It is surely proof of great dedication that an American-born Swedish conductor would, in the mid-1970s, go behind the Iron Curtain in order to take up a post as principal conductor of an orchestra. Both the conductor and orchestra have fond memories of Herbert Blomstedt's Dresden years, from 1975 to 1985. The recordings of all of Beethoven's symphonies conducted by Blomstedt are proof of an intensive and artistically outstanding collaboration.

The novelty for this year's Christmas season sets new standards in brass music. With 'Brass Christmas', the well-known ensemble German Brass presents it's second Christmas album on Berlin Classics and demonstrates it's great strengths as a recipe for success: high virtuosity, brilliant musicality and a high degree of humour and charm. This is not classical brass music, but a completely new sound that enchants and delights the audience anew in every concert and recording. It is not without reason that the ensemble, consisting of ten solo brass players and university professors, was honoured with the Echo Klassik 2016 award. Brass Christmas includes the most beautiful melodies to prepare the listener for the Christmas season with a cosy, warm feeling. With tranquil sounds such as the Evening Blessing from Humperdinck's opera 'Hansel and Gretel', festive melodies from George Frideric Handel's Messiah and classical Christmas carols from Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio, German Brass creates a festive atmosphere in typical brass style. As always, the works are arranged by the ensemble's musicians themselves and convey the very own German Brass charm, presenting the original works with the utmost respect for the composers. This time, German Brass completely dispenses with an extended instrumentation and relies entirely on the possibilities of the brass ensemble.

When the voices of the Thomaner-chor sing a Christmas song in a cold winter's night, everyone knows that the best time of the year has begun. With the best that the catalogue of the choir of St. Thomas Leipzig has to offer for Christmas, this extensive edition fits exactly into the most contemplative time of the year.

The Goldmund Quartet, one of Germany's leading young string ensembles, is preparing a very special CD: String quartet versions of traditional Oktoberfest music?. Well-known polkas, marches and waltzes will be heard in a new guise. You can look forward to a musical homage to the Bavarian joie de vivre, in which the quartet captures the flair of the Munich Oktoberfest in fine string sounds.

Has it really been a full decade? Yes - this October, Dresden celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Frauenkirche's consecration. People still remember the "call from Dresden" in 1990, which was followed by various phases of reconstruction, which was largely financed by donations thanks to many helpers. The surviving stones were first carefully salvaged, sorted and then used in the subsequent construction work from 1996. As a result, the church, which had been destroyed in February 1945, was finally reconsecrated in 2005 and became a symbol of reconciliation and peace. Throughout this entire process, the trumpeter and ensemble leader Ludwig Guttler has rendered outstanding services to the Frauenkirche. With tireless motivation in the public sphere, through active participation in the concrete organizational implementation and, last but not least, through countless concerts in aid of the reconstruction, the famous Dresden native has played a very significant role in making this vision a reality. We took this anniversary as an opportunity to ask Ludwig Guttler to select pieces from his numerous recordings that have something to do with the Frauenkirche. He gladly complied and found works that have a connection to the history of music or that he often performed at this location - already during the shell construction, but of course also in the years after the consecration. Recordings from the Frauenkirche, some of them live, are of course also included. With it's beautiful and informative presentation, this CD is not only attractive for Guttler fans in the run-up to Christmas, but also makes a special gift.

It was important to me to gather composers who expressed the European idea, be it in their origins, their education, their travels or their moves to different places of work Ludwig Guttler This is the idea behind the new album by trumpeter and conductor Ludwig Guttler. The occasion for this edition was Christmas, the holiday of holiday, but Ludwig Guttler would like to point to something fundamental. Hence the title: "Europa Cantat" - "Europe sings": Composers from all over Europe are brought together musically on this edition and thus make clear the similarities on both a musical and lyrical level.

This 5 CD edition contains the the most popular recordings of Peter Schreier from lively operetta melodies, light music and folk songs.

Ludwig Guttler has been one of Germany's best known and most versatile trumpeters for more than 50 years. His concert activities have taken him beyond Germany across the whole of Europe. Shortly before his 75th birthday, he looks back and dedicates himself in this Edition to the continent united in music: Europe. Selected works and composers allow Guttler to show how music anticipated the political unification of Europe centuries ago. The individual works in this set, representative of many thousand such works and composers, demonstrate what paths music took in past times, what ground it's creators covered and how their paths crossed. National boundaries may have kept changing, but music-makers stayed in touch with each other, emulated or challenged each other and picked up the latest fashions. Composers cross-fertilized each other at these points of intersection and created what we know now as "European classical music". But they were not the only ones who regularly exchanged notes with their colleagues. Their compositions made the rounds too - from that day to this, but very much so even in those days of slow travel. Ludwig Guttler observes: "Sometimes it is the long journeys that indicate the works were durable, long-lived, exceptional - masterpieces, in fact." The spectrum of this Edition ranges from Bach and his contemporaries Vivaldi, Telemann, Pisendel, Zelenka, Neruda and Hasse by way of travellers Haydn and Mozart to Dvorak, who made it across the Atlantic. Guttler himself knows better than practically anyone else how to draw together these threads. His intensive research throughout Europe has caused many forgotten works to see the light of day and enjoy the acclaim of audiences. He has made his own contribution to historically informed performance practice with the reconstruction of the corno da caccia. Edition Europa is also a retrospective. "Less in the sense of reflection than as a review of what has been achieved," says Guttler. "I have been blowing the trumpet for 60 years now, conducting, fighting for what I believe in." But even at 75, he is not ready to sit back. He still has a full concert diary and still spends a lot of time on his "excavations". His goal? "I should like to bring to life as much good music as possible with my colleagues, and show what truly unbelievable riches are still awaiting us."

Where people sing, make yourself at home, bad people have no songs!". This saying is surely true, one has only to look at the growing a-cappella and choir scene to see that, and it is borne out again in the successful concept developed by Helge Burggrabe. In Hagios he invites listeners to be at home with themselves and slip out of the stress of everyday life. There are songs that the audience can sing along to, and they transform the hall into a great auditorium - altogether in the Taize tradition. Sold-out concerts prove that this concept chimes with the zeitgeist. Together with the Elbcanto vocal ensemble, pianist Christof Fankhauser and a string ensemble, he now presents his second album: Hagios II - Songs of Devotion and Meditation. For song-loving, spiritual people in search of peace, and for all those who simply want to retreat from everyday life and unwind. "As far back as I can remember, I hear the voice of my mother. Her bedtime songs, which sent me to sleep at night, were a comfort to me, they were the sound of safety," Burggrabe recalls. In Hagios II he continues his search for the invigorating power of song. He discovers melodies that are hundreds of years old. He comes across works from monastic cultures of all faiths, songs of those in search of peace and stillness, with their roots in ancient Jewish music. Communal singing - also known as "psalmody" - is to be found in Gregorian chant, in the Orthodox liturgy, in Taize songs and sacred songs of the present day. Hymns and prayers in music were always seen as healing and calming. Helge Burggrabe records all this and opens a space that invites the weary and troubled to reflect, to dream, to rest. The album covers a wide musical range. From peaceful, meditative pieces to lively songs of joy, Helge Burggrabe conveys inner peace, security and positive energy. Choral singing, piano and string ensemble are enhanced by the timbres of flute, accordion and organ, expanding the warm and heartfelt tone.

Christmas with the Dresdner Kreuzchor means for the approx. 120 young singers of the Kreuzchor each year also a Christmas at the Dresdner Kreuzchor. With this selection of the best and most beautiful works from it's over 800-year history, the choir gives an insight into it's traditions around the most contemplative festival of the year. When the sun sets after two concerts on December 24, you can see candles flickering through the long corridors in the buildings of the Dresdner Kreuzchor. Everyone associates Christmas carols with unique situations and traditions; this also applies to the Dresdner Kreuzchor, whose days around Christmas are filled with special moments and songs that belong to them. Rudolf Mauersberger's choral setting of "Macht hoch die Tur" as the great beginning of Christmas Vespers, "Silent Night, Holy Night" shortly before the Christmas dinner or "O du frohliche", during which Christmas is traditionally rung in with key rings during the performance in the Kreuzkirche. The Dresdner Kreuzchor takes the listeners into it's very special and unique Christmas.

In memory of the great tenor Peter Schreier, Berlin Classics released a reiussue of the 4-CD box "Vom Knabenalt zum lyrischen Tenor", which was originally released in 1995. The CD box contains recordings of lieder, opera arias, arias from cantatas and oratorios and also from his time as a boy alto in the Dresdner Kreuzchor. A cross section of the entire career of a singer whose enormous talent was already discovered and supported in his childhood by the former conductor of the Dresdner Kreuzchor, Rudolf Mauersberger. Additionally the CDs are accompanied by a short biography, which gives an exciting overview of Peter Schreier's career stages.

At the age of 15, Johann Sebastian Bach attended the Latin school at St. Michael's Monastery in Luneburg for two years. There is also evidence of at least one trip to Hamburg during this time. The young Bach must have been impressed and inspired by the North German music scene with it's large organs and independent pedals, the diverse reed stops, the clear and "sharp" mixtures and, last but not least, his musical experiences in Hamburg's Gansemarkt Opera House. Bach's chorale partitas bear clear traces of the North German environment, for example in the operatic-ariose elaborations with French ornaments or in the very individual virtuoso arrangements of the variations, which suggest the text interpretations of individual song verses. In contrast to this is the Orgelbuchlein, composed in the somewhat later Weimar years, which forms the foundation for Bach's monothematic composition: Here, the sound of a chorale is formed using just one characteristic motif. The roots of this compositional aesthetic can be traced back to Bach's early encounter with Georg Bohm in Luneburg. The history of the large organ in St. Michael's, which can be traced back to the 15th century, is eventful: in 1708 the Schnitger pupil Matthias Dropa built a new organ and extended the existing instrument by Niehoff (1553) - the young Bach may have been able to follow the plans. After numerous alterations, the current specification corresponds to that of 1708, and a precise historical restoration is currently being planned. The tremendous richness of color and the tonal spirit of the Baroque period can be clearly heard despite the equal temperament. The Klapmeyer organ in Altenbruch (1730), on which Dropa also worked from 1697-1700, gives an authentic impression of the sound of this organ landscape in Luneburg thanks to the restoration by Jurgen Ahrend (2004). The specifics of the historical sounds become tangible when comparing the two instruments.

Under the title "Bach Organ Landscapes", a new complete recording of Bach's organ works will be released over the next few years. It is based on ten historical organ builders who were relevant to Johann Sebastian Bach. With no other instrument like the organ are space and sound so closely linked. The further we look back into the history of music, the more regional developments play a role. Traveling has been part of the world of organists from the very beginning.

Beethoven's works for violoncello and piano are among the first of this genre. Where previously the piano dominated or merely accompanied, now two equal partners appear, complimenting each other in brilliance and virtuosity. The three cello sonatas, which come from different creative periods of Beethoven, allow insights into the development of the celebrated composer. Ludwig Hoelscher and Jorg Demus, two of the most famous and influential musicians of the last century, dedicated themselves to this multifaceted work in 1972. The resulting recordings express the two master instrumentalists' in-depth study of these works, while offering an intimate experience of chamber music performance. The recordings included in these CDs stood the test of time. The original records, released in 1974, are highly prized by connoisseurs and collectors. These recordings have been lovingly remastered and are now, for the first time, available in digital form. The remaster enables a crystal-clear listening experience of the masterful interpretations without losing their historic character.

This is the second album of the Saint-Saens series, with young talents?. All recordings were made with the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, conducted by Howard Griffiths. The repertoire inludes: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in G minor op. 22, Morceau de Concert in F minor op. 94, Romance in F major op. 36, Romance in E major op. 67 and Suite for Violoncello and Orchestra op. 16b?