This magnificent recording of Aida, made in Rome, rises to all the musical and dramatic challenges presented by Verdi’s richly-coloured Egyptian epic. Antonio Pappano, once again proving his mastery of Italian opera, moves between sumptuous grandeur and touching intimacy. The responses of the Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia are both immediate and vibrant, while the singers - Anja Harteros, Jonas Kaufmann, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Ludovic Tézier and Erwin Schrott – do justice to every facet of their roles.

The ultimate all-Puccini album from “The greatest tenor of our day”. Contains famous arias and scenes drawn from Puccini’s greatest operas including Turandot, La Bohème, Manon Lescaut, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and more.

Sir Antonio Pappano leads the London Symphony Orchestra in a pair of symphonies by Ralph Vaughan Williams that span the build-up and aftermath of the Second World War.

Berlioz composed his Requiem at the request of a French government minister to commemorate the soldiers who died in the July Revolution in 1830. The Requiem would become one of Berlioz’s most popular works, among other things because of its imaginative instrumentation and gigantic orchestration, including four brass ensembles distributed throughout the hall.

In their way, the two Brahms cello sonatas are among his most complex works, although the Cello Sonata in F major, Op. 99, is also one of his sunniest. Throughout, in a dozen different ways, Brahmselegantly solves the problem of what to do when his melody instrument is mainly lower than his accompaniment one, and the two sonatas are fascinating essays in register and balance.