English Bach Festival Baroque Orchestra

At a simply unbeatable price, Meditation offers ten CDs worth of intimate instrumental favorites by classical masters. These timeless melodies are a soothing, soul-satisfying balm for our hectic, harried lives. Sail away with Pachelbel's Canon, Albinoni's Adagio, Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata, Debussy's "Clair de lune," and Brahms's Lullaby, as well as melting masterworks by Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and many others.

For many their first encounter with classical music will be through its use in films and this collection makes a fantastic entry point to this rich and diverse world. Helpfully all tracks list the films alongside the music, so there will be no doubt as to where the music is familiar from. Classical music has been used to memorable effect in films many times from Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now to Barber s Adagio in Platoon and from Also sprach Zarathustra in 2001: A Space Odyssey to Beethoven s Ninth in A Clockwork Orange. Occasionally, as in the case of Mozart s Piano Concerto No.21 used in Elvira Madigan, the film title has provided a lasting nickname for the music. All these favourites are included here.

Few record labels can boast as glorious a legacy as Sony Classical. This lavish four-disc set chronicles the finest performances available on the label from the past ninety-five years. Eighty selections comprising over four hours of music are accompanied by two lavishly illustrated booklets highlighting Sony Classical's stellar history.

Sit back, relax and unwind to some of the most relaxing classical music performed by some of the finest artists. There’s over 7 hours of well-chosen music split across six CDs and featuring the world's best loved composers. Another winning collection.

Stile Antico (joined by Fretwork) explore long-neglected repertory: the wealth of Tudor and Jacobean sacred music written for domestic devotion, rather than for church worship. Culled from collections intended for use in private homes, these pieces by Tomkins, Campion, Byrd, Tallis, Dowland, Gibbons and others, offer a unique insight into the turbulent religious climate of the time and the thriving musical culture at its heart.

For its harmonia mundi début, the London-based La Nuova Musica, led by David Bates, presents a true rarity: the original 1712 version of Handel's opera 'Il pastor fido' (The Faithful Shepherd) featuring Lucy Crowe, Anna Dennis, Katherine Manley, Madeleine Shaw and Clint van der Linde.