Franz Peter Schubert

The Netherlands Chamber Orchestra has an extensive repertoire available on CD and new recordings on the PentaTone label are scheduled. Their leader Gordan Nikolic is a professor at the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall and teaches at the Rotterdam Academy for Classical Music. He has a special interest in chamber music and is regularly invited to play at various festivals.

The International Hugo Wolf Society of Vienna allowed this ensemble, founded in 1993 at the Vienna University for Music, to use the composer’s name. Shortly after, the quartet won the Fifth International String Quartet Competition in Cremona. What sets this quartet apart is its keen and insightful programming of the music of the Viennese Schools.

This version of the 5th Symphony was authorized by the composer. It represents a reduction of a real orchestral sound – a romantic expression of will, one which exploits the possibilities of the instrument to the full, and beyond maybe, too.

The male choral ensemble Camerata Musica Limburg was founded in 1999. The ensemble has devoted itself to presenting to the public outstanding performances of unknown male choir repertoire.

Compared to Elisabeth Grümmer’s rank as a singer, her recordings are shamefully few in number, giving these radio recordings a special documentary significance. “Whoever has heard Elisabeth Grümmer singing cannot forget the way this lovely voice, at once ethereal and yet full sounding, effortlessly flows along,” wrote Lafranco Rasponi.

Radulovic’s recording of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto received excellent reviews: “Radulovic (taped live) soars aloft in these glorious pieces with a seamless purity guaranteed to set the heart fluttering and pulse racing.” Classic FM Magazine. This new CD is selling 200 copies per day in France and is receiving fantastic reviews in the French Music press.

The selection of songs and arias on this double SACD set reflect on the fundamental question of life and death and cover a period of almost two centuries, the composers featured ranging from Bach through to Tchaikovsky. They are performed by one of the great lyric tenors of our age Christophe Prégardien, accompanied by the pianist Michael Gees. The common theme in the music of this recording is the most fundamental of all, existence itself, life and death. The composers represented are Bach, Mahler, Schubert, Schumann, Mozart, Brahms, Loewe, Wolf, Mendelssohn, and Tchaikovsky. The songs and arias performed here range over almost two centuries with eleven compositions and many musical forms, the simple song with piano accompaniment, the narrative, expansive ballad, the great opera aria and more.

Christoph Prégardien is widely regarded as among the foremost lyric tenors of our time and frequently collaborates with conductors such as Ricardo Chailly, John Elliot Gardiner, Nicolaus Harnoncourt, and Phillipe Herreweghe. He is represented on disc with more than a hundred and twenty titles, including most of his current repertoire. His recordings of German Romantic Lied repertory, particularly his recent releases on Challenge Classics of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin, (CC72292), and Schwanengesang, (CC72302), have been highly acclaimed by the public and press and have received many major international awards.

"I salute my listeners and offer them a warm and grateful farewell." Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel has for many years been among the world's greatest pianists; in concert, recital and on many best-selling recordings. Here, in his last CD release, recorded in the year of his retirement (2008), he gives his final public performances in solo recital and in concert - revealing a master musician in total command of his art

This 2CD digipak souvenir set captures these two memorable occasions, and is presented at the price of 2 for 1.5.

Recorded live in Hanover, Brendel's farewell recital featured composers with whom he is most closely associated throughout his career - with a set of variations by Haydn, and sonatas by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.

It is fitting that Alfred Brendel's final public performance should be in Vienna's beautiful Musikverein, with the Wiener Philharmoniker - an orchestra with whom he has enjoyed a long and fruitful collaboration. The concert was conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, marking the end of an exceptional partnership between pianist and conductor.

The concert featured Alfred Brendel as soloist in Mozart's concerto in E flat major K271, known as the 'Jeunehomme', after the young woman pianist for whom it was composed in 1777.

The booklet includes Brendel's own notes on the recital repertoire, and tributes from Sir Charles Mackerras and Prof. Dr. Clemens Hellberg of the Vienna Philharmonic - as well as a farewell statement from Alfred Brendel himself.

"Exquisite thrills as a titan bids farewell" Daily Telegraph, London

"The end of my concert career in December 2008, after sixty years on stage, was planned well in advance. I enjoyed looking forward to challenges of a different kind, and calmly anticipated my final performances." Alfred Brendel

"After so many years with Alfred at the top of his profession it is hard to imagine musical life without his unique presence." Sir Charles Mackerras