Bizet

This Ondine debut album by the award-winning Lithuanian mezzo-soprano Justina Gringyte, one of the foremost rising stars of the opera world, and pianist Malcolm Martineau is her first solo album and the complete recording of Georges Bizet's (1838-1875) long-forgotten masterpiece, Vingt Melodies (20 Songs), Op. 21. Year 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of the death of Bizet, one of the greatest French composers of all time. During his short career of little more than twenty years Bizet composed a substantial quantity of music, including 15 operas. Bizet has been compared with Mozart in his sensitivity to the human voice and understanding of it's expressive potential. Several of Bizet's operas predate his twenty songs Opus 21, written between 1854 and 1872. Anyone new to these songs, a collection including many masterpieces, may wonder how music of such consistent quality could be so neglected! Clearly, they must be ranked among Bizet's most representative works.

This Ondine debut album by the award-winning Lithuanian mezzo-soprano Justina Gringytė, one of the foremost rising stars of the opera world, and pianist Malcolm Martineau is her first solo album and the complete recording of Georges Bizet’s (1838–1875) long-forgotten masterpiece, Vingt Mélodies (20 Songs), Op. 21. Year 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of the death of Bizet, one of the greatest French composers of all time. During his short career of little more than twenty years Bizet composed a substantial quantity of music, including 15 operas.

In August 2022, the musicians of the world-class Rachmaninoff International Orchestra (RIO) gathered in Bratislava to perform their first recording under the direction of founder and artistic director Mikhail Pletnev. Experience the beloved tunes from "Swan Lake" and "Carmen" on Super Audio CD and digital.

Experience the popular melodies from "Swan Lake" and "Carmen" recorded by the world-class Rachmaninoff International Orchestra (RIO) under the baton of Mikhail Pletnev.

This album follows Zala Kravos’ first album, recorded in 2017. This new project is based on the long-term collaboration between Zala Kravos and her brother Val as a piano duet. Since their youngest age, both pianists regularly perform together, also on the international scale. This album features a wide range of repertoires that reveal the technical and performing qualities of the duo, notably through Schubert’s Fantasia in F Minor, considered as a monument in the field of four-hands piano repertoire.

The success of Bizet’s opera Carmen has overshadowed the rest of his output, but this fascinating orchestral programme, which includes a number of seldom performed works, reveals more of his talent for writing colourful, atmospheric and melodic music. The Overture in A was Bizet’s first orchestral work and unperformed in his lifetime, while the Marche funèbre was originally the prelude to an opera about love and vengeance, now lost. The dramatic overture Patrie captures the mood following the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, while the Petite suite is a set of orchestrations of movements from Jeux d’enfants (Children’s Games). Conceived in Italy as a symphony, after Bizet had won the Prix de Rome, Roma occupied the composer for 11 years before the final version heard here.