The Berlin public of the mid-Eighteenth Century was fascinated by the ‘original genius’ of C. P. E. Bach and never tired of listening to his concertos.

Liberty, enthusiasm and sharing: that might well be the motto of the Kitgut Quartet (named for the ‘kitgut’ or catgut strings it uses), which brings together four outstanding soloists, all of them members of the leading period-instrument European ensembles.

The poetic renewal embodied by Hugo, Baudelaire, Verlaine and so many others after them radically changed the musical landscape and propelled French art song into a true golden age.

Friends and frequent recital partners Jean-Guihen Queyras and Alexandre Tharaud are reunited here for an album conceived as a collection of short stories, presenting both celebrated and little- known masterpieces of the repertory.

From Leonore (1805) to Fidelio (1814) there were three successive versions of Beethoven’s opera, only the last of which has been in the repertory since the 19th Century.

Josep Pons and Javier Perianes collaborate once again on a new album dedicated to Maurice Ravel entitled Jeux de Miroirs. The recording, released by harmonia mundi internationally on 29 November, features Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin and Alborada del gracioso for solo piano, their respective orchestrations and Piano Concerto in G major with Orchestre de Paris. These musical ​‘mirror effects’ allow us to compare the original piano versions of two key works by Ravel with the orchestrations he made of them. Alongside these, the Concerto in G major offers an example of how the composer combines piano and orchestra, both when the piano is integrated into the overall sound and when it plays its traditional solo role.