Arvo Pärt is one of the greatest and most performed of living composers. Slow and meditative, often religious, reflecting his mystical experiences, Pärt’s works are unmistakeable. Here Morphing Chamber Orchestra, under its artistic director Tomasz Wabnic, performs some of the Estonian composer’s finest instrumental works, Fratres, Spiegel im Spiegel and Summa, together with one of his vocal masterpieces, the Stabat Mater, presented here in a new arrangement, sung by three of today’s greatest operatic voices, Roberto Alagna, Aleksandra Kurzak and Andreas Scholl. Several shorter pieces, marvels of poetry and purity, sung by Andreas Scholl, complete this programme.

From well-loved arias to new discoveries, this recording journeys through over a century of opera, with transcriptions for cello and orchestra stretching from Mozart to Puccini and including Verdi, Tchaikovsky and Offenbach. The curtain goes up on some of Ophélie Gaillard’s favourite pieces, which explore human passions through the voice of the cello, that most human of instruments.

The Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak needs no introduction. After having dazzled the opera stage and the discographic world both in duets and solo, she has devoted the whole of her new recording to Mozart.