Agostino Steffani was a clergyman, diplomat, and composer of the Italian Baroque period. Born in Castelfranco, Veneto, in 1654, Stefano joined the choir of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice in his early years. His exceptional singing voice led him to study in Munich, Bavaria. As a composer, Stefano's works are rarely performed today. Thanks to the current popularity of classical music, this is the only complete recording of his long-forgotten opera "Alarico." It's a must-see for fans of rare repertoire and vocal music.

As in its Schubert recording in 2018, the Quatuor van Kuijk likes to delve into a composer's youthful output and then measure his evolution by confronting it with his mature works. Hence, after recording two of Mozart's early string quartets in 2016, the French group, here joined by violist Adrien La Marca, voted Revelation at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2014, now offers the String Quintets K515 and K516. These two large-scale works dominate Mozart's instrumental output in the year 1787, which ended with the premiere of Don Giovanni. They show us a composer at the height of his creative powers, in a genre to which he had not returned for fourteen years and which he herebrought to a high degree of formal perfection.

Ces trios de Joseph Haydn sont dignes d'intérêt à plus d'un titre. D'abord parce que le compositeur les écrit à Londres en 1795 alors qu'il est âgé de plus de quatre-vingts ans ! Ensuite parce que l'inspiration du compositeur est extrême. Loin de toutes contraintes, Haydn se fait plaisir en travaillant une forme dans laquelle prime le dialogue, l'échange et la virtuosité. L'interprétation explosive de Jérôme Hantaï et de ses deux complices sert cette inventivité extraordinaire du vieux maître. Dans ce disque, c'est avant tout le plaisir des sens et des sons qui nous envahit. Une belle leçon de passion.

The “Mozart Matinees” were originally founded by Bernhard Paumgartner to introduce audiences to the genial composer’s little-known works. The Mozart Matinees of the 2004 summer festival – in addition to Mozart – were dedicated to the younger brother of Joseph Haydn: Johann Michael Haydn. Michael Haydn’s Requiem in C Minor was heard for the first time in December 1771; both father and son Mozart participated in the performance. Mozart later quoted a motive from this Requiem in his Maurerische Trauermusik and quoted the older man as well in his own requiem.

A visionary synthesis of the art of a composer who, here more than anywhere else, gives meaning to the world in which he lives, and reveals to us something of what lies beyond, the Mass in B minor is one of the supreme peaks of Bach’s music. Raphaël Pichon and his ensemble Pygmalion explore this universe which gives utterance to the mysteries of incarnation and death.

The Franck sonata—one of the best-loved works in the entire Romantic violin repertoire—is one of a trio of delectable Franco-Belgian treats on offer from the acclaimed pair. A bonne bouche from Lili Boulanger completes a particularly enticing recital.

As a harpsichordist and conductor, Cattani regularly leads historical instrument ensembles. In August 2022, she made her international conducting debut at the harpsichord with the finalists of the Cesti Competition at the prestigious Festwochen der Alten Musik in Innsbruck. The following year, she conducted Vivaldi’s La Fida Ninfa at the same festival, receiving rave reviews. In June 2025, she debuted at the Theater An der Wien. Cattani has been appointed music conductor of the esteemed Baroque Orchestra Academia Montis Regalis for the 2025-2027 season and has recorded Alessandro Scarlatti’s oratorio Humanità e Lucifero with the ensemble, which was featured on the cover CD of Amadeus Magazine.

Nicola Benedetti is to release a major work of the violin repertoire, Beethoven's Violin Concerto. Recorded with Nicholas Collon and the award-winning Aurora Orchestra, who celebrate their 20th anniversary this year. The entire concerto was filmed to create a dynamic, full-length video. Plans for the video will be unveiled in due course. As well as a GRAMMY winner, 2 x Classical BRIT Award winner, BBC Music Magazine’s 2021 Personality of the Year and a CBE, Nicky runs the incredible Benedetti Foundation for young musicians, and in 2022 became the first ever female director of the world-famous Edinburgh International Festival.

In Holland in the 1720s the transverse flute enjoyed considerable popularity among amateur musicians. Aware of that keen interest, the publisher Michel Le Cene decided in 1729 to present his customers with the very first collection of concertos for flute and orchestra. Vivaldi responded to his request by refurbishing several older works. Only one of them was already in the modern concerto form: the Concerto in F major for recorder and strings. Another four pieces were hybrid in form and still close to chamber works. The predominant role of the recorder or flute in those four concertos made them ideal for adaptation.

The present album, number nine in Eric le Sage’s valiant Schumann edition, is devoted to the trios with piano, a favourite formation of the 19th Century that combines the economy of chamber music with the prestige of instrumental music. He is accompanied by regular partners Gordan Nikolitch and Christophe Coin with a guest appearance from Paul Meyer on clarinet for Op. 56.

The oratorio La decollazione di S. Giovanni Battista by Antonio Maria Bononcini is a worthy representative of the little-known tradition of oratorios in the Italian language composed at the Hapsburg court, a tradition which was quite widespread between the second half of the seventeenth and the first three decades of the eighteenth centuries. This genre, now considered to be an appendix of the opera, played instead a significant role in the religious-musical events of the imperial court, where Italian culture in general and the language itself represented more than mere aesthetic models.

Dmitry Masleev offers a highly personal diptych with the Dies irae theme running throughout. The pianist serves up these formidable pages with racy, sober, elegant playing, and virtuosity giving way to sensuality and crystal-clear lyricism. One one side we have Liszt's Totentanz (which saw him triumph at the 2015 Tchaikovsky Competition) and Rhapsodie espagnole (adapted for piano and string orchestra by his mentor Petukhov) on the other is Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (his composer of choice). The album closes with the Adagio from Marcello's Oboe Concerto, arranged for keyboard by Bach, a kind of vision of heaven after hell.

Vibrant and urgently lyrical playing, possessed of a degree of personality that you would never guess from the bark-bread of the disc's artwork.

For their latest album, recorded live at the Reitstadel in Neumarkt, Christian Gerhaher and his long-time duo-partner, Gerold Huber, have revisited the songs of the great Romantic composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). Yet it is not their first time: on their debut album in 2002 you´ll already find the ‘Four Serious Songs’ Op. 121, and in 2017 they released their version of ‘Romances from L. Tieck´s Magelone’, Op. 33. However, with this album, they bring single songs and cycles to the fore that testify to an intense striving by Brahms to create a new ‘folk tune’. Embedded into social changes of the 19th century, Brahms here tries to establish the art song as a reflection of its own imagined history as well as a reminiscence and portrayal of a naturalness gradually becoming lost during the rise of the modern world – similar to the ambivalence between tradition and progress, noticeable in his instrumental works.

The Vivaldi Edition is up to its astounding 54th volume with Concerti per Fagotto IV, and this collection introduces a selection of the finest Baroque works for bassoon. In a magical performance, the bassoonist Sergio Azzolini along with the L'Onda Armonica ensemble creates an indispensable recording that entices us into the pieces and compels us through each as if on a journey.