The Bluvenduo Guitar Duo is a highly impressive ensemble that was awarded First Prize at the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America International Ensemble competition in 2025. Their programme here comprises arrangements of four works originally written for piano, with that of Schumann’s Kinderszenen heard in its world premiere recording and the other three of piano works by Franck, Rachmaninov and Schubert enjoying their first commercial recordings. People familiar with the outstanding pedigree of the Naxos Guitar Collection will be delighted to know that the producer, engineer and editor for this new recording is internationally acclaimed guitarist Norbert Kraft, who launched the Naxos collection both as producer and artistic director.

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Sacred choral music played a significant role in Mendelssohn’s life, witness his great oratorios Elijah and St Paul; also the forceful Lutheran resonance in both his Second Symphony ‘Lobgesang’ and the Fifth Symphony ‘Reformation’. This album, however, is the first of two to focus on a number of his smaller-scale sacred settings that radiate sincere and often transcendent beauty. These works have received increased attention in terms of performance and audience appreciation recently, making this short collection an attractive prospect for collectors. The WDR Radio Choir is directed in this project by Christoph Poppen, internationally applauded, unfailingly versatile, and already praised for his Naxos edition of Mozart’s complete masses, with BBC Music Magazine commenting on Vol. 6 that ‘Christoph Poppen’s exemplary cycle seems only to gain in stature with each successive release.’

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Although Hungarian composer Ernst von Dohnányi was one of the most versatile and influential musicians of his time, his works are seldom played nowadays. The Capriccio label is helping to rectify that situation with a series of recordings of his late-Romantic, sensual music, of which this eighth album features his Symphony No. 2. Composed at the time of his departure from war-torn Hungary during World War II, it’s a colossal work that lasts for around an hour and calls for an unusually large orchestra. Ruralia Hungarica, written in 1923 and arranged for orchestra the following year, makes use of familiar Hungarian folk melodies, some of them more widely known through their appearance in the works of other Hungarian composers.

Here we have the first recordings of three works by the late Kaija Saariaho, a native of Finland who subsequently based herself in Paris. She died in 2023. They’re performed by soprano Anu Komsi and the BBC Symphony Orchestra under conductor Sakari Oramo. Vista (2019), an expansive landscape and the composer’s final work for orchestra, is an intensely personal work swarming with bittersweet visions of paths the composer never had the opportunity to explore. The Saarikoski Songs (2021) were originally scored for voice and piano and recorded by Anu Komsi, for whom they were written. Days after signing off the orchestrated version 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, presented as expressionistic fragments rather than devotional settings. Coloratura soprano Anu Komsi is one of Finland’s foremost international singers; the BBC Symphony Orchestra has been a driving force in the British musical landscape for over 90 years; and Sakari Oramo, the orchestra’s chief conductor, has championed contemporary and lesser-known repertoire throughout his career.