Vasily Petrenko is one of the most significant and galvanizing musicians alive. He became famous for his transformative work at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the oldest orchestra in the United Kingdom, where he refashioned the orchestra's sound, reconnected the organization to its home city and presided over a huge increase in ticket sales. Vasily is one of the most acclaimed classical recording artists alive and has won numerous accolades for his recordings of Russian repertoire, including two Gramophone awards.

Orlando (HWV 31) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel written for the King's Theatre in London in 1733. The Italian-language libretto was adapted from Carlo Sigismondo Capece"L'Orlando after Ludovico Ariosto"Orlando Furioso, which was also the source of Handel's operas Alcina and Ariodante". More an artistic than a popular success at its first performances, Orlando is today recognised as a masterpiece.

How do you characterize a voice like this? The "official" description is "contralto", but no way is Richard Tucker Award-winner Stephanie Blythe a contralto in any conventional sense. This is a voice so versatile that in her opening "Ombra mai fu" (and in many other places) you'd swear that you were listening to one of today's new breed of countertenors–specifically David Daniels, who coincidentally records for the same label and appears on this program in a duet from Handel's Giulio Cesare. (In fact, their voices are so perfectly matched that when they sing together it's nearly impossible to tell them apart.)

Eduard van Beinum's 1958 account of the Water Music captures the magnificent wind section of the Concertgebouw Orchestra at its early post-War peak, and rather than fuss over every phrase and rhythm, as so many of today's "authenticists" do, Beinum offers lively harmonic and rhythmic support while encouraging his nonpareil players to really enjoy themselves–and do they ever! Listen to the those magnificently brazen but always golden-toned horns at the opening of the Menuet (Pomposo), the brilliant trumpets in the famous Alla Hornpipe, and the soulful oboes and bassoons in their many solo turns (the oboist in the Adagio e staccato deserves a standing ovation for that movement alone).

Handel wrote very little for the flute. Indeed, when he wrote the indication ‘flauto’ in his scores he meant recorder. His use of ‘traversa’ is limited to a few sonatas and an occasional movement in operas and oratorios. However, the flute was a popular instrument among amateur musicians in Handel’s London. The publisher John Walsh capitalised on this when printing arrangements of arias and overtures that could be played by either flute or violin, with continuo accompaniment. The London Handel Players take inspiration from Walsh’s editions, with flautist Rachel Brown restoring violin parts to some favourite pieces from Alcina, Solomon and Semele.

This 10-CD box set of British orchestral music brings together a mouth-watering selection from the enterprising series of discs that the English conductor Douglas Bostock has made with various orchestras for the Classico label.
Important British composers are certainly featured - there are CDs devoted to Elgar, Holst, Vaughan Williams, Bax and Arnold - but this imaginative collection also includes many surprises, just waiting to be discovered, such as symphonies by Frederic Cowen and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Alan Bush and Ruth Gipps, concertos for orchestra by Edward Gregson, Alun Hoddinott and John McCabe, plus a host of smaller works. The recordings here, many world premieres, date from 1998 to 2005.

Political and cultural circumstances – depending on whether Lorraine / Lothringen belonged to France or Germany – made Théodore Gouvy a border crosser between these two countries. It was very unusual for a French composer of his generation not to assign a central role to music theater in his oeuvre. His rejection of Wagner's music dramas also made him something of an exception in France. It is true, however, that the oratorio was a key genre within his oeuvre – and the oratorio at least can be counted as a dramatic genre. Gouvy wrote six major oratorio compositions, two based on Nordic subjects and two drawing on ancient tragedies.

Milena Wilke was born in Freiburg in Breisgau in 1996. She won first place in the Ton und Erklärung competition (Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft) 2016 in Berlin and won several other prizes in competitions on both national and international level. In 2017, she was awarded a scholarship by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes und des Richard-Wagner-Verbands Konstanz and was additionally welcomed in the organization Yehudi Menuhin, Live Music Now. For this new release, together with Tatiana Chernichka she has recorded several works for violin and piano and she also has written two pieces herself.

Jory Vinikour, one of the outstanding harpsichordists of his generation, celebrates the Handel year with a wonderful new recording of Handel s 'Great' Suites, topped off with a special version of the famous Chaconne in G Major. Jory's Handel is unquestionably as 'definitive' as his celebrated version of the Bach Goldberg Variations. Thenobility, tenderness and delightful variety of each Suite speaks of Jory's musical perspective not only as a virtuoso, but also as a conductor, opera continuist and joint recitalist in the course of his highly diversified career. The warm sound of this new Handel recording can be attributed to the instrument Jory plays, which is based on the 1739 Dresden harpsichord built by Heinrich Gräbner, with its extended basses and corresponding richness of timbre.

Kullervo represents not only the confident first step in Sibelius's symphonic odyssey, it is also a viscerally exciting experience on its own terms. It is little wonder that the first performance in 1892 was such a triumph for the young composer. This recording from Thomas Dausgaard and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in an unmissable acquisition for anyone who knows only the numbered symphonies.

Following on from and designed along the same lines as the Guide to Period Instruments, this boxed set includes an exhaustive introductory text as well as a great quantity of music excerpts on the set’s eight CDs. These extracts have been taken from the extensive repertoire recorded by Ricercar over many years, with excerpts from recordings kindly provided by our colleagues from Harmonia Mundi, Gimell, Accent, Alpha and Sony supplementing our programme where necessary. The Lutheran repertoire of the Renaissance has remained for all intents and purposes unrecorded up until now; the tracks illustrating this repertoire together with other excerpts have been recorded specially for this compilation by Vox Luminis.

This is a wonderful collection of Spanish Baroque harpsichord music. Of course Scarlatti, who came from Italy, is the king. Igor Kipnis plays one of Scarlatti's single sonatas and the great triptych, K. 490- 92. He gives an object lesson in performing Scarlatti with imagination, virtuosity, taste, and ornamented repeats, the latter adding a great deal of interest to the music. José Nebra and Josep Soler aren't quite on Scarlatti's level, but the way Igor Kipnis plays their entertaining music is bound to hold your attention.

Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez is performed and recorded more than all the other guitar concertos put together, and the outer movements are full of Spanish warmth and color, framing a central adagio that builds in intensity like a poignant prayer. This recording is justly famous for "Bonell's imaginative account of the solo part" and "an exceptionally clear, atmospheric recording".

Did you perhaps also think that the Art of Fugue was a mathematical-abstract work, possibly something cumbersome, an unfinished “cycle of death”? Banish that from your mind…

A beautifully-packaged 50-disc box set, released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, one of the most important and adventurous early music labels. The set contains 50 classic recordings of baroque and ancient music, chosen to represent the breadth of this huge and varied catalogue and each disc is slip-cased with artwork replicating the original CD or LP artwork.