Recording exclusively for Chandos, Lortie is recognised as one of the finest interpreters of Chopin today. He first recorded Chopin's Etudes for Chandos more than twenty years ago; the disc was named as one of the '50 great performances by superlative pianists' by BBC Music. Volume 1 of his current Chopin series also has received excellent reviews: the magazine Pianist wrote: 'He is a pianist of our time when it comes to speed, energy and an unfussy approach to Chopin. His way of playing is like a sharply cut steel sculpture, super elegant and with not one single smudge.' And in the words of International Piano: 'These are full-blooded and eloquent performances, an auspicious start to what looks likely to become one of the finest of Chopin surveys.'

In the era of the great romantic pianists, it used to be the fashion at piano recitals to offer an improvisation in the same key as that of the piece that was scheduled to follow, in order to get the audience ‘in the mood’. To compensate for this lost art, I have thought of always playing one of the nocturnes before a major piano composition by Chopin. It makes these nocturnes appear more like an improvisation, to serve as counterweight to the very dense content of the Ballades, Scherzos, and Sonatas. This practice transfers smoothly the logic of a piano recital to a CD and makes more sense by allowing the listener to enjoy the contents in one stretch’ writes Louis Lortie on his concept for the album.

From the B minor Sonata to the Wagner transcriptions, the Romanticism of Franz Liszt finds an outstanding interpreter in Roger Muraro. Accustomed to conceiving chords as colours, the pianist transports us from shadows to light with highly nuanced playing, dazzling energy and prodigious virtuosity.

The ECHO-winning group Spark pursues the logical development of its wholly personal sound in the space between Post Classical, Minimal music and Avant-garde. Virtuosic and unfettered, the five young musicians move between the poles of contrasting musical worlds and eras and forge tradition and innovation into a thrilling new sonic experience attuned to the zeitgeist. The album title tells a story. These are five young artists determined to chart virgin musical territory, confound convention and give free rein to their imagination. Together they conjure up a luxuriant rainforest that spreads its fronds from baroque times to the present day.

Heroes from the Shadows makes stars of the unfairly overlooked roles – from Arsamene to Zenobia – who sing Handel’s hidden operatic jewels: Cornelia from Giulio Cesare (‘Son nata’ in duet with star countertenor Philippe Jaroussky as her guest), Dardano’s stately ‘Pena tiranna’ from Amadigi di Gaula, and the sublime, intimate ‘Senti, bell’idol mio’ sung by Claudio in Silla. Stutzmann conducts her superb musicians playing on Baroque instruments, while singing some of Handel’s most virtuosic arias, all with a rare mastery of both arts – neither one in the shadow of the other.