Following the tremendous success of his complete Debussy piano music edition (‘This could well be the finest and most challenging of all Debussy piano cycles’ – Bryce Morrison, Gramophone) and the launch of his ambitious Haydn Piano Sonatas series, French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet now turns his attention to some of the mightiest concertos of the 20th century: the three Bartók Piano Concertos on a single CD. Bartók wrote his First Concerto, one of his most challenging works, in 1926. The percussive piano writing ads much bite to the textures, while the central Andante, a a dialogue between the soloist and four percussion players, features much atmospheric ‘Night Music’. The more melodically appealing Second Concerto was first performed in 1933, and the Third was written at the end of the composer’s life in 1945 in a lighter, almost neo-classical style.

What happens when you bring the worlds of jazz and Monteverdi together? Is there a musical meeting-point where the two can coexist? Claudio Cavina is on the case (witness some of the very 'modern' moments in his recent Glossa recordings of the Scherzi musicali and L'Incoronazione di Poppea), and on this new album he creates a vibrant intersection of styles and eras. La Venexiana does not change a note of the original scores: instead, the Gramophone Award-winning vocal ensemble's experience and expertise in performing Monteverdi’s madrigals, sacred music and operas is enriched by a hand-picked quartet of improvising jazz musos on saxophone, accordion, double bass and drums. Soprano Roberta Mameli shines through as the protagonist in these 17th-century 'ballads'. Cavina says of Monteverdi’s music, 'there is something modern, something new and innovatory which encourages one to dare, to go further.' Listen to the results...

This stunning new recording takes René Jacobs's Mozartian enterprise to new heights, with the same exceptional cast and beautifully rounded period-instrument sound we loved in his Don Giovanni and Idomeneo. After showing us another way of looking at the Da Ponte trilogy and taking an innovative approach to the two great opere serie (Idomeneo and La clemenza di Tito), Jacobs has now set out to harmonise the multitude of viewpoints on Die Zauberflöte, ranging far beyond its Masonic rituals and mixture of dramatic genres. As a result, Mozart's most ‘nocturnal' work is illuminated as if by . . . magic.

Anonymous 4 brings us the Christmas story as told in medieval English carols and Anglo-American spiritual songs in a programme inspired by the 15th-century miracle ballad The Cherry Tree Carol, which flourishes both in the British Isles and in America. The ideal Christmas gift of calming spiritual music, Anonymous 4's highly anticipated new album follows last year's collection, Four Centuries of Chant (HMX2907546).

Stile Antico's latest programme centres on Thomas Tallis's magnificent seven-part Christmas Mass, based on the festive plainchant Puer natus est (‘A boy is born'). The mass is interspersed with seasonal Tudor music, including William Byrd's exquisite Propers for the fourth Sunday of Advent, responsories by Taverner and Sheppard, Robert White's exuberant setting of the Magnificat, and Tallis's own sublime Videte miraculum. This bright young vocal group, best known for its stint as back-up singers on Sting's Dowland tour, is 'an ensemble of breathtaking freshness, vitality and balance' (New York Times) and in 2009 won the Gramophone Award for Early Music (Song of Songs HMU807489).

Hamelin plays Hamelin: a glimpse into the fabulously bizarre musical mind of one of the greatest piano virtuosos of today. The pianophile population has been clamouring for this disc for some time. Marc-André Hamelin’s 12 Études, written over a period of nearly twenty-five years, have already achieved cult status by reputation as pianistic challenges beyond the reach of most human fingers. These highly-wrought character pieces shocked and delighted Australian audiences who heard Hamelin during his tour. The disc is completed by more of Hamelin’s compositions: the quiet and reflective Con intissimo sentimento, and the love poem Cathy’s Variations. As a whole it is a detailed portrait of this most talented and complex musician.

Angela Hewitt’s acclaimed recordings of Bach on the piano have received the highest critical acclaim and found their way into thousands of homes, selling over nearly 400,000 copies since her recording of the Inventions burst onto the scene in 1994. Now for the first time Angela’s complete solo Bach is available as a boxed set of 15 CDs at a special price.

A perfect gift for the few music-lovers left in the world who have not experienced these matchless performances; and for those who have, a chance to fall in love all over again. Includes a (16th) bonus sampler disc of Hewitt's recordings of composers beyond Bach.

‘Hewitt remains today's finest exponent of Bach's keyboard music’ -Gramophone
‘Angela Hewitt’s Bach has long been a thing of wonder’ -The Daily Telegraph
‘Everything is right, everything is natural – this is Bach on the piano of the highest quality imaginable’ -The Guardian

Following her sensational ACO tour of July 2010, our favourite barefoot fiddler proudly presents her national heritage and family tradition on this album of Eastern European folk-inspired music. Rapsodia was the name of her father's band: the most famous cimbalom virtuoso of the former Soviet Union, Victor Kopatchinsky here accompanies the spirited violin duo of Patricia and her mother, Emilia. This unique family portrait includes Patricia's ACO encore piece, the wickedly mercurial ‘Crin’.

'Every human being has a place where he or she feels at home – a country, a family, or a type of music. I’m lucky enough to have a home in all three of these categories, and something of each of them can be found on this CD. As in a rhapsody, they are linked by the music of my native country, of my ancestors, the music I grew up with and without which I wouldn’t be what I am today. We come from Moldova, a beautiful country with heady rustic fragrances, an endless open sky, warm sunshine and rich black soil. Life there is quite similar to southern Italy: we go to church on Sundays, we make good wine, we eat polenta and olives, we get worked up about the Mafia. On feast days the tables groan with food, people are jolly and affectionate, the dances are lively and contagious. But Moldova is also very poor. My mother once said that God looked at the map of the world and observed: "This little people is in such desperate straits that I must do something to console them: I’ll send them lovely folk music."' -Patricia Kopatchinskaja

Marc Minkowski and Musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble's fifth recording on Naïve is dedicated to Handel's popular Water Music suite, commissioned by King George I for the famously extravagant 'river party' that took place in July 1717. To complement this program, Minkowski chose to record the overture of Handel's opera Rodrigo: everything in this stately Florentine suite seems to foreshadow the elegance and joyful colour of the great London festival. This is Les Musiciens du Louvre’s highly anticipated first recording of Water Music.

Mozart specialist Colin Davis directs an exceptional recording of this witty, sophisticated, compact comic opera. The superlative cast, including a stellar Kiri Te Kanawa, and the excellent orchestra respond to Davis's finely polished account of the score, deftly balancing the humanity, irony, pain and humour of Da Ponte's complex battle of the sexes. Packaged in an attractive clam-shell box, recorded at the Royal Opera House, London, 27 January 1981.

At last, the final instalment of John Eliot Gardiner's acclaimed Brahms series, in which his Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique explore the music of Johannes Brahms. From baroque to romantic, and from great orchestral pieces to intimate choral works, the listener gains a wonderful insight into Brahms’s mind and music-making, through pieces that he loved and that inspired him. In particular, Gardiner delves into the Fourth Symphony's baroque character, the Finale directly inspired by Bach’s cantata Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich. Brahms enjoyed conducting lesser-known repertoire such as Gabrieli’s Sanctus Benedictus and Schütz’s Saul, Saul, whichprofoundly influenced his choral writing, as we can hear in the Geistliches Lied.

Praise for the Brahms series: 'Gardiner at his penetrating, combative best, making contact with the music’s heartbeat in a way which sounds both radical and natural…' – BBC Music Magazine

Soli Deo Gloria presents the longed-for sequel to its best-selling album to date, Pilgrimage to Santiago (SDG701). This new collection is a journey through medieval and renaissance Spain, guiding listeners from the 14th-century polyphony of the Llibre Vermell (Red Book) of Montserrat to elaborate 16th and 17th-century choral music. From the Middle Ages to the early modern era, pilgrimage routes formed part of a broader network of cultural and commercial connections between ecclesiastical institutions in Spain, Portugal and the rest of Europe. Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir undertake a unique musical pilgrimage in Santiago A Capella. 'This is a staggeringly sung disc of some staggeringly beautiful music … an act of rapt devotion, be it religious or simply musical' – The Sunday Times

At the Berlin Waldbühne in 1995, for the Berlin Philharmonic's annual summer concert,  Sir Simon Rattle conducted an American Night of works by Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin. What is the essence of American music? Bernstein gave his opinion at one of his concerts for young people: 'I don‘t think there is anyone in the whole world who wouldn‘t know immediately that Gershwin‘s music is American. It sounds American, smells of America, and when you listen to it you feel American.'  In November 2010, Australian audiences will have the chance to see the great Berlin Philharmonic and Principal Conductor Simon Rattle in action.

This all-time ballet favourite, in which young Clara is swept into a fantasy adventure when one of her Christmas presents comes to life, is at its most enchanting in Peter Wright's glorious production – as fresh as ever in its 25th year. Tchaikovsky’s ravishing score, period designs by Julia Trevelyan Oman (including an ingenious magical Christmas tree), an exquisite Sugar Plum Fairy (Miyako Yoshida) and chivalrous Prince (Steven McRae), the mysterious Drosselmeyer (Gary Avis) and vibrant dancing by The Royal Ballet make for a captivating performance. Filmed in High Definition and recorded in true surround sound.

‘One of the very best seasonal treats for children and adults alike, the Royal Ballet’s Nutcracker is a handsome, magical, thoroughly traditional rendering of ETA Hoffmann’s immortal if deeply strange story.’ -Sunday Express