This CD gives you a little slice of the restoration and development of quintessential French chamber music that gained momentum in the late 19th century and peaked around 1900 - the Golden Era of French art, music and culture. In opposition to the latest fads from Germany (Wagner's giantatism) and overzelous Parisian operas, the luminous pioneers of this vital movement in Paris were Frank, Faure, Saint Saens, Ravel, Massenet, Chausson and later the more modern "impressionist", Claude Debussy.

In this Carus release, Frieder Bernius leads soloists from Kammerchor Stuttgart in a selection of transcriptions by Clytus Gottwald and original compositions for chorus subdivided into multiple parts, in this case, up to 16 parts. The arrangements, here of songs originally for solo voice and piano, demonstrate Gottwald's mastery of this niche genre; he has also made remarkably effective choral transcriptions of chamber music and work for full orchestra. The arrangements, of songs by Ravel, Debussy, and Schumann, work beautifully as choral music, even as independent compositions, considered apart from their sources.

In her first chamber music album Claire Huangci- together with Solenne Païdassi, violin Adrien Boisseau, viola and Tristan Cornut, cello- devotes herself to two works by Maurice Ravel and Ernest Chausson. As the debut album of Trio Machiavelli and Adrien Bosseau as support for Chausson, this album is a calling card that is worth seeing. Claire Huangci, the young American pianist of Chinese descent and 2018 Geza Anda Competition first prize and Mozart prize winner, has succeeded in establishing herself as a highly respected artist, captivating audiences with her "radiant virtuosity, artistic sensitivity, keen interactive sense and subtle auditory dramaturgy" (Salzburger Nachrichten). Her unusually diverse repertoire, in which she also takes up rarely performed works, is illustrative of her remarkable versatility.

When Andreas Haefliger conceived this unusual combination of concertos it was with the aim of putting into perspective three pieces, each a unique and highly expressive highlight from the composers’ output. That Maurice Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand and Béla Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto fulfilled the requirements was a given: towards the end of his life Bartók wrote his most lyrically expressive concerto while Ravel, inspired by the qualities of the left hand register, wrote a piece full of dark yearning and grotesquely fauvistic dances.

Together with photographer Mat Hennek, French star pianist Hélène Grimaud, comes up with a multimedia concert project at the Grand Hall of Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie. Grimaud's virtuous piano performance is accompanied by Hennek's highly praised photo series "Woodlands", which depicts genuine portraits of trees, Grimaud's piano recital includes works by romantic and impressionistic composers. They are connected by seven "Transitions", written exclusively for Grimaud by British composer and DJ Nitin Sawhney. The motives of Hennek's Woodlands series create an extraordinary visual backdrop, which in combination with Grimaud´s pianistic "impeccable clarity and articulation" (Hamburger Abendblatt) and the Elbphilharmonie's splendid acoustics grants a concert experience of a special kind.

A tribute to Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, a veritable mythic and unpredictable Italian pianist,; a perfectionist with a carefully chosen repertory in which Scarlatti's works joined those of Debussy and Ravel, while the great German romantics, from Beethoven to Brahms, were magnified and exalted, showing the soundness of their construction. The number of his recordings is limited, with mostly works by Debussy and Ravel and a few by Beethoven. He used to buy pirate live discs of his concerts as presents for his friends instead of his 'official' recordings! Here is a French anthology collecting legendary renderings of his inimitable touch easy to recognise by its ductile nature and the purity of his style. A revived masterpiece.

Jan Vogler's new album was recorded in a small studio in New York. He teamed with the fantastic Finnish guitarist Ismo Eskelinen for this recording. ''Songbook'' presents partly pieces originally written for cello and guitar such as 3 Nocturnes by Friedrich Burgmüller (1806-1874) and the first movement of the Sonata for Guitar and Cello by Brazilian composer Radames Gnattali (1906-1988). ''Songbook'' also features several famous works in arrangements for guitar and cello: Cantabile by Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840), the Gymnopedie No. 1 by Erik Satie (1866-1925), the Suite Popular Espanola by Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) as well as the famous Aria from Bachianas Brasileiras by the most famous South American composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959).

This is Alison Balsom's first CD recital with piano – here played by her long-standing recital partner, Tom Poster. Balsom describes the programme as embracing “the most important repertoire for trumpet and piano” – taking a fascinating journey through 20th century works by such composers as Enescu, Hindemith, Martinů, Françaix, Bernstein and Maxwell Davies. That being said, the final piece on the official programme – preceding ‘American Songbook’ encores by George Gershwin and Jerome Kern – dates from the 21st century and was composed by the team of Balsom and Poster themselves. Called The Thoughts of Dr. May, it is inspired by another British musician: Brian May, lead guitarist of the rock band Queen – and also, as it happens, an astrophysicist.

This enticing album of sonatas by Ravel, Enescu, Ysaÿe and Prokofiev emerged from violinist Diana Tishchenko’s victory at the 2018 Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition. Born in Ukraine, and trained in Kiev and Berlin, she has been noted by The Strad for her "power to mesmerize the audience with her large gesture and strong personality”. Her musical partnership with the Hungarian pianist Zoltán Fejérvári is extraordinarily close and potent. In the words of the French online journal Toute la musique, they are “not two interpreters playing together, but a true musical entity, an artistic fusion … They played as if each note were being created in real time … deploying an infinitely large palette of colours and nuance – the possibilities were inexhaustible.”

Riccardo Chailly pays tribute to Maurice Ravel with a program of waltzes and wild reveries of ecstasy and elegance. He ushers us into Ravels musical worlds filled with ever-changing colors, scents, and flavors: the pulsating three-quarter time of waltzes that reflect just how much the Great War transformed European culture, the ancient love story of Daphnis and Chloé, and the relentless rhythms of Boléro. Magnifique! Recorded live at the Concert Hall of KKL Luzern, August 2018.

By now, fans of this mezzo probably have realized that she could sing the telephone directory and make it sound both beautiful and meaningful. This CD is made up of music by Respighi, Ravel, Britten, Schulhoff and Shostakovich: in other words, songs in five languages from five countries. Unlike most song recital CDs, variety is also supplied by the accompaniments. The Ravel songs are backed up by flute, cello and piano, while the Schulhoff selections feature violin and piano, the Shostakovich and Britten are for piano alone, and the Respighi includes a string quartet. The whole CD is fascinating, but the lengthy Respighi cantata "Il tramonto" ("The Sunset," to a poem by Shelly) is a sensational centerpiece: just lovely, with hints of Straussian and Wagnerian harmonies.

Magdalena Kozená's silken mezzo delivers definitive interpretations of this luscious and enchanting orchestral-song repertoire. Magdalena Kozená, Sir Simon Rattle, and the Berliner Philharmoniker seduce in Ravel's Shéhérazade, stir and awe in Dvořák's austere Biblische Lieder, and render to the fullest the bittersweet potency of Mahler's intricately orchestrated Rückert Lieder. Recorded live at the Berlin Philharmonie, these performances excite with the intense musical understanding shared by this husband and wife musical dream team. This release is destined to rival the popularity of Kozená and Rattle's enthralling Mozart collaboration. This is the first in a new series of recording projects reviving the legendary partnership between DG and the Berliner Philharmoniker.

The conducting of Simon Rattle is the most compelling element in this recording of Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges with the Berlin Philharmonic. Rattle draws playing of great delicacy and nuance from the orchestra, and the many sections that are scored as lightly as chamber music are played with especially loving attention to shaping the elegant and expressive phrases; the beginning of the second part of the opera is especially magical.

Having dazzled us with her coloratura ability in arias by Mozart, Gluck, and her fellow Czech, Myslivecek, this luscious young mezzo-soprano now offers us a generous program of French arias–15 of them, widely varied in tone, weight, dramatic intent, and style–and conquers and convinces in them all. Beginning again in coloratura territory, an aria from Auber's rare Le domino noir catches our attention with the heroine's opening words, "Je suis sauvée enfin!" ("I am safe at last!"), in which she paints the picture of our out-of-breath heroine immediately.

Soirée captures the atmosphere of informal, domestic music making. Czech star mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená offers an intimate and highly personal collection of international songs together with an outstanding group of musical friends, including Sir Simon Rattle, who makes his recording debut as a pianist.
The German lied is represented by Brahms (Two Songs, Op. 91 and Five Ophelia Songs, WoO 22) and Strauss (Morgen!), the French chanson by Chausson (Chanson perpétuelle) and Ravel (Chansons madécasses), and 20th-century avant-gardism with Stravinsky’s Three Songs from William Shakespeare.