Chloë Hanslip and Danny Driver are approaching the culmination of a complete Beethoven Violin Sonata cycle where each concert is both broadcast live by the BBC on Radio 3, and recorded by Andrew Keener and Phil Rowlands for Rubicon. Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas represent the supreme challenge for a violin and piano duo, and the drama, visceral excitement and many intimate moments of these masterpieces is superbly captured in these live performances.

A Cosi with a difference: studies of the composer’s manuscript by Ian Woodfield reveal that Mozart was undecided whether to ‘cross’ the lovers or keep them uncrossed. Key passages are altered often to startling effect – Ferrando opens the opera singing ‘La mia Fiordiligi’ and not the usual ‘la mia Dorabella’. Phrases such as ‘Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo’ (Turn your gaze upon him) appear in Mozart’s own catalogue as ‘Rivolgete a me’ (Turn you gaze to me) , and although ‘lui’ is in another hand, Mozart had left blank spaces to be filled in later – an indication of his indecision about the pairings.

The Dresdner Philharmonie is one of Germany's major orchestras and has laid, together with his Principal Conductor Michael Sanderling, its focus on recording the complete cycle of symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) and Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975). After having released Beethoven's and Shostakovich's symphonies nos. 6 in 2015, for which the orchestra has received positive reviews.

The Dresdner Philharmonie is one of Germany's major orchestras and has laid, together with his Principal Conductor Michael Sanderling, its focus on recording the complete cycle of symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) and Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975). After having released Beethoven's and Shostakovich's symphonies nos. 6 in 2015, for which the orchestra has received positive reviews.

The present recording attempts to provide musical illustrations of elements from Ganassi’s treatise on ornamentation Fontegara, published in Venice in 1535. This work was intended for his wealthy aristocratic pupils, and a priori it does not reflect only his personal practice. This versatile musician’s professional career consisted essentially in directing and playing the bombarde with his ensemble in the service of a number of doges and scuole. He also performed in the ridotti, the circles in which humanists and cultured nobles met. It is this refined art that William Dongois and his musicians propose to revive here, drawing on a very rich repertory of dances, songs and madrigals.

Since the ninth century, the routes to Santiago de Compostela leading to the sanctuary of St. James have attracted countless pilgrims and exercised a potent mystique. What has received less attention is the music originally sung during the services in honour of the saint. Thanks to Marcel Peres’s in-depth study of the Codex Calixtinus, preserved at the Cathedral of Santiago, this recording can present a reconstruction of the musical gems contained in the rare twelfth-century manuscript which attests to multiple stylistic influences encountered on this indispensable and all-embracing pilgrimage.

‘The way in which composers influence each other, whether across generations or more directly through the master – pupil relationships that they often cultivate fascinates me. The comparison of William Byrd’s ‘pervasive’ influence on the Elizabethan/Jacobean world with the impact that Arnold Schoenberg left on the twentieth Century, by Joseph Kerman, inspired my repertoire frame on this disk. I chose a selection of keyboard music, whether for the modern piano or the virginals of sixteenth-century England, to indulge in the astonishing versatility with which these instruments have been used across the centuries.

New classical/folk crossover album from the Franco-Israeli classical guitarist Liat Cohen, featuring Rolando Villazón, Sandrine Piau, Charles Castronovo including a transcription for voice of the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez.

Vox Luminis already boasts an impressive discography, orientated mainly towards sacred music and German repertoire (its CD devoted to music by Heinrich Schütz won the Gramophone ‘Best Recording of the Year’ Award in 2013). Now this ensemble, founded nearly fifteen years ago by Lionel Meunier, has scaled one of the summits of English music: the legend of King Arthur and his mentor the wizard Merlin inspired one of Henry Purcell’s most popular successes, King Arthur, a semi-opera on which Purcell lavished all his exuberant musical and theatrical inventiveness.

Surprisingly, the cantatas that Handel wrote in the earlier years of his career remain relatively little known. The thrilling theatricality of three works composed in Italy – Armida abbandonata, La Lucrezia and Aminta e Fillide is savoured to the full by conductor

In 1999, Cecilia Bartoli unveiled her iconic ‘Vivaldi Album’. ‘The Vivaldi Album’ went gold in 6 countries and sold over 700,000 copies.
Almost 20 years later, Cecilia Bartoli returns to opera arias by the Baroque master. A selection of brand new recordings with Ensemble Matheus and Jean-Christophe Spinosi.

Cet album de duos, c’est la somme de multiples instants éphémères, empreints de légèreté, de belles voix mêlées et de grains de folie.

Yuja Wang is one of the most technically astounding pianists of our time, with a command of the keyboard matched by sheer muscular strength. Here she turns her attention to Russia and some of its leading pianist-composers. The Rachmaninoff Preludes and Études-Tableaux are rich and swirl with passion, while Scriabin’s Tenth Sonata, a work of mystical imaginings, seethes with dangerous life under her fingers. Briefly looking further afield, a group of Hungarian composer György Ligeti’s tiny Études diverts the attention magically before Prokofiev’s Eighth Piano Sonata, his masterpiece in the form, which Wang characterizes with genuine originality and imagination.

On September 21, 1978, CHIC released "Le Freak," a chart-topping smash that sold more than seven million copies on its way to becoming the best-selling 7" single in the history of Atlantic Records. The song's lasting influence was recognized by the Library of Congress earlier this year when "Le Freak" was added to the National Recording Registry.

The sense of drift is so graceful and the flow of the material is so natural that, in listening to Arcadian Child‘s Superfonica, I actually went and looked up the climate of Cyprus. Eight months of temperate summer on an island in the Eastern Mediterranean could hardly be a more fitting backdrop for the eight-track/38-minute offering - the band’s first new release for Rogue Wave Records/Ripple Music following a reissue of their 2017 debut, Afterglow, earlier this year - which hones a peaceful spirit in songs like “Brothers” and the opening fuzz of “Bain Marie” while still retaining tonal presence and a sense of energy in the delivery. Leaving behind some of the Queens of the Stone Agery of their initial outing, the first-name-basis four-piece of Panagiotis, Andreas, Stathis and Christos find themselves nestled comfortably into a balance between spacey grunge rock and psychedelic impulses.