"one of the finest & most creative jazz guitarists playing today" JOHN SCOFIELD

ARTISTS
Kurt Rosenwinkel guitar, voice
featuring: Joshua Redman tenor saxophone
Brad Meldau piano
Larry Grenadier bass
Jeff Ballard drums
Ali Jackson drums
Produced by Kurt Rosenwinkel

Sultry jazz vocalist

Japanese jazz pianist

TRACKLISTING
01. Ella Fitzgerald Hooray for Love
02. Mel Tormé Get Happy
03. Dinah Washington Blues in the Night
04. Joe Williams and Count Basie Come Rain or Come Shine
05. Shirley Horn That Old Black Magic
06. Diana Krall Let's Fall in Love
07. Morgana King It's Only a Paper Moon
08. Helen Merrill Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home
09. Billie Holiday Stormy Weather
10. Abbey Lincoln If I Only Had a Brain
11. Louis Armstrong I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues
12. Sarah Vaughan Over the Rainbow
13. Billy Eckstine As Long as I Live
14. Blossom Dearie Down With Love
15. Ella Fitzgerald The Man That Got Away
16. Sammy Davis, Jr. and Count Basie My Shining Hour

ARLEN is considered the most jazz oriented of all the legendary Broadway & Hollywood songwriters.

"Damn hip & danceable" TIMEOUT NEW YORK

Produced by RUSS TITELMAN.

Featuring the song "TROUBLE" co-written with BURT BACHARACH

New movie by LUC JACQUET. Music composed by French artist EMILIE SIMON

This was BREL'S farewell tour, recorded on the 28th & 29th October 1966. The DVD is now in Dolby 5.1. It includes two live interviews recorded the day before his concerts.

ARTISTS
Anne-Sophie Mutter
Orchestre National de France / Kurt Masur
Boston Symphony Orchestra / Seiji Ozawa
Philharmonia Orchestra / Paul Sacher

TRACKLISTING
DUTILLEUX: Sur le même accord (nocturne)
BARTÓK: Violin Concerto No. 2, Sz. 112
STRAVINSKY: Violin Concerto

Henri Dutilleux's nocturne Sur le même accord played by Anne-Sophie Mutter is a world premiere recording , juxtaposed with Stravinsky's virtuosic Violin Concerto and Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 2 from Mutter's back catalogue.

Kurt Masur rejoined Mutter and the Orchestre National de France for the recording at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (Paris) in November 2003.

ARTISTS
Lang Lang, piano
Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre
Valery Gergiev

TRACKLISTING
RACHMANINOV:
Piano Concerto No. 2
Paganini Rhapsody

With his debut recording on Deutsche Grammophon, featuring Tchaikovsky's famous First Concerto, Lang Lang proved how much he feels at ease with the big Russian Romantic repertoire . Now, after the international success of his Carnegie Hall recital recording , he turns his attention to another great Russian Romantic , Sergei Rachmaninov

ARTISTS
Janine Jansen, violin
And associate artists

TRACKLISTING
VIVALDI: The Four Seasons

The Four Seasons - but not as you've heard it before!!

Dutch violin star Janine Jansen leads her specially selected group of soloists in a fresh look at the most loved of all classical works

One player per part in a performance of revelatory energy, transparency and clarity

Vivaldi's Four Seasons returns to Amsterdam where it was first published

ARTISTS
Münchner Philharmoniker
Christian Thielemann

TRACKLISTING
BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 5

• The year 2004 provided a major step, accompanied by a huge amount of public interest, for DG exclusive artist Christian Thielemann. He left Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he had been Generalmusikdirektor since 1997, and started his first season in the same position at the Munich Philharmonic with a concert that was worldwide highly acclaimed: On 29 October 2004 Thielemann conducted Bruckner's Fifth Symphony.
• The magic event of Christian Thielemann's inaugural concert was recorded by DG , thus documenting the beginning of a promising era of high-profile artistic collaboration.

LOCAL RELEASE: APRIL 2005

ARTISTS
Kaori Muraji, guitar
Special guest, Dominic Miller, guitar

TRACKLISTING
Hey Jude
Michelle
Here, There and Everywhere
Yesterday
Hiroshima To lu Na No Shonen (A Boy Named Hiroshima)
Bad Boy
May
At the Window
Variaciones Sobre el Carnaval de Venecia
Farewell to Stromness
All in Twilight (four pieces for guitar)
La Belle Dame Sans Regrets
Fragile

At just 25 Japanese classical guitarist Kaori Muraji is a huge star in her native country, with a string of top-selling recordings behind her. She is now set for a glittering international career with a new exclusive contract with Decca.

This first international recording is this collection of beautifully arranged popular songs, many in arrangements by Japanese composer Takemitsu. One look at the tracklist will tell you how accessible this album is.

Joining Kaori for two of the tracks is Sting's guitarist Dominic Miller (who himself released a highly successful solo album Shapes in 2004) and the combination of outstanding talent from classical and crossover approaches to the same instrument creates a very special kind of magic.

Since then, Kaori Muraji has been active as a recitalist as well as soloist with major Japanese orchestras. In May 2002, she performed to huge success with the Orquesta de Camara Joaquin Rodrigo on their Japan tour as a part of the centennial events of Rodrigo's birth. A highlight of the 2002 season included performances for the encore tour with the Vogler Quartet in Mach 2003. Muraji's most recent CD releases have been of Rodrigo's Concerto de Aranjuez coupled with Malcolm Arnold's Serenade for guitar and strings , and Resplandor de la Guitarra featuring other works by Rodrigo. In addition, her first DVD Contrastes was released in November 2001.

Now firmly established as one of the top artists of the new generation of musicians in Japan, Kaori Muraji , under the Decca banner, is sure to become a world-wide household name.

LOCAL RELEASE: APRIL 2005

ARTISTS
Vienna Philharmonic
Valery Gergiev

I think Tchaikovsky was always ready for immortality...and with his final three symphonies he secured his place in the pantheon of Great Composers [...] When recording live we go for energy, we go for excitement, and still - hopefully - we go for good musical quality"
Valery Gergiev

The Fourth Symphony was written at a particularly crucial point in Tchaikovsky's life for 1877 was not only the year of his disastrous marriage but also the year in which he began his fifteen year correstpondence with his patroness Nadezhda von Meck.

The Fourth Symphony has always been a popular work with its muscular melodic writing and pervading sense of Fate, which Tchaikovsky believed controlled his destiny - "the fateful force which prevents the impulse to happiness from achieving it's goal..."

ARTISTS
Vienna Philharmonic
Valery Gergiev

This recording of the 5th Symphony has been an outstanding part of the Philips catalogue for some years and has become one of the best-selling discs in Maestro Gergiev's mighty discography. The highly acclaimed recording was made live at the Salzburg Festival in July 1998 and is a glorious example of what can happen when a great conductor stands before a great orchestra.

It is now repackaged to be part of a series that will surely become the definitive versions of Tchaikovsky's much loved late symphonies - in glorious digital sound.

LOCAL RELEASE: APRIL 2005

ARTISTS
Vienna Philharmonic
Valery Gergiev

Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony, known as the Pathetique , is among his most deeply moving and profound works - a masterpiece which he considered to be his greatest composition. Once again the struggle against fate is central to this symphony which was to be Tchaikovsky's last. The premiere took place in October 1893 in St.Petersburg, and just 8 days later the composer was dead. Few musical farewells are more poignant.

The two new recordings (of symphonies 4 & 6) are released along with a repackaged version of the 5th, recorded live at the Salzburg festival in 1998, which has been an outstanding disc in the Philips catalogue for some years, becoming one of the best-selling discs in Maestro Gergiev's mighty discography.

This series will surely become the definitive versions of Tchaikovsky's much loved late symphonies - in glorious digital sound.

ARTISTS
Aimé Doniat, Lina Dachary, Freda Betty, André Mallabrera
Jésus Etcheverry, conductor

ARTISTS
André Mallabrera, Liliane Berton, René Bianco
Richard Blareau, conductor

Various interpreters

ARTISTS
Dom Joseph Gajard

These two CDs gather together a large number of Gregorian pieces that are both suggestive and varied in their nature. With the Mass of Christ the King, we present here the Masses of six Sundays of the liturgical year, several litanies, and the celebrated Carolingian acclamations. The vital relationship uniting the faithful and their Lord is revealed in a wonderfully poetic way through these chants from very different ages and liturgical functions.

ARTISTS
Dom Joseph Gajard, Dom Jean Claire

ARTISTS
Dom Joseph Gajard

The liturgy of the dead, as it is interpreted by the Gregorian repertory, conveys a sense of immense peace, though it in no way minimizes the inherent drama. Much less known, the liturgy of the Dedication of a church is filled with an equal sense of deep mystery. Christians have a rich and varied understanding of the Temple: Jesus Christ declared to the Jews that His own body was the new temple; the body of each believer is the temple of the Holy Spirit; finally, each church is the "house of God" in the New Alliance. This mystical interpretation is revealed with both texts of the Old Testament and later compositions such as the hymn, Urbs Jerusalem, with its admirable poetic expression.

ARTISTS
Choeur de l'Opéra National de Montpellier Christophe Talmont, chorus master
Orchestre National de Montpellier
Enrique Mazzola, conducting

Comic opera in 3 acts
Libretto by Mario Ghislaberti
adapted from Carlo Goldoni's comedy

ARTISTS
Choeurs du Théâtre Français de la musique
Chef de choeur : Nicole Maison
Ensemble Orchestral Harmonia Nova
Direction musicale : Stéphane Denève

Tragédie Lyrique in 3 acts
Libretto by J. Barbier & M. Carré,
adapted from Goethe

ARTISTS
Iris Vermillion, mezzo-soprano
Donald Litaker, tenor
Orchestre National de Montpellier
Armin Jordan, conducting

Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde is a fantastic synthesis of two genres that were believed to be incompatible: the lied, an intimist form par excellence, and the symphony. This vast vocal symphony consists of six poems, sung alternately by the tenor (nos.1, 3 and 5) and the mezzo-soprano (nos.2, 4 and 6) soloists.

To interpret this masterpiece, René Koering, artistic director of the collection, engaged two spellbinding voices: mezzo-soprano Iris Vermillion, a great Mahler interpreter, and Donald Litaker one of today's leading tenors. And at the head of the Orchestre National de Montpellier, a guest conductor of stature: Armin Jordan, a leading figure on the international conducting scene. This is a veritable ode to Nature in which soloists and orchestra are in perfect harmony with the spareness and contemplative lyricism of this music.

ARTISTS
Orchestre National de Montpellier
Friedemann Layer

Henze's Symphony No. 10, a classic four-movement form and the album's showpiece, presents a

rather surprising variety of moods: 'A Storm'; 'A Hymn', for strings alone, in the expressive lineage of Berg or Schönberg; 'A Dance', in which shades of jazz and Stravinsky hover over the rhythmic and sound virtuosity, and 'A Dream' that sometimes takes us back to the atmosphere of the first movement and gradually gives way to silence.

The programme is completed by two work s inspired by Henze's opera Der König Hirsch: Quattro Poemi and La selva incantata ,, which underscore the lyricism typical of the composer's writing. It was to Friedemann Layer, at Radio France's 'Présences' Festival in 2003, that fell the weighty honour of giving the first French performance of the Symphony No. 10   commissioned jointly by Paul Sacher and Simon Rattle. To judge from the reviews of the concert, he met the challenge brilliantly!

ARTISTS
M. Renaud & J.-L. Barrault -   M. Bouquet &   J. Topart

The children's collection Le Petit Ménestrel invites you to discover the fabulous destiny of the famous composer Ludwig van Beethoven through the fictionalised story of his life and a tale inspired by his famous 'Pastoral' Symphony .

This is a unique occasion to get into music through a colourful, captivating story that will charm young and old alike. A playful approach to the classical repertoire and meticulous pedagogy make this an indispensable reference to be shared by the whole family.

And what's more - it's a delightful way to practise your French!

ARTISTS
Alain Vanzo, tenor
Orchestras conducted by Jacques Metehen and Raymond Chevreux

TRACKLISTING
Granada
La capinera
Ti voglio tanto bene
Non ti scordar di me
Serenade from The Student Prince
I walk with God from The Student Prince
Berceuse
Pensée d'automne
L'amour qu'un jour tu m'as donné, from Chanson gitane
Pour ma belle jouvencelle from Giuditta
J'ai toujours cru qu'un baiser from Paganini
Arias from Le Pays du sourire
Mandoline from Pêcheur d'étoiles    

Presenting Alain Vanzo, one of the most charming of all French tenors in the 60s!

Alain Vanzo has sometimes been described as a sort of bridge or transition between two outstanding French tenors: yesteryear's Georges Thill and today's Roberto Alagna. His numerous discs attest to the virile charm that emanated from his voice, his ability to go from forte to the subtlest piano without changing timbre, his perfect articulation and dramatic temperament

ARTISTS
Alain Vanzo, tenor
Choeurs Georges Théry
Orchestre conducted by de Jésus Etcheverry, Giancarlo Amati, Reynald Giovaninetti

TRACKLISTING
Arias from Faust, Werther, Tosca, Cavalleria Rusticana, Manon, Roméo et Juliette, Manon Lescaut

ARTISTS
Alexandre Lagoya, guitar
with Ida Presti, guitare
Orchestre Pro Arte de Munich / Kurt Redel
Orchestre National de l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo / Antonio de Almeida

Philips is proud to present three thoroughly French sets (packaged as 'cap boxes'), led by The Art of Alexandre Lagoya. His recordings with Ida Presti, re-released here in their entirety, had already been the object of an international re-edition, but a good number of the numerous solo recordings made in the 1960s and '70s had never before been available on CD! This injustice has now been put right with no less than 3 CDs of wonders to rediscover.

ARTISTS
Gérard Souzay, baritone
Dalton Baldwin, piano
English Chamber Orchestra / Raymond Leppard
Orchestre Lamoureux / Serge Baudo

Above all, it is emotion that accompanies the Gérard Souzay set: he himself had offered to prepare the programme for this portrait in 5 CDs grouping the quintessence of his art, intended to celebrate his 85 th birthday. He was still working on it a few days before his death last August. May this edition pay homage to his memory as well as to his art.

ARTISTS
Pierre Cochereau, Organs of Notre-Dame de Paris
Michel Cals, Michel Gastaud, percussions

The Pierre Cochereau set brings together most of the recordings he made for Philips and is being released on the occasion of the 20 th anniversary of this extraordinary artist's death.