Antje Weithaas probes every detail in the musical text, charged with energy and with her compelling musical intelligence and unrivaled command of technique. Her charisma and stage presence are gripping but never force their way in front of the work. And we therefore are happy that this internationally top-ranking violinist is now interpreting the Violin Concerto by Robert Schumann and the Double Concerto by Johannes Brahms for cpo with Maximilian Hornung, a cellist who in every way is her equal.

Signum’s fourth disc with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra continues their series of the great core Russian repertoire. Featuring the Orchestral suite of one of Tchaikovsky’s most famous ballets Swan Lake, complemented with Rachmaniov’s final composition Symphonic Dances.

Verdi's opera Attila takes as its starting point Attila’s plans to storm Rome with his army of Huns and the Romans’ attempts to prevent him. As with Nabucco and I Lombardi, Verdi spiced up the action with a number of patriotic choruses, guaranteeing that – against the background of the Italian movement for unification – the opera was a great success. 'Michele Mariotti owes much to the fact that this evening became a celebration of voices' (Opern-Kritik). Ildebrando D´Arcangelo is 'perfect for the serious Verdi roles', Fabio Sartori has a voice of immense brilliance' (Opern-Kritik), 'Simone Piazzola was an impressive Ezio' (theoperacritic.com) and 'the real warrior of this Attila is the soprano Maria Jose' Siri … with her voice, touching each primordial sentiment in every note of the opera, she commanded ‘Attention’ from everybody' (La Repubblica).

As a more consistently light-hearted version, with delightful La Scala sets and colourful costumes, the 1994 TDK Don Pasquale will also be hard to beat. Visually it is a joy, and with three outstanding principals the performance sparkles from start to finish. By not seeming too old, Ferruccio Furlanetto’s portrayal of Don Pasquale is the more convincing, but he has no chance against Nuccia Focille’s minx of a Norina and one certainly feels sorry for him at his discomfiture. Gregory Kunde is an appropriately ardent Ernesto; his voice isn’t creamy but the sings passionately and has good comic timing, and Lucio Gallo enters into the spirit of the story as a wily Dottore Malatesta.

Barcelona’s Palau de la Música Catalana, world heritage site and one of the world’s most beautiful concert halls, hosted Gustavo Dudamel and the Münchner Philharmoniker with an unforgettable performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “The Resurrection.“ The composer emphasizes life and death in all its terrible and stunning splendor in this overwhelming opus: “There is nothing except the complete substance of my whole life”, he remarked on his all-embracing oeuvre. Gustavo Dudamel, who said it was “a privilege to conduct this work in this unique venue,“ and his ensemble were celebrated with more than then minutes of applause.

Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony bring unsurpassed storytelling and musicality to their latest recording on the Grammy Award-winning SFS Media label: Berlioz’s dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette. With a narrative that Berlioz deemed “too beautiful, too musical” to not be performed, this impassioned orchestral scoring of love and despair is further enriched by the vocals of Sasha Cooke, Nicholas Phan, Luca Pisaroni, and the SFS Chorus. Available in studio master-quality on two-disc SACD and for digital download and streaming.

Michele Carafa was a friend of Rossini’s and worked with the composer on several occasions. I Due Figaro is a sequel to The Marriage of Figaro. Fifteen years on, the now adult Cherubino returns to the palace in disguise as Figaro II to be near the Count’s daughter. And Cherubino/Figaro II will triumph over adversity and send the original Figaro packing.

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his later works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung).

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian opera composer. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, and developed a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Gioachino Rossini, whose works significantly influenced him. By his 30s, he had become one of the pre-eminent opera composers in history.

Jean Sibelius, born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius (8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957), was a Finnish composer and violinist of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely recognized as his country's greatest composer and, through his music, is often credited with having helped Finland to develop a national identity during its struggle for independence from Russia.

A red hot ticket at the Metropolitan Opera in 2010/2011 was Donizetti’s comic gem, Don Pasquale, with Anna Netrebko reviving Norina, the part that made her a star in New York. Opera summed up the simple truth: “. . . everyone adored her”.

Just 26 years old, Nicola Benedetti has been making chart-topping recordings for 10 years. This album celebrates the best of those recordings, and her other successes – from winning the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 2004, to her 2012 best-selling album ‘The Silver Violin’, the highest charting classical instrumental album in the UK of the last two decades. A collection of great violin music – from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending to the Tchaikovsky and Bruch violin concertos and Arvo Part’s Spiegel Im Spiegel. Featuring brand new recordings – Brahms’ invigorating Hungarian Dance no. 5, Monti’s ever-popular Czardas, and Chopin’s emotional Nocturne in C# minor. The album includes Nicola performing with leading orchestras and conductors, as well as some of her favorite chamber players. This album showcases the incredible range of Nicola’s playing and demonstrates her wide appeal. In January 2013 Nicola was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to music and charity.

As children, the two composers featured on this album both received the same, first-class education. However, it is widely and lazily accepted that only the male sibling dedicated his life to music, while the female sibling did not, and so it is hardly surprising that Fanny Mendelssohn’s catalogue of works is much more concise than that of her brother. On this disc, we wished to reflect the two Mendelssohns through a pair of works written for the same chamber ensemble. Though their respective musical languages share many points of similarity, their individual artistic personalities shine through in a fascinating manner. We are especially thrilled to be able to present a recording of these two works on suitable instruments for the period. It’s not as if there is a surplus of such recordings.

Some music lovers are familiar with Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne, Liszt’s symphonic poem based on Victor Hugo. But who knows that, ten years earlier, César Franck was inspired by the same poem? This early piece is recorded here by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Mikko Franck. They couple it with the famous Symphony in D minor, dedicated to Henri Duparc and premiered, without much success, in 1889. Even if the score is quite well-known today, in the end it is performed quite rarely, which is a pity, because it really has all the characteristics of a masterpiece: melodic and harmonic inspiration, refined orchestration, variety of mood, an ingenious structure.

“This is something of a find – a production produced in Milan's television studios in 1973 that does more than justice to Giordano's verismo work about personal conflicts at the time of the French Revolution. It's directed, with considerable imagination, by the Czech Vaclav Kaslik, at the top of his profession in the 70s. In realistic period sets he unerringly creates the milieu of a degenerate aristocracy in Act 1 and of the raw mob-rule of the Revolution in the succeeding acts. The only drawback is the poor lip-synch. Conductor Bruno Bartoletti makes certain we're unaware of the score's weaker moments and releases all the romantic passion in Giordano's highly charged writing for his principals.