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Nice, more light than emphatic Afro-Latin and jazz mixture by flutist Herbie Mann and composer/vocalist Joao Gilberto from 1965. The two make an effective team, with Gilberto's sometimes sentimental, sometimes impressionistic works effectively supported by Mann's lithe flute solos.

One of the biggest-selling jazz albums of all time, not to mention bossa nova's finest moment, Getz/Gilberto trumped Jazz Samba by bringing two of bossa nova's greatest innovators - guitarist/singer João Gilberto and composer/pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim - to New York to record with Stan Getz. The results were magic. Ever since Jazz Samba, the jazz marketplace had been flooded with bossa nova albums, and the overexposure was beginning to make the music seem like a fad. Getz/Gilberto made bossa nova a permanent part of the jazz landscape not just with its unassailable beauty, but with one of the biggest smash hit singles in jazz history - "The Girl From Ipanema," a Jobim classic sung by João's wife, Astrud Gilberto, who had never performed outside of her own home prior to the recording session…

One of Portugal´s leading classical musicians, Bruno Monteiro is herald by Opus Klassiek as a “top violinist” and by Musical Opinion as an “admirable artist”.

This album was recorded live at London's Wigmore Hall in January 2012, and it would be interesting to know whether its release was planned ahead of time or motivated by ongoing affection for the performances. Brazilian cellist Antonio Meneses and Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires have often played as a duo, and the easy conversational quality they have achieved is fully evident here. But the beauty goes beyond the usual chamber music competences. Meneses is rightly renowned for his rich tone, which remains undamaged even in the upper reaches of the Schubert Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, a work written for a defunct six-stringed instrument somewhere between cello and guitar; it lies a bit high for the cello, but Meneses is untroubled by that. The real star of the show, though, may be Pires, who contributes some deeply mysterious Brahms Intermezzi and calibrates her role with astonishing precision in the duo works, emerging into full duet partnership in the final Brahms Cello Sonata in E minor, Op. 38. Beautiful and more, with a dark, melancholy strain unifying the whole, this is chamber music reminiscent of the golden age. Deutsche Grammophon's engineering team also deserves notice for the startling live presence, undiminished by intrusions of noise.

Maria João Pires, widely recognized as one of the most brilliant pianists of the last forty years, celebrates her 20th anniversary as a Deutsche Grammophon exclusive recording artist with this 2-CD release devoted entirely to the works of Chopin, the artist's first new recording in over four years. Pires's affinity for Chopin has always been well-known to both critics and audiences; in fact, her interpretations are so beloved that her 1996 recording of Chopin's Nocturnes remains the best-selling solo piano recording of the past 20 years by a living Deutsche Grammophon artist.

Stan Getz meets João & Astrud Gilberto: New York 1964 is a live recording of bossa nova in the making. In 1989, the Giants of Jazz label released a live recording of a 1964 New York City performance featuring Stan Getz, João Gilberto and Astrud Gilberto, his then-wife. The album, entitled Stan Getz meets João & Astrud Gilberto is actually misleading: the trio had met previously in 1963 for the recording of the wildly successful album Getz/Gilberto, which was released in 1964 and set off the bossa nova frenzy in the U.S. As a result of that album’s success, the Brazilian Gilbertos and the American Getz played a number of shows in the U.S., such as the one recorded here. Released as part of the “Immortal Concerts” series, this recording exhibits the chemistry the three obviously shared and captures bossa nova in its infancy, as it was still being created and defined.

Oscillating between Lisbon and Maputo, Maria João's new album presents an original musical vision, at the centre of which is her unique and passionate voice, which once again proves to be an incomparable expression of deep emotion. Together with João Farinha and André Nascimento, she has created an album that combines original lyrics with floating, evocative electronic textures. ‘Abundância’ invites you to travel between Portugal and Mozambique, building musical bridges between past and future, jazz and world music, rhythm and melody.

Maria João Pires “shapes and colours every phrase, and with immaculate taste, and she makes sure the phrases end as eloquently as they begin,” wrote Gramophone in 1974. “She conveys not just the details but the relevance of every note to the whole … Best of all, she communicates everything she has discovered about the music, and it is worth having.” This Portuguese pupil of Wilhelm Kempff, Pires was one of the artists who defined the Erato label in the 1970s and 1980s. This 5-CD box gathers together the recordings she made over the period from 1976 to 1985 and it reflects the consistent focus of her repertoire, with its special emphasis on Austro-German composers of the Classical and early-Romantic periods. Embracing solo works, piano duets and concertos, it contains works by Mozart, Schumann, Beethoven, but also by Bach and Chopin.