Georges Prêtre, one of the greatest conductors of our era, and the Teatro alla Scala in Milan were bound together by an amicable and artistic relationship of more than fifty years.

On the occasion of Ludwig van Beethoven's 250th Anniversary year one of the greatest pianist of our time, Maurizio Pollini, returns to the miracle and enigma of Beethoven's Last Sonatas: 42 years after the first recording of these masterpieces under studio conditions and with the fantastic acoustics of the Herkulessaal at the Residence in Munich, Maurizio Pollini came back to the very same place for this new and unique project.

Since the release of her debut album 'Philharmonics' in 2010, Agnes Obel has been one of the most independent and original artists in contemporary music. 'Myopia' is her fourth studio release. Following the same principles as with her previous albums, which she completed as a one-woman project in her own Berlin home studio, Obel has been under self-imposed creative isolation with the removal of all outside influences and distraction in the writing, recording and mixing process.

Daniel Hope's new double album Belle Époque, initially released as a Limited Deluxe Edition, combines popular and rare repertoire, which was written in the equally named "golden" period between the Franco-Prussian War and the beginning of World War I in 1914 in major European music nations.

LOUIS LEWANDOWSKI, conductor, choral director and organist at Berlin’s Oranienburger Strasse synagogue, was a pioneer of modern Jewish liturgical music, whose reforms led to the creation of a new liturgy for Jewish synagogue services, a liturgy that combined classical Western music with traditional synagogue singing and restored an important role to organ music introducing a Romantic style influenced by Mendelssohn, whose family fostered Lewandowski’s career.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s new Mahler recording marks a return to the core symphonic repertoire with the Philadelphia Orchestra Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony was billed as the “Symphony of a Thousand” exploring themes of redemption through the power of love.

Il y a des enregistrements qui s'imposent avec une telle évidence que toute critique parait inutile pour ne pas dire futile. Que dire encore de neuf à propos de cette rencontre entre un compositeur et son interprète ? Que le piano de Benedetti-Michelangeli est cristallin, pyrotechnique, que son clavier semble paré de toutes les nuances de couleurs les plus infimes ? Point de maniérismes déplacés, points de langueurs "début de siècle", mais une simplicité d'expression qui fait de Debussy un frère occidental des auteurs de haïkus japonais.

Though he is without a doubt one of the mad genius pianists of the century, Michelangeli's reputation is sustained essentially by two recordings (or groups of recordings): his Rachmaninoff and Ravel piano concerto disc on EMI, and his Debussy series for DG. Renowned for his fanatical keyboard control and crystalline tone, his interpretations of Beethoven and Mozart often seemed inhuman in their steely precision. But in Debussy, he found a composer whose acute sensitivity to detail and phenomenal ear for the coloristic possibilities of the piano really matched his own artistic philosophy. This recording simply blew the critics away when it came out in 1978, and it hasn't aged a bit. A classic. –David Hurwitz

Clark’s soundtrack for Adam Egypt Mortimer’s psychological horror thriller Daniel Isn’t Real is a darkly euphoric dreamscape that evokes both rapture and dread. The Brighton-based British musician’s mutated orchestra score, released by Deutsche Grammophon, plays its part in telling the tale of the mayhem unleashed after college freshman Luke is taken captive by his charismatic imaginary childhood friend, the increasingly malevolent Daniel.

Gianluca Cascioli is an Italian pianist, conductor, and composer. He studied composition at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Turin and piano with Franco Scala. In 1994, Cascioli won the Umberto Micheli International Piano Competition, whose jury included Luciano Berio, Elliott Carter, Charles Rosen, and Maurizio Pollini. The prize included a record contract with Deutsche Grammophon, for whom he recorded three CDs in his late teens.