Celebrating the sesquicentenary of Charles Ives' birth, New England-based pianist and Ives scholar nonpareil Donald Berman releases a recording of the composer's "Concord Sonata" using his own newly prepared edition which reveals fresh insights into the iconic work.

Michael Tippett’s oratorio A Child of Our Time was composed between 1939 and 1942 as a direct response to the events leading up to (and including) the notorious Kristallnacht, in November 1938, in National Socialist Germany. Tippet first intended to write an opera, but quickly determined that this would inevitably be too literal, and that the (rather neglected) oratorio form lent greater scope for reflective and meditative interjections to the narrative. Hoping to persuade his friend and mentor T.S. Elliot to write the libretto, he sent the poet such an intricately detailed plan that Elliot responded by suggesting that Tippett, having thought so carefully about it, prepare the text himself – which he duly did. (He then went on to write his own libretti for all his future large vocal works).

‘Oxalys and the New World’: in its latest CD recording, Oxalys delves into American masterpieces for chamber music ensemble. From Pulitzer Prize laureate Aaron Copland with his nature fresco Appalachian Spring to Minimal Music icon John Adams’ mythical Shaker Loops and jazz idol Wynton Marsalis’ funky and groovin’ Meeelaan. Three unknown facets of a flourishing and inspiring musical culture, as always virtuosically captured by Oxalys, the jewel of our Belgian chamber music ensembles.

This new album by flutist Stathis Karapanos represents Paul Hindemith’s (1895–1963) complete works for flute featuring an impressive roster of accompanying artists. This selection, which also includes one world première recording, shows the unexpected versatility of Hindemith, one of the major names in 20th Century music, as a composer.

If there’s one thing both an elf and a dwarf could agree on, it’s that a little aesthetic brilliance goes a long way. This is why we’re so thrilled to share that Mondo, in partnership with Amazon Studios and Sparks and Shadows, is releasing a gorgeous limited-edition version of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power‘s season one soundtrack. This 10 CD set is an expansion of Mondo’s previous two CD-version of the soundtrack. While the original soundtrack is also gorgeous, this new collector’s edition takes the epic sounds of The Rings of Power to a whole new level./quote]

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years. During the Nazi era, he debuted at the Salzburg Festival, with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, and during World War II he conducted at the Berlin State Opera. Generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, he was a controversial but dominant figure in European classical music from the mid-1950s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate, he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records.

Carrier Records presents Ave Maria: Variations on a Theme by Giacinto Scelsi, an album-length work from composer Ian Power and Bay Area-pianist Anne Rainwater. Power unwinds the original melody of Scelsi’s 1972 hymn, over and over, into an obsessive meditation for performer and listener alike. What begins as lush chords and hammering bells is interrupted by a bizarre ritual where the pianist must perform an impossible task and be held musically accountable for their mistakes. Ave Maria’s relentless repetitions and uncannily tonal harmonies probe, exalt, and challenge religious concepts of devotion and interiority.

Warner Classics brings you the for the first time for streaming, a remastered recording of Paavo Berglund with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and composer & pianist John Ogden. Ogden was a fierce promoter of the works of Richard Yardumian (1917-1985) who was an Armenian-American composer, and whose post-Romantic music was popularized by his close partnership with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Ogden had a particularly close connection with the Passacaglia, Recitative and Fugue featured in this album, this piece is still very rarely put on record, it's rich yet easily accessible. This recording also features Glazunov's Piano Concerto No. 1.

In 2015, pianist Jonathan Biss initiated the Beethoven/5 commissioning project with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and more than fifteen other orchestras, resulting in a groundbreaking collaboration over nine years. The project yielded five extraordinary new piano works by some of today’s most significant composers, responding to Beethoven’s own concerti. The first volume, recorded with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, features Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto and Brett Dean’s companion piece, “Gneixendorfer Musik, A Winter’s Journey”.

A new and strikingly effective arrangement of a modern minimalist classic.

During Vladimir Jurowski’s tenure as Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Stravinsky’s music was often a focus of his concert programming. This culminated in a year-long festival, ‘Changing Faces’, in 2018, which traced Stravinsky’s metamorphosis as a composer progressively evolving his musical language, making him a key figure in 20th-century music. Pulcinella marked the beginning of the composer’s middle ‘neoclassical’ period and, like the Symphony in C, demonstrated his playful updating of Classical forms. Jurowski takes listeners on Stravinsky’s exploration of serialism, to his last substantial work, the Requiem Canticles: sometimes spare in texture and austere in expression, yet a movingly sincere restatement of Stravinsky’s Christian faith.

Sebastian Bohren's world-premiere recording of "In Evening Light", the second violin concerto by Peteris Vasks, comes 25 years after the celebrated Latvian composer's first, "Distant Light", one of the most successful, oft-performed and recorded concertos by a living a composer. "In Evening Light" seems certain to follow in its forebearer's footsteps, destined to become another modern classic.

Shostakovich completed his Viola Sonata in 1975, just a few weeks before he died, making it his last composition, his swan song. The piece was written for the violist of the Beethoven Quartet, Fyodor Druzhinin, who received the score three days before the composer’s death. In this large-scale, three-movement sonata, the composer looks back over his oeuvre and the vicissitudes of his life, quoting from his unfinished opera (The Gamblers), his symphonies, and his Suite in F sharp minor, while the composition’s long, slow final movement stands as a memorial to Beethoven. The critic of the daily paper Izvestia wrote that the piece is “like the catharsis in a tragedy; life, struggles, victory, purification through light, and stepping into immortality.” We hear this heart-rending work in a perceptive performance by regular partners: the Ukrainian violist Maxim Rysanov, and the Armenian pianist Marianna Shirinyan.

Poulenc the miniaturist par excellence burst into public view, fully-formed in his late teens, emerging flamboyantly into the artistic swirl of 1920s Paris. His fabulously inventive, quirky and colourful approach to writing for chamber ensemble and voice comes vividly to life in this set of early works which capture all of his youthful elegance, wit, and occasionally sardonic humour.

The century was only twenty-one years old, and so was Ernst Krenek, when his Serenade op. 4 was premièred on 31 July 1921 at the newly launched “Donaueschingen Chamber Music Performances for the advancement of contemporary music.” The event soon came to be known as Donaueschingen Festival, now one of the oldest specialized music festivals worldwide: Krenek’s music has occasionally been heard there since then – albeit as a series of utterly contrasting works one would hardly ascribe to the same composer.