Ramón López Velarde

In what could easily mistaken for a release on the ECM label, Morning Glory inhabits that crisp minimalist style so familiar to producer Manfred Eicher. Surprisingly enough, this studio recording, with bonus Live In New York disc, is delivered by three of today's most zealous improvisers and outcats. Formed in 2005, the trio's previous release, Aurora (Maya, 2006), began bassist Barry Guy established their improvisation bona fides with saxophonist Evan Parker's intellectual explorations and Mats Gustafsson's noisier ones. Each player also has a dedication to classical and chamber musics and perhaps that is where these compositions and improvisations intersect.

After an album with Didier Ithursarry (accordion) and Ramon Lopez (drums) as guest musicians, the presence of the Swiss double bass player, Heiri Känzig, enriches the duo of Cholet & Michel and his two partners for his new program, Extended Whispers.

Agustí Fernández and Ramón López presents a recording made in 2011 in which both alternating compositions, most of them unpublished, plus an array of the pianist for a popular theme (Sa ximbomba) and a very personal version of We Will Meet Again Bill Evans.

Angela Gheorghiu leads a magnificent cast in Franco Zeffirelli’s iconic production of Puccini’s La Bohème – filmed live at the Metropolitan Opera in Hi-Definition. This grand, sumptuous production of Puccini’s timeless masterpiece is brought to you on DVD by EMI Classics, continuing its collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera and its hugely successful Metropolitan Opera : Live in High-Definition series.

Sofia Gubaidulina’s religious nature, specifically Russian Orthodox, finds expression in each of these pieces. Each also makes use of her much-loved bayan, the Russian button accordion played here with great virtuosity by Iñaki Alberdi. Kadenza is a solo tour de force; Et exspecto, based on the closing words of the Creed (‘I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come’) is an impressive five-movement sonata in which, the booklet-note tells us, the performer’s interpretation goes, with her encouragement, well beyond the composer’s notation. In the other works, much is made of the combination of the accordion sounds and Asier Polo’s cello. With In croce, a number of cross-like ideas derive from the title – crossing of registers, crossing of lines and textures and so on – which are essentially private creative stimuli for the composer. But in the major work on the record, the half-hour Seven Words, the sentences spoken by Jesus on the cross are graphically, even fervently implied. Gubaidulina’s love of short motifs, here often using very close intervals, produces in her hands music of strong and even painful intensity, seizing and gripping the attention, sometimes with fiercely punched chords on the accordion or with soaring harmonics on the cello that vanish into silence after the final Word. The longest movement is the central No 4, Jesus’s cry, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’, a powerful and deeply affecting invention. This is a remarkable, compelling work.

With this new release the award-winning Latvian Radio Choir together with its director Sigvards Kļava are returning to contemporary music after a series of recordings of 19th Century sacred choral works. Ramon Humet’s (b. 1968) new choral work, 'Llum', is a deep, spiritual journey to the gift of life, peace and love.

Praised by Bloomberg for having “mastered the role” and “acting her socks off,” Angela Gheorghiu leads an all-star cast which includes Ramón Vargas and Roberto Frontali, with the brilliant conductor Lorin Maazel on the podium. Angela Gheorghiu is the definitive Violetta of her generation, the standard-setter against whom all other exponents of this role must be judged for the foreseeable future. Her affinity for Verdi‘s fragile, gentle-hearted courtesan is rooted in a fine balance of acting and singing skills. Giuseppe Verdi´s immortal opera in a sumptuous production by Liliana Cavani, with world famous singers – a treat for viewers everywhere!