Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater has enjoyed enormous fame ever since the eighteenth century – Rousseau called its first movement "the most perfect and touching that has ever come from the pen of any composer". There were many arrangements of the work, by Bach or Hiller among others.

The poetic universe that emerges from the blue color fascinates Pauline Buet and David Violi: the blue note, the blues at heart … This color evokes nostalgia, spleen, but also sweet melancholy, happy nostalgia.

Viola Virtuosa aims to demonstrate that the viola can, in addition to producing all the deep, sad notes and songful qualities attributed to it, also be an independent solo instrument. The instrument’s position, between the violin and the cello, offers us violists many opportunities to combine elements from both soundscapes and there- by to create something independent and new. This CD features a number of transcriptions – not derived from a desire to take something from someone else, but because I am absolutely convinced that good music can be played in a variety of ways as long as we remain true to the spirit in which the work was originally composed.

With the present disc, Pascal Rophé and his Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire pay tribute to their great countryman, Claude Debussy – but not with the standard orchestral fare. Debussy Orchestrated paints a portrait of a light-hearted composer, seen through the eyes of two of his collaborators, Henri Büsser and André Caplet, who transferred the works recorded here from the keyboard to the orchestra. In Petite Suite, composed for piano four hands in 1899, Debussy makes allusions to Fêtes galantes by Paul Verlaine, the poet who so often inspired him.

Luca Petrosino: I still remember that day, when I went to that music store (now it is unfortunately closed), and saw a mandolin. I was looking for some 'ethnic tunes' for my first album as a songwriter and that tiny instrument caught my attention. I ended up buying it and immediately started to study it on my own. Eventually, I got hooked on its musicality and decided to study it at school.

The composers Frédéric Chopin and Alexander Scriabin sought other worlds – to float, to ascend to heaven. Pianist Catalin Serban juxtaposes their piano works on his new GENUIN CD, made possible by Konzertleben e.V. and C. Bechstein grand piano. A multiple first prize winner at piano competitions in Germany, Italy, and Romania, Catalin Serban has established himself as a soloist and chamber musician. His work has focused intensively on the Romantic and early modern piano repertoire and chamber music literature.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, French music achieved a unique profile and was widely acknowledged on the international scene. This success was due, last not least, to symbolic figures such as Camille Saint-Saëns, Claude Debussy, and the Groupe des Six, in spite of their divergent aesthetic tendencies. In the course of his long life (1835-1921), Camille Saint-Saëns not only witnessed musical evolution from Romanticism to Modernism: he was one of the key players.

Just as each season brings its own sensations and expressions, so does composer John Mitchell’s SEASONS from Navona Records. Performed by the award winning Benda Quartet, the compositions envelop the various characteristics and hallmarks of each time of year, capturing both their beauty and the emotions they evoke. Autumn exudes the subtle warmth left from summer, Winter brings suspenseful chills and flurries of notes, Spring, a shedding of winter coats, and Summer, a regal and relaxing musical soundscape, all conjured from a dynamic and expressive string quartet performance.

A Place to Bury Strangers defund post-punk orthodoxy with the most audacious and varied songwriting of their career on their sixth album, See Through You, out on Oliver Ackermann's label, Dedstrange.

There's lots to like here: the stately feel of the ballads that US sax veteran Steve Slagle (Carla Bley, Joe Lovano, Mingus Big Band) chooses to include; then there's some great solo featured spots by Randy Brecker and wrapping all of this up so tidily an expert rhythm section with Bruce Barth on piano, Ugonna Okegwo on bass and Jason Tiemann on drums. Brecker on 'Reflections' brings a real humanity to his solo and the whole interpretation has a fantastic warmth to it.

Marry Me is the upcoming soundtrack album to the 2022 film of the same name, performed by its stars Jennifer Lopez and Maluma. It will be released on February 4, 2022, by Universal Studios and Sony Music Latin.

The gala evening at the Paris Opera on 19 December 1958 was announced in the press as 'the greatest show in the world'. Maria Callas, at the height of her fame, performed for the first time in front of a Parisian audience. The diva presented all facets of her art with the Italian classics she loved and with her own theatrical genius. Paris gave her a triumphant evening! The original recording of this evening, which was broadcast throughout Europe as part of Eurovision, has been restored with the utmost care.

This program is a mirror of four musical universes, which are as contrasted as interconnected with each other. Enlightening and transgressive, music full of passions, irony, madness, humor, heart- breaking pain, the controversy of letting go, and the purity of love in different states and forms. Bernstein and Poulenc, invited by Benny Goodman’s artistry to create two delighful chamber works – for one was his penultimate,, for the other his first.

For more than forty years, Lalande was the French court’s favourite composer, cultivating the most elevated and touching aspects of the spirit of the Grand Siècle. Sébastien Daucé and the Ensemble Correspondances offer us some remarkable examples of his output here: with the imposing Miserere, ample and sombre, the Dies irae and the rarely heard Veni Creator, this ‘Latin Lully’ brought the art of the grand motet to its zenith.

An exclusive Sony Classical artist since 2018, Kavakos now stands ready to release his most significant recording yet – his first account of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. The set also includes the famous Chaconne in D minor from the Partita No. 2, for many, Bach’s single greatest span of music. Like many of his coevals, Bach was capable of creating great structures in sound, making use of the full panoply of choir, orchestra and soloists. He was unique, however, in his ability to..