The latest release in harmonia mundi's fascinating Latitudes series features Maya Youssef, a virtuoso of the qanun, a traditional Syrian zither. Youssef's extraordinary musical gift and generosity of outlook, warmth, humor and optimism have brought comparisons with such legendary virtuosos as Ravi Shankar, Yehudi Menuhin and Meredith Monk. Syrian Dreams was written to express Youssef's powerful feelings of loss and sadness over the tragedy and suffering occurring in her homeland.

10 stars out of 10 - "This is one hell of a performance of Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto. Emmanuelle Bertrand and conductor Pascal Amoyel team up to produce one of the most intense and neurotic versions yet of this intense and neurotic piece". – Classics Today

Stile Antico’s eighth disc celebrates the pioneering Tudor Church Music edition, which made available for the first time in the modern era much of the most important English Renaissance sacred music. Alongside Byrd’s evergreen Mass for five voices, Stile Antico’s varied programme includes masterpieces by Tallis, Taverner, White, Gibbons and Morley, all taken from the TCM volumes. This recording was supported by the Carnegie UK Trust, under whose aegis this remarkable edition appeared, in honour of its centenary in 2013, and received accolades including the Diapason d’Or and the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

Stile Antico’s third recording won the 2009 Gramophone Award for Early Music and reached the top of the US Classical Chart. The beautiful and erotic texts of the Song of Songs, a love-poem traditionally attributed to King Solomon, inspired the great composers of the Continental Renaissance to some of their most ardent music. This rich selection traces an emotional arc from the intensity of the Flemish masters to the most vivid, madrigialian motets by Vivanco and Victoria.

For its sixth recording on Harmonia Mundi, Stile Antico is joined by the outstanding viol consort Fretwork to explore the wealth of sacred music written not for church performance, but for the court and for the home. Sung entirely in English, this fascinating programme spans two centuries and a vast range of styles, from the austerity of Browne and Taverner to the harmonic daring of Tomkins and Ramsey, and from the smallest works by Campion and Dowland to the great verse anthems of Gibbons and Amner.

Miniatures and large forms.The work of a young musician of 25, the celebrated Concerto of Grieg combines the great Romantic tradition (Liszt was one of its most fervent admirers) and Norwegian folk music, with the halling and springdans of its thrilling finale. Yet the composer never wrote another, for he felt more comfortable writing in miniature forms. In 35 years he produced no fewer than 66 Lyric Pieces, every one a gem, from the truculent March of the Trolls to the poetic meditations of Homesickness and Remembrances.

Called ‘Ouvertüren' in Germany, because they began with a large-scale overture à la française, Bach's Suites for orchestra offer a unique synthesis of the French and the Italian styles. The Leipzig Cantor did not content himself with a mere set of amiable dances for his ‘Collegium Musicum': he revived the genre in his own manner, accenting the contrasts, refining the orchestration, and introducing a hitherto unknown contrapuntal element. Two centuries later these admirable orchestral works continue to represent an indispensable treasure of the Baroque.

Penned for the concert hall but brimming with the sounds and rhythms of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway, this all-GERSHWIN program features American pianist Jon Nakamatsu in the Piano Concerto in F and the Rhapsody in Blue. For an orchestral encore, Jeff Tyzik leads the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in an exuberant reading of the Cuban Overture.

After his symphonic poem Má vlast, Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, is arguably his most popular work. This recording, issued by Harmonia Mundi, is taken from a live concert performance at The Barbican in May 2011, and leaves one in no doubt as to why Jirí Belohlávek has made the Czech repertoire such a splendid calling card during his tenure as Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

If Handel's arias enjoy such success today, perhaps it is because they lie at the intersection between past and present, light and shadow. They might very well illustrate on their own the entire range of possibilities offered by the voices of his time. On this 2010 recital album, countertenor Bejun Mehta has chosen most of the ‘hits' from the repertoire of the famous castrato Senesino. From shadow (Ombra cara) to light (Sento la gioia), Grammy-winner René Jacobs conducts the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra in perfect accompaniment to Lewis.

Haydn composed his orchestral version of the Seven Last Words for Good Friday devotions in Cádiz. The task of creating a purely instrumental 'oratorio' consisting of seven contemplative slow movements was by no means an easy one; but the outcome was a work of sublime nobility. In its day, it was quite popular and inspired several transcriptions, including the version for string quartet heard here in a performance by the Barcelona-based Cuarteto Casals that is both stylistically sensitive and emotionally compelling.

Early in the 1780s, Mozart began attending soirees at the home of music patron Baron van Swieten, who owned an extensive collection of Bach and Handel manuscripts. Mozart began copying Bach’s fugues for his own studies and made arrangements of Handel oratorios for performance - both would provide much of the stimulus for the counterpoint in several of his latest works. This album gives a glimpse, though only a narrow one, into Mozart’s Bach studies.

The most ‘profane’ book of the Old Testament was among the favorite biblical texts of the Middle Ages. The composers of the Renaissance made particular use of it as a metaphor of divine love, or in association with the cult of Mary. After their first two extremely successful recordings, the singers of Stile Antico have chosen some of the finest specimens of these musical settings.

His complete set of the Beethoven sonatas enjoyed extraordinary acclaim in the UK, culminating in the prestigious ‘Recording of the Year' award from Gramophone magazine for the fourth volume in 2008. Encouraged by what has now become a worldwide success, Paul Lewis has chosen to turn his attention to the five piano concertos with these distinguished partners.