Disney takes us back to the sea for an adventure about home, tradition and growing up. Composed by the Samoan musician Opetaia Foa’i, Mark Mancina (who helped put a South African spin on Elton John’s songs for The Lion King), and Hamilton mastermind Lin-Manuel Miranda, the movie’s soundtrack is an uplifting mix of Disney storytelling and traditional Oceanian music, sung both in English and the Polynesian language of Tokelau. It also features beautiful performances by Hawaiian actress Auli’i Cravalho, who voices the film’s heroine, Moana.

Three weeks after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Shostakovich volunteered with the Home Guard in Leningrad. As the siege of the city intensified, he worked on his Seventh Symphony, completing three movements before being forced to leave Leningrad and travel east by train. The work was completed in December that year. Initially he gave each movement a programmatic title, but later withdrew them, leaving this epic work as an emblem of heroic defiance in the face of conflict and crisis: ‘I dedicate my Seventh Symphony to our struggle against fascism, to our coming victory over the enemy, to my native city, Leningrad.’

"…The music works beautifully in this arrangement by group member Thomas Schindl, scored for piano, harp, vibraphone, and double bass, along with a part for guest percussionist Sven von Samson. The colorful and unusual instrumentation creates an even broader expressive palette than the piano version, and the evocative percussion atmospherics that surround some of the pieces add about 10 minutes to the total duration of the suite. The playing is delicate and spirited throughout, and the sound quality of the SACD is balanced and detailed." ~allmusicguide

This is Imogen Cooper’s first release on Chandos Records. Recognised worldwide as a pianist of virtuosity and poetic poise, she has established a reputation as one of the finest interpreters of the classical and romantic repertoire. She has dazzled audiences and orchestras throughout her distinguished career, bringing to the concert platform a unique musical understanding and lyrical quality.

Following the long & rocky road to the 1st Symphony, on which, due to his teaching duties at the Moscow Conservatory, Tchaikovsky had been forced to work at night, the 2nd Symphony was composed mainly in the summer of 1872, hot on the heels of his 2nd opera, The Oprichnik. At this time, Tchaikovsky was once again taking a holiday on the country estate of his sister Aleksandra, located near the Ukrainian town of Kamianka, in the Kiev Governerate. Numerous anecdotes report Tchaikovsky’s touching assertion that he was not the true creator of the work, but rather, that it actually had been composed by a Pyotr Gerasimovich, 1 of the older servants in the household of his sister & her husband, Lev Davydov, for it was Pyotr Gerasimovich who had sung the folksong, The Crane, to him, which provided the basis for the work’s finale.

Angela Hewitts performance on the piano over two recitals brought this apogee of musical thought to vivid life through sound Hewitts achievement is to bring its abstract purity to memorable tonal embodiment by providing an emotional context that audiences connect with (Sydney Morning Herald)

The twelve extended pieces which make up Albéniz’ Iberia are not only the composer’s greatest work, but also the greatest piano work to come out of Spain. Fired by his discovery of the music of Ravel and Debussy, Albéniz transformed his earlier salon style, which essentially produced charming but slight ‘picture postcards’ of Spain, into a language which was much more complex—harmonically, texturally and pianistically—and which created a series of tone poems which capture the spiritual essence of Spain.

The Danish String Quartet's love of traditional Scandinavian folk music is becoming as well known as the quartet's masterly approach to the classical repertoire. Now the renowned ensemble, at present house quartet at both New York's Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society and BBC Radio 3, is releasing the album "Wood Works", present their favourite melodies from Nordic folk music – including the 400 years old bridal music from the island of Fanø that has spread far and wide as a video with over 50,000 plays on YouTube and Vimeo.