‘It is an attractive, truly enchanting program. Shira Patchornik makes excellent use of her agile, coquettish voice; she is a fine interpreter of both virtuoso and lyrical arias, with a good combination of lyricism, sparkling coloratura, power, and gentleness.’ – Pizzicato ★★★★

Opus Klassik 2026 “Young Artist of the Year” award winner soprano Shira Patchornik is a rising star on opera and concert stages. This release, which was previously available only digitally, is now being released on physical format as well.

Mozart’s aria ‘Al Desio di chi t’adora’ from Figaro is a song full of erotic tension addressed to her lover. And perhaps some are still familiar with Haydn’s ‘La vera Constanza’. The rest of this stimulating programme consists of discoveries and treasures from Italian opera of the same period but largely forgotten. But what is it about?

No opera can do without these characters: the maid, the lover, the chambermaid, the jealous wife, the daughter. Operas from around 1800 are mostly intricate tales of intrigue and love. Sometimes dramatic, sometimes humorous, these stories inspired composers to the highest form of their art. Bella Ragazze, they become witnesses to amorous adventures, they are the projection screen for powerful men, or they themselves become energetic and vengeful protagonists. Shira Patchornik is a shooting star on the big stages and brings us key moments from opera treasures with a stupendous stage presence. She embodies characters in her own unique way and does justice to even the most breakneck coloratura. As if made for it, Mozart’s rarely heard Divertimento joins the entertaining opera action: written as music for entertaining festive gatherings, it displays Mozart’s characteristic humour in almost every moment.

Henry Purcell Reimagined: Baroque Songs of Fate and Freedom

In this recording, the Vox Orchestra, conductor Lorenzo Ghirlanda and soprano Marie-Sophie Pollak explore some of Henry Purcell’s most captivating songs from King Arthur, The Fairy Queen, and Dido and Aeneas. At the heart of the programme lies a theme that remains strikingly relevant today: the confrontation with the inevitable–war, love, duty, and loss.

Rather than presenting these works solely as excerpts from Baroque stage music, the performers highlight their original character as songs. Purcell’s memorable melodies emerge with remarkable directness and emotional immediacy, while instrumental interludes function like modern introductions and codas. Bold string playing, expressive continuo, and vivid contrasts of tempo create a sound world that feels both historically informed and surprisingly contemporary.

Marie-Sophie Pollak brings the diverse characters to life with exceptional expressive clarity, favouring direct communication over excessive ornamentation. The result is a fresh and compelling interpretation that reveals Purcell’s theatre music as a timeless collection of songs, bridging the distance between the seventeenth century and today’s listener.

Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689–1755) was one of the most distinctive figures of the French Baroque. An independent composer and highly successful publisher, he created a remarkable body of work that unites the elegance of the French tradition with the virtuosity and expressive power of Italian music.

This recording presents selected sonatas from Opp. 3, 19 and 44 for transverse flute and basso continuo, tracing Boismortier’s artistic development from works rooted in the French dance-suite tradition to his later, more overtly Italianate and virtuosic style. Inspired by Corelli and Vivaldi, he forged a unique musical language characterized by melodic charm, rhythmic vitality and expressive richness.

Performed by a colourful continuo ensemble of transverse flute, baroque bassoon, baroque cello and lute, this recording reveals the stylistic diversity and enduring appeal of Boismortier’s music.

L’Heure Bleu is a tribute to the luminous sound world of La Belle Époque–an age of subtle colours, refined elegance and poetic imagination. Inspired by the mysterious “blue hour,” the album traces a musical journey between Paris and London, where music, literature and painting merge into a single artistic vision.

At its heart lies the intimate dialogue between viola and piano. The viola sings with warmth, tenderness and quiet eloquence, while the piano paints the changing colours of light–shimmering, translucent and richly atmospheric. Together they create an expressive soundscape in which every miniature unfolds like an impressionist painting, revealing ever-changing shades of emotion.

Music by Gabriel Fauré, Edward Elgar, Maurice Ravel, Frank Bridge, Ernest Chausson, Rebecca Clarke, Jules Massenet, Fritz Kreisler and Louis Vierne captures the spirit of an era fascinated by beauty, nuance and fleeting moments. Familiar masterpieces including Après un rêve, the Méditation from Thaïs and Chanson de Nuit are heard from a fresh perspective, their lyrical intimacy enhanced by the unique colours of viola and piano.

With its carefully crafted programme, L’Heure Bleu invites listeners into a world suspended between light and shadow, memory and imagination–a musical celebration of timeless lyricism and quiet, enduring beauty.

With this new recording, the casalQuartett turns its attention to one of the most remarkable yet unjustly neglected chamber music works of the twentieth century: Heinrich Kaminski’s String Quintet in F-sharp minor. Composed between 1914 and 1916, the work combines overwhelming emotional intensity with a unique polyphonic language in which all five instruments participate as equal voices. Early critics described it as the “revelation of a young genius”; today it stands out for its compelling originality, dramatic power, and extraordinary richness of expression.

Despite its central place within Kaminski’s oeuvre and its significance in German musical history, the quintet has remained largely absent from concert life for decades and was previously available only in a long out-of-print recording. This new release restores a major work to the repertoire and offers audiences the opportunity to rediscover a composer whose artistic voice ranks among the most distinctive of his generation.

Rediscovering Forgotten Voices: Jordan Hadrill Champions Joseph Bologne

What we consider the heritage of Western classical music is not a law of nature. It is the result of historical choices – and the prejudices that shaped them. With her new recording, violinist Jordan Hadrill challenges this legacy of exclusion by bringing forgotten composers back into the spotlight.

At the heart of the release is the Violin Concerto No. 1 in G major, Op. 2/1 by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, one of the most remarkable yet long-overlooked musical figures of the 18th century. Together with the Vienna Classical Players, Hadrill presents a work that combines virtuosity, elegance, and profound emotional depth.

Born in Guadeloupe in 1745, Joseph Bologne was the son of a French plantation owner and an enslaved African woman. Brought to Paris at an early age, he rose to fame not only as a celebrated violin virtuoso, conductor, and composer, but also as one of Europe’s greatest fencers. As founding director of the Concert de la Loge Olympique, he led the premieres of Haydn’s famous “Paris Symphonies” and moved within the inner circles of the French royal court around Marie Antoinette. Yet despite his extraordinary achievements, racial prejudice denied him a lasting place in the European musical canon.

For Jordan Hadrill, discovering Bologne’s music became a deeply personal artistic journey. Inspired by an article in The New York Times, she immersed herself in both his music and his remarkable biography. “I immediately knew: I have to play this music,” she recalls.

Composed in 1773, Bologne’s first violin concerto reveals a strikingly original musical voice. Brilliant virtuosity, expressive slow movements, and a unique blend of French refinement and harmonic boldness give the work its unmistakable character. Hadrill emphasizes not only the technical brilliance of the concerto, but also its emotional and spiritual power: “I hear a strong personality in this music – deeply spiritual and deeply resilient.”

Recorded in Vienna with the Vienna Classical Players – the city that profoundly shaped Hadrill’s own artistic path – the project becomes both a symbolic homecoming and a passionate statement for a more inclusive understanding of classical music history.

The distinguished Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt, long associated with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra as a regular guest, conducted Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 in d Minor, in concerts on May 7 and 7, 2009 in the in the Philharmonie im Gasteig in Munich. This new BR-KLASSIK release presents not only the live recording of this compelling interpretation but also a live orchestral rehearsal recording from May 2009. The latter forms part of BR Klassik’s acclaimed series Conductors at Rehearsal, offering a glimpse into their artistic work with the orchestra.

‘It seems that the Ninth is a limit. He who wants to go beyond it must pass away. […] Those who have written a Ninth stood too close to the hereafter.’ Arnold Schoenberg wrote those words in reference to Gustav Mahler, who had just died without ever having heard his own Ninth Symphony performed. Bruckner was apparently afraid of the fatal number as well: ‘I don’t want to start on my Ninth at all, I don’t dare.’ However, very soon after the completion of his Eighth Symphony in September 1887, Bruckner started on his first drafts. Overall, work on the Ninth then dragged on over the long period from 1887 to 1896, having to be constantly interrupted because of the composer’s deteriorating health. Bruckner finally died while working on the fourth movement – and his masterpiece dedicated to ‘the beloved God’ remained unfinished. Even without a finale, the three-movement torso that survives is, of course, extremely impressive.

The completed movements were first performed in Vienna on February 11, 1903, in an unusual personal version by the conductor Ferdinand Löwe. The actual first performance of the original score with its three movements only took place on April 2, 1932 in Munich. Ever since, Bruckner’s Ninth has been an essential part of the Late Romantic symphonic repertoire – above all in its original version.

The detailed rehearsal recordings on the album provide a deeper insight into this magnificent work. Listeners can experience first-hand how the conductor’s wishes, ideas and instructions are implemented, how his explanations and his temperament change the resulting sound, and what thoughts lie behind the interpretation of the work. Thanks to this series, which is now also available on disc, the unique artistic partnership between Herbert Blomstedt and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra can be documented. Blomstedt’s seemingly inexhaustible source of energy – music itself – is palpable in every word and every measure.

The Romanian composer George Enescu was a child prodigy and in October 1888, aged seven, become the youngest student ever admitted to the Vienna Conservatory (and the first non-Austrian), from which he graduated at the age of twelve. In addition to his career as a composer, Enescu was also an acclaimed conductor and violinist. He made his American début in 1923 conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra, and frequently conducted both the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre symphonique de Paris. Enescu made numerous recordings as a violinist, of his own works and those of others: his 1949 recording of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas was very highly regarded, and as a teacher (at the Mannes School of Music, in New York) his students included Yehudi Menuhin, Christian Ferras, Ivry Gitlis, Arthur Grumiaux, and Ida Haendel, among many others). Enescu composed his Octet for Strings at the age of nineteen, taking a year and a half to complete it, owing to the complexity of the string writing. The first performance was cancelled when, after five rehearsals, the impresario Édouard Colonne removed it from the programme as ‘too risky’. The performers have chosen to complete the album with the early Piano Quintet, which Enescu composed some four years before the Octet, during his time at the Paris Conservatoire. The work shows his reverence for his hero Brahms throughout, but also demonstrates his extraordinary command of form and texture at such an early age.

The Pocket Concerto by Knox is a compact concert piece built on clear formal design and tightly focused motivic writing. Its reduced instrumentation highlights the chamber‑like character of the score, allowing the musical lines to interact with precision and transparency. The short form serves to present the material in a direct, concentrated manner without extended development.

Gunter Teuffel is a German violist known for his long-standing work as principal viola in major orchestras and for his engagement with contemporary music. His career includes numerous collaborations on new works and a wide range of chamber‑music projects.

Tristan Cornut is an internationally active cellist who performs both as a soloist and within established ensembles. His repertoire spans classical and modern music, and he frequently works with composers on the creation and performance of new pieces.

The latest musica viva release presents three contemporary works for double-bass, performed by the renowned double-bassist Frank Reinecke (born 1960), who was a member of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1984 to 2024 and is in great demand at international festivals as a soloist and chamber musician. Working closely with renowned composers, Reinecke has premiered numerous works, including Flucht (“Flight/Escape”) by Nikolaus Brass (2009) and iv 18 by Mark Andre (2021), both of which can be heard here in recent recordings.

Born in Paris in 1964, the composer Mark Andre creates existential spaces of experience in his music that are characterised by subtle processes of change. At the heart of his thinking lies the question of disappearance, which relates to all musical parameters. Above all in his chamber music, which is as delicate as it is focused, the devout Protestant proves himself to be a sensitive explorer of sound. His solo work for double-bass iv 18 (“For they were afraid”), commissioned between 2018 and 2021 by musica viva of Bayerischer Rundfunk and the Berliner Festspiele / Musikfest Berlin, was premiered by Frank Reinecke at the Musikfest Berlin in 2021. This recording of the work was made between November 7 and 9, 2023 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz.

Nikolaus Brass regards the three movements he composed for solo double-bass in 2009 under the title Flucht (“Flight/Escape”) as studies or études for the instrument. The first movement highlights various “gestures of the line”, which in the third movement are narrowed down to a single gesture, that of the glissando. In the central movement, the core of the instrument is brought to the fore. The title Flucht can be interpreted musically in several dimensions. Frank Reinecke gave the work its world premiere in Hamburg in June 2013. This recording was made on June 20 and 21, 2012 at the Himmelfahrtskirche in Munich-Sendling.

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007) composed the first version of In Freundschaft (“In Friendship”) in 1977 as a birthday present for the clarinettist Suzanne Stephens, and also wrote a version of it for the flute at the same time. In 1978, he revised the work and, on that occasion, wrote versions for the oboe, trumpet, violin and viola. Further versions followed for the basset horn and almost all other orchestral instruments. A first version for cello, prepared in 1981, can also be played on the double-bass. This live recording of Frank Reinecke’s performance was made during a musica viva concert on November 6, 2020 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz.

The church music Franz Liszt composed in his later years was always innovative, radical and thoroughly idiosyncratic, yet was frequently and unjustly overlooked in the repertoire. Now, the Bavarian Radio Chorus, conducted by Peter Dijkstra, has taken on the cycle VIA CRUCIS. It was never performed during Liszt’s lifetime; the composer worked on it in the autumn of 1878 as a guest of Cardinal zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst at the Villa d’Este in Tivoli, not far from Rome. The new release from BR KLASSIK presents a live recording of an extraordinary concert from April 2025 at Munich’s Prinzregententheater.

Via Crucis, the Way of the Cross, usually comprising fourteen stations of the Passion of Christ – from conviction to death to deposition to burial – has over the centuries been the subject of prayer at the traditional sites in Jerusalem, on pilgrimages, in Catholic churches worldwide, at roadside shrines, in outdoor chapels, and on Calvaries. In composing his version, Franz Liszt mainly had the Good Friday procession in the Roman Colosseum in mind, “in that place whose ground is steeped in the blood of the martyrs”. He wrote his 14 Stations of the Cross for solo voices, choir and organ (originally piano), yet was much taken with the idea of carrying a harmonium into the ruins of the Colosseum for his musical devotions to be sung there too: ‘I would be happy if those sounds could be heard there that only faintly reflect the inner emotion that overcame me when, on my knees with the devout procession, I more than once repeated the Latin words.’ It remained a mere vision, however: his late work VIA CRUCIS was neither rehearsed nor published, and met with firm rejection from the purists from the ultra-conservative Cecilian movement. It was not until fifty years later, on Good Friday 1929, that the work was finally premiered in Budapest.

Liszt was acquainted with the young Peter Cornelius, a multi-talented composer, violinist, actor, poet, librettist and essayist from Mainz. Cornelius had received a thorough grounding in music history, from Palestrina to Bach, when he approached Liszt and the circle of the ‘New Germans’. In 1852, he wrote a setting of the Introit of the Latin Requiem Mass, ‘Requiem aeternam’, in a classically refined style for male choir. That same year, Liszt urged him to ‘devote himself to church music with the utmost resolve’ – advice that Cornelius respectfully declined. His Requiem, composed in 1863, has nothing to do with the Catholic liturgy; Cornelius set to music a poem by the dramatist Friedrich Hebbel: ‘Soul, do not forget them, soul, do not forget the dead!’ – Both of Cornelius’ choral works also feature on this album.

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS of three works by Kaija Saariaho (1952–2023) from soprano Anu Komsi, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sakari Oramo.

Vista (2019), an expansive orchestral landscape, was the composer’s final work for orchestra. During a drive down the scenic Interstate 5 highway to San Diego, Saariaho encountered an image that matched her exact feeling in that moment: signs indicating ‘Vista Points,’ exits to locations from where to enjoy a peaceful view on the coastline and the ocean. She devoted the following months to the creation of a work that would capture the opening of new, unexpected landscapes. Vista swarms with bittersweet visions of paths the composer never had the opportunity to explore.

The Saarikoski Songs (2021) is performed here by Anu Komsi, for whom they were originally written. In 2013, in response to Komsi’s invitation to create a short song on a text by a modern Finnish poet, Saariaho set a poem by Pentti Saarikoski (1937–1983), and over the years she expanded the project to multiple songs. The collection chosen by Saariaho displays an ecologic theme, as the poet contemplates the destruction of the forest in his neighborhood to give way to new apartment buildings. The five Saarikoski songs were originally composed for voice and piano and recorded by Anu Komsi. Just days after signing the final double bar of the orchestration in January 2021, Saariaho was diagnosed with the brain cancer that came to claim her life.

The Three Preludes (1981) is an early work for soprano and organ and the composer’s only setting of Biblical material. These three miniatures are expressionistic fragments rather than devotional hymns. The organ was the instrument that Kaija Saariaho played in her twenties and the new organ of the Helsinki Music Centre – on which Anu Komsi and Marzi Nyman recorded this work – was made possible through a generous donation from Kaija Saariaho.