Sometimes there are discoveries that hit likethunderbolts! Matt Pascale & The Stomps areundoubtedly one of them-and a major one atthat. Everything here is simply perfect. Musically,the backbone of this album remains blues, butrock, funk, soul, and even hip-hop are never faroff. The compositions flow like a string ofpotential hits. It only takes listening to this albumonce or twice for certain melodies to lodgethemselves firmly in your brain. As for theperformance, it"s downright incredible. MattPascale has a raspy voice with a "more Italian youcouldn"t get" vibe, his guitar playing is a sheermarvel of precision and feel, and The Stomps area rhythmic and groovy powerhouse capable ofwaking the dead. Un-be-lie-va-ble!

Recorded live at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, it presents two of Tchaikovsky’s most profound symphonies: a revelatory account of the Fifth, with its shifting balance between fate and triumph, and a searingly personal reading of Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique). The Times praised the ‘explosive chemistry between this conductor and orchestra’ while The Arts Desk declared ‘the LPO has a real treasure in Canellakis.’ Together, they continue the Orchestra’s rich tradition of powerful Tchaikovsky performances, offering a recording that is both steeped in legacy and brimming with new life.

Contemporaries of Alessandro Scarlatti and now largely forgotten, Camilla de Rossi and Maria Margherita Grimaldi left behind remarkable contributions to the oratorio genre, at a time when few women composed - and even fewer within official circles. Soprano Suzanne Jerosme, Jörg Halubek and Il Gusto Barocco bring several of their works back to life, preserved since the early 1700s in the holdings of the Austrian National Library. Alongside arias by Alessandro Scarlatti, who helped shape the oratorio form in both Rome and Vienna, these strikingly beautiful compositions emerge - fully deserving a place among the masterpieces of their time.

Prokofiev’s Symphony No 4 was originally completed in 1930 and shared much of its musical material with his ballet The Prodigal Son, composed around the same time. Though Prokofiev had largely avoided harsh criticism from Soviet authorities in the past, the initial reception of the Fourth Symphony was lukewarm at best.

Formed in Southern California and forged in adversity, Dayseeker evolved from post-hardcore upstarts into one of the most emotionally resonant and stylistically agile bands in heavy music today.

For their first harmonic mundi album, Florent Albrecht and his Ensemble L’Encyclopédie explore the mischievous world of the Mozarts, father and son. Whether in the well-known Toy Symphony, the tinkling bells of Leopold’s A Musical Sleigh Ride or the ‘How to compose all wrong’ tutorial of Wolfgang’s A Musical Joke, joy and fantasy are mixed with a portion of subtle wit – qualities shared by the polished stylistic approach of the performers.

Amid the pomp of the court, the ear of the young Louis XIV was awakened to the charms of the harpsichord. Surrounded by the most illustrious harpsichordists, he explored a world where music was still a treasure passed from hand to hand. While French harpsichord making flourished, Jacques Champion de Chambonnières published the first printed scores in 1670. From unmeasured preludes, to poignant tombeaux imbued with subtle melancholy, to delicate arrangements of popular airs, the harpsichord of Louis XIV echoes an era of unprecedented musical richness. Brice Sailly's sublime interpretation highlights the splendour and diversity of this golden age of the French harpsichord.

Maurice Ravel’s piano trio was the result of an earlier war insinuating itself into his composition. The work’s first movements, however, were conceived as far from war as imaginable. Early summer 1914 found Ravel at his happiest, holidaying with Alexandre Benois in the Basque town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, on the Atlantic coast half a mile from Ravel’s birthplace of Ciboure.

In 1392, King Charles VI of France was declared insane. In the midst of the Hundred Years’ War, his repeated absences left the field open to princes hungry for power and wealth.

Crowd Pleaser, the stunning debut album from Texas-raised, Nashville-based songwriter Joelton Mayfield, is the result of nearly a decade of work and reflection.

With his new album, Helmut Eisel presents an extraordinary sound project. Together with his trio and brass players Peter Kästner, Felix Blum and Peter Hedrich, the clarinetist merges the vibrant tradition of klezmer with the warm sonorities of Saarland br…

The French composer and organist Thierry Escaich composed his Te Deum pour Notre-Dame for the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris; a hymn to the Cathedral’s resurrection, it is a large-scale work for children's choir, two mixed choirs and orchestra. One hundred and eighty singers and instrumentalists gave the work its first performance and recorded it in the prestigious building on 12 June 2025.

Ning Feng, together with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin conducted by Antony Hermus, releases the violin concertos of Johannes Brahms and Carl Goldmark. This pairing is particularly apt as these works were both written in 1877, and the composers were dear friends. In Goldmark’s lyrical Violin Concerto, Ning Feng plays the original 5-minute cadenza which is seldom heard in its entirety. Written only a few months after the Goldmark, Brahms’ famous Violin Concerto in D, Op.77 needs little introduction. Ning Feng has long been associated with this concerto, having played it when he won First Prize in the International Paganini Competition 2006 as well as First Prize in the 2005 Michael Hill International Violin Competition.

Although Israel in Egypt was first performed on 4 April 1739 in tripartite form, Handel probably first composed this oratorio without a complete text. Hervé Niquet has chosen to record the version in two parts that Berlioz and the whole of the 19th century considered definitive, these being the Exodus and the Song of Moses. Produced just after the Covid pandemic, this recording also shows the joy of Le Concert Spirituel’s singers and instrumentalists at making music together again: Hervé Niquet says the final chorus "is a cry of happiness in unison" and sees an "almost palpable drama in these works: the two choruses face each other on either side of the orchestra and respond to each other in violent retaliations and monumental unisons. Their interweaving in diabolical movements is like a theatrical staging before our very eyes.”

Kurt Edelhagen was a German big band leader.