Astor Piazzolla's name has become synonymous with tango, the signature dance of his native country, Argentina. In the Sinfonía Buenos Aires, Piazzolla's development of symphonic tango is notable for brilliant, original and often complex orchestration. His Bandoneón Concerto, nicknamed 'Aconcagua' after the highest Andean mountain, provides the soloist with ample opportunities for drama, pathos and virtuosity. Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires), a series of single tango movements with several references to Vivaldi's famous work, is a vivid sequence in which the changing moods of the seasons are expressed by means of an almost limitless emotional range and depth.

The art of Shakespeare was a recurring fascination for Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. In addition to two operas and numerous settings of songs and sonnets, he wrote 11 Shakespeare Overtures which here receive their first ever complete recording. Deploying all the resources of the symphony orchestra, these are some of the twentieth century's most dramatic and tuneful orchestral works, spectacular evocations of Shakespeare's greatest plays. Volume Two will be available on Naxos 8.572501 in October 2010. Castelnuovo-Tedesco's settings of Shakespeare songs can be heard on Marco Polo 8.223729.

• LIVE RECORDING FROM THE DEUTSCHE OPER BERLIN, 2010
• Version in two parts by PHILIPP STÖLZL and CHRISTIAN BAIER

Richard Wagner’s early opera Rienzi is stylistically closer to Meyerbeer and bel canto than to Wagner’s later masterworks. Yet even this early work – especially as presented in this recording – is “so fantastically beautiful that it takes one’s breath away” (Berliner Zeitung). And in this staging by Philipp Stölzl, who condensed the five-act opera into a little over two hours, Rienzi becomes a startlingly powerful and timeless parable of power and abuse. Though the story of the rise and fall of a charismatic leader and his totalitarian regime takes place in 14th-century Rome, Stölzl sets it somewhere in the recent past. The topic “anticipates the history of the 20th-century in a visionary way”, says Stölzl, adding that “one can make surprising analogies to many despots of this time: Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Ceausescu…” Since film was a central propaganda tool of 20th-century totalitarian systems, Stölzl uses film projections to make the “tribune” Rienzi tower above the masses or, in the style of old newsreels, to show a utopian “New Rome”. It is, after all, with films that Stölzl began his career: directing video clips for Rammstein and Madonna, then directing feature films (“North Face”, “Goethe!”) and staging operas at major venues, including the Salzburg Festival. Tenor Torsten Kerl, who has visibly studied the gestures of the 20th century’s major dictators, gives a brilliant and eloquent Rienzi; his dutiful sister Irene, sung by Camilla Nylund with great lyrical intensity, is paired with a lover, Adriano, interpreted by the luminous mezzo Kate Aldrich, “the discovery of the evening” (Süddeutsche Zeitung). Also worthy of lead-role status is the chorus, which masters its demanding part with stunning presence and accuracy. The orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin is led with exuberance and precision by young conductor Sebastian Lang-Lessing. “…spectacularly thanks to brilliant pseudo-historic footage in the style of Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda films…The production is a knockout.” (The Sunday Times) “Perhaps one of the strengths of this evening is that it helps one to be distrustful” (Die Zeit)

Sir André Previn is one of the most multi-talented and prominent musicians of our time, a composer of music of all genres, a conductor, arranger, pianist and jazz musician. He won, among countless Awards, four Oscars for his movie scores, had 13 Oscar nominations and he received theGrammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. This intimate portrait features Anne-Sophie Mutter, Mia Farrow, Oscar Peterson, Renée Fleming and Lukas Previn.

• Bonus: Two Mozart Piano Quartets (featuring members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, filmed in 2000)

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra inaugurates Riccardo Muti's tenure as music director with one of the most anticipated releases of the year Verdi's Requiem Mass, featuring the Chicago Symphony Chorus and four outstanding soloists. Recorded live from sold-out, electrifying concerts, this stunning performance brilliantly captures both the pathos and passion of Verdi's masterpiece.

Musicologists of the distant future won't be the only ones astonished to discover innova's 5CD set, The NYFA Collection. It brings together in one fat jewel box a trove of musical gems that document a golden age of a classic culture; a quarter of a century's musical output, all grown in the fertile creative soils of New York, and judged by its artistic peers to be the best of its day. In a field glutted with all kinds of musical chatter, this six-hour, NEA-funded set sorts and distills, juggles and organizes, sifts and curates, some of the most notable artists worthy of your attention.

Victoire is a new chamber-rock ensemble founded by composer/pianist Missy Mazzoli. The group, recently dubbed 'an all-star, all-female quintet' by Time Out New York, is part chamber group and part DIY indie band, including everything in its sonic arsenal from winds and strings to keyboards and lo-fi electronics. Victoire performs Mazzoli's distinct blend of dreamy post rock, quirky minimalism and rich romanticism. Since forming in 2008 they have shared the stage with Tortoise, Twi the Humble Feather, Redhooker and many others, performing at top venues including New York's Le Poisson Rouge, Galapagos Art Space, Roulette, The Stone and the Whitney Museum, Chicago's Millennium Park, and the Bang on a Can Marathon. In spring of 2009 they became the first classical artist to be featured on 'eMusic.com Selects'. Cathedral City, Victoire's first full-length album, follows on the heels of the group s debut EP, A Door into the Dark, which was released in March 2009. Sonically, Cathedral City continues in the direction of its predecessor, with rich, dark textures, solipsistic harmonies, and sampling and electronics used to eerie effect. Cathedral City showcases a group that is mastering its sound, revealing the full extent of Mazzoli's sweeping artistic vision.