This programme reflects a personal journey: I am Belgian, I studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and now I live in France. I wanted to present composers from these three countries, taking as my cornerstone the English song repertory and the English language. It was Britten’s On this Island that started me thinking in this direction. William Walton’s Daphne and Ivor Gurney’s tiny but intensely fresh Spring touch me enormously and form a part of my life experience.

Great Britain's music culture is marked by a centuries-old tradition of choral singing, as is shown, for instance, in the institution of college choirs. Church policy had a beneficial effect on the development of sacred music. After the Anglican Church separated from Rome in the 16th c. and the abbeys were secularized, many cathedral choirs were founded which took over the Holy Office from the monastic communities. The fact that sacred choral music in the British Isles is still written largely with an orientation to liturgical purposes must be understood as an effect of this constellation. The close relationship between the way composers and performers work, moreover, explains the tendency of a large portion of this art to be addressed to the general public.

Anticipating the 50th anniversary of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in 2022, we present their complete recordings on DG. The intriguing sound culture of Orpheus, especially of the string section, is often explained as a result of the cooperative mindset of the orchestra and its artistic process of rehearsing.

In the first decade of his recording career, cellist Gautier Capuçon has demonstrated great versatility, playing as often as a chamber musician as he has appeared as a concerto soloist. His repertoire covers the standard cello works, though he frequently performs pieces that are less expected. Thus, on this 2014 release from Erato, Capuçon delivers a stirring performance of Franz Schubert's famous Arpeggione Sonata, which is regularly recorded by cellists, yet he fills the rest of the disc with pieces a bit off the beaten path, such as Robert Schumann's Five Pieces in Folk Style, Claude Debussy's Sonata for cello and piano, and Benjamin Britten's Sonata in C.

The recital begins with Keats and ends with Shakespeare: that can’t be bad. But it also begins with Stanford and ends with Parry; what would the modernists of their time have thought about that? They would probably not have believed that those two pillars of the old musical establishment would still be standing by in 1999. And in fact how well very nearly all these composers stand! Quilter’s mild drawing–room manners might have been expected to doom him, but the three songs here – the affectionate, easy grace of his Tennyson setting, the restrained passion of his ‘Come away, death’ and the infectious zest of ‘I will go with my father a–ploughing’ – endear him afresh and demonstrate once again the wisdom of artists who recognise their own small area of ‘personal truth’ and refuse to betray it in exchange for a more fashionable ‘originality’.

Recorded in 2007 by Yannick Nezet-Seguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain, La Mer garnered five stars from the French magazine Diapason, which declared, “What is immediately apparent in Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s Debussy is its meticulousness, its almost chamber-music like transparency, and its subtle shading.” Pierre Mercure’s Kaléidoscope was also praised for its “formidably contrasted reading …Under Yannick Nézet- Séguin’s baton, the work’s constantly shifting emotional limate combines tragic grandeur with the most cheerful lightness.”

This is a sensational, bang up CD. The sound engineering is rich and full, giving you a full injection of glorious string sound. As for the performances, they are some of the best I've ever heard. The Britten is comparable to the composer's own recording, while the Warlock is absolutely the finest I know of. If you are familiar with recordings of these works by William Boughton and the English String Orchestra or by Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, these performances will not seem out of place in their company.

This excellent recording was originally issued by Chandos in 1991… The terrific London Symphony Chorus is a real show-stopper. They sing with absolute clarity of texture and with amazing vocal effects. The tenor part was written for the idiosyncratic tone and agility of Peter Pears. Martyn Hill more than lives up to the challenge; he is absolutely perfect… Hodgson’s mezzo is rich ripe and mellow… Hickox moves the music along with a light-hearted drive, stressing the happy bucolic qualities.

Britten’s dramatic cantata Phaedra is the resonant centre of this new release in EMI’s excellent British Composers series. The steely gleam at the core of Felicity Palmer’s mezzo-soprano, and the hard white light of the Endymion’s outstanding ensemble playing make for a fierce kindling of Britten’s music with Robert Lowell’s words at one exceptional moment in the work’s performing history. John Whitfield’s direction ensures that the Five French Folksongs are nicely poised between raw simplicity and elegant sophistication, while the Endymion’s incisive playing warms to the sensuousness of Jill Gomez’s Les Illuminations.

To celebrate the epic recording career of cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, Deutsche Grammophon presents a comprehensive box set that brings together for the first time all of his recordings for DG, Decca and Philips; in addition to the Westminster/Melodija recordings from their archives. Presented with the original jackets, this limited edition 37CD box features legendary recordings with Karajan, Argerich, Mutter, Britten, Richter, Serkin and more!

This imaginatively-curated, generously-filled Christmas package is sure to find favor during this and future holiday seasons. Why? Because it packs in every conceivable carol, tune, choral work or song in timeless performances from the greatest artists in the world: singers of immense communicative gifts including Cecilia Bartoli, Bryn Terfel, Renee Fleming and Luciano Pavarotti to name but four. It truly offers something of every Christmas mind, spirit, and looks fantastic.

Founded in 1998 at Pro Corda, Suffolk, the multi-award-winning Doric String Quartet describes recording Brittens quartets as a significant milestone: In our recording we have endeavoured to tread a line that brings out the humanity in these works but also recognises the need for distance and fragility. This is very personal and intimate music, yet also world-encompassing and timeless. The Quartet continues: Another feature of this recording is that Hélène Clément, our violist, is playing on Benjamin Brittens own viola. This instrument (on loan from the Britten-Pears Foundation) was made in 1843 in Milan by Francesco Guissani. It was previously owned by the composer Frank Bridge who gave it to Britten, as a departure gift when Britten and Pears set sail for the USA in 1939. ​

The fact that Timothy Ridout has recorded a whole album of music for unaccompanied viola before the age of thirty is a telling indication of the meteoric rise of this prodigious, boundary-pushing artist. As is his choice of contrasting the Baroque era (Telemann and Bach) with two figures of modern music, in Britten's rarely heard Elegy and Caroline Shaw's in manus tuas. This program is a breathtaking ode to the viola over the centuries, played with all the fire of youth.

Decca Classics proudly announces Shostakovich & Britten, the new album from internationally acclaimed cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason. Featuring Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2, performed with John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London, alongside the cello sonatas of Shostakovich and Britten, this deeply personal recording pays tribute to cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, the towering figure who inspired both composers—and Kanneh-Mason himself.

Introducing an ambitious debut release, Warner Classics brings you a teriffic album with Baritone Huw Montague Wendell who flexes his extensive variety of talent and style! 'Contempation' stretches across three centuries, a journey into the transformation of musical dramas of opera, operetta, lied and Broadway musicals. Joining the stage is Canadian soprano Elisabeth Boudreault in which she and Huw perform a duet from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.