Rameau Rigadoun Nos 1-2, Handel Aria and Variations from The Harmonious Blacksmith, Schubert Moment Musical in F Minor D780 No 3, 5, Glass Modern Love Waltz, Piazzolla SVP, Legrand Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, Confrey Dizzy Fingers, Zorn Road Runner, Shos

Hailed as ‘Queen of the classical accordion’, Mie Miki made her first public appearance at the age of five, and has since then given countless concerts. This CD brings together pieces that she doesn’t necessarily perform in public, however – rather they are the ones that she plays when needing to take a break from practising her next concert programme: old friends and new, childhood acquaintancies, and some surprise guests from a wholly different musical universe. Pieces for harpsichord (Daquin’s Cuckoo or Handel’s Blacksmith) or piano (Stravinsky’s Tango and Schubert’s two Moments musicaux) rub shoulders with original accordion compositions such as Wolfgang Jacobi’s Sérénade. Moods range from the irrepressible Miss Karting, straight out of the great French musette tradition, and the breakneck comedy of Road Runner, to the intense pathos of Astor Piazzolla’s Chiquilín de Bachín and the calm serenity of A Spotless Rose, in Brahms’ setting (originally an organ prelude). As Mie Miki explains in her introduction, the disc ‘represents a mosaic landscape, a product of coincidences, dreams, journeys, memories and nostalgia’.

Rachmaninov Cello Sonata in G Minor Op 19, Vocalise Op 34 No 4, Borodin Cello Sonata in B Minor, Shostakovich Cello Sonata in D Minor Op 40

Composed between 1860 and 1934, the works on this disc hail from a momentous period in Russian music – from the emergence of a national Russian school of composing advocated by the group called ‘The Mighty Five’ (of which Borodin was a member), to Stalin’s denunciation of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, which was to cause generations of Russian composers to harness their modernist leanings. To look for evidence of such historical circumstances in the present programme could however be misleading. Alexander Borodin’s Sonata in B minor (an early work which was published only in 1982 in a completion by the composer and musicologist Mikhail Goldstein) was inspired by a theme from Bach’s Sonata for solo violin in G minor, a thoroughly ‘un-Russian’ source of inspiration. And although Sergei Rachmaninov’s Sonata in G minor – and certainly his Vocalise – has a broad tunefulness which might be thought of as ‘Russian’, it was composed after the failure in 1897 of his First Symphony, when the country’s musical establishment turned its back on the young composer. As for the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, there is certainly a big change in style after the official criticism of Lady Macbeth in 1936. It’s equally true that his Sonata in D minor does point towards a new direction – but the work had been composed in 1934, implying that the seeds of this change of style were already present before the articles in Pravda. Whether typically Russian or not, the three sonatas are here given warm and inspired performances by the Armenian-born cellist Alexander Chaushian with Yevgeny Sudbin, his chamber music partner of long standing, at the piano.

The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge ventures onto the Chaconne label for the first time with this disc of music by Orlande de Lassus. The Choir is conducted by Andrew Nethsingha and is joined by His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts. Lassus was born in Mons, in modern-day Belgium, around 1532, but spent most of his working life in Italy. He was a prolific and versatile composer and the most famous musician of his day. Charismatic and gregarious, he was also bipolar, a condition that caused him personal unhappiness, but which also accounted for some of the more original and startling passages in his music. The pieces on this recording represent only a small part of his enormous output: nineteen of the 750-odd surviving motets, two of one hundred Magnificat settings, and three of his dozen purely instrumental works. It is a small sample, but it shows a composer whose formidable technique, kaleidoscopic ear for texture, and matchless word settings made him the darling of the musical High Renaissance in Western Europe.

String Quartet, String Quartet in A Minor

Walton’s two string quartets were written about a quarter of a century apart and are barely recognisable as the work of the same composer. The String Quartet of 1922, an extraordinarily ambitious work in terms of scale and technical demands, was written when Walton was in his late teens. This recording offers the original, full-length version of the Quartet, which Walton would later, somewhat dismissively, describe as ‘full of undigested Bartók and Schoenberg’. The String Quartet in A minor is a work of Walton’s maturity, more compact in form, conservative in language, and relaxed in tone. Despite initial difficulties, the work gradually took shape and Walton wrote to a friend that he had ‘captured a trench’ and overcome some ‘barbed wire entanglements’. The completed Quartet was given its successful premiere in 1947 by the Bleech Quartet in a chamber concert on the BBC’s new Third Programme. The Doric String Quartet is one of the most impressive of the young quartets on the classical music scene today. Its recent Chandos release, of the string quartets by Korngold (CHAN 10611), was made an Editor’s Choice in Gramophone.

Ars Nova Copenhagen and Paul Hillier here present the fourth recording in a series devoted to the narrative works (Historia) of Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672). The Danish vocal ensemble thus celebrate Denmark’s proud connection with this German master who was appointed Kapellmeister to King Christian IV and worked at the Danish court for two periods over the course of eleven years.

Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin

The microphones are right up against the instruments in Simon Steen-Andersen’s five pieces on this CD, so that all the small sounds and noises one normally tries to suppress take on a central role in the music. In recent years the young Danish composer has made his name internationally with totally surprising ways of thinking and a great talent for transforming these ideas into original music that is both different and innovative, but at the same time poetic and overwhelming

One of the major achivements of Frans Brüggen’s distinguished career has been the understanding which he brings to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach – such as here with the St John Passion – whether on the concert platform or on record. Brüggen’s cultured feeling for Bach’s musical structures, style and expressive content permits a textural clarity enjoyed by few of his directing colleagues. A special wealth of experience in the music of Bach has also been gained by the members of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century throughout three decades of performance. Also of special note on this new recording is the presence of a solo group comprising both distinguished and rising talents, led by Markus Schäfer as the Evangelist and Thomas Oliemans as Jesus, and with Michael Chance and Marcel Beekman singing arias together with the added luxury of the present-day 'Bach bass' par excellence in Peter Kooij, and the radiant Carolyn Sampson. Choral support comes from the Cappella Amsterdam.

Alessandro Scarlatti in Italy, like Marc-Antoine Charpentier and later François Couperin in France, brought the musical form of the Lamentations of Jeremiah to a state of dramatic intensity, a complement to the religious ritual which even in the first decade of the 18th century had barely changed since the Middle Ages. One of the special characteristics of Scarlatti’s Lamentations is the skill with which he treats the melodic line, which he reduces to its most essential and soulful rather than indulging in operatic writing, preferring instead 'madrigalistic' effects. It was around 1707 that Scarlatti composed his six settings of the Lamentations (two each for the three days leading up to Easter Sunday; although by forming part of the service of Matins they would be sung on the previous evening) and it was not until the Umbrian violinist and director Enrico Gatti went to the Bolognese Eremo di Ronzano with his Ensemble Aurora that these Lamentations received their first complete recording. The church music of Alessandro Scarlatti (like his operatic, oratorio and solo cantata work) is receiving increasingly more attention from musicians and the public so the transfer to Glossa of Enrico Gatti’s 1992 recording (including his essay on the subject) can be warmly welcomed, as it joins more recent examples of Gatti’s work in Bach and Vivaldi.

With Tenebrae, Antonio Florio continues on his journey of exploration of the Neapolitan Baroque, now appearing on Glossa, with a timely release of Lamentations of Jeremiah from one known composer in Cristofaro Caresana, long championed by Florio (and whose vocal music occupied most of his previous recording, L’Adoriatione de’ Maggi), and another from the succeeding generation at the end of the 17th century in Gaetano Veneziano, a musician taught by Francesco Provenzale. The vocal works on this new recording are scored for a solo singer and this role is taken by Naples-born soprano Valentina Varriale. The instrumentalists of I Turchini take the opportunity to demonstrate their mastery of the Neapolitan style in string music – a Sinfonia and a four-part Sonata – by Veneziano and one of his contemporaries, Giuseppe Antonio Avitrano.

String Quartets in F Minor Op 20 No 5, C Major Op 33 No 3 'The Bird', D Major Op 76 No 5

'It has been a long time since I have been so taken with any readings of Haydn Quartets. All three of these appear on the Emerson's recent "The Haydn Project" DG set, and the Jerusalem wins two out of three. This disc strikes me as the ideal gift... I certainly cannot resist its charm; at first hearing, it brightened a gray day, and its smile has not faded.' -Fanfare (reissue of HMX2962030).

'[Gatti] has a rare gift for moulding phrases like a sculptor shaping an exquisite vase.' (The Times, London)

'Gatti has the gift of making even the most familiar music sound fresh… Performances that command attention." –The Daily Telegraph

'None of my previous orchestral works ever cost me such labour, yet I have never felt such a love for one of my own pieces.' – Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky (letter concerning the Fourth Symphony). These titles were released for the first time in 2004 (HMU 907381), 2005 (HMU 907393) and 2006 (HMU 907394).

Sicut cervus desiderat, Super flumina Babylonis, Vidi turbam magnam, Four Motets from The Song of Songs, Magnificat primi toni

'A perfect introduction to the breadth of Palestrina's genius, inspiringly sung' (Organists' Review).

'Highly recommended along with previous releases in this series' (Fanfare)

Faure Violin Concerto in D Minor, Saint-Saens Morceau de Concert Op 62, Canteloube Poeme, Lalo Fantaisie norvegienne, Guitarre Op 28 arr Pierne, Guiraud Caprice

This is a collection of absolute gems. The one-movement Concerto by Fauré is the only movement to have survived from an original three-movement violin concerto, and Saint-Saëns's Morceau de concert was originally intended as the first movement of his third violin concerto. Lalo's Fantaisie norvégienne, with its utterly gorgeous slow movement, was to become the inspiration behind Bruch's Scottish Fantaisie, and Guitarre is an early encore piece for violin and piano (later orchestrated by Gabriel Pierné) that Lalo (himself a violinist) wrote for his own use. Guiraud, who taught composition to both Debussy and Dukas, wrote the haunting Caprice for Sarasate, and the Poème by Canteloube shows much of the charm he is now so famed for through his Chants d'Auvergne. The combination of Romantic French music for violin and orchestra, the ever-exquisite playing of Philippe Graffin, and superb accompaniment from the Ulster Orchestra under Thierry Fischer makes this disc quite simply enchanting.

Praeludium in D Minor, Danket dem Herren, Canzonetta in G Major, Praeludium in G Minor, Canzona in E Minor, Erhalt uns Herr bei deinem Wort, Herr Jesu Christ ich weiss gar wohl, Magnificat primi toni, Gelobet seist du Jesu Christ, Praeludium in C Major, K

The latest volume of Christopher Herrick’s acclaimed series of Buxtehude’s complete organ works comes from Paris and the admired organ of St-Louis-en-l’Île – formally opened in 2005, and based on the work of Zacharias Hildebrant (1688-1757). As with previous discs, it includes a selection of the composer’s praeludia, ostinato works, canzonettas and canzonas, interspersed with chorale preludes, chorale fantasias and variations. Highlights include the magnificent Praeludium in D minor, BuxWV140, which is among the finest and most striking examples of the genre, and a particularly beautiful and contrasting set of chorale preludes.

Weber, best known for his operas today, was also a very fine pianist and he wrote a sizeable body of piano music of which the four sonatas are the centrepiece. These are perhaps the first truly ‘Romantic’ piano sonatas and were a great influence on the succeeding generation of German composers such as Mendelssohn and Schumann; all are large scale and virtuosic and their quality makes it surprising how rarely they have been recorded. The set also includes the most important of Weber’s other piano works including the once hugely popular ‘Invitation to the Dance’, a work which has become better known in the orchestration of Berlioz. ‘These are distinguished performances, by a pianist of true romantic temper, of four works that have had more than their share of misunderstanding from performers and critics alike’ (Gramophone). Garrick Ohlsson is the pianist, acclaimed for his performances of Brahms and Chopin on Hyperion. These delightful recordings were originally released on Arabesque.

Popularly known as the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’, in this live recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 from 1991, over 528 singers and musicians are led in a vibrant, life-affirming performance by one of the greatest interpreters of Mahler’s music, Klaus Tennstedt. The soloist line-up includes some of the most celebrated operatic singers of the twentieth century including sopranos Júlia Várady and Susan Bullock and American tenor Kenneth Riegel. This double disc CD features the combined choral forces of the London Philharmonic Choir and the London Symphony Chorus as well as 50 boys from Eton College Boys’ Choir. ‘It was an inspired Mahler performance as Tennstedt has ever conducted, with an inevitability, a sense of spiritual grandeur and adventure, that renewed all one’s youthful faith in a work which one feared might have lost its power, thrill and surprise for ever’. Daily Telegraph

The penultimate release in Valery Gergiev’s acclaimed Mahler cycle features the composer’s Symphony No 5, recorded at the Barbican in September 2010. Mahler’s Fifth Symphony marked a new direction in his compositions and a step away from the choral elements of the previous three symphonies. Despite the opening funereal trumpet solo and march, the work was completed during one of the happiest periods of Mahler’s life, and the symphony showcases virtuosic orchestral playing, an exquisite love song without words for his wife Alma, and a jubilant finale.

Berlioz’s ‘dramatic symphony’ of 1839 (at least seven years in the making) is a further refinement, nine years after the prodigious Symphonie fantastique, of his love, bordering on obsession, for the plays of Shakespeare and the symphonies of Beethoven. Somehow it’s inevitable, then, that the most startling, original and moving passages in the symphony are the central triptych of instrumental movements, ‘Roméo seul’, the Love Scene and the Queen Mab Scherzo, where Berlioz moves beyond words to evoke the pain of his tragic protagonists and the evanescent dream-fairy of the Scherzo. Here Berlioz demands the most acutely sensitive response from his performers – it’s appropriate that the whole score is dedicated to Nicolò Paganini – and here too, this recording gains particular lustre through the incomparably rich playing of the Vienna Philharmonic. Sir Colin Davis is known worldwide as the conductor who has done more than any other (and probably more than any musician in history) not only to bring Berlioz to public consciousness but to inspire respect and then love for a composer whom fellow musicians long derided. His later performances and recordings have revelled in ever more minutely nuanced detail than his pioneering efforts, and of course benefitted from the advances in recording technology that have enabled Berlioz’s remarkable orchestration to startle as never before on record.

Bella Davidovich was born in 1928 in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, but moved to Moscow to study with the great Russian pedagogues Konstantin Igumnov and Yakov Flier, and though she later took American citizenship when she emigrated in 1978, it is her Russian training that characterises her musicianship, and the particular style of her many distinguished Chopin recordings. It is notable that the Russians themselves recognised her command, to the point of inviting her back, in the early days of perestroika, to play in her home country. She does not aim for the weightiness of certain past renowned Chopin players such as Arrau, but her sensitivity to Chopin’s seemingly spontaneous sense of line is rivalled by few others. This quality is at a premium in the elusively structured Ballades, where dream-landscapes must be shaped with some rigour if the music is not to become lost in a fog of Romantic languor.

Pines of Rome, Ancient Airs and Dances, Brazilian Impressions, Gli Uccelli

Here’s both an unusually useful collection as well as one graced with the highest artistic standards. Both the outsize, Straussian grandeur of Respighi (exemplified by The Pines of Rome)as well as his neo-Classical delicacy (in the Ancient Airs and Dances) are well-represented on record, but such are their contrasting qualities, few conductors are equipped to acquit themselves successfully in both contexts, and there are commensurately few recorded collections available which offer so complete a summation of Respighi’s diverse but always delightful art. The Hungarian conductor Antal Doráti was, however, mastered all facets of this music. Best known for his Haydn, he and the Philharmonia Hungarica (his hand-picked chamber orchestra for the pioneering cycles of symphonies and operas), are ideally equipped to bring the necessary wit and charm to Respighi’s transformations of early-Baroque and Renaissance melodies, which he clothes in more modern orchestral apparel while never over-burdening them with anachronistic velvet or silk. The tone poems, however, rejoice in the punch of a great orchestra, particularly its brass section. The Minneapolis SO may not have the renown of its London counterpart, but, trained up by Dmitri Mitropoulos, it was one of the most virtuosic and thrilling-sounding US orchestras when Doráti took over from Mitropoulos as principal conductor in 1949.

This set of pieces is barely known in extenso, not least due to the prodigious technical demands made upon the performer, but Misha Dichter himself is convinced that we gain a much deeper understanding of Liszt's keyboard genius if we move beyond the familiar barn-storming of the Second and immerse ourselves in particular in the far-reaching harmonic implications of the last four. These were composed in 1882 and 1885, a full 30 years after the first 15 Rhapsodies were published in 1853, and naturally they show what a sea-change Liszt’s music had undergone in the period since he had been the toast of Europe, rivalled only by Paganini as a virtuoso performer and showman who routinely inspired fainting fits and the throwing on stage of apparel not confined to gloves. By the 1880s he was the Abbé Liszt, a visionary ensconced in Weimar and worshipped and emulated by Wagner. There are, however, connecting threads between the earlier and later Rhapsodies; most obviously, an unbuttoned delight taken in what he believed to be genuine folk-tunes (many of which have subsequently turned out to be middle-class confections) and in his transformation of them beyond the tropes of keyboard improvisation to infuse the Rhapsodies with the spirit and even form of the verbunkos, the Hungarian dance with its diverse sections and untrammelled zest.

Two unlikely pairings at first sight: not just the French polish of Casadesus with the analytical precision of Rosbaud, old-school modernist, but the works themselves, Beethoven’s most public declamation and then one of his more abruptly ordered sonatas fully within his late style. Both pieces are heroic, perhaps, in the sense of presenting a personality, fully sufficient unto itself and not simply the composer’s, that is entirely impelled by a rough force of expression not so much set against the world but apart from it. One of the most probing of today’s pianists, Hélène Grimaud, has recorded just the same combination of works. For her, ‘the real idea of Beethoven’s music is found where the extremes collide. It’s not about hollow pathos or empty, unquestioningly marching heroism, not about misanthropic melancholy or a concomitant world-weariness.’

It may be thought strange that these six quartets are not more often coupled on record, for they present in microcosm a network of the correspondences and conflicts in the musical personalities of these two friends. Certainly the Melos Quartett of Stuttgart remain almost unrivalled not just in this coupling, but in their technical address and classically German sonority that allows us to hear the past, present and future context of these quartets. It was Schumann who first recognised in Brahms a creative force of the size that would finally slough off the shadow of Beethoven from the German musical culture left somewhat lost since his death in 1827. Schumann’s three quartets pour forth in a river of breathless song, part of the Chamber Music Year of 1842 which also saw the composition of the Piano Quartet and Quintet. The concentration is entirely typical of Schumann – the years immediately preceding had been occupied, one at a time, with piano music, song and orchestral music – and conditions the peculiar, ungovernable intensity of these pieces. Brahms, by contrast, wrote and then burnt at least 20 string quartets before he allowed the D minor work Op.51 No.1 to see the light of day, so oppressed was he not just by Beethoven’s mantle but perhaps also by Schumann’s publicly expressed determination to place it upon him.

1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die rightly
identifies the ceaselessly contemporary quality of the opening chorus to Bach’s Passion setting from 1724, ‘cross-cutting between stabbing pleas for mercy and relentless counterpoint like a CNN rolling news story on the world’s dispossessed’. This quality is rarely so apparent in recordings as it is in Peter Schreier’s set from 1987. Under Schreier, the brusquely immediate economy of utterance peculiar to the St John has never come into so sharply focused a contrast with the contemplative St Matthew. Having sung and recorded Evangelists for conductors as diverse as Karl Richter and Herbert von Karajan, Schreier (an alumnus of the Leipzig Thomanenchor, the choir that had been in Bach's charge over two centries ago) decided to go it alone. In concert this presented a unique, astonishing sight: choir and soloists behind him, instrumentalists in front, there he stood, facing the audience, all in black, no baton or music-stand in sight, for over two hours (three in the case of the St Matthew), as tenor soloist, Evangelist, conductor, the very embodiment of the old Leipzig Kantor, channelling the spirit of Passion text and music with unfailing drama.

This disc represents a new orchestra partnership for Signum Records with The Orchestra of the Age of the Englightenment, one of London and the world’s leading period-instrument ensembles. Led by Robert Howarth, the recording was made at Kings Place following the orchestras successful 2010 tour of the work. On the Vespers, Robert Howarth writes: 'For me, Monteverdi’s music enhances the text beautifully. It doesn’t matter whether one is religious or not, this music touches the human soul and reflects, sincerely and passionately the true meaning of the texts in the psalms and motets … You don’t need to know what’s being sung to hear that this is a masterpiece. However, it was Monteverdi’s intention to show you his thoughts on the texts and I think it is that intention that drives this music.'

Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances

Signum’s fourth disc with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra continues their series of the great core Russian repertoire. Featuring the Orchestral suite of one of Tchaikovsky’s most famous ballets, Swan Lake, complemented with Rachmaniov’s final composition Symphonic Dances.This recording follows the St Petersberg Philharmonic’s 2010 releases of Verdi’s Requiem (SIGCD184), Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 'Leningrad' (SIGCD194) and Prokofiev’s Cinderella and Romeo & Juliet Orchestral Suites (SIGCD214). “Temirkanov is good, noble and intense, gripping our attention with Shostakovich's sustained lines.” -Musicweb-International, June 2010

Souvenirs de Voyage, Echoes

Bernard Herrmann was perhaps one of the greatest musical all-rounders of the 20th Century. Although he is best known for his scores to some of the most iconic films ever made (Vertigo, Citizen Kane, Psycho), he was also a talented composer for the concert hall, with an early career marked out by his skill as a conductor - praised by Stravinsky amongst others, who autographed Hermann's score for his Symphony in 3 Movements with 'To the excellent musician and conductor, Bernard Herrmann. Cordially, I. Stravinsky.' The Tippett Quartet capture the energy and musical finesse of Herrmann's works in this recording, accompanied for Souvernirs de Voyage by the clarinetist Julian Bliss and featuring a new arrangement of his score for Psycho.

Today, Bach’s suites form part of the repertoire of every distinguished cellist, and many of them have recorded the complete cycle. Yet when sixty years ago the 24-year-old Mstislav Rostropovich first performed all the suites in public, it was a trailblazing act, linking up to the previous endeavour of Pablo Casals. When this live recording was made in 1955 at the Prague Spring festival, Rostropovich was 28 years of age. He astounded the audience with his youthful verve and surprising artistic maturity. At the festival Rostropovich met his lifelong love, Galina Vishnevskaya, whom upon returning to Moscow he married after several days of acquaintance. When in 1991 the cellist made a complete recording of the Bach suites in France, he was 64. All the more precious is this live recording from the Czech Radio archives, which waited more than half a century for its release.

Matmos

Güher and Süher Pekinel are recognized worldwide as a duo of most exceptional artistry and magnetism. Their performances in recital and with leading orchestras are considered to demonstrate extraordinary musicality, keyboard command and unanimity of style and execution. Worldwide they are the only duo playing without any eye contact in order to concentrate on their respective 'breath of musical momentum'. Twins born in Istanbul, the Pekinels first appeared in public at the age of six and three years later made their orchestral debut with the Ankara Philharmonic, broadcast live throughout Turkey. Beginning their studies at Conservatoire de Paris, the Pekinels later studied with piano legends like Rudolf Serkin, Claudio Arrau and Mieczyslaw Horszowski at the Curtis Institute and Juillard School in New York. They were introduced to the Salzburg Festival audience by Herbert von Karajan at his invitation in 1984, subsequently working with the great conductor on a number of occasions. This playful Bach program with a jazz twist also features the Jacques Loussier Trio. Bonus features: the documentary Double Life, a portrait of the musical lives of the twin concert pianists.

The Windmills of Your Mind, I Will Wait For You, Between Yesterday and Tomorrow, What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life, Dingo Rock

It is impossible to confine the music of Michel Legrand to a single category. This amazingly versatile singer, songwriter, composer, arranger, conductor and producer has enjoyed a whirlwind career, excelling in an impressively broad range of areas from classic film soundtracks and chanson to jazz and classical music. An international star who has garnered as much respect in the United States as he has in Europe, Legrand is an insatiable musician whose creativity and ambition know no bounds. For this gala event, titled LeGrand Jazz, the pianist chose the brilliant Big Band Orchestra from London to ignite and provide extra reinforcement for his greatest hits. The fabulous guitarist Sylvain Luc was invited to participate in this anniversary event. To perform some of his top songs, Legrand brought in British singer Alison Moyet, who thrills with her powerful voice, full of soul and energy.

With Richard Strauss’ Elektra, the Salzburg Festival delivers a riveting new production that the Vienna Daily Courier lauds as the 'best new opera production of 2010'. The top-quality vocalists, mighty stage set, and sensitive direction of Nikolaus Lehnhoff are worthy of this acclaim. Portraying Elektra is Swedish soprano Iréne Theorin, who injects astonishing dramatic power into the role. Internationally acclaimed Wagnerian Waltraud Meier also debuts her spectacular, commanding Klytämnestra. They are complemented by an outstanding Eva-Maria Westbroek as Chrysothemis and René Pape as Orest. Lehnhoff’s many years of experience on the world’s greatest stages come to the fore in his direction of the singers: moving about a sinister, forbidding set bathed in suggestively changing lighting, the vocalists are treated as stage actors, whose expressive gestures are captured with particular vividness and immediacy by the camera. Alternating between late 19th-century lyricism and early 20th-century excess, conductor Daniele Gatti emphasises the dual conflicts at the heart of the work.

Since its premiere in 1791, two months before the composer’s death, The Magic Flute's fairytale plot, eccentric cast of characters and fantastical scenery have exerted an almost childlike fascination on generations of audiences. The production is infused with an all-pervading sense of playful joy - packed with wonderful effects including flying machines, colourful costumes and magical scene changes. The Opéra national de Paris production's cast presents the finest and most promising Mozart singers on the opera stage today: Sarastro is played by the bass Matti Salminen, Pamina is sung by Dorothea Röschmann, with Désirée Rancatore as the Queen of Night. The tenor Piotr Beczala is Tamino, and baritone Detlef Roth makes a fresh and lively Papageno. Director Benno Besson’s detailed, even scholarly knowledge of the work’s genesis and his supreme grasp of its cultural and ideological background are placed entirely in the service of its fairytale aesthetic offering the viewer a truly magical opera experience!

This production of Bellini’s famous masterpiece Norma was extraordinary in many aspects. Staged by Italian director and filmmaker Roberto Andó at the Teatro Regio in Parma, it gathered international stars like American soprano June Anderson and Daniela Barcellona as well as Russian bass lldar Abdrazakov. Fabio Biondi’s transparent conducting and the authentic performance practice of Europa Galante illuminated the musical structure of Bellini’s opera and offered a new perspective on early 19th-century opera. Playing on historical instruments, the ensemble’s velvety tone and vibrant playing enabled a lively musical exchange between orchestra and singers. June Anderson has long been considered one of the leading sopranos in the bel canto repertoire. Her lyric voice shines particularly brightly against the softer sound texture of period instruments, thus adding a rare flexibility to the dramatic soprano part of Norma.

This production from the Opéra National de Paris resuscitates Gounod’s largely forgotten opera, Mireille.A triumph for Marc Minkowski, it attracted more than 1million viewers when broadcast on television. There is no competition in the DVD or Blu-ray. In 1859, a young Provençal poet, Fredéric Mistral, wrote his masterpiece, Miréio, a vast epic love poem. Gounod, whose Faust was premiererd that year, read Mireille shortly after publication and went to Saint-Rémy de Provence to meet Mistral. The composer was charmed by the originality of the work, the story being much less contrived than many of those on the operatic stage at the time. The opera has had a difficult career and was revised and altered several times. In 1939, Guy Ferrant and Henri Busser, disciples of Gounod, restored the five-act original.

The diversity of Wayne McGregor’s astonishing talent is demonstrated through Chroma, Infra and Limen, each created for The Royal Ballet, for whom he is resident choreographer. Intimate yet universal, light yet dark, frenetic yet lyrical, McGregor pursues his passion for exploring the inner workings of the human body and mind, his many-layered and beautiful dances providing visual, sensual and kinaesthetic stimulus for the viewer. Music includes Joby Talbot's re-working of songs by the White Stripes, and a work by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.

Christian Thielemann, 'by common consent the leading Wagner conductor of our time' (Die Presse), returns to Bayreuth for this radiant account of Die Walküre filmed at the 2010 Festival. Appearing on DVD and Blu-ray for the first time, it provides the only audio-visual document of Tankred Dorst’s Ring production, and follows the hugely successful release of the whole cycle on CD. Two new singers join the cast: Johan Botha as Siegmund, who was showered with praise by the press ('ideal vocal casting' in the words of the critic on the Frankfurter German Times) and Edith Haller, with her 'beautiful, strong soprano voice' (South German Times) as his sister and lover Sieglinde.