Classical

"The 94-year-old elder statesman of classical music" (The New York Times) joins forces with the Gewandhausorchester for a Schubert program of Symphonies No. 8 (Unfinished) and No. 9 (The Great), timed for his 95th birthday on July 11, 2022. He is the world's "longest-serving" conductor and still one of the most vital as heard on his late DG debut.

Paul Lewis explores the world of late Brahms, wherein the old master, far from growing more sedate, deploys a palette of infinite colors and sensibilities in his last four collections for solo piano. By turns tender and dazzling, intimate and tempestuous, these pieces appear to us as their composer's final confidences, entrusted to a crepuscular diary.

This is a follow up to the astoundlingly successful Album "Black Swans: Earliest African-American Classical Stars". Produced by Leslie Gerber with painstaking re-mastering from Steve Smolian, this 2 CD set follows the canon through to the early 1960s.

David Fray adds a landmark of the solo keyboard repertoire to his Bach discography: the Goldberg Variations. "The Goldberg Variations are a real test," he says. "They are the work of a lifetime, perhaps a work about life itself... a kind of rite of passage, a journey. Every element of human life is in them... When you play the theme again after the 30 variations, in it's original purity, it is as if you're at the end of your life, looking back over everything that has happened in the last hour-and-a-half. Few works give such a sense of eternity".

Teunis van der Zwart and Alexander Melnikov have chosen to pay tribute to Giovanni Punto, now unknown to most music lovers, even though he truly established the cor basse (horn focused on the low register) by devoting no less than sixteen concertos to it. It was he who inspired Beethoven's famous Sonata Op.17, and the pieces by Danzi and Ries also bear the mark of his legacy. This recording provides an opportunity to discover the unique sound of this instrument in four emblematic works.

The music of C.P.E Bach makes complex stylistic demands of the performer like little else of it's time, the extraordinary drama and intensity tempered by Enlightenment elegance and the influence of the Baroque. Marc-André Hamelin's performances set new standards in this endlessly absorbing repertoire.

A precursor in this field as in so many others, Telemann gave the viola it's very first masterpieces, immediately establishing it as a solo instrument in it's own right. Alongside Sabine Fehlandt and the musicians of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Antoine Tamestit pays splendid tribute to this pioneering music, which blends melodic charm and contrapuntal rigor into an organic whole.

A celebration from The Orlando Consort of the musical and literary worlds of Florence's golden age under the Medici, in a selection of works which includes a number of first recordings.

Howard Shelley's survey of the piano music is an undoubted highlight of the Mendelssohn revival. In this, the final instalment of the series, he focuses on late works and posthumous publications.

The "extravagantly talented" (The New York Times) American organist Cameron Carpenter releases his first album on Decca Gold, a recording of J.S. Bach's The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 juxtaposed with his own transcription of American composer Howard Hanson's Symphony No. 2 in D-flat Major, Opus 30, W45, "Romantic." Both works are performed on Carpenter's tailor-made instrument, the International Touring Organ, which was designed to allow him to perform at almost any location worldwide.

Mozart: Works for Oboe and Orchestra - ALBRECHT MAYER / DEUTSCHE KAMMERPHILHARMONIE - Star oboist Albrecht Mayer's new album is inspired by his lifelong love for the music of Mozart and featuring a world premiere recording and several new arrangements of Mozart's most famous pieces. Mayer's album is made in partnership with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and harpsichordist Vital Julian Frey and will be released 9 April 2021. It's tracklist features a B flat major version of the Concerto for flute and harp, K. 299 (297c) arranged for oboe and harpsichord, and a transcription of Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165 (158a) for oboe d'amore, orchestra and organ. Also included are arrangements of the concert arias Non temer, amato bene, K.505 and Ah se in ciel, benigne stelle, K.538, the Rondo in C major, K.373 and the motet Ave verum corpus, K.618.

This is a program of great contemporary works for harp. With over 20 years experience in both the harp and the violin, Tasha Smith Godinez is an accomplished musician and teacher. Ms. Smith Godinez debuted as a soloist at age 16 and has since graced stages worldwide. With the harp, Tasha has studied with Isabelle Perrin, Elena Mashkovtseva and Susan Allen. She holds performance degrees from both San Diego State University (Bachelor's 2005, Master's 2010) and l'Ecole Normale de Musique Alfred Corot in Paris, France (2006). Ms. Smith Godinez has held the position of principal harpist for both the Orquesta de Baja California (Tijuana, Mexico) and the Grossmont Symphony Orchestra (San Diego, California) as well as a handful of appearances with the San Diego Symphony.

All-new remasterings of live and previously unissued recordings: a Mendelssohn concert from 1962 demonstrates Thomas Jensen's undimmed power to galvanize an orchestra towards the end of his life. From his very last concert, given a fortnight before his death in 1963, works by Handel and Mozart find him (and pianist Annie Fischer) on fluent, sparkling form. Novelettes by 'the Danish Mendelssohn' Niels W. Gade make a neat coupling, and the set closes with the Dvorák overture which launched the DRSO on the international scene. Another landmark album in the wider appreciation of a conductor whose legacy has been too narrowly restricted to the music of his homeland.

Award winning Canadian violinist James Ehnes returns to the greatest body of work for solo violin: Bach's 6 Sonatas and Partitas. After many years of performing these masterpieces, it was lockdown 2020 that led to James recording the complete set at his home in Florida in the early hours of the morning. His interpretation of this music has changed over the years - he first recorded them in 2000 - and now at the height of his powers he delivers performances of superb musicianship that are sensitive and thoughtful, showcasing breath-taking technical prowess combined with great emotional power.

This album of popular short pieces provides a memento of the first French lockdown in 2020: Renaud Capuçon and pianist Guillaume Bellom performed on social media each day, raising the spirits of their fans. Ideal for streaming, the collection includes music by Enrico Morricone, Charlie Chaplin, Carlos Gardel, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Schumann

Some of Stephen Hough's most exquisite recordings come from his collaborations with EMI and Virgin Classics during this early period, offering a taste of the pianist's impeccable touch, his musical and intellectual rigor, and his fondness for the short showpieces that filled late 19th-century salons and peppered the 78 rpm records of golden-age pianists. In the two all-Liszt recitals, Stephen Hough is also in his element, creating atmospheric colors, with notes flowing like streams of pearls, shaping and magnifying the dramatic depth of these works. From Mozart to Schumann, Brahms to Britten, looking back at the great virtuoso tradition while looking forward through his own arrangements, Stephen Hough presents, through these early recordings, a fascinating portrait of a young artist whose brilliant, artistic intellect and appetite for creativity remains unmatched today.

Anima Aeterna, an adventurous album of sacred arias and motets from the 18th century, follows in the vein of Anima Sacra, which in 2018 decisively announced Jakub Józef Orlinski's arrival as a recording artist. It's programme - music by Zelenka, Handel, Fux, and the little-known Gennaro Manna, Francisco António de Almeida, Bartolomeo Nucci and (on the LP version) Davide Perez - contains several world premiere recordings. Joining Orlinski in Zelenka's sparkling 'Laetatus sum' is the captivating soprano Fatma Said, and Francesco Corti conducts the orchestra and chorus of Il pomo d'oro. Orlinski feels that "the shades and colours to be heard in in sacred music of baroque era touch people's souls, even today. Anima Aeterna means 'eternal soul', which for me means nature... Something so vital, wild and dangerous, yet also so calm, mesmerizing and healing."

This double album includes two recordings never published before: Robert Hacomplaynt's Marian Antiphon: Salve Regina, and Robert Fayrfax's Magnificat 'Regale', both from the Eton Choirbook. The other recordings in the album include works from the Early English Polyphony era, by composers John Taverner, Christopher Tye, Thomas Morley and last but not least Thomas Tallis

"The worlds of opera and symphony merge perfectly in daily life in Vienna, and with this album, I'm hoping to take the listener on a wonderful orchestral journey with my harp", says Anneleen Lenaerts. Anneleen chose this repertoire to reflect her life as a musician in Vienna with one of the most prestigious orchestras in the world: the Vienna Philharmonic. The album features pieces from both the operatic and symphonic worlds that are special to her, e.g. a concert memory of Les Préludes by Liszt with Riccardo Muti and Onegin with Andris Nelsons.

Great sorrow and great joy, expressed in in sacred and secular arias and cantatas, are the themes of Sabine Devieilhe's album of Bach and Handel. Recorded with the Pygmalion ensemble and conductor Raphaël Pichon, it features appearances by baritone Stéphane Degout and lutenist Thomas Dunford and includes Bach's cantatas 'Mein Herze schwimmt i'm Blut' and 'Jauchzet Gott in allen Lande', and excerpts from Handel's Brockes Passion and Giulio Cesare. "This is possibly the most personal programme I've recorded so far," says Sabine Devieilhe, "and I've been lucky enough to record it with the Pygmalion ensemble and my husband Raphaël Pichon. We really wanted to convey the idea of human emotion that at times goes beyond our understanding, and which creates music of extraordinary drama. "