Avi Avital/Between Worlds - "Song of the Birds". Mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital leads a new ensemble that challenges the boundaries between classical and folk music. Each project of the Between Worlds ensemble is dedicated to a different geographical region - the Iberian Peninsula, the south of Italy and the Black Sea - and paints a rich musical portrait of that region in bright colors and detailed nuances. Classical composers from each region are played side by side with traditional music that often inspired their work, performed together with renowned folk vocalists and instrumentalists as guest artists.

Luka (violin) and Leo (cello) Ispir (laureates 2023 of Fondation Gautier Capucon) are two award-winning musicians, trained at prestigious institutions such as the Conservatoire de Paris and the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel. Fondation Gautier Capucon is dedicated to supporting emerging young musicians, helping them launch their professional careers with mentorship, visibility, and opportunities to perform: fondationgautiercapucon. Com. This album showcases a diverse program, blending masterpieces by Bach and Mozart with a tribute to Ravel's iconic Sonata for Violin and Cello, in the year of 150th's anniversary of the composer's birth. It also features the world premiere recording of Street of Memories, Op. 115 by Turkish composer and pianist Fazil Say.

For Quatuor Arod, the six string quartets in Haydn's opus 76 "represent the apogee of the Classical style, but they are also ageless, "presenting almost infinite possibilities". This Haydn project has been close to Arod's heart for a long time. "Haydn, the founding father of the string quartet, composed the op. 76 quartets in his mid-sixties. Representing Haydn in all his maturity, achievement and mastery as he exploits a broad expressive palette, they constitute a turning point in the history of the quartet as a genre." Within this Classical repertoire, the Arod's players sought to be "faithful to both the spirit and letter of these works... The modern bow, invented after the time of Haydn, did not allow us enough flexibility and lightness, which are defining features of his writing..." Arod's solution was to commission a new set of bows, based on models produced in the 1770s by the celebrated Tourte brothers. The players' instruments, which date from the 17th and 18th centuries, remained configured for modern practice. "The impact of the Classical bows was immediate: the articulation became more natural, the responses more flexible, the sound more transparent. The bows transformed our playing, which became lighter, more open and more free."

Following on the acclaimed 'Where is Home' and 'Hymns of Bantu', two genre-defying albums, 'Four Spirits' is also drawn from Abel's South African roots and seeks to create a communal experience with the audience through cello concerto, percussion, singing & improvisation. His first solo cello concerto and, formally speaking, a concerto cast in four movements - each movement takes an essential aspect of township life: ancestors, children, faith and community. Selaocoe positions himself as chief storyteller, combining cello improvising with lyrics in the Southern Sotho and Zulu languages.

Boomtown is guitarist/composer Miles Okazaki's latest work for large ensemble. It follows on his Miniature America from 2024, which was described by Ethan Iverson as "meticulously assembled, absolutely a blast to listen to, and informed by a generous - even carefree - spirit." The idea for the new album came to Okazaki on a drive across Wyoming. Unlike much of his recent work with his band Trickster, which are often precise mechanical devices driven by intricate rhythms, Boomtown is filled with grand gestures - a journey that swings from desolate, pastoral beauty and tumultuous ruin that befit a western landscape. The music tells the story of an imaginary boomtown: the exhilaration of hopes and dreams, and it's collapse into destructive lawlessness and abandonment. To help conjure that duality of sublime and ominous, Okazaki assembled a collection of ten musicians: saxophonists Caroline Davis, Jon Irabagon, and Anna Webber, trombonists Jacob Garchik and Kalia Vandever, bassists Chris Tordini and Hannah Marks, pianist Matt Mitchell, drummer Dan Weiss and Okazaki on guitars. Together, they make music that is by turns filled with profound beauty and menacing dread.

Legendary Jazz trumpeter Randy Brecker is back with his first album of all new and original compositions in many years. Composed, Arranged, and produced by the Architects Of Sound (Claude Villani & Jeff Lorber), Espirito is a celebration of a career and a man that has helped shape the sound of Jazz, R&B and Rock for over six decades. His performances have graced hundreds of albums by a wide range of artists from James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen and Parliament/Funkadelic to Frank Sinatra, Steely Dan, Jaco Pastorius and Frank Zappa.

The Harmoniemesse, Haydn's last major sacred work, combines liturgical solemnity with dazzling orchestral writing empowered by his masterly use of the winds. In contrast, the intimate, luminous Missa brevis 'St John of God', reveals a more contemplative faith. Directing Les Arts Florissants, William Christie illuminates these two sides of the composer with authority and poetic sensitivity, well served by a top-flight quartet of soloists.

In June 2026 Divine Art is delighted to present Francis Poulenc: Music for Two Pianos performed by pianists Antony Gray and Rob Hao. Among the highlights of this superb new release are the first commercial audio recording of Antony Gray's own transcription for two pianos of Poulenc's score from the film Voyage en Amerique, the first recording of Poulenc's two piano reduction of the Concert Champetre, plus the recently discovered Valse de musique de soie. A superb pianist as well as a composer, Poulenc's works for piano are without exception charming, delightful and gratifyingly written. However, most of his piano music comes from the early part of his career, as Poulenc destroyed many of his later works, including a number for four hands/two pianos. The two-piano works on this album represent those later periods when he was at the height of his powers. The first comes from his delightful score, which was sadly lost, for the 1951 film about a couple from rural France on their first ever flight, Voyage en Amerique. Antony Gray tracked down a copy of the soundtrack, which was scored for two pianos, and transcribed it himself, realising this was the only way of recovering the score, and presents it here with Rob Hao in it's first commercial standalone recording. To complete the transcription of the soundtrack, Gray also includes the song, Adieu Maison, with soprano Helen Miles, and a Valse, in which the two pianos are joined by an accordion, performed by Alise Silina. Gray and Hao also present a later version of this work entitled Embarquement pour Cythere, scored only for two pianos. The Sonata for two pianos, arguably Poulenc's finest keyboard work, is emotionally dark and looks forward to the tenderness and anguish of the Dialogues des Carmelites. Very few works in the piano duo repertoire match this sonata in power and emotional force -aggressive dissonance is contrasted with passages of achingly beautiful material. One of his final keyboard works is the deeply emotional Elegie in which as with all Poulenc's music for two pianos, the material throughout is passed equally between the two instruments. The Concert Champetre, originally written as a concerto for harpsichord and orchestra, was reworked for two pianos, and despite missing the rich orchestral palette it's a strong work in it's own right, and is given it's first recording here. Poulenc's other works for two pianos will be made available as bonus digital-only tracks accompanying the album. The first will feature Sonate pour piano a 4 mains, written in 1918 when Poulenc was only 19 years old. It was influenced by Satie and Stravinsky, as well as Chabrier, yet is already stylistically unique and a real achievement for such a young composer. The Capriccio for two pianos is a transcription by Poulenc of the Finale of his cantata Le Bal Masque, with hilarious and surreal music, befitting the cantata text by Max Jacob. The album will be completed by the Valse de musique de soie for solo piano, performed by Antony Gray, a work only recently rediscovered in 2017. Antony Gray and Rob Hao, both pianists and composers, are from Australia. Antony Gray has long been regarded as one of the most interesting and communicative performers of his generation with many solo and chamber music performances around the world and many pieces written for and premiered by him. His recordings for Divine Art have included music by Malcolm Williamson, John Carmichael, and an acclaimed set of Saint-Saëns piano music. Rob Hao's compositions and performances have taken him across Australia, the UK and continental Europe, and he has given regional and world premieres of over thirty works in both ensemble and solo settings. His debut solo recording 'Palimpsest' for Divine Art explores how music and styles from different times interact and inspire new ideas.

Ramin Heydarbeygi's music is strongly influenced by Iranian aesthetics, especially the concise, intricate, interwoven artistry found in Persian poetry and miniature paintings. Inspired by it's beauty and complexity, he has exclusively set Persian poetry to his vocal and choral music. Echoes of Gusan presents selections from his vocal and chamber works, featuring performances by several close collaborators, including violinist Pauline Kim Harris, pianist Stephen Gosling, String Noise, soprano Sarah Paar, violist Max Mendel, and FLUX Quartet.

Camargo Guarnieri loved writing for the human voice, composing hundreds of vocal works over the course of his long and distinguished career. The works in this programme all use texts by Mario de Andrade - a hugely influential writer who was Guarnieri's friend and long-term collaborator. The comic opera Pedro Malazarte is representative of an attractively unconventional and colourful Brazilian modernism that sets it apart from Romantic traditions. Alongside other powerful settings, A Serra do Rola-Moca is one of Guarnieri's finest dramatic vocal works, narrating the tragic story of two young people who die on their wedding day as they and their horses plunge into a ravine.

Famous for composing one of the world's greatest marches, Alte Kameraden (available on Volume 1 in this series, 8.574317), Carl Teike wrote a body of works that have enriched the German concert-march repertoire. They imbue the medium with both diversity and charisma, marrying thematic invention with clarity of structure and richness of tone colours. For the 43rd anniversary of his death, a 1918 march was disinterred and named Neue Kameraden, while Sorgenbrecher is a tribute from Teike to his contemporary, the admired composer Paul Lincke. This is the final volume in the series.

This second volume of Peter Donohoe's Haydn Keyboard Works series brings together a wide-ranging selection of sonatas, partitas, capriccios and fantasias spanning almost the composer's entire career. From the early Partita in G major to the dramatic B minor Sonata and the late works of the 1780s, the programme traces both Haydn's stylistic development and the evolution of the keyboard itself. Folk-inspired pieces such as the Capriccio in G major and the Fantasia in C major sit alongside sonatas of elegance, wit and expressive depth. Donohoe's clarity, rhythmic vitality and architectural insight illuminate Haydn's invention and craftsmanship throughout.

Pocket-sized drama In essence, the texts by Heine featured in this compilation are taken from his Book of Songs. Behind each title lies a unique personal drama, sometimes in an oriental-style setting (Rubinstein's Der Asra) and occasionally in the finest Rhine Romantic tradition (Clara Schumann's Lorelei). They recount medieval episodes, transporting us into fantastical fairy-tale worlds, providing an escape from everyday life into an imaginary scenario. This is the order of the day, just as it was back then, because, perhaps especially in our often unromantic times, it is not such a bad idea to have someone sing you a song.

Naruhiko Kawaguchi's A Journey with Beethoven presents a thoughtfully curated selection of shorter piano works and arrangements that reveal the composer's diverse character beyond the sonatas. Performed on three historical fortepianos from the Finchcocks Collection, the programme traces a musical and emotional path through bagatelles, rondos, dances, transcriptions and the Fantasy in G minor, alongside a rarely heard 1822 revision of Fur Elise. The recording highlights the evolving sound world of Beethoven's era while showcasing varied expressive styles, from wit and lyricism to introspection. Through historically informed performance, Kawaguchi offers a fresh perspective on familiar and lesser-known repertoire within a cohesive artistic narrative.

Christopher Tignor is a composer, violinist, lecturer, and software engineer. His emotionally charged scores and unique focus on live, performance-based electroacoustic practice has won acclaim within both the classical and experimental communities across 10 LPs on the Western Vinyl and New Albion record labels. He creates the live performance software he uses, shared freely. As a composer he has written and recorded work for ensembles including The Knights, A Far Cry string orchestra, and Brooklyn Rider string quartet, performing alongside them at premiere venues including Carnegie's Zankel Hall. As a collaborator he has worked with Rachel Grimes, Helios, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, John Congleton, This Will Destroy You and several other artists at the boundaries of popular music. Tignor holds a Ph.D in music composition from Princeton University, an M.S. in computer science from NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and a B.A. in creative writing from Bard College where he studied fiction and poetry with John Ashbery.

Music that transcends the bounds of time. "For me, the finest music exists in an abstract spiritual world that is inspired by the instruments at hand, but by no means determined by them. Bach had few qualms about rewriting pieces for other instruments as he saw fit, and with many musical ideas, in contrast to virtuosos of the Romantic era, for example, one gets the impression that they were hardly influenced by the constraints of the instruments available. It's like a spirit realm, a large white hall of tones, sounds and voices. That's another reason why I found it so interesting from the outset to collaborate with you on this recording and turn this dream project into reality." - Yorck Kronenberg

New York City-based viola da gambist Caroline Nicolas is one to watch - a captivating performer and "one of the finest gambists working today" (Gotham Early Music Scene). With her star rapidly in the ascendent, Caroline has performed with ensembles including The English Concert, Kammerorchester Basel, and Philharmonia Baroque, and collaborated with the likes of Jordi Savall, William Christie, and Kristian Bezuidenhout. For her solo debut recording, Caroline brings out the big guns of the viola da gamba repertoire from France's defining era of the instrument - the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Pièces de viole were integral to the French instrumental baroque, and Caroline's programme leads with selections by the master of the genre, Marin Marais. For contrast, Caroline juxtaposes the first Suite by the iconoclastic Antoine Forqueray, and in between offers a pair of amuse-bouche: an intricate Chaconne by Marais' tutor, Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, and a Prelude by the pedagogue Le Sieur de Machy. In keeping with French viol music's nuance and relative restraint, Caroline is accompanied solely by theorbo, it's complementary timbre reflecting the repertoire's aesthetic.

Kruger's music can manifest itself as compositions with an enormous variety of structures and instrumental combinations, as multisensory mixtures of sound, image, and movement, or as pure electronics, or... - an aesthetic range reflected, at least partially, in the program of this album. But in spite of this heterogeneity that defies conventional categorization, there are certain significant constants in Kruger's works. One of these is the physicality of their linguistic forms and a correspondingly close connection to the interpretive powers of their performers. He investigates and redefines sounds, exploring physiognomies and contexts that were not yet in his repertoire. The early organ piece "conTemp[s]lations" might seem to be out of place, but it's expansive microtonality and unconventional coloration foreshadow Kruger's later electronic works such as "rosebud". Everything in this contemplative sound continuum is geared toward flowing transformations of sound qualities and the relationships of timbral mixtures. The instrumental monologues and dialogues of "fuckin' A!", "renk", and "nun schauervoll einmalig blickt es mich an" are characterized by a high degree of density and kinetic energy. "rosebud", for dancer, motion sensors, and live electronics was created at the renowned IRCAM center in Paris in collaboration with dancer Victor Virnot, whose choreography is closely linked to the live electronic processes. During the development of the piece, each of the two levels was influenced, and even determined, by the other, until "rosebud" finally achieved it's final, definitive form. The dancer embodies, so to speak, an "extended" musician - a hybrid of man and machine.

Alongside their respective solo careers, Hélène Mercier and Louis Lortie regularly meet to perform as a highly sought-after piano duo. Both born and raised in Montreal, they have formed a musical partnership that goes back to the 1980s, developing a musical intimacy present throughout their wide-ranging repertoire. Their complicity has been strengthened over decades of playing concerts and recording together. This, their ninth album for Chandos, continues their exploration of works by Debussy. The programme features transcriptions by Ravel, Dutilleux, Woollett, Durand, Roques, and the composer of some of his best-known orchestral works (Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, Nocturnes) and solo piano pieces (Clair de lune, La Soirée dans Grenade, La plus que lente, Rêverie). These sit alongside Lindaraja and en blanc et noir, original compositions for two pianos. Mercier and Lortie alternate the first- and second-player responsibilities in this mixture of works for two pianos and piano duet.

In June 2026, Metier proudly presents composer Michael Ellison's ground-breaking set of Three Transcultural Operas: Mevlana (Say I am you), Deniz Kustu (The Sea Crossed Fisherman), and bozlak opera Binbogalar Efsanesi (Legend of a Thousand Bulls), all performed with the Hezarfen Ensemble, the leading Turkish contemporary music ensemble co-founded by Michael Ellison. Ellison spent ten years working in Istanbul and has imbued these operas with an unprecedented level of integration of Turkish culture, music, and traditional instruments, seamlessly blending them with contemporary music in a unique and personal idiom. Ellison's is a music of singing melody, colour, and contrast, evocative atmosphere, and emotional breadth and has been described as "beautifully crafted, robust, and absorbing" by the American Record Guide. A new, 2026 High Resolution edition of Mevlana (originally released in 2014 on Metier) joins the newly recorded performances of Deniz Kustu and Binbogalar Efsanesi to bring together a first complete triptych of operas. Alongside the audio recordings, Metier will release the complete digital video productions of Deniz Kustu and Binbogalar Efsanesi operas recorded at the Istanbul Music Festival. Mevlana (Say I am You) was the first opera to include Turkish instruments and vocal styles, blended here with Western operatic tradition and based on the poetry of Rumi, the historic mystic. This hypnotic work dramatically traces the story of the transformation of Jelaluddin Rumi (Mevlâna) from ordinary scholar to ecstatic mystic at the hands of wandering dervish Shams-i Tabriz and features the dynamic vocal ensemble VocaalLAB Nederland with the Hezarfen Ensemble. Ellison's second and third operas are compelling tales that resonate with the global challenges of today, both adapted from novels by Yasar Kemal and directed for stage by Simon Jones. Powerful and dramatic, Deniz Kustu (The Sea Crossed Fisherman) tells the tragic tale of village-loner Selim and orphaned street-child Zeynel, integrating traditional Turkish instruments, contemporary elements, and Western opera singers. It's shocking events and environmental repercussions reflect our own current concerns. The opera also celebrates Istanbul, it's seas and marine life, contrasting the real and fantastical seascape of the Bosphorus with the dizzying, teeming metropolis of Istanbul and one small fishing village. "The Sea-Crossed Fisherman is an arresting picture of Istanbul, from it's glittering dawns to it's seething underbelly, and Kemal's... lyrical prose is a good fit for the American composer Michael Ellison... " -James Imam, Opera Magazine. Powerful and moving, Binbogalar Efsanesi (Legend of a Thousand Bulls) is based on the masterpiece novel by Yasar Kemal about the decline and disappearance of the last nomads in Turkey, as their millennia-old pastoral way of life is destroyed. The culmination of an 8-year European Research Council project, "Beyond East and West," Binbogalar Efsanesi is a unique work, sung in Turkish and integrates the dramatic, virtuoso style of traditional bozlak Anatolian folk music voices with contemporary language. Hale Tetik, of Andante Magazine, wrote: "The love, sorrow, grief, and rebellion, emanating from the voice of bozlak singer Fatma Aydogan, were engraved in our hearts." Michael Ellison has been commissioned and performed by major orchestras and festivals across Europe and the US, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Variances, Radio France, Grenoble Festival, New York Youth Symphony, Siemens Foundation, amongst many others. He was principal investigator on the European Research Council project Beyond East and West: Developing and Documenting an Evolving Transcultural Musical Practice (2015-2023) and the PI of the AHRC-Istanbul Development Agency supported project Transtraditional Istanbul. He teaches composition at the University of Bristol, England.

Composed by Michael Gordon in 2022, Field of Vision was first presented as a large-scale site-specific work for the Sunken Garden and the surrounding grounds at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in Katonah, NY. Performed on specially constructed and tuned percussion instruments, industrial metals, wood, and gongs, the piece is meant to produce a complex spectrum of overtones and resonances. The large number of percussionists, and the vast performance field, is meant to highlight a sweeping perspective and the architectural movement of sound. "We want to induce a quasi-meditative, almost ecstatic state - for performer and audience alike - where attention sharpens and dissolves, and thoughts focus and drift," Gordon explains. "In the end, I think the music emerges as an exploration of space itself. Who can tune space? The answer becomes collective: the performers, the instruments, the listeners."

SOMM Recordings continues it's much-admired and long-running series The Beecham Collection with it's 35th release of live recordings by Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The recording highlights the operatic side of Beecham with orchestral excerpts from Les Troyens and La Damnation de Faust by Hector Berlioz, and Tannhäuser, Parsifal, Götterdämmerung, and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Richard Wagner. Producer and audio engineer Lani Spahr, whose work for SOMM on Elgar from the Archives has been described by Gramophone Magazine as "astounding" and "revelatory," is once again responsible for the audio restoration on this release. The professional debut of Sir Thomas Beecham, Bart., C.H. took place on 6 December 1899 in St Helen's Town Hall when he was twenty years old. He conducted the Hungarian March from La Damnation de Faust by Berlioz with the Hallé Orchestra, and the music of Berlioz was to become one of the cornerstones of his repertoire for the next six decades. This present recording of the Hungarian March is a gloriously uninhibited performance that brought the house down at the end of a 1955 concert at the Royal Festival Hall. That concert also included two excerpts from Les Troyens by Berlioz. The Prelude to The Trojans at Carthage is followed by The Royal Hunt and Storm, with the Oxford Bach Choir providing the brief choral contribution from Nymphs, Sylvans, and Fauns. These performances are remarkable for their atmospheric poetry in the slower sections and the rampaging energy in the faster music. During the same year as his professional debut, a young Beecham made his pilgrimage to Bayreuth, and he became an enthusiastic, instinctual conductor of Wagner's music. The renowned music critic Neville Cardus once noted that, while German conductors tended to take a reflective and philosophical approach in interpreting Wagner, Sir Thomas concentrated on the dramatic and picturesque parts of the music. This concentration on colour and drama makes his conducting of the orchestral extracts included on this release both satisfying and full of character. These four orchestral excerpts were recorded at the Royal Festival Hall on 17 December 1958. The concert opened with the Overture and Venusberg Music from Tannhäuser; for decades one of Beecham's warhorses as a concert opener. Orchestral excerpts from Parsifal appeared regularly on Beecham's concert programmes, and this 1958 concert featured the Good Friday Music. Beecham conducted a number of Ring cycles during his career, and his affinity with the music shines through in this recording of Siegfried's Rhine Journey from Götterdämmerung. This release closes with the Prelude to Act One of Die Meistersinger, about which the review in the Daily Telegraph said, "the thickly overlaid texture of the overture can seldom have been given with such golden clarity."

SOMM Recordings is proud to present The Mira Ensemble, taking it's name from the Latin word meaning "wonderful" or "admirable" and comprising professional singers from across the UK. The group was founded in 2025 to champion the extensive, yet little known and often-neglected body of music for upper voices. Their debut disc focuses on the upper-voices repertoire by Herbert Howells, and it features entirely premiere recordings that shine a light on a rarely discussed part of his output. The ensemble is directed by Newcastle-born conductor, composer, academic, editor, and orchestrator Tom Edney. They're accompanied by pianist Nick Salwey, who has performed live on BBC Radio 3, ITV, Channel 4, and Classic FM. Nick taught at Oxford, Eton College, and Winchester College, where he was Head of Piano from 2005 to 2025, and where he continues to teach and work as accompanist. Herbert Howells (1892-1983) composed a significant body of lyrical, often pastoral partsongs characterized by rich harmony and expressive text-setting. Early partsongs featured on this disc include The Shepherd, a setting of William Blake; A Croon from an old cradle song; An Old Man's Lullaby by Elizabethan Thomas Dekker; and A Tinker's Song, an anonymous old London song from 1667. Two unison songs from the 1920s-an old rhyme The Wonderful Derby Ram and a Spanish Lullaby-hint at Howells's own childhood singing experiences. A Golden Lullaby is another setting of An Old Man's Lullaby by Dekker, and Howells's different approaches to voicing are striking. My Master Hath a Garden, on an anonymous text, reflects the influence of Gustav Holst, while the old rhyme Sing Ivy evokes some of Holst's folk song arrangements-though it shifts midway to a sound reminiscent of Tudor keyboard music. Howells's interest in dance forms grew from his fascination with English Tudor music, and he adopted a Sarabande in setting a text by the late-Elizabethan Thomas Campion, Tune thy Music. In the early 1930s, Howells dedicated a setting of one of Walter de la Mare's miniatures, Bunches of Grapes, to his two children. In similarly light-hearted vein, Sea Urchins with texts by Gladys Balcomb describes a seaside holiday across ten movements. Two poetic meditations on Elizabeth texts-Sweet Content by Robert Greene and To Music Bent by Campion-also come from this decade. Howells lost his nine-year-old son to polio in 1935, and Piping down the Valleys Wild-William Blake's depiction of a divine child asking the piper to continue to play-is the bittersweet offering of a grieving parent. Howells composed fewer upper-voices partsongs after the Second World War. Featured among these are The Key of the Kingdom, another de la Mare text adapted from an old rhyme; Pink Almond, with a text by the Irish writer Katharine Tynan, in Sarabande form; and the delightful A Christmas Carol, to a text by 17th century writer George Wither, composed on Christmas Day in 1957.

Between Fire and Silence is the debut album of the young Danish pianist David Munk-Nielsen, presenting a program that brings together the Romantic worlds of Robert Schumann and Jean Sibelius. Through this combination, the recording explores a rich musical landscape shaped by contrasts between intimacy and passion, reflection and intensity. At the heart of the album are two central piano works by Schumann: Kinderszenen, Op. 15 and the monumental Fantasie, Op. 17. In Kinderszenen, Schumann looks back on childhood through a series of poetic miniatures that capture innocence, nostalgia, and quiet reflection. Pieces such as the famous Traumerei reveal the composer's deeply lyrical voice and his gift for expressing profound emotion within a small musical frame. The Fantasie, Op. 17, composed shortly afterwards, represents the other side of Schumann's artistic personality. Vast in scale and emotional scope, the work is filled with longing, passion, and dramatic power. Written during a period when Schumann was separated from Clara Wieck, the Fantasie became a deeply personal expression of love and yearning. Together, these two works reveal the dual nature often associated with Schumann's artistic identity: the poetic introspection of Eusebius and the fiery intensity of Florestan. Complementing Schumann's music are selected piano pieces by Jean Sibelius from Op. 5 and Op. 24. Although Sibelius is best known for his orchestral works and symphonies, his piano music offers a more intimate perspective on his compositional voice. These miniatures are refined, atmospheric, and rich in subtle color, revealing a quieter but deeply expressive side of the Finnish composer. Placed alongside Schumann's Kinderszenen, Sibelius' piano works create a contemplative counterpart to the dramatic scale of the Fantasie. The program thus unfolds as a dialogue between two composers and two musical worlds, balancing Nordic lyricism with German Romantic intensity. With Between Fire and Silence, David Munk-Nielsen introduces himself as a thoughtful and expressive interpreter, presenting a debut recording that reflects both his artistic roots and his commitment to exploring the storytelling power of Romantic piano music.

The Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra enjoyed a long and intensive artistic collaboration, which came to an abrupt end with Haitink's death in October 2021. BR-KLASSIK now presents outstanding and previously unreleased live recordings of their concerts from past years. This recording of Shostakovich's Fifteenth Symphony documents a concert given in February 2015 in Munich's Philharmonie i'm Gasteig. This recording of Gustav Mahler's Fourth Symphony documents concerts from November 2005 at Munich's Philharmonie i'm Gasteig. Haitink first conducted a Munich subscription concert in 1958, and from then on was a regular guest with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra - either in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz or in the Philharmonie i'm Gasteig. This congenial collaboration lasted for more than six decades. The orchestra musicians and singers enjoyed working with him just as much as the BR sound engineers. As an interpreter of the symphonic repertoire, and especially that of the German-Austrian Late Romantic period, Haitink was held in high esteem throughout the world. With him, the symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich were always in the best of hands. Haitink's driving principle was to make the sound architecture of a musical composition, with it's complex interweaving, transparently audible; extreme sensitivity of sound was combined with a clearly structured interpretation of the score. In his Fourth Symphony, Gustav Mahler brought his preoccupation with the poems from Des Knaben Wunderhorn to a preliminary climax. Texts from the collection, published between 1805 and 1808 by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim, had already been incorporated into the "Wunderhorn Symphonies" Nos. 2 and 3. In Mahler's Fourth Symphony, composed between 1899 and 1901, the final movement features the Wunderhorn poem "Das himmlische Leben" (The Heavenly Life), which the composer had already set to music in 1892. It depicts a paradise beyond the grave, seen from a child's perspective. Mahler's sceptical view of the world of his time forms a utopian counter-concept to this "heavenly world."