World-renowned tenor Roberto Alagna stars in the most passionate of French operas, conveying the young poet’s journey from naïve hope to the agony of the much-loved aria ‘Pourquoi me réveiller?’ and the shattering final tragedy.
Massenet’s glorious opera, based on a novel by Goethe, is regularly performed all over the world and its central role is one in which Roberto Alagna has been celebrated for more than a decade. The role of Werther’s beloved Charlotte is sung by American mezzo Kate Aldrich (an acclaimed Carmen at ‘The Met’), who has sung the role to critical acclaim in Europe and Japan. Filmed live at the Teatro Regio in Turin, the powerful stage production is the work of another member of the Alagna family – the tenor’s younger brother, David.

To make an album with the music of a genius such as Frank Zappa is dangerous! But Bohuslдn Big Band with the guitarist Patrik Ehrnborg and trombone player Nicklas Rydh have done the unbelievable. Material from the -72 albums "Overnight Sensation", "Apostrophe" and "One Size Fits All", with new arrangements. This period was maybe Frank's most commercial period which not at all makes it easier for the musicians. But the Big Band is not only a tight ensemble. Among the brilliant musicians is Mia Kempff, the girl who sings on the album so powerfully. Anna Gustafsson plays marimba totally wonderfully. This is very creative music that boils. Music for both heart and brain. Frank Zappa would have been 61 this year. There is no one left like him. But thanks to this Big Band does the music lives on. This years Big Band album is here to stay!

Polish singer and songwriter Basia became prominent during the 1980s, first for her membership in the polished British pop-jazz vocal outfit Matt Bianco, and later as a solo artist. Her first three wildly successful recordings – which sold by the truckload in the U.S. and U.K. – made her something of a household name during the MTV era. Her Brazilian-influenced jazzy soul helped to create a standard of excellence in adult contemporary on par with peers Everything But the Girl, Swing Out Sister, Level 42, and Sade. She all but disappeared after the '90s, but did take part in a reunion with her former band for 2004's acclaimed Matt's Mood. In 2009, she returned to solo recording with It's That Girl Again.

The short-lived Casimir Cartellieri was definitely a composer of note and this is amply demonstrated in this comprising three clarinet quartets. Dieter Klocker is a comfortable exponent of the many beautiful melodies that are found embedded in the music, very Mozartian in nature and which dances along at a pretty pace!

Reflections is a collection of new remixes in a "Europop/house" style of select hits from by German singer Sandra, released in 2006 and includes re-recorded versions of Sandra's hits from first four albums (1985-1990). Also featuring a newly recorded "Ballad" version of "Everlasting Love". In 2007, Virgin Music France decided to release a special version of Reflections, containing three new remixes made by French DJs. These three tracks are as follows: "In the Heat of the Night" (Future Vision Remix - Radio Edit), "Maria Magdalena" (Junior Caldera Remix - Radio Edit), and "In the Heat of the Night" (Superfunk Remix - radio Edit). "In the Heat of the Night 2007" was released online as a digital single containing four new versions of the song, whereas "(I'll Never Be) Maria Magdalena" was not.

Elizabeth Wallfisch returns to CPO, this time to perform the 24 Caprices of another member of the Classical French violin school, Pierre Rode. Wallfisch is a superb violinist who specializes in historical performance practice. Rode composed almost entirely for the violin and his 24 Caprices en Forme d’Etudes are undoubtedly his most important works for solo violin. Unlike Kreutzer’s forty Études ou Caprices (999901-2), Rode’s Caprices are in order of key, not technical ability.

After nearly 30 years at the court of Frederick the Great in Berlin, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach took up the position of cantor and music director in Hamburg, left vacant by the death of his godfather Georg Philipp Telemann. Even though his new duties included teaching as well as providing music for the five city churches of Hamburg, Bach nevertheless still found the time to compose keyboard sonatas and keyboard concertos as well as to present secular concerts. Two of the works on this disc, the Concertos in F major and in E flat major, were composed soon after the move to Hamburg.

Kate Bush's strongest album to date also marked her breakthrough into the American charts, and yielded a set of dazzling videos as well as an enviable body of hits, spearheaded by "Running Up That Hill," her biggest single since "Wuthering Heights." Strangely enough, Hounds of Love was no less complicated in its structure, imagery, and extra-musical references (even lifting a line of dialogue from Jacques Tourneur's Curse of the Demon for the intro of the title song) than The Dreaming, which had been roundly criticized for being too ambitious and complex.

After its first album devoted to Schumann’s first two piano trios, the Kungsbacka Piano Trio now presents the conclusion of this series with the Piano Trio No. 3 in G minor, to which they add the Six Studies in Canonic Form, originally for pedal piano and performed here in an arrangement for piano trio, and an early work, the Quartet in C minor for violin, viola, cello and piano, which was only published in 1979.

This outstanding new release brings together two of the world’s most sought-after violinists in a pair of rarely-heard 20th-century Russian chamber pieces: Shostakovich’s Five pieces for two violins and piano, and Prokofiev’s Sonata for two violins. Both pieces explore the possibilities of two violins duetting and in dialogue, providing the perfect repertoire to showcase the natural rapport between these two exceptional violinists.

This recording has been designed to introduce works for violin and piano by Greek composers or composers of partial Greek descent, whose works were inspired and shaped far from their place of birth by the influences and cultural trends of their new environments. Boris Papandopulo was based in the former Yugoslavia and his music is infused with Balkan folk music elements as displayed by his Sonata while the Meditation, which opens this recording, is infused with an elegiac atmosphere inspired by the Dalmatian coast. Dinos Constantinides lived for more than 50 years in the United States. While his Sonata for violin and piano uses the twelve-tone technique it is at the same time characterized by long sweeping melodies.

Songs of love and loss by a trio of early 18th century Spanish composers, showcasing the vocal art of a distinguished early-music soprano.

The Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra were linked by a long and intensive artistic collaboration, brought to an abrupt end by his death in October 2021. BR-KLASSIK now presents outstanding and as yet unreleased live recordings of concerts from the past years. This recording of Mahler's Seventh Symphony documents concerts from February 2011 in Munich’s Philharmonie im Gasteig. Haitink first conducted a Munich subscription concert in 1958, and from then on he repeatedly stood on the podium of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra – either in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz or in the Philharmonie im Gasteig.

Three Venetian contemporaries named Antonio - one, Vivaldi, achieved world fame with his concerti. But who has heard of Antonio Lotti and Caldara today? In their time, they were famous composers beyond the borders of Venice, and yet some of their music has lain dormant in archives for over three hundred years. Now selected alto cantatas by Lotti as well as oratorio introductions and an "Ave Regina" by Caldara may reawaken attention: paired with the "Nisi Dominus", RV 608, and two rousing concerti by Vivaldi, the baroque orchestra la festa musicale and the internationally acclaimed countertenor Alex Potter present an album full of virtuoso and touching musical treasures by the three Antonios from the Canal Grande.