Myto’s release of Luigi Cherubini’s operatic masterpiece Medea from a live recording documenting a 1961 La Scala staged production with a cast including Jon Vickers, Maria Callas, Giulietta Simionato and Nicolai Ghiaurov is a most welcome one. Another important feature of this performance is that it highlights the brilliant conducting of American Thomas Schippers, who succumbed to lung cancer at the age of 47, prematurely ending a career whose loss was especially felt in opera orchestral pits around the world.

The audience of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival experienced a great musical event when the Kammerchor Stuttgart, conducted by its founder Frieder Bernius, performed Luigi Cherubini's Messe Solennelle No. 2 in D minor. The soloists of the evening were Ruth Ziesak, soprano, Christa Mayer, contralto, Christoph Genz, tenor, and Thomas E. Bauer, bass. The recording of this truly extraordinary work is now available on album. After a beginning which seems familiar, unforeseen, imaginative and witty turns lead melodic progressions and harmonic developments into entirely new directions. The harmonic variety is impressive, and chromaticism plays no less important a role. Subtle instrumentation lends many sections an exquisite sonority. And last but not least, the deeply felt interpretation of the text by means of melodic, rhythmic or harmonic figures, as well as by dynamics and tempo is one of the outstanding features of the work, highlighting the performers' brilliance.