Baroque Garden

Secret Garden, the Irish-Norwegian band specialist in new instrumental music is one of the world’s most successful duos with more than 3 billion streams and 5 million physical albums sold. Their upcoming 12th studio album “Songs in the Circle of Time”, is an enchanting blend of dreamy melodies and powerful arrangements, transporting listeners to a world of beauty and timeless elegance. The sources of inspiration are many and feel timeless, from 17th century baroque – classical music and contemporary melting into their own style.

Secret Garden's new album, Songs In The Circle Of Time, is an enchanting blend of dreamy melodies and powerful arrangements, transporting listeners to a world of beauty and timeless elegance. The sources of inspiration are many and feel timeless, from 17th-century baroque to classical and contemporary music melting into their own style. Secret Garden, the Irish-Norwegian band specialist in new instrumental music is one of the world’s most successful duos with more than 3 billion streams and 5 million physical albums sold.

Joseph Kerman was a leading musicologist, music critic, and music educator from the 1950s to the 2000s. He reshaped our understanding and appreciation of Western classical music with his first book, Opera as Drama (1956), to his last, Opera and the Morbidity of Music (2008), including his studies on Bach, Beethoven, William Byrd, concertos, and more. He was a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, where he served two terms as chair of the Music Department. He wrote Listen together with his wife, Vivian Kerman.

“Humphrey’s utter absorption and delight shines forth at every turn… strong toned, easy fluidity and immaculate technique” - Gramophone. Since winning the BBC Music Magazine Instrumental award in 2018 Fenella Humphreys has been in demand throughout the UK and Europe. Post minimalist composer Max Richter has composed many successful film scores, most recently ‘Mary Queen of Scots’, ‘White Boy Rick’ and ‘Black Mirror’. His 2012 ‘Recomposed’ topped the charts in 22 countries. His beautifully crafted intelligent work based on the famous concertos by Vivaldi retains only a quarter of the original music; Richter skilfully employs looped and phased parts of pure Vivaldi which emphasise his postmodern and minimalist credentials. Fenella partners ‘Recomposed’ with the powerful ‘Lonely Angel’ by Vasks and Pärt’s popular ‘Fratres’.

Diva is an entertaining and attractively packaged compilation of Angela Gheorghiu's EMI recordings made between 1996 and 2002. All of the selections have appeared on previous releases, but some of them only in the context of complete operas. As a one-disc snapshot of Gheorghiu's career so far, Diva does pretty well, and it would make a good first choice for anyone looking to get to know her work.