Inna de Yard Days Chasing Days

Limited Edition 41-CDs set presenting Alicia de Larrocha’s complete Decca & American Decca recordings.
Including previously unreleased recordings of Grieg and Albéniz. Includes discs of bonus material: 2 CDs of de Larrocha’s early Hispavox (EMI/Warner) Madrid recordings of piano encores. Includes recordings with Pilar Lorengar, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, André Previn, Sir Georg Solti, Riccardo Chailly, Zubin Mehta and David Zinman. Greatly respected by her peers, not least Arthur Rubinstein, Gina Bachauer, Van Cliburn, Claudio Arrau and Vladimir Horowitz, if you wanted to witness a Who’s Who of New York City-based keyboard luminaries gathered in one place, you simply had to purchase a ticket for an Alicia de Larrocha recital..

Serenata Española features the unique collaboration between Xavier de Maistre and Flamenco legend & castanets soloist Lucero Tena. Xavier and Lucero were introduced to each other by conductor Jesús López Cobos. Xavier de Maistre fell in love with Lucero' story and personality. Shortly after, they decided to record a repertoire they had in common: Spanish Music. The album features compositions by Albeniz, Granados, Tarrega and de Falla, arranged for harp and castanets.

Of all Berlioz’s Shakespeare-inspired works, Roméo et Juliette is unquestionably his masterpiece. It is also cast in an innovative new form, a kind of ‘super-symphony’ that incorporates elements of symphony, opera and oratorio. Berlioz composed no singing roles for the central characters, but allowed others to comment or narrate, giving latitude to incarnate the lovers in a musical language of extraordinary delicacy and passion. The vivid Ball Scene and Romeo at the Capulet tomb are intensely dramatic but the heart of the work is the Love Scene, a long symphonic poem which Richard Wagner called ‘the melody of the 19th century’.

Flor De Loto is currently the most prominent prog rock new group in Peru: in only a few months' time they turned from promise-status to major act while growing a cult following in Lima. This quartet was founded by guitarist Alonso Herrera and bassist Alejandro Jarrín with a guitar/bass/keyboard/drums format, back in 1998. A couple of years later, new drummer Jorge Puccini entered the band and helped it to develop its initial prog leanings further, a process that was effectively continued when flautist Rafael Valderrama also entered the band not too long after the keyboardist's departure…

The music on this recording was written by three of the great composers of the Baroque era and is undoubtedly of the highest quality. As a universal form of expression, music can overcome the boundaries of time, place and language. It has the unique power to speak to us, despite our distance from the time of its creation. Music can also permeate many a spiritual text, which seems to be far removed from our modern secular world, with emotional power and immediacy. If this happens, as here, with excellent interpreters such as the soprano Griet de Geyter and the ensemble Il gardellino, then this effect is intensified to a unique musical enjoyment.

Thanks to Julien Chauvin and his ensemble La Loge, the programs of the Concert Spirituel’s evenings in the late 18th century Paris come back to life. The so called Haydn’s “symphonies parisiennes” are the core of their musical project which also features contemporary composers, some of them are still unknown.

The Four Seasons is a group of four violin concerti by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives musical expression to a season of the year. They were written around 1716–1717 and published in 1725 in Amsterdam, together with eight additional concerti, as Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione (The Contest Between Harmony and Invention).

A brilliant dancer before becoming “famous throughout Europe for his learned and elaborate sonatas, and for the elegance of his performance on the violin”, Jean-Marie Leclair is far more than the sum of his talents. His music is woven with the multiple threads of his life, carrying within it all the facets of his technical and musical explorations, his travels, his impressions, which have moulded man as much as musician.