Violin Lullabies is one-of-a-kind album of 25 classical lullabies for violin and piano performed by renowned American violinist Rachel Barton Pine, Cedille Records’ best-selling artist, and pianist Matthew Hagle, her longtime recital collaborator.

Haydn and Mozart’s music for organ and drums: Haydn to Leopold Mozart: “I tell you as God is my witness, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste, and, furthermore, the most profound knowledge of composition.” Mozart about Joseph Haydn: “He alone has the secret of making me smile and touching me in the depths of my soul.”

ATMA Classique presents the world premiere recording of 'The Thailand HRDs', an epic 35-movement string quartet by critically-acclaimed Canadian composer, Frank Horvat. Performed by the world-renowned Mivos Quartet, each movement is inspired by the story behind the photos in Luke Duggleby's photo essay, For Those Who Died Trying. Duggleby's collection details the people in Thailand who were killed trying to stop the powerful interests who wanted to destroy their community's environment.

Virtuoso sonatas, tarantellas and chaconnes from seventeenth-century Italy are performed here with contagious energy by the young ensemble PRISMA, a laureate of the emerging programme. The four musicians accompany this colourful programme of variations on the theme of the seasons with their own improvisations.

Annette Bik, violinist with the Klangforum Wien, is familiar with both early and contemporary music. On her first solo album, “Double Bach”, she presents a fascinating experiment: she asked leading contemporary composers to write a double of each movement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s famous “Partita in h-Moll”. The idea seemed even more compelling since Bach also added a variation, or double, to each movement of his suite.

Steinway ambassador, Guildhall professor and co-founder of the London Piano Festival, Charles Owen turns to the late piano works by Johannes Brahms for his latest AVIE release. Within this collection of Capriccios, Rhapsodies and Intermezzi, Charles reveals myriad moods with the composer harking back as well as facing forward – from evocations of Schubert, Schumann and Liszt in the Eight Klavierstücke, Op. 76; winter-like darkness in the two Op. 79 Rhapsodies; Hungarian foot-stomping dance forms in the seven Fantasies that comprise Op. 116; nostalgic contemplation in the Op. 117 Intermezzi; romantic inflections in the Op. 118 Klavierstücke which were dedicated to Clara Schumann; and the tonally forward Klavierstücke, Op. 119.

Everything has already been said about Vivaldi's Four Seasons, that monument of music and the object of very many recordings. This work, no doubt one of the best known throughout the world, was, however, innovative when it first appeared, for Vivaldi showed himself to be highly precise in his writing, both in terms of the dynamics and the tempi (the term 'Allegro' has 18 different dynamics in his indications). A man born in the seventeenth century, he injected into his music the new dynamism of the following century, without ever neglecting the theatrical aspect of the writing, including the instrumental writing.

Following an initial reconstruction on disc in 2015, the Ballet Royal de la Nuit enjoyed a triumphal modern premiere at the Théâtre de Caen in November 2017. The meticulous reconstitution of Sébastien Daucé, the incomparable poetry of Francesca Lattuada, an oneiric universe featuring more than 120 costumes designed by Olivier Charpentier, all contribute to an incredible enchantment further enhanced by the exploits of virtuoso jugglers and circus artists. In this ballet, a masterly achievement from every point of view, the spell remains unbroken from first note to last.

Ivor Novello (1893–1951) perhaps best known to Americans as a character in Gosford Park, was a songwriter, actor and film star whose music captured an era. The songs on this album, elegantly adapted for solo piano by Simon Mulligan, are a nostalgic tribute to his irresistible romantic style.

I have insomnia. I take medication that makes me sleep. Without it I will not. It is a reality I came to terms with nearly fifteen years ago, after trying every other method possible for decades before, each more self-destructive than the last. It is part of who I am. Some people are born with a disease. An affliction the pure luck of the draw that is birth has bestowed upon them. For some reason insomnia, like anxiety, depression, or so many other matters of the mind, is deemed something that can simply be changed through sheer will. It is not. And no one, in their right mind or otherwise, would choose to put themselves through the inexplicable torment of not sleeping if they had the choice.

Twenty years ago, one record changed Shawn Mullins’ life. “I had no idea anything like that would ever happen with that song,” he says now, referring to “Lullaby,” his chart-topping 1998 single. “Back then I just wrote whatever I felt and I must’ve got lucky once,” he adds with a chuckle. “Lullaby” appeared on Soul’s Core, the Atlanta singer-songwriter’s major label debut. Now, two decades later, Mullins is revisiting the album that catapulted him from the folk circuit to the international spotlight. For Soul’s Core Revival, out November 16, 2018 on his own Soul Carnival Records, Mullins delivers brand-new full-band and solo acoustic versions of each of the album’s 13 tracks, breathing fresh life into songs he wrote as a young troubadour, traveling the country in a Ford minivan with his guitar and his dog Roadie.