This is a very distinguished coupling, superbly played by the BPO – a truly 'legendary' reissue, quite unsurpassed on record. Karajan never approached contemporary music with the innate radicalism and inside knowledge of a composer-conductor like Boulez; yet he can't be accused of distorting reality by casting a pall of late-Romantic opulence and languor over these works. He's understandably most at home in the expansive and often openly tragic atmosphere of Schoenberg's early tone-poems Verklärte Nacht and Pelleas und Melisande. The richly blended playing of the BPO provides the ideal medium for Karajan's seamless projection of structure and expression.

'Andrew Parrott's interpretation of these concertos is an imaginative one & ….effective. John Holloway is the solo violinist in each work and he gives stylish performances.’ –Gramophone
‘Manze’s feeling for detail, his lightly articulated bowing, in a word his sensibility, bring out the charm of Vivaldi’s music; and in this set, with its many affecting slow movements….. the charm is considerable’ –Gramophone

Portuguese composer Pedro de Cristo is nowhere near as familiar as Duarte Lobo or Manuel Cardoso, who may show up on general concerts of Renaissance choral music. Cristo's music was never published and was largely lost to history until some painstaking research work, described in the booklet of this Hyperion release. That is likely to change after this 2022 release by the eight-voice choir Cupertinos, which made classical best-seller charts late that year. The music is lovely, with the limpid, reverential treatment of text found in the works of Cristo's greatest Spanish contemporaries. There are long homophonic stretches in the motets that have a starkly emotional effect. The Missa Salve regina, whose motet exemplar is included, is more thoroughly polyphonic, but Cristo's orientation toward directness and clarity remains. Sample the gorgeous Crucifixus section.

Charles-Joseph Van Helmont played a leading role in music in Brussels during the Baroque period. In 1737 he followed in the footsteps of Joseph-Hector Fiocco and composed a cycle of nine Leçons de ténèbres for solo voice and continuo.

In 1727, having just become a naturalised British subject, Handel was commissioned to write a set of anthems for the coronation of George II. Since he could hardly have expected ever to see a more majestic occasion, the composer took full advantage of it to put on a musical firework display of unprecedented splendour. The RIAS Kammerchor and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin give thrilling accounts of these flamboyant works – some of which are still used today at each new coronation!

The Baroque dream team of Rachel Podger and Kristian Bezuidenhout interpret the astonishing music of C.P.E. Bach’s Violin Sonatas in C Minor, B Minor, D Major and G Minor. The two early sonatas here from the 1730s resemble the older style of his father. Listening to these works, you can imagine J.S. Bach glancing over Emanuel's shoulders while he wrote them as a teenager at home in Leipzig. The later sonatas, written 30 to 50 years later, reveal an emancipated composer whose developed musical language embodies the 'Empfindsamer Stil', the directly emotional and rhetorical style characteristic of northern-german music of the time.

Giorgi Gigashvili is only twenty-two, but he is already hitting the headlines: now a pupil of Nelson Goerner, he is a protégé of Martha Argerich, who gave him the urge to play the piano alongside his first love, pop singing - at the age of thirteen, he won the television talent show ‘The Voice’ in his homeland, Georgia. A few years later, Martha Argerich discovered him at the III International Piano Competition "City of Vigo", and he went on to win prizes at several more, including the Hortense Anda-Bührle Prize at the Géza Anda Competition in Zurich in 2021. Another high-flying mentor, the violinist Lisa Batiashvili, asked him to play the piano on her recording of the Franck Violin Sonata. His free and spectacular playing impresses, his creativity and personality astonish. Here he presents his first recital, revealing his palette of colours: Scarlatti, Beethoven, Scriabin and Messiaen. But never far away is his shadow; as the singer of the electro band Tsduneba (‘temptation’ in Georgian) which he founded with his friends.

Venice was surely the capital of music and the arts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and one of the most coveted positions in the city was that of maestro di cappella at St Mark’s Basilica.

Alphaville's 2010 comeback album sets the time at defiance, playing as if the last two decades never existed, but the band's return to its prime form is so flawless the record sounds almost timeless. Thirteen years since their last commercial studio album, they pick up where synth pop left off: midtempo beats impossible not to tap to, romantic and nervous keyboard textures that take that space ambience of Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream and put it to work, and dramatic vocals with a weepy edge, like Erasure is still the hottest new thing in town. This is supposed to sound plastic, but it doesn't, the hooks are too good, the melodies too convincing, and the mood is pinned down perfectly, as if the band spent all the time since 1997's Salvation working full-time to polish their stuff (though, as Axl Rose demonstrated, that's not necessarily a good thing). Besides, good dance-pop music hasn't really changed much since Alphaville's heyday, and there's since been plenty of synth pop aficionados keeping the flame alive and making Catching Rays on Giant relevant, but even if the style had been buried and forgotten after "Forever Young," this record would still shine through simply on the strength of its songwriting.

With this two-disc set, Friedhelm Flamme brings us Volume 13 in his impressive and valuable coverage of the work of the North German baroque organ masters. Here he turns his attention to the complete organ works of Michael Praetorius of Wolfenbüttel. Praetorius is well known to many early-music lovers for his delightful dance music arrangements from "Terpsichore"; but in fact he was also a choral and organ composer of the very first rank, as well as contributing invaluable theoretical and practical material to our knowledge of music history in his writings.

The six string quartets of Béla Bartók mark a high point in the genre, and even though their myriad technical demands, rhythmic complexity, and bracing dissonances are no longer obstacles to frequent performance, they still present a major challenge for any string quartet. The Heath Quartet has been performing since 2002, and it has considerable experience with repertoire ranging from Beethoven to contemporary music, though this 2017 set on Harmonia Mundi shows that even after 15 years of music-making, these musicians can still be in awe of Bartók's achievement.

There were lots of theatrical Rousseaus in the 18th century and Jean-Jacques (1712–78) was only the most famous of them. A fair amount of the intellectual impulse of Romanticism can be traced to (or blamed on) him. A poseur and charlatan in the grand format, this music copyist also found time to compose music, and this is his most enduring piece. Indeed, it is his only enduring music.