On this fascinating new release pianist Sigurd Slåttebrekk has attempted to recreate the performance of Edvard Grieg’s own pioneering acoustic recording from 1903 of several of his solo pieces. The session was recorded on Grieg’s own 1892 Steinway at Troldhaugen. On the bonus second CD he is joined by the Oslo Philharmonic and conductor Michail Jurowski in a performance of Grieg’s Piano Concerto.

Pietro Antonio Cesti, byname Marc’ Antonio, (1623-1669) composer who, with Francesco Cavalli, was one of the leading Italian composers of the 17th century. Cesti studied in Rome and then moved to Venice, where his first known opera, Orontea, was produced in 1649. In 1652 he became chapelmaster to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria at Innsbruck, a post he combined for a time with membership in the papal choir. From 1666 to 1669 he was vice chapelmaster to the imperial court in Vienna.

Francesco Cavalli was an important musical figure in 17th Century Venice. As a student of, and later, successor to Claudio Monteverdi, he was the leader of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. He also served as head of the Venetian operatic school and was very highly regarded as a composer of religious and operatic music in his day. Unfortunately, he was reluctant to have his compositions published, and therefore, is virtually unknown to modern audiences.

Carl Maria von Weber’s overtures are cornerstone works of German Romanticism, famed for their lyrical melodies, dramatic tension, and brilliant orchestration.

Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 presents a masterful collaboration between pianists Gerhard Oppitz and Nicolas Economou, performing the composer's own transcription of his final orchestral masterpiece for two pianos . Written between 1940 and 1941 at his Long Island home overlooking the Long Island Sound, Rachmaninoff's three-movement work—originally titled "Fantastic Dances" with movements "Noon," "Twilight," and "Midnight"—stands as his last major composition, emerging from a period when the composer felt "I try to capture the music simply and directly from my heart, whether love, sorrow, bitterness, or religion—all become part of my music".

David Fray stands out as one of today’s most distinctive French pianists, widely acclaimed for his profound interpretations of Bach. This new album draws its core from L’Enfant oublié (2023), a theatrical project co-created with actress and director Chiara Muti, premiered at the artist’s own festival L’Offrande musicale, dedicated to disability awareness.

This is part of a series of releases on the Naxos label devoted to the 40 symphonies of Michael Haydn, younger brother of Franz Joseph. These have been commercially successful, and it's easy to see why: there's music of unsuspected high quality here, and you can see why the younger Haydn's work was taken for Mozart's in several cases for decades, and why Mozart, who was spare in his praise of other composers, bestowed it upon this one. All four of these symphonies are in the three-movement form that Mozart had mostly left behind by the late 1770s and 1780s (when the Haydn works were composed), but the individual movements are quite confidently handled, with the elegant but harmonically wide-ranging slow movements perhaps the best of the lot.

Owen Rees leads early-music consort Contrapunctus alongside The Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford in performances of John Taverner’s masterwork, the Missa Gloria tibi trinitas. A virtuosic work, it has pride of place in the Forrest-Heyther partbooks (in the Bodleian Library in Oxford), which it has been variously argued originated at Cardinal College or at the Chapel Royal.It might well have been heard on Trinity Sunday in the chapel of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s palace at Hampton Court.

Music Director of Tafelmusik from 1981 to 2014, Jeanne Lamon was loved by audiences, and praised by critics in Europe and North America for her virtuosity as a violinist and her brilliant musical leadership. Under her direction, Tafelmusik achieved international stature with over 80 recordings to its name, and with tours to over 350 international cities including invitations to the most prestigious concert halls and festivals in the world.

Seiji Ozawa’s appointment as music director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1970 was later vividly described by Barack Obama: “With his mop-top hairstyle, his turtleneck jumpers and his love beads, he almost looked like a Beatle”. This recording of Dvořák’s ‘From the New World’ Symphony from May 1975 was one of the last to be recorded by Philips in quadraphonic sound and has been remixed specifically for this reissue.

We continue our exploration of Paul Tortelier’s discography with these highlights of the repertoire: Haydn’s cello concertos, in this recording conducted by Jörg Faerber. It is the perfect setting for the warm tone of Tortelier’s cello, which also shines in the highly organic cadenzas - at once inventive and daring, yet entirely in keeping with the spirit of the original works.