A keen advocate of the works of Antonio Salieri, Christophe Rousset continues his exploration of the composer's works, having unearthed the manuscript of another masterpiece. The three-act opera Armida, first performed on June 2, 1771 in Vienna, presents a perfect synthesis of the Italian and French styles. Salieri was just twenty when he turned to the difficult opera seria genre. He chose to tackle a well-known subject: that of the love affair between the Christian Crusader Rinaldo and the Saracen sorceress Armida, borrowed from Tasso's epic poem Gerusalemme liberata. A very dense plot focuses on an intense drama involving just four characters. The fluidity, originality and brio of his compositional style were to ensure Salieri's lasting reputation throughout Europe.

Liya Petrova burst onto the international scene in 2016 when she took First Prize at the Carl Nielsen Competition in Denmark, chaired by Nikolaj Szeps- Znaider.

Beethoven’s nine symphonies are not only the most famous in the whole of music history, they are the pillars of our canon of western symphonic music. Although Beethoven was born 250 years ago, his symphonies have not lost any of their relevance, and even contemporary composers still measure themselves against this musical giant.

This extraordinary CD features an interesting chapter in music history that has given rise to many a speculation: Ludwig van Beethoven’s only opera, Leonore, in the world-premiere recording of the version of 1806.

The “best of my works,” as Beethoven described his String Trios Op.9 when they were published in July 1798.

Following his acclaimed recording of Beethoven’s concertos with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet returns to his exploration of Haydn’s sonatas, described by the magazine Gramophone as ‘a major modern recording landmark in the Haydn discography’. As in previous instalments, Bavouzet has programmed sonatas from Haydn’s early, middle, and late periods, giving added interest to the recital. Sonatas Nos 10 and 2, dating from the 1750s and ’60s respectively, share the key of C major, but differ in form. The short No. 2 was almost certainly written for pupils whilst Haydn was working as a teacher. No. 10 is more ambitious and extensive. Sonatas Nos 41 and 44 date from the early 1770s and show some influence from C.P.E. Bach and the Sturm und Drang movement. More virtuosic than the earlier sonatas, in these the trademark humour of Haydn is also more evident. Sonatas Nos 52 and 53 were composed a decade later and are conspicuously more demanding, technically and musically. As in the case of the previous volumes, this album was recorded at Potton Hall in Suffolk, on a Yamaha CFX Concert Grand Piano.

There are preciously no other recording of Cimarosa's 1781 premiered work Il Pittor Parigiano, so this 1986 Hungarotun recording is about the only performance put down in discography. A recording of the complete score, it is done exceedingly handsomely, with Tamas Pal and the Salieri Chamber Orchestra once again proving that one does not need to be playing period instruments to produce a winning performance. The work is among the finest of operas written by Cimarosa, written for two sopranos, two tenors and one bass.

The Prague Chamber Orchestra contributes some very good string playing to this Mozart reading by Sir Charles Mackerras. The approach is modern but well informed, with clean, light, agile, and luminous results. Mackerras observes the repeats (including that of the first movement recapitulation) and chooses excellent tempos. The Romance is especially lovely. Telarc's recording yields a fairly realistic concert-hall perspective, but the distant pickup and reverberation tend to muddy the texture a little. The coupling is an excellent account of the Posthorn Serenade.

During the early nineteenth century the new 1804 Viennese version of La Clemenza di Tito, was Mozart's most popular opera in Europe. However, in keeping with the practice during that period, it was performed in versions adapted to the times and the taste of the opera public and this is precisely the starting point for our recording's conductor Alessandro De Marchi. He would like to present Tito in the form in which it was staged and acclaimed in great houses from the Vienna Court Opera to the Milan Scala and from Dresden and Hamburg to Paris during the early years of the nineteenth century. Our recording is based on the acclaimed production at the Innsbruck Festival Weeks 2013 with the Academia Montis Regalis performing on historical instruments.

Domenico Cimarosa succeeded Salieri as court composer in Vienna and was liked and respected by both Haydn and Mozart. He had an eventful life that included a stint working for Catherine the Great in St. Petersburg (he went back to southern Italy because he couldn't hack the cold weather) and imprisonment in old age for having supported the French Revolution. This Dixit Dominus comes from the last stage of Cimarosa's career, after he composed most of the operas for which he is best known today. Even more than most sacred pieces of the late eighteenth century it is extremely operatic.

Attorno alla metà del '700 Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785) era il compositore più completo, di maggiore successo, e il più significativo dell'Italia settentrionale. La fama della sua attività come compositore di opere serie giunse a Londra, dove fu chiamato nel 1741, e a S. Pietroburgo dove Caterina di Russia lo volle nel 1765.Nel 1749 Galuppi iniziò la collaborazione, assai fruttifera, con Carlo Goldoni, dalla quale trasse materia per una dozzina di opere buffe, genere al quale il "Buranello" attese nella parte finale della propria carriera.

Gustavo primo, re di Svezia (Gustavus the First, King of Sweden) is a three act opera seria by Baldassare Galuppi, with a libretto by Carlo Goldoni, fictionalising events in the life of Gustav I of Sweden. Composed in honour of the Genoese nobleman marchese Giovanni Giacomo Grimaldi, it premiered on 25 May 1740 at Venice's Teatro San Samuele. It was first recorded in 2003 by Karoly, Gonzalez, Cecchetti and the Capella Savaria Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Fabio Pirona.

Giuseppe Cambini has had a bad press for almost two centuries: Mozart told tales of his jealousy and intrigue, and the sheer size of his output – at least 600 instrumental works, a dozen operas, and more – has prompted further suspicion (there is nothing worse than being facile). He composed almost as many string quintets as Boccherini (with whom he played as a young man) and even more quartets, and he wrote nearly 100 works in the fashionable Parisian form of the time, the symphonie concertante.

Indeed: solitude, or, more exactly, isolation, is what marked Haydn’s biography the most. Composing at the Esterházy court, he lived far from Vienna, without having to bother with the distractions of socializing among the upper set in the Imperial city. Haydn could remain at one with himself and his music, as he famously stated himself: “No one near could confuse me, so I was forced to become original.” Perhaps his situation in those surroundings allowed him the inner freedom to write a sort of music that seems to remain at one with itself. Of course this music is also “asking” to be awoken into sound, to be heard by others. Yet in another way, in a spectacularly unspectacular manner, it seems to be thoroughly introspective, listening to itself.

This four disc set from Erato opens with Gluck’s three act lyric tragedy Iphigénie en Aulide, his first original ‘French’ opera for the fashionable Paris Opéra. In 1773 Gluck had been persuaded that he could establish himself at the Paris Opéra (also known as L’Opéra) by François du Roullet, an attaché at the French Embassy in Vienna. Baille du Roullet provided Gluck with the libretto for Iphigénie en Aulide, based on the tragedy of Racine and founded on the play of Euripides. Initially the Director of L’Opéra hesitated in accepting Gluck’s score. Fortunately he had a influential ally in Marie-Antoinette, the Queen of France, to whom he had taught singing and harpsichord. The first staging of Iphigénie en Aulide was at the Paris Opéra in 1774.