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World famous tenor Christoph Prégardien continues his series of recordings for Challenge Classics of Schubert song-cycles, with what many consider to be the composer’s greatest work in the genre “Winterreise”. As with previous critically acclaimed releases in the series the pianist is Michael Gees. This Blu-ray release features video of a performance of the work as well as the documentary “Winterreise, Der dritte Weg” (Winterreise, the third way), which presents interviews with Prégardien and Gees and behind-the-scenes footage of the studio recording process. It also includes a bonus CD of Christoph Prégardien and Michael Gees performing “Winterreise”. Blu-ray specifications: Region code: A, B, C (region free) Rating: E (exempt) Picture format: 16:9, 1920x1080i Sound format: Stereo PCM 192kS/s-24Bit, Surround 5.1 PCM 192kS/s-24Bit | 
| | | Scheduled for release on 3 June 2013. Order it now and we will deliver it as soon as it is available. |
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| |  | Claudio Abbado conducts Mahler and Schoenberg
Release of the successful DVD on Blu-ray Disc. What makes Abbado’s Mahler performance so remarkable is that their impact is never achieved at the expense of the multiple sensitivities, subtleties and extreme sophistication. Mahler’s Fourth Symphony and Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande are performed by one of the world’s leading youth orchestras: The Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. Includes an introduction to Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande by Alberica Archinto and Elli Stern, offering fascinating insights into this unparalleled composition. DVD release comes right in time for the 80th Anniversary Celebrations of Claudio Abbado and will be accompanied by the other EuroArts June releases: Claudio Abbado Special Anniversary Box and the Abbado Beethoven Box. Picture format Blu-ray Disc: 1080i Full HD Sound formats Blu-Ray Disc: PCM Stereo, DTS-HD Master Audio Region code: All (worldwide) Subtitles: English, French, German Booklet notes: English, French, German Runnning time: 113 mins |
| | | Scheduled for release on 3 June 2013. Order it now and we will deliver it as soon as it is available. |
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| |  | Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 & Wolf: LiederRecorded live at Semperoper Dresden, September 2012
The Dresden Staatskapelle has a living Bruckner tradition, stretching back a century and more, which is lovingly curated by its new music director, Christian Thielemann, who is himself a powerful advocate for the composer’s symphonies as the pinnacle of the Austro-German tradition; and in particular for the Wagnerian resonances of the Seventh, whose Adagio was shaped by news of Wagner’s death in Venice. Hugo Wolf was also deeply affected by that news; his songs, like Bruckner’s symphonies, can be seen as oblique reflections on the influence of Wagner, especially when sung, as they are here by Renée Fleming, with the utmost delicacy and intimacy. Christian Thielemann’s first concert as Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden. Both Thielemann and Fleming are renowned interpreters of Romantic repertoire. Bruckner’s 7th Symphony premiered in 1884 to universal acclaim & established him as a serious composer of symphonic music, Wolf’s Songs were composed four years later. Wolf was a great admirer of Bruckner and both idolized Wagner, whose influence is felt in the 7th Symphony. Running time: 106 minutes Subtitles N/A Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS |
| | | Scheduled for release on 3 June 2013. Order it now and we will deliver it as soon as it is available. |
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“The greatest mix of colours that ever existed” was Gustav Mahler’s description of the third movement of his Fourth Symphony. Riccardo Chailly, one of the most adept interpreters of Mahler of our time, and the Gewandhaus Orchestra transformed the entire Fourth Symphony into this kaleidoscope of sound. The unmistakable timbre of the orchestra has become synonymous with late Romantic repertoire and Mahler-esque style – it was described by Der Tagesspiegel as “uncommonly present, even in the thread-fine pianissimo, compact, concentrated, satin”. Once more, the connection between Chailly, the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Mahler proved to be exceptional: The way Chailly “moulded the music, which is so familiar to him, with loving gestures, confidently alluding to a thousand subtle details, allowing the orchestra to rise and fall – that is perfect.” BONUS TRACKS 1. The Welte-Mignon Piano Player Device 2. Mahler plays Mahler – Symphony No. 4, 4th movement 3. Riccardo Chailly on interpreting Mahler's 4th Symphony with the Gewandhaus Orchestra Picture Format BD: NTSC 16:9 FULL HD Sound Formats BD: PCM Stereo, DTS HD Master Audio Region Code: 0 (worldwide) Running Time: 61:14 min Running Time Bonus: approx. 16 min Disc Format: BD 25 Subtitles: German, English, French, Japanese Subtitles Bonus: German, English “abundant virtues...a sense of naturally flowing tempi, an ear for inner parts within the whole, a vitality that captures the pristine glow of this most innocent of all Mahler symphonies. Chailly is not a narcissistic Mahlerian: there’s no self-indulgent milking of the music for effect.” Financial Times, 4th May 2013 **** |
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“Felicity Lott remains for me the quintessential Poulenc singer” Graham Johnson La Voix Humaine is Poulenc’s one-woman tour de force to a text by Cocteau. It is a work which Felicity Lott has made her own – she gave a spellbinding performance at the BBC Proms in 2003: "Felicity Lott’s in wonderful form" said The Daily Telegraph and Classicalsource.com wrote “Having made the role very much her own in recent years, Felicity Lott duly encompassed its range of emotional minutiae with an impressive command ... and impeccable French.” This new HD filmed performance is the world-premiere recording with piano and is here in both DVD and Blu-ray format. It is the first time (since Francis Poulenc’s own performances, accompanying Denise Duval over 50 years ago), that permission has been given for La Voix Humaine to be recorded with piano accompaniment. Mme Rosine Seringe, the composer’s niece, has granted a special dispensation to Felicity Lott and Graham Johnson – as a token of decades of special friendship between the artists and the Poulenc Estate – for this work to be produced. Champs Hill Records is delighted to celebrate its relationship with Felicity Lott with this unique recording, in the fiftieth anniversary year of the composer’s death. Other ‘Flott’ releases on the label include ‘Summertime’, ‘My Own Country’ and a recital disc of Strauss songs. La Voix Humaine, premiered at the Opera Comique in Paris in 1959, is based on Cocteau’s 1927 stage monologue and is the most nakedly emotional of all Poulenc’s works. It presents a woman on stage speaking on the telephone with her (invisible and inaudible) departing lover, who is leaving her to marry another woman. She is frequently interrupted by problems with the unreliable Paris phone system of the time (not unlike contemporary problems with mobile phone signals!). The drama is communicated even more powerfully by Poulenc’s score, telling us about the unheard half of the conversation and making the character of ‘Elle’ more sympathetically, with genuine tenderness accompanying her desparate and manipulative attempts to keep her departing lover on the phone. “it is hard to think of two finer champions of Poulenc's music, and this set finally gives us a chance to see Lott's devastating interpretation...Johnson is responsive to every psychological eddy and it is simply and tastefully filmed...Just remember to allow some recovery time in solitude afterwards.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2013  BBC Music Magazine
DVD Choice - June 2013 |
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| | | This item is currently out of stock at the UK distributor. You may order it now but please be aware that it may be six weeks or more before it can be despatched. |
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| |  | Solti Centenary ConcertLive recording from Symphony Center, Chicago, 2012
Hosted by Valerie Solti The Solti Centenary Concert in Chicago celebrated Sir Georg Solti’s 100th birthday on October 21, 2012, featuring the World Orchestra for Peace. This unique ensemble owes its existence to the vision of its founder, Sir Georg Solti, who believed passionately in peace and the power of music and musicians to be ambassadors for peace. Charmingly hosted by Solti’s widow, Lady Valerie Solti, and featuring soloists such as Angela Gheorghiu and René Pape as well as members of the Georg Solti Accademia, this memorable evening presents musical highlights, all of which played a significant role in Solti’s life and career. Besides excerpts from Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte and Don Giovanni or Verdi’s La Traviata and Rigoletto, this concert finds lovely musical moments in the 'Adagietto' from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Strauss’ Don Juan and Bartók’s masterful Concerto for Orchestra. Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever as the encore closes the performance with a smash. Conductor Valery Gergiev was a good friend of his advisor Georg Solti. Together with Lady Valerie Solti and the World Orchestra for Peace he carries on Solti’s vision and maintains his memory. Special Bonus Feature: “Solti’s Vision”, a film about the World Orchestra for Peace Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1, dts-HD Master Audio 5.1 Picture Format: 16:9, 1080i FULL HD Subtitle Languages: DE, FR / DE (Bonus) Running Time: 112 mins + 21 mins (Bonus) FSK: 0 Worldwide available |
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| |  | Happy New Year 2012Die Operettengala aus Dresden (The Operetta Gala from Dresden)
Thielemann’s annual Operetta Gala is THE New Year’s tradition in the making, presenting the sparkling treasures of the popular operetta repertoire – magnificent, familiar music and great artists, a colourful, festive atmosphere, and the most elegant of historic German venues. A unique occasion, and a unique product offering - welcome 2013 in effervescent style with Christian Thielemann, the Staatskapelle Dresden, vibrant dancers, and a pair of dashing star soloists – Ingeborg Schöpf and Piotr Beczala. Recorded in Dresden’s magnificent Semperoper, the concert was broadcast LIVE on television on 30 December 2012, and seen by a 1.75-million-plus audience on ZDF, as well as being carried to a potential six-figure audience via key European and Asian satellite affiliates. Features operetta hits and favourites from Countess Mariza, The Gypsy Princess, Kaiserin Josephine, The Duchess of Chicago and many more |
| | | DG - 0734941 (Blu-ray) Normally: $26.50 Special: $19.87 |
| | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | MissionBlu-ray
Steffani: | Schiere invitte, non tardate (from Alarico il Baltha) Ogni core può sperar (from Servio Tullio) Ove son? Chi m'aita? In mezzo all'ombre...Dal mio petto (from Niobe) Più non v'ascondo (from Tassilone) Amami, e vederai (from Niobe) T'abbraccio, mia Diva...Ti stringo, mio Nume (from Niobe) Philippe Jaroussky (countertenor) Mie fide schiere, all'armi!...Suoni, tuoni, il suolo scuota (from I trionfi del fato) Sposa, mancar mi sento...Deh non far colle tue lagrime (from Tassilone) Non prendo consiglio (from La superbia d'Alessandro) Si, si, riposa, o caro...Palpitanti sfere belle (from Alarico il Baltha) Notte amica al cieco Dio (from La libertà contenta) Combatton quest'alma (from I trionfi del fato) Philippe Jaroussky (countertenor) A facile vittoria (from Tassilone) Tra le guerre e le vittorie (from La superbia d'Alessandro) Foschi crepuscoli (from La libertà contenta) Dell'alma stanca a raddolcir le tempre...Sfere amiche, or date al labbro (from Niobe) La cerasta più terribile (from La lotta d'Hercole con Acheloo) Serena, o mio bel sole...Mia fiamma/Mio ardore (from Niobe) Philippe Jaroussky (countertenor) Dal tuo labbro amor m'invita (from Tassilone) Deh stancati, o sorte (from La libertà contenta) Svenati, struggiti, combatti, suda (from La libertà contenta) Padre, s'è colpa in lui (from Tassilone) Timori, ruine (from Le rivali concordi) Morirò fra strazi e scempi (from Henrico Leone) Non si parli che di fede (from Marco Aurelio) |
Autumn 2012 marks the release of Mission, a sensational new album from the world’s best-selling classical artist, Cecilia Bartoli, and a project with international politics, religious conflict, diplomatic secrecy, spying and sensational music at its heart. The album showcases the music of a little-known Italian composer and will include solo arias of various moods and styles, several duets, solo numbers with chorus - all sung in Italian - and instrumental interludes that create an organic transition from one piece to the next and an arc that reaches from the beginning to the end of the album. Such was the appeal of the project that longtime Bartoli admirer and global best-selling author Donna Leon decided to write a mystery novel - Jewels of Paradise - to accompany Cecilia’s album, which uses the mystery surrounding the composer’s story as the centre of its plot. Jewels of Paradise will be released simultaneously with Cecilia Bartoli’s album in English (UK and USA), German, French, Dutch, Spanish and Catalan. Among the distinguished names appearing on Mission is star French counter-tenor Philippe Jaroussky who features in a first-time collaboration with Cecilia on a selection of duets, alongside the Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera, the period orchestra I Barocchisti from Lugano, Switzerland, and conductor Diego Fasolis. A cinematographic vision of the album directed by Olivier Simonnet and filmed in the historic Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors) and in the gardens of the Chateau de Versailles “Steffani’s art is elegantly expressive, Italianate with French dressing...Several brazen display arias are here...Bartoli leaps around the vocal ladder with customary gusto and a rather too vigorous vibrato. The pleasures are subtler when the music is simpler and the voice quieter...Notte amica, say, from La Libertà contenta, or the silky caress of Sfere amiche...These two tracks were definitely worth Bartoli shaving her head.” The Times, 21st September 2012 *** “Bartoli’s programming instincts are immaculate in terms of musical and emotional variety; she is compelling in pearly arioso and slow numbers, less so in bravura ones.” Sunday Times, 14th October 2012 “she sweeps through 25 numbers flexing her well-rehearsed vocabulary of flighty fioritura, expressive mannerism and tender vocalità. The melting duets with countertenor Philippe Jaroussky are worth hearing” Financial Times, 20th October 2012 “Bartoli's vocal mannerisms vex and delight – sometimes simultaneously. But for those seduced by the 2010 Royal Opera House production of Niobe, Regina di Tebe, this selection will be irresistible.” The Independent on Sunday, 18th November 2012 “Bartoli's plummy mezzo soars, smoulders and seduces, milking the music's vocal and expressive scope to dramatic effect. It's hard to resist her sparkling personality and infectious passion for this repertoire...the animated playing of I Barocchisti enhance the sheer theatre and scale of Steffani's talent...this is truly a revelatory disc.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2012 ***** “Among the opera arias Ms. Bartoli dug up in the archives are some treasures, hypnotic, slow numbers in which voice and accompanying strings circle each other like spinning planets and jubilant vehicles for her rapid-fire coloratura singing. Mr. Fasolis stokes the fire with an impetuous period-instrument ensemble.” New York Times, 23rd November 2012 “Bartoli is to be both congratulated and thanked for this project...Her dazzlingly virtuoso and urgently expressive performances betoken nothing less than total commitment, with every single aria delivered with as much dramatic intensity and focus as if it had been lifted straight from a fully staged production...it is hard to know what more one could ask for” Gramophone Magazine, December 2012 “I can't think of another singer who brings such variety of colour, nuance and pathos to slow numbers...Bartoli's performance of the more bravura numbers...is more questionable...Vocal fireworks have always been essential weapons in the Bartoli armoury, but they are now sounding rusty...I don't want to end on a negative note, as there is much to admire and even love here...'Mission' is in every sense a collector's item.” International Record Review, December 2012 |
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| |  | Philippe Jaroussky: La voix des rêvesGreatest Moments on Concerts
Philippe Jaroussky, described by Germany’s Die Zeit as “the Apollo of countertenors’, stands out among his many talented contemporaries as much for the soprano-like beauty of his tone as for the elegance and insight of his interpretations and his adventurous and erudite approach to repertoire – whether unearthing neglected scores by little-known composers or venturing beyond the Baroque into the 19th and 20th centuries. Established as one of Virgin Classics’ bestselling artists, Jaroussky, now aged 34, has been honoured three times in the Victoires de la Musique awards in his native France and has also received Germany’s most prominent music prize, the Echo Klassik. His diverse achievements are saluted in two new collections on Virgin Classics – the 2CD set “The Voice” and the DVD and Blu Ray “La Voix des rêves: Greatest moments in Concert”. “LA VOIX DES RÊVES - Greatest Moments in Concert” (available on DVD & Blu Ray) features video footage from a number of occasions and venues – including items from a concert given among the crystal chandeliers of the splendid Galerie des Glaces in the palace of Versailles, and works by Handel and Vivaldi performed in another jewel of French Baroque architecture, the sumptuously decorated Chapelle de la Trinité in Lyon. Also included are exclusive interviews an array of fellow musicians: Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Emmanuelle Haïm, Christina Pluhar; Jérôme Ducros, Quatuor Ebène, Gautier Capuçon, Marie-Nicole Lemieux and Renaud Capuçon. Jaroussky and his appeal were aptly summarised in a recent profile in the French magazine Balthazar: “Philippe Jaroussky alternates between opera and recitals, bringing his sensual, graceful voice and matinee idol looks, and this has made him a key star of classical music. But his recordings also reveal a skilled musicologist who has revived numerous forgotten artists like the castrato Carestini [and the composers] Johann Christian Bach and Caldara. Jaroussky simply glows. Anyone who has had the opportunity to meet him will find it hard to forget his enthusiastic conversation and his magnetic gaze.” The singer made his passions clear in an interview with Crescendo magazine, revealing that “I don’t like being told I have the ‘voice of an angel’, because that would just mean that it sounds pretty and takes people out of themselves … I want to be able to evoke more human emotions too: sorrow, despair, jealousy.” Speaking to the leading French newspaper Le Monde, he went into more detail on his philosophy as a maturing singer: “Ten years into your career, you reach a certain level of purity in your approach. You are always set on improving – strengthening your high notes, your low notes, your projection or your expressivity – but you also accept what it means to be an artist.” | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Salzburg Festival Opening Concert 2011
Top cast with Pierre Boulez, Wiener Philharmoniker, Dorothea Röschmann and upcoming soprano Anna Prohaska. After two works by Mahler’s pupil Alban Berg, featuring Röschmann and Prohaska, the main event of the concert is Gustav Mahler’s Das klagende Lied – a “great spectral opera for the mind’s eye” (Wiener Zeitung) The Salzburg Festival is regarded by many as the world’s most renowned music festival. Running Time Total: 95 minutes Picture 16:9, HD Sound BD: dts-HD MA 5.0, PCM Stereo Subtitles G, E, F, Sp, Kor., Chin. | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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