The Detroit Symphony Orchestra and it's Music Director Jader Bignamini present Wynton Marsalis' Blues Symphony. The piece is a triumphant ode to the power of the blues and the scope of America's musical heritage. With a blend of influences from ragtime to habanera, the piece takes listeners on a sonic journey through America's revolutionary era, the early beginnings of jazz in New Orleans, and a big city soundscape that serves as a nod to the Great Migration. Detroit being one of the most vibrant melting pots of musical cultures in the US, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra seems the ideal advocate for this original contribution to the symphonic repertoire. The recording is also the first with Jader Bignamini, giving a new dimension to his music directorship. Wynton Marsalis is a world-renowned trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and a leading advocate of American culture. Jader Bignamini has worked with the world's leading orchestras and opera companies, preferably conducting without a score to guarantee maximum engagement with his players. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, America's fourth-oldest, has a history as varied and exciting as that of it's hometown.

The Czech Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor and Music Director Semyon Bychkov continue their acclaimed Mahler cycle with the composer's Third Symphony, working together with mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison, the Prague Philharmonic Choir and Pueri Gaudentes. In this monumental work, Mahler combines a text from Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra with the folk song inspirations of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, culminating in eternal bliss in the closing Adagio. To Bychkov, this longest Mahler symphony offers his "least hysterical" music, and hearing it for the first time as a 10-year-old choirboy kindled his life-long fascination and love for this composer. With this recording, it comes full circle.

The Czech Philharmonic - recently awarded Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year Award - is one of the world's orchestral gems, recognized for its rich tradition with the Czech masters as well as European repertoire. Together with their Chief Conductor and Music Director Semyon Bychkov, they have so far recorded for PENTATONE Mahler's First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Symphonies (2022-2023), part of the complete Mahler cycle to be released by the label, as well as Smetana's Ma vlast and Dvorak's Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Symphonies (2024). The Orchestra is also featured on the albums Folk Songs (2023) and Czech Songs (2024) recorded by Magdalena Ko�ena and Sir Simon Rattle, as well as Dvorak Legends & Rhapsodies with Tomas Netopil.

This recording showcases three new evocative works by GRAMMY Award-winning American composer Michael Daugherty, exploring the triumphs and tragedies of flight. Blue Electra is a dramatic violin concerto inspired by the sensational life and mysterious disappearance of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart in 1937. Last Dance at the Surf is a one-movement dance symphony for orchestra that reflects upon rock 'n roll legend Buddy Holly's final performance in 1959 at the Surf Ballroom in Iowa and his tragic death in a plane crash just hours after his show. To the New World for orchestra celebrates the triumphant Apollo 11 moon mission in 1969 and Neil Armstrong's historic moonwalk. Under the baton of GRAMMY Award-winning conductor David Alan Miller, the Albany Symphony is joined by GRAMMY Award-winning violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, who performs Blue Electra with electrifying musicality and emotion.

Christian Sinding might be thought of as a Grade-B composer. That’s not a dismissal, merely an assessment to adjust the expectations. He’s not the symphonic Grieg we’ve been missing, nor a Nordic Brahms that’s been overlooked. He’s an – essentially German – symphonist of the second rank who wrote very pleasing works that we will sadly not hear in the concert halls, but which can enliven our musical diet on record if we need to take a break from the usual suspects. To unfold their inherent fervour, his compositions are dependent on sensitive and enthusiastic interpretations, but that’s exactly what they get from the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra under Karl Heinz Steffens, for whom Sinding has become a composer close to his heart.

The six suites for solo cello are frequently considered to be Bach’s greatest masterpieces and are a pinnacle of the Baroque cello repertory. This new album of Bach’s complete Cello Suites has the unique feature of being performed using two different historic cellos, one of them being a rare five-string instrument from the 17th century, which is used on Suite 6.

Cellist William Skeen is one of the world’s premiere Baroque cellists. He serves as Principal Cellist with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Voices of Music, and was Principal Cellist of the American Bach Soloists for nearly two decades. Mr. Skeen taught Baroque cello and viola da gamba at the University of Southern California for two decades. Mr. Skeen has received two GRAMMY® nominations for previous albums. He continues to perform regularly with major orchestras and Baroque groups around the world.

This new release of the Six Cello Suites was beautifully recorded by famed multi-GRAMMY®-winning engineer Leslie Ann Jones at Skywalker Sound in Marin County, California. It was mastered by RR's own multi-GRAMMY®-nominated engineer, Sean Royce Martin. The album was produced by the outstanding San Francisco-based Lolly Lewis, who in recent years has been particularly focused on period instrument performance and has produced six albums with the New Esterházy Quartet.

Quatuor Diotima celebrates Pierre Boulez' centenary with a recording of his Livre pour quatuor, containing the world-premiere of the piece's fourth movement, which the composer conceived in close cooperation with the members of Diotima, and was completed by Philippe Manoury after his death. This recording adds a fascinating chapter to Boulez's "work in progress", and is a fitting successor to the quartet's acclaimed Ligeti recording from 2023. Quatuor Diotima is one of the most in-demand chamber ensembles in the world today, and has worked in close collaboration with several of the greatest composers of the late twentieth century. Reflected in the mirror of today's music, the quartet projects a new light onto the masterpieces of the 19th and 20th centuries. The quartet returns to PENTATONE after their acclaimed Metamorphosis Ligeti (2023) and Bruckner & Klose String Quartets (2024), which was awarded a Jahrespreis der Schallplattenkritik.

This release further explores the rarely performed or recorded concert music of Miklos Rozsa (of Ben Hur fame), coupling his Rhapsody for Cello in which the young composer truly found his style, his Notturno Ungherese ("a nostalgic night piece, harking back to the memories of my childhood in Hungary"), and the late Sinfonia concertante for violin and cello, a fiendishly difficult violin-cello double concerto that is among Rozsa's finest, least film-music-like concert works - and one of his most underrated. Gregor Piatigorsky and Jascha Heifetz, who instigated it's composition, never ended up playing it, but Harriet Krijgh and Nikita Boriso-Glebsky certainly do.

Although he had famous students (i.e. Szymanowski) and teachers (Moniuszko), few listeners know much, if anything, about Zygmunt Noskowski. And yet, for most of the 19th century, he was the primary exponent of modern symphonic music in Poland. His Third Symphony and his symphonic poem Steppe, Op. 66 blend sweeping Romanticism with Polish folk spirit. The symphony's seasonal journey is lush and lyrical, starting with spring and ending with the optimistic outlook to the next. Steppe evokes Poland's vast landscapes with Borodinesque colors. Under Antoni Wit, these overlooked gems shine anew and make for intriguing listening for lovers of melodic symphonic music.

The two works recorded on this disc both come from a creative period at the beginning of the 1930s. In terms of style, with his works linked to basic tonalities, Weigl drew on the sound realm of late Romanticism, from whose aesthetics he never departed in favour of more progressive contemporary trends. Weigl’s knack for orchestration shows both in the hymnic climaxes as well as the chamber music-like passages. Weigl never lived to hear any performances of either his Third Symphony or the Symphonic Prelude. Like so many of his larger works, these scores were not (re-)discovered until interest in Weigl’s music resurged decades later. This release allows audiences to hear both works for the first time on record.

REVIEW:

Stylistically, the pieces clearly show Weigl’s own voice, even as they remain close to the late-Romantic symphonic style.

The symphony's rich palette of development and treatment leads from intimate moments of chamber music to grand climaxes. The large orchestration of the Symphonic Prelude indicates that it was intended for the concert hall rather than as incidental music. Overall, the works remain rooted in traditional sounds.

Weigl was unable to experience performances of these works. The new interest in his music is also reflected in these premiere recordings. The Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz and conductor Jürgen Bruns illuminate these works with successful commitment.

— Pizzicato (Uwe Krusch)

Yasunori Imamura, whose recording of Bach's complete lute works has been described as a 'magnificent interpretation' (Naxos 8.573936-37), turns his attention to the Cello Suites. Imamura has chosen to perform these iconic suites on the theorbo, the most important plucked instrument in the lute family, with a range very similar to the cello. Certain technical elements, such as the playing of arpeggios are, in fact, easier on the theorbo whose unique timbres and resonances bring a new sonic quality to these much-loved works.

A celebration of the Christmas season, from Advent through the New Year, in music from the courts of 15th-century France and Burgundy. Music by Guillaume Du Fay, Johannes Regis, Jacob Obrecht, Josquin Desprez, Antoine Brumel, Adrian Willaert, and others.

Symphonic in scale and with great dramatic power, Rachmaninoff's Piano Sonata No. 1 in D minor is an underappreciated masterpiece, depicting a tremendous range of human emotions. The turbulent and brilliant Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor is heard in the 1931 revised version which clarifies textures and streamlines the work, heightening it's emotional impact. The Isle of the Dead employs Georgy Kirkor's 1957 transcription which Boris Giltburg has revised significantly. Giltburg's authority in Rachmaninoff has been universally acknowledged, with his performances termed 'characterful, sensitive and technically dazzling' by BBC Music Magazine (Naxos 8.574528).

REVIEW:

For all his technical ability and mastery of what is possible on the piano, Boris Giltburg is not a merciless technician, but a pianist who immerses himself in the music.

In the two Rachmaninoff sonatas, Giltburg draws us into a music that takes off without harshness, almost floating, and clearly tending toward Scriabin. The contrasts are made all the more exciting by the spontaneity of the playing, as are the magnificent, exciting melodic arcs with which he makes the piano sing.

The transcription of the symphonic poem ‘Isle of the Dead’ is also very successful, because Giltburg and Kirkur have obviously felt the dark and demonic secrets of this music very well. With his imaginative playing, Giltburg gives the piano a very active role, allowing it to act rather than merely reproduce impressions. The music of the Isle of the Dead shimmers in many colors and is full of dramatic power, full of life.

— Pizzicato

In the last decade of his life, Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) worked as a church musician in his hometown of Nuremberg. In this capacity, he was extremely productive, even by the standards of the time: he set the Magnificat, the Virgin Mary's hymn of praise to the greatness of the Lord, who chose her to be the mother of the Savior, almost a dozen times for Protestant vespers services. And he did so with admirable creative imagination and a feeling for instrumental colors that still has an immediate effect today: as in the first episode of this series, we are confronted here with a full-bodied, pithy life that by no means perceives the world as a vale of tears. The Himlische Cantorey, under its founder, conductor, and tenor Jan Kobow, once again lives up to its name.

REVIEW:

The Himlische Cantorey is the perfect advocate of Pachelbel’s oeuvre. The ensemble is impeccable, and the solo contributions of the individual singers are indeed impressive. Veronika Winter is the ideal interpreter of ‘Mein Fleisch,’ and Joel Frederiksen delivers an incisive performance of ‘Ach Herr, wie ist meiner Feinde so viel.’ Veronika Skpulik needs to be mentioned for her highly impressive interpretations of the obbligato violin parts.

— musica Dei donum (Johan van Veen)

Yasunori Imamura presents the second instalment of Bach's Cello Suites arranged for theorbo (Volume 1 is available on 8.574617). The theorbo is the most important plucked instrument in the lute family, with a range very similar to the cello. Certain technical elements, such as the playing of arpeggios are, in fact, easier on the theorbo whose unique timbres bring a new sonic quality to the performances heard here. These elements are most evident in Suite No. 6, composed for a cello with five strings, but which sounds totally idiomatic when played on the theorbo.

Sergey Prokofiev's spectacular music for Ivan the Terrible is arguably one of his finest film scores. This classic recording of the oratorio arranged by Abram Stasevich conducted by Leonard Slatkin is filled with Prokofiev's irrepressible energy and eloquent melodic power. Ivan, the first 'Tsar of all the Russias' is portrayed in the film not as the bloodthirsty tyrant his nickname suggests, but as a sorrowful and lonely man, betrayed by his friends, deprived of love, and determined at all costs to preserve a unified Russia under constant attack from abroad and treasonous intrigues at home.