The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) and Music Director Gianandrea Noseda will release the first installment of their complete Beethoven symphony cycle, a recording of Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3.

Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques make a foray into the Romantic repertoire with this tribute to Pauline Viardot, who was not only the most influential singer of the nineteenth century, but also a pedagogue and composer, whose gifts, personality and incomparable aura made her one of the leading figures of French Romanticism. Together the mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti and Christophe Rousset retrace Pauline Viardot’s versatile career and, taking up her great roles, present a musical portrait of a unique performer, who was unanimously acclaimed by the audiences of her time.

In view of the fact that the Monk of Salzburg is still only sporadically to be heard on concert programs of the German-language medieval scene, and that notice is hardly taken of him internationally, it seems to be time to again take a look at him – nearly thirty years after the first recording dedicated to him by the Ensemble for Early Music Augsburg. The melodic ideas are too accomplished, the profound texts too multifaceted to be able to ignore this composer and poet.

The three sections of this Triptych can be described as follows: the left-hand panel — Misery — depicts the vale of tears; Transitio on the right-hand panel represents a transformation in everyday life, whilst Transfiguratio , the central panel, portrays the brilliant colours of transcendental bliss.

Like the Occitan troubadours and the trouvères of northern France, the Minnesänger celebrated courtly love and gave medieval German its letters of nobility. These "singers of love" — Minne is the old German word for love — thus perpetuated a poetic and musical tradition that had begun nearly two centuries earlier in Occitania. The Minnesänger, generally of noble and knightly blood, gradually emancipated themselves from their French models and developed their own styles and forms during the 13th century.

Like many education-hungry sons of the European nobility, the 18-year-old Prince Frederick August II embarked on his Grand Tour, which took him from Saxony to Venice in 1716, where he spent almost a year. The large entourage that accompanied the young prince on this trip included such great musicians as the violinist Johann Georg Pisendel, the oboist Johann Christian Richter and the composer Jan Dismas Zelenka.

Thirteen years after the release of their surprise hit album Raising Sand, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have finally reunited for a follow-LP, Raise the Roof. It comes out on November 19th, and you can check out leadoff single, a cover of the 1998 Lucinda Williams song “Can’t Let Go,” right here.

Know What I Mean? is a 1962 album by jazz musician Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, accompanied by Bill Evans and the rhythm section of the Modern Jazz Quartet. It was released on Riverside label as RLP-433.

During the pandemic, Cecilia paused her busy schedule and took time to go back through her archives. She is now releasing this never-before-heard album ‘Unreleased’, a celebration of the most famous concert arias from Mozart, Beethoven & Haydn. Recorded with the Kammerorchester Basel conducted by Muhai Tang, and featuring Maxim Vengerov as solo violin on track 6.

Marking his 17th studio album, 'Wrecking Ball' features 13 new Springsteen recordings and was produced by Ron Aniello with Bruce Springsteen and executive producer Jon Landau.

After her triumph with the album Offenbach Colorature (ALPHA437), Jodie Devos has chosen to follow in the footsteps of one of her compatriots, the Belgian coloratura soprano Marie Cabel (1827 -1885), who at the age of twenty-six scored a phenomenal success in Adolphe Adam’s opéra-comique Le Bijou perdu , which she premiered in Paris.

The piano pieces featured in this recording reflect in different ways on the question: “What is beautiful?” They answer the question by laying hold to the forces of our mind and soul and restructuring them in a peculiar, unexpected manner. If these pieces are beautiful then - by listening to them - we become able to exist in the beautiful and by the beautiful, without knowing or even needing to say more. We marvel at the many faces, the varied character and content of beauty. It is fascinating to discover how many things can be beautiful, how many contexts, experiences, thoughts and emotions feed into what we call beauty in music. Music has many faces and reflects and presents beauty in a multitude of ways.

The composer has drawn inspiration from both joik, folk music, jazz and contemporary music. The work was premiered in February, in connection with the Winter Culture Week in Skaun. We also performed parts of the work in connection with the NM for choirs in autumn 2021, and the music was very well received.

In the part devoted to the beginning of the world, the Bible says that God first created heaven and earth, formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. That is when God said: “Let there be light!” And day severed itself from night. That was the morning and evening of the first day.

The contrast between music composed in the 17–18th centuries and music originating from the late 20 th and early 21 th centuries is a common thread running through this album. Each of the pieces relate to the others. Compositions by Samuel Scheidt, Dieterich Buxtehude and Johann Sebastian Bach form a circular connection to the Toccata by Bernard Foccroulle, the anti-toccata Toccatacet by Daniel Glaus and Franz Danksagmüller’s Circuli – the eponymous inspiration for this album.