The second in their award-winning series, the Calidore Quartet return with a three-disc album of the Middle Quartets. Their Beethoven performances have been described as “shockingly deep” by LA Times. The first album of Late Quartets won the Chamber Music Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2024. Their interpretation is informed by their diverse set of mentors, which includes Alban Berg, Emerson and Guarneri and yet still uniquely represents the sentiments, aesthetics and research of their generation. Their interpretations of Beethoven are already critically acclaimed with performances at the Lincoln Centre planned as part of their residency.

Giovanni Paisiello was one of the most admired composers of opera in the second half of the 18th century. His reputation was mainly based on his comic operas which he composed while working in Naples. Although not born in Naples, he considered himself a Neapolitan, having studied at the Conservatorio di S Onofri. Paisiello's career can be divided into three stages. In the first he concentrated on composing comic operas, mainly for Naples.

Caroline Boissier-Butini’s 6th concerto for piano and flûte obligée, which she herself entitled La Suisse, was inspired by folksongs; the sources do not allow us to date the concerto precisely, but we can assume that it was composed before 1818. A return to folk melodies was entirely in keeping with the times; Beethoven, for example, used such themes, as did Carl Maria von Weber, who was born in the same year as Boissier-Butini. Her innovation, however, is to quote the “ranz des vaches”, the musical themes that would have awakened in her contemporaries an archetypal sense of Switzerland.

This gargantuan 35-disc set of Alfred Brendel's complete Vox, Turnabout, and Vanguard recordings released in late 2008, concurrent with his retirement from concert life, will be mandatory listening for anyone who reveres the Austrian virtuoso. When these recordings were made between 1955 and 1975, Brendel was at the start of his international career, and his performances here have a fire, energy, and a drama that his later recordings sometimes lack. Brendel devotees, however, may also find his performances lack the intellectual rigor of his middle period recordings and the poetic depths of his later recordings. Compare his demonic account of Mozart's Twentieth Concerto here, for instance, with his more elegant later account. The difference is clear.

Throughout the seven decades of Annie Fischer’s (1914–1995) prolific career, her amazing talent for music was accompanied by a sound foundation in the art, exceptional skills, precision and an outstanding intelligence as a performer. Despite her superior technical skills, she never indulged in virtuosity for just virtuosity’s sake: she complemented her brilliant technique with varied key-pressing and a refined, sophisticated sound. The honesty, artless simplicity, purity and deep musicality of Annie Fischer’s piano performances can still be enjoyed today through the studio recordings.

Reference Recordings is proud to present The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos played by Grammy®-winning Garrick Ohlsson, performing with the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles. This album was recorded during live Festival performances in July 2022.

The April 26, 1784 Paris Opera premiere of this work was still noted under the name of the composer actually commissioned to compose it, Ch.W. Gluck, but it soon came out that in reality, the 33-year-old assistant to Gluck (who had suffered a stroke), Antonio Salieri, had written the work “in tutto”. The sensation was perfect, and due to Salieri’s success, French opera underwent a significant development. For beginning with Gluck’s operatic style, Salieri managed with “Danaïdes” to make the transition from number opera to the dramatically more consequent through-composed scenic opera. The Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele production, recorded here under studio conditions, follows historical performance practice and presents the opera in nearly uncut form.

Moonlight: Variations, Preludes, and Other Piano Works by Walter Gieseking, released on Warner Classics, showcases the legendary pianist's mastery of classical repertoire. Featuring works by Mozart, Debussy, Grieg, Beethoven, and Schumann, Gieseking’s interpretations are known for their nuance, clarity, and expressive touch. From the serene elegance of Mozart to the evocative impressionism of Debussy, this album spans a range of styles, offering a rich and immersive listening experience. Gieseking’s unparalleled artistry brings new depth to these timeless compositions, making this a must-have for classical music lovers.

In popular mythology Haydn’s name is far less closely associated with the piano sonata than with the string quartet or symphony. Though a more than competent pianist (one writer in London described his playing of the brilliant fortepiano solo in the Symphony No 98 as ‘neat and distinct’), he was by his own admission no ‘wizard’ on the keyboard, and unlike Mozart and Beethoven never wrote sonatas for his own performance. Yet the keyboard remained central to Haydn’s creative process. His morning routine would invariably begin with him trying out ideas, for whatever medium, on the clavichord, the harpsichord or, from the 1780s, the fortepiano; and he composed prolifically for keyboard through most of his adult life, beginning with the harpsichord works he produced for aristocratic pupils during his ‘galley years’ in Vienna and culminating in the three great sonatas (Nos 50–52 in Hoboken’s catalogue) inspired by the sonorous Broadwood instruments he encountered on his London visits.

With this new b*records release, Victor Julien-Laferriere and the Orchestre Consuelo lay the foundation for a titanic edifice: the complete nine symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven. Supported by the Festival de la Chaise-Dieu, which lends the exceptional acoustics of its abbey church, this four-year project marks a decisive step for the young orchestra of variable geometry. Composed mainly of chamber musicians, the ensemble forges a meticulous and passionate collective identity in this first opus dedicated to Symphonies no. 1, no. 2 and no. 4, which already bear witness to the search for comprehensibility and universality of language characteristic of Beethoven's symphonic corpus.

Cherubini's C minor Requiem, full of drama and austere beauty, is a masterpiece of 19th-century choral and church music. Although famous for his operas, Cherubini did not include vocal solos in the work (nor in the D minor Requiem for male chorus composed in his later years). The opening Kyrie is swathed in soft mystery, the Domine Jesu and the Offertory's final Amen have sturdy rhythmic underpinnings, and the Requiem's finale features a closing diminuendo as powerful as it is surprising. Cherubini opens the Dies Irae with a stupendous tam-tam crash, shocking to its first audiences and still packing a wallop, especially as captured by Telarc's engineers.

In addition to sonatas, variations, and concertos for piano and orchestra, Mozart wrote numerous works for solo piano: fantasias, rondos, adagios, and other assorted pieces of short and moderate length. We don't know exactly why these works were written, but we know that Mozart had to come up with new material for his many public and private appearances as a composer and performer. In those days composers were usually performers as well. Any composition was also a potential source of income from publication and from patrons and friends to whom the works were dedicated. But no matter why these marvellous works were written, we are lucky to have them.

As a special project to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Eugene Ormandy's death, we will release 10 stereo recordings that represent the essence of Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra from the vast amount of recordings he left behind for Sony Classical and RCA. The rich orchestral sound, with its thick string parts as the foundation, its unparalleled woodwinds, and its beautiful brass, is beautifully imprinted with the spirited 1950s and 1960s, and the 1970s, when Ormandy's voice grew more mature and profound, as he reached the pinnacle of 20th century orchestral art.

The three String Trios, Op. 9 were composed by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1797–98. He published them in Vienna in 1799, with a dedication to his patron Count Johann Georg von Browne (1767–1827). They were first performed by the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh with two colleagues from his string quartet. According to the violinist and conductor Angus Watson, these were probably Franz Weiss on viola and either Nikolaus Kraft or his father Anton on cello. Each of the trios consists of four movements.

In popular mythology Haydn’s name is far less closely associated with the piano sonata than with the string quartet or symphony. Though a more than competent pianist (one writer in London described his playing of the brilliant fortepiano solo in the Symphony No 98 as ‘neat and distinct’), he was by his own admission no ‘wizard’ on the keyboard, and unlike Mozart and Beethoven never wrote sonatas for his own performance. Yet the keyboard remained central to Haydn’s creative process. His morning routine would invariably begin with him trying out ideas, for whatever medium, on the clavichord, the harpsichord or, from the 1780s, the fortepiano; and he composed prolifically for keyboard through most of his adult life, beginning with the harpsichord works he produced for aristocratic pupils during his ‘galley years’ in Vienna and culminating in the three great sonatas (Nos 50–52 in Hoboken’s catalogue) inspired by the sonorous Broadwood instruments he encountered on his London visits.