Anders Hillborg is Sweden's leading composer: born in 1959, he has devoted himself entirely to composition since 1982, and his music is performed by the world's leading orchestras and conductors. This release on Alpha is part of the partnership between the label and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. It features three works by the composer. Through Lost Landscapes (premiered in 2020) illustrates the richness of his musical world: spectacular sound textures, moments of extreme tension, and the interplay of light and shadow. 'When I compose, especially for orchestra, says Hillborg, I like very much to create sounds that you can't really identify.' The use of rare instruments and the influence of electronic music punctuate Sound Atlas, premiered in 2019, which is also reminiscent of the world of Sibelius. These two works, conducted by Pekka Kuusisto for the first and by Brad Lubman for the second, are recorded here for the first time. In 2013, at the request of Renee Fleming, he wrote The Strand Settings, based on texts by the Canadian poet Mark Strand Swedish soprano Ida Falk Winland delivers an inspired performance of it, again under the direction of Pekka Kuusisto.

The NFM Choir from Wroclaw juxtaposes Penderecki and French composers, creating a dialogue between Polish and French music of the 20th century, between the singers from Wroclaw, where the choir is based, and Frenchman Lionel Sow, it's conductor since 2021. The program opens with Krzysztof Penderecki's Le Chant des chérubins, a piece composed in 1986 based on a text from the Orthodox liturgy. This is followed by a composition by French composer Yves Daniel-Lesur, a twelve-part Cantique des Cantiques composed in 1953. In 1962, Penderecki completed a Stabat Mater of a purely religious nature, a declaration of opposition to the communist system and it's visceral atheism, but also to Western avant-garde circles, which were equally uninterested in the sacred. Fast forward to the 2000s with Nigra sum by composer and mezzo-soprano Caroline Marçot, who is very interested in Renaissance music. If there is one thing that Poulenc's Salve Regina, composed in 1941, and Penderecki's Agnus Dei, written forty years later, have in common, it is simplicity and a form of contemplation that can also be found in Olivier Messiaen's O sacrum convivium, composed in 1937.

This new volume in the 'Next Generation Mozart Soloists' series features Mozart's very first piano concerto (K. 37), composed when he was just 11 years old, and his very last, the Concerto K. 595, finished on 5 January 1791, exactly 11 months before his death. "The combination of the naive and youthful first concerto with the mature last concerto and it's reflection of how much Bach's music had affected him shows just how extraordinarily his brilliant mind had developed", says pianist Mishka Rushdie Momen, who performs them under the baton of Howard Griffiths. She studied with Joan Havill, Imogen Cooper, Richard Goode and Andras Schiff at the Kronberg Academy. Blaž sparovec, principal clarinettist of the Gurzenich Orchestra in Cologne, takes on one of Mozart's very last works, the famous Clarinet Concerto K. 622, "a concerto that can only be compared to an opera in which the basset clarinet plays all the roles", says sparovec.

Greek-Russian pianist Sasha Stychkina, born in December 2003 in Moscow into a family of musicians and filmmakers, is the youngest finalist and winner in the history of the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition in Paris in November 2019. Today she presents her first recital, recorded at the Teldex studio in Berlin under the artistic direction of her teacher, the charismatic and renowned pianist Kirill Gerstein. A decidedly varied programme-Weber, Bartok, Ravel, Chopin, Liszt-it is by turns virtuosic, dance-like and spiritual. Sasha Stychkina also introduces us to a little-known composer, Alexei Vladimirovich Stanchinsky (1888-1914), a mystical figure, considered mad - he spent a year in a psychiatric hospital - who drowned at the age of twenty-six. A student of Taneyev, encouraged by Scriabin, and introduced to Tolstoy, the composer nevertheless had a bright future ahead of him. The Five Preludes (1907-1912, published posthumously in 1928), chosen by Sasha Stychkina, are particularly evocative and visionary.

French soprano Julie Roset is one of the rising stars of the younger generation. Winner of both the Operalia First Prize in 2023 and the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition in 2022, Julie Roset was nominated for the Victoires de la Musique Classique in the Revelation Lyrique category in 2025. This is her first recital and the start of a multi-project collaboration with the Alpha Classics label. With pianist Susan Manoff, she has devised a highly personal programme of French melodies that showcase her vocal qualities as a coloratura soprano and her mischievous, sparkling personality. It includes well-known melodists such as Debussy and Poulenc, as well as works by rarer composers such as Isabelle Aboulker, Mel Bonis and Louis Beydts.

Anne-Sophie Mutter is launching her own series of recordings on Alpha Classics, ASM Forte Forward, devoted to the music of our time: it will exclusively feature contemporary works written for her. In 2026 and 2027, this exceptional artist is celebrating her jubilee: 50 years on stage, driven by curiosity, passion and commitment to the future of music. The first opus in this new series, East Meets West, includes works by four composers from diverse origins. The programme moves from solo violin, through duo and chamber repertoire, to concerto with orchestra. It opens with Likoo for solo violin by Iranian-Dutch composer Aftab Darvishi, followed by Gran Cadenza for two violins by Unsuk Chin, a South Korean composer living in Berlin, Jörg Widmann's String Quartet No. 6, entitled Studie über Beethoven; and concludes with Thomas Adès' concerto for violin and orchestra, Air-Homage to Sibelius, premiered in 2022 and recorded here with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the British composer himself.

Pianist Lukas Geniusas pays tribute to the fantasy, a form synonymous with freedom, dear to the Romantics. Schubert sets the figure of the wanderer to music in his Lied Der Wanderer, which, a few years later, would give rise to a large-scale instrumental work: the Fantasy in C major, D. 760 (1822), later known as the "Wanderer" Fantasy. It's four-part structure could be that of a four-movement sonata cycle, but these sections follow one another without interruption in a continuous process, like an uninterrupted journey. Fascinated by this work, Liszt wrote his transcription for piano and orchestra in 1851, two years before his famous Sonata in B minor, which is also monothematic and unfolds as a single, vast movement. More in line with the classicists, Tchaikovsky cultivates virtuosity and instrumental brilliance in his Concert Fantasy of 1884. With the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen, conducted by Modestas Pitrenas, Geniusas offers a rare (if not unprecedented) pairing of these two fantasies, separated by just over six decades.

In keeping with the fascinating rediscoveries of French music made by the Palazzetto Bru Zane, this programme of sacred music presents works by well-known composers such as Saint-Saens and Faure as well as lesser-known works such as the Kyrie by Clemence de Grandval and Charlotte Sohy, the Ave Maria by Leon Boellmann and Fernand de La Tombelle, and a Cantique de Jean Racine composed by the deeply religious Mel Bonis to a different text from that chosen by Faure, in memory of her deceased son edouard. Instruments were added ad libitum for performances in the most prestigious religious buildings to encourage performances of the said works in other places as well. Faure's Tantum ergo, for example, with organ, piano or harp and double bass, could be played in church, in concert, or at home. These discoveries are what make this programme so interesting, bringing the Choeur de Radio France together with vocal and instrumental soloists of the highest calibre under the expert direction of Christophe Grapperon.

Joseph Haydn gave lessons in singing, keyboard instruments, theory, and composition throughout his life. His pupils included Ignaz Pleyel, Sigismund Neukomm, and the Pole Franciszek (Franz) Lessel. In October 1805, the latter received from his teacher the autograph score of his Symphony No. 56, dating from 1774. This symphony forms a pair with Symphony No. 55, known as 'The Schoolmaster', dating from the same year. Both are included in this eighteenth volume of the Haydn2032 series, along with Symphony No. 29 (1765), "whose finale Presto sounds as if a swarm of naughty children had just escaped from a strict teacher," writes Christian Moritz-Bauer. Giovanni Antonini and the Kammerorchester Basel also recorded the finale of Lessel's Fifth Symphony in G minor, the only movement that has survived from his complete orchestral works, which include five other symphonies.

This is the new recording we have been waiting for. Three years after Brahms (ALPHA792), the Belcea Quartet returns in a new formation: Suyeon Kang, their new second violin, joined the quartet in 2023. Today the Belcea Quartet presents a new recording of the Debussy Quartet - which they had previously recorded on their very first album 25 years ago - and two quartets by Karol Szymanowski, a composer they are particularly fond of and who possesses a unique and immediately identifiable musical language. The first quartet was composed in 1917 but the Russian Revolution intervened; it's premiere finally took place in 1924. Szymanowski - then a world-renowned composer and a leading figure in the reconstruction of musical life in the young Polish Republic - wrote his second quartet ten years after the first in 1927; it was premiered in Warsaw two years later.

'Generally labelled as a Baroque instrument and thought to have disappeared with the French Revolution, the harpsichord flourished again in the first third of the 20th century and inspired original compositions': Justin Taylor offers us a 'personal' overview of the harpsichord in the 20th century. He has structured this album around four major concertos (Falla, Poulenc, Francaix, Gorecki) which are linked by pieces for solo harpsichord: Bartok, who, in his preface to Mikrokosmos, from which this Hommage to Bach is taken, suggests playing certain pieces on the harpsichord, Martinu and a new work by Stephane Gassot in reference to Ligeti... The programme concludes with a nod to Scott Joplin and his famous ragtimes. Always attentive and passionate about instruments, Justin Taylor chose to record the entire programme on a single instrument, a harpsichord built in the 1970s by Anthony Sidey, a hybrid model between Pleyel instruments and historical harpsichord making, which "gives a wide and highly varied range of colours". With this album, he follows in the footsteps of Wanda Landowska and Elisabeth Chojnacka, two pioneers who promoted the harpsichord in all it's modernity.

For her second recital with piano, mezzo-soprano Adele Charvet reunites with Florian Caroubi, who has been her regular duo partner since 2015. Together they celebrate the belle epoque of the great French melodists (Massenet, Debussy, Faure) and their proteges, including Chausson, Hahn, Koechlin, Aubert, Caplet, Messager, Enesco, Albeniz, Madeleine Dubois and Nadia Boulanger, as well as the much less known Xavier Leroux and Ernest Moret. This is a programme about lines of descent and musical transmission, energised by the texts of great poets such as Verlaine, Mallarme, Maeterlinck, Banville, Leconte de Lisle, Louÿs and Toussaint.

The Simply Mozart adventure, dedicated to his last three symphonies, comes to an end with this third volume and the 39th symphony. The programme also includes the overture to Cosi fan tutte ("a statement of the opera in miniature", according to Julien Chauvin) and the Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola. Composed one year after Mozart's second trip to Paris, the Sinfonia concertante was directly inspired by the Parisian practice of having several soloists enter into dialogue with the orchestra; this was very much in vogue at the end of the 18th century. "Mozart left his mark on us and on our hearts with it's second movement, one of the most poignant that he was ever to write," says Julien Chauvin; here his violin dialogues happily with the viola of Amihai Grosz, who has already made two recordings for Alpha Classics (ALPHA634 & 1013).

Explore the power and depth of Shostakovich's cello concertos with Alexander Kniazev and Kazuki Yamada. Kniazev's profound understanding of Shostakovich's music brings out the intricate layers of anguish, irony, and resilience that define the composer's voice. Yamada's energetic and insightful conducting adds a vivid dimension to the orchestral textures. Together, they deliver a recording that captures the dark intensity and emotional richness of Shostakovich's music, offering a compelling listening experience.

After exploring the Gran Partita, Nicolas Baldeyrou opens the doors to concertante music in this second volume. The programme displays the two faces of Mozart: the youthful, all-conquering genius of his Parisian period, and the supreme master of his final year in Vienna - the two phases united by his overriding desire to make the instrument 'sing'. 'Performing these major works on historical instruments is not a nostalgic exercise, but an attempt to recover the music's acoustic authenticity,' says Baldeyrou. For the Concerto, the use of a copy of the period basset clarinet is essential in order to recreate the melodic line, tessitura and colours demanded by Mozart. Where the modern clarinet 'homogenises' the sound, the historical basset clarinet offers an infinite palette. With the Kolner Akademie and leading soloists, Baldeyrou plays with the intrinsic vulnerability of the instrument and sculpts each note, bringing us as close as possible to the composer's last creative impulse.

An internationally renowned oboist, Victor Aviat was a soloist with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the Orchestra Mozart under Claudio Abbado, and Ivan Fischer's Budapest Festival Orchestra for 20 years. He also studied piano, composition, and conducting. His first work as a composer was performed by the Orchestre National de France under the baton of Emmanuel Krivine (his stepfather) in 2019. Victor Aviat died on 1 May 2025 in Berlin following a sudden illness. This double album pays tribute to this multi-talented artist. Victor was also a painter and author of poems, which he set to music and performed himself. This portrait presents a double programme, with pieces for oboe and piano by Robert Schumann (recorded in 2024 with pianist Kim Barbier) and his 17 songs... The booklet accompanying this double album includes an illustration for each song as well as some of his paintings and a text he wrote 'to young musicians'. Like his self-portrait, with his face half submerged in darkness, Victor Aviat's songs offer us glimpses of his inner life and feelings through allusions and clues. To keep alive the memory of Victor Aviat, both as an artist and as a man.

After a 'spellbinding' album for Alpha devoted to her American roots (Alpha1071), pianist Claire Huangci now celebrates female composers, acknowledging: 'The realities these women faced are difficult to imagine for any modern woman in the field.' Clara Wieck (who became Schumann after her marriage to Robert in 1840) was a mother of eight and the main breadwinner, constantly on tour. Fanny Hensel composed largely in private. Often publishing under her brother's name. Amy Beach's career was practically silenced during her marriage; only upon her husband's death did she return to the stage. Florence Price faced both racial and gender discrimination and later raised two children alone. Across the centuries, the voices of these women reach us thanks to musicians like Claire: 'In their music, we don't just hear history. We hear transformation. Heroines is my way of listening back-and adding my voice to theirs.'

The French composer and organist Thierry Escaich composed his Te Deum pour Notre-Dame for the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris; a hymn to the Cathedral's resurrection, it is a large-scale work for children's choir, two mixed choirs and orchestra. One hundred and eighty singers and instrumentalists gave the work it's first performance and recorded it in the prestigious building on 12 June 2025. Thierry Escaich was inspired by the Cathedral's thousand-year-old history and drew on many sources, beginning with the Bible but also including prestigious authors who had written about Notre-Dame such as Victor Hugo and Charles Peguy. According to Escaich himself, "this Te Deum is a journey from the destructive flames of the conflagration to the fire of redemption". Escaich, who has been a co-titular organist of the Cathedral since 2024, also presents examples of his famous art of improvisation on the Cathedral's organ between each movement of the Te Deum. The work won universal acclaim at it's first performance, with some journalists describing it as "the great French oratorio that we have been awaiting since the beginning of the 21st century" (Le Figaro).

Born in Budapest in 1975 and based in Germany, composer Márton Illés studied with Detlev Müller-Siemens and Wolfgang Rihm. In 2020, he composed the violin concerto Vont-tér for Patricia Kopatchinskaja, a long-time partner who performs his music with total commitment. "She gives the impression that music can be tactile, truly three-dimensional, to the point that you could almost touch it, that each gesture has it's own colour, temperature, smell, taste," says Illés. Sírt-tér, "space filled with tears," is a cello concerto: "I make it moan, scream or even roar hysterically in order to draw out the vocal qualities capable of communicating human pain." In Nicolas Altstaedt, "I found the ideal performer, who grasps the dark drama of this subject with existential intuition and makes it resonate with primitive force." Rajzok I consists of tuning the strings of 24 instruments to different quarter-tone intervals. A very unusual and fascinating total scordatura. In Three Sketches, electronic music blends with the sound of the violin, multiplying the sensations and sound textures. Fascinated by the human psyche and the processes that take place in the human body, Illés develops music that lives, speaks, and breathes.