Distinguished British music interpreter Sir Andrew Davis joins forces with the BBCSO once again, this time with acclaimed soloists Dame Sarah Connolly and Andrew Staples, in this thoughtful presentation of the last two substantial choral works of Sir Edward Elgar. The matury of Elgar as an orchestrator is obvious in both works on this album, notably, in 'The Music Makers' (1912), during passages in which he quotes from 'Sea Pictures' and the Violin Concerto, and in representing the sound of aircraft in 'The Spirit of England' (1917). Elgar uses self-quotation to reflect: 'The Music Makers' is a canvas of self-reflection, written quickly following a period of illness.

Glyndebourne’s intimate opera house provides the perfect setting for Rossini’s third French opera, a sparkling medieval comedy of lust and chastity. Jérôme Savary brings out all the verve and excitement of this rarely heard score.

Carl Vine AO is one of Australia's best known and most frequently performed composers, with an impressive orchestral catalogue featuring eight symphonies and 13 concertos.

Michael Tippett’s oratorio A Child of Our Time was composed between 1939 and 1942 as a direct response to the events leading up to (and including) the notorious Kristallnacht, in November 1938, in National Socialist Germany. Tippet first intended to write an opera, but quickly determined that this would inevitably be too literal, and that the (rather neglected) oratorio form lent greater scope for reflective and meditative interjections to the narrative. Hoping to persuade his friend and mentor T.S. Elliot to write the libretto, he sent the poet such an intricately detailed plan that Elliot responded by suggesting that Tippett, having thought so carefully about it, prepare the text himself – which he duly did. (He then went on to write his own libretti for all his future large vocal works).

That The Planets occupies a place at the heart of the English musical repertoire is indisputable, yet much of Holst’s orchestral output is unjustly neglected. Chandos’ series demonstrates that Holst was a composer whose inventiveness and originality was not limited to one work. The series was originally to be conducted by Richard Hickox who sadly passed away in 2009 after completing Volume 1, released to great critical acclaim. Gramophone stated that ‘Richard Hickox’s final project, reviving little-known Holst works, is a triumph’.

Christian Li walks in the footsteps of Mendelssohn, bringing the music from his travels around Europe to life. Recorded with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, we follow Mendelssohn’s own journeys, with pieces written in Leipzig, Düsseldorf, Munich, Venice & London, including music from the composer’s own inspirations and contemporaries: J. S. Bach, Mozart & Schubert.

The Starlight Express was adapted from a book by Algernon Blackwood, A Prisoner in Fairyland, for a theatre production in the West End during the First World War, with music by Sir Edward Elgar. Combining the usually contrasting elements of fairytale and melodrama, The Starlight Express depicts the fantasy world inhabited by a group of children, who possess a magical ‘starlight’ quality that has been lost by the adults around them. This is the most comprehensive recorded version of The Starlight Express to date, based on a new score prepared by the Elgar Edition, which has been adapted by the conductor Sir Andrew Davis.

Five years after the highly-praised release of Volume 3, Sir Andrew Davis returns to his exploration of Holst’s orchestral works with the brilliant BBC Philharmonic, a series initiated almost ten years ago by the late Richard Hickox, then taken over by another expert in British repertoire. This selection of orchestral works by Holst provides a remarkable overview of his career, ranging from such early works as A Winder Idyll – composed in 1897 when he was still studying at the Royal College of Music – to the Scherzo of a symphony on which he was working towards the end of his life.

With this release, Sir Andrew Davis and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra round out their Ives cycle in superb form. Recordings of Ives, unlike Gershwin, by groups outside of the U.S. may still be comparatively rare, but Davis has nailed the essential diverse, dense networks of Ives' language, assisted by new performing editions and by excellent Chandos engineering in two different Melbourne venues, thereby keeping the multiple strands of the music clear.

Born in 1885, Alban Berg was one of the most significant composers of the Second Viennese School, whose output proved tremendously influential in the development of music in the twentieth century. He was a student of Schoenberg, who found that his juvenile compositions were almost exclusively written for voice; his natural ability to write lyrical melodic lines (even in later life while following the restrictions of twelve-tone serialism) probably remained the most outstanding quality of his style. His Op. 1 Piano Sonata was the fulfilment of a task set by Schoenberg to write non-vocal music. The Passacaglia, written between the sonata and World War I was only completed in short-score, and may have been intended to form part of a larger work.

Experience the transcendent glory of Messiah in Sir Andrew Davis’s new, majestic, must-hear edition of Handel’s beloved classic.

The Symphony in C was conceived in Paris in the late 1930s, but completed in America in 1940, and is dedicated to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary. Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and premièred in 1946, the Symphony in Three Movements presents us with movements that also manifest different ways of moving: a march, a slow dance, and a march-jog-race.

Born in 1885, Alban Berg was one of the most significant composers of the Second Viennese School, whose output proved tremendously influential in the development of music in the twentieth century. He was a student of Schoenberg, who found that his juvenile compositions were almost exclusively written for voice; his natural ability to write lyrical melodic lines (even in later life while following the restrictions of twelve-tone serialism) probably remained the most outstanding quality of his style. His Op. 1 Piano Sonata was the fulfilment of a task set by Schoenberg to write non-vocal music. The Passacaglia, written between the sonata and World War I was only completed in short-score, and may have been intended to form part of a larger work. Both pieces are recorded here in skilful orchestrations by Sir Andrew Davis. The Three Orchestral Pieces were composed alongside his first great masterpiece, Wozzeck, and could be seen as a tribute to his musical hero, Mahler.

The great Renée Fleming stars as the beguiling femme fatale who captivates all Paris in Lehár’s enchanting operetta, seen in a new staging by Broadway virtuoso director and choreographer Susan Stroman (The Producers, Oklahoma!, Contact). Stroman and her design team of Julian Crouch (Satyagraha, The Enchanted Island) and costume designer William Ivey Long (Cinderella, Grey Gardens, Hairspray) have created an art-nouveau setting that climaxes with singing and dancing grisettes at the legendary Maxim’s. Nathan Gunn co-stars as Danilo and Kelli O’Hara is Valencienne. Sir Andrew Davis conducts.

Recorded at Glyndebourne’s superb new opera house, this lavishly praised production of Rossini’s forgotten and unusual tragic opera has proved to be an unequivocal success. Based on Racine’s Andromaque, this account of the Greek and Trojan love tangle has been set by Graham Vick in the classically-inspired auditorium of an Italian opera house, rather than in ancient Greece. The set designs, with their striking colours, forms and lighting are as if created especially for the small screen.