New Classical / Opera CDs

Marking the centenary of Kathleen Ferrier's birth, Diane Perelsztejn's specially-extended feature-length film traces the remarkable life - and tragically brief career - of one of the greatest singers of all time. Drawing on recently-discovered material, and supported by a companion CD featuring unre...

David Hobson and Teddy Tahu Rhodes' one-off duet from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers became one of the most-played tracks in Australian recording history, topping the Classic 100 Opera survey and featuring in countless CD compilations. Their 2009 tour and album You’ll Never Walk Alone met with such succe...

Invenium Viam is the debut recording of virtuosic cello soloist, Inbal Megiddo, in collaboration with composers and electronic musicians Jorge Sosa and Dave Lisik. The album moves effortlessly from moments of beauty and grace to sonic roller-coaster rides full of intensity and uncompromisingly mu...

T.R.A.M. is comprised of such renowned musically proficient artists as Adrian Terrazas (The Mars Volta) on saxophone, flute, bass clarinet and percussion, Javier Reyes (Animals As Leaders) on guitars, Tosin Abasi (Animals As Leaders) on guitars and Eric Moore (Suicidal Tendencies) on drums. This is ...

Magdalena Kožená’s silken mezzo delivers definitive interpretations of this luscious and enchanting orchestral-song repertoire. Magdalena Kožená, Sir Simon Rattle, and the Berliner Philharmoniker seduce in Ravel’s Shéhérazade, stir and awe in Dvorák’s austere Biblische Lieder, and render to the f...

Dr Dee, a new studio album by Damon Albarn, will be released May 4 by Virgin Records. Dr Dee is an 18 track work inspired by the life of John Dee (1527–1608), mathematician, alchemist, philosopher and advisor to Elizabeth I. Dee is a singular enigma: an Englishman so influential that he defined h...

In this delightful collection, I Salonisti has gathered together a variety of pieces from the White Star Line Songbook, a compilation of overtures, waltzes, marches and even sacred music used for the shipping company's "Olympic Class Liners," the most famous being the ill-fated Titanic. Not simpl...

Never released before recordings from 1950 - 1982 Wilhelm Furtwangler aptly referred to her as a "magic box", because her voice changed with every character she portrayed on stage. It was that absolute identification with her roles and the inseparable unity of singing, personality and acting that ma...

The anniversary of the destruction of Dresden was annually marked with the performance of a requiem, until February 13, 1995. For the 50th anniversary of that terrible day, conductor Bernard Haitink presented Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony "Resurrection" - in the conviction that it is perhaps the o...

Richter's interpretation reaches the true sense of greatness and tragedy of this epic work. Rather than attempting to imitate Bach as it would have been heard in his own time, soloists Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Hertha Tipper and Ernst Haefliger rise to Richter's challenge and deliver a glorious perf...

Capriccio presents the world premiere recording of the soundtrack to Berlin - Sinfonie der Großstadt (or Symphony of a Metropolis), the silent film by Walter Ruttmann with music composed by Edmund Meisel. The film was largely avant-garde portraying life in a city through visual effects and music. Th...

The New Zealand-born Kiri Te Kanawa’s lyric soprano voice and captivating stage presence have, throughout her operatic career, won her critical acclaim and a multitude of devoted fans. Audiences have continually been drawn to her natural ability to bring characters to life on stage, and this effortl...

Of his rich and prolific legacy, Claudio Monteverdi, born in Cremona in 1567, is particularly celebrated for his innovations; one of the most influential figures of 16th- and 17th-century music, he extended the expressive possibilities of his craft in an inventive blend of the old and new. This 3-di...

Born in 1685, the same year as Bach and Handel, Domenico Scarlatti spent the majority of his career in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. Like his father Alessandro, Domenico wrote in a variety of forms, and chief among his output are the many sonatas written for keyboard – wo...

Christian Gottlob Neefe flourished as the Baroque was giving way to the Classical period. These Twelve Sonatas represent important steps in this transition, each having a uniquely individual character and showing a mixture of styles. Neefe is remembered today as Beethoven’s first main teacher in Bon...

Music has always had an important part to play in religious ritual. Early plainchant it was to provide a foundation for polyphony and the works of Tallis and Allegri. JS Bach wrote most of his music for the Lutheran church, Handel contributed to religious music in England, and inspired the likes of ...

No survey of the Baroque would be complete without the music of JS Bach, whose Branden- burg concertos are commonly regarded as the apex of Baroque music. The concertos of Vivaldi demonstrate the range of instrumental colour and contrast with Handel’s  robust  Water Music. From classical favourites ...

Without doubt, the most important symphonists of the latter part of the eighteenth century are Haydn and Mozart. These two composers are responsible for over 160 symphonies including those commonly regarded as the apex of the Classical symphonic form Haydn’s London symphonies and Mozart’s Jupiter an...

The first attempts at a Russian Nationalist symphony were made in the late nineteenth-century by Balakirev, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky. Numerous composers followed, from Glazunov to Myaskovsky, instilling their music with the melodies of their homeland. Russian politics had an impact o...

The violin concerto owes a great deal of its development to the technical achievement of performers. Many composers who have written for the instrument were superlative players themselves Wieniawski and Paganini among them. The capabilities of the instrument can be traced through the compositions co...

The  word  ‘symphony’  is  used  to  describe  an  ex-­ tended orchestral composition in Western classical music. Beginning as musical interludes between operas or concertos, it eventually came to be regarded by many as the yardstick by which one would  measure  a  composer’s  achievement.  This   c...

At the very heart of a concerto is the interplay and contrast of a solo instrument within a larger instrumental ensemble. The opportunity for dazzling virtuosic display from the soloist has resulted in the concerto becoming a vital musical force both on the concert platform and in the audience arena...

From Delibes to Stravinsky, this collection amply demonstrates why ballet remains one of the most loved musical genres. We are then swept along in a whirlwind tour of some of the greatest Russian ballets by such great composers as Prokofiev, Khachaturian and Shostakovich, while no ballet anthology w...

In this collection, we have brought together some of the most-loved operas, ranging from the elegance of Mozart’s  Don Giovanni to the raw emotion of Mascagni’s  Cavalleria Rusticana. The light-hearted japes of Rossini’s Barber of Seville contrast royally with the pomp and spectacle of Verdi’s  Aida...

Great conductors often bring out the universality of music with particular clarity, a gift especially present in Klaus Tennstedt. Particularly known for his singular interpretations of the symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler, this recording reveals that Tennstedt was an equally adept interpreter of th...

"This CD has at last given me the opportunity to record my favourite encore pieces. After concerts, friends have often asked me to do so and it is with great pleasure that I now meet their request. 'Liebesfreud, Liebesleid' (the joy and pain of love) is dedicated to the music, the daily involvement ...

Re-released on Capriccio is a disc of Italian Concertos performed by the Concerto Köln. Alongside masterpieces by Vivaldi and Pergolesi, this 2 CD set contains some rarities of Neapolitan composers such as Francesco Durante and Leonardo Leo.

New on Capriccio this month is a re-release of choral works by Johann Adolf Hasse. Hasse enjoyed huge popularity during his lifetime but since his death his music remained mostly unperformed, with the exception of some of his sacred works. On this recording the Mass in D minor and the Miserere in C ...

Re-released on Capriccio is a Passion Oratorio written by Scarlatti, one of his most mature compositions. Alongside this are two works by Alessandro Stradella; a Lamentation for Wednesday of Holy Week and a work written about the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, all of which are performed by La Stagione...

This re-release on Capriccio offers three masterpieces by Pergolesi, recorded by the long-time duo Regina Klepper and Martina Borst, accompanied by the Bamberg String Quartet.

The French Album is the debut album of a young and exciting cellist Harriet Krijgh. Harriet is a member of the Live Music Now Foundation which was established by Yehudi Menuhin. On this recording she performs a selection of works by Fauré Debussy, Franck and Offenbach, accompanied by Kamilla Isanbae...

Today it is the Passions of J.S Bach which are most commonly known. The Passion Oratorio by J.S Bach’s nephew, godson and pupil Johann Ernst Bach is lesser known. On this Capriccio re-release his Passion Oratorio is performed alongside an Ode on the 77th Psalm for tenor, chorus and orchestra and a M...

Ensemble XX. Jahrhundert, founded by Peter Burwik in 1971, is made up of members of leading Viennese orchestras and freelance instrumentalists. Its aim is to make music of the 20th century known and to support contemporary creative work.

Born in Argentina in 1921, Ástor Piazzolla grew up in New York before eventually returning to his homeland in 1955. One of the finest composers to have emerged from South America, he is best remembered today for his development of the tango – a product of the working-class suburbs of Buenos Aires, a...

As one of the great virtuoso pianists of his time, Mozart composed a wealth of piano concertos and sonatas that rank among his most famous instrumental works. Not so well known, however, are the duet compositions he wrote for the instrument and to which this CD is dedicated: together with the large ...

With the dawning of the French Revolution came the reinvention of the guitar. Transformed in form, and equipped with a new set of techniques that saw its archaic tablature system replaced with mensural notation, the instrument became an instant success with the listening public of Europe – particula...

Though Baldassare Galuppi may not be a household name, he was in fact one of the most successful composers of his day. Arguably more popular than his fellow Venetian, Antonio Vivaldi, he wrote music that appealed to contemporary taste and which touched on a range of genres – including comic opera, w...

Musical compatriots. Collaborators. Teachers. Friends. Pianists. These are the links that bound the four remarkable 20th century composers, whose one-piano-four-hands works are brought together by Sono Luminus on this first CD from the dynamic ZOFO duet. Whether performing public duet concerts toget...

Beethoven had little liking for organised religion, but he was deeply spiritual, believing in God as an all-powerful, loving Father. The awesome, sublime Missa Solemnis is one of his supreme achievements, which he headed ‘From the heart – may it in turn go to the heart!’ In this live concert recordi...

The Danish composer Finn Høffding (1899-1997) was a friend of Carl Nielsen and a teacher of Vagn Holmboe, thus forming a connecting link between the two great symphonists. This CD presents the Jena Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Frank Cramer's world première recording of Høffding's rarely p...