Three exceptional artists join forces for an operatic treat! Star tenor Rolando Villazón, who was just named artistic director of Salzburg Mozart week, Ildar Abdrazakov, one of the most sought-after young basses in the operatic world (Vanity Fair), who is debuting on Deutsche Grammophon with this album and the in-coming music director of the Metropolitan Opera Yannick Nézet-Séguin – a conductor full of vim and vigor – with Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal.

In their first recording for harmonia mundi, Bertrand Cuiller and the musicians of Le Caravansérail immerse us in the dreamlike world of the London theatre of the 17th century. Incidental music, airs, dances and inventive melodies combining the English tradition and French and Italian innovations are the ingredients that make up the five imaginary tableaux of this reconstruction of the period, illuminated by the voice of the distinguished soprano, Rachel Redmond.

When Felix Mendelssohn published his Melodies for the pianoforte with Novello in London in 1832, Robert Schumann had just published his Papillons and Frédéric Chopin, his Études op.10 and first mazurkas, while Franz Liszt was just beginning to compose his Album d’un voyageur, which would in due course serve as inspiration for Années de pèlerinage. Such musical diversity in such a short space of time reflects the extraordinary creative effervescence of the early Romantic period due to the influence of Beethoven and the improved great pianos made by Graf in Vienna, Broadwood in England and Érard and Pleyel in France.

Martha Argerich and Antonio Pappano (as pianist rather than conductor) lead the fun in Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals with members of the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. The entire orchestra assembles under Pappano’s baton for another of Saint-Saëns’ most celebrated works, the magnificent ‘Organ’ Symphony, No 3.

Benjamin Grosvenor Explores Hidden Connections Between Works Written Centuries Apart. In this new recording Benjamin explores works by great composers paying tribute to their predecessors.

The originality of this album’s programme is its focus on famous sacred pieces transcribed for the warm and lyrical voice of the cello, an instrument whose tone is certainly one of the closest to the singing voice. The words of the Magnificat, Requiem, Stabat Mater or Ave Maria - well known in the repertoire of vocal sacred music - fade here to better reveal the development of musical emotion aroused by the melody itself, and the subtlety of the accompaniments (organ, viola, theorbo, voice) in reinforcing and supporting the expressiveness of the singing.

A rapidly rising star on today’s opera scene, Sonya Yoncheva appears in this album alongside ‘Lyric Artist of the Year’ winner Karine Deshayes in a masterwork of the sacred music repertoire; Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater.

It was in Shostakovichs First Cello Concerto that cellist Alisa Weilerstein prompted the Los Angeles Times to marvel: Weilersteins cello is her id… She and the cello seem simply to be one and the same. Alisa returns with Shostakovichs cello masterworks Concertos 1 & 2.

Music for Holy Week. François Couperin's 'Leçons de Ténèbres' (c. 1713-17), a setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, fused devotional expression with a dramatic performing style embodied here by sopranos Lucy Crowe and Elizabeth Watts. Two Trio Sonatas and a 'Stabat Mater' by Sébastien de Brossard round out this luminous programme.

After two Schubert albums, Mauro Peter has now turned intensively to the songs of Robert Schumann – a composer no less dear to him than Franz Schubert. In 2012 he won the Schumann Competition in Zwickau. “It is young, it is lyrical,” tenor Mauro Peter explains his deep connection with Schumann’s Dichterliebe. “I can relate to these feelings because they are familiar to me. The music is full of emotion and so incredibly heartfelt at the same time.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his last three symphonies in the summer of 1788, and since then they've usually been regarded as a set, even though there's little reason to believe he intended them to be performed together. Unlike Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who came to regard these symphonies as a kind of symphonic oratorio in 12 movements, Richard Tognetti thinks of them as separate pieces that Mozart wrote opportunistically, possibly for a commission that fell through, though beyond that, he lets the music speak for itself.