Singaporean composer and conductor, Darius Lim, incorporates theatrical elements into his choral compositions, taking audiences on an emotional journey. The 14 works in this album attest to his belief in the passion, joy and transcendence of the human spirit, whether as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, or to the beauties of nature and imaginary fantasy worlds. Lim's music embraces the mystical, the magical and the ethereal in ways that stir the imagination and touch the heart.

Reginald Smith Brindle served with the Royal Engineers in Africa and Italy during the Second World War, and later returned to Italy in 1949 to further his compositional studies with Pizzetti and Dallapiccola. The influence of Italian landscapes and culture can be found in many of Smith Brindle's works, including an extended combination of nostalgia and melancholy in November Memories dedicated to the poet Margherita Guidacci, and an evocation of the spirit of Gesualdo in The Prince of Venosa. The sheer variety of his guitar music is further represented in the expressive Preludes and Fantasias, the technical demands of the �le-de-France Variations, and the pedagogical but intriguingly atonal Ten Simple Preludes.

Leo Weiner was one of the most important of all Hungarian pedagogues as well as being a distinguished composer. The success of his Serenade, written when he was 21, was immediate - it's light, intimate and richly melodic qualities, some of which derive from stylised Hungarian dances, are still captivating today. The Divertimento No. 3 and Variations on a Hungarian Folksong mine joyful music from a collection in Budapest's Museum of Ethnography. The Violin Concerto No. 1 is a masterly orchestration of his Violin Sonata, Op. 9, alternating between the playful and the dramatic. The performance heard here restores 115 bars that were cut from the fourth movement, making this the first complete recording.

Paris was the musical destination for many Russian emigre composers between the two World Wars, with both Grechaninov, from an older generation, and Tcherepnin, from a younger one, living in the city. Grechaninov's Piano Trio No. 2 in G major is a brightly decorative work, whereas Tcherepnin's concise, refined orientalism in the Piano Trio, Op. 34 is influenced by French modernism and the Russian avant-garde. Daniele Amfitheatrof moved to Rome where he wrote his beautiful, sunlit Piano Trio, richly imbued with the aura of Puccini and Mascagni. The dazzling Piano Trio on Hebrew Themes by New York-based Jacob Weinberg incorporates synagogue and Russian tunes, quotations from Bizet, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann, as well as tango rhythms.

Michael Dellaira has become one of America's leading opera composers, receiving acclaim and awards for compelling stage works including The Leopard (Naxos 8.669052-53). Based on Elisha Kent Kane's expedition to find the Northwest Passage in the mid-19th century, Arctic Explorations is a study on the human desire to discover what lies beyond the boundaries of our experience. The effects of global warming and the plight of the Inuit in one of the most beautiful but endangered places on earth also forms part of the narrative.

Few musicians shaped the evolution of keyboard writing as profoundly as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His sonatas and concertos aligned technical brilliance with lyrical sensitivity to elevate the piano from largely domestic use to a powerful vehicle for solo and ensemble musicianship. This collection of hidden gems includes pieces spanning early childhood miniatures to complete sonata movements, minuets, a set of variations and a wide variety of incomplete works filled with Mozart's characteristic delicacy, surprise and operatic drama. Vijay Venkatesh's recording of Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 6 can be heard on a digital-only release, 9.70390.

Claudio Santoro's late works are marked by great concision and considerable emotional density. The music on this album was written in the last months of his life. The Viola Concerto and the Concerto for Chamber Orchestra juxtapose restless energy and expansive - if at times desolate - lyricism. The powerful Symphony No. 13 shows Santoro's mastery of orchestration and form at it's peak, and the compact Symphony No. 14 was to be the last in a cycle widely acclaimed as the most significant of it's kind ever composed in Brazil.

Giacomo Puccini achieved global renown as an opera composer, but the choral, vocal and orchestral works recorded here reveal little-known aspects of his output, including several rarities. Puccini's early training was in church music, with the Messa di Gloria a clear indication of his great talent. The recently discovered Preludio a orchestra shows his wider ambitions, with the Germanic influences of the Capriccio sinfonico resulting in music destined to reappear in operas such as La Boheme. The elegiac and prescient aria Ad una morta contrasts with the celebratory Inno a Roma, a rousing occasional piece that features plenty of Puccini's characteristic melodic flourishes. A digital EP of the Preludio sinfonico and the Requiem is also available for download and streaming (9.70398)

Jozef Wieniawski, younger brother of Henryk, was a prolific Polish composer and virtuoso pianist renowned throughout Europe. After studies in Paris he spent two years in Weimar studying with and absorbing the compositional style of Franz Liszt - Wieniawski's work combines the pianistic flair and poetic intensity of both Liszt and his fellow countryman Chopin. These qualities can all be heard in the virtuoso Polonaises and the tragic Ballade as well as the Piano Sonata in B minor - the pinnacle of Jozef Wieniawski's many contributions to the piano repertoire. Andrew Cannestra's recording of Polonaise No. 1 is available for streaming and download on a digital single (9.70388).

Rossini's Adina is a one-act farsa sentimentale or semiseria set in a seraglio in Baghdad where we find the Caliph determined to marry Adina who is also loved by Selimo. To this standard story Rossini brought an unexpected psychological depth, augmented by coloratura arias and male choruses of richness and daring. However, for unknown reasons he omitted a vital Terzetto, which has made the work problematic to fully realise in performance. This recording employs the Terzetto from Giovanni Pacini's opera La schiava in Bagdad, a solution first proposed in 1861, much to the benefit of the opera's pacing.

Gabriela Lena Frank's Conquest Requiem brings to life the complexities of colonisation, identity and survival through the story of Malinche, a Nahua woman from the Gulf Coast of Mexico who was given to the Spaniards as a young slave. Using a fusion of Western liturgical traditions, indigenous Nahua poetry and Latin influences, this powerful work deals with the fundamental question of how to reconcile a legacy of historical violence that continues to shape modern issues. Antonio Estevez's wildly popular Cantata Criolla - considered one of the greatest choral pieces of the 20th century in Latin America - is the composer's most celebrated work.

David Amram's career as a versatile composer, conductor and multi-instrumentalist has spanned more than 70 years. Recorded here in it's world premiere, Voyages for Solo Violin in three movements evokes ancient Egypt, Native American and African roots music and, in the words of the composer, "the tradition of the fiddler as a keeper of the flame." Ranging from prayer-like melodies to blues and polyrhythms, the Piano Sonata is one of the most jazz-influenced of any 20th-century work in this genre, while the Violin Sonata brings classical and jazz idioms together in music that inspired a collaboration with the writer Jack Kerouac.

Marches and other patriotic music frequently occupied the final place in Liszt's recitals, often emphasising the Hungarian cause, which Liszt supported. They also could have contributed to the previously mentioned mood of Lisztomania. It is therefore unsurprising that marches are to be found in Liszt's compositions and arrangements throughout his lifetime. They are represented here with works from around 1830 to 1879, all arrangements of other composers' music, which, in Liszt's hands, achieve artistic heights only found infrequently elsewhere. Given the common practice of the era for performer-composers to play their own music, Liszt could, through the inclusion of an arrangement of a well-known march, acknowledge others' music, and also pay respect to the culture of wherever the concert was taking place. In an era when recordings were not possible, piano arrangements of orchestral and vocal works were commonplace. Liszt cultivated this medium particularly successfully, creating arrangements of, for example, Beethoven symphonies and paraphrases of stage works by Russian composers such as Glinka. Arrangements heard here of marches by Beethoven, Giuseppe Donizetti, Glinka, Massenet, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Schubert and Szechenyi, indicate the breadth of Liszt's programming for his time.

The illustrious French organ tradition is celebrated in this album of Toccatas and Meditations, including masterpieces drawn from across the repertoire. Charles-Marie Widor was the founding father of the French Organ School, and his Toccata from Symphony No. 5 is a cornerstone of the organ repertoire. The Meditation by his contemporary Louis Vierne is among the highlights of Romantic organ works. Durufle, Boellmann and Guilmant are also represented, as is a beautiful Ravel arrangement. They're played on the magnificent Grenzing organ at Bauernkirche Iserlohn by Dariia Lytvishko - a Ukrainian-born virtuoso and one of the most lavishly gifted organists of her generation.

Friedrich Kiel enjoyed great prestige as a professor of composition in Berlin where his many students included Stanford and Paderewski. As a teacher he remained broad-minded and undogmatic. These elegantly poised works show a rather conservative craftsman but one who absorbed the influences of the best of his contemporaries - Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Liszt. The Suite is Beethovenian in style, while his approach in the Six Fugues is largely lyrical. A digital EP of the Six Impromptus is available to stream and download (9.70385).