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Handel: Hercules / DiDonato, Christie, Les Arts Florissants [Blu-ray]

BelAir Classiques

Blu-Ray

$31.99 Apr 29, 2016

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

This outstanding live recording is the first ever collaboration between director Luc Bondy, conductor William Christie, and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. This recording was taken in December of 2004 at the Opera National de Paris. Les Arts Florissants, conducted by William Christie, does a beautiful job of performing the score by G. F. Handel.

Picture Format: 16:9
Sound Formats: PCM Stereo, 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
Region Code: 0 (Worldwide)

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Handel: Hercules / DiDonato, Christie, Les Arts Florissants [Blu-ray]
BelAir Classiques Apr 2016
Blu-Ray
$31.99

Respighi: The Birds; Ancient Airs & Dances / Neschling, Liège Royal Philharmonic

BIS

SACD

$21.99 Mar 03, 2023

With the present album, the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège and John Neschling bring us the sixth and last instalment in a series that has been called ‘the finest-ever survey of the composer’s orchestral output undertaken by a single conductor’ (BBC Music Magazine). The immense popularity of the Roman Trilogy has had the effect of obscuring many parts of Respighi’s oeuvre, including arrangements of pieces from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. These arrangements, a genuine declaration of love for this music, were less an attempt at musicological reconstruction than ‘free transcriptions for orchestra’ as the composer described them.

The four suites on this album, Gli Uccelli (The Birds) and the three entitled Ancient Dances and Airs, bear witness to this art. Gli Uccelli consists of five pieces originally written for harpsichord or lute which, as the title suggests, evoke birds set in colourful soundscapes. The Ancient Dances and Airs are suites each made of four pieces for lute or guitar from the Italian and French repertoire of the late 16th and early 17th centuries adorned with new orchestral colours. The success of these suites owes much to their orchestration: subtle and sober with timbres of rare sophistication. A refined treat from the Italian master of orchestration.

REVIEWS:

The conductor must have put an extra teaspoon of baking soda in the batter, because these performances are uncommonly airy. Much of this music is suffused with an autumnal melancholy, and Neschling and his orchestra capture that very well. For example, try the Villanella from Suite No. 1 of the Ancient Airs and Dances, where several members of the orchestra take turns stepping into the spotlight, which they do most atmospherically. In the same suite’s Gagliarda, there is a sense of lively occasion, but Neschling does not allow it to become starchy or pompous.

I think this is a winner on all counts.

-- Fanfare

In more instances than I can count on this Neschling recording, I find myself sitting up straight, having heard him do something that brings the music to life in a way that I had not heard before on other recordings. He knows how to “read between the lines” and to bring out that extra “something” that separates the great conductors from the mere kapellmeisters.

-- MusicWeb International

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Respighi: The Birds; Ancient Airs & Dances / Neschling, Liège Royal Philharmonic
BIS Mar 2023
SACD
$21.99

Complete Sacred Works

CPO

$99.99 Mar 20, 2026

Johann Kuhnau-Bach's immediate predecessor as Thomaskantor-in an 8-CD box that offers more than a mere collection of works: the individually issued recordings from 2013 to 2022 by Opella Musica, Camerata Lipsiensis, and Gregor Meyer are brought together as a complete sacred corpus with editorial coherence, making audible how Leipzig's church music takes shape at the threshold of the eighteenth century and beyond. From intimate, chamber-scaled pieces to representative festive compositions, one can trace how compositional technique, the relationship between voices and instruments, and the overall sonic architecture gain definition in the early decades of the eighteenth century-a sounding point of reference for what Bach would later adopt and develop in Leipzig.

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Complete Sacred Works
CPO Mar 2026
CD
$99.99

Tchaikovsky Ballet Masterpieces / Margot Fonteyn, Michael Somes

ICA Classics

DVD

$26.99 Nov 15, 2011

MARGOT FONTEYN AND MICHAEL SOMES
Tchaikovsky Ballet Masterpieces

Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky:
Sleeping Beauty (excerpts)
Swan Lake (excerpts)
The Nutcracker: Act II

Margot Fonteyn, dancer
Michael Somes, dancer

Sleeping Beauty
choreography after Marius Petipa
Royal Opera House Orchestra
John Lanchbery, conductor
Broadcast: 20 December 1959

Swan Lake
choreography by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Robert Irving, conductor
Broadcast: 9 June 1954

The Nutcracker
choreography by Peter Wright after Lev Ivanov
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Hugo Rignold, conductor
Broadcast: 21 December 1958

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: LPCM Mono
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Menu language: English
Booklet notes: English, French, German
Running time: 72 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

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Tchaikovsky Ballet Masterpieces / Margot Fonteyn, Michael Somes
ICA Classics Nov 2011
DVD
$26.99

Ballets By Christian Spuck / Opernhaus & Ballett Zurich

Accentus Music

DVD

$74.99 May 14, 2021

Also available on Blu-ray

This box set contains three extraordinary ballet choreographies by the successful German choreographer Christian Spuck for the Ballett Zürich whose ballet director he has been since the 2012/13 season: Verdi’s Messa da Requiem conducted by Fabio Luisi, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker and Mouse King, conducted by Paul Connelly, and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet conducted by Michail Jurowski. Christian Spuck comes from Marburg and was trained at the John Cranko School in Stuttgart. He began his dance career with Jan Lauwers’ Needcompany and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s Ensemble Rosas. In 1995 he became a member of the Stuttgart Ballet and served as the company’s resident choreographer from 2001 to 2012. In Stuttgart he created fifteen world premieres, including the story ballet Lulu. Eine Monstretragödie after Frank Wedekind, Der Sandmann and Das Fräulein von S. after E.T.A. Hoffmann. Since the 2012/13 season, Christian Spuck has been director of Ballett Zürich.

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Ballets By Christian Spuck / Opernhaus & Ballett Zurich
Accentus Music May 2021
DVD
$74.99

Kodaly: Hary Janos Suite, Dances of Galanta; Dohnanyi / Schwarz, Seattle

Naxos

$9.99 ~~$19.99~~ Save 50% Jul 31, 2012

When Kodály constructed a suite of music from his opera Háry János, he further immortalised the braggart soldier of the title. Dreamlike and fantastic, the six scenes are imbued with imaginative writing of sweeping intensity, embracing a love-duet, a mock-epic battle, a folk song, and a vigorous recruiting dance. In the Dances of Galánta he again employed the Hungarian verbunkos recruiting dance tradition to celebrate the eightieth anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic Society. The Konzertstück of his compatriot and nearcontemporary Ern? Dohnányi is a full-scale cello concerto of considerable lyric beauty.

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Kodaly: Hary Janos Suite, Dances of Galanta; Dohnanyi / Schwarz, Seattle
Naxos Jul 2012
CD
~~$19.99~~ $9.99

Whispers of Titans

Challenge Classics

$18.99 Feb 12, 2016

This "meeting of titans" features Górecki's String Trio (1962), a rarely-recorded and performed work, alongside Korndorf 's String Trio (1986), a masterpiece of personal minimalism. And as far as we know, these are the only currently available recordings of both pieces!

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Whispers of Titans
Challenge Classics Feb 2016
CD
$18.99

Shield: 6 String Quartets

Naxos

$19.99 Oct 10, 2025

William Shield rose from relatively humble beginnings to become the 'house' composer to Covent Garden, for which he wrote stage works full of panache and tunefulness. He met and befriended Haydn who was to prove a lasting influence. In 1782 Shield published his Six String Quartets, Op. 3, some of the most richly rewarding works of their type in 18th-century England. The transparency of parts, use of imitation, infusion of Sturm und Drang elements as well as the bucolic and folkloric writing, all demonstrate Shield's art, as does the progressive writing of the last of the six, in C minor.

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Shield: 6 String Quartets
Naxos Oct 2025
CD
$19.99

Mix & Match

Dowland: Lachrimae

Brilliant Classics

$13.99 Nov 01, 2019

The seven Lachrimae Pavan of 1604 are widely held to mark not only the high point of Dowland’s work but the entire genre of viol consort music. Dowland takes a lamenting pavan that he had written some years earlier and develops its theme into a cycle which takes the listener through different states of tearfulness, from loneliness to despair through hope to love and finally joy – the ‘true tears’ of the final pavan. In its contrapuntal mastery and its ingenuity in the treatment of a single theme, the Lachrimae cycle stands alongside The Art of Fugue composed by J.S. Bach a century and a half later. Most recordings of the Lachrimae use the standard instrumentation of a consort of viols, ranging from treble to bass and accompanied by a lute. For his second recording of the cycle, however, the Italian violist Cristiano Contadin has boldly created a broken consort performance which mixes the recorder and also early violin and viola in with the uniquely grainy timbre of the viols. Such an instrumentation exploits the long association of the recorder with music of lamentation, and makes a historical connection with, for example, the cantatas of Bach. Contadin explains with a booklet essay that his aim in performance is to recover the ‘passionate’ nature of this music as Dowland envisaged it in his own written preface to the score, and indeed there is nothing dry or constricted about the performance he directs from the treble viol. Now, with three generations of period performance research and practice under their belts, musicians are beginning to play this music with the kind of freedom and spontaneity and emotion they would accord (in other ways) to Brahms, and this new recording deserves comparison with the most distinguished accounts from the recent past.

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Dowland: Lachrimae
Brilliant Classics Nov 2019
CD
$13.99

ROSLAVETS: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1, 4 and 6 / 3 Dances

Naxos

$19.99 Aug 29, 2006

The forgotten man of Soviet music history, vilified in his day for having aspired to be a 'Russian Schoenberg', Roslavets began his career as one of the most rebellious of all Soviet avant-garde composers of the first two decades of the 20th century.

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ROSLAVETS: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1, 4 and 6 / 3 Dances
Naxos Aug 2006
CD
$19.99

Music from Diaghilev's Ballet Russes / Fischer, BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Signum Classics

$41.99 Jan 01, 2011

STRAVINSKY; POULENC; LIADOV BBC NATIONAL ORCHESTRA OF WALES; FISCHER (COND.) MUSIC FROM DIAGHILEV'S BALLET RUSSES- STRAVINSKY: THE FIREBIRD, THE RITE OF SPRING, PETRUSHKA, SCHERZO FANTASTIQUE; LIADOV: BABA-YAGA, THE ENCHANTED LAKE. KIKIMORA; POULENC: LES BICHES

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Music from Diaghilev's Ballet Russes / Fischer, BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Signum Classics Jan 2011
CD
$41.99

Kancheli: Symphonies No. 6 & No. 7 / Kakhidze, Tbilisi
Sony Masterworks Feb 2008
CD
$17.99

Lully, Rameau, Rebel, Mozart, Gluck: Les caracteres de la danse - Du Bourgeois gentilhomme a Orphee / Goebel, Royal Opera Orchestra

Château de Versailles Spectacles

$20.99 Mar 11, 2022

French music owes a great deal to dance, from the survival of the Ballet de Cour in the comedies-ballets of Lully, to his tragedies lyriques, these compositions imposed the French choreographic model in Europe. Here is the sequel to Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, which in 1670 marked the peak of the Comédie-Ballet, when Louis XIV stopped dancing. With his Characters of the Dance in 1720, Rebel offers a work without sung text, the first maturity of the choreographic genre, before Rameau gives it a prominent place in Pygmalion, a sumptuous ballet act. When Gluck adapts his Orphée for Paris, he amplifies the danced parts with exceptional inspiration. Finally, Mozart integrates a vast French-style ballet into his Idoménée: the Chaconne is irresistible... Galvanizing the Royal Opera Orchestra, Reinhard Goebel's sharp baton stretches the arc of a century of French-style dance !

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Lully, Rameau, Rebel, Mozart, Gluck: Les caracteres de la danse - Du Bourgeois gentilhomme a Orphee / Goebel, Royal Opera Orchestra
Château de Versailles Spectacles Mar 2022
CD
$20.99

Gounod: Piano Works

Naxos

$19.99 Oct 10, 2025

During his time in Italy and later in Leipzig, Charles Gounod was drawn by the balance of sonic beauty and proportion to be found in the music of Palestrina and J.S. Bach. He developed an innate desire for simple directness as can be heard in the excerpt from the Messe solennelle de Sainte Cecile and the Meditation sur le premier Prelude de J.S. Bach, now better known as Ave Maria. Gounod's talents for melody and mood painting are demonstrated in his Romances sans paroles, while his sense of wit can be heard in the famous Marche fune'bre d'une marionnette.

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Gounod: Piano Works
Naxos Oct 2025
CD
$19.99

Mix & Match

In Chains of Gold: The English Pre-Restoration Verse Anthem, Vol. 2 / Magdalena Consort, Fretwork, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts

Signum Classics

$19.99 Jun 26, 2020

Leading performers of 17th-century music the Magdalena Consort, Fretwork and His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts combine forces under the artistic direction of William Hunt for their second release exploring the English Pre-Restoration Verse Anthem – Psalms and Royal Anthems, particularly those of William Byrd. More than any composer before him, William Byrd catered prolifically to a wide variety of musicians. Connoisseurs of Latin motets at home and abroad, troupes of boy actors with their viols and their unbroken voices, solo keyboard players, the choirs of the established English church, and the underground ensembles of Catholic households where mass was celebrated in secret—performers of all these kinds could look to Byrd for quantities, in some cases vast, of music of the highest excellence.

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In Chains of Gold: The English Pre-Restoration Verse Anthem, Vol. 2 / Magdalena Consort, Fretwork, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts
Signum Classics Jun 2020
CD
$19.99

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6; Romeo and Juliet / Järvi, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich

Alpha

$20.99 Oct 08, 2021

After two volumes praised by the international press (Diapason d'Or, Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik etc.) the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich presents the third release in it's Tchaikovsky cycle, featuring the Sixth Symphony and Romeo and Juliet. A boxed set of the orchestra's complete Tchaikovsky recordings under Paavo Järvi is issued simultaneously. Tchaikovsky said he 'put his entire soul' into the Sixth Symphony. He admitted that his program was 'more subjective than ever' and that he 'often [...] wept copiously' while working on it. The overall atmosphere is created by the somber key of B minor and an obsessive sighing motif that recurs throughout the symphony. In Romeo and Juliet, Tchaikovsky focused on thematic areas, setting them to music in different ways: the peaceful, chorale-like gesture associated with Friar Lawrence in the introduction, the bitter struggle between the Capulet and Montague families, and the intoxicated love of Romeo and Juliet. The work ends with the return of a chorale of reconciliation and the transfiguration of the lovers.

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Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6; Romeo and Juliet / Järvi, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich
Alpha Oct 2021
CD
$20.99

Glazunov, A.K.: Orchestral Works, Vol. 10 - Suite Caracteris
Naxos Apr 1999
CD
$19.99

DANCE

ORANGE MOUNTAIN

DVD

$30.99 Sep 09, 2022

Orange Mountain Music is proud to announce the release of the iconic 1979 work DANCE by choreographer Lucinda Childs, composer Philip Glass, and film by Sol LeWitt. "See the music, hear the dance." Never was the great George Balanchine's exhortation more fully realized than in DANCE. DANCE, American dancer and choreographer Lucinda Childs's first major show, is set to an especially commissioned score by Philip Glass, and framed by a video by the visual artist Sol LeWitt. Three exponents of Minimalism in their respective fields come together to create something that was once justly described as "close to stage heaven." A work of uncompromising purity, it's choreography meticulously follows every subtle nuance and shifting pattern of Philip Glass's score, so that you can see the music in the bodies of the 12-white clad dancers, the audiences two senses, sight and hearing, completely fused. LeWitt shot a film of the dance, and then cut, layered and floated it onto a scrim over the live performance. The dancers in Sol LeWitt's film, featuring Lucinda Childs herself, appear to flit through the live dancers. The result is one of the most popular ballets of the 20th century. Filmed in Paris in 2014 by the director Marie-Helene Rebois, produced by Daphnie Productions with the participation of France Televisions, the performance was produced by Pomegranate Arts.

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DANCE
ORANGE MOUNTAIN Sep 2022
DVD
$30.99

Danielpour: Talking to Aphrodite, Symphony for Strings & Kaddish, Rachlevsky, Russian String Orchestra

Naxos

$19.99 Jul 12, 2019

These three recordings cement the bond between the award-winning composer Richard Danielpour and the conductor Misha Rachlevsky, one of the composer’s most dedicated and perceptive interpreters. It was Rachlevsky who gave the American premiere of Symphony for Strings, a transcription of the Sixth String Quartet- a work saturated in farewells, complete with a hymn and variations. Talking to Aphrodite is the result of a collaboration between Danielpour and the writer Erica Jong, while Kaddish addresses the eternal issues of life, death and eventual peace.

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Danielpour: Talking to Aphrodite, Symphony for Strings & Kaddish, Rachlevsky, Russian String Orchestra
Naxos Jul 2019
CD
$19.99

Duruflé: Sacred Choral & Organ Works Vol 1 / Piquemal, Et Al
Naxos Jun 1995
CD
$19.99

LACHRIMAE - OR SEAVEN TEARES
Saydisc Nov 2005
CD
$20.99

Monteverdi: L'orfeo / Henschel, Schiavo, Prina, Christie

Dynamic

DVD

$36.99 Jan 01, 2011

MONTEVERDI L’Orfeo • William Christie, cond; Dietrich Henschel ( Orfeo ); Maria Grazia Schiavo ( La Musica, Euridice, Proserpina ); Les Arts Florissants; Les Sacqueboutiers de Toulouse • DYNAMIC 33598 (DVD: 113: 00) Live: Madrid 5/19/2008

This is the third L’Orfeo I’ve seen on DVD, and it’s a real success. In style it fits among the theatrical productions that use over 20 singers and over 20 players, even adding some supernumeraries to fill the stage. Yet as a performance it should stand comparison with the intimate versions that we have heard on CD recently, since Pier Luigi Pizzi, the stage director who also designed the sets and costumes, replicated the venue of the first production in the Mantua residence. This may suggest that adhering to the minimal personnel of the alternative interpretation (a dozen singers and a dozen players, more or less) is not really necessary, or simply that Pizzi imagines a pretty big palace. But he imagines well, for this is the best stage set, the best costumes, the best lighting, and the best camerawork of the three versions I’ve seen. It is simply the best theatrical production of an opera that I’ve ever seen on DVD (not that I’ve seen very many). All three were made in live performances (the Harnoncourt video of 1979 was pantomimed in a studio 10 months after the performance was recorded), but the audience manifests itself only twice at the ends of the two halves. Christie’s was a single performance of May 19, 2008, at the Teatro Real in Madrid, while Jean Claude Malgoire’s was made at Tourcoing in October 2004 (also for Dynamic) and Stephen Stubbs’s was made in Amsterdam in July 1997 for Opus Arte.

Henschel is a fine Orfeo, a good actor as well as singer, but it is interesting that he has made a career not in early music but in contemporary opera. Schiavo, a mesmerizing stage presence, outdoes herself in adding not just La Musica but also Proserpina to her main role. At least seven previous conductors allowed Euridice to double as La Musica, and Rinaldo Alessandrini assigned Proserpina to his Euridice, but no other singer has combined all three roles. This is Pizzi’s way of identifying Pluto’s wife with Orfeo’s beloved. Christie directs from the keyboards, seeing his role as comparable to the pianist for a Schubert Lied. There is not a weak member of the supporting cast, and Christie’s players, supplemented by the brass from Toulouse, maintain their longstanding reputation. The Madrid production was associated with La Fenice as well. This can replace any previous video of the work that you may have, for it is absolutely superb.

FANFARE: J. F. Weber
-----------------------------------------

Recorded: Teatro Real, Madrid, May 2008
NTSC All Region; 16:9; Dolby Digital 5.1/LPCM 2.0; Approx. 113 mins.
Subtitled in French, Italian, English, German & Spanish

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Monteverdi: L'orfeo / Henschel, Schiavo, Prina, Christie
Dynamic Jan 2011
DVD
$36.99

Jan Dismas Zelenka: Lacrimae

Supraphon

$31.99 May 30, 2025

The unmistakable bass of Tomas Selc at the service of Jan Dismas Zelenka Tomas Selc devotes himself to the cantata and oratorio literature of the 18th through the 20th centuries, romantic lieder, and opera, collaborating with outstanding orchestras, ensembles, and conductors (Bamberger Symphoniker, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Collegium 1704, Collegium Vocale Gent, Taverner Consort etc.). It is, however, in the works of Jan Dismas Zelenka and of J. S. Bach that he seems to be most at home. Therefore, the choice of Zelenka for his Supraphon debut was clear, as was his collaboration with the renowned ensemble Collegium Marianum. The album presents three of Zelenka's great liturgical works for bass, composed in the milieu of the Dresden court ensemble within a span of seven years. The masterfully invoked atmosphere of gloom of the first Lamentation of Jeremiah (1722) for the Tenebrae liturgy, dignified praise of the Lord in the psalm Confitebor tibi Domine (1729), and pleading cries from this world's vale of tears in the Marian antiphon Salve Regina (1724) are brought to us with all their urgency by the silky colour of selc's voice. The Flute Concerto by Giuseppe Tartini reminds us that it is not only from the depths of darkness that we cry out; heights of gentle consolation are truly within reach as well. Those heights resound here in the tender and colourful tones of the flute played by Jana Semeradova, driving the clouds away and brings smiles to our faces. Depths of darkness and radiant lightness of being are two inseparable dimensions of life on this earth.

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Jan Dismas Zelenka: Lacrimae
Supraphon May 2025
CD
$31.99

Khachaturian: The Dancing Violin

Fuga Libera

$20.99 Mar 14, 2025

A meeting between violinist David Haroutunian and Karen Khachaturian, son of the legendary composer Aram Khachaturian, inspired this new recording. Following their encounter in Paris at a concert marking the 40th anniversary of Aram Khachaturian's passing, Karen entrusted David with the score of an unpublished sonata for violin and piano, written by his father in the early 1930s. Avant-garde in style and structured in two unique movements, the sonata stands as a remarkable masterpiece, both profound and accessible to a wide audience. "My discovery of this sonata sparked an intense desire to record all of Khachaturian's works for violin, as no such comprehensive recording, to my knowledge, exists," David explains. Together with pianist Xenia Maliarevitch, he set out to capture not only Khachaturian's original compositions for solo violin and violin-piano duo but also selected arrangements of his most iconic works, including excerpts from Gayaneh and the Sabre Dance arranged by Jascha Heifetz. This album also features a previously unrecorded Dance from 1925, adding to the rich legacy of Khachaturian's music.

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Khachaturian: The Dancing Violin
Fuga Libera Mar 2025
CD
$20.99

Smetana: The Bartered Bride Overture & Dances, Etc / Simon
Chandos Apr 1986
CD
$21.99