Violin music isn’t what one normally associates with Franz Schubert, but he did in fact receive his first violin lessons as a young boy from his father. At the age of 11 he was accepted as a member of the choir of the imperial court chapel, and as such became a pupil at the Stadtkonvikt school. There he joined the excellent student orchestra, eventually assuming the role of leader. Among his examiners was the court Kapellmeister Anton Salieri, who took a keen interest in Schubert’s compositions. Schubert left the school in 1813, but continued working with Salieri for a few years longer, possibly on some of the pieces recorded here – the Rondo, Konzertstuck and G minor Sonata all hail from 1816 while the Polonaise is from the following year. These early, unpretentious violin compositions were probably intended for Schubert’s older brother Ferdinand, who led the family string quartet in which Franz played the viola. Composed in 1827, when Schubert had already written his symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas and hundreds of songs, the closing Fantasy in C major is another matter. A substantial piece in four sections, it contains challenging writing for both instruments, demonstrating what a master Schubert himself was on both. On this and its soon-to-be-released companion disc, Ariadne Daskalakis has gathered all of Schubert’s works for violin. Equally at home on baroque and modern instruments, she has chosen to perform them in a historical context, joined by Paolo Giacometti on a fortepiano by Salvatore Lagrassa from c. 1815 and the period band Die Kolner Akademie conducted by Michael Alexander Willens.

Ainola, the house that Jean Sibelius built in 1904 and lived in until his death in 1957, has become legendary among lovers of Nordic music. The house, now a museum, receives tens of thousands of visitors every summer – many from abroad. It has remained largely unchanged since Sibelius and his family lived in it, and among the museum’s most treasured objects is the Steinway grand piano presented to Sibelius on his 50th birthday. It is on this instrument that pianist and recognized Sibelius authority Folke Gräsbeck has recorded this tribute to the composer on his 150th anniversary.

Carolyn Sampson has enjoyed notable worldwide successes in repertoire ranging from early baroque to present day, in opera, in concert and on disc. Nevertheless, the present recording is, as she writes in her introduction in the CD booklet, something of a début – her first recital disc of songs with piano. When choosing repertoire, she collaborated closely with her pianist, Joseph Middleton and together they chose settings of poems on a floral theme in Russian, English, French and German. The selected songs represent a great diversity, through their different musical styles and affects.

This composer portrait opens with Tommie Haglund's first score for full orchestra - the cello concerto Flamnis aura. Composed in 2001 and rewarded 13 years later with Sweden's most important composition prize, the work is in a single movement with a slow basic pulse, the work is in a single movement with a slow basic pulse, and thus conforms to a recurring pattern within Haglund's production. Its Latin title describes a state immediately prior to a religious revelation, and the music forms an exploration of both the human interior and the cosmos - towards the end of the work a tape with space sounds recorded by NASA is heard: a ''Song of Earth''. Performed by Ernst Simon Glaser and the Gothenburg Symphony, the concerto is followed by another composition from 2001, the string quartet Il regno degli spiriti, and the string trio Sollievo. Both these works are here performed by the highly regarded string trio ZilliacusPerssonRaitinen, joined by Julia Kretz-Larsson on second violin in the quartet. Sollievo... was composed for ZPr in 2013, and its title - ''relief after teh storm'' - refers to the end of a period of painful treatment following a back operation. With a generous playing time of close to 84 minutes, teh album closes with Serenata per Diotima from 2014, interpreted by the strings of Malmo Symphony Orchestra with substantial violin solos from Hakan Rudner. Celebrating the female philosopher of Greek antiquity, the piece was also inspired by the birth of teh composer's first grandchild.

Allmanna Sangen began its existence as a male-voice choir affiliated to the University of Uppsala in 1830, but was reformed as a mixed choir in 1963. Ever since, the choir has expanded its repertoire and stylistic range, often surprising audiences with its unconventional approach to familiar works and with collaborations across genres. On Femina moderna, the choir and its conductor Maria Goundorina present a programme with recent works by Swedish and international women composers: no less than ten of the thirteen works included were written in 2000 or later. Most recently composed is Anna Karin Klockar’s Speeches which in 2016 won first prize in a competition for women composers arranged by the choir. The competition, the Allmanna Sangen & Anders Wall Composition Award, was first held in 2014 in celebration of the choir’s 50th anniversary as a mixed choir. The winning work on that occasion, Sandskrift by Maria Lofberg, is also included on this disc, along with pieces by composers such as Lera Auerbach and Libby Larsen, Cecilia McDowall, Galina Grigorjeva, and Nana Forte.