Classical

The greatest recording of all time is sounding better than ever before. Now, Solti and Culshaw’s Ring Cycle can be enjoyed in the highest quality possible. The Hybrid SACD format combines the high-density 24bit/192kHz stereo mix with a standard CD layer that will play in any normal CD player. This compilation of Great Scenes contains a selection of incredible highlights from across the Ring Cycle, including the timeless, “Ride of the Valkyries,” and “Siegfried’s Funeral March.”

The Blue Hour is a song cycle written collaboratively by the composers Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, Caroline Shaw, and Sarah Kirkland Snider with the chamber orchestra A Far Cry (Shara Nova also is featured as vocal soloist).  Set to excerpts from Carolyn Forché’s epic poem On Earth, the music follows one woman’s journey through the space between life and death via thousands of hallucinatory and non-linear images. Exploring memories of childhood, of war, of love, and of loss, The Blue Houramplifies the beauty, pain, and fragility of human life from a collective female perspective.

Nonesuch Records releases the first recordings of Steve Reich’s Runner (2016) and Music for Ensemble and Orchestra (2018), performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conducted by Susanna Mälkki, available on CD on September 30, 2022; a vinyl LP version will be released on December 2.

Reich says Runner is written “for a large ensemble of winds, percussion, pianos, and strings. While the tempo remains more or less constant, there are five movements, played without pause, that are based on different note durations. First, even sixteenths, then irregularly accented eighths, then a very slowed-down version of the standard bell pattern from Ghana in quarters, fourth a return to the irregularly accented eighths, and finally a return to the sixteenths but now played as pulses by the winds for as long as a breath will comfortably sustain them. The title was suggested by the rapid opening and my awareness that, like a runner, I would have to pace the piece to reach a successful conclusion.”

“Music for Ensemble and Orchestra is an extension of the Baroque concerto grosso where there is more than one soloist,” the composer continues. “Here there are twenty soloists—all regular members of the orchestra, including the first stand strings and winds, as well as two vibraphones and two pianos. The piece is in five movements, though the tempo never changes, only the note value of the constant pulse in the pianos. Thus, an arch form: sixteenths, eighths, quarters, eighths, sixteenths. Music for Ensemble and Orchestra is modeled on my Runner, which has the same five movement form.”

Everybody loves a party, and who better to serve as the master of ceremonies than global superstar cellist HAUSER.

With the Dedicated Tour marking the end of a remarkable 10-year run for 2CELLOS, HAUSER is ushering a new era as a solo artist and visual concept creator on his new album THE PLAYER, accompanied by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Steven Mercurio, released on September 16, 2022 on Sony Music Masterworks.

Whether it is captivating reimaginations of timeless world music classics such as “Bésame Mucho,” “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás” and “Historia de un Amor,” or his take on modern-day hits such as Ricky Martin’s Latin Pop smash “Livin’ la Vida Loca,” Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita,” Camila Cabello’s “Señorita,” and Shakira’s 2010 Official 2010 FIFA World Cup™ Song “Waka Waka,” HAUSER traverses from genre to genre with ease, inviting fans of all ages and backgrounds to join him for a global dance party extravaganza.

HAUSER uses his irresistible charisma and musical stylings to take listeners on a whirlwind adventure of romance and excitement, a trademark for HAUSER that has made him an international star.  The success of HAUSER himself extends far beyond his many, many millions of social media followers with a devoted, international fan base that continues to grow. With more than a billion audio streams across the globe and more than 4 billion video views, the Croatian cellist is a phenomenon that is one part virtuoso and the other, that of sheer, animal magnetism. For HAUSER’s fans, perhaps it is simply his ability to unify generations of music lovers.

HAUSER. He is a magician of the cello…and this is only the beginning.

Nonesuch Records releases Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award–winning composer Caroline Shaw’s Evergreen, performed by Shaw and Attacca Quartet, on September 9, 2022. Evergreen is five original works by Shaw: two suites written for string quartet—Three Essays and The Evergreen—two pieces written for string quartet and voice, and one piece written solely for string quartet. It also includes an interpretation of a twelfth century French poem, which the Quartet performs with Shaw on vocals.

Following 2019’s Orange, which featured six of Shaw’s pieces for string quartet and earned Attacca Quartet a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, Evergreen was built around the titular four-song suite, first performed by the Viano String Quartet in 2021. Shaw describes the work as an offering to one particular tree in an evergreen forest on Swiikw (Galiano Island), off the west coast of Canada. The album also includes Three Essays, a suite written for and premiered by Calidore String Quartet that addresses language’s power to stir emotion and spread information and ideas through written, spoken, and digital forms; And So, a piece composed for the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale and mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter as part of Shaw’s Is a Rose trilogy; Blueprint, a work originally composed for the Aizuri Quartet and relating closely to an early string quartet by Beethoven; Other Song, a piece written for the National Symphony Orchestra and originally released on Shaw's 2021 solo vocal debut, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part; and an interpretation of Cant voi l’aube, a poem by twelfth century trouvère, Gace Brulé.

Bob Marley with the Chineke! Orchestra reimagines some of Bob Marley’s most recognized and listened to songs with contemporary classical orchestration. The Chineke! Orchestra provides opportunities to a diverse range of up-and-coming and internationally respected classical musicians.

The most unforgettable songs from Disney’s iconic films reimagined by the greatest living pianist, Lang Lang’s The Disney Book tells the story of a century of magical, joyous entertainment for all. Join him on an uplifting, virtuosic journey to experience beloved songs from Disney films with collaborators from across the globe, including Andrea Bocelli, Sebastián Yatra, and Jon Batiste, performing hits from Snow White, Encanto, Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio and many more. Deluxe 2 LP.

On the deluxe edition of her breakthrough album, Arooj Aftab's remarkable voice, backed by a team of renowned musicians, transports listeners to worlds once known. Intimate compositions unveil mystical passage into Aftab's emotionally gripping symphonic world - vast with colorful sounds and transcendent of genre.

Paul Lewis explores the world of late Brahms, wherein the old master, far from growing more sedate, deploys a palette of infinite colors and sensibilities in his last four collections for solo piano. By turns tender and dazzling, intimate and tempestuous, these pieces appear to us as their composer's final confidences, entrusted to a crepuscular diary.

This is a follow up to the astoundlingly successful Album "Black Swans: Earliest African-American Classical Stars". Produced by Leslie Gerber with painstaking re-mastering from Steve Smolian, this 2 CD set follows the canon through to the early 1960s.

David Fray adds a landmark of the solo keyboard repertoire to his Bach discography: the Goldberg Variations. "The Goldberg Variations are a real test," he says. "They are the work of a lifetime, perhaps a work about life itself... a kind of rite of passage, a journey. Every element of human life is in them... When you play the theme again after the 30 variations, in it's original purity, it is as if you're at the end of your life, looking back over everything that has happened in the last hour-and-a-half. Few works give such a sense of eternity".

Teunis van der Zwart and Alexander Melnikov have chosen to pay tribute to Giovanni Punto, now unknown to most music lovers, even though he truly established the cor basse (horn focused on the low register) by devoting no less than sixteen concertos to it. It was he who inspired Beethoven's famous Sonata Op.17, and the pieces by Danzi and Ries also bear the mark of his legacy. This recording provides an opportunity to discover the unique sound of this instrument in four emblematic works.

The music of C.P.E Bach makes complex stylistic demands of the performer like little else of it's time, the extraordinary drama and intensity tempered by Enlightenment elegance and the influence of the Baroque. Marc-André Hamelin's performances set new standards in this endlessly absorbing repertoire.

A precursor in this field as in so many others, Telemann gave the viola it's very first masterpieces, immediately establishing it as a solo instrument in it's own right. Alongside Sabine Fehlandt and the musicians of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Antoine Tamestit pays splendid tribute to this pioneering music, which blends melodic charm and contrapuntal rigor into an organic whole.

A celebration from The Orlando Consort of the musical and literary worlds of Florence's golden age under the Medici, in a selection of works which includes a number of first recordings.

Howard Shelley's survey of the piano music is an undoubted highlight of the Mendelssohn revival. In this, the final instalment of the series, he focuses on late works and posthumous publications.

The "extravagantly talented" (The New York Times) American organist Cameron Carpenter releases his first album on Decca Gold, a recording of J.S. Bach's The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 juxtaposed with his own transcription of American composer Howard Hanson's Symphony No. 2 in D-flat Major, Opus 30, W45, "Romantic." Both works are performed on Carpenter's tailor-made instrument, the International Touring Organ, which was designed to allow him to perform at almost any location worldwide.

Mozart: Works for Oboe and Orchestra - ALBRECHT MAYER / DEUTSCHE KAMMERPHILHARMONIE - Star oboist Albrecht Mayer's new album is inspired by his lifelong love for the music of Mozart and featuring a world premiere recording and several new arrangements of Mozart's most famous pieces. Mayer's album is made in partnership with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and harpsichordist Vital Julian Frey and will be released 9 April 2021. It's tracklist features a B flat major version of the Concerto for flute and harp, K. 299 (297c) arranged for oboe and harpsichord, and a transcription of Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165 (158a) for oboe d'amore, orchestra and organ. Also included are arrangements of the concert arias Non temer, amato bene, K.505 and Ah se in ciel, benigne stelle, K.538, the Rondo in C major, K.373 and the motet Ave verum corpus, K.618.

This is a program of great contemporary works for harp. With over 20 years experience in both the harp and the violin, Tasha Smith Godinez is an accomplished musician and teacher. Ms. Smith Godinez debuted as a soloist at age 16 and has since graced stages worldwide. With the harp, Tasha has studied with Isabelle Perrin, Elena Mashkovtseva and Susan Allen. She holds performance degrees from both San Diego State University (Bachelor's 2005, Master's 2010) and l'Ecole Normale de Musique Alfred Corot in Paris, France (2006). Ms. Smith Godinez has held the position of principal harpist for both the Orquesta de Baja California (Tijuana, Mexico) and the Grossmont Symphony Orchestra (San Diego, California) as well as a handful of appearances with the San Diego Symphony.

All-new remasterings of live and previously unissued recordings: a Mendelssohn concert from 1962 demonstrates Thomas Jensen's undimmed power to galvanize an orchestra towards the end of his life. From his very last concert, given a fortnight before his death in 1963, works by Handel and Mozart find him (and pianist Annie Fischer) on fluent, sparkling form. Novelettes by 'the Danish Mendelssohn' Niels W. Gade make a neat coupling, and the set closes with the Dvorák overture which launched the DRSO on the international scene. Another landmark album in the wider appreciation of a conductor whose legacy has been too narrowly restricted to the music of his homeland.