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New release: 6 December 2024

Celebrating the French trumpet!

Romain Leleu and his musical partner Julien Gernay invite us on a whirlwind tour of the birthplace of the French trumpet and cornet.

Captivated by the unique sonorities of the historical instruments preserved at Paris’s Museum of Music, they have devised a fascinating programme that pays homage to the golden age of the French trumpet. Joined by other fellow musicians (Benoît de Barsony, Guillaume Cottet-Dumoulin, and Adrien Jaminet), they offer a traversal of the repertoire that is as flamboyant as it is poetic!

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NEW RELEASE: 22 NOVEMBER 2024

William Christie & Company

Happy birthday, Bill!

On the occasion of his 80th birthday, the founder of the ensemble Les Arts Florissants William Christie is not content merely to honour the composers who are close to his heart. Along with his tireless endeavours as a musical archeologist, here he also demonstrates his role of mentor to the younger generation of talented performers.

While showcasing the composers he has so fervently championed and, in some cases, brought back into the limelight, this programme also displays the loyalty to his musical companions that has characterised his entire career

New Release: 15 November 2024

Quintessential piano concertos

Kristian Bezuidenhout continues his exploration of Mozart’s piano concertos with the Freiburger Barockorchester. Here they deliver a superb reading of the Concertos nos. 19 and 23, which are justifiably among the most famous in the corpus.

The undeniable popularity of these two works is largely due to their sublime middle movements, but also because they reach the very heights of Mozartian subtlety in terms of orchestration, thematic development, and dramatic instinct. The historically informed performances presented here take the same interpretative approach as earlier volumes in the cycle, underpinned by an utterly luminous musical discourse!

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New Release November 8

Holy fury!

Now recording exclusively for harmonia mundi, Carlo Vistoli lends his artistry to a showcase of one of the greatest Baroque masters as his label debut: the music of Antonio Vivaldi.

“Diamond” rating from OPÉRA MAGAZINE

Joining the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Italian countertenor invites us on a journey into some of Vivaldi’s finest sacred works. Paired with the celebrated Nisi Dominus and Stabat Mater, the quasi-operatic motet In furore shows the extravert, theatrical side of this music, intended for edification, to be sure, but also for our greater delight.

New Release November 1

Shostakovich at his most personal

The Cuarteto Casals embarks on its recording project devoted to the complete string quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich: one of the most fascinating chamber-music cycles of the twentieth century.

 After being subjected to public attacks by the Soviet regime in the mid-1930s, Shostakovich sought new avenues of self-expression by turning to chamber music, and the string quartet became for him the perfect medium for private confession. To launch their complete Shostakovich cycle, members of the Cuarteto Casals offer deeply insightful readings of the first five quartets—works that are pivotal in the composer’s oeuvre.

DIAPASON D’OR

New Release 25th October 2024

The experts compete!

The musical legacy of the Bach family is inseparably linked to the progress in instrument making of the time, which was dominated by the Silbermann family. Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas and his ensemble Les Surprises offer a fascinating comparison between the two dynasties—composers vs. organ builders and fortepiano makers.

Featuring the famous Silbermann organ at the Cathedral of St. Mary in Freiberg, Saxony, along with other superb originals and copies of Silbermann instruments, this recording takes us on a journey through the works of the Leipzig Cantor and of two of his celebrated sons: Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel.

New Release October 4th

REQUIEM

Raphaël Pichon and his ensemble Pygmalion deliver an overwhelmingly moving reading of Mozart’s testamentary work. A masterly interpretation!

Nurtured by a seminal stage experience (in collaboration with director Romeo Castellucci), this recording offers a series of mirror effects that challenge our preconceptions of such a well-known work. Punctuated by earlier sacred pieces by the composer, it invites a dialogue between rearangements, his homage to tradition, and rarely heard pieces from Mozart’s catalogue.

 

ALSO ON LP

New Release September 27th

Awakening the senses

In their bid to give even tiny children access to music, Emmanuelle Bertrand and Pascal Amoyel have devised a delightful programme of lullabies and serenades that will enchant listeners of all ages!

With this album, the duo explore the deepest sources of musical emotion: melodies that touch, console, comfort, and soothe… These little pieces brimful of tenderness and love are a marvellous entry point to listening to music for the very young and a treat for experienced music lovers alike.

ALSO ON LP 

New Release September 27th

Campra and other masters of Notre-Dame

Alongside their magnificent reading of André Campra’s Requiem, Sébastien Daucé and Ensemble Correspondances also offer us an opportunity to discover other maîtres de musique of Notre-Dame, representative of the liturgical tradition of the time.

Although now overshadowed by their brilliant colleague, Jean Veillot, François Cosset, and Pierre Robert made no less of a contribution to the development of the ‘French style’ emblematic of the reign of Louis XIV.

New release September 20th

Bach’s cello suites in a soaring performance

Seventeen years after his first reading that quickly set the standard (more than 110,000 copies sold), Jean-Guihen Queyras revisits the iconic Bach cycle. This time around, he gives free rein to his imagination as a poet of the cello. His guiding principles? A no-holds-barred approach and a sense of freedom!

In making this new recording, the French cellist has been profoundly influenced by his collaboration with choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, in whose production Mitten wir im Leben sind he has performed over 100 times and was filmed for the enclosed complete version on Blu-ray disc.

DIAPASON D’OR ARTE

New Release September 13th

Bruckner on period instruments!

To mark Anton Bruckner’s 200th anniversary, Pablo Heras-Casado and the Bruges-based Anima Eterna orchestra have chosen to record the composer’s Symphony No. 4, the aptly named “Romantic” Symphony, as their birthday present.

The first instalment in a new cycle devoted to the great Austrian symphonist, this recording gives a new lease of life to the work we thought we knew inside out. Thanks to the unique sonorities of the period instruments played by the Bruges orchestra, galvanised by Pablo Heras-Casado’s inspired direction, we can rediscover the dazzling colours and architectural rigour of this ‘cathedral in sound’ as imagined by Bruckner.

NEW RELEASE 30th AUGUST 2024

Marin Marais, trailblazer and poet

In their new album, Florence Bolton and Benjamin Perrot revisit the composer one of whose pieces gave this ensemble its charming name: La Rêveuse. With their characteristic delicacy and poetic flair, they now explore Marin Marais’ second book of pieces for viol (1701).

Drawing on his heritage (Sainte-Colombe), his friendships (Robert de Visée), and his own visionary genius, Marin Marais blazed new trails for his instrument with this extensive collection. Alongside the customary dances and sets of variations, he invented the ‘character pieces’ that would become so popular in the eighteenth century.

NEW RELEASE 30th AUGUST 2024

The cello in the Age of the Enlightenment

With this recording of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Concerto in B-flat major (1751) and Antonín Kraft’s Concerto in C major (1804), Jean-Guihen Queyras and Riccardo Minasi, at the head of Ensemble Resonanz, invite us to rediscover two dazzling works from the first golden age of the cello concerto.

To follow a sensational first volume devoted to C.P.E. Bach, they have found in Kraft another composer whose music is as irresistible as it is demanding for the performers. An album full of panache, virtuosity, and infinite poetry.

NEW RELEASE 23rd AUGUST 2024

Capturing Schubert’s voice

 Following his unparalleled performance as the Evangelist in Pygmalion’s recording of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, tenor Julian Prégardien now turns to a tale of unrequited love: Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, in the company of Kristian Bezuidenhout at the keyboard.

In their quest to recapture the expressive palette of the composer’s seminal song cycle, the performers have chosen a magnificent fortepiano modelled on an original by Conrad Graf (Vienna, 1825) and notable for the exceptional variety of its timbres. A most impressive achievement!

NEW RELEASE 23rd AUGUST 2024

Fauré, free of clichés

This year marks the centenary of Gabriel Fauré’s passing. Pianist Aline Piboule pays tribute to the composer, performing on a historical instrument as part of the “Stradivari” series of releases, co-produced with Paris’s Museum of Music.

From his early efforts, still close to Chopin and Schumann, to the final pieces with their heady yet elusive harmonies, here is a chance to trace all the stylistic diversity of Fauré’s music on a superb Gaveau instrument of 1929.

 

NEW RELEASE JUNE 28th

Musical dialogue

William Christie revisits a cherished composer in this enticing programme of Gaspard Le Roux’s music for two harpsichords, performed in partnership with a notable guest artist: Justin Taylor

A rare phenomenon in the realm of French music for harpsichord, Gaspard Le Roux composed works of uncommon originality and sumptuousness as the reign of Louis XIV came to a close. Juxtaposing his Suites with pieces by Lully, Marais, and François Couperin, William Christie and Justin Taylor have found the ideal alchemy to do full justice to the myriad colours of these works, as virtuosic as they are rich in inspiration.

NEW RELEASE 21 JUNE

Schubert meets his doppelgänger

In their first recording for harmonia mundi, Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy deliver deeply poetic readings of two masterpieces of the four-hand piano repertoire: Franz Schubert’s celebrated Fantasie in F minor and his remarkable Divertissement à la hongroise.

By way of counterpoint, they present the world premiere recording of Leonid Desyatnikov’s Trompe-l’oeil — written expressly for the duo and conceived as a “reflection” of Schubert’s Fantasy. A dazzling “hall of mirrors” that’s not to be missed.

 

NEW RELEASE: 31 MAY 2024

Paul Lewis plays Schubert

An outstanding interpreter of Schubert, Paul Lewis has been exploring that composer’s body of work for nearly 15 years, recording this repertoire exclusively for harmonia mundi. The essential Schubert recordings of his entire career are now collected together in this box set.

Equal parts poet and virtuoso, Paul Lewis has made unforgettable recordings of Schubert’s late piano sonatas, Wanderer-Fantasie, Moments musicaux, and both books of Impromptus. Assembled together for the first time, these readings are among the modern milestones in the entire Schubert catalogue.

Latest New Releases

A shower of accolades for Aline Piboule

 

Her recording of Fauré’s Nocturnes and Barcarolles earns unanimous acclaim in France and abroad

 

After it has already been awarded the “ffff” rating in Télérama, an Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, a Diapason d’Or, the highest score of 5/5 in Le Nouvel Obs magazine, the Joker Absolu in Crescendo Magazine, and the Choix de Laure Mézan in Pianiste magazine, Gérard Belvire now writes about her in the November issue of Classica (giving it a 5-star rating): “Aline Piboule once again deploys a way of playing that is as free as it is measured, delivered in long breaths in which the refined tone quality and supple articulation are coupled with a rare acuity of the reading, marked by dynamic control, mastery of complex rhythms, prominence of countermelodies. The notes are charged with electricity, for instance in the wild dissonances or stormy outbursts of the last three Nocturnes. And the singing garlands of the Barcarolles unfold seamlessly as in a dreamlike surge. One could only wish for more Fauré collections to follow from these inspired fingers and on this ideal instrument.”

2024 “Conductor of the Year”!

Pablo Heras-Casado awarded by Opernwelt magazine

Just when his recording of Anton Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony with Anima Eterna was being released (and a Bruckner Third was being recorded in Bruges), Pablo Heras-Casado was named “Conductor of the Year” by the German magazine Opernwelt and lauded for his “rhetorically and poetically impressive” interpretation of Parsifal at the 2024 Bayreuth Festival. The news was widely reported in the German press, notably in Der Spiegel.

Upcoming albums, projects, life of the label…

Magnificat!

The RIAS Kammerchor Berlin deliver a flamboyant reading of two masterpieces dating from the early 18th century: J.S. Bach’s Christmas Magnificat (performed here in its original version, BWV 243a) and Handel’s Te Deum (HWV 278).

Whether celebrating the so-called Peace of Utrecht in London (Te Deum) or the Nativity in Leipzig (Magnificat), each composer played the card of vocal and orchestral splendour to make his mark in his new place of residence — London for Handel and Leipzig for Bach. Two seminal works, championed here by outstanding performers who have unlocked all of this music’s mysteries.

Choral splendour

To be released in 2025!

New harmonia mundi albums for the first half of the year

The first six months of 2025 will be filled with of all kinds of “firsts”: a year after the wide acclaim garnered by his “Concerti per una vita” album, Théotime Langlois de Swarte takes on the challenges of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, approaching it with infinite nuance (January). At the other end of the spectrum, we celebrate the season with Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in the company of two topflight pianists: Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy (June). Along the way, Sébastien Daucé will explore Europe’s High North with a programme of seventeenth-century Swedish music (April), while the Curious Bards traverse eighteenth-century Scandinavia in song and dance (January). Not forgetting an eagerly awaited performance of Bach’s Mass in B minor led by Raphaël Pichon! We will also showcase the music of ERIK SATIE with Alain Planès, not to mention that of MAURICE RAVEL and GEORGE BIZET. Joining harmonia mundi to record exclusively for our label are the Münchener Kammerorchester under the direction of Enrico Onofri, conductor Stanislav Kochanovsky at the head of the NDR Radiophilharmonie (Hanover), and the superb French countertenor Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian.

Discover all the details here!

Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2024

harmonia mundi — the label with the most nominations at the prestigious London awards ceremony (with five albums in the running) — congratulates violinist Isabelle Faust on winning two top prizes!

The winning albums are Britten’s Violin Concerto (featuring Faust with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra led by Jakub Hrůša — pictured) and Schumann’s Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet (with Anne Katharina Schreiber, Antoine Tamestit, Jean-Guihen Queyras, and Alexander Melnikov). Our congratulations go to all the artists who were awarded for these two recordings. To call them EXCEPTIONAL is certainly no exaggeration here!

GRAMOPHONE AWARDS, London, 2 October 2024

cover Requiem

Introitus

 Raphaël Pichon’s recording of the Mozart Requiem comes out on October 4, but in the meantime, you can already take a listen to the work’s opening movement on all the streaming platforms!

This new release holds special import for the performers… and for all Raphaël Pichon fans, without a doubt. Five years after taking part in Romeo Castellucci’s acclaimed staging of the Requiem at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the musicians of Pygmalion were keen to capture their vision of Mozart’s unfinished masterpiece in the recording studio. This reading, which is both collective and very personal, is informed by our own perception of death and of our environment, paradoxically allowing the score to regain a universality that transcends styles, eras, and genres.

MOZART: REQUIEM (VINYL | CD)

WORLDWIDE RELEASE: 4 OCTOBER 2024

Christophe Rousset’s legendary Couperin cycle is available in digital format for the first time!

Long considered a milestone in the discography of keyboard music, Christophe Rousset’s readings of François Couperin’s complete works for harpsichord now sound better than ever in a magnificent high-resolution remastering.

Performed on several splendid instruments, these indispensable recordings made in the 1980s and 1990s quickly achieved reference status upon their release. Partnered by William Christie and Blandine Rannou in the pieces for two harpsichords, Christophe Rousset brings abundant virtuosity, poetry, fantasy, and colour to this landmark cycle in French harpsichord music.

NEW RELEASE: 2nd AUGUST 2024

Dearest Amalia!

The flautist Jean Brégnac pays tribute to an exceptional figure in the music world of the 18th century: Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia.

Patron of the arts, woman of letters, and composer, she was also a collector of music scores, some of which have come down to us thanks only to her impressive collection. Jean Brégnac and his fellow musicians have assembled a delightful programme of sonatas, keyboard works, and lieder by her protégés Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, by her mentor Johann Philipp Kirnberger—and by the princess herself.

NEW RELEASE 12 JULY 2024

Liebe Amalia

An Autumn filled with music

⛱️☀️🎶🎶

 

Forthcoming recordings from harmonia mundi

Among the notable titles being released this summer, a new cross-generational challenge for William Christie, who has rekindled one of his earliest musical passions: Gaspard Le Roux’s music for two harpsichords, seconded by his brilliant young recital partner Justin Taylor. The latest from La Rêveuse also marks a return to its roots with a recording devoted entirely to the music of Marin Marais. With a pair of new releases, Jean-Guihen Queyras is the featured attraction in the cello concertos by C.P.E. Bach and Antonín Kraft and on his new recording of J.S. Bach’s complete Cello Suites…

To explore the release programme, visit here!

J.S. BACH | B. ALARD

Stradivari collection offers a miraculous return to life…

When incomparable instruments that are centuries old leave their storage and come alive under the fingers of today’s finest performers!

Over the past few years, harmonia mundi has established a close partnership with the Museum of Music housed at the Paris Philharmonie. Under the umbrella of the Stradivari collection, outstanding performers are invited to discover and play on the museum’s priceless instruments, lovingly restored and maintained by a team of curators and conservators. Each release in the series is conceived as an encounter between the instrument and the performer, featuring the repertoire perfectly suited to both. This partnership has already borne exceptional fruit, as you may sample for yourself here or by visiting the Paris Philharmonie’s website.

NEXT RELEASE AVAILABLE AUGUST 2024:
Gabriel Fauré, Nocturnes and Barcarolles  
J.S. BACH | B. ALARD

Jean-Guihen Queyras

returns with a suite treat!

Following several years of worldwide touring with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s Rosas dance company, Jean-Guihen Queyras returned to the recording studio to deliver a second reading of J.S. Bach’s Suites for Solo Cello. Sixteen years after his first, unforgettable recording of these same suites, the cellist felt compelled to revisit this inexhaustible musical source, which was also the subject of his recent book, Bach: Les Suites en partage (conversations avec Emmanuel Reibel). Album release scheduled for fall 2024.

J.S. BACH | B. ALARD

Dolby Atmos sound

is present on many new releases and re-releases by harmonia mundi..

No less than 18 new releases are announced in Dolby Atmos format on the label in 2024. Find the complete list of releases in this format in our Topics.

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Discover the latest harmonia mundi playlists on your favorite platform.

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A passion for excellence 1958.

Now 65, the label cultivates an insolent youth. Exploring new repertoires, broadening our horizons, developing young talent and constantly striving for excellence: this is harmonia mundi’s motto. We are demanding, passionate and proud of our independence. This is our story…

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