Franz Liszt was without doubt one of the greatest (if not The Greatest) pianists of all time, as well as an innovating and visionary composer, in one word…a Genius!

Der Wiederaufbau der Dresdner Frauenkirche hat in ganz Europa eine breite öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit gefunden. Den „Klangspuren“ dieser Kirche, der eigens für sie komponierten Musik nachzugehen, ist das Anliegen dieser CD, auf der Kantaten von Homilius zu Himmelfahrt, Exaudi, Pfingsten und Trinitatis erstmals eingespielt werden, in einer Farbigkeit, wie sie nur wenige kennen.

This is the 21st album by this orchestra on Pentatone, most of which have received the highest critical acclaim. In particular, the recordings of Russian repertoire conducted by Russian conductors are artistically and commercially successful.

Con questo terzo CD, dedicato a varie composizioni di Alessandro (Pietro Gaspare) Scarlatti (Palermo, 2 maggio 1660 – Napoli, 22 ottobre 1725) destinate precipuamente all’organo, continua il progetto che prevede la registrazione degli «Opera Omnia per tastiera» del grande compositore «Palermitano».

Although François Couperin (harpsichord) and Antoine Forqueray (Viola da Gamba) often played together in Versailles, they were very different musical personalities. Couperin was regarded as the ideal type of French music with its affective aesthetics. Forqueray on the other hand used the robust, highly virtuoso style of Italy. Together with Pieter-Jan Belder and Sofia Diniz, Rainer Zipperling presents the works of the antipodes, which show their contrasting musical characters.

After the success ofOfficina Romana(awarded 5 Diapasons, 5 stars inMusica, and selected amongst the best albums inLe Mondein 2021), Le Stagioni, under the direction of Paolo Zanzu, invites the listeneron a journey through 17th-century Venice in the company of outstanding singers:Emmanuelle de Negri, Blandine Staskiewicz, Paul-Antoine Benos-Djian, Zachary Wilder and Salvo Vitale.From 1637 to 1645, between the opening of the firstpublicopera houses and the start ofthe Cretan War, Venicewitnessed a musical blossoming of international significance.

This world premiere recording reveals a new masterwork by the 18-century Italian master Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, brilliantly reconstructed by musicologist Malcom Bruno from the composer's single-movement woks. Most of this music has been lost or forgotten since its creation more the 250 years ago, and most, if not all, has never been recorded.

These sonatas for violin and continuo, dating from the court of the Holy Roman Empire in Innsbruck in 1660, are little known; perhaps the only other recording of them is a later one by their champion, Andrew Manze. If you like the woolly world of seventeenth century violin music, this composer belongs in your library. The later recording, which includes all the sonatas, lacks the theorbo heard in this 1992 performance, presumably reissued by Channel Classics in order to compete with Harmonia Mundi's release, but both are superb. The music's neglect is largely due to Pandolfi Mealli's obscurity; nothing is known of him beyond this group of works – not even whether a Sicilian composer named Pandolfi working around the same time was the same person or not.

Viele versuchen es, aber wenige erreichen es: das Kunststück, als Popkünstler und Alte-Musik-Experten zu gleicher Zeit authentisch zu wirken. Dass sie zu denen gehört, die es erreicht hat, macht Hille Perl zur Ausnahmekünstlerin. Mögen sie und ihr Partner Lee Santana sich auch inszenieren – in ihrem Spiel gelingt der stets schwarz gekleideten Rotweinliebhaberin eine so vollkommen natürliche Verbindung zwischen Sinnlichkeit und melancholischer Endzeitbetrachtung, dass moderne und barocke Lebenslust, heutige Weltflucht und barockes Memento mori zu einem Lebensgefühl zu verschmelzen scheinen.

Henri Herz was a phenomenon in 1830s Paris and 1840s America, but today his music is mostly forgotten. He wrote eight piano concertos, one of which was lost. Concertos 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8 appear across two previous volumes of the Romantic Piano Concertos series. Here, Howard Shelley and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra put on their finest dancing shoes to complete the cycle with Piano Concerto No. 2 (the one with which Herz conquered America in 1846) and three extended fantasies.

Born in Bonn around 1620 to Veronese parents, Massimiliano Neri was choirmaster at the Ospedaletto and organist at St. Mark's in Venice, where he published his first volume of Sonatas and Canzonas. He presented his second collection of Canzonas and Sonatas to the Emperor Ferdinand III in Vienna in 1651, later becoming Kapellmeister to the Prince-Elector of Cologne in Bonn in 1664. His affections, however, remained Italian: he married the Florentine singer and composer Caterina Giani in 1654. Many of Neri's compositions suffered extensive war damage in various periods; important musicological reconstruction has recovered parts of them that would otherwise have been lost forever.

Johann Jacob Froberger war einer der bekanntesten und zugleich rätselhaftesten Musiker des 17. Jahrhunderts. 1616 in Stuttgart geboren und 1667 im Dienst der verwitweten Herzogin Sybilla aus der Mömpelgarder Nebenlinie des Hauses Württemberg gestorben, bilden sich in seinem Schaffen alle wichtigen Formen, Satzkonzepte und Ausdrucksideale seiner Epoche ab. Froberger fasziniert gerade in der heutigen Zeit, da alles »Europäische« wieder einmal auf dem Prüfstand steht.

Deutsche Grammophon has created a landmark new edition that offers a cross-section of the great German conductor’s career in all its remarkable creative phases. Wilhelm Furtwängler – Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon and Decca, which commemorates the 65th anniversary of his death on November 30, 1954, comprises 34 CDs and a DVD of his irresistible 1954 Salzburg Festival Don Giovanni performance, as well as in-depth essays and analysis from critic and blogger Norman Lebrecht and broadcaster Rob Cowan. The release is also backed by contextual information and video interviews contributed by critic and blogger Norman Lebrecht.

2021 sees the 500th anniversary of the death of Josquin Des Pres, the most celebrated composer of his day. Dominique Visse and the Ensemble Clément Janequin are recording a selection of his chansons from one of the most important editions of his works, Tylman Susato’s Septiesme livre de Chansons published in 1545. This edition bear witness to the diversity of Josquin’s chanson writing, but above all to the melancholy and sorrow so present in his works, and is clearly a tribute, as is also evident in the two Déplorations on his death, Musæ Jovis by Nicolas Gombert and O mors inevitabilis by Hieronymus Vinders. This recording endeavours to present a Josquin legacy, a post mortem illustration of his chanson œuvre, in remembrance of his musical genius.

Antonio Florio et son équipe de la Cappella de'Turchini nous ont habitués à de passionnantes découvertes dans le répertoire de leur ville de Naples, au passé musical si riche et pourtant délaissé par la plupart des musiciens.