Aleksandra Orbeck Nilssen

With his red-blooded, action-packed opera La Navarraise, Massenet provided a French response to the Italian-driven vogue for verismo in the 1890s. This recording of this rarely-performed work stars Roberto Alagna as the Spanish solider Araquil and Aleksandra Kurzak as Anita, the titular girl from Navarre who is prepared to kill for love. Alberto Veronesi conducts the Opera Orchestra of New York.

In the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, two groups of sonatas composed for a violin and a harpsichord accompanying them can be distinguished. The first of these are works where the harpsichord plays only the role of basso continuo. The second group includes violin and harpsichord works in which Bach definitively breaks with the tradition of basso continuo, giving the two parties autonomous meaning. This category includes 6 Sonatas marked in the catalog of the composer's works with positions 1014 to 1019, of which the first three have been recorded on this record by excellent instrumentalists, Aleksandra Bryła and Maria Banaszkiewicz-Bryła. The unusual composition techniques employed by Bach reveal a somewhat different image of the composer, devoid of ordinary seriousness or severity.