Meditation, mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca's 2014 release on Deutsche Grammophon, is an album of serene vocal and choral works that express religious feelings with an operatic touch and showcase the Latvian singer's warm and radiant voice. Choosing pieces from the early Baroque era to contemporary works, Garanca presents a soothing program that is consistent in its comforting tone and gentle treatment, though as a purely musical consideration, it tends to flow a bit too evenly and predictably. Insofar as the selections represent the Christian tradition, including settings of the Ave Maria, the Salve Regina, the Sanctus, the Agnus Dei, and the Regina Coeli, the character of the collection admits little variety, except for the general alternation between penitential and quietly ecstatic moods.

Even with 15 other versions of Rimsky's masterpiece of orchestral virtuosity to choose from — some in the top flight — this was recognized from the first as one of the most rewarding, thanks largely to Krebbers's exceptionally sweet, gently appealing and bewitching personification of the story - spinning Scheherazade and to Kondrashin's skill in pacing and shaping movements as a whole, relating the diverse tempos and building up tension and dynamics by careful control so as to create climaxes of thrilling intensity and power. the 'shipwreck' finale, in particular, was overwhelming; and this was achieved without resorting to the ultra - fast tempos adopted by some conductors to whip up excitement. The Concertgebouw's crisp, sonorous and sensitive playing (full marks both to the splendid strings and to the wind soloists) was caught with the utmost fidelity; but the Compact Disc's total exclusion even of minimal extraneous background now marks a still further improvement, as can be judged by the dead silence against which Scheherazade's pleadings are heard. The final coda is ravishingly beautiful.

Christian Tetzlaff’s effortless virtuosity, purity of intonation, and slight emotional reticence perfectly suits Sibelius, making this the finest available collection of the Finnish composer’s music for violin and orchestra. In the concerto, Tetzlaff’s relative coolness makes the music sound more like Sibelius and less like a violin concerto, which is all to the good. That doesn’t mean he lacks anything in sheer technique: indeed, his first-movement cadenza impresses as one of the most impressively concentrated and musically satisfying on disc. Tetzlaff’s slow movement sings but avoids panting and heaving, while the finale realizes the music’s gentle melancholy as well as its more thrusting elements. He’s nicely accompanied by Thomas Dausgaard, whose gentle support perfectly suits the overall interpretation.

The best period instrument recording of Mendelssohn Symphonies 3,4,5 and Overtures " the Hebrides" and "Calm sea and Prosperous Voyage". Bruggen's tempos are moderate and textures are very clear: you can hear individual voices in the orchestra not obvious in many recordings. The Orchestra of the 18th Century play with a full sound and are never scrawny. Orchestra of the 18th Century's horns, clarinet, and flutes were very well played in these live recordings from 1990, 1994, 1995, and 1996.

Friedrich Kuhlau (1786 - 1832) lived and worked during a transitional period of classical music. A contemporary of Beethoven and Schubert, his works remain almost unknown to this day, except for some compositions for the flute.

Considered by some to be the ‘Cinderella’ of his symphonies, the Sixth Symphony of Anton Bruckner was composed in 1879 – 81. It may well demonstrate a reaction to the severe criticism of the first Viennese performance, in 1877, of his Third Symphony, which Eduard Hanslick described as a vision of how Beethoven’s Ninth befriends Wagner’s Walküre and ends up being trampled under her horses’ hoofs’. Much the shortest of his mature symphonies, the Sixth also reverts to a more classical form than its predecessors. This recording was made in 2012, during the first season of Juanjo Mena as Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, and just a month before their acclaimed performance of the work at the BBC Proms. Classical Source commented: ‘Mena didn’t miss a trick and the result for the whole symphony was a revelation, and you don’t get many of those. This was a thrilling, delightful performance.’

Make no mistake, this is not William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. This version, by Vincenzo Bellini with a libretto by Felice Romani, has often been dismissed for its story line, which is very different from the familiar tale of the star-crossed lovers. Actually, as noted by musicologist-bel canto answer man Philip Gossett in his liner notes, Bellini and Romani hadn't read Shakespeare when they composed the opera. They had, however, read the sources on which Shakespeare based his play, but while both they and the Bard departed from the original, they departed in different directions. No matter: the opera has some gorgeous music, and it's given some gorgeous performances here by some very fine singers.

Born in 1804, Louise Farrenc became a professional-standard pianist while still a teenager, and later music teacher to the household of the Duke d’Orléans and from 1842 professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire. Her substantial legacy of composition was largely forgotten after her death in 1875 and is only now being revived. She wrote mainly in the field of orchestral and chamber music: ‘I would defy anyone,’ says the pianist Linda Di Carlo in a personal introduction to this new recording of Farrenc’s music for violin and piano, ‘to cast aspersions on the chamber music in particular on the grounds of her gender.’

Richard Wagner began composing his Wesendonck Lieder during a stay in Zurich between November and December 1857. Originally conceived for female voice and piano alone, the five songs were later orchestrated, first by the Austrian conductor and composer Felix Mottl in 1893, and then later in 1976 by the German composer Hans Werner Henze, in a chamber setting. In fact Wagner had already orchestrated a version of "Träume” to be performed by chamber orchestra (with violin playing the voice part) on the occasion of his wife Minna’s birthday in 1857. Later, in 1870, for his second wife Cosima’s 33rd birthday, he enacted a similar gesture. Mixing new motifs with themes from his Ring cycle, he composed the Siegfried Idyll and had it performed by a small orchestra as a birthday surprise.

Very beautifully, very powerfully, very affectionately played, the Leipziger Streichquartett's 2005 recording of Bruckner's String Quintet and String Quartet just misses being a great recording. While the Leipzig quartet has made tremendous recordings in the past – Beethoven and especially Schubert recordings are as fine and as deep and as true as the best in the postwar period – its Bruckner has everything going for it except profundity. In the quintet, its structure in the opening Gemässig, while wonderfully controlled, misses the sense of expansive inclusiveness it needs to convince.

Largely forgotten now, composer August Klughardt was active during the last half of the 19th century, a time of much diversion and expansion of musical ideas. Rather than following any one of these emerging schools of composition, Klughardt incorporated concepts and trends from a variety of sources into an eclectic but unfocused compositional style. This MDG Gold album begins with his Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 43. Spun, singing melodies of Schumann can be heard, along with sometimes rich harmonization of Brahms and folk-like idioms of Dvorák.

The 21st century has seen a certain revival of interest in Felix Mendelssohn's chamber music, and an entry in the field from the German audiophile label MDG is welcome. In the realm of engineering, this recording is superb even by MDG's high standards, with startlingly clear, immediate, yet never overwhelming sound captured at one of the label's favorite haunts, the Konzerthaus der Abtei Marienmünster (a historic abbey). The effect is impressive in the String Quartet No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 87, a work in which Mendelssohn pulls out all the stops to create an orchestra-like texture. It's a tremendously exciting piece, not very Mendelssohn-like, and not much like anything else in the chamber music repertory.

The pairing of the String Quintet in G major, Op. 77, and the String Quartet in F major, Op. 96 ("American"), both major Dvorák chamber works, is a common one, but this one has several aspects setting it apart. Most distinctive is the sound from the German audiophile label MDG, working in an old abbey hall. The space is warm, clear, and perfectly sized for the music, in other words as close as you can get to actually having been there in the late 19th century when the music was first played. Moreover, the prolific Leipzig String Quartet, joined in Op. 77 by double bassist Alois Posch, delivers a superior performance of the "American" quintet that gets away from the overly consistent tone that mars so many Dvorák performances.

Claudio Arrau, one of the greatest piano masters of the s. XX, leaves us astonished with this intense and majestic version, showing his immense knowledge of German Romanticism of which he was an excellent exponent. Excellent temps and wonderful nuances. Here Bernard Haitink shows us why he became a benchmark in conducting by one of the best ensembles on the planet: the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Usually reserved to the sacred, the harp and its crystalline sound evoke the invisible and on which French composers from the 20th Century will draw inspiration. This recording pays homage to them and shows the many different facets of the harp, with a programme broadcasting the various aspects of the fantastic.