Star tenor Javier Camarena makes his Pentatone debut with Signor Gaetano, together with Gli Originali under the baton of Italian opera specialist Riccardo Frizza, presenting a carefully-curated exploration of Donizetti's greatest tenor arias. Besides famous excerpts from L'elisir d'amore, Don Pasquale and Roberto Devereux, this project focuses on hidden gems from rarely-recorded works such as Betly, Maria de Rudenz and Il giovedì grasso. Camarena and Frizza's exceptional sense of style is enhanced by the period instrument playing of Gli Originali. The recording took place at the Teatro Donizetti in the composer's hometown Bergamo, as part of the yearly Donizetti Festival, of which Frizza is the musical director. Javier Camarena is one of the most in-demand tenors of his generation, and one of the world's leading bel canto specialists. Riccardo Frizza frequents major opera houses, was awarded the Best Conductor prize at the International Opera XXI Awards, and returns to Pentatone after having featured on The Three Queens (Donizetti) with Sondra Radvanovsky and Lyric Opera Chicago (2022). Gli Originali was founded within the context of the Bergamo Donizetti Festival, and aims to revive the sound world of early nineteenth-century opera with period instruments and a historically-informed approach.

Holland Baroque presents Minne, an improvised programme inspired by the love poetry of medieval mystic Hadewijch from Brabant. Hadewijch was a 13th-century beguine who wrote an impressive oeuvre of love poetry, providing an original, female perspective on medieval life. For this project, Holland Baroque works together with Bastarda Trio, a folk-jazz group combining the unique sonorities of clarinet, cello and contrabass clarinet. Inspired by medieval poetry, the result is a playful, passionate, truly contemporary album…

Lyric Opera of Chicago presents "The Three Queens", a program that brings together the finales of Gaetano Donizetti’s Tudor trilogy, showcasing three of the most fascinating heroines of opera history. These extraordinary women are interpreted by soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, who performs them together with an excellent ensemble of soloists under the baton of Donizetti specialist Riccardo Frizza. Singing these three breathtaking roles on one night is an enormous challenge for any soprano, and this live recording captures all the excitement of this exceptional achievement.

After having recorded Mozart’s last three violin concertos in 2014, Arabella Steinbacher, the Festival Strings Lucerne and its leader Daniel Dodds now complete the cycle by presenting Mozart’s less well-known, but equally enchanting Violin Concertos 1 & 2, together with his Adagio in E Major and Rondos in C Major and B-flat Major…

Bach’s harpsichord concertos are arguably the first in the history of music designed specifically for this instrument. Composing them, Bach aimed to adapt the string writing of Italian instrumental concertos to a keyboard instrument, while simultaneously enriching this style with typically-German traits such as counterpoint and motivic development.

Oregon Symphony and Carlos Kalmar continue their acclaimed "Aspects of America" series with this second instalment, featuring three symphonic works that were all awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Walter Piston’s Symphony No. 7 (Pulitzer Prize 1961) is a pastoral and jubilant glorification of nature, while Morton Gould’s Stringmusic (Pulitzer Prize 1995) was composed for star cellist Rostropovich, and showcases all possible sounds and colors of the string orchestra. In his Symphony No. 4 “Requiem” (Pulitzer Prize 1944), Howard Hanson explores the mysteries of life and death in an American musical idiom that simultaneously reveals the composer’s Nordic roots.

The young players of the Swiss string ensemble Camerata du Léman make their recording debut with energetic performances of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, in a new arrangement by concertmaster Simon Bouveret. The Camerata realise an ensemble sound that is both homogenic and soloistic, and are driven by a shared desire for adventure and a common passion for chamber music. Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence is a tribute to the Italian city where the composer spent a winter, and simultaneously a declaration of love to Italian lyricism. The ensemble’s new rendition of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition revives the nineteenth-century transcription practice, while also demonstrating the inexhaustible musical richness of this timeless masterpiece.

On her PENTATONE debut Reine de coeur, star soprano Hanna-Elisabeth Müller brings the German and French art song traditions together, focusing on song cycles by Robert Schumann, Alexander von Zemlinsky and Francis Poulenc, accompanied by pianist Juliane Ruf. The album presents a highly personal anthology of songs that address love and loss, and the heights and depths of the human soul. While Schumann’s Sechs Gesänge Op. 107 and Sechs Gedichte und Requiem Op. 90 offer the quintessence of the Romantic German Lied, Zemlinsky’s turn-of-the-century Walzer-Gesänge introduce the listener to a later and less well-known chapter in the genre’s history.

From a deeply stirring Mass to hauntingly re-imagined Leonard Cohen masterpieces, LUNA PEARL WOOLF: Fire and Flood encompasses 25 years of vocal works by composer Luna Pearl Woolf, as performed by the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, cellist Matt Haimovitz, and more, conducted by Julian Wachner. In her penetrating album notes, New York Times contributing writer Corinna Da Fonseca-Wollheim comments, “Luna Pearl Woolf trains a zoom lens on the collective experience, sometimes plunging us right into the midst of destruction and anarchy only to pull back, in one swoop, to a clear-eyed plane of compassion.”

Flautist Ana de la Vega teams up with two-time ECHO award-winning oboist Ramón Ortega Quero and the Trondheim Soloists on her second PENTATONE album, to explore the intricate and unique relationship between flute and oboe in concertos by Joseph Haydn and Carl Stamitz. The programme consists of two concertos Haydn originally designed for two lire organizzate, as well as Stamitz’s Concerto for flute, oboe and orchestra in G major. The recording also features the latter’s vibrant and virtuosic but rarely recorded Flute Concerto in D major, which offers some of the finest writing for flute of the entire Classical era.

The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin continue their Handel trilogy with this recording of the last six concerti grossi of the composer’s Op. 6. Originally designed as attractive interludes to English oratorio performances, Handel’s concerti grossi soon gained fame as some of the most appealing orchestral music of the baroque era. With these pieces, written in London towards the end of his career, Handel paid tribute to the immensely popular concerti grossi of Corelli while simultaneously proving his mastery, incorporating all musical styles of his times into his work.

After their prize-winning Mendelssohn symphonies cycle and acclaimed Mozart symphonies album, the NDR Radiophilharmonie and its chief conductor Andrew Manze now present Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh symphonies. While Beethoven’s Fifth is arguably the most famous symphony in the history of music, the Seventh counts as one of the most rhythmically-advanced pieces of nineteenth-century music; an “apotheosis of dance”, to quote Richard Wagner. Both works display Beethoven’s mastery of and audacious approach to musical form as well as the richness of his melodic invention, and are generally praised as paragons of symphonic composition. Andrew Manze brings his experience in the field of historically informed performance to the polished symphonic sound of the NDR Radiophilharmonie, providing an ambience that fits these early nineteenth-century works like a glove.

The Miró Quartet, generally considered as one of the most established US classical ensembles, makes its PENTATONE debut with a complete recording of the Beethoven string quartets. Beethoven’s quartets truly stand at the centre of the repertoire, and present the summit for any quartet. Listening to Beethoven’s entire string quartet oeuvre – from the early op. 18 volume and Rasumovsky quartets to the otherworldly and modern-sounding pieces written during his final years – is a life-changing experience, and so is performing them integrally. This collection offers the results of 15 years of playing and recording Beethoven, and not only anticipates the 2020 commemoration of the composer’s 250th birthday, but also the 25th anniversary of the Miró Quartet itself.