Composed in three different moments (in Italy, Hanover and London), these delicious duets contain a lot of music that Handel later reused in great works like The Messiah, The Passion of Brockers, Solomon, Jubilate de Chandos, Alcina, Aquatic Music, Esther, Belshazzar , Judas Macabeo, Deborah or the Jubilate of Utrecht, to name a few. Technically very difficult, these jewels contain movements of great beauty and passages of enormous virtuosity that demonstrate not only the brilliance of Handel's vocal writing, but its insurmountable melodic sense and musical imagery. Rossana Bertini and Claudio Cavina, founders of Concerto Italiano, demonstrate the reason why they are considered among the most important specialists in baroque singing.

Tafelmusik (table music) is a term used since the mid-16th century for music played at feasts and banquets. Some of the most significant composers of Tafelmusik included Johann Schein and Michael Praetorius, who wrote about the genre in his Syntagma musicum of 1619. Composed in 1733, Telemann s Tafelmusik has been compared as a collection to the renowned Brandenburg Concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach in clearly demonstrating the composer s supreme skill in handling a diversity of musical genres and a variety of instruments. Played here by the Freiburger Barockorchester under the direction of their leader Gottfried von der Goltz, these Baroque gems shine as never before.

Beethoven composed his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies more or less simultaneously during the years 1804-8, and they were both first performed in a memorable all-Beethoven concert in December 1808 that also featured the Fourth Piano Concerto (with Beethoven performing at the piano for the last time in public), the Choral Fantasy, and some other works. Despite being composed together, the Fifth and Sixth inhabit very different musical worlds. The fifth is a marvel of terse, dramatic writing, whereas the Sixth is more leisurely, frankly programmatic, and celebrates the glories of nature and the countryside.

This Bach stretches, overflows, dares unexpected slow tempi and explores new territory. the first Partitas are exceptionally poetic. The fourth explodes in a multi-coloured fireworks display.. The sixth reaches zeniths of inspiration.

Marco Vitale continues his thrilling project to record the complete cantatas by Handel, many of which have never before been recorded in their entirety or indeed at all, together with ensemble Contrasto Armonico and here featuring the Italian soprano Beatrice Palumbo. Six cantatas are presented in this third volume of the series, grouped together by the common theme of unrequited love, including "Chi rapì la pace", one of the earliest of Handel's Italian works.

Rachel Podger, “the unsurpassed British glory of the baroque violin” (The Times), and Grammy award-winning pianist Christopher Glynn recorded Beethoven’s Sonatas for Violin and Piano nos. 1, 5 and 10. Following the critically acclaimed Mozart/Jones Sonatas Fragment Completions (2021), this Beethoven album marks Podger and Glynn’s second release together.

Musica Alta Ripa was founded in 1984. The recorder player Danya Segal, two violinists Anne Röhrig and Ursula Bundies, cellist Juris Teichmanis, and harpsichordist Bernward Lohr, all outstanding, sought-after musicians in their fields, joined forces to form an ensemble that owes its special aura to the commingling of their individual personalities.

The eighteenth century is probably the most extraordinary period of transformation Europe has known since antiquity. Political upheavals kept pace with the innumerable inventions and discoveries of the age; every sector of the arts and of intellectual and material life was turned upside down. Between the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the revolution of 1789, music in its turn underwent a radical mutation that struck at the very heart of a well-established musical language. In this domain too, we are all children of the Age of Enlightenment: our conception of music and the way we ‘consume’ it still follows in many respects the agenda set by the eighteenth century. And it is not entirely by chance that harmonia mundi has chosen to offer you in 2011 a survey of this musical revolution which, without claiming to be exhaustive, will enable you to grasp the principal outlines of musical creation between the twilight of the Baroque and the dawn of Romanticism.

2022 release. Radiance is the sixth studio album for the Dead Daisies who have gone from strength to strength over the last 10 years. Once again produced by Ben Grosse, the album features 10 standout songs that evoke an energy and shine not known since the golden age of hard rock in the 0s and early 80s. Carried by the muscular drumming of Brian Tichy, fueled by the riffage of David Lowy, refined by the power and glory of Doug Aldrich and brought home by the low end thump and high end wails of Glenn Hughes, it once again shows The Dead Daisies on true form. Put the record on and get lost in time - Radiance is truly here.

David Zinman’s account of the Fourth Symphony is fleet and mercurial, as compelling a case as we have for honouring Beethoven’s fast metronome markings and, in the finale, bursting with unforced vitality (though without undermining the power of those crucial sforzando semiquavers at bar 66). Freshly revealed detail includes energetic semiquavers among second violins 2'28'' into the Allegro vivace (rarely as clear on rival versions) and held forte horns at 3'58'' into the Adagio, at the point where trenchant descending sforzando chords intensify the mood.

David Zinman and his Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra have all but completed what is without question one of the most invigorating Beethoven cycles to appear in the last few years. True to form, Zinman takes the latest Beethoven scholarship on board, which in this case includes some novel emendations to the opening of the Second Symphony.

“…The precision of ensemble, the crisp articulation and the clarity of texture which Goebel achieves, not perhaps without considerable effort, are admirable features of the Archiv Produktion set and, for sheer efficiency and dependability in such matters, these artists have few rivals…Telemann published his Musique de table in Hamburg in 1733. Each of its three parts or ''Productions'', as he called them, is laid out identically, embracing the principal orchestral and instrumental forms of the late-baroque: French overture and dance suite, quartet, concerto, trio solo sonata and a little orchestral coda, so to speak, which Telemann simply and practically called ''Conclusion''.

Josephs Legende (1912-14), die Partitur für Ballett von Richard Strauss, ist eines der reiferen Werke von Strauss, das selbst nach so langer Zeit bisher nur wenig Beachtung fand. Es wird nicht aufgeführt (möglicherweise wegen seines mysteriösen Themas) und nur selten aufgezeichnet. Der Katalog verzeichnet eine vollständige, inzwischen bereits vergriffene Interpretation, und eine Version der kürzeren Orchestersuite (1947), von der es bei Chandos 9506 eine ausgezeichnete Version gibt.

GRAMMY award-winning Nicola Benedetti’s new album on Decca Classics explores music by Britain’s best loved composer, Edward Elgar. The centrepiece is his vast Violin Concerto in B minor. Op. 61 coupled with three short works for violin and piano: Salut d’Amour, Sospiri and Chanson de Nuit.

Boris Giltburg has set out to study and film all of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas by the end of 2020. The project started as a personal exploration, driven by curiosity and his strong love of the Beethoven sonatas. These performances display Giltburg’s customary spirit and technical finesse, and also convey the electric atmosphere of the live recording.