"The Historia der Auferstehung Jesu Christi, or Resurrection Story, is the first oratorio work by Heinrich Schütz and was first performed in 1623 during the vespers of the third day of Easter in the Chapel of Dresden’s Royal Palace. Although the original title speaks of the ""joyous and victorious resurrection,"" it is, at its core, a quiet and concentrated work with a refined dramaturgy in which the Easter jubilation only slowly breaks through. Schütz's work impressively captures the unspeakable and mysterious nature of the idea of resurrection in music. Ensemble Polyharmonique is a renowned collective of vocal soloists that specializes in the music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods with historical performance practice. In a larger cast and together with an outstanding instrumental ensemble, they present a high-quality, lively and stirring interpretation of the Resurrection History to which they add two wonderful Easter concertos by Heinrich Schütz and Michael Praetorius."

Conductor Herbert Blomstedt is a member of the top rank of modern conductors, having held long-term music directorships in both Europe and the U.S. Specializing in Romantic and early 20th century repertory, he has recorded a substantial body of work and has remained active into great old age. Blomstedt was born on July 11, 1927, in Springfield, Massachusetts, but his parents were Swedish, and they returned to their home country when Blomstedt was four. He grew up partly in Finland. His mother gave him piano lessons, and he took courses at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm while pursuing a general degree at the University of Uppsala. Drawn to conducting, he traveled to Paris for lessons with Igor Markevitch. This phase of Blomstedt's education laid the groundwork for his later versatility as a conductor as he studied contemporary music in the fertile city of Darmstadt in 1949, took pioneering classes in Baroque music with Paul Sacher at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland, and took lessons at the Juilliard School in New York with Jean Morel, and with Leonard Bernstein at the Tanglewood Festival in Massachusetts. Blomstedt's career was launched as he won the Koussevitsky Conducting Prize in 1953 and the Salzburg Conducting Competition in 1955.

Ever since its creation more than twenty-five years ago, the Accentus chamber choir has ardently championed the a cappella repertory: under its conductor and founder Laurence Equilbey, it has produced an impressive discography that sets the benchmark in this music. For this new recording, the first for Alpha, she hands over direction of the ensemble to Christophe Grapperon, its associate conductor since 2013: ‘It can never be said often enough: the a cappella repertory is a Holy Grail of vocal music! It is a sensory experience directly accessible to everyone, but demanding and often atypical for the listener.’ Hahn and Saint-Saëns are on the programme of this album in superb choral works combining simplicity and expressive power, some of which have never been recorded before.

Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony occupies a special position in Anton Bruckner's symphonic cycle. It heralds the cycle of his "mature" symphonies and with it the composer addressed his audience directly and wanted to be understood by them. He succeeded in this - today the “Romantic” is one of Bruckner's most popular symphonies. Still, he revised it time and again and today there are three versions of it.

This is a full recording of the original Italian version (the “Vienna version” from 1762) of Gluck’s beloved take on the Orpheus myth, Orfeo et Euridice PLUS extra music written by Gluck for later performances of his opera. It includes virtuoso arias for Fagioli and as such represents a brilliant showcase for him and a collectible item for connoisseurs. This is Franco Fagioli’s first ever recording of a complete opera in which he sings the title role and since, the role has become one of Franco’s calling cards in recent seasons. It is known for its absolutely gorgeous music, including one of opera’s most audience-pleasing tunes, the uber-famous aria “Che farò senza Euridice”. This version of the opera (by far the most popular one) appears for the first time ever on period instruments on DG / Archiv, hence filling a major gap in our catalogue and is a substantial project featuring one of our exciting new signings in one of his finest roles.

Founded in 1991 by French choral director Laurence Equilbey, the 32-member Choeur de Chambre Accentus' 1996 Virgin recording of a cappella songs and ballads by Brahms and Schumann is as clear and lovely as a cloud-flecked sky in early October. Composed during his early years in Hamburg, Brahms' Gesänge, Op. 42, are robustly romantic, while his Gesänge, Op. 104, composed during his late maturity in Vienna, are autumnally nostalgic. Composed primarily in Dresden, Schumann wrote his Romanzen und Ballades about the same time he started his long, slow decline into madness. But in these performances by the Accentus Chamber Choir, all the music – early, mature, or melancholy – sounds crisp, alert, and strong.

Nuit Sacrée documents a televised concert that was broadcast on Christmas Day 2009 on France 2, one of the main French TV Channels, from St Thomas’s Church in Strasbourg. It features some of the finest sacred pieces linked to the festive season, and an impressive array of some of the best musicians of our time. Perhaps the major attraction is the multi-award winning chamber choir Accentus under its acclaimed conductor Laurence Equilbey. They are joined by the equally celebrated baroque specialist ensemble Concerto Köln and several outstanding vocal and instrumental soloists, among them soprano Sandrine Piau, contralto Nathalie Stutzmann, bass-baritone Johannes Weisser and cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton.

On these best-selling CDs many classical masterpieces are given an original interpretation for choir. The Accentus Chamber Choir, under the direction of Laurence Equilbey, is unanimously recognised as one of the world’s finest vocal ensembles.

Saint-Saëns's first opera, Le Timbre d'argent initially composed in 1864 need not fear comparison with some of the most celebrated works in the nineteenth-century French repertory. It depicts the nightmare of a man whose hallucinations anticipate by twenty years the fantastical apparitions of Offenbach's Les Contes d Hoffmann.