Canadian ensemble Notturna offers a charming instrumental version of the opera L'Amant jaloux (the jealous lover) by André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry (1741-1813). This anonymous arrangement for flute, oboe, violin, viola, and bass was found in the Biblioteca Estense di Modena. Though undated, it was likely transcribed in 1778, the year Grétry composed the opera. Founded in 2006 and directed by oboist Christopher Palameta, Notturna is a chamber collective whose spirited and sensitive playing (Early Music America) draws on the transparency and expressiveness of early wind instruments to paint fresh pictures of an unexplored historical repertoire.

Shirley Verrett makes a deeply impressive Orfeo, firm and pure in sound, classically restrained in expression; and her "Che farò", at a moderate, beautifully judged speed, is very finely sung, poised and quietly moving. The set is conducted by Renato Fasano, whose pacing of the score shows a very sure touch. The dance music has a grace and lightness, and a stylistic command, that one might not have expected from an orchestra which in those days seemed to be fed chiefly on a diet of Vivaldi.

One of the most brilliant works in the quartet literature, an exciting new composition based on it, and a virtuoso award-winning ensemble: the Aris Quartet's GENUIN album Attacca bursts with energy from the very first moment. Highly acclaimed with awards such as "Echo Rising Stars" 2019, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust, and "New Generations Artists" 2018, the Aris Quartet juxtaposes Beethoven's "Russian" Quartet Op. 59, No. 1, with Gerald Resch's String Quartet No. 3. Gerald Resch's intention was to build a kind of "adjacent property" to Beethoven. The Aris Quartet vividly brings out both the connections and differences with its nuanced playing.

Better known as Gran Partita, Mozart’s Serenade in B-flat major, K 361 is the crowning glory of the Harmoniemusik of the Classical era. Austrian and German nobles in particular often employed small wind ensembles called Harmonien which provided entertainment during banquets and outdoor festivities. In order to satisfy the growing demand for suitable music, countless arrangements of operas and ballet music were made, while original works were supplied by a wide range of composers – Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and many lesser masters wrote Harmoniemusik.

Cramer’s piano concertos were written to showcase his formidable proficiency in the new pianistic techniques—and evolving piano technologies—of the day. Howard Shelley here revisits the composer, delivering persuasive accounts of three further concertos.

When Mozart took up the popular genre of the serenade, it was to transcend it and lend it new lustre. A festive masterpiece of simplicity and emotion, his Gran Partita quickly became a genuine ‘hit’! Thanks to the distinctive, spellbinding timbres of their period instruments, the members of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin give a unique flavour to these two extraordinary serenades, over which there blows – as it were – a tremendous wind of freedom.

After acclaimed recordings of the great Romantic violin concertos by Brahms, Bruch and Tchaikovsky, Vadim Gluzman takes on the work that in the beginning of the 19th century mapped out a new course for the genre: Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61.

Immensely gifted emerging artist" (New York Times) Daniel Lozakovich has been dreaming about recording the Beethoven Violin Concerto since he was eight. He first performed it on stage when he was thirteen, and at fifteen was invited by Valery Gergiev to perform the concerto with him in Moscow. A few short years later, he has reunited with his mentor Gergiev to record the Beethoven with the Mnchner Philharmoniker for Deutsche Grammophon.

Carl Maria von Weber wrote music that has been admired by composers as diverse as Schumann, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky. But in his lifetime he was also recognised as one of the finest pianists of the period, with an exceptional technique and a brilliant gift for improvisation. Especially during the 1810s he toured extensively, and like other composer-pianists he wrote works to use as his personal calling cards, among them the two piano concertos recorded here. They were both composed in 1811-12, but while the First Concerto takes Mozart's concertos as its model, Piano Concerto No. 2 looks towards Beethoven.

Andreas Romberg is now more than an insiders tip; he is a recognized composer situated on the interface between Classicism and Romanticism. Romberg was regarded as a celebrated violin virtuoso, concertmaster, and composer, and his stays in Paris, Vienna, Prague, and Italy spread his fame internationally. He met Ludwig van Beethoven, Joseph Haydn, and many other musical personalities of his times. A great deal of his oeuvre covering all sorts of different genres was forgotten, but this is slowly changing, primarily owing to the Arbeitsstelle Andreas Romberg at the University of Vechta, a research center that since 1993 has engaged in the systematic investigation of this composers works.

Christian Cannabich himself - at first leader of the orchestra, then director of instrumental music at the court of Carl Theodor - was one of those who engaged with the new form of music drama. Cannabich, who mostly composed symphonies, chamber music and ballet suites and enjoyed the reputation among his contemporaries of being an excellent orchestra mentor, created the stage work Electra in 1781 with a setting of words by Mannheim intendant von Dalberg. From its beginnings in France, the melodrama established itself in the 1770s as an independent form of music drama, with particular success in the German-speaking territories.

"The greatest cellist of modern time" – well, who could argue with a statement like that? After all, Mstislav Rostropovich is a supreme virtuoso, a charismatic performer, and a sublime interpreter and virtually every one of his recordings is as good as it gets for the repertoire.

L'un des reprsentants du piano classique les plus reconnus dans le monde entier, Lang Lang est l'une des rares superstars de la musique classique dpassant largement les frontires du genre. A l'occasion du 250me anniversaire de Beethoven, ce nouveau disque du pianiste chinois compile les Sonates No.2 et No. 23 du compositeur allemand, interprtes en live Vienne par Lang Lang qui avait alors subjug le public avec son interprtation intense et pointue, tout en maestria et profondeur. La No. 23, la fameuse Appassionata, reste en effet ce jour l'une des pices de Beethoven les plus rpute pour sa difficult technique. Le disque se clt avec un titre bonus, enregistrement studio du 3me mouvement de la Sonate 'Tempte' (No. 17), tire de la bande originale du jeu-vido Gran Turismo 5.

Pianist/Conductor Barenboim continues his 2020 Beethoven Journey with a complete recording of Piano Trios. "There is a lack of equality in this world. For only if everyone were equal there would be no conflicts", he says. Equal standing is also indispensable for the piano trios of Beethoven, whom he's always regarded as one of the most important composers. Performed w/ Michael Barenboim & Kian Soltani, who were shaped as concertmaster and principal cellist of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

Here are Emma Johnson's recordings of the three clarinet concertos by Henrik Crusell, all recorded with different conductors and at different times throughout the mid-1980s to 1991. Briefly stated, these are romantic conceptions of music by a composer that was essentially Beethoven's peer. The pearl of this CD is the recording of Crusell's Concerto No. 2 in F minor. Here, Johnson and conductor Charles Groves are of single mind in their pursuit of romance and virtuosity. Indeed, Johnson launches into a lengthy and very individual cadenza in the latter sequence of the first movement I have never before heard in a recording of this music. Groves supports the exhibitionism of the soloist with highly charged orchestral backup where he dots the rhythm with clearly enunciated timpani beats.