'hush' is Chad Lawson's most intimate and understated work to date - a deeply restorative collection of music born from a singular moment of silence at London's legendary Angel Studios. After the final note of the orchestral recording faded, no one in the room moved or spoke, and in that shared stillness Chad discovered both the spirit of the album and it's name. Rather than offering another solution, ritual, or self-improvement tool, hush creates a place to simply be. A refuge at the end of a day that has taken more than it has given. Embracing restraint and honesty, Chad pares each composition down to only what it needs, allowing space, breath, and silence to become part of the music itself. The result is Chad's quietest recording yet. A beautifully immersive listening experience that leaves listeners feeling lighter, renewed, and gently reminded that even the longest nights eventually give way to morning.
55 years after the release of their first recording, Katia & Marielle Labeque celebrate an extraordinary artistic journey with "55," a landmark set that brings together new recordings and curated archive treasures spanning more than half a century. Released in 1970, the Labeque sisters' debut album marked the beginning of one of the most singular careers in contemporary music. The collection offers an intimate portrait of two artists who have consistently crossed boundaries between classical, contemporary, jazz, minimalism and popular traditions. "55" has a particular focus on women composers, to which Katia & Marielle say, "Their apparent silence was only a veil imposed by history. Their stories, extraordinary journeys and courageous destinies, resonate today with striking force." Featuring 22 tracks on 2LPs. Limited Edition.
Sir Stephen Hough's new solo piano album, Stephen Hough's Piano Postcards, explores the world from the perspective of the itinerant pianist sending home musical messages from his voyages. Music from Asia includes "Spring breeze prelude" by Taiwanese composer Deng Yu-Hsien and a piano version of "Aka tombo," a children's song so beloved in Japan that it features in citywide "5-o'clock chimes" across the country. Folk and popular traditions appear in "Cielito lindo" and "Nature boy," while the final group of pieces turns to nature, with works by MacDowell, Schumann and Sinding. Alongside these musical travel diaries, he intersperses new transcriptions of songs from popular films, including arrangements he created for Lang Lang's 'Disney Book' album. This is the first chance Sir Stephen has had to include piano arrangements of songs from Frozen, Coco and Mary Poppins.
Exotica showcases the boundary-pushing creativity of composer Mauricio Kagel, one of the most influential figures in avant-garde and experimental music. Challenging traditional musical conventions, the work explores unconventional instrumentation, theatrical elements, and innovative sonic textures, highlighting Kagel's unique vision and enduring impact on contemporary classical music.
Luigi Nono was a leading figure in post-war serialism, emerging in the 1950s alongside Karlheinz Stockhausen & Pierre Boulez as one of the era's defining avant-garde composers. Composed for 2-channel magnetic tape in 1968, Contrappunto reflects Nono's engagement with international student movements and opposition to the Vietnam War. Drawing on Adriano Banchieri's early 17th-century madrigal-comedy, Nono reimagined it's vocal focus, period materials, and parodic spirit through a contemporary lens. Roland Kayn's Cybernetics III foresaw major developments in synthesis, computing, sampling & sequencing, anticipating profound changes in electronic music. The Avantgarde Series is mastered & cut from the original analog 1/4 inch, 2-track master tapes by Rainer Maillard & Sidney Claire Meyer at Emil Berliner Studios. Limited and numbered, featuring original artwork and a newly designed, beautifully crafted collector's sleeve with new liner notes by Bradford Bailey, and pressed on 180g vinyl.
Limited five 180gm vinyl LP set. Herbert von Karajan's recording of Wagner's 'Die Walkure' features an outstanding cast, including Austrian star soprano Gundula Janowitz (Sieglinde), legendary bass-baritone Thomas Stewart (Wotan), Jon Vickers (Siegmund), and the dazzling Regine Crespin (Brunnhilde). It captivates with it's expressive range and lyrical accents. Karajan skillfully allows his orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker, to take a back seat to showcase the great singers. As classical music magazine Gramophone aptly puts it, even half a century after it's release, his recording, "still has surprises in store." For the first time, the ORIGINAL SOURCE SERIES uses the original stereo master tape, a two-track audio tape, as it's source. Remastered by the Emil Berliner Studios on 180g virgin vinyl by Optimal and housed in a 5-LP lift-lid box set. Limited and numbered.
With a sublime cast and the revolutionary staging by Ulrich Rasche, this Salzburg Festival production of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda transforms a bel canto masterpiece into an evening of theatre. The conflict between Maria and Elisabetta becomes tangible through contrasting costumes, a constantly shifting space of rotating platforms, and projected images. Lisette Oropesa's Maria showcases 'a truly wonderful display of vocal intelligence, human warmth and a completely effortless, natural tone' (Süddeutsche Zeitung), while Kate Lindsey's Elisabetta conveys the fury and despair of the English monarch with striking intensity. Under the baton of Antonello Manacorda and with the outstanding contribution of the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, this production conquers through rhythm, movement, and physical presence as expressive forces. 'Lisette Oropesa imbues all of this with vocal mastery and emotion. Beyond pure virtuosity, she shapes the inner workings of the character into operatic drama.' (Der Standard)
Almeida Prado: Piano Trios; Cello Sonata; Balada for Cello a
Naxos
CD
$19.99Sep 25, 2026
Jose Antônio de Almeida Prado's music is the result of a unique combination of influences, moving through different styles and techniques while always displaying a recognisably strong personal imprint. Chamber music accounts for a large part of Almeida Prado's output. The Trio de Fontainebleau is infused with the ambience of his studies in France with Nadia Boulanger. The Balada is characteristic of the composer's mature style, with textures based on resonances, free modalism, consonant 'transtonal harmony,' and alternation between simple and complex rhythms. Trio Marítimo evokes the Portuguese poetry of Fernando Pessoa, while the Cello Sonata, with it's richly expressive palette of references, was considered by the composer to be one of his greatest achievements.
In Addio Amore, Kammerorchester Basel, soprano Jeanine de Bique, and countertenor Terry Wey present a programme of searing intensity and refined expressive beauty, exploring the fragile threshold between love and loss in 18th-century opera. Inspired by a world in which singing was not merely an expression of virtuosity, but the most direct language of the heart, this recording explores the emotional core of the farewell moment-when lovers, friends, and heroes are torn apart, and music becomes the only source of consolation. Across arias and duets of striking intimacy, the album reveals how composers from Albinoni to Hasse transformed separation, abandonment, and death into some of the most poignant musical utterances of their time, creating a shared language of expressive extremes where tenderness and grief exist side by side. For Jeanine de Bique and Terry Wey, this is a debut album on PENTATONE, while Kammerorchester Basel appeared on Anime Immortali (2023) and Haydn Stabat Mater (2023).
With a sublime cast and the revolutionary staging by Ulrich Rasche, this Salzburg Festival production of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda transforms a bel canto masterpiece into an evening of theatre. The conflict between Maria and Elisabetta becomes tangible through contrasting costumes, a constantly shifting space of rotating platforms, and projected images. Lisette Oropesa's Maria showcases 'a truly wonderful display of vocal intelligence, human warmth and a completely effortless, natural tone' (Süddeutsche Zeitung), while Kate Lindsey's Elisabetta conveys the fury and despair of the English monarch with striking intensity. Under the baton of Antonello Manacorda and with the outstanding contribution of the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, this production conquers through rhythm, movement, and physical presence as expressive forces. 'Lisette Oropesa imbues all of this with vocal mastery and emotion. Beyond pure virtuosity, she shapes the inner workings of the character into operatic drama.' (Der Standard)
Sandrine Piau and David Kadouch are reuniting for a project that the French soprano conceived as the second part of a diptych begun with Voyage intime (Alpha 911). This time we enter the world of childhood, but even though this album is called Contes, 'these aren't stories for children,' says David Kadouch. Actually, these stories might even present themselves in a way that provokes anxiety-dark and menacing Sandrine Piau continues: 'Folk tales and legends often serve as an initiation, and they also act providentially as pebbles that guide us through the forest of our most secret atavistic fears.' With their well-known and recognised expertise, Piau and Kadouch bring together composers from a variety of linguistic and artistic backgrounds-Hahn, Debussy, Ravel, Wolf, Strauss, Zemlinsky, Poulenc, Shostakovich-and introduce us to fascinating female composers such as Jeanne Bernard (1895-1965), Wally Karnevo (1914-2015), Louise Didier (1872-1955), and Ilse Weber (1903-1944).
Alexandria, 48 BC: Caesar lands in Egypt and is handed the severed head of his rival Pompey. What follows is an opera of power, revenge, and seduction; Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy at war for the throne, Pompey's widow and son bent on vengeance, and Cleopatra winning Caesar by disguise, appearing as Virtue among the Muses to sing him into love. The English Concert and Harry Bicket continue their Handel series on Linn with this full, unabbreviated Giulio Cesare, written in 1724 for the castrato Senesino and the soprano Cuzzoni, and rarely recorded complete. Christophe Dumaux sings Caesar and Louise Alder is Cleopatra, with Beth Taylor, Paula Murrihy, John Holiday, Morgan Pearse, Meili LI, and Thomas Chenhall. This recording is the culmination of an international tour. After the ensemble's Carnegie Hall performance, The New York Times wrote: 'This ensemble sets a standard for Handel performance.'
