Music for children plays an important role in Miloslav Kabelac's artistic oeuvre. Especially in the early days after the communist coup in 1948, the composer devoted himself to this genre: 'I regard composing for children as a 'touchstone' not only for all creative abilities, but also for the human qualities of the composer. That is why I take this work as seriously and as importantly as any other". In his music, Kabelac creates powerful atmospheric images with a playful sensitivity for language, some of which is highly onomatopoeic. His serious engagement with children's works is once again evident in the fact that Kabelac repeatedly quoted motifs and melodies from children's works in larger symphonic works.

With this recording, the Gaechinger Cantorey turns to Johann Sebastian Bach's motets, works widely regarded as a pinnacle of sacred vocal music. Emerging from an intensively prepared series of concerts and recorded at the TauberPhilharmonie Weikersheim, the album combines tonal transparency, expressive power, and vibrant historically informed performance practice at the highest level. Bach's motets rank among the most impressive works in the choral repertoire. Between intimate devotion and the splendor of double-choir writing unfolds a musical cosmos filled with contrapuntal mastery, emotional intensity, and eight-part virtuosity. Finely balanced instrumental colours complement the choral sound, lending the works remarkable transparency and flexibility. For many years, the Gaechinger Cantorey has played a defining role in the performance of Bach's music with a sound that is at once precise, agile, and immediate. Under the direction of Hans-Christoph Rademann, the ensemble's interpretations understand historically informed performance practice as a means of rediscovering the emotional power and complexity of this music. The ensemble's distinctive artistic profile is especially evident in the motets: transparent in sound, closely attuned to the text, and driven by great musical energy. With this release, Accentus Music continues it's long-standing collaboration with the Gaechinger Cantorey, which has already resulted in several highly acclaimed Bach recordings.

On 21 August 2026, Divine Art is thrilled to release the world premiere recording of Piedra de sol (Sunstone), acclaimed composer Joby Talbot's stunning choral setting of Mexican poet Octavio Paz's epic masterpiece, performed by GRAMMY Award-winning choir Conspirare and Artistic Director Craig Hella Johnson. Drawing on the symbolism of the Aztec calendar stone, Octavio Paz's poem Piedra de sol (1957) is like no other. It uses techniques of modern poetry, particularly surrealist imagery, to meditate on cyclical time and the possibility of breaking it's grip through poetry and love, as explained by Adela Pineda Franco of the University of Texas at Austin in her excellent booklet article. The poem had a profound emotional impact on Joby Talbot: '..the hugeness of the poet's vision; the cosmic immensity of the imagery; the febrile surrealistic intensity of a sensory journey through space and time from reality to fantasy and back again; the sudden moments of heartfelt intimacy that never fail to surprise.' The seventy-minute-long musical structure mirrors the poem's narrative journey from ecstatic vision, through deep despair, to eventual enlightenment. It features a wide range of vocal textures, extended passages of complex rhythmic interplay, exposed solo passages for a single voice, and episodes where slabs of sound reflect the poem's terrifying images. Colouring much of the music is the marimba (superbly played by Thomas Burritt), which anchors the harmonies and rhythm and contributes to the otherworldly character of the musical palette. Piedra de sol invites listeners and performers alike on a journey of infinite dimensions - a voyage whose course bends, advances, recedes, comes full circle, and arrives forever. London-born Joby Talbot is a leading composer for concert, stage, and screen. He has written widely for voice and choir, setting poetry, sacred, and historical texts for varying ensembles. Prominent within Talbot's catalogue are his works for stage and screen. His operas Everest (2014) and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2020) both explore themes of despair and endurance, while his collaboration with leading choreographer Christopher Wheeldon has produced original full-length narrative ballet adaptations of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2010), The Winter's Tale (2013), Like Water for Chocolate (2021), and the life of Oscar Wilde (Oscar, 2024). Talbot has also scored major feature films The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Sing (2016), Sing 2 (2021), and Wonka (2023). Conspirare is a professional choral organization under the leadership of Artistic Director Craig Hella Johnson. Inspired by the power of music to change lives, this ensemble engages singers from around the world who join voices to deliver world-class, extraordinary live musical experiences and recordings. Their discography includes 17 commercial albums and 20 self-produced live albums. Hella Johnson and Conspirare were awarded a 2015 GRAMMY for Best Choral Performance for The Sacred Spirit of Russia, and their recordings have received 12 total nominations, including for advena: liturgies for a broken world: music of Mark Buller, released in 2025 on Divine Art. Conspirare has also been recognized with the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkrtik for it's Path of Miracles album (2015) and the Edison Award in the Choral Music category (2010). Conspirare has performed throughout the United States and internationally. On this recording, the choir includes tenor Haitham Haidar (whose recently released debut album Zaytoun on Athene was nominated for a JUNO Award), Savannah Porter of Voces8, early music specialists Jonathan Woody and Dann Coakwell, and the incredible Basso Profundo Glenn Miller.

For so many, coming out is framed as a kind of reckoning-a threshold one must cross, as if queerness begins in secrecy and only later earns the right to be spoken aloud. That narrative suggests burden before freedom, fear before love. But why should love require courage simply to exist? Such is the world we've inherited. For centuries, desire that fell outside society's narrow definitions was forced underground, met with shame, exile, or silence. In that silence, letters became a refuge: fragile but fearless vessels for truths that could not be safely expressed aloud. The Secret Letter re-imagines a program of the same name performed by Cantus in the spring of 2025, weaving music together with excerpts from letters by Marcus Aurelius, Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and others. These interludes offer fleeting access to private moments of longing, devotion, and vulnerability, while the surrounding music expands and amplifies their emotional terrain, carrying forward their tension, tenderness, restraint, and release. Letters are remarkable things. They are both private and exposed, meant for a single reader yet capable of outliving both the writer and recipient. Passed between trembling hands, they hold confessions, desires, and love stories told in ink rather than whispers. The Secret Letter bears witness and celebrates queer love that has always existed-persistent, imaginative, and worthy of song-and that even in secrecy, has found ways to speak, to sing, and to survive.

True Concord's newest album, HERE I AM, features two world-premiere recordings of works by Jocelyn Hagen. The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci has been performed more than 50 times around the world since 2019, incorporating visuals, sound, light and movement. Here I Am was inspired by conductor Eric Holtan's suggestion that Hagen should write a piece celebrating the women's suffrage movement and the centennial of the 19th Amendment in 2020. This piece is performed with live-concert projections of portraits of 47 inspiring women from across the world and across time, whose words form the libretto. HERE I AM was recorded in outstanding fidelity by engineer John Polito and produced by GRAMMY-award winner Peter Rutenberg of Los Angeles. Recorded May 28-31, 2024.

Philip Moore is a prolific British composer, who was organist and Master of the Music at York Minster for 25 years. Before moving to York he held posts at Guildford Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral and Eton College. He retired from the York Minster in 2008 and was appointed Organist Emeritus. The Archbishop of York awarded him the Order of St William. Moore's sacred choral music is extremely popular with church choirs around the world. This recording features a number of works specially written for St Albans Cathedral Choir and the album also includes five premiere recordings.

This album brings together major choral works by Hubert Parry and Edward Elgar, reflecting the richness of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British music. At it's centre is Parry's de Profundis, a large-scale setting of Psalm 130, widely admired by contemporaries for it's emotional depth, contrapuntal mastery, and expressive journey from penitence to hope. Parry's anthem God Is Our Hope and Strength complements it with a grand, confident vision of choral architecture and spiritual assurance. Elgar is represented by the intimate partsong The Snow and the charming Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands, inspired by Alpine landscapes and folk traditions, capturing a more personal and lyrical side of his art.

Here's a case where the music so completely and satisfyingly transcends the texts, that we can thoroughly enjoy the proceedings without really having to know what all the singing and playing is about. The texts--the singing is in Latin--are in the most serious, heavily ornate, flowery Baroque poetic style, and are concerned with religious devoutness and allegorical representations of traits such as "Fortitude", "Suspicion", "Dignity", "Faith", and "Godliness". Even the work's title, which translates "Under the olive tree of peace and the palm tree of virtue the Crown of Bohemia splendidly shines before the whole world", tells you something of the solemnity and high importance of the occasion for which it was written: the 1723 coronation ceremony in Prague of Emperor Charles VI and his wife Elisabeth Christine. Zelenka's music, which amounts to a kind of oratorio-type structure--orchestral introductions and interludes, choruses, arias, and various other solo/choral combinations--actually was designed to accompany a dramatic presentation that also included dances and parts for actors. Fortunately for us today, we can sit back and just listen to some of the more delightful--sometimes breathtakingly powerful--music from this period that didn't come from the pen of Bach or Handel. Even Zelenka was impressed enough with some of the work's movements that he reused them in adapted form the following year for sections of his Te Deum.

The opening Sinfonia is a brilliant enough piece all on its own, but the chorus that immediately follows takes us to yet another level of excitement, setting a sumptuously decorated stage for what is to come. Although there's a substantial amount of music here, no one section stays too long, and the arias show care for musical beauty well beyond anything suggested by the texts. And there's nothing pale or simple in the writing either, whether for instruments or voices: much of it, especially the vocal solos, requires performers of considerable accomplishment, even virtuosity. The opening chorus is quite a tour de force, and in this performance we're treated to the lovely sound and impeccable technique of the boys' and men's voices of the Czech choir Boni Pueri. That this is a Czech production mirrors its original performance in Prague's Jesuit Clementinum, which not only involved native Czech singers and actors, but also was conducted by the Czech-born Zelenka. The orchestral writing, which includes such ceremonial staples as trumpets and timpani, used to great effect, is bright-spirited and masterfully constructed to hold our interest and maintain dramatic momentum. The soloists are generally very good and there's some really terrific interaction in duets and in dialogs with the chorus. The sound is full-bodied and sufficiently detailed to give immediate presence to all the performers while preserving appropriate balances. Anyone who enjoys large-scale Baroque choral/orchestral music will love this unusual and musically engaging work--another gem in the crown of a composer that's finally getting just recognition.

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com
Reviewing original release, Supraphon 3520

Alas, cpo’s otherwise detailed and informative liner notes on the music itself offer nothing by way of biographical data on its composer other than his birth and death dates. I was, however, able to find a Web site dedicated to Wetz’s life and career (Len@musicweb-international.com). The following biographical sketch is based on the essay by Eric Schissel found there.

Richard Wetz was born in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, on February 26, 1875. At first a self taught musician, he ultimately enrolled in the Leipzig Conservatory and, apparently finding it uncongenial, left that august institution after a mere six weeks. From that point, his career was lackluster at best. After seeking private instruction both in Leipzig and Munich, one of his early advocates, Felix Weingartner, secured a conductor’s post for him in Stralsund. He lasted only a few months. He tried another post in Wuppertal with, apparently, similar results. Returning to Leipzig, he steeped himself in the music of Bruckner, Wagner, and Liszt, ultimately writing a book on Liszt in 1925.

In 1906, Wetz received the post of director of the Erfurt Music Society. By that time he had composed two operas to his own librettos, the second of which was a failure. Two years later, his Kleist Overture, op. 16 was premiered in Berlin under Nikisch (not a bad advocate!). Unfortunately, Wetz’s overture was upstaged by its concert mate, Elgar’s Enigma Variations, and garnered only tepid reviews.

Wetz’s career finally took off in 1917 with the premiere of his first symphony. Other works that established him in the German-speaking world include his Gesang des Lebens, op. 29, Hyperion (on texts by Holderlin) for baritone, mixed chorus, and orchestra (op. 32, 1912), and his violin sonata, op. 33.

No date of composition is provided for his Requiem, op. 50. The high opus number, however, indicates that it was produced near the end of his life. He died in Erfurt on January 16, 1935. This release’s liner notes state that the work was last performed in Erfurt on Good Friday, 1943.

By the evidence before me, Wetz is a post-Romantic composer of considerable imagination, skill, and refinement. This requiem is indeed haunted by the ghost of Bruckner, but in its underlying message of consolation for the living, it brings Brahms to mind, and given some of its pastel orchestral shadings and its harmonically chromatic moments, it, especially in its Kyrie, evokes Fauré’s most gentle of requiems. Its Dies Irae gets as close to theatricality as one is to find in this work, but it closes with a sense of resignation, and then consolation. Its final pages are among the finest in this piece. I find it ironic that Lisztian chromaticism, which pops up repeatedly, becomes so similar to that of Fauré, but then, Fauré has often been likened to the French Brahms. Is it a case of cultural diffusion, or merely parallel development?

Without getting into a moment-to-moment analysis of this piece, suffice it to say that throughout this heartfelt work Wetz steers judiciously between the darkness and light inherent in the text. Does this obscure offering by an obscure composer belong in the international standard repertoire? After listening to this fine and illuminating performance, I can answer that question in a single word: absolutely.

FANFARE: William Zagorski

Not too many years ago Max Bruch was close to being a "one-hit wonder" in the classical music lists, that hit being his G minor violin concerto. There were a couple of shorter pieces, notably the Kol Nidrei, but there was little available evidence to judge the opinion of some familiar observers that Bruch was as great a composer as his contemporary Johannes Brahms.


With the CD era came an expansion of recorded repertoire, and now Bruch's three symphonies, more concertos, and several other large-scale works are available. None I've heard shows that he was near Brahms' equal, but they have solid workmanship, good melodies, considerable imagination, and other virtues that result in worthwhile music. However, what likely kept Bruch from the highest compositional magnitude is his music's pervasive comfortable Victorian bourgeois outlook.


A look at Bruch's catalog reveals an emphasis on choral music, including that form so beloved of Victorians, the oratorio. Lay of the Bell (as its title is rendered in the flowery English translation of Edward Bulwer Lytton used in CPO's detailed program book) is not religious, but it is moralistic. Schiller's text was a mainstay of German sentiment during the 19th century. Casting a bell in a foundry is an allegory for raising a child to be a good person, presumed to be the path to ensuring personal prosperity and a well-ordered society. This sentiment foundered on the shoals of World War I and went under entirely during the Nazi era.

So this 100-minute-long choral and orchestral piece comes with a strike against it: It's a bit hard to read the text (particularly in the overheated language of Bulwer Lytton, he most famed for "It was a dark and stormy night...") without sniggering, the while Bruch's music plows on with undiminished earnestness. However, heard without first reading program notes or text, it becomes a very interesting, entertaining work, and it remains so on subsequent listening. There is some stodginess in the music, but it doesn't drag despite the pompous text. The large form is shaped well, so that the unexpected presence of the Christmas tune "Silent Night" at the work's end (unexplained by the notes or the text) evokes a satisfying frisson.

The performers approach the work as worthy of admiration, and they prove that it is. Fine melodies, along with an intriguing harmonic language marrying Brahmsian solidity with Wagnerian love of suspensions and other devices to keep harmonies unpredictable, make the music interesting. The four soloists are a fine group, singing with lyrical tones rather than the barking sound often heard in middle-European oratorio performances. Jac van Steen and his orchestra and chorus work well together, and the live audience is well behaved. The sound is a bit opaque, but not to a troublesome degree.

This is a big piece, obviously intended by the composer to be an Important Work. Ein Deutsches Requiem it ain't, but in this recording it provides a welcome insight into a composer who evidently has a lot of good unknown music still mouldering on library shelves.
--Joseph Stevenson, ClassicsToday.com

This fine performance sounds better than ever in its latest remastering, and remains a Carmina Burana of choice, leagues ahead of Ozawa's dreary Berlin remake for Philips. True, the soloists aren't the best, with Evelyn Mandac touching in quieter moments (In trutina) but somewhat shrill otherwise, Milnes oddly wooden, and tenor Stanley Kolk, well, who cares about the single excruciating tenor solo anyway? Still, the performance thrives on Ozawa's energy, the vigor of the BSO, and the lusty, boisterous, unsubtle singing of the New England Conservatory Chorus (among whom was none other than CT.com's own Editor-in-Chief David Vernier). But the presence of my beloved partner in crime is not the reason why I still recommend this fine recording. It's a fresh, young-sounding version that hasn't dated a day, and it comes with complete texts and translations. Enjoy. [6/2/2004] --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Of Georg Solti's two recordings of the Verdi Requiem, I slightly prefer this later one, though I realize that this isn't received wisdom. The Decca recording, after all, features Sutherland, Horne, Pavarotti, and Talvela as soloists, and while Sutherland arguably is not the right voice for the part, everyone else is very good indeed. On the other hand, Leontyne Price, even toward the end of her career, certainly does have the right voice, as does Veriano Luchetti, while Baker and Van Dam are very intelligent singers by any measure, and they do a good job here. Besides, it's hard not to raise an eyebrow at the generic complaint that "singer X lacks a true Italianate timbre" when the words being sung are in Latin and the drama (such as it is) occurs entirely within a devotional framework. The music certainly can take many different approaches, particularly when there's so little actual agreement on what a "true Italianate timbre" is.


Also compared to the Decca recording, Solti here has the finer chorus, a better orchestra (for this work at least), and strangely enough, better (meaning less gimmicky) sound, particularly in this admirable new remastering that minimizes the claustrophobic closeness of the original and allows some air to circulate around the performers. Solti's interpretation remains consistent, exciting, and direct, with a particularly thrilling account of the brief Sanctus and a Dies Irae chorus that is as violent as anyone could want without ever turning merely brutal or hysterical. A work as rich as this one always excites a wide range of opinions, and personal preferences tend to vary substantially. My personal favorite, all things considered, is the first Muti on EMI, with Scotto, Baltsa, Luchetti, Nesterenko, and the Philharmonia Orchestra; but on any given day I also might go for one of Giulini's (his best is his mono live recording on BBC Legends), Fricsay (DG), Shaw, Toscanini, and yes, either of Solti's. He's definitely among the select few.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

In July 2026 Metier is delighted to present Lieder Zyklen (Song Cycles) by contemporary Swiss composer Thomas Fortmann. Featuring settings for voice and piano trio of poetry and text by writers including Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Christian Haller, Prolitheus Pfenninger and Fortmann himself, these works demonstrate the composer's eclectic and unusual style that combines postmodern music, serial techniques, rock and jazz. The Swiss tenor Tino Bru¨tsch and Swiss soprano Nuria Richner perform alongside the Trio Accademia Amiata and a Trio of soloists Malwina Sosnowski, Donitille Jordan and Talvi Hunt. The album also includes Fortmann's Hommage to Schubert's Winterreise and his arrangement of this iconic song cycle for baritone and string quartet is given a powerful performance by Florian Prey, son of the great German baritone Hermann Prey alongside the Amar Quartet. Fortmann's setting of the intriguing poem Am Ende des Flurs (At the end of the hallway, 4th floor) by his close friend, Swiss Literary Prize Winner Christian Haller, is followed by The Hofmannsthal Verses. Composed in his early twenties as striking rock songs to poetry by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who became the librettist to Richard Strauss, the lyrics are a collage of Hofmannsthal poems Fortmann found moving for their linguistic power and their social and political statements. Geschichten (Histories) are concise, short songs that intertwine the timeline of a love relationship with that of human history and dimensions of the cosmos. The Prolitheus Songs are based on e-mails from the extraordinary visual artist Prolitheus Pfenninger, complex and often laden with double meanings and wordplays. Schubert was the favourite composer of Fortmann's mother, a well-known soprano - she often sang his songs to him and his sisters, and the music's sensitive emotions resonate deeply. The Hommage an Schubert's Winterreise, Der Su¨sse Ton (the Sweet Tone) is Fortmann's setting of a text collage from Joachim Ringelnatz who often referred to Schubert in his poetry, passages of text from Eduard von Bauernfeld on Schubert's funeral and excerpts from poetry of Schubert himself. The Homage opens with a typical rock riff, reminiscent of how Schubert drew on popular rhythms of his time, and the work refers to the songs of Winterreise in various ways, some of them hidden in contrapuntal forms. Despite the different compositional techniques throughout Fortmann shows his musical-emotional kinship with Schubert. Recreating Winterreise for voice and string quartet was a delicate task of reassembling the work while trying to stay as faithful as possible to the original. Fortmann sought to recapture the mood of the songs, their simplicity and touching directness, and to achieve this with a string quartet some modifications were necessary including extra notes that do not appear in Schubert's original. In the 1970s Thomas Fortmann had a very successful career as a writer of rock music - and also as an international golfing star! At age 26 he abandoned this career to study formal composition which laid the foundation for an extensive body of work that includes chamber music, operas and musical theatre, orchestral, choral, and organ works, as well as several song cycles. Fortmann's distinctly personal style often unites different - and sometimes opposing - impulses of modern music. Lieder Zyklen marks the sixth release of his music on the Metier label.

The programme of the latest recording by the distinguished choir 441 Hz brings together works by composers from a wide range of cultural traditions, from Scandinavia to the Philippines. Their shared expressive thread is a meditation on the phenomenon of light-it's symbolism, radiance, and transformative power. These composers write for mixed choir, enriched here by the subtle colours of violin, Tibetan singing bowls, handbells, and even water-tuned glasses. Yet for all it's imaginative scoring, the programme is far removed from the world of avant-garde experiment. Instead, it unfolds in a language of luminous harmonies, deeply affecting solo voices, and expansive musical forms, creating an atmosphere of serenity and inward reflection.

This recording presents a performance of H.C. Robbins Landon's edition of Mozart's Requiem, a product of modern scholarship, sound musicological argument, and learned intuition. It comprises Mozart's original fragment along with completions by the familiar Süssmayr, as well as Mozart's other students, Eybler and Freystädtler. The CD booklet gives details on who added what, and makes for interesting reading. But, the real concern here is the performance itself, and it is truly captivating. Bruno Weil's quick tempos bring fresh air and sunlight into the mausoleum some have made of this work. There is a compelling urgency that carries over from one movement to the next. The "Rex tremendae" here sounds chilling, its defiant anger fully embodied by the Tölzer Boys Choir, which sings with all the range and beauty of a traditional choir but with more clarity and poignancy. The four soloists are beautifully devotional, though bass Harry van der Kamp has some slight intonation problems in the "Tuba mirum". Tafelmusik's vividly colorful playing clarifies the musical lines with naturalness and subtlety, while the recorded sound marvelously balances reverberation and clarity. An outstanding release. --Victor Carr, ClassicsToday.com