Emily Van Evera, Sister Germaine Fritz Vision

The Ensemble Pygmalion directed by Raphaël Pichon commences its collaboration with Harmonia Mundi with this new recording of J.S. Bach’s lost music to the Köthener Trauermusik (Cöthen funeral music), BWV 244a. Founded in 2006 at the European Bach Festival, Ensemble Pygmalion is a combination of choir and orchestra - all young performers with experience of authentic instruments and period-informed performance. Its repertoire concentrates primarily on Johann Sebastian Bach and Jean-Philippe Rameau.

In this first period-instrument recording of Dido, Andrew Parrott tries to re-create the first known performance of the work–at Josiah Priest's School for Young Gentlewomen in London. Here (as there) the cast includes only one male–David Thomas, whose brawny Aeneas could overwhelm Dido physically as well as emotionally. Judith Nelson is a warm, sweet-toned Belinda; the Sorceress gets a vivid, raucous, love-it-or-hate-it performance by the legendary medieval-cum-folk-singer Jantina Noorman. Emma Kirkby, early in her career, sounds eloquent but extremely youthful as Dido–barely past her teens. This makes for a different, perhaps more credible, tragedy: a new, slightly immature queen, servant rather than mistress of her emotions, angrily refuses to take back the lover who abandoned her–only to die heartbroken after banishing him.

Parrott's decision to perform this selection of Vivaldi's sacred music with sopranos and altos shows how the all-female forces of La Pietà might have coped with tenor and bass lines. Delectable performances in superior sound.

"First recording of english vocal ensemble led by Crhistopher Page. Their vocal sound is a conscious blend of "scrupulously accurate" tuning, sensitive phrasing, careful rhythmic articulation, and a bright and clear vocal production. "

What you have here is a well-performed sampling of music from England in the early 16th century. Because of the way the program is organized, the listener's mind may try to organize it into something more coherent than that, but it may not succeed. The centerpiece is the Western Wind Mass of John Taverner, which is broken up with secular pieces and then followed by music that might have been heard at the court of Henry VIII.

Van Cliburn’s legendary 1958 performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no.1 with Kirill Kondrashin conducting the RCA Symphony Orchestra (New York Philharmonic Orchestra?) still remains remarkably fresh as if it had only just recently been recorded live in concert. This was his first recording on returning to the US from winning the first Moscow Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in March 1958 and it became the first classical record ever to sell over a million copies.

From 1957-1973 Werner recorded 55 of Bach's church cantatas as well as the St. John and St. Matthew Passions, the Christmas, Easter and Ascension Oratorios, the B minor Mass and the motets. MusicWeb stated, 'Werner's pacing of the (St. Matthew Passion) and his vision of it is compelling. The drama moves inexorably forward and the entire story is most movingly related.'