For more than 50 years, Sir Simon Rattle, Chief Conductor of the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, has devoted himself intensely to the deeply personal, emotional, and autobiographical music of Gustav Mahler. Mahler conceived his symphonies as all-encompassing universes that reflect the full spectrum of human life. He famously said: “To me, a symphony means using every available technical resource to build a world.” To guide both orchestra and audience through these profoundly moving musical worlds, no conductor is better equipped than Sir Simon Rattle.

Mahler's “Resurrection Symphony” explores one of humanity's most profound existential questions: the meaning of life. From the opening movement, originally titled “Totenfeier” (“Funeral Rite”), to the finale, in which the soloists and chorus proclaim “Aufersteh’n wirst du!“ (“You shall rise again!”), Mahler grapples with joy and suffering. The Second Symphony’s dramatic contrasts, emotional intensity, richly coloured orchestration, and crowning choral finale have made it one of his most beloved works.

Now released on CD by BR-Klassik, the Munich performance of the symphony from March 2026 brings together a stellar cast in a superb interpretation of one of the defining masterpieces of the Late Romantic symphonic repertoire. Gustav Mahler wanted his Second Symphony to exceed any known format - and he also wanted it to tackle the key questions of existence: "Why have you lived? Why have you suffered? Is everything just one enormous, terrible joke? We have to solve these questions in some way if we want to carry on living," said the composer. Similar questions preoccupied him throughout his life, and with a special intensity during his time as an opera conductor in Hamburg. The Second Symphony, also referred to as the "Resurrection Symphony", is a complete expression of Mahler’s existential struggle; both its form and its overpowering sound make this utterly clear.

The symphony took several years to compose – it was written between 1888 and 1894. In September 1888, the first movement – which at this point still bore the title "Totenfeier” (“Funeral Rite”) – was already complete. The second and third movements were not written until 1893 and Mahler only completed the entire work in 1894. Like most of Mahler’s symphonies, the work follows a "Per aspera ad astra" pattern (“through difficulties to the stars”). Starting with a funeral march in the main theme of the opening movement - the passing of a life full of vigour, pain, blows of fate, and only a few brief and beautiful moments - the symphony concludes with a triumphant resurrection movement.

The premiere of the complete symphony took place on December 13, 1895 in Berlin under Mahler's direction; previously (on March 4 of that year) he had already performed the first three movements. The premiere of the Second Symphony thus took place after that of the Third. The reactions were initially subdued, but today the work ranks as one of the most popular of Mahler’s symphonies.

Four chapters across generations: 'Danish Resonances' sets accordion works by Hans Abrahamsen, Niels Rosing-Schow and Per Norgard against four newly commissioned world premieres by Anders Skibsted, Loic Destremau, Matias Vestergard and Gustav Bjerre. Accordionist Jose Valente threads them into a single, unfolding journey that moves by turns lyrical, virtuosic, introspective and expansive, revealing the full expressive range of the classical accordion.

With Traces of Light, saxophonist and composer Jan Prax presents a deeply expressive and spiritually charged new album. Known as one of Europe's most distinctive saxophonists and a protege of David Sanborn, Prax draws from jazz tradition, improvisation, and a broad musical imagination to create a sound that is vibrant, soulful, and unmistakably his own. Joined by Carl-Henri Morisset on piano, Riccardo Del Fra on double bass, and Zhitong Xu on drums, Prax leads a quartet built on trust, intuition, and shared musical purpose. Across nine original compositions, the album moves through tension, stillness, searching energy, and lyrical release. From the opening lift of 'Elevation' and the smouldering intensity of 'Cold Flame' to the reflective beauty of 'Hope in Bloom,' 'Reverie,' and the title track, the music breathes, expands, and glows with emotional clarity. At it's heart, Traces of Light is an album about connection, compassion, and presence. It is music shaped by fire and finesse, but also by openness and vulnerability and a journey toward light, shared by kindred spirits.

The only violin concerto written by Richard Strauss, at just 18 years old, is a beautiful, energetic, brilliantly structured work with so many clues and features of his later style., says Alena Baeva. With her long-standing collaborator Paavo Jarvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, she has found the ideal partners to record this relatively rarely performed concerto, as well as another early masterpiece, Bartok's First Violin Concerto, which is essentially a love letter to the violinist Stefi Geyer, nine years his junior. The 'Stefi theme' (D - F? - A - C?) forms the basis of the first movement but she never played it, as she broke up with him a few days before he finished his concerto... Bartok's First Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra rounds completes this programme. Just a few days after it's premiere, the composer travelled to Bremen for his next concert in the Glockensaal, where, 94 years later, this recording was made.

Canadian-Finnish composer Matthew Whittall's music fuses diverse influences - Old and New World, Western and non-Western, sacred and secular, classical, folk and popular - into a single, rich and varied expressive language. For The World Tree, a work for a cappella choir, Whittall collaborated with Robert Macfarlane, an author internationally renowned for his writing on nature, people and place. The creative impulse behind the work was the illegal felling of the iconic Sycamore Gap tree in northern England in 2023. The result is an hour-long piece in ten movements exploring humanity's relationship with nature. The title refers to Norse mythology, in which the tree Yggdrasil is seen as connecting the visible world to both heaven and the underworld. As well as being a requiem for the Sycamore Gap tree, the work expresses the hope that a forest will be planted in it's place. The World Tree is performed by the Helsinki Chamber Choir under it's artistic director, Nils Schweckendiek - a collaboration that has produced numerous critically acclaimed recordings for BIS, notably the album Reconnaissance (BIS-2662), devoted to works by Kaija Saariaho, which won a Grammy Award in 2024.

Shaped by fragments and moments of improvisation, the Noctunes are the personal take on the tradition of the Nocturnes?. This album contains a series of pieces dedicated to the quiet hours of the night?. Composer and pianist Clemens Christian Poetzsch is recognized for his unique blend of modern classical, jazz, and electronic music. He studied piano at the Hochschule fur Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden, earning his artistic diploma in 2010, followed by composition studies under Thomas Zoller.

The Grammy Award-winning Phoenix Chorale's Promised Land, led by Artistic Director Christopher Gabbitas, surveys two and a half centuries of American choral music, from African American spirituals and Shaker hymns to works by Eric Whitacre, Caroline Shaw, and Frank Ticheli. Arrangements by Alice Parker, Shawn Kirchner, Moses Hogan and others sit alongside original compositions, unified by themes of freedom, longing, and collective resilience. Voices long overlooked by history, among them Shaker eldress Hannah Cohoon and nineteenth-century songwriter Matilda Durham, are restored to the concert repertoire in this rich and purposefully programmed celebration of America's choral heritage in it's 250th anniversary year.

Through a large repertoire spanning from the 18th century to their own compositions, Jean-Francois Dutertre, Jean Ribouillault and Christophe Toussaint (key figures in the folk revival of the 1970s) display here the profound expressive richness of the epinette of the Vosges. The type of dulcimer called epinette des Vosges is a box zither which is commonly found in a few valleys of the Vosges, in Franche-Comte and Lorraine. It serves both as an accompaniment to dancing or singing, and as music for entertainment. This dulcimer belongs to a family of box zithers which is wide-spread throughout Northern and Central Europe (this European family of instruments is also related to certain Asian zithers). In Europe, the use of dulcimers seems to have remained popular for the most part, except in the context of religious ceremonies. It's main characteristic is the presence of frets under part of the strings, which distinguishes two groups: melody strings or chanterelles, and accompaniment strings, or drones, which produce a fixed, invariable chord.

A halo is something like an aura. Cologne-based singer Anette Von Eichel certainly doesn't want to put a halo on her new album, but a halo is also a luminous phenomenon, such as a moonlit ring or a wreath of light, as often seen in nature and everyday life, and which can be interpreted as a revelation of whatever nature. This title couldn't be more fitting for Anette Von Eichel's collection of songs on her new album, and in more ways than one. All of these songs share a nocturnal quality, in which light emerges from the darkness. In the sequence of her songs, we experience a dreamlike journey of a resurrection of the morning twilight from the night.   In a metaphorical sense, it makes a huge difference whether you listen to the album for the first, second, or third time, because an impressive process of transcendence takes place. What at first simply sounds like a series of clearly defined songs in their respective forms gradually transforms into a kind of vocal and musical mass of light, which acts as a parallel phenomenon to reality. This spectral shift culminates in a halo of light that dissolves all forms and contours, a concept perfectly captured by the album title. "When I write a song, it's a conscious process, but the subconscious naturally plays a major role," Anette Von Eichel explains, describing this transformation from her perspective. "With this album in particular, I hope to give people the opportunity to take a step back from their everyday lives and experience a similar transformation while listening."   Listening to the album, regardless of the lyrics, inevitably evokes the feeling that someone is telling a story. From the osmosis of voice and music emerges a flow that inescapably draws the ear into it's vortex. Pianist Sebastian Sternal, bassist Henning Sieverts, and drummer Jonas Burgwinkel become the material and metaphysical vehicles of these stories, which Anette Von Eichel brings to the stage of her song theater with breathtaking versatility. She starts with the lyrics when writing and tries to discover the sound hidden behind the words. "The word enters into a symbiosis with the interaction of our band," the composer explains, describing this phenomenon of the text dissolving into sound. The songs possess a great flexibility, expressed through nuanced improvisation, which allows the songs to grow not only with each performance but, as already mentioned, with each listen.   "Halo" is the third album Anette Von Eichel has recorded with Sternal, Sieverts, and Burgwinkel in six years. The ease of their interplay, the constant negotiation between collective density and individual detachment, and the spontaneous use of open sections reach a new peak here. Eichel's signature style, unmistakable in it's trinity of classic jazz vocals a la Carmen McRae and Betty Carter, singer-songwriter influences in the tradition of Joni Mitchell, and the timbre of French chansons, sounds like standards that have been in the air for decades. They may feature strong melodies and complex rhythms, but the song as a whole always takes center stage, with which the individual elements must harmonize.   There aren't many singers whose voices, both spoken and sung, exhibit such a striking difference as Anette Von Eichel's. When she sings, she doesn't simply slip into a different persona; she confronts hidden inner worlds that couldn't manifest in her everyday use of her voice. This creates an immediate magic, where the sound of her voice is inextricably linked to the specific emotions of the song. "I'm interested in drawing out all the emotions hidden within my voice," says Anette Von Eichel. "When I sing, I delve much deeper into myself and can uncover far more nuances." Which brings us back to the interplay of light and shadow. She slips into roles, often shifting perspectives even within a single song, employing unconventional vocal techniques like sighs or creaks, and using breath as a creative element.   "Halo" is built from light, and yet this album, like few others, creates a pressure equalization that is transmitted from the four musicians to the listener in an almost hypnotic way. The more one embarks on this journey into the twilight and the nuances of human experience, the more liberating the effect. "Halo" is a passionate declaration of the poetic clarity of ambiguity. Let us refrain at this point from pathos-laden phrases like healing, spirituality, or the pulse of life, and instead take the album objectively and soberly for what it is: precisely the right statement for our time. by Wolf Kampmann

Athene is proud to present Cantata (re)mixed for four hands, an exciting album of J.S. Bach's Cantatas arranged/re-composed by Chiahu Lee and Gyorgy Kurtag, and performed by piano Duo Vershinina-Lee (Chiahu Lee and Yulia Vershinina-Mukhopadhyay). This follows their acclaimed Diversions release in 2024 (re)inventions a deux pianos (DDV 24172), a complete recomposition for two pianos of J.S. Bach's 15 two-part inventions, praised by BBC Music Magazine as 'an invigorating and beguiling spring clean for the ears.' Yulia Vershinina first encountered Kurtag's transcription of the Sonatina from J.S. Bach's Cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit ten years ago, and drawn to it's intimacy, the Duo have longed to record it. It's included on the album alongside six new four-hand reimaginings of J.S. Bach cantata sections composed by Chiahu Lee, and in doing so the duo have formed an imagined cantata of their own, bringing Bach's vocal world into the shared space of one piano, embodying the joy, spontaneity, and trust of their unique partnership. The album opens with the exhilarating and joyful arrangement of Sinfonia 'Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir' (BWV 29), followed by the Chorale 'Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme' (BWV 140), both bringing to mind the layered textures of electronic music. The Chorale Prelude 'Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g'mein' (BWV 734) successfully manages the tricky task of translating the various different instrumental colours into one shared keyboard. Chorale Prelude 'Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ' (BWV 639) was inspired in part by Kurtag's transcription style: intimate, spare, and intensely concentrated, and is followed by his long-awaited arrangement of the Sonatina 'Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit' (BWV 106). Chia- Chia has waited since childhood to play Aria 'Alles, was von Gott geboren' (BWV 80), and to bring this beloved vocal moment into the shared space of four hands. The final Chorale 'Alle Menschen mussen sterben' (BWV 262) was inspired by string instruments - Lee found ways to allow the piano to replicate their resonance and to suggest bowed sound. Chiahu-Lu Lee says 'Bach himself was a master of transcription: he arranged music by other composers and reworked his own. Seen in that light, the desire to carry Bach's vocal worlds into the hands of pianists felt less like an intrusion and more of a continuation - a way of entering a tradition rather than stepping outside of it.' Pianists Yulia Vershinina-Mukhopadhyay and Chiahu 'Chia-Chia' Lee met at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where a lasting friendship grew into an enduring musical partnership. United by a shared curiosity for reinvention and lesser-known repertoire, the duo explores music across centuries through performance, arrangement, and creative reimagining, with projects ranging from Baroque reinventions to works by contemporary women composers.

This volume explores the more intimate side of Eugene Zador's compositions, where his heartfelt creativity is at it's most personal. The Ode to Peace was written for the 17th anniversary of the United Nations and was premiered at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. The beauties of nature fail to compensate for lost love in his nostalgic song cycle From the Lonely Wayfarer, and in the Four Selected Songs grief, as well as love, is a constant companion. Both the Suite for Woodwind Quintet and the Brass Quintet show his mastery of characterisation and zesty rhythms.

(summary) Laura Lootens' deeply sensitive tribute to music of Romantic essence ranges from Frederic Chopin, in transcriptions by guitarists Jerzy Koenig and Tariq Harb, to La Chanson des vieux amants as sung by Jacques Brel and the sumptuous lyricism of Agustin Barrios Mangore. (complete blurb) As a teenager, Laura Lootens discovered a song by Sting that deeply moved her. From the 1993 album Ten Summoner's Tales, Shape of My Heart has remained her favourite song, to this day. She includes it as an epilogue on her second album for Naive, which she conceived as a heartfelt tribute to music of Romantic essence. At it's core lies Frederic Chopin-the epitome of Romanticism-who with his Waltzes, Mazurkas and Nocturnes delighted the salon society of the nineteenth century, those refined spaces that straddled aristocracy and bourgeoisie. He remains the ultimate embodiment of a Romanticism both profound and exquisitely elegant. Gone, then, is the demonic spirit that haunted the German guitarist's first album, 'Diabolico' (2025, V 8672), which was steeped in mysterious narratives where pacts with the devil and ghostly apparitions abounded. Yet Laura Lootens's playing retains the same poetic incisiveness in this new journey between France and the Americas. From music by Frederic Chopin, presented in subtle arrangements by her seniors, Jerzy Koenig (b. 1956), Tariq Harb (b. 1981) and Agustin Barrios 'Mangore' (1885-1944)-the latter an absolute legend among guitarists, often dubbed the 'Chopin of Latin America', in whom the refined elegance of the Polish composer lives on amid daring harmonies and richly spiced rhythms-the young Lootens, female musician and First Prize winner of the Andres Segovia Competition in 2022, offers a complete map of romantic sensibility, leading all the way to more recent times. She then traces the influence of the 'master of the mazurka', right up to the modern French chanson, including the timeless Hymne a l'amour by edith Piaf and La Chanson des vieux amants by Jacques Brel and Gerard Jouannest, and extends it further into a different aesthetic realm with one of the 24 Preludios Chopinianos (undoubtedly a 'homage') by Brazilian guitarist Sergio Assad (b. 1952). She then also includes the Assad's transcription of the Notturno by John Field, the early-nineteenth-century Irish composer who himself inspired Frederic Chopin in the development of the nocturne as a genre. A gem of the guitar repertoire, the expansive Elegie by Johann Kaspar Mertz (1806-1856), which is imbued with lyricism as haunting as it is intense, marks the culmination of a journey that boldly affirms it's guiding credo. Within these enduring resonances of Romanticism, Laura Lootens communicates a style that alternates between restraint and incandescent intensity, making this album the ideal companion for autumn evenings by a crackling fire.

Basically, I only have two symphonies: the Fourth and the Eighth.' Shostakovich is said to have remarked. Yevgeny Mravinsky, to whom Symphony No. 8 is dedicated, wrote in his diary: 'I spent the whole evening reflecting on and sketching out the form and dramatic arc of Shostakovich's Eighth. It moves me ever more deeply each time. Especially the "Great Terror" section of the first movement!!'. The themes of martyrdom and the transformation of the human being into a manipulable puppet run through this unsettling and monumental work. This recording constitutes the second volume of the complete Shostakovich symphonies by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by it's music director, Alain Altinoglu.

Spanning 1816 to 1827, Schubert's works for violin and piano trace a remarkable evolution in his musical voice, though their reception has often obscured their true significance. Revisiting them today reveals a composer whose imagination for the violin was far richer than assumed, from the Classical elegance of the early sonatas to the expansive virtuosity of the Fantasy. Formed in 2022 at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, the duo of Ilya Gringolts and Anton Gerzenberg stands out for the ease with which they approach both the classical and romantic repertoire on period instruments, through a historically informed approach, and twentieth-century and contemporary music, without stylistic preclusions. This recording, Ilya Gringolts's second album for Arcana, immediately stands out for the exceptional quality of the instruments used - Gringolts's precious 'ex-Prove' Stradivarius violin, strung with gut strings and a McNulty copy of a Conrad Graf fortepiano (Vienna, c. 1819) - as well as the extensive use of ornamentation and improvisation in the reprises: a bold and unusual choice that the two musicians apply not only to the early Sonatas but also to the later Fantasy.

Victor Julien-Laferriere and Consuelo continue their complete recording of Ludwig van Beethoven's symphonies with a triumphant double bill: the 'Eroica' Symphony, a grand epic that has left it's mark on the history of music, and the whirlwind Seventh, which Richard Wagner would go on to describe as 'the apotheosis of dance'.

Taking it's title from a legendary 1728 encounter between violinists Pietro Locatelli and Jean-Marie Leclair, whose contrasting styles were memorably described as angelic and diabolical, Hell's Angels traces the cross-pollination of French and Italian baroque technique through sonatas by Vivaldi, Leclair, Guillemain, Marcello and Mascitti. At the heart of the programme is Vivaldi's rarely heard early Sonata RV 820, it's final movement completed by Adrian Chandler following the loss of the original manuscript. Two-time Gramophone Award winners La Serenissima bring their characteristic authority to over 80 minutes of music spanning some of the most demanding chamber writing of the period.

Michele Carafa was a student of Cherubini and formed a lifelong friendship with Rossini based on mutual admiration. Carafa established a career in Paris through his association with the Opera Comique, which is where he presented his masterpiece Masaniello. Uniquely, Carafa was a descendant of characters in his own opera, which was based on real revolutionary events that took place in Naples in the 17th century. The result is a well-paced historical drama, closer to French operatic models with limited reliance on bel canto and the influence of Rossini.

Lyric Opera of Chicago, under the leadership of General Director John Mangum and the baton of Music Director Enrique Mazzola, presents the world premiere recording of The Listeners, a striking new opera by Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek, based on an original story by Jordan Tannahill. Drawing on distinctly American preoccupations, the work unfolds within a community bound together by circumstance and belief, shaped by the unsettling presence of an unexplained 'hum' that blurs perception and reality. Through Mazzoli's richly textured orchestral writing and Vavrek's incisive dramaturgy, the opera becomes a powerful reflection on vulnerability, tenderness, rage and hope, all sung into existence with a haunting sense of optimism. At it's centre is Claire Devon, a high school math teacher portrayed with remarkable intensity by Nicole Heaston, whose collaboration with the composer shapes a character defined by curiosity, precision and uncompromising emotional depth. Her journey from isolation to reluctant authority exposes the human need for connection in a world where listening becomes both consolation and control, and where belief can quickly harden into collective illusion. Mazzoli's expansive score, driven by large orchestral forces and a distinctive electronic 'hum,' creates an immersive sonic landscape in which inner psychology and external reality continuously intersect, building towards a devastating reckoning in which voices reshape reality itself. Missy Mazzoli previously appeared on PENTATONE with Proving Up (2020); Lyric Opera of Chicago appeared with The Three Queens (2022) and Puccini: Heroines (2026), together with Enrique Mazzola.

At 77 years young, Danish composer Poul Ruders continues to delight and surprise with a seemingly endless flow of masterworks. He can be gloriously, explosively extrovert one minute-withdrawn, haunted, intently inward-looking the next. Super-abundant high spirits alternate with pained, almost expressionistic lyricism; simplicity and directness with astringent irony, all of which can be heard in this program of three new concertos for three very OLD instruments. Transfigurations: A Double Portrait for Recorders and String Orchestra (2022) features Michal Petri on a musical journey in which she takes us on a 'relay run' of the various recorders, from tenor to soprano to alto to sopranino and back again. A Moveable Concerto: Five Short Pieces for Positive Organ and Strings (2023), written at the suggestion of Peter Navarro-Alonso, organist and choir master at the big baroque Copenhagen Church Vor Frelsers Kirke (Our Savior's Church) is a stylistic romp that switches from baroque minimalistic noodling and Dutch barrel organ antics to more contemporary displays. The heart of the work however is the stunning Largo legatissimo where the sounds hang near motionless in the air. The program concludes with the Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra (2019) written for Mahan Esfahani and performed by him and the late Leif Segerstam, a work already recognized as one of this century's most important contributions to harpsichord literature. All of the musicians on these recordings are among the most respected in their field: Michala Petri is internationally recognized as one of the most extraordinary musicians of her generation and has played a decisive role in transforming the recorder from a historical and educational instrument into a respected voice on the world's concert stages. Danish-Spanish organist and composer Peter Navarro-Alonso is recognized as one of the most versatile and innovative musicians on the Scandinavian music scene. Renowned both for his exceptional artistry as an organist and as a visionary composer and Mahan Esfahani, widely regarded as one of the most innovative and intellectually adventurous musicians of our time, whose extraordinary artistry has redefined the role of the harpsichord in modern concert life. An essential recording for all fans of Ruders' music and aficionados of contemporary concertos for unusual instruments.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet continues his survey of works by Beethoven's contemporaries with this second volume featuring works by Hummel., Clementi, Berger, and Czerny. The pianist comments: 'The deeper I delve into the universe of composers contemporaneous with Beethoven, the clearer I perceive the nature of his originality and the power of his genius, that which he was able to take from others, or that which inspired them. Would this series, The Beethoven Connection, then, not have any further aims than to magnify the genius of Beethoven? Of course it does! If I may make a geographical analogy, a great mountain never rises isolated in the landscape. It is always surrounded by other mountains, perhaps not so great but in the absence of which it would not appear so impressive! We had better climb all of them for from each summit we are offered a different view of the others! It is with great enthusiasm that I have prepared this programme, conceived, like that of the first volume, on the counsel of that eminent specialist on this period, my friend Marc Vignal - an enthusiasm which rests on the incontestable qualities of this music and the joy of the opportunity to rediscover it!'