Beethoven’s monumental contribution to Western classical music is celebrated here in this definitive collection marking the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Surveying the totality of his career and achievement, the Complete Edition spans orchestral, concerto, keyboard, chamber, music for the stage, choral and vocal works, encompassing his most familiar and iconic masterpieces, alongside rarities and recently reconstructed fragments and sketches in world premiere recordings. The roster of artists and ensembles includes some of Beethoven’s greatest contemporary exponents, in performances that have won critical acclaim worldwide.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion is widely recognised as one of the greatest masterpieces in Western sacred music. With its double orchestra and chorus this is a work of enormous proportions in every sense, and Bach was extremely resourceful in treading a fine line between creating the almost operatic spectacle valued by the secular authorities in Leipzig, and the elevated religious atmosphere sought by the clergy. This inspired mix of moving drama and theological discourse led Leonard Bernstein to declare that ‘there is nothing like it in all of music’.

The Concerto Copenhagen is Scandinavia’s most renowned Baroque ensemble and one of the most innovative such formations worldwide. Its trademarks are its unusual program combinations featuring Scandinavian rarities and famous Baroque masterpieces. This world-class orchestra now turns to Handel’s great Brockes-Passion in a CD recording based on the Halle edition of this composer’s works. The Passion text published by the well-to-do Hamburg resident Barthold Heinrich Brockes was a literary bestseller during the early eighteenth century.

Beethoven’s monumental contribution to Western classical music is celebrated here in this definitive collection marking the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Surveying the totality of his career and achievement, the Complete Edition spans orchestral, concerto, keyboard, chamber, music for the stage, choral and vocal works, encompassing his most familiar and iconic masterpieces, alongside rarities and recently reconstructed fragments and sketches in world premiere recordings. The roster of artists and ensembles includes some of Beethoven’s greatest contemporary exponents, in performances that have won critical acclaim worldwide.

The Magnificat, written to celebrate Mary’s joy after the Annunciation, and the oldest Christmas Cantata of Bach (Weimar, 1713), are an overwhelming fresco of a Nativity, foundation of the world. With these masterful works, Johann-Sebastian Bach opens for us the gates of the sacred, as well as the ones to our own relationship with spirituality. These pieces, amongst the most beautiful ever composed, are no doubt the best way possible to open the Christmas period. Led here by the very young but nonetheless inspired, Valentin Tournet who conducts his ensemble La Chapelle Harmonique.

With Cupid’s assistance, the sculptor Pygmalion brings his beloved creation to life. This recording treats us to two versions of the celebrated story. Jean-Philippe Rameau’s familiar one-act opera Pigmalion, in which the deus ex machina fulfils Pygmalion’s desires, is followed by Georg Benda’s little-known gem of the same name: a gripping monodrama for spoken voice and orchestra in which we can imagine the sculptor undergoing an inner conflict between desire and reality. Rising star Korneel Bernolet conducts his Apotheosis Orchestra and a group of young vocal partners: the Canadian haute-contre Philippe Gagné sings the passionate Pigmalion in Rameau’s opéra-ballet, alongside Lieselot De Wilde as his wife Céphise and Caroline Weynants as the divine Amour.

Simone Kermes is a highly idiosyncratic performer who delights in pushing the boundaries of good taste, often unafraid to inject her singing with a grab bag of vocal tricks. So it’s surprising that her latest release is that most standard of offerings, one to put next to your favourite singer’s Verdi or Puccini disc – the Handel recital.

Renaissance polyphony is generally held to be stately, calm, reassuring. But this pro- gramme of Palestrina’s six-part Missa sine nomine, complemented by five of his motets and three by Marc’Antonio Ingegneri (c. 1535/36–92), was recorded after the Choir of Girton College, Cambridge, had undertaken a tour of Israel and Palestine. There the music and its texts (‘How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?’) took on an extraordinary poignancy, with the dispossession and desperation of thousands of years ago animating the restrained dignity of Palestrina’s counterpoint with an unexpectedly topical intensity.

The J.S. Bach Foundation has embarked on a remarkable undertaking: over a period of some 25 years, the Foundation will perform the complete vocal works by Johann Sebastian Bach (16851750). Each month, one of the over 200 Bach cantatas is performed in the idyllic town of Trogen in Appenzell, Switzerland. With a rhythm of 12 cantatas per year, the project is estimated to conclude in the year 2030. All introductory workshops, concerts and reflection lectures on the cantata texts are recorded; the texts of the lectures are published in a continually expanding Bach Anthology. The main aim of the J.S. Bach Foundation's ambitious project is to provide a living Bach experience for today's listeners and to deepen our understanding of the great composer's works. The artistic director of the foundation is Rudolf Lutz, who rehearses and conducts all performances with the choir, orchestra and solo vocalists.

The existence of a third Passion by Bach based on the Gospel of St. Mark had long been known. Numerous studies carried out from the second half of the 20th century by specialist musicologists and musicians confirmed that on Good Friday, 1731, Bach presented this Passion set to a text by Picander, which the latter published one year later at the same time as his third volume of poetry. In 2009, the existence of this Passion was fully confirmed by the discovery at St. Petersburg of a later version of the libretto used for a new performance of the work, which took place in 1744. Compared with the 1732 libretto, it contains a number of modifications to the texts, as well as a different ordering of some chorales and arias and the addition of two new arias. Thanks to the new version, we have a very clear idea of the form and content of this third Passion by Bach.

Morgenstund is the tenth studio album of the music project Schiller created by the German electronic musician Christopher von Deylen. The album was released on 22 March 2019. On this album, Schiller has collaborated with the singers Nena, Tricia McTeague, Yalda Abbasi, Schwarz, Jhyve and Rebecca Ferguson, the musicians Giorgio Moroder and Jan Blomqvist and the music group Tangerine Dream. It was released in different editions, including the limited "Ultra Deluxe Edition". A new studio album was originally scheduled for autumn 2018. The album was produced between 2017 and 2018. On 3 September 2018, Schiller announced officially the release of a new album and the rescheduling of the release date to spring 2019.

Long Hair is not only proud to present Tortilla Flat's legendary sole album 'Für Ein 3/4 Stündchen', but also the group's lot more legendary broadcast sessions for Germany's leading underground and krautrock program on radio SWF. The mainly instrumental album is very flute-driven, in opposite to the latter album, which was more electric violin-dominated, with very exciting guitar playing accompanied by rocking drumming and nimble bass lines. Very tight! And very Teutonic! There were not so many progressive rock bands in the early 1970s which were flute and violin dominated, but also don't forget the great solo play of lead guitarist Manfred Herten. An early version of their main opus 'Tortilla Flat' shows the band with violinist Werner Knauber and Herman Basten on flute at its best, a dramatic increase with great tunes…

The original 1805 version of Beethoven's only opera is a high-adrenaline experience in the hands of the Belgian conductor and his period-instrument band, with Marlis Petersen in the title-role and Maximilian Schmitt as her imprisoned husband. From Leonore (1805) to Fidelio (1814) there were three successive versions of Beethoven’s opera, only the last of which has been in the repertory since the 19th Century. Going against tradition, René Jacobs has chosen to revive the earliest version, reworking the librettos and the spoken dialogue: a genuine tour de force, this still unknown Leonore forms an incomparable musical and dramatic structure requiring exemplary mastery on the part of both orchestra and singers. This landmark recording proves its case in every respect.

Renowned Schubert interpreter Ian Bostridge revisits Winterreise, the greatest of all song cycles, on his first PENTATONE album. Bostridge presents this masterpiece together with pianist, conductor and composer Thomas Adès, who bases his profound accompaniment on a fresh engagement with the original manuscripts. Winterreise is the epitome of Romantic melancholia, written by a composer aware of his fatal illness but at the height of his creative powers. It is the first installment of a trilogy of PENTATONE recordings comprising the major Schubert song cycles. After Winterreise, Die schöne Müllerin and Schwanengesang will follow. Ian Bostridge is one of the most celebrated tenors and lied interpreters of his generation. Thomas Adès is best known as a composer but demonstrates his extraordinary skills as a song accompanist on his first PENTATONE recording.

Ausländer is the third single of the 2019 album by Rammstein.
Germany's biggest rock export, Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein burst onto the international radar in the late '90s with their breakthrough sophomore set, 1997's Sehnsucht, and its accompanying hit single "Du Hast." With their aggressive blend of heavy metal riffs, dramatic orchestration, and synth-forward electronic production, the band quickly evolved from a sonic novelty into a reliably hard-hitting machine that never shied away from controversy. Following the chart-topping success of 2001's Mutter, Rammstein became a fixture at the top of the German charts in a decades-long career that secured a devoted international fan base, multiple platinum-certified albums, and no less than a dozen number one singles…