Born in 1924 in the then Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), Gerard Schurmann grew up in England, and after serving in the Royal Air Force during the war, combined his career as a concert pianist with a diplomatic role as Cultural Attache at the Netherlands Embassy. On the recommendation of Alan Rawsthorne, Ealing Studios commissioned Schurmann for the score for the Jack Hawkins police drama ‘The Long Arm’ (released as ‘The Third Key’ in the US). More commissions followed, initially from the burgeoning British 1950s horror scene (represented here by Konga and Horrors of the Black Museum and then from mainstream cinema.

The world’s biggest annual classical open-air concert, The Summer Night Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic, returns to the magical setting of Schönbrunn Palace Baroque park in Vienna. After his successful debut at The Summer Night Concert in 2012, world renowned conductor Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Summer Night Concert for the second time. Superstar pianist, Yuja Wang is this years soloist. The concert will take place on Thursday June 20, 2019 with "Rhapsody in Blue" being this year's theme with an all American program.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was more systematic than many of his composer colleagues when it came to keeping track of his own works and made at least two catalogues of his compositions for solo keyboard. At various times he also destroyed manuscripts that remained in his possession, especially those of early works. But even so, there are a number of pieces that slipped through the net, and several of them can be found on this album. A few of them were included anonymously into the second Clavierbuchlein for Anna Magdalena Bach, while Emanuel Bach was still living in his father’s home in Leipzig.

An American Song Album is a fine collection of songs by American composers, presented by soprano Melody Moore. The repertoire includes Samuel Barbers introspective Hermit Songs, Jake Heggies engaged cycles These Strangers and How Well I Knew the Light, Carlisle Floyds exploration of motherhood in The Mystery, Coplands impressionist and oriental Four Early Songs, as well as a varied selection from Gordon Gettys vocal works. Set to Irish, Welsh, Chilean, German, Arabic and Afro-American poetry, these pieces constitute a panorama of the US as a melting pot of cultures, while simultaneously being bound together by an unmistakably American sound.

For the 200th anniversary of Clara Schumann’s birth, Isata Kanneh-Mason takes us on a journey through the composer’s extraordinary life with her stunning debut album on Decca Classics. Isata will be joining forces with an all-female line-up to champion the significance of women musicians throughout the years, and their influence on the classical musical canon. The recording features Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, written at the age of fourteen, performed by the composer at Leipzig Gewandhaus two years later under the baton of Felix Mendelssohn.

Ivan Repušic, who made his debut as principal conductor of the Münchner Rundfunkorchester in theautumn of 2017 with Giuseppe Verdi’s “Luisa Miller”, now presents a lesser-known masterpiece by the famous Italian opera composer. The concert performance of Verdi's early stage work “I due Foscari” was recorded on November 25, 2018 at the Munich Prinzregententheater.

In this, the first of a series of three recordings of Schubert’s great song cycles for Chandos, Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside bring their formidable talents to bear on one of the pinnacles of classical lieder.

After leaving the boys’ choir of St Stephens Cathedral in Vienna, one of the ways the young Haydn found to support himself was as a harpsichord teacher. The three early sonatas featured on this recording were almost certainly intended for his students: short, light pieces with few technical demands. The two larger sonatas, both in the key of E flat major, were written some twenty years later and are far more extensive. Both require significantly greater prowess from the performer, and represent Haydn’s ingenuity and skill to the full.

Myrtle & Rose features two of Robert Schumann's most beloved song cycles ? Liederkreis Opp. 24 and 39 - alongside several rarely-recorded songs by his wife Clara, in a beautifully captured partnership of tenor Kyle Stegall and fortepianist Eric Zivian.

Leading classical accordionist Janne Rattya takes his audience around the world on a tango journey spanning two and a half centuries. Stepping deftly from Scarlatti’s baroque stylings through a vertiginous range of international gems of the twentieth century, the tour culminates in Piazzolla’s classic, ”Le Grand Tango”, in which Rattya joins forces with renowned Swiss cellist Patrick Demenga. Janne Rattya, who is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading classical accordionists, studied at the Sibelius Academy in Finland, and at the Folkwang University in Germany.

Per Nørgard is one of the most frequently played composers of his generation. He has written more than 400 works in all genres and inspired innumerable colleagues in Denmark and abroad. This album presents all of Nørgard’s music for the Oscar winning Babette’s Feast film version by Gabriel Axel of Karen Blixen’s short story – not just the snatches of it one can hear in the film. One can also get to know the hypnotic Spell, the ripples and bubbles in Whirl’s World and Trio Breve, which according to the composer himself are to be regarded as three as short expressive phrases – dream-like pictures – that change between light and dark, fast and slow but with introvert melodic features in common.

The Seven Last Words of Christ refers to the seven short phrases uttered by Jesus on the cross, as gathered from the New Testament. Over the centuries the crucifixion has served as inspiration to countless composers, and settings of these utterances have become something of a subgenre, beginning in the Renaissance with early motets and continuing into our own time. By way of César Franck and Sofia Gubaidulina, composers ranging from Heinrich Schütz to Tristan Murail have contributed versions using various combinations of voice and/or instruments. The work is here heard in the version for keyboard, performed by the French pianist Nicolas Stavy. He closes the disc with another unusual work in Haydns oeuvre, the Andante con variazioni, Hob. XVII/6, which has been described as the deepest and most profound set of variations for piano composed between Bach and Beethoven.

Pattern-Seeking Animals is the brand new quartet featuring the talents of current & former Spock's Beard members Ted Leonard, Jimmy Keegan & Dave Meros as well as long-time contributing songwriter-producer John Boegehold. Of the musical direction, Boegehold comments: "My goal was to produce music that's progressive and intricate while keeping things immediate and melodic. Whether a song is four minutes or ten minutes long, I didn't want more than a few bars go by without some kind of instrumental or vocal hook."

The Last King is the new album from Pat Dam Smyth, his first for Belfast institution Quiet Arch Records (Ciaran Lavery, Joshua Burnside). Along its mesmerising way, it takes in the Northern Ireland of the Troubles which formed a backdrop to Pat's formative years; the angel on the sleeve of Nirvana's In Utero; a psychotic episode in Berlin and The Last King himself. Pat recorded The Last King in Ireland and London over a period of two years, and when Bad Seeds drummer Jim Sclavunos heard early versions of the songs, he leapt on board for additional production and mixing duties, dropping some extra dark magic into the fire.

Ben Walker was recently hailed as one of the best acoustic guitarists in the world right now by Total Guitar magazine. A versatile composer as well as a celebrated instrumentalist, his passion is putting old jewels in new settings. After six critically acclaimed albums and a BBC Folk Award as a duo with Josienne Clarke and more than fifty records as a producer of other artists, Ben Walker's signature style has been sought out from punk to Proms, from Rough Trade to the Royal Shakespeare Company.