Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice

The award-winning Cardinall’s Musick have finally completed their Byrd series, and now look outside the British isles to a composer who had to wait for a long time for his genius to be fully recognised, although he was well known to his contemporaries, and produced a considerable output. Guerrero was born in 1528 in Seville, the city that was to remain at the centre of his entire life. His early training came from his brother Pedro and it is thought that he was a chorister at the magnificent Cathedral in Seville with its sumptuous music foundation. Guerrero himself states that he studied with Morales, and it was Morales who recommended the young musician for the post of maestro de capilla at Jaén Cathedral in 1546 – a short-lived appointment.

The main work on this disc is the gloriously sunny and joyful Missa Congratulamini mihi. Based on an Easter motet by Crecquillon (also recorded here), it is full of the voluptuous exuberance of the Paschal season. The five-part texture, with two treble parts, adds to the shining sound.

Also included are a number of Easter motets. Maria Magdalena et altera Maria and Post dies octo are highly descriptive, narrative works, highly contrasted in mood and texture. The four other pieces on this disc show various facets of Guerrero’s mastery. Dum esset rex (in honour of Mary Magdalene) is similar to a spiritual madrigal whilst the eight-part Ave Maria is a sonorous double-choir plea to the Virgin. The two settings of Regina caeli (the Marian antiphon to be sung during Eastertide) both use a plainsong cantus firmus as their starting point. The older sounding, four-part version uses a minor-mode motif whilst the eight-part setting uses the more traditional plainsong melody woven into an exuberant and joyful Easter statement.

2 CD & DVD.

Lang Lang’s first recording for Sony, the start of a new exclusive long-term partnership - recorded live at Vienna’s prestigious Musikverein in 2010.

Lang Lang:

Heralded as the “hottest artist on the classical music planet” by the New York Times, 28- year-old Lang Lang began playing the piano at the age of 3, gave his first public recital aged 5, and won first prize at the Tchaikovsky International Young Musicians Competition at the age of 13. Since then he has become a global phenomenon, playing sold out recitals and concerts in every major city in the world.

Testimony to his success, Lang Lang recently appeared in the 2009 Time 100 – Time Magazine's annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2008, over 5 billion people viewed Lang Lang’s performance in Beijing’s opening ceremony for the Olympic Games, and he has inspired over 40 million Chinese children to take up the piano – a phenomenon coined by The Today Show as "the Lang Lang effect." More recently, Lang Lang was chosen as an official worldwide ambassador to the 2010 Shanghai Expo. He has performed at prestigious events including at The White House and The Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony.

Continuing his presence on the world stage, Lang Lang was featured at the 2008 Grammy Awards and the 2009 Classical Brit Awards, pairing up with jazz great, Herbie Hancock, for an astounding performance that was broadcast live to 45 million viewers worldwide.

Lang Lang has made it his mission to share classical music around the world, with an emphasis on training children and young musicians through education, outreach programs, master classes and financial support. He launched the Lang Lang International Music Foundation in New York with the support of UNICEF. In May 2009, Lang Lang and his three chosen young scholars from the foundation performed together on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In addition to his numerous commitments, Lang Lang holds the title of the first Ambassador of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. His role in this groundbreaking project created by YouTube and Google reflects his devotion to building new audiences and bringing classical music to young people worldwide. A brand in himself, Lang Lang has become the face of numerous global campaigns. Steinway has created five versions of the “Lang Lang Steinway” designed for early music education - the first time in Steinway’s 150-year history that an artist’s name has been used to produce pianos. He is a global brand ambassador for the entire Sony Corporation, including its Electronics arm, with whom he anticipates achieving innovative and creative possibilities for the future. Lang Lang also holds brand partnerships with Audi Automobiles and Aegon's worldwide financial services, amongst others.Lang Lang’s performance clothes are provided by Versace.

In February 2010, Lang Lang joined Sony Music Entertainment as an exclusive recording artist.

This is a very welcome reissue (the first time on CD) of Rozhdestvensky conducting the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra in the benchmark recordings of the complete Sibelius Symphonies. Rozhdestvensky writes: "Sibelius has a strong connection with the Russian melos which was noted by many researchers of his musical legacy”.

20-page booklet with notes in English, French & German.

Hot on the heels of an Editor’s Choice for his Alpine Symphony, Bernard Haitink conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, one of the world’s greatest Strauss ensembles, in Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life) whose US première it gave in 1900. The CSO pours out a lush interpretation of Richard Strauss’s large and complex tone poem in their newest live recording. Principal Conductor Bernard Haitink leads with restraint and allows the strings and woodwinds to sing. In the famous Battle Scene, the brass and percussion roar, while concertmaster Robert Chen paints his violin solos depicting Strauss’ wife, Pauline, with tender beauty. Webern’s early tone poem Im Sommerwind is indebted to Strauss’s rhapsodic romanticism and overflows with spacious melodies. A musical force in Chicago and around the world, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the finest international orchestras.

“Haitink worked his customary miracles on behalf of Richard Strauss and the CSO gave him what it always gives him: superb and deeply felt playing… In Webern’s Im Sommerwind, Haitink asked for a refined beauty of sound and got it in abundance.” Chicago Tribune Concert Review

Elîna Garanča’s supple, seductive mezzo is aflame with the neon hues and rhythmic dash of Romany in excerpts from beguiling Gypsy roles in opera and operetta. Stand alone numbers add to the panache of Habanera.

With gorgeous pieces eliciting every gift Elîna Garanca boasts as a musician, Habanera's instrumental accompaniments – whether RAI’s full orchestra, small ensemble or guitar – add to the sultry atmosphere.

Conductor Karel Mark Chichon contributes taut yet elastic leadership that enhances the charm and variety of Elîna Garanca’s selections.

On this album, the ‘dialects’ derived from Gypsy musical language include Bizet’s Carmen, Chueca’s Tango de la Ermenegilda, Bernstein’s Candide, Lehar’s Hör ich Zymbalklänge and unknown gems like Obradors’ El vito (see the exceptional music video) making for a musically enlightening and delightful program.

Every generation has its “must see” Carmen. In 2010, the list of definitive gypsy seductresses – glittering with names like Baltsa, Bumbry, Calvé, Farrar, and Stevens – is enriched by the addition of Elīna Garanča.

After her triumphant success as Carmen in Riga, London, and Munich, Elīna Garanča, “the Carmen of our day” (News, Austria), has taken the NY Metropolitan Opera by storm in January 2010. This production was filmed live and the 2 DVD Set in 5.1 DTS surround sound will be released simultaneously.

The Wiener Zeitung said it all when it observed of Garanča’s Carmen that “the role and the singer are perfectly matched”.

The Chamber Choir of Southern Iceland are once again reunited with the music of John Tavener. Back in 2004 they performed many of these pieces at a concert in Iceland with one piece Schouen Hymnen being specially commissioned by the choir. This stunning choral discs brings new recordings of established favourites along with the world premiere of Three Holy Sonnets.

"The Nash Ensemble is still the best champion that any composer could hope to have" The Times

"The Nash Ensemble performances, as one would expect, are devoted and full of insight" Daily Telegraph

The world premiere of David Matthews’ Dark Pastoral, based on a surviving fragment of Vaughan Williams’ Cello Concerto, will be performed at the 2010 Proms by Steven Isserlis.

David Matthews spent three years as an assistant to Benjamin Britten at Aldeburgh in the late 1960s. We are delighted to welcome back one of the world’s finest chamber groups, The Nash Ensemble, to the label in this collection of world premiere recordings by the composer David Matthews. Matthews’ soundworld is rooted in the English romantic tradition of Elgar and Vaughan Williams and this is evident in the dramatic settings of Pushkin (Winter Passions), Shakespeare (Terrible Beauty) and TS Eliot (Marina), all stunningly performed by baritone Stephan Loges and mezzo Susan Bickley.

The ravishing Terrible Beauty, op. 104, for mezzo-soprano and seven players (flute, bass clarinet, harp and string quartet) was composed in 2007 and is largely set of Enobarbus’s famous eulogy of Cleopatra in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, describing her progress down the River Cydnus to Tarsus in a gilded barge, attended by servants dressed as sea nymphs and watched by all the citizens of the town. In Winter Passions Matthews conjures up a Russian scene with use of traditional Russian folksong and pizzicato on the strings sounding like the strumming of a balalaika.

François-Xavier Roth records here his first disc with the Liège Philharmonic Orchestra of which he is now musical director. He recently stood in for an ailing Andre Previn with the LSO during the volcano crisis. “Chausson’s Poème has always had an extremely powerful emotional effect on me”, says Tedi Papavrami. “There is a painful sincerity in Chausson, which distinguishes him from other French composers of the period – with whom he shares the harmonic refinement. I am always amazed at his way of assimilating the Wagnerian heritage whilst composing music that is unquestionably French. It is a wrenching, contrasted work, going from the ethereal to bitterness by way of breathless rage. It was after having heard Poème élégiaque d’Ysäye that Chausson composed his Poème! Listening to it, the influence is obvious – the same colours, same key, same Franckist seriousness, and this orchestral version – the Liège Philharmonic must be one of the rare orchestras to have the parts (Ysaÿe was born in Liège) – seemed ideal to me for completing the second pole of the programme as a counterweight to Saint-Saëns.”

Lang Lang’s first recording for Sony, the start of a new exclusive long-term partnership - recorded live at Vienna’s prestigious Musikverein earlier in 2010.

Lang Lang:

Heralded as the “hottest artist on the classical music planet” by the New York Times, 28- year-old Lang Lang began playing the piano at the age of 3, gave his first public recital aged 5, and won first prize at the Tchaikovsky International Young Musicians Competition at the age of 13. Since then he has become a global phenomenon, playing sold out recitals and concerts in every major city in the world.

Testimony to his success, Lang Lang recently appeared in the 2009 Time 100 – Time Magazine's annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2008, over 5 billion people viewed Lang Lang’s performance in Beijing’s opening ceremony for the Olympic Games, and he has inspired over 40 million Chinese children to take up the piano – a phenomenon coined by The Today Show as "the Lang Lang effect." More recently, Lang Lang was chosen as an official worldwide ambassador to the 2010 Shanghai Expo. He has performed at prestigious events including at The White House and The Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony.

Continuing his presence on the world stage, Lang Lang was featured at the 2008 Grammy Awards and the 2009 Classical Brit Awards, pairing up with jazz great, Herbie Hancock, for an astounding performance that was broadcast live to 45 million viewers worldwide.

Lang Lang has made it his mission to share classical music around the world, with an emphasis on training children and young musicians through education, outreach programs, master classes and financial support. He launched the Lang Lang International Music Foundation in New York with the support of UNICEF. In May 2009, Lang Lang and his three chosen young scholars from the foundation performed together on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In addition to his numerous commitments, Lang Lang holds the title of the first Ambassador of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. His role in this groundbreaking project created by YouTube and Google reflects his devotion to building new audiences and bringing classical music to young people worldwide. A brand in himself, Lang Lang has become the face of numerous global campaigns. Steinway has created five versions of the “Lang Lang Steinway” designed for early music education - the first time in Steinway’s 150-year history that an artist’s name has been used to produce pianos. He is a global brand ambassador for the entire Sony Corporation, including its Electronics arm, with whom he anticipates achieving innovative and creative possibilities for the future. Lang Lang also holds brand partnerships with Audi Automobiles and Aegon's worldwide financial services, amongst others.Lang Lang’s performance clothes are provided by Versace.

In February 2010, Lang Lang joined Sony Music Entertainment as an exclusive recording artist.

Lang Lang’s first recording for Sony, the start of a new exclusive long-term partnership - recorded live at Vienna’s prestigious Musikverein earlier in 2010.

Lang Lang:

Heralded as the “hottest artist on the classical music planet” by the New York Times, 28- year-old Lang Lang began playing the piano at the age of 3, gave his first public recital aged 5, and won first prize at the Tchaikovsky International Young Musicians Competition at the age of 13. Since then he has become a global phenomenon, playing sold out recitals and concerts in every major city in the world.

Testimony to his success, Lang Lang recently appeared in the 2009 Time 100 – Time Magazine's annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2008, over 5 billion people viewed Lang Lang’s performance in Beijing’s opening ceremony for the Olympic Games, and he has inspired over 40 million Chinese children to take up the piano – a phenomenon coined by The Today Show as "the Lang Lang effect." More recently, Lang Lang was chosen as an official worldwide ambassador to the 2010 Shanghai Expo. He has performed at prestigious events including at The White House and The Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony.

Continuing his presence on the world stage, Lang Lang was featured at the 2008 Grammy Awards and the 2009 Classical Brit Awards, pairing up with jazz great, Herbie Hancock, for an astounding performance that was broadcast live to 45 million viewers worldwide.

Lang Lang has made it his mission to share classical music around the world, with an emphasis on training children and young musicians through education, outreach programs, master classes and financial support. He launched the Lang Lang International Music Foundation in New York with the support of UNICEF. In May 2009, Lang Lang and his three chosen young scholars from the foundation performed together on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In addition to his numerous commitments, Lang Lang holds the title of the first Ambassador of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. His role in this groundbreaking project created by YouTube and Google reflects his devotion to building new audiences and bringing classical music to young people worldwide. A brand in himself, Lang Lang has become the face of numerous global campaigns. Steinway has created five versions of the “Lang Lang Steinway” designed for early music education - the first time in Steinway’s 150-year history that an artist’s name has been used to produce pianos. He is a global brand ambassador for the entire Sony Corporation, including its Electronics arm, with whom he anticipates achieving innovative and creative possibilities for the future. Lang Lang also holds brand partnerships with Audi Automobiles and Aegon's worldwide financial services, amongst others.Lang Lang’s performance clothes are provided by Versace.

In February 2010, Lang Lang joined Sony Music Entertainment as an exclusive recording artist.