Classical

Bach's Cello Suites, says the cellist, are '[m]asterpieces by perhaps the greatest composer who ever lived' that 'give every cellist who plays them not only a lesson on the magnificent possibilities the instrument offers but also a glimpse into the world beyond...'

Asian folk music and 20th century history inform this collection of modern classical works for Western strings and the Chinese lute called the pipa.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer has a surpassing ability to set tightly packed texts to expressive music using the combined vocabularies of tradition, modernism, and even the jazz age.

Two recent releases from bassist-bandleaders show how jazz continues to thrive in the most disparate of musical "cultures," even with its relatively small, specialized audience.

While the English choir applies a constant smooth tonality to its performances, these can still feel fresh, the centuries-old music almost as much as the recent.

'We had this big desire to attract a wider audience, and make young people interested in the instrument and great music in general.'

Voices simulate the ringing of bells and the knocking-on of doors as effectively as they convey the desperation of foiled lovers, the comic scheming of the servant class, and the self-satisfied prancing of the smug.

Earthly Love and Celestial Love battle for the soul of Mary Magdalene in Caldara's rarely performed oratorio 'Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo.'

Conductor David Hayes paired memorial works by Paul Hindemith (WWII) and John Adams (9-11) in a revelatory concert.

Two new recordings of Romantic-era music from France and Germany are revealing in different ways.