Barrie Kosky, one of the most exciting opera directors of our time, opened his newly staged Da Ponte cycle at the Wiener Staatsoper with a character-driven new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Kyle Ketelsen in the title role and Philippe Sly as Leporello “took centre stage (…) and dared to satirise the burden of tradition” (ORF). Hanna-Elisabeth Müller is a compelling Donna Anna, Patricia Nolz gives a remarkable role debut as Zerlina, and Peter Kellner shines as Masetto. Kate Lindsey presents a fascinating character study as Donna Elvira, and Stanislas de Barbeyrac excels as Don Ottavio. Philippe Jordan conducts the Orchestra of the Wiener Staatsoper, bringing “transparency, tangibility and poetry on the basis of historical accuracy” (Der Standard) – even in the subtly played recitatives on the fortepiano. “Kosky and Jordan met congenially in the direction of the singers.” (ORF)

On the occasion of its 200th season opening, Teatro Real presents a spectacular new production of Gounod’s Faust directed by Alex Olle (La Fura dels Baus). Set in a futuristic laboratory, Goethe’s timeless themes of knowledge, desire and redemption are reimagined through the lens of artificial intelligence and human emotion. Star singers including Piotr Beczała, Marina Rebeka, and Luca Pisaroni lead the cast in this gripping drama. Under the baton of Dan Ettinger, the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Real deliver a thrilling performance that, as Bachtrack wrote, “takes its cue from Goethe but doesn’t shy away from theatrical imagination.” // “Beczała’s voice was brilliant, dark and even powerful with ringing high notes as he proved with his ringing high C in Salut demeure chaste et pure.” (Operawire)

Highlight review:
TURANDOT: “Netrebko does not merely sing it: she interprets it. What emerges is a character much more human and ultimately truer than usual.” (La Stampa)

TOSCA: “spectacle of monumental opulence” (Online Merker). “A Tosca to relish!” (Artesnews.it) “standing ovation Tosca at the Arena di Verona” (Operalife)

LOVE DUETS: Sonya Yoncheva & Vittorio Grigolo: “A concert evening about love, lust and passion. Sonya Yoncheva has the full and vibrant timbre of a true lyrical soprano” (L’Arena) “Vittorio Grigolo is undoubtedly a charismatic artist and always attentive to the interpretation of the characters” (operclick)

His First Symphony famously took Brahms twenty-one years from conception to first performance – a marker of both his own highly self-critical assessment of his output, combined with the expectation of everyone around him that his symphonic output would naturally pick up where Beethoven had left off. Astonishingly, his Second Symphony was begun in June 1877 and received its first performance just six months later, by the Vienna Philharmonic and Hans Richter. Its cheerful nature and pastoral mood are also a stark contrast to the first symphony. Following a gap of some six years, Brahms returned to the form in 1883, and composed his third and then fourth symphonies in quick succession. Begun in 1884, the Fourth Symphony was premièred by Brahms and the Meiningen court orchestra in October 1885. The work is especially notable for its last movement, which takes the form of a passacaglia (an extremely rare occurrence) and is the only of Brahms’s symphonies to end in a minor key.

This recording explores the emotional depth, colour and inventiveness of Finnish concertante works for violin and orchestra. The pieces range across the transitional landscape of the country’s national music during the 20th century, where mysticism, modernism, folklore and experimentation co-exist. Major figures such as Selim Palmgren and Aarre Merikanto are represented, as is charming film music by Einar Englund, writing under a pseudonym. Distinctive works by Väinö Haapalainen, Väinö Raitio and Nils-Eric Fougstedt complete the programme.

This fifth volume of the orchestral works of the late-Romantic Swiss composer Richard Flury (1896–1967) brings two works deeply bound up with his native Solothurn, in the north-west of the country. His Fastnachts-Sinfonie, or ‘Carnival Symphony’, is an expansive symphonic poem predicated on local legend and folk tradition, embracing both frolic and feeling. The Third Symphony – in which one can hear traces of Bruckner and Richard Strauss – celebrates the rolling hills and endless skies of the Bucheggberg, where he loved to go walking and where, the freewheeling music would suggest, his heart found freedom.

Viola Concertos presents three 21st-century Danish concertos, written for Rafaell Altino by Karsten Fundal, Christian Winther Christensen and Søren Nils Eichberg. In these works, the viola moves from intimate lyricism to dazzling virtuosity, weaving its way through both tender dialogues and dramatic exchanges with the orchestra. Altino’s masterful playing brings out each composer’s distinctive voice and reveals new facets of the viola, full of energy and warmth, shifting between neo-Romantic hero, indifferent loner and shadowy foil.

Helmut Lachenmann, who celebrated his 90th birthday last year, has composed several milestones in contemporary classical music. Sir Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra have dedicated themselves to some of these exceptional works.

In his tuba concerto Harmonica, Helmut Lachenmann explores the limits of sound – with music that oscillates between eruption and silence, by means of ‘strictly constructed denial’ (Lachenmann) and by deliberately disrupting the familiar and eludes socially preformed listening expectations. Klangschatten – mein Saitenspiel deals with the “verso” of sound, its suppressed and “unwelcome” components. The spectrum here ranges from toneless or muffled sounds to differently coloured noise and clear tones. Lachenmann himself described the piece as “an offer of expressive intensity that reflects the bourgeois longing for beauty and seeks to fulfil it, that is, to overcome it.”

Capturing Idil Biret’s first concerto recording at age 47, this historic 1988 session embodies her triumphant entry into orchestral repertoire after decades of solo work. The album highlights her profound connection to Saint-Saëns – showcasing the Concerto No. 2 in G minor’s dramatic cadenzas and the innovative structure of the Concerto No. 4 in C minor. Recorded at London’s St. Barnabas Church with legendary sound engineers Mark Brown and Tony Faulkner, the project was made possible by support from the Turkish Ministry of Culture. This release marked the beginning of Biret’s legendary Naxos partnership, ultimately distributing the recording worldwide to critical acclaim.

Ottorino Respighi’s Maria Egiziaca, described by the composer as a ‘mystery in three episodes’, narrates the life of Saint Mary of Egypt in a profoundly moving and deeply sensuous musical representation of Christian faith as seen through its various characters. This work, depicting Maria’s journey from prostitution to sainthood through sin, conversion and atonement, started out as a concert triptych and sits somewhere between an oratorio and an opera. The intensely dramatic and at times symphonic qualities of Maria Egiziaca are imbued with ancient Italian musical traditions, with two beautiful symphonic interludes separating the three episodes.

Il Bajazet was commissioned in 1735 to open Verona’s carnival season. Vivaldi chose a libretto by Agostino Piovene drawn from the well-known story of the defeated Ottoman sultan, King Bajazet, captured by Tamerlane who duly falls in love with Bajazet’s proud daughter, Asteria. Vivaldi was in his late maturity when he completed the opera, modifying his music to suit contemporary taste, and using the pasticcio form, incorporating some arias written by other, mostly Neapolitan, composers. Repurposing of this kind was wholly acceptable at the time and such works enjoyed great popularity. The conductor and Vivaldi specialist, Federico Maria Sardelli, has integrated lost arias, clarified the use of historically appropriate orchestration, and brought the opera to rich theatrical life.

Georges Onslow’s reputation as the ‘French Beethoven’ was earned in the field of chamber music. His 34 string quintets build on a form perfected by Mozart, and are enhanced through Onslow’s suggested use of a double bass instead of a second cello, as heard in this recording. The String Quintet No. 14 in F major has an attractively genial quality, with distinctive themes contrasting with warmly emotive lyricism; String Quintet No. 24 in D major shows the influence of Beethoven in its theatrically dramatic moods.

Bach’s Cello Suites are his only works for solo cello but are central to the repertoire and remain unequalled in their expressive musical depth. Dor Gidon Amran, the virtuoso mandolinist who has recorded his own unique arrangement of Paganini’s 24 Caprices on Dynamic (CDS8038), has now arranged Cello Suites Nos. 1–3 for the mandocello. This is a baritone instrument of the mandolin family, but much larger than a mandolin, whose strings are tuned exactly like those of the cello. Being played with a plectrum, the mandocello belongs to a very different sound world to the cello, offering a unique perspective on these great works.

At the 1999 Schwetzingen Festival honouring Chopin’s 150th anniversary, Idil Biret delivered one of the Festival’s most astonishing performances. Renowned for her complete Chopin recordings, Biret was asked at just six hours’ notice to replace Anatole Ugorski – and, defying all expectation, performed his exact demanding programme from memory. Flying through a storm from Brussels to Germany, she arrived minutes before the concert and captivated the audience with her brilliance and poise. Critics hailed her as a rare artist of supreme mastery and courage, with Joachim Kaiser praising her extraordinary musicianship. That weekend, the Schwetzingen Festival witnessed Biret at her transcendent best – an unforgettable celebration of Chopin and pianistic genius.

The renowned Genova & Dimitrov Piano Duo celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2025. The duo has been honoured with numerous international awards and recordings. With the recording of all of Debussy’s works in three volumes for piano duo, the Genova & Dimitrov Piano Duo is now appearing on the Oehms label. The programme includes both well-known and lesser-known works, some of which are versions of orchestral works such as the famous Trois Nocturnes. The recording was made in co-operation with WDR Broadcast.

Henrique Alves de Mesquita was a prolific composer who defied Brazilian society’s systemic exclusion of Black people to achieve prominence as one of the leading figures in the local musical scene of the 19th century. He was highly regarded for his sacred music and operas, which are rarely heard today. After study years in Paris, Mesquita turned his versatility and sophistication towards fashionable music theatre styles such as polkas, tangos and waltzes, conveying emotions ranging from contagious joy to gentle melancholy. It is these lighter pieces that are now considered by many scholars to be one of the main origins of modern Brazilian popular music.

The largest part of the output of the Hamburg-born composer and writer Walter Niemann (1876–1953), a student of both Humperdinck and Reinecke, is piano music: an astonishing 1,000 or so pieces, divided into 189 opus numbers. Most of them are lyrical miniatures in a warm and approachable late-Romantic style, some evoking the music of the past – often with a touching degree of dignity and restraint, but also with an occasional flash of good humour. The range of moods here is surprisingly wide, from pieces recalling late Brahms and a barcarolle evoking Offenbach, via light-hearted character-sketches and evocative picture-postcards, to a warm-hearted and tender piano sonata.

The admired Schumann authority, Jean-Pierre Armengaud, presents this second volume of Clara Schumann’s solo piano music, which focuses on the transcriptions she made of works by her husband, Robert. Clara evokes orchestral density in the overture to Robert Schumann’s only opera Genoveva, and also in the complex Bach-inspired Studies for Pedal Piano. Above all, the song transcriptions see her engaged in acts of complex creative union while also revealing the independence of her musical vision. Volume 1 in this series is on GP930.

Works for Choir and Ensemble presents three powerful world premiere live recordings of Vagn Holmboe’s late choral output. Featuring Die Erfüllung alongside Song at Sunset and Ode til sjælen, this digital-only album reveals the composer’s hidden spiritual side. The Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir, V Coloris and guests perform these works, inspired by Novalis, Whitman, and Ewald, realising the deep spiritual truths at the music’s core.

‘…the Song of Songs, the Bible’s most unabashedly erotic book, cataloging the sensory language of worship. Set to Lang’s characteristically spare music, with airy textures built from modest, repeated gestures, the words glow with a strange immediacy… The Crossing, under Donald Nally, sings throughout with precision and warmth.’ – The New York Times

Onutė Narbutaitė’s (b. 1956) oratorio Centones Meae Urbi (1997) is a key work in Lithunian contemporary music and a work that also earned the composer the Lithuanian National Laureate. This new 2024 recording of the work – which portrays the rich history of Lithuanian’s capital city Vilnius – with Robertas Šervenikas conducting the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, the Kaunas State Choir and with Lithuanian vocal soloists, Gunta Gelgotė and Nerijus Macevičius, is a major addition to Lithuanian recorded music.

Spanish Renaissance polyphony has a reputation for florid, intricate contrapuntal textures and dark colours. Sebastián de Vivanco (c. 1551–1622), born in Ávila but active for most of his life in Salamanca, stands apart from his contemporaries: his music explores a much wider range of colours and techniques than that of, say, Victoria. In his more experimental and dramatic motets, some of which are heard here, he points the way towards the new Baroque. But in the calm sobriety of his Requiem, now reconstructed and recorded for the first time, he honours the Iberian tradition of unhurried chant-driven polyphony, all the more moving for its uncluttered clarity and exquisitely lovely chordal sequences.

Giovanni Battista Riccio lived in Venice when the city’s music was dominated by illustrious figures such as Monteverdi and Gabrieli. Riccio won aristocratic patrons and his surviving three collections of sacred music, which also contain instrumental compositions, attest to his standing in the city and beyond. His music is flowing and full of variety, not least in the liveliness of motifs, use of binary and triple time, sound painting and employment of echo effects. His Motets setting passages from the Song of Songs, offer unusually expressive and refined depth.

This album immerses the listener in the extraordinary poetic imagination of Bent Sørensen (b. 1958) and his profound love of the piano. It begins with the intimate, hushed textures of the solo piano cycle 12 Nocturnes, a night music that drifts from sundown to sunrise, and unfolds into the Piano Concerto No. 3, ‘La sera estatica’. Touched by the fleeting magic of twilight, where new encounters and possibilities quietly awaken, this ‘ecstatic evening’ is captured here in its world premiere performance with soloist Katrine Gislinge and the Copenhagen Phil under John Storgårds.

Gao Hong weaves ancient pipa traditions into full Western orchestral arrangements, as she composes, orchestrates, and performs four concertos for the instrument. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, her works forge a striking cultural fashion, giving the Chinese lute a bold new voice in classical music. Symphony of Self also includes Celebration, performed by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, showcasing her remarkable versatility in writing for both orchestra and full band.