'Adagio dialettico' was already part of their core repertoire when Nicolas Hodges replaced pianist Yukiko Sugawara in 2012. And it featured in his Accanto debut concert in Prague on 1 November 2013. The three more recent compositions - by Rebecca Saunders, Beat Furrer and Misato Mochizuki - were all written for the trio of Weiss, Dierstein and Hodges. The composers play with this unique constellation from a wide variety of perspectives, whilst composing for three distinctive musical personalities: contemplative, virtuosic, sensuous and experimental. And more than once, with this trio as exemplar, they raise the question of the compatibility of individuality and society, of freedom and community spirit.

The soprano (and ukulele player) Agathe Peyrat and the accordionist (and singer) Pierre Cussac form a unique duo, free-spirited and open to blending genres. In this programme, they embrace a classical repertoire, while putting their own spin on it "by turning the pieces into songs, with night and day as the theme." We discover an astonishing version of Mozart's Queen of the Night, melodies and opera arias by Debussy, Bizet, Saint-Saens, Puccini, Delibes and Wagner, as well as songs by Maurice Yvain, Charles Trenet, Andre Minvielle and Brigitte Fontaine, all arranged by the two artists, who play with every nuance between black and white, darkness and light: 'On this recording, light represents the great joy we feel when we play together - a joy we love to share."

Following the 2025 release of Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 and Intermezzi Op. 117 - an album that received rave reviews worldwide - Francesco Piemontesi, conductor Manfred Honeck, and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig continue their Brahms journey with a compelling new recording of the composer's Piano Concerto No. 1. A work of striking emotional force and symphonic grandeur, it was born from a profound personal and artistic crisis. Composed in the aftermath of Robert Schumann's tragic collapse, the concerto reflects Brahms' struggle for artistic identity, as well as his confrontation with grief, responsibility, and expectation. From it's monumental opening - once likened to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - to the deeply introspective slow movement, often understood as a portrait of Clara Schumann, this interpretation reveals the work's extraordinary psychological depth. Complementing the concerto are Brahms' Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118, works of introspection, farewell, and concentrated expression. Composed more than three decades after the concerto, these miniatures distil a lifetime of experience into music of remarkable intimacy and emotional restraint. From the consoling warmth of the Intermezzo in A Major to the desolate introspection of the Intermezzo in E-flat minor - often regarded among Brahms' darkest utterances - these pieces form a poignant counterpoint to the youthful turbulence of the concerto. Together, they trace a path from struggle to reflection, offering a profound insight into Brahms' artistic evolution and inner world. Francesco Piemontesi, one of today's most-cherished pianists, presents the sixth release in his exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, following the widely praised Schubert - Last Piano Sonatas (2019), Bach Nostalghia (2021), Schoenberg, Messiaen & Ravel (2022), Liszt Transcendental Etudes & Piano Sonata (2023), and Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 & Three Intermezzi Op. 117 (2025).

Following Wanderer Without Words (Alpha 984), which demonstrated her talents as a transcriber and pianist - 'we applaud both the skill of the composition and the performance, which alternates between subtle gestures and flashes of passion', wrote Diapason - Juliette Journaux now embarks on 'a declaration of love for German post-Romanticism', born at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, which dares to marry "the sublime and the trivial, beauty and ugliness, ecstasy and anguish, the divine and the carnal." Composers are gradually breaking free from classical structures, the boundaries of tonality are being pushed back, and the system of organising sounds around a stable central pole of attraction is being overturned: "Post-Romanticism muddies the clear waters," continues the French pianist. These tensions are embodied in a particularly striking manner in a work whose shockwaves reverberated throughout the late 19th century: Tristan und Isolde, premiered on 10 June 1865. The 'Wagner case' would captivate the musical world for decades, and young Viennese composers would follow in the master's footsteps: Wolf, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Schreker, Braunfels and Korngold feature on the programme of this recital, comprising numerous transcriptions by the pianist, which sheds a captivating light on this historic turning point.

With it's wonderfully poetic and sensual score, 'Rusalka' is Antonin Dvorak's most beloved opera, filled with musical effects that evoke the beauty and magic of a world inhabited by nymphs and water sprites. Jaroslav Kvapil's libretto is based on a famously tragic children's fairy tale, but in this acclaimed reinvention by directors Philipp Stolzl and Philipp M. Krenn Rusalka is depicted as a young woman from the dark fringes of society. She trades her power of speech to live in Hollywood at the side of a handsome movie star but is doomed to remain an outsider and a lost soul.

Dr. Jerzy Kosmala, internationally acclaimed as a concert violist and pedagogue, has concertized throughout Europe, the former Soviet Union, Canada, North and South America, Asia, and South Africa, and has recordings on several record labels. He is a frequent guest artist and performer at the world's foremost Festivals, International Viola Congresses, Universities and Academies, and is a permanent jury member of virtually all of the most prestigious international competitions, including the Lionel Tertis, Geneva, Munich, Markneukirchen, Trapani, Primrose Viola Competition, Brahms Viola Competition, and the Concert Artist Guild International Competition in New York City.

Romanian composer George Enescu was a child prodigy, and in October 1888, aged seven, become the youngest student ever admitted to the Vienna Conservatory (and the first non-Austrian), where he graduated at the age of twelve. In addition to his career as a composer, Enescu was also an acclaimed conductor and violinist. He made his American debut in 1923 conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra, and frequently conducted both the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris. Enescu made numerous recordings as a violinist, of his own works and those of others: His 1949 recording of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas was very highly regarded, and as a teacher (at Mannes School of Music in New York) his students included Yehudi Menuhin, Christian Ferras, Ivry Gitlis, Arthur Grumiaux and Ida Haendel among many others). Enescu composed his Octet for Strings at the age of nineteen, taking a year and a half to complete, due to the complexity of the piece. The first performance was cancelled when, after 5 rehearsals, impresario edouard Colonne removed it from the programme as 'too risky'. The performers have chosen to complete the album with Enescu's early Piano Quintet, composed some four years before the Octet, during his time at the Paris Conservatoire. The work shows the young Enescu's reverence for his hero Brahms throughout, but also demonstrates his extraordinary command of form and texture at such an early age.

With the present recording Illuminans Tenebras hopes to shed new light on the music of Hildegard von Bingen, one of the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages. The musical approach of the ensemble shows that the monophony in the songs of Hildegard von Bingen bears a striking resemblance with various basic Ottoman makamlar - Kurdî, Mahur, Ussak. Illuminans Tenebras places Hildegard's mystical sounds alongside impassioned Eastern improvisations and links 12th-century Christian mysticism with Sufism of the same period. The recording highlights the musical and spiritual elements that the two traditions have in common: monodic melodies, improvisation, and ecstasy - music as a path to the divine.

The San Diego Symphony Orchestra is one of the United States' leading orchestras. Led by Music and Artistic Director Rafael Payare, the Orchestra has experienced an explosive artistic expansion, transforming it's repertoire and forging a distinctive sound. The recent renovation of Jacobs Music Center - a premier concert hall and architectural landmark - now allows that artistry to be heard in all it's power, color, and nuance. Launching a new collaboration with Delos, the musicians have recorded live at Jacobs Music Center Shostakovich's monumental Symphony No. 7. Known as the 'Leningrad' - the symphony was composed during the notorious and brutal siege of the city - the work is emotionally and historically supercharged. As the first recording captured in the hall's newly renovated acoustics, it sets the tone for an exciting new partnership!

Recipient of the prestigious Brahms Prize of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society in 2024, Kent Nagano and the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra, of which he was principal conductor from 2015 until 2025, perform the first two symphonies by the Hamburg-born composer, recorded in concert. Completed in 1876 after more than twenty years of hesitation, Brahms's First Symphony in C minor, Op. 68, bears the full weight of it's long gestation. Rooted in late Beethoven - Hans von Bulow famously called it the 'Tenth' - it traces a compelling per aspera ad astra journey: from the chromatic, drum-led opening's Faustian struggle, through a luminous slow movement and buoyant third, to a finale that breaks triumphantly into radiant C major. Critically admired but not widely loved, it remained music for connoisseurs. Composed swiftly during the summer of 1877 at the Worthersee, Brahms's Second Symphony in D major, Op. 73, stands in luminous contrast to it's brooding predecessor. Freed from the pressure of a symphonic debut, Brahms produced a work of natural ease and lyrical abundance: from the horn-launched opening movement to the enchanting third-movement minuet and the exuberant finale, it extends it's warmth - in Hanslick's words - to 'connoisseurs and laymen alike.'

This album is a mastering of the concert performed by the Kuss Quartet at the Fundacion Juan March in Madrid on April 08, 2026. It features the world premiere recording of Quartets No. 11 and 12 by Conrado del Campo (1878-1953), one of the most original and least known Spanish composers of the first half of the twentieth century. This recording is part of the Conrado Project. Launched in 2021, this ambitious initiative aims to present, for the first time, the complete body of his thirteen string quartets and to publish a comprehensive edition of the scores, most of which remain unpublished, along with the recordings released by the MarchVivo label. This initiative supports the recovery of a repertoire that has been unfairly consigned to oblivion.

CHOI Kyung-man, a virtuoso of the piri and taepyeongso oboes, acclaimed for his mastery of rhythm and improvisation, moves with ease between tradition and contemporary creation. This recording explores new roles for these instruments, offering a varied listening experience and a glimpse into a profound musical universe. This album brings together selected tracks from four CDs released in Korea between 2008 and 2021, offering a broad overview of the music of the piri and taepyeongso oboes. In Korean music, the piri is a leading melodic instrument with a loud and steady voice, and the taepyeongso, also played with a powerful and piercing sound, is mainly used for processional music or outdoor performances. Due to their distinctive nature, these instruments are rarely used outside their traditional repertoire to perform complex melodies drawn from folk songs. Found in similar forms across many cultures, the piri and taepyeongso oboes take on a new dimension here thanks to CHOI Kyung-man's unique sensitivity.

Sacred choral music played a critical role in Mendelssohn's life. The steady stream of Psalm settings made throughout his career provided a means through which he could make heartfelt responses to the texts of his faith. This first volume in the series reveals Mendelssohn's skill in conveying the emotions behind each text, from the festive jubilation of Psalm 98, Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, to an expansive setting of Psalm 42, Wie der Hirsch schreit, regarded by Robert Schumann as the highest point Mendelssohn reached as a composer for the church.

Il Caravaggio is an ensemble founded and conducted by Camille Delaforge, bringing together a new generation of musicians playing period instruments; the ensemble will celebrate it's tenth anniversary in 2027. They are joining Alpha Classics for several recording projects, starting with this programme centred on three sacred works by Purcell (The Witch of Endor), Ferrandini (Il Pianto di Maria) and Charpentier (Le Reniement de Saint-Pierre): 'I was 17, I'd just started playing the harpsichord and I discovered the final chorus of Le Reniement de Saint-Pierre. A world of profound humanity opened up before me. I did not yet understand the codes of this music, but I already I sensed that a key was turning, unlocking the door to an intensely emotional space,' says Camille Delaforge. She continues: these works 'all depict a similar spiritual journey; that of a person faced with abandonment: Mary's grief, Peter's remorse and Saul's terror in the face of the invisible in Purcell" With leading singers, Camille Delaforge and Il Caravaggio perform these sacred stories with great passion; stories that have stood the test of time and still move us today. With leading singers, Camille Delaforge and Il Caravaggio perform these sacred stories with great passion; stories that have stood the test of time and still move us today.

The full range of Ernest Bloch's music for violin and piano can be heard on this album, which journeys from his fiery early works to one of his last compositions. Both violin sonatas explore personal themes. The First, in it's barbarism, alludes to the First World War, while the Second, subtitled Poeme mystique, was inspired by a dream and is suffused with lyrical episodes from Gregorian chant. The melancholy and ecstasy evoked in Baal Shem derive from Hebrew music, including pre-existing synagogal melodies. The economy of the neo-Baroque Suite No. 1 for Solo Violin reveals a more reserved but no less inventive side of Bloch's violin writing.

With it's wonderfully poetic and sensual score, 'Rusalka' is Antonin Dvorak's most beloved opera, filled with musical effects that evoke the beauty and magic of a world inhabited by nymphs and water sprites. Jaroslav Kvapil's libretto is based on a famously tragic children's fairy tale, but in this acclaimed reinvention by directors Philipp Stolzl and Philipp M. Krenn Rusalka is depicted as a young woman from the dark fringes of society. She trades her power of speech to live in Hollywood at the side of a handsome movie star but is doomed to remain an outsider and a lost soul.

Anna Fedorova presents the late keyboard works of Brahms. 'These works feel as if he is speaking to us in a more private voice than ever before. The music is deeply personal, full of tenderness, nostalgia, love, and quiet reflection' says Fedorova. 'His lifelong bond with Clara Schumann remained a central part of his inner world. She was among the first to see these manuscripts, and her presence seems to quietly accompany them.' Op. 117 are three sets of melodies without words. Of Op. 118, Clara wrote: 'It is simply marvellous how your inner self seems to bubble, shine and whisper, constantly imbued with the grandeur and depth of your ideas!' With Op. 119, the keyboard seems once again to contain an entire orchestra, just like the early works that the young Brahms had presented to Robert Schumann forty years earlier.

An illuminating introduction to the musical riches of the wider Scriabin family, unrivalled in the catalogue, presenting many unfamiliar names and unknown pieces within the noble lineage of the Russian piano tradition. In a generous 85-minute survey, the pianist Matteo Cardelli presents piano music composed over a period of exactly 150 years by musicians who are all related (either by blood or by marriage) to Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915). Scriabin took his first lessons at the piano with his mother, who had studied with the renowned pedagogue Theodor Leschetitzky at the conservatoire in St Petersburg. This chronologically ordered recital presents some of the striking pieces from his adolescence, including a pair of fugues and a more elaborate Fantasy in A minor, The most extensive piece on the album is the little-known 'Symphonic Allegro' which Scriabin wrote in 1896, possibly as the first movement of a never-completed symphony, and which Leonid Sabaneyev then transcribed (after the composer's death) as a Poeme en forme d'une sonate. Julian was the sixth of Scriabin's seven children, born in 1908 to his mistress Tatiana Shlotzer; Paul de Schlozer was Tatiana's uncle. Julian drowned in the Dnieper river at the age of just 11;the maturity of those few compositions he left is all the more remarkable: the Prelude Op.2 is the longest and most complex of them, alternating a hypnotic, suspended harmonic sequence with a tumultuous Presto, and thus evoking the same fantastical world created by his father in later compositions such as the Fifth Piano Sonata. Also born to Tatiana was Marina, the last of Scriabin's children, in 1911. Living until 1998, she composed this rigorously ordered, atonal set of theme and variations at some point in the 1940s. Daniel Lazarus was Scriabin's grandson, born to his fifth child Ariadna, and his set of Six Pieces reflect the turbulent era of their composition in the early 1920s, evoking styles from Schubert to Prokofiev. Robert Cornman married Ariadna's eldest daughter, Tatiana-Myriam; his Sonata brevis owes something to Copland. Their son - and thus Scriabin's great-grandson - is Julian Cornman, born in 1953, whose Rondeau adopts a neo-Baroque language with a sidelong glance at musical history. In this way, Matteo Cardelli takes the listener on a musical journey through the Scriabin, de Schloezer, Lazarus and Cornman families, from Romantic piano studies based on Liszt's models to the current postmodern era, through the complex and tragic history of the 20th century and up to the present day.

A conversation between the piano compositions of Lili Boulanger and her teacher Gabriel Faure. Lili Boulanger's lesser-known dreamy Preludes (never published) and Marche gaie (recently discovered), along with her popular 3 Morceaux and her more serious Theme and Variations, are mirrored by Faure's masterpiece Theme and Variations, as well as his lesser-known, melodic, and enchanting Pieces breves.