Sergiu Celibidache (1912-1996) has been called a musical giant, a magician, a brilliant lion-tamer and an enfant terrible of classical music. He was a legend in his own lifetime, mesmerizing orchestras audiences and critics with his intensity and brilliance. Celibidache himself claimed that not a single French conductor was capable of conducting French music - a bold statement that makes this recording even more interesting. This DVD shows most of what made Celibidache a legend in his own lifetime and offers todays viewer to participate in the musical wonders he produced.

This analogue recording was first issued in 1982 and features music written for the Russian Orthodox Church, ranging from anonymous medieval motets through to the first recording of John Tavener's Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete via Rachmaninov and Stravinsky.

LA VOIX DES RÊVES - Greatest Moments in Concert” (available on DVD & Blu Ray) features video footage from a number of occasions and venues – including items from a concert given among the crystal chandeliers of the splendid Galerie des Glaces in the palace of Versailles, and works by Handel and Vivaldi performed in another jewel of French Baroque architecture, the sumptuously decorated Chapelle de la Trinité in Lyon.

Painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, pioneer of flight, anatomist, scientist - yet according to Vasari, Leonardo’s first job outside Florence was as a musician. “Music cannot be regarded other than as the sister of painting', said Leonardo, so for the 500th anniversary of his death in 2019, I Fagiolini and Martin Kemp offer reflections of his images in vocal music: aural Fantasia dei Vinci - art through the prism of music.

Throughout history men have feared madwomen, burning them as witches, confining them in asylums and subjecting them to psychoanalysis – yet, they have also been fascinated, unable to resist fantasizing about them. For their new disc, Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton have created a programme that explores the responses of a variety of composers to women whose stories have left them vulnerable and exposed. As a motto they have chosen an aphorism by Nietzsche: ‘There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness.’

A selection of Richard Strauss’s most-loved lieder and songs, and Elisabeth’s arias from Wagner’s Tannhäuser, the role in which Lise Davidsen will make her debut at Bayreuth Festival. Plus Ariadne’s aria from Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos: her 2017 Glyndebourne debut in the title role was named “one of those ‘I was there’ moments” (The Times).
Also includes Strauss’s iconic Four Last Songs, originally premiered by Decca’s Kirsten Flagstad. Recorded with the Philharmonia Orchestra, who performed the premiere of the Four Last Songs, and Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Transfigured Night brings together two outstanding composers associated with Vienna: Joseph Haydn and Arnold Schoenberg. The former is often seen as the oldest representative of the First Viennese School, whereas the latter founded the Second Viennese School, using the classicism of his predecessors to explore new, atonal musical paths into the twentieth century. By combining Haydns two cello concertos (in C-major and D-major) and Schoenbergs symphonic poem Verklärte Nacht in the 1943 edition for string orchestra this album sheds a new, fascinating light on both Viennese masters. The connection between the stylistically contrasting pieces on this album is further enhanced by the inspired playing of American cellist Alisa Weilerstein and the Trondheim Soloists.

This is the original, somewhat longer version of the opera, for which director Sven-Eric Bechtolf created, in place of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s adaptation of Molières Le bourgeois gentilhomme, a fascinatingly entertaining intermezzo in which theatre, dance and the masterly music of Richard Strauss form an impressive unity. “It incorporates elements of Molière’s play and text from the later prologue, with which he and Strauss salvaged their hybrid flop to produce the masterpiece we know today,” wrote The Sunday Times. “In the abstract, it might sound ­rarefied, but on the Salzburg opera stage, it proved entrancing.” TheNew York Times reported, “Jonas Kaufmann was spectacular as Bacchus growing improbably stronger as his relatively brief stint progressed. Emily Magee was scarcely less impressive in the demanding longer role of Ariadne. And Elena Mosuc managed Zerbinetta’s vocal pyrotechnics with aplomb.”

Celebrating one of the most revered conductors of the 20th century, this series was originally released to commemorate Herbert von Karajan’s 100th birthday in 2008. Using innovate technology to recreate the original concert acoustics, the audio for these DVDs has been re-recorded at the Philharmonic Hall in Berlin and the Musikverein in Vienna, Karajan’s two favourite concert venues, to create re-mastered surround-sound versions of these classic performances. With each DVD featuring von Karajan conducting either the Berlin Philharmonic or Vienna Philharmonic orchestras, two of the highest regarded orchestras in the world, this series really does marry the greatest music, the highest calibre performers, and the best possible audio-visual presentation.

This short (less than 40 minutes) CD is a sly satire on the popularity of the "Three Tenors" recordings–in which a trio of talented but aging opera stars recorded show tunes that did not strain their voices. The liner notes speak of a struggle of "tenors vs. countertenors". The album purports to be the countertenors reclaiming musical material that was stolen from them.

Celebrating one of the most revered conductors of the 20th century, this series was originally released to commemorate Herbert von Karajan’s 100th birthday in 2008. Using innovate technology to recreate the original concert acoustics, the audio for these DVDs has been re-recorded at the Philharmonic Hall in Berlin and the Musikverein in Vienna, Karajan’s two favourite concert venues, to create re-mastered surround-sound versions of these classic performances. With each DVD featuring von Karajan conducting either the Berlin Philharmonic or Vienna Philharmonic orchestras, two of the highest regarded orchestras in the world, this series really does marry the greatest music, the highest calibre performers, and the best possible audio-visual presentation.

…Music of radiant splendour, full of affirmation… With Janice Watson, Della Jones, Martyn Hill and Donald Maxwell as soloists, the LSO Chorus in marvellous voice and glowing orchestral playing, the Missa takes its rightful place alongside its illustrious.

A historic version of the patriotic October cantata by Prokofiev plus only the second public performance of Shostakovich's 13th Symphony on December 20, 1962, using the original text by Yevtushenko, which pays tribute to murdered Jews in the Ukrainian ravine of Babi Yar.

The Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27, is a symphony by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, written in 1906–07. The premiere was conducted by the composer himself in Saint Petersburg on 8 February 1908. Its duration is approximately 60 minutes when performed uncut; cut performances can be as short as 35 minutes. The score is dedicated to Sergei Taneyev, a Russian composer, teacher, theorist, author, and pupil of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Alongside his Piano Concerto No. 2 and Piano Concerto No. 3, this symphony remains one of the composer's best known compositions.

Although Toivo Kuula was one of the few pupils taught by Sibelius, he never really had to struggle to emerge from his teacher’s shadow into his own independent light. Kuula originally had wanted to be a violinist and continued to favour the violin even after the playing of this instrument had receded into the background and his activities as a composer had come to occupy the foreground. The Sonata Movement of 1906 already attests to the composer’s remarkable mastery in the design of musical processes. The essential difference between this piece and the Violin Sonata Op. 1 composed during the following year, when Kuula was a student in Helsinki, is that in the latter work his own voice is present from the very beginning.