Celebrating the work of Benjamin Britten, this album combines three of the composer’s enduringly popular, yet vastly distinctive works. Sir Simon Rattle leads us on an unexpected journey through this diverse collection of masterpieces.
Written shortly after the outbreak of World War II, Sinfonia da Requiem meditates in part on the political populism which had, for the second time in just a few decades, plunged the world in to an existential crisis. In this piece, Britten’s rich, yearning harmonies reveal a sombre and dramatic warning of the cost of conflict.From the darkness of war, we move towards the light with Britten’s choral Spring Symphony. With its mysterious reimagining of traditional English folk song and verse, the work depicts the gradual reawakening of the natural world when winter ebbs away, and spring begins to triumph.Britten let his imagination catch fire in The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. This brilliantly original showpiece is one of the composer’s best-known pieces, and draws the album to a close.

The unique collaboration stemmed from a suggestion by the film’s director Johan Renck, with Richter creating the music for the track before Sparks contributed melody and lyrics to create the melancholic finale to the film’s soundtrack.

During his lifetime, Oskar Merikanto (1868–1924) was the most popular composer in Finnish homes. Even today, especially at weddings and funerals, his pieces are widely heard and performed. Merikanto was an excellent pianist and organist and possessed a particular gift for writing memorable melodies. Enjoying great popularity, he wrote over 200 songs, a number of duets, several choral works and nearly 200 piano works. To mark the 100th anniversary of Merikanto's death in 2024, Waltteri Torikka has recorded 29 of his songs. Torikka topped the Finnish pop charts for 3 weeks in 2018, performs frequently in European opera festivals and is a frequent visitor on Finland’s top television programmes.

Kenneth Bager is a danish legend and electronic pioneer, he started as a DJ in 1979. He was in the first DJ Magazine as part of the top 100 best DJ's in the world. He has been on national radio P3 in Denmark for decades promoting electronic music. Kenneth Bager started the now legendary Coma Club in 1988 ( it is still running and more popular than ever - the party is 3 times a year in Copenhagen). He runs the labels Music For Dreams and Music For Clubs, DJ's around the world, & curates events.Music for Dreams is is a sonic kaleidoscope of musical tones and colours. The corner stone of MFD is the globally appealing sound and encompassing range of genres spanning from danceable balearic and electronic to beautiful ambient music.

Given Weinberger’s choice of instruments, this deserves to be considered a period-performance cycle of Reger’s music. The difference that makes is slight in most volumes, but in this, presumably.

This live recording brings together a selection of works from two concerts given at the Fundación Juan March in Madrid by Antonio Serrano, accompanied by pianists Federico Lechner (22 November 2014) and Ignasi Terraza (27 November 2021). In these recitals Serrano demonstrated his virtuosic mastery of the harmonica, an instrument that has played a hugely influential role in the history of jazz. The memorable music of two such significant composers as Cole Porter and George Gershwin acquires a new creative dimension in the hands of Antonio Serrano. Unfamiliar to many, the idiomatic potential of the harmonica is fully revealed in this recording, conjuring an unusual sound world that will transform the listening experience for those curious enough to dive into it.

In 1884, Antonín Dvořák undertook his first concert tour to England. This was to become a highlight of his career to date and brought him international recognition and economic security. It was a time of private and professional bliss. It is interesting to note, however, that the Seventh Symphony by no means reflects a consistently pastoral, idyllic atmosphere. On the contrary, the music often has a dramatic and sombre effect. It is possible that Dvořák was coming to terms with the blows of fate he had suffered: he had lost his mother and three children. Four years after the premiere of the Seventh Symphony, Dvořák set to work on his Eighth, which differed substantially from it. In the Seventh, he still adhered to the form of the classical symphony according to Beethoven, but in the Eighth he gave preference to melody over form. It leads through the work, creating the impression of a “sequence of atmospheric poetic pictures”. Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen has been chief conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie since 2017 and music director of the KBS Symphony Orchestra in Seoul since 2022. He has conducted many renowned orchestras, including the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.

SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to announce a revelatory new perspective on Georges Bizet’s much-loved L’Arlésienne with the re-issue of his complete stage music for Alphonse Daudet’s play and a new dramatization of Daudet’s original short story by Jon Tolansky.First staged in 1872, L’Arlésienne is, as Tolansky remarks in his illuminating notes, an “evocative and poignant tale about broken love set in a small Provençal community”. One that inspired Bizet “to compose some of the most heartrendingly poignant tones he ever created”.

SOMM Recordings continues its acclaimed championing of the music of Charles Villiers Stanford with Cushendall, a captivating collection of his Irish song cycles by mezzo-soprano Sharon Carty, baritone Benjamin Russell and pianist Finghin Collins.Twelve first recordings include the seven-part Cushendall, a trio of Blarney Ballads, and two songs from Stanford’s opera Shamus O’Brien.

Die Cellistin Elinor Frey beschäftigt sich seit langem mit der Erforschung, Einspielung und Edition der bemerkenswerten Cellomusik von Giuseppe Clemente Dall‘Abaco (1710-1805). Auf ihrer neuen CD mit Werken des Komponisten wird die Kunst der Variation mittels zweier Cellotrios sowie in drei Cellosonaten erforscht. In jeder Sonate haben die Schlusssätze ein Thema, auf das eine Reihe von Variationen folgt. Diese geben dem Komponisten bzw. der Interpretin Raum, das Stück weiterzuentwickeln, indem sie einfallsreiche und virtuose neue Figuren in der Solocellostimme entwickelt.

This album features Jermaine Landsberger, Paul Morello and Christoph Huber on a special mission to revive the distinctive sound of the legendary Hammond-B3 plus guitar.For this new production, the three musicians expanded the rhythms of their musical language, incorporating jazzrock and funk. While, on their first album, they presented modern, swinging Hammond jazz, here they are juggling with odd and straight meters (“Back In The Pan”) and are overlapping rhythms deriving from encounters with jazz improvisation and the funky rhythmic intensity of hot rock.

Recorded over a week in 2006, trumpeter Randy Brecker's Randy in Brasil was produced by Ruriá Duprat, and features contributions from Robertinho Silva, Paulo Calazans, André Mehmari, Teco Cardoso, Gilson Penranzzetta, Sizão Machado, Ricardo Silveira, João Parahyba, Rogerio (Duprat's father, the famous classical musician), and Edú Ribeiro. More a contemporary jazz date than a samba one, it is nonetheless kissed everywhere by the intricate, breezy lyricism of the latter form as it melds with light non-intrusive funk, contemporary arrangements, and beautifully crafted tunes. Samba enters at the gate with the opening track, "Pedro Brasil." Silveira's acoustic guitar insistently pronounces a fingerpicked rhythm, and various light percussion instruments announce themselves, followed by keyboards and Brecker's twinned trumpet lines offering the theme. Cardoso repeats it and then the pair is trading two and fours off that infectious lyric line.

Croatian guitarist Ratko Zjaca has already put together an impressive CV having performed with such great artists as Al Foster, Miroslav Vitous, Ron Carter, Jimmy Cobb and others. It's no surprise, therefore, that his first recording for In & Out sees this tasteful guitarist in the company of jazz luminaries Randy Brecker (trumpet), John Patitucci (bass) and Steve Gadd (drums) - plus saxophonist Stanislav Mitrovic.Surpassing boundaries, building bridges, bringing people together. It is clear from the biography and discography of the brilliant Croatian guitarist, Ratko Zjaca, that he is very much driven by these concepts. Earlier CDs are called Crossing The Border and The Bag Is Packed and, meanwhile, flights between Zagreb and New York have become a comfortable routine and English the predominant language. Ratko Zjaca stands as a symbol of the ongoing evolution of American classic jazz as it increasingly becomes a country-uniting form of communication.

Dámaso Pérez Prado (Spanish: [ˈpeɾes ˈpɾaðo]; December 11, 1916 – September 14, 1989) was a Cuban bandleader, pianist and composer who popularized the mambo in the late 1940s. He frequently made brief appearances in films, primarily of the rumberas genre. The success of his orchestra and hits such as "Mambo No. 5" earned him the nickname "King of the Mambo". His stage name was simply Pérez Prado, although his brother Pantaleón also used the same name in the 1970s, which led to confusion.Pérez Prado became a naturalized citizen of Mexico in 1980, where he died in 1989. His son, Pérez Jr., continues to direct the Pérez Prado Orchestra in Mexico City to this day.

The legendary 101 Strings Orchestra are joined by the Alshire Singers to presents The Songs of Carpenters. The collection comes courtesy of Countdown Media's restoration of the master tapes from renowned legacy label, Ashire/Somerset.