Gompper: Violin Concerto, Ikon, Flip, Spirals David, Siffert, Royal Philharmonic (2011)

Meyerbeer’s elaborate use of vocal and orchestral forces is seminal in the development of 19th-century opera. Opera Rara’s edition features all the music written for productions the composer supervised. In the opera Adriano, a Knight of Rhodes, comes to Egypt in search of his nephew Armando, whom he believes may have died in battle. In fact he has married Palmide, daughter of the Sultan of Egypt and she has converted to Christianity. The furious Sultan throws everyone in jail, but all is forgiven when Armando intercedes in a plot to overthrow his father-in-law.

From a string of early career successes in the 1970s, Emanuel Ax has emerged as one of the most versatile, brilliant, and universally respected pianists on the international concert scene.

The Klingler Quartet was regarded as the best string quartet of its times and as the rightful heir to the legendary Joachim Quartet. Karl Klingler, the musician who gave his name to the quartet, had studied with Brahms' friend Joseph Joachim and had joined his teacher's quartet as a young violist. MDG's sleuths have now found two remarkable historical documents in the archives of the Bavarian Radio that show us Klingler as a composer and as an interpreter: his Violin Concerto with Ulf Hoelscher and the Berlin Philharmonic under Volker Schmidt-Gertenbach and the Viola Sonata performed by the composer himself along with Michael Raucheisen at the piano.

To celebrate the legendary David Oistrakh, one of the greatest violinists ever, Deutsche Grammophon presents a box set which brings together for the first time all his recordings for DG, Decca, Philips & Westminster/Melodiya. This limited-edition, original jackets 22-CD box features legendary recordings as a testimony of the very pinnacle of violin playing - among them Bach Sonatas which are released on CD for the very first time, plus three additional recordings never before released on DG.