Georg Philipp Telemann remains one of the most fascinating and yet controversial composers of the Late Baroque. Some ridicule him for his prolific but reputedly superficial output while others view him as a universal musical genius. The cantatas by Telemann featured on this release provide an insight into over 50 years of creative activity. All works featured here were written for the Reformation Day and the feast of St Michael (29th September). Three of the five cantatas have a magnificent orchestration with trumpets and timpani. Performing these magnificent works are the acclaimed ensembles Kammerchor der Erloserkirche Bad Homburg and the Johann Rosenmuller Ensemble.

The Italian fifteenth century Laude still remain to this day a little-known and mysterious musical treasure. 2013 will mark the 600th anniversary of the birth of Saint Catherine of Bologna (1413), a woman of both deep theological insight and extraordinary, artistic talent, who founded and guided the first monastery of the Clarisse in Bologna in 1456. La Reverdie have discovered the repertory of laude sung by the Saint and her sisters, and have placed it in its original context: the expression of a mystic devotional practice which the saint herself vividly describes in her own devotional treatise «the Twelve Gardens».

Axur, re d'Ormus is an operatic dramma tragicomico in five acts by Antonio Salieri. The libretto was by Lorenzo da Ponte. Axur is the Italian version of Salieri's 1787 French-language work Tarare which had a libretto by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. Axur premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 8 January 1788, the title role being sung by Francesco Benucci, Mozart's first Figaro. It became one of the most famous operas in Vienna, being performed much more frequently than Mozart's Don Giovanni, which was first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1788.

Edgar Moreau performs two cello concertos which bravely and wittily challenge convention. Offenbach’s ambitious Grand Concerto in G major culminates in military fireworks, while Friedrich Gulda’s Concerto for Cello, Wind Orchestra and Band – written 130 years later – is a dazzling stylistic kaleidoscope. Moreau is joined by conductor Raphaël Merlin and the dynamic orchestral collective Les Forces Majeures.

With an album of celebration – both joyful and solemn – trumpeter Alison Balsom again declares her love for the baroque era, which she calls “the golden age of the trumpet”. Joining Handel’s exuberant Music for the Royal Fireworks are works by two other German-born composers – JS Bach and Telemann – and by the London-born Henry Purcell. “These baroque composers knew the instrument they were writing for,” says Balsom. “There is such value in searching out the sound that they would have heard themselves, with the intention of authenticity. When it comes together it is utterly thrilling.”

Eine bunte Mischung aus bekannten Stücken wie dem "Musikalischen Spaß" - aber auch unbekannten Perlen wie dem Kontretanz "Der Sieg vom Helden Koburg". Das Ganze wird auf unnachahmlich charmante Art vom Orpheus Chamber Orchestra präsentiert.

This massive new reissue from Eugene Ormandy’s stereo discography collects all the Columbia Masterworks recordings he made in Philadelphia between the early 1960s and early 1980s. Sony Classical’s new 94-CD box set once again demonstrates what noted critic Jed Distler, reviewing the previous instalment of this ambitious project “The Columbia Stereo Collection 1958–1963” in Gramophone’s December 2023 issue, characterized as “the Philadelphia Orchestra’s brilliance and versatility as well as Ormandy’s unflappable consistency and habitually underestimated interpretative gifts”.

Schubert's two greatest orchestral works on one CD at budget price–if the performances were indifferent this would be no bargain at all, but they are superb. In fact, these versions may have been equaled, but they have never been surpassed. George Szell understood intuitively how to balance Romantic passion with intellectual discipline. In difficult pieces like the Schubert Ninth, he rose to the challenge like an Olympic athlete after a new world record. The recordings he made in his prime with his own Cleveland Orchestra comprise one of the most satisfying legacies in the history of classical music on disc. Within even this impressive legacy, these performances stand high.

Jan Antonín Losy was born around 1650 of a prosperous Bohemian family. After the death of his father, the first Count of Losinthal, he inherited not only his title but also considerable wealth. He was therefore able to devote his life to music, and his skill as a lutenist became famous throughout Europe. Unlike professional players, Losy had no need to sell or publish his music but fortunately it has survived in numerous manuscript copies. Today we have almost 200 pieces by Count Losy, many of which once belonged together in larger suites or partitas.

Giacomo Facco was born on 1676 in the Most Serene Republic of Venice, in the small village of Marsango. The first documentary records of his work are in a series of cantatas, dated 1702, kept in Naples. It is there he may have started working for Antonio Spi?nola. The Spi?nola family was part of the high Spanish nobility and Antonio, during the War of the Spanish Succession, was appointed Viceroy of Sicily, where he lived until 1713. Facco also moved there with the marquis’ court, and had a period of intense activity, during which he premiered several operas and oratorios, as well as some cantatas.

This massive new reissue from Eugene Ormandy’s stereo discography collects all the Columbia Masterworks recordings he made in Philadelphia between the early 1960s and early 1980s. Sony Classical’s new 94-CD box set once again demonstrates what noted critic Jed Distler, reviewing the previous instalment of this ambitious project “The Columbia Stereo Collection 1958–1963” in Gramophone’s December 2023 issue, characterized as “the Philadelphia Orchestra’s brilliance and versatility as well as Ormandy’s unflappable consistency and habitually underestimated interpretative gifts”. Some of these performances – including the complete recording of Bach’s St. John Passion, Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis, Schubert’s Sixth Symphony and a disc of opera choruses with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, as well as Ginastera’s Concerto for Strings and the ballet music from Massenet’s opera Le Cid – have never appeared before in the digital medium, and they shine a light into new corners of Ormandy’s astonishingly large repertoire.

Widely considered as one of the leading exponents in early music, Emma Kirkby is renowned for her purity of production, clarity of diction and extraordinary degree of vocal control. From this release it is obvious that Emma Kirkby's artistic vigour and sense of discovery are undiminished. Alongside her incomparable performances of well-loved works such as Bach's cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, she uses the esteem in which she is held by musicians and audiences alike to champion long-forgotten repertory such as William Hayes's The Passions. Emma is accompanied by Cantillation and the Orchestra of the Antipodes conducted by Antony Walker.

One of the most extraordinary achievements on disc in the last quarter-century…Wherever you dip into them, the sense of stylishness, energy and, especially, Ross's affection for Scarlatti's boundless harmonic and rhythmic imagination is obvious. It's a constant, almost inexhaustible joy.

This is the first project in a seven-volume series exploring the ‘Sturm und Drang’ movement, which swept through all art forms in the between the early 1760s and 1780s. The purpose of this movement were to frighten and perturb through the use of wild and subjective emotional means of expression.

After an album of French songs (Néère, Alpha 215) that earned her a Gramophone Award in 2016, Véronique Gens presents her new recital, this time with orchestra, which gives her an opportunity to display the maturity of her ‘Falcon’ soprano, the central tessitura typical of French Romantic opera, which takes its name from Cornélie Falcon, who created the works of Meyerbeer and Halévy staged in the 1830s.