This epic opera inspired by Shakespeare's tragic masterpiece was written in 1847, but did not receive its British premiere until 1938 when it was presented for the first time at Glyndebourne. The tragedy is a penetrating, concentrated, and harrowing study of the ambition of Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth. In the end both seem to verge on hallucination and madness as they recoil from the mayhem they have created around them. The production features an outstanding international cast, with the Greek baritone Kostas Paskalis in the title role and British star Josephine Barstow making an exciting debut as Lady Macbeth. Proceedings are conducted by the sympathetic baton of John Prithard.

The waning of the era of lute player in the early 18th century coincided with the rise of the smallest member of the lute family, the soprano lute, also known as the mandolin, mandola or leutino in Southern Italy, especially in Naples, the city of music. In the following decades, the city of Naples, with it's famous conservatories, saw the birth of a number of compositions for mandolin. Many distinguished composers set out to discover the new possibilities this instrument offered.

The classical period was one of those moments in history where the style itself was so powerful that composers of relatively modest ability, with a little luck and few good ideas, could write some outstanding music. Ernst Wilhelm Wolf’s Symphony in F is an excellent example of this phenomenon. A resident composer active in Weimar, Wolf (1732-92) composed about 35 symphonies, of which 26 survive. Like Handel’s organ concertos, they were written primarily for use as overtures and intermezzos during theatrical productions, and the short D major symphony, with trumpets and drums, clearly gives evidence of this provenance. The other three works, whether in three or four movements, are larger in scale, and certainly are rich enough in content to warrant an independent concert life.

Seine Bekanntheit im heutigen Musikleben verdankt Carl Stamitz hauptsächlich auch seinen Klarinettenkonzerten, die sowohl ästhetisch als auch gattungs- und musikhistorisch von nicht zu unterschätzender Bedeutung sind. Obwohl die genaue Anzahl seiner Klarinettenkonzerte nach derzeitigem Forschungsstand nicht zweifelsohne gesichert ist, werden ihm insgesamt 11 Klarinettenkonzerte zugeordnet, die vermutlich zwischen 1770 und 1790 entstanden sind. In der kompositorischen Behandlung der Klarinette bei Carl Stamitz zeigt sich, dass er versuchte die virtuose Seite der Klarinette auszuschöpfen, sie aber vornehmlich als Gesangsinstrument erkannte.

Originally recorded in 1957, these sessions turned out to be the last the legendary Big Bill Broonzy would record; only a little over a year later, he succumbed to lung cancer. This collection consists not of fan or producer favorites, but Broonzy favorites, and includes a variety of blues, folk, and devotional music. Though he was instrumental to the development of the blues and the Chicago sound, much of the material on this three-disc set reaches back to the music that the blues came from, with a lot of drop-in help from Broonzy's friends, of which there were many. That makes these recordings not only recordings, but documentation, a testament to a bluesman who was at once musician and historian.

For Bodies and Souls, the Manhattan Transfer almost completely abandons its roots in favor of a slick, pop/R&B direction on one side of the LP version while trying a few more interesting experiments with textures and styles on the other (the CD, of course, doesn't make such a sharp divide). Side one (entitled "Bodies") is relentless in its search for another Top Ten hit, enlisting the help of Rod Temperton – then riding high on his red-hot association with Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones – on two tracks, and Stevie Wonder's harmonica on Temperton's slick R&B/disco "Spice of Life." Meanwhile, side two (aka "Souls") pokes around the electronic world before falling back upon another ebullient collaboration with Jon Hendricks on Fletcher Henderson's "Down South Camp Meeting." Manhattan Transfer is so good at vocalese that you wonder why they bothered to chase hits in the manufactured, anonymous pop language of 1983.

Memphis Heat documents Chicago blues piano legend Memphis Slim's studio collaborations with the rock group Canned Heat in France on September 18, 1970, and July 11, 1973. The results are tasty indeed. Slim's voice and piano are well matched by Henry Vestine's electric guitar, Canned Heat's rockin' rhythm section, and (on six out of 13 tracks) the Memphis Horns, a solid wind quintet of trumpet, trombone, two tenors, and a baritone sax. Memphis Slim tried on a lot of different styles and instrumental combinations during the 1970s. His Canned Heat sessions have been both praised and panned over the years, a state of affairs that often revealed more about the reviewers than the music itself.

28-song set. Tour premiere of “The Ties That Bind” to open the show. “The River” makes its third consecutive appearance. Four songs from 2020’s Letter To You: “Ghosts,” “Last Man Standing” and “I’ll See You In My Dreams.” “Last Man Standing” features a new arrangement. “I’ll See You In My Dreams” is performed solo acoustic to end the show. One song from 2022’s Only the Strong Survive: “Nightshift” (written by Franne Golde, Dennis Lambert and Walter Orange, popularized by The Commodores). Concert stalwarts like “Because The Night,” “Dancing in the Dark,” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” are performed in tighter, shorter versions.

The theme of our 22/23 season, “Werden” (Becoming), is taken directly from Mozart’s splendid Symphony No. 39. This work is associated with concepts such as freemasonry, virtuosity, nature, mystery and enlightenment. But why? Can music really express these ideas, or do we merely randomly associate romantic meanings with it? How can we interpret a manuscript – hastily written in ink on parchment by candlelight in 1788? I warmly invite you to engage with the hidden aspects of this fascinating work.

Louis Couperin (1626-1661) has long been a fabled name among French keyboard composers. Born in the provinces in the late 1620s, he was 'discovered' by the visiting court harpsichordist Jacques Champion Chambonnières in about 1650; soon he had an appointment at court and was titulaire of the organ at St Gervais in Paris, founding the Couperin dynasty that included most prominently his nephew, François Couperin 'le grand'.

Behind Brahms the titan, ambitious heir to Beethoven and Schumann, stands one of the greatest composers for the choir, an accomplice observer of Viennese customs. Love songs with a dance rhythm, the Liebeslieder Walzer express in turn desire, nostalgia, sorrow and amusement in the dialogue of hearts. To this emblematic collection, Léo Warynski joins several jewels of Brahmsian vocal art, where the colors of his Metaboles shine, accompanied here by pianists Yoan Héreau and Edoardo Torbianelli who complete the program with a selection of waltzes and Hungarian dances.

The world of music has some resemblance with the natural world. Just as happens in nature with living beings, but at a much quicker pace, musical instruments, genres and styles are created, offered to the public, and then may succeed or not in conquering a place in the musical world. Success and popularity, furthermore, can be fleeting or stable, and their object, in turn, may remain more or less the same for a long time, or evolve. It is not always clear why a particular instrument or genre gains recognition, and another does not; instruments with beautiful timbres fail to survive, and others which are not substantially better become extremely widespread.

Charlotte Schneider and Guy-Baptiste Jaccottet have been exploring since 2017 the multiple sounds offered by their combined instruments. These curious and playful musicians explore a repertoire stretching from the 16th to the 18th century, transcribing and arranging pieces for their duo. As a result, their music lies at the crossroads of historically informed performance practice and the concrete reality of instruments and places.