With their new CD Sound Stories, recorder player Stefan Temmingh and harpist Margret Koell tell stories from fve centuries, played on almost a dozen different futes and three different harps modelled on historical instruments.The resulting contrasts shed new light on the individual works and of course on the instruments for which they were composed. With their selection, which is indeed a wild, extravagant and at the same time very sensual mixture, the two artists want to express their curiosity and thirst for adventure in short musical stories. The compilation seems intuitive, but it is characterised by the experiences of both artists and the personal themes that unite them. Different musical genres such as songs, arias, sonatas, variation cycles and dance movements are skilfully combined, mostly played on original instruments from the period in which they were composed. Each work has something to tell in its own way and the result is an inspiring sequence of interwoven sound stories.

Un programme sortant des sentiers battus, pour ne pas dire piétinés, constitue très souvent une source d’intérêt supplémentaire, surtout avec des interprètes de cette trempe. Elève de Mikhail Pletnev à qui elle doit la découverte du trop rare Concerto pour piano en ut # dièse mineur de Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov qui ouvre son programme, la pianiste russe Zlata Chochieva s’impose par son autorité et une imagination allant bien au-delà de son aisance technique.

David Oistrakh is considered the premiere violinist of mid-20th century Soviet Union. His recorded legacy includes nearly the entire standard violin repertory up to and including Prokofiev and Bartók. Oistrakh's violin studies began in 1913 with famed teacher Pyotr Stolyarsky. Later he officially joined Stolyarsky's class at the Odessa Conservatory, graduating in 1926 by playing Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto. Performances of the Glazunov concerto in Odessa and Kiev in 1927, and a 1928 debut in Leningrad (Tchaikovsky concerto), gave Oistrakh the confidence to move to Moscow. He made his premiere there in early 1929, but the event went largely unnoticed. In 1934, however, after several years of patiently refining his craft, Oistrakh was invited to join the Moscow Conservatory, eventually rising to the rank of full professor in 1939.

Introducing "#1s - Movie Songs," the first installment in the highly-anticipated '#1s' series. Dive deep into the golden age of music with this compilation of chart-topping sensations from the Movie Songs. This disc collection captures the spirit, innovation, and charm of a transformative decade. Expect to be transported back in time with iconic tracks that still resonate today.

Considéré comme l’un des plus grands compositeurs du Grand Siècle en France, Louis Marchand nous laisse une musique colorée, très inspirée, et d’une grande audace. Emmanuel Arakélian explore ici quelques-unes de ses plus belles pages, jouées sur deux instruments historiques, l’orgue Isnard (1774) de Saint-Maximin la Sainte-Baume et le clavecin du château d’Assas.

L'album Ives Denk de Jeremy Denk, publié chez Nonesuch Records à l'occasion du 150e anniversaire de la naissance de Charles Ives, comprend les quatre sonates pour violon du compositeur, interprétées en compagnie du violoniste Stefan Jackiw, ainsi que des versions remasterisées de ses Sonates n° 1 et 2 pour piano, tirées du premier enregistrement de Denk en 2010, Jeremy Denk Plays Ives. Le pianiste, connu comme un défenseur de Charles Ives, est acclamé pour ses interprétations des oeuvres du grand compositeur américain comme par le New York Times qui écrit : « Le jeu de M. Denk dégageait une affinité pour Ives et une imagination débordante ».

Recording on our partner label CAvi Music, pianist Sheila Arnold announces her upcoming album, on which she performs Brahms, Bach and Jörg Widmann on a special Blüthner grand piano from the early 1860s. As the piano is built with strings that are still straight and not overstrung, the registers are clearly different. The instrument has an unmistakable tone quality due to the unique way it is built, which provides an added layer of multidimensionality for the listener.

The Choir of St John's College, Oxford, directed by David Bannister, sing music associated with Christmas, together with youthful work by Imogen Holst and Benjamin Britten. Looking towards the sixtieth anniversary of Elizabeth Poston's Penguin Book of Carols (1965), initially undertaken with Ralph Vaughan Williams, the recording presents music associated with these two composers and the works they edited, alongside newer pieces exemplifying and revivifying the English carol tradition.

The BBC Philharmonic, based in the city of Salford in northern England's Greater Manchester county, is one of the most important orchestras in the United Kingdom, distinguishing itself by its sheer visibility and solid commitment to contemporary British music that has included the establishment of a composer/conductor position. Its home concert venue is Manchester's Bridgewater Hall. The people of the Manchester area and the north of England are rightly proud of their radio orchestra. With so much British culture and finance administered in London, there is an independent spirit driving the culture of the north.

Alison Balsom must be counted among the most popular classical trumpeters in the 2000s, as she's gained wide international recognition only since the turn of the century. Her first recording, Music for Trumpet and Organ, was issued in 2002, and her first major award came in 2006, when the jurors of the Classical BRIT Awards named her Young British Classical Performer. Balsom's repertory is broad, taking in a mixture of the standard repertory, original works, and arrangements. In 2020, she released the album Magic Trumpet on Warner Classics. Balsom was born in the English county of Hertfordshire in 1978.

Le jeune Louis XIII vient pour la première fois à Versailles en 1607, accompagnant son père Henri IV à la chasse. Il décide en 1623 de s’y faire construire un relai de chasse pour y passer la nuit : le plus beau palais du monde est en devenir… Et si, avant d’entrer dans sa nouvelle demeure, le Roi avait voulu qu’on lui donne un lustre particulier par une consécration religieuse ? Jean-Baptiste Nicolas regroupe la grande Messe à double chœur de Formé, principal compositeur de La Chapelle Royale de Henri IV puis de Louis XIII, des Motets de Bouzignac et Du Caurroy, et une guirlande de fanfares où les trompettes rivalisent de splendeur avec les solistes, les enfants de la Maîtrise du CRR de Paris, le Chœur de l’Opéra Royal et le Consort Musica Vera : jubilatoire !

For this second volume of Beethoven’s string quartets, the Doric String Quartet has combined one middle period, one late, and two early quartets to create a programme that works on its own terms, as well as forming part of the complete cycle. The musicians start off with a vivid performance of Op. 18 No. 2, following it with the Quartet, Op. 130, in which, as finale, they perform the Große Fugue (Op. 133), as Beethoven long contemplated it. They have appended the alternative finale, first published with Op. 130, thus allowing the listener to choose either version. Op. 18 No. 5 in A major is then followed by Op. 59 No. 2 in E minor. Op. 18, Beethoven’s first set of quartets, often show influences from the quartets of Haydn and Mozart, albeit very much filtered through Beethoven’s original artistic sensibility. The second set, the three ‘Razumovsky’ Quartets, Op. 59, was written in a golden period of the composer’s creative life (alongside the Fourth Symphony, Violin Concerto, and Fidelio) and shows both development from the earlier set and a powerful distinctness. Although mis-understood (or found incomprehensible) by their first audiences, Beethoven’s late quartets have become universally admired as among the pinnacles of western art music. Stravinsky considered the Große Fuge ‘an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever’.

‘Close Harmony’ is the latest musical offering from Grammy Award winning and internationally acclaimed vocal group The King’s Singers. A combination of newly recorded works and tracks from their The Library EP series, the album takes a deep-dive into one of the most beloved and unique corners of their music library: the close-harmony arrangements. New arrangements feature from composers Daryl Runswick (such as an imaginative, exciting version of Rossini’s Barber of Seville Overture) and John Rutter (Jerome Kern’s The Way You Look Tonight) showcasing the diversity of both their talent and the repertoire they present.

A powerful, award-winning new opera that dives into the real-life struggle between celebrity cellist Jacqueline du Pre and the multiple sclerosis that ravaged her body, mind, and talent, robbing her of her identity, her breathtaking musical gift, and ultimately her life.

With "Falcon", Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak pays tribute to one of the most beautiful voices of the 19th century: Cornélie Falcon.An exceptional singer with generous, powerful lows, capable of reaching impressive heights, she gave her name to a well-known voice type: the "Falcon soprano".A contemporary of Pauline Viardot and her sister Maria Malibran, she was one of the stars of French singing, with a career that was as exceptional as it was dazzling. She suffered a tragic fate with the early loss of her voice, launched too early into the limelight.She was also the creator of two of the most important operas of her time: Halévy's La Juive, in which she played a sublime Rachel in 1835, and Meyerbeer's Les Hugenots, a triumph at its premiere.Accompanied by the Morphing Chamber Orchestra conducted by Bassem Akiki, Aleksandra Kurzak embraces her repertoire, taking on the roles that have made her famous, from Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) and the Countess of Rossini (Le Comte Ory) to Spontini (La Vestale) and Niedermeyer, as well as Halévy and Meyerbeer. She brilliantly embodies the roles of Cornélie Falcon in a programme that is as ambitious as it is demanding.
With a very active international career, Aleksandra Kurzak will sing Tosca in Puccini's opera at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in September 2024, and Fedora in Umberto Giordano's opera at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in November 2024.