Two of today’s most brilliant tenors, Michael Spyres and Lawrence Brownlee, strike sparks off each other as they celebrate the star tenors of Rossini’s time, such as Andrea Nozzari, Giovanni David, and Manuel García. Amici e Rivali – ‘Friends and Rivals’ – comprises arias, duets and trios from seven of the composer’s operas, including the ever-popular Il barbiere di Siviglia and the rarely heard Ricciardo e Zoraide. The ‘duelling tenors’ are joined by the effervescent Irish mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught, the prize-winning young Spanish tenor Xabier Anduaga, I Virtuosi Italiani and conductor Corrado Rovaris.

When Kirill Petrenko performed Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony with the Berliner Philharmoniker in March 2017, one critic was ''stunned at how beautiful and breathtakingly exciting this music can be''. This first audio release of the orchestra and its new chief conductor reflects the whole sonority and intensity of the interpretation - and offers a taste of an exciting new beginning.

The preeminent violin and piano partnership of Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien give matchless accounts of Brahms's three Violin Sonatas. The works, which reveal the composer at his most lyrically reflective, are coupled with a fabulous encore by Clara Schumann.

6 Concertos for Recorder adds to a series of nine previous CDs for the label Musiques à la Chabotterie, which have been acclaimed by the media including Classica Choc, Diapason Découverte, Le Monde de la Musique Choc, Goldberg 5 Étoiles, and more. A tribute to Hugo Reyne s teachers and to those whose playing have inspired him, this album features Vivaldi concertos that have carried Reyne through his life.

Ashkenazy and Previn are broadly agreed on choice of tempos throughout the work. At the very opening, after the magical silvery flutes, Ashkenazy is a shade more volatile and he certainly echoes the words "sparkle and dash" in the evocation of the "sledges dashing in a row, their bells jingling". Here his tenor soloist, Ryszard Karczykowski, brings an added degree of temperament to the singing. In the slow movement too, Natalia Troitskaya's contribution has all the freshness of Armstrong, yet there is a natural slavonic feeling too—the singing opens up that bit more, yet without a hint of crudeness.

Our Contemporaries of Mozart series with Matthias Bamert for Chandos counts over 20 CDs to date and is still on-going. The series has uncovered a wealth of previously unavailable eighteenth-century works and its success is illustrated by the numerous accolades bestowed upon it including a number of releases credited with Editor’s Choice in Gramophone. Composers featured include those more well-known from the era, such as Clementi, Salieri and Stamitz to the rarely-heard Gossec, Vanhal and Gyrowetz.

Initially conceived as a moral and artistic response to human suffering, violinist Edna Michell's Compassion also became a touching tribute to her mentor and source of inspiration, Yehudi Menuhin, on his death in 1999. The 15 compositions commissioned by Michell for the project revolve around the themes of suffering and charity in fairly abstract or suggestive ways, with few programmatic, religious, or political points made beyond the allusive titles. As a practical matter for curious listeners, this CD is a comprehensive sampler of contemporary musical trends, and the leading lights of two generations of composers are generously represented in the CD's 80 minutes. Established figures such as Karel Husa, Lukas Foss, György Kurtág, Hans Werner Henze, Wolfgang Rihm, Philip Glass, John Tavener, Steve Reich, and Iannis Xenakis share the program with rising composers Shulamit Ran, Chen Yi, Yinam Leef, Betty Olivero, Poul Ruders, and Somei Satoh.

‘Priest-composer stabs alto castrato during Mass!’ Such fervent Catholicism is hardly imaginable nowadays. The present recording will remedy that: the Austian violinist Gunar Letzbor revives the strange work of murderer-composer Antonio Pandolfi Mealli with a full-blooded performance that succeeds in captivating us from beginning to end.' Eberhard Zummach, Concerto. Das Magazin für Alte Musik no. 214

Soprano Mary Bevan and pianist Jopseph Middleton perform a programme exploring the genius of Baudelaire and Goethe, and how texts by them unlocked very specific musical landscapes in settings by Debussy, Duparc, Chausson, de Bréville, Séverac, Fauré and Schubert.Praised by Opera for her “dramatic wit and vocal control” in stand out performances on opera and concert platforms, Mary Bevan is a winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist award and UK Critics’ Circle Award for Exceptional Young Talent in music. Pianist Joseph Middleton specialises in the art of song accompaniment and chamber music and has been highly acclaimed within this field. Described in the BBC Music Magazine as “one of the brightest stars in the world of song and Lieder”, he has also been labeled “the cream of the new generation” by The Times and “a perfect accompanist” by Opera Now

The 2nd symphony, Sibelius' most popular, is featured in this third volume of the series. Together with orchestral gems Tapiola and The Swan of Tuonela, the conductor and orchestra show their close, deep connection to the composer as they depict beautiful scenes of nature in the Nordic countries.

Matthias Goerne, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Mikko Franck continue their series of recordings of Shostakovich's symphonic works with baritone with the Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1974), and the symphonic poem October (1967). These are two very different works: the first is one of Shostakovich’s most deeply personal creations and has no connection to the ideological issues of Soviet power. The second was commissioned by the Soviet authorities to glorify the 1917 Revolution and is filled with irony. Goerne is the perfect interpreter for Shostakovich’s great cycle of settings of verses by Michelangelo, in which intimate moments where the voice is almost a cappella alternate with powerfully dramatic passages with full orchestra.

Founded in 1956, the Philharmonia Hungarica emerged from turbulent post-war times as a crack ensemble of émigré Hungarian musicians who had fled Communism for the West. While they gave concerts in Europe and the US, it was through these seven albums on Mercury and Philips that they became famous, and synonymous with the name of the conductor Antal Doráti.