Catalina Bertucci, Georg Poplutz, and Tatjana Dravenau don't just say it "between the flowers" on their new GENUIN album - they gather lieder from the 19th and 20th centuries that revolve around the theme of flowers and trees. Music and poetry speak directly and clearly of the associations between the language of love and the plant world - associations that were clear and unmistakable to people of the Romantic era, but which must be decoded anew for us today. These three remarkable artists uncover that hidden language in the most beautiful and sensuous way: through dreamlike interpretations of lieder from Schubert to Schonthal, Loewe to Faltis, and Kralik to Schumann.

From the outset, Sir Simon Rattle's conducting career has been marked by a spirit of innovation and renewal - and contemporary music in all it's facets continues to play a significant role in his work. So it was only natural that, upon taking up his post as chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, he should dedicate a concert to musica viva. The programme featured the world premiere of Vito Žuraj's "Automatones" as well as Luciano Berio's "Coro". Sir Simon Rattle has conducted the latter piece several times before, but this performance marks the first recording under his baton. This is due to the unique demands that the composition places on recording technology: choir singers and orchestra musicians are positioned in pairs on the podium to overcome the visual and acoustic separation of choir and orchestra voices. This presented a particular challenge to the Bavarian Radio recording team, but they rose to it successfully, as can be heard on the new CD from BR-KLASSIK. Composed between 1975 and 1976, Luciano Berio's "Coro", for forty voices and orchestra, takes anonymous folk poems by the Sioux, the Navajo and the Zuni, as well as song texts from Polynesia, Peru, Croatia, Venice, Piedmont, Chile, and the Song of Solomon - all of them reflecting the deeply human urge for freedom - and combines them with the moving poetry of Pablo Neruda, whose death coincided with the bloody suppression of the Allende democracy in Chile by Augusto Pinochet in September 1973.

Helmut Lachenmann, who celebrates his 90th birthday in the music year of 2025, has composed several milestones in contemporary classical music. Sir Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra are dedicating 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. This appeal to the audience's self-awareness remains as relevant as ever. The soloist is Stefan Tischler, principal tuba player of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the live recording with the BRSO conducted by Sir Simon Rattle was made on March 22, 2025. Klangschatten - mein Saitenspiel by Helmut Lachenmann deals with the "verso" of sound, it's 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." The work was performed by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Matthias Herrmann on May 23, 2025 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz. Helmut Lachenmann, born in Stuttgart in 1935, is one of the most renowned German composers of contemporary music. He studied piano, music theory and counterpoint in Stuttgart and composition with Luigi Nono in Venice. The first public performances of his works took place in 1962 at the Venice Biennale and at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music. He taught composition in Hanover (1976-1981) and in Stuttgart (1981-1999), and has given numerous master classes in Germany and abroad. His works are performed by internationally renowned players and orchestras all over the world. Helmut Lachenmann has received numerous awards, including the German Music Authors' Prize of GEMA (2015) for his lifetime achievements and, most recently, for his compositional work, the 'President of the French Republic Prize' from the Academie Charles Cros (2025).

In 2014, the Museum Kleines Klingental in Basel presented the exhibition "Hans Huber and Basel's musical life around 1900". In 2015, the exhibition provided the impetus for the founding of the concert series "Basel composes" at the Museum Kleines Klingental. The idea was to create a platform for chamber music by composers who were born, lived or worked in Basel. Since then, numerous ensembles have performed works by well-known, unknown and forgotten composers from Basel. At the centre of this anniversary recording are compositions by Hans Huber, which were the starting point of the concert series, played by Andrea Wiesli, who has been particularly committed to promoting Basel's musical culture in the Klingental with the Trio Fontane. On the occasion of the exhibition, a concert series was organised as part of the accompanying programme with music by Hans Huber, by composers who influenced his music or were his pupils and friends. To realise this chamber music series, the Museum Kleines Klingental, advised by the pianist Andrea Wiesli, decided to acquire a historical Bluthner grand piano from around 1875. The Museum Kleines Klingental is located in the founding building of the Klingental Dominican convent dating from 1274. In 1929, the Cantonal Monument Preservation Office moved into the former convent. It founded the Museum Kleines Klingental in 1939. The large refectory, the former convent kitchen, the small refectory as well as the "Schaffnei" and the roof truss from the construction period of 1274 are particularly impressive.

Finnish jazz guitarist Kalle Kalima and jazz trombonist Conny Bauer met in 2022 at a birthday concert for Nils Wogram, where they were playing at a jam session. They quickly developed new compositions together and worked on new ideas, for example based on a musical system developed by Conny in which certain intervallic movements can take place at certain times. They recorded their current album in Berlin in 2023. The music is strictly collective with the intention of escaping the usual categories.

Do you love Brahms? Then you will also want to discover the works of Amanda Maier and Robert Fuchs: three violin sonatas, all composed or published in 1878, are now presented by Duo Codax on GENUIN. The album combines Brahms' G-major Sonata with two rarely performed works in a similar style for the same instrumentation-an engaging look at the musical environment of the time. With great sensitivity for tonal balance and phrasing, Verena Louis (piano) and Adam Markowski (violin) shape the long, sweeping lines, warm colors, and passionate accents of this music: a beautifully recorded, outstanding release for chamber-music lovers!

Capella de la Torre, one of Europe's most renowned early music ensembles, is starting a new chapter: future projects will be released on the Prospero Classical label. This exciting collaboration kicks off with the anniversary album 20 Years of Capella de la Torre, which will be released in the form of a high-quality digipack. With this recording, the ensemble celebrates two decades of intensive artistic work, numerous award-winning projects, and tireless curiosity about the sound worlds of the Renaissance and early Baroque, licensed by Sony Classical.

Take time in the summer to think about the winter, country folk would say. That is just as true of CD albums compiled to celebrate the happiest days of the year. In this record-breaking sultry summer, Ludwig Guttler has been giving some thought to how to celebrate the 200th anniversary in 2018 of this global song appropriately. "It is one of the first carols I learned to play on the accordion, a present I was given for Christmas after my fifth birthday," recalls Ludwig Guttler, who remembers that when he was a child, everybody sang along. In fact it took him a long time to understand how anybody sitting in church could stay still to the sound of "Stille Nacht". In addition to the best recordings from his gigantic catalogue, there are also recordings that have not yet been publihed: Guttler has arranged "Silent Night, Holy Night!" for his brass ensemble, clad each of the six verses in an instrumental garb of it's own and recorded it in the summer in Zwettl in Austria.

A compelling collection of works for oboe and piano composed by Polish composers during the first decade after World War II. Neoclassicism-marked by clarity of form, inventive harmonies, economical means of expression, and frequent folk-inspired elements-meets virtuosity, wit, touches of the grotesque, and moments of neo-romantic lyricism. In most of these pieces, the piano stands as an equal partner to the oboe, engaging in a brilliant, dynamic dialogue. This interplay comes vividly to life in the performances of Justyna Stanek, principal oboist of the NFM Orchestra, and Monika Kruk-outstanding chamber musicians affiliated with the Wroclaw Academy of Music.

Each part in this double album presents one work of 33 variations by Franz Hummel. Initially, Hummel felt challenged by Beethoven's Diabelli Variations to compose another 33 variations on the same theme. At a memorial concert following Hummel's death (August 20th, 2022), his three master students, Yojo Christen, Christoph Preiss, and Alexander Maria Wagner, performed and reinterpreted these variations so powerfully that the desire arose to record this experience for the album. The second album features the Hercher Variations, which Franz Hummel composed between 2017 and 2019, interpreted by Christoph Preiss. A special feature is that, apart from these two works by Hummel, there are only a few cycles with 30 or more variations in well-known piano literature, e.g., Beethoven's Diabelli Variations and J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations.

Beethoven's three Sonatas Op. 10, written between 1796 and 1798, mark a decisive step from the Classical clarity of Haydn and Mozart toward a bolder, more individual language. Each sonata displays a distinct character: the C minor No. 1 combines tragic urgency with structural concentration; the F major No. 2 reveals Beethoven's emerging humor and rhythmic invention; and the expansive D major No. 3 unfolds an unprecedented emotional and architectural scale, crowned by the visionary Largo e mesto. The unifying rhythmic motif of "short-long" pulses through the set, foreshadowing the composer's later dramas. Performed on an 1820 Conrad Graf fortepiano, Roberto Prosseda's interpretation restores the music's raw contrasts, speaking timbres, and anti-rhetorical gestures that modern pianos often smooth away. In his personal note, Prosseda explains how returning to these works on a historical instrument transformed his understanding of Beethoven's expression. The fortepiano's transparency, differentiated registers, and responsive mechanism invite a freer phrasing and more rhetorical, speech-like delivery. He aims not for novelty but sincerity-seeking to rediscover familiar music through it's original sound world. Prosseda is one of Italy's leading pianists with a distinguished career, celebrated for his complete Mendelssohn and Mozart recordings and for reviving the pedal piano. This Beethoven Op. 10 album follows his acclaimed Op. 2 set for Challenge Classics, continuing his exploration of early Beethoven on period instruments.

For three decades Alexandre Tharaud and Jean-Guihen Queyras have shared their rich and rare musical friendship with harmonia mundi. From Marin Marais to Debussy and Berg via Schuber, this anniversary double-album brings together some of their finest recordings. For the occasion they have also recorded several new pieces, including the Britten Sonata, Faure's Elegie, and Weill's Youkali.

Five years younger than Johann Sebastian Bach, who survived him by all of eight months, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel was among those Central German musicians who made a name for themselves beyond their regional sphere of influence. It is no coincidence that the sacred works of Gotha's long-serving court conductor in particular have now found a suitable home in our catalogue. The passions, oratorios, and cantatas that have already been released are now joined by five pieces of Protestant sacred music in which the extensive Catholic liturgy is reduced to Kyrie and Gloria. The missae breves selected here confirm once again that their author was 'one of the most reasonable, learned and great composers' to whom Johann Mattheson rightly accorded a place of honour in his Ehrenpforte of 1740. All should know.

The versatile French conductor and violinist Remy Ballot, following his recent chamber music recordings, now presents a milestone in music history for solo violin: the Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op. 27, by the Belgian violinist and composer Eugene Ysaye. Ysaye composed these sonatas for six outstanding violinists who were at the peak of their artistry in the 1920s. They form a kind of visionary synthesis of the achievements of Bach and Paganini and the spectrum of Romantic violin music and the French schools from Franck to Debussy. Together with his wife Iris Ballot, the second CD of the album features the Sonata for Two Violins, a work that remains widely underrated to this day, uniting within itself the full abundance of all musical currents present at the time (1915) during a period of transition.

For 60 years, Les Haricots Rouges have been tireless ambassadors of à la française New Orleans jazz, celebrating their remarkable journey with undimmed camaraderie and youthful vitality. True living legends, they have spent six decades sharing their love of swing and joyful jazz with audiences worldwide. Blending timeless classics with original compositions, this album proves that the band's heart still beats as fast and as fiercely as ever. Patrick Frémeaux