Claude-Bénigne Balbastre, the French composer, organist, and harpsichordist, was one of the most famous musicians of his time. His suite of pieces from 1759 is here performed by Sophie Yates on a harpsichord specially chosen for the repertoire, a double manual instrument built by Andrew Garlick in 1996. It is a copy of a French harpsichord by Jean-Claude Goujon, made in Paris in 1748, which today forms part of the collection of the Musée de la Musique at the Conservatoire de Paris. Sophie Yates has made a series of solo CDs for Chandos, many of which have won international awards. She has been described by Gramophone as ‘hugely talented’ and by BBC Music as playing ‘with exceptional poise’. In the eighteenth century, aristocratic or, ideally, royal patronage was the undisputed key to an artist’s success. In the case of Balbastre, the young composer was quickly and efficiently introduced to the Parisian musical circles and high society by no less a figure than Jean-Philippe Rameau, and made a brilliant career. He played at the Concert Spirituel until 1782, became organist of the Notre-Dame cathedral and of the Chapelle Royale, harpsichordist to the French royal court where he taught Queen Marie-Antoinette, and organist to Louis-Stanislav-Xavier, Count of Provence, later Louis XVIII, King of France. His fame grew so great that the archbishop of Paris had to forbid Balbastre to play at Saint Roch during certain services, because the church drew excessive crowds whenever he played.

Prelude and March from The Battle of the River Plate, Suites from Kew Gardens, Black Narcissus, Adventure On, Gone To Earth

Brian Easdale was a prolific composer whose extensive output covered most genres, from orchestral pieces, concertos, and choral works, including a mass for the new Coventry Cathedral, to chamber compositions. Part of Chandos’ film music series with Rumon Gamba, the works on this release showcase Easdale’s career in film with music from, among others, The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, and The Battle of the River Plate. In his youth, Easdale attended the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition with such prominent figures as Cecil Armstrong Gibbs and Gordon Jacob, conducting with Malcolm Sargent, and organ with Arnold Goldsborough. As a jobbing musician he undertook arranging projects, working most notably on such scores by Benjamin Britten as the Soirées musicales and the Piano Concerto. He also orchestrated Britten’s On the Frontier for a production at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge in 1939, before spending much of the war in Ceylon and India working on documentaries for their governments’ film units. Returning to Britain in 1946, he was invited by British filmmakers, The Archers, to write an exotic dance for Jean Simmons to perform in their forthcoming film, Black Narcissus, and ended up composing the whole score. The film is a veritable masterpiece of melodrama with highly dramatic music to match. The involvement of Easdale in Black Narcissus effectively launched his career in film music and led him to other projects, most notably The Red Shoes (1948) for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score and which recently screened at the Sydney Opera House forecourt.

With the experimental CD project FISH & FOWL, Danish composers Juliana Hodkinson and Niels Rønsholdt have transformed recordings of their chamber works into one total 'super remix': A journey through an intimate and violent universe, which has been woven together from thousands of clips of studio recordings by the ensemble SCENATET. The two composers have been working closely together to create a new dimension and a common dramaturgy to their music specially for this CD.

In Bach's time the exalted place the purely vocal motet had once occupied in the liturgical framework had been ceded to the cantata. But alongside this artfully simple 'functional' style, Bach perpetuated in his own motets, with incomparable mastery, the tradition handed down by his own ancestors, as preserved in the so-called 'Old Bach Archive'.

Perfect for Easter. Composed by J.S. Bach’s distant relative, Johann Ludwig, just five years before the St. Matthew Passion, this sacred work is remarkable for its lush double-choir effects and rich Italianate beauty in the style of Pergolesi.

Scherzo in E Flat Minor Op 4

Johannes Brahms was just 19 years old in 1852-53 when he wrote the first two piano sonatas he deemed worthy of publication. In these extended four-movement compositions he built on the heritage of Beethoven. The fact that Brahms had produced a pair of masterpieces was immediately recognised by his mentor Robert Schumann, who eased his young colleague's way into the future with his celebrated article 'New Paths' of 1853. Praise for Melnikov’s previous release, Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues (HMC90201920): ‘Electrifying and rhapsodic…the combination of virtuosity and audacity in these performances is riveting.’ –New York Times.

Misleadingly nicknamed 'Symphony of a Thousand' because its Munich premiere on 12 September 1910 featured no fewer than 1004 performers, the eighth symphonic work of Gustav Mahler is not, as is often thought, the final 'monstrous excrescence' of post-Romanticisim. The Eighth Symphony stands out for its modernity of style: polyphony that is at once dense and transparent, an extraordinarily rich orchestral texture, contrapuntal and harmonic boldness conealed under ceremonial solemnity. Kent Nagano invites us to rediscover this unique and ultimately revolutionary work through its...thousand teeming details!

Hungarian Popular Songs, Suite Op 14, En plein air

Poulenc, Debussy, Milhaud, Saint-Saens

Specimen of My Time, The Would-be Dramatic Prelude, Souvenir of Man, Enough of Souvenirs Let's Dance, A Nightmare, A Deep Sleep, Awakening with a Start, Overture to William Tell

Fantasies Op 116, Piano Pieces Op 119

Synergy Nos 1-2, Tracking Pierrot, Windsor Jambs

The question of form is key in the music of Earle Brown, one of the foremost American composers of the past fifty years. It was a certain amount of serendipity and shared interest in the liberation of musical form which brought Brown together, circa 1951, with John Cage, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff and David Tudor, in what was for a time called the New York School... There was a close identification between these composers and painters at this time, and Feldman and Brown, especially, took vital inspiration from the philosophies and techniques of artists like, respectively Rothko and Pollack.

Goodbye to Love, Died For Love, The Power of Love, The Rival Brothers, Six Dukes Went Afishin, The Sprig of Thyme, Willow Willow, Recessional, Lord Maxwell's Goodnight, The Three Ravens, The Running of Shindand, Early One Morning, The Love Song of Har Dya

This reissue commemorates the 50th anniversary of Grainger’s death in February 1961. Harmonium, four guitars, two mandolas, two mandolins, two ukuleles, piccolo, three clarinets, bass clarinet, bassoon, contrabassoon, two alto saxophones, horn, strings, piano, baritone and choir: and that's just the scoring for one piece, the famous sea shanty Shallow Brown. Grainger's Jungle Book cycle is here recorded for the first time. The eleven contrasting movements vividly portray the sentiments of Kipling's poetry and Grainger wrote of the cycle that it was 'composed as a protest against civilization'.

Six Caprices Op 43, Six Pieces Op 53, 24 Characteristic Pieces Op 36 Nos 3, 15, 20, 16, 13, Six Sketches by the Seaside Op 52 Nos 4-5, Quatre Morceaux Op 25, Quatre Etudes Op 41

Stephen Coombs's 'Russian Piano Portraits' series turns its attention to solo piano music by Anton Arensky, one of the more shadowy figures of the Russian pianistic pantheon. Bon viveur extraordinaire, Arensky lived life in Moscow to the full—and to the disgust of colleagues such as Rimsky-Korsakov—but he was also an important teacher whose pupils included Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Glière and Grechaninov. Indeed, it was Arensky, together with Taneyev (successor to Rubinstein as director of the Moscow Conservatory), who shaped a situation in 1880s Moscow which finally allowed the city to rival St Petersburg in terms of its musical culture. Arensky's piano pieces have an easy charm and lyrical breadth of melodic invention. They also show rare inventiveness. There is a quality that is both nostalgic and surprising, reassuringly familiar yet unconventional in harmonic and melodic construction. This music has the power to move the emotions, not perhaps in a dramatic or passionate way, but by its rather personal reflective quality.

Grechaninov was initially taught by Anton Arensky in Moscow, and then later, in 1890, he went to St Petersburg to study with Rimsky-Korsakov. It was he who influenced his style and helped him launch his professional career. After the Revolution, Grechaninov became increasingly uneasy in Soviet Russia, and in 1925 left for ever. In 1946 he took American citizenship. An unusually versatile and prolific composer, he wrote operas, symphonies, chamber music, over 250 songs, and a great deal of music for children. He has been described as the most representative composer of his generation writing for the Orthodox service. Vespers is part of the All-Night Vigil service, and Grechaninov's setting was composed, premiered, and published in 1912. This precedes Rachmaninov's setting by three years. It appears to have lain dormant for some eighty years until it was revived in America for its first performance of modern times in 1995.

Gibbons Great King of Gods, O all true faithful hearts, Fancy in Gamutt flatt, See see the Word is incarnate, Fantazia of foure parts, Hosanna to the Son of David, O Lord in thy wrath rebuke me not, Almighty and everlasting God, Preludium, O Clap Your Han

Glorious 17th-century English anthems from Orlando Gibbons and other High Renaissance composers. An institution rich in choral tradition, Westminster Abbey Choir is lauded in January’s Gramophone as one of the world’s Top 20 Choirs.

Nocturne No 2 in B Minor, Mazurka No 1 in A Flat Major, Mazurka No 2 in C Sharp Minor, Valse-Caprice No 2 in D Flat Major, Waltz No 4 in B Flat Major, The Lark, Scherzo No 1 in B Minor, Polka in F Sharp Minor

Pianist Danny Driver has garnered overwhelming critical praise – and a Gramophone award nomination – for his previous discs for Hyperion. His authoritative and virtuosic performances of York Bowen and CPE Bach have placed him firmly in the ‘one to watch’ category. For his latest disc, he turns to one of the giants of the Russian piano world. This disc looks beyond the ubiquitous Islamey to some of Balakirev’s most important works – which are curiously underrepresented on disc. The Piano Sonata in B flat minor is a major achievement of the period and one quite unlike any contemporary large-scale piano composition. Its absence from the standard repertoire is unfortunate, as it is fully worthy of such a place. Undoubtedly this marvellous recording will provoke a reappraisal.

Overture to Der Zweikampf mit der Geliebten WoO50

Howard Shelley’s fascinating discs of Spohr’s symphonies with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana have reignited interest in a composer who was once the most important in Europe, and particularly so in England, where he was worshipped by all of musical society. Spohr’s Eighth Symphony is one of the composer’s more conservative experiments with the form. The Tenth is the composer’s final symphony and remained unpublished – languishing in the former Prussian State Library in Berlin for many years – until 2006. Both works bring unexpected pleasures. This is the penultimate volume of a series which as a whole is an important historical document of musical taste.

Suite for Violin and Piano WV18, Sonata No 1 for Violin and Piano WV24, Sonata for Solo Violin WV83, Sonata No 2 for Violin and Piano WV91

The German violinist Tanja Becker-Bender burst onto the recording scene with a dazzling set of Paganini’s Caprices which thrilled the critics. She appears here in a second disc for Hyperion with her compatriot, Markus Becker, who has made two acclaimed recordings for the label. Erwin Schulhoff: jazz enthusiast, sometime Dadaist, surrealist and committed communist. These are some of the labels that spring to mind for this extraordinary figure, but Schulhoff was a more complex and wide-ranging musician than any neat tags suggest. This Prague-born prodigy had an intensive training rooted in the Austro-German tradition from before the age of ten, and later studied with Max Reger and Fritz Steinbacher. His music is impossible to pin down stylistically – even at a particular stage of his career. His music for violin is often outrageously virtuosic and never less than fascinating.

Cliffe Violin Concerto in D Minor, D'Erlanger Violin Concerto in D Minor Op 17, Poeme in D Major

Hyperion’s Romantic Violin Concerto series reaches its tenth volume, and turns to two composers based in England, and works by them which have lain hidden for decades. This disc provides a fascinating glimpse of musical history and the shifting fashions of the age which made fame such a fleeting thing for so many composers. Frederic Cliffe had a brief but dazzling career as a composer – his Opus 1 was enthusiastically acclaimed, and he continued to write music for performers including Clara Butt at the peak of her fame. But he disappeared as quickly as he had arrived, and his reputation rests on only six works, including the Violin Concerto in D minor. It was performed by the Budapest-born violinist Tivadar Nachéz, and the finale in particular contains much music in a Hungarian idiom.

Most often performed in an arrangement for string quartet, this recording of Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross is a unique proposition – offering Haydn’s original instrumental meditations alongside their choral counterparts. Vladimir Jurowski writes ‘I felt it was important to hear the music first in its original shape, and then what it has become…the words are no longer the central focus, but a variation, another layer of pre-existing material.’ This series of seven Easter meditations includes some of Haydn’s most intense and inventive music, evoking the struggle of Christ’s final hours and the solemnity of the church’s Holy Week services. Recorded live in 2009, the reduced string forces of the London Philharmonic Orchestra combine really well with a lovely sense of ensemble. ‘…a performance of real integrity, Vladimir Jurowski pacing perfectly this predominantly slow, often gravely beautiful music, the use of non-vibrato strings adding a terse, authentic edge.’ Classical Source

Despite having been an admirer of the music of Danish composer Carl Nielsen for many years, Sir Colin Davis has rarely conducted any of his works. Now, at the age of 83, Sir Colin embarks on a complete cycle of the composer’s symphonies. Although Carl Nielsen is frequently compared to his near contemporary Jean Sibelius, each composer’s music is equally individual. Both were celebrated symphonists but used the potential of an orchestra in different ways. Despite giving titles to the majority of his symphonies, Nielsen was often vague about the specific themes for each work. However his music is always direct, dynamic and lyrical. Sir Colin’s traversal of the symphonies began in concert in 2009. He will conduct the remaining symphonies in 2011.

Berg Lyric Suite for String Quartet including Largo desolato, Webern 6 Bagatelles Op 9 including Langsam 'Schmerz immer, Blick nach oben' unpublished bagatelle for string quartet with voice, Schoenberg String Quartet No 2 in F Sharp Minor with soprano

For  the first  time,  thanks  to  the  initiative of  the Diotima Quartet, a single disc assembles here  the  contributions of  the  three protagonists of  the Second Viennese School – Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, and Alban Berg – to a highly unusual musical combination: the string quartet with voice. Only the first of these three works, Schoenberg’s Quartet op.10, has  been  regularly  published  since  1912. The  second,  a  Bagatelle  by Webern  for  string quartet with voice, abandoned by its composer, remained unpublished, and was premiered only twenty years after his death. Berg’s Lyric Suite was indeed published shortly after its performance in 1927 in the form of a purely instrumental suite for string quartet; however, in its initial conception, it contains a ‘private’, encrypted version the existence of which was revealed only in 1977. This version includes a stave for soprano voice doubling the principal line of the last movement, set to the words of a poem from Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, ‘De Profundis Clamavi’,  translated by Stefan George. The sung version was performed  for the first  time  two  years after  it was discovered,  43 years after  the death of Berg. This programme of exceptional emotional density displays the quintessence of the art and personality of the three Viennese composers.

Jeux, Khamma

Ernest Ansermet (1883–1969) made a series of recordings of music by Debussy in the late 1950s and early ’60s that were second to none. Today, these interpretations are still considered a yardstick by which others are judged. Ansermet worked closely with many of the leading composers of the day, especially Ravel and Stravinsky as he was conductor of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes from 1915 to 1923. He met Debussy in 1917 to discuss revisions to the Nocturnes, and gave what can be considered authentic performances of the composer’s works with his recently established Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Ansermet was an outspoken and forward-looking man. His recordings are famed for their clear authoritative tone, and his sensitivity and awareness in recording Debussy. 'The sounds he created, with the aid of the Decca engineers, have a vividness that I find compulsive … The Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune begins and closes impressively.’ -Gramophone, September 1985

For many years after his death, Vivaldi’s vast output of sacred music lay silent and forgotten until Alberto Gentili tracked down an incredible 27 volumes of manuscripts in the 1920s. These volumes contained motets, movements of Masses, the oratorio Juditha triumphans, psalm settings and Marian antiphons. These works ranged from short single-movement works to larger-scale compositions with twelve or more sections. One of the most famous works unearthed by Gentili was the Gloria. Today, this work is as popular as The Four Seasons and is among Vivaldi’s best-known music. The Gloria, like much of the sacred music by Vivaldi, is easily accessible, like his famous concertos. The music has a very human spirituality – nothing mystic, just a desire to explain the text in a clear pictorial way. Much of Vivaldi’s sacred music was written for the Ospedale della Pietà, a state-funded foundlings’ home for girls, where he became music director after his ordination in 1703. His writing focused almost entirely on instrumental music, especially concertos, when the choirmaster Francesco Gasparini went on leave and failed to return. Vivaldi was asked to help out, and the results can be heard on these seven CDs. This set is a must-have for those who love Vivaldi’s music and wish to explore beyond the famous concertos.

‘“A brimming dish of the absolute chant plums” is the phrase MB used to describe the contents of this issue in her review of the LP version. She went on to commend both the interpretations and the overall character of the recorded sound, and I can only add that with the assistance of CD fidelity we may now listen to these lovely performances as though in the very company of the singers in the Minoriten Kirche of Vienna. Whether or not liturgical plainsong already features in your record collection, if you own a CD player you should seriously consider buying this. And if you insist on sampling first, see if you can resist the final track, a sensitive (and beautifully distanced) reading of the haunting Salve regina.’ -Gramophone, July 1984. Chant has undergone a makeover for the modern world. Featuring in popular films such as The Name of the Rose, after Umberto Eco’s novel, and repeatedly reaching the top of the record charts around the world over the past 20 years (Canto Gregoriano in the early 1990s, and currently a choir of nuns top the UK classical charts), it is also played in clubs as music to chill to, and has been marketed as the ultimate stress-busting music. The chants on these six CDs take the listener through the Christian story, or the Church year.

Differences, Due pezzi

These recordings were made in 1969 when Luciano Berio (1925–2003) was in the fourth year of a six-year appointment at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. During these years he taught composition and analysis, and also created the group heard on this CD, the Juilliard Ensemble. In the late 1960s Berio’s reputation had grown to make him one of the leading figures in contemporary music, conducting the New York Philharmonic and the Swingle Singers in a performance of part of his Sinfonia. It was the large-scale and theatrical works that dominated his output later in his career, but early on he had produced some remarkable music for chamber groups. When planning this recording Berio wished to show how his music had evolved from the early Due pezzi for violin and piano of 1957, to the newly completed Sequenza VII for solo oboe, composed for Heinz Holliger. Chamber Music for female voice, harp, cello and clarinet sets words by James Joyce, and was written for Berio’s first wife, the American soprano Cathy Berberian. Berio’s flexible and contrapuntally lucid use of the 12-tone method  (a tribute to Webern and Dallapiccola) is apparent in the Sequenza III – another work composed for his wife.

Rossini’s Six String Sonatas, scored for two violins, cello and double bass, date from 1804, and were all composed in three days – the composer was just 12 years old! They display  an astounding precociousness, and a sound grasp of the music of Haydn and Mozart. Each player is given his own voice, and each work poses considerable difficulties for the players – especially the second violin part, which Rossini wrote for himself. There is a surprising amount of emotional depth to be found in these works that belie the age of the composer – the Second Sonata is a good example, where Mozart’s influence is at its most potent. Twelve student  instrumentalists from the Accademia di  S. Cecilia  formed I Musici   in  1952. Praise came early from Arturo Toscanini: ‘Twelve capable lads of 18, a perfect chamber orchestra. I applaud them!’ I Musici soon became one of the leading European chamber ensembles, specialising in the music of the Italian Baroque, but later embracing Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and contemporary music.

Italian Recorder Music, Concerti di Flauti, Baroque Recorder Music, Extra Time

The Dutch Loeki Stardust Quartet was established in 1978, and from the outset was not your ‘normal’ group of recorder-players. Baroque repertoire figured prominently in their concerts, but the concerts often contained surprises, substituting the last chord of a canzone with a well-known TV signature tune for example – in this case 'Loeki the Lion' was the TV programme that gave the quartet its name. Wanting to give concerts that were a crossover between St Martin in the Fields and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young was the aim in the early years. A series of big engagements followed, including the Wigmore Hall with Christopher Hogwood, and then recordings for Decca which are included in this 4CD set. The maverick style of the group came to the fore again, when after a successful sequence of Baroque  recordings they released a recording of music by Erroll Garner, Henry Mancini, Lennon and McCartney and Charlie Parker together with works by Vivaldi, Beethoven, J.C. and J.S. Bach. Never before has the recorder sounded so much fun!

This world premiere CD release champions the three-act opera Kaivos (The Mine) by Einojuhani Rautavaara. The patriarch of Finnish composers wrote this, his first opera, in 1957–62 and today considers it 'perhaps the best opera I have ever written, a real thriller whose underlying theme – that a human being defines himself through his choices – is nevertheless universal.'

The long-awaited release on DVD of the London production of Cole Porter‘s Kiss Me Kate, revived for Broadway in 2001. It‘s one of Porter‘s best-known musicals showcasing some of his greatest songs ('Too Darn Hot', 'So In Love“, 'Why Can‘t You Behave', 'Wunderbar', 'Another Op‘nin; Another Show' and based on Shakespeare's The Taming Of The Shrew. Filmed live in front of the Victoria Palace Theatre audience, this show boasts a cast including Brent Barrett and Rachel York, veterans of the multiple award-winning North American production, as well as one of Hollywood‘s current leading heartthrobs, Colin Farrell. This London revival won the London Evening Standard Theatre Award for 'Best Musical' and the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for 'Best Musical'. 'With his warm, radiant baritone, Brent Barrett is perfection as Fred/Petruchio, delivering a drolly winning send-up of macho swagger that enhances his romantic appeal.' (The Independent). 'With its blissfully tuneful score, superbly witty lyrics and great charge of broadway energy, this blazingly confident show shines like a beacon.' (The Daily Telegraph)

When  the  legendary  Venetian  Teatro  La  Fenice,  which  had  been completely destroyed by fire in 1996, rose like a phoenix from the ashes, its rebirth was  celebrated with  Verdi’s La Traviata, an opera that had seen its première more  than 150 years earlier in the same theatre. Led by star conductor Lorin Maazel, a cast of brilliant singer-actors brought an exact replica of the March 1853 version to the stage, giving audiences the opportunity to experience the opera as the world first heard at its premiere in Venice. The original score had been found in the archives of La Fenice, so that La Traviata could relive its premiere without any revisions. With Italian soprano Patrizia Ciofi in the title role, German-Italian tenor Roberto Saccà as her lover and Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky as his father, the live recording features highly eminent singers of the Italian repertoire and stars, who are at home in opera houses throughout the world. The fascinating staging by internationally celebrated opera director Robert Carsen captures Verdi’s original intention. He takes up Verdi’s dictum that the opera is 'a subject from our own time' and sets it in a well-healed contemporary environment. His interpretation picks up the two driving forces of the plot: prostitution and bourgeois hypocrisy,  and, of course, money.

Franz Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise was written late in his life. It is regarded both as a highlight of the genre and as the touchstone by which lieder singers are judged. To succeed in interpreting Winterreise is the artistic equivalent of a patent of nobility for a singer. The song cycle certainly became one of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s calling cards and it is probably  this work that made the baritone an international household name. Time and again his interpretation could be heard in the concert halls, at festivals, on the radio and on numerous recordings. In  this  recording made  for  the Sender Freies Berlin in January 1979, we see two of the leading musicians of their day in their prime. Both  the experienced Schubert lieder singer and the Austrian pianist, known throughout the world for his authoritative interpretations of Schubert’s piano music – had performed Winterreise together frequently between 1975 and 1989. In a way, Fischer-Dieskau’s approach to the song cycle has become the touchstone for today’s singers. This recording of rehearsal and concert provides extraordinary insights into the development of a masterly interpretation of Winterreise.

Bonus feature - Documentary on Mahler as seen by Barenboim and Boulez

Performed as a complete cycle in Berlin, Vienna and New York, these concerts were a tremendous success. This DVD presentation of Mahler's Ninth Includes a fascinating 22-minute documentary on the musical world of Mahler as seen by Barenboim and Boulez. 2011 is the centenary of the composer's death. 'Barenboim´s reading seethes with subtly controlled passion... A milestone for the Staatskappelle Berlin.' -New York Times

Maria Stuarda is the most popular work in Donizetti's trilogy of bel canto operas on Tudor queens, which also includes Anna Bolena and Roberto Devereux. In this recording from Venice's Teatro La Fenice, Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I are both prisoners, trapped in a physical and psychological maze, a labyrinth that is the sole staging element in Denis Krief's production. Fabrizio Maria Carminati puts the Orchestra of the Teatro La Fenice entirely at the service of three exceptional singers, Sonia Ganassi as Elisabetta, Fiorenza Cedolins as Maria Stuarda, and José Bros as Leicester.

Handel

This film was the first in the series of Leçons particulières de musique(Private Music Lessons). Originally conceived in 1987 as a pilot for the nascent Franco-German cultural channel Arte, the film is a unique historical document of the interpretation of Baroque music, in particular Handel, from the great German alto-turned-conductor who has brought us definitive recordings of Messiah and Giulio Cesare.

Messiaen 20 Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus, Mozart Piano Sonata K448

Olivier Messiaen's great love and one of the foremost pianists and ondes martenot players of the 20th century, Yvonne Loriod here gives a private music lesson and an introduction to her instrument and artistry.