It is uncertain whether the Missa Solemnis in C major was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or by his father Leopold. Whatever the case, it was extremely popular during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and was performed by Simon Mayr.

The Naxos Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition: Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. The Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition presents all Schubert' Lieder, over 700 songs, grouped according to the poets who inspired him.

Louis Spohr' life-long artistic commitment to elegance, sturdy workmanship and emotional reticence has burdened him with a reputation as a nostalgic conservative.

As one might guess from their descriptive titles, Jean-Baptiste Robin' works are evocative, poetic and colourful, abounding in strength, energy and passion.

New Zealand-born Edinburgh-based Lyell Cresswell has composed works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, choir, voice and solo instruments which have been widely performed and broadcast.

Playing the rich-toned and highly responsive Stradivarius 'Bonjour' cello of 1696, on loan to her from the Canada Council of the Arts, the Canadian cellist Soo Bae interprets Alfredo Piatti' technically demanding.

Ildebrando Pizzetti was hailed in 1921 by the Musical Times as 'doubtless the greatest musician in Italy today'. Composed in 1918-19, the powerful Violin Sonata opens with a turbulent evocation of war and continues with a prayer for the innocent be.

The music of renowned Chinese composer Xia Guan has been received with acclaim in Moscow, Vienna, Tokyo and New York. The solemn first movement of Earth Requiem, a commemoration of the devastating 2008 Sichuan earthquake, is heard here in an orchestral version that depicts ‘the suffering people who gaze upwards’. The epic Symphony No. 2 ‘Hope’ is a reflection upon the co-existence of good and evil in mankind, agony and hope, in music of considerable breadth and increasing warmth. Heroic drama animates the vividly scored Symphonic Ballade, which draws on the music of Guan’s opera Sorrowful Dawn, the story of China’s War of Liberation following the end of World War Two.

This third volume of Malipiero' symphonies features the most widely played of all his Symphonies, the strikingly original Sixth from 1947. The adventurous, at times dissonant Fifth, with it's concertante part for two pianos, juxtaposes chamber and orchestra.

Together with Casella, Malipiero and Respighi, Pizzetti was one of the leading composers of the generation of Italian composers born around 1880.

Born in the same decade as his more famous contemporaries, Malipiero, Casella and Pizzetti, Carlo Giorgio Garofalo composed a considerable body of sacred and secular music.

This is "as good a performance and interpretation - and technical recording - of Also sprach Zarathustra as one would expect to find" (Gramophone). Inspired and inspiring, Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra is one of a series of tone poems which pushed the form to it's limits. The famous opening introduces a musical interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical treatise, taking Zarathustra on a complex search through human aspirations. Based on an incident in Strauss's own life, the suite from Intermezzo distills domestic strife and misunderstanding into four jocular vignettes.

Richard Strauss revived some of his less well-known scores in later years, turning his richly imaginative fairytale opera Die Frau ohne Schatten into an attractively compact orchestral tone-poem. Strauss preserved the storyline and tuneful highlights of both this and his Diaghilev-commissioned ballet Josephs-Legende, which describes a biblical drama in soaring themes and splendid orchestral effects. The charming and lyrical Serenade for Winds, written when Strauss was only 17, drew the composer to the attention of Hans von Bulow, whose support and influence was of importance to Strauss's early career.

Written under difficult circumstances while he was employed at the Moscow Conservatory, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 1 held the composer’s affection throughout his life as “a sin of my sweet youth”. The melodic richness and skillful orchestration in his later music can already be found in this and the Symphony No 2, which owes its subtitle to the use of folk music from the Ukraine, a region known as ‘Little Russia’. These youthful masterpieces are heard here “in performances full of grace and zest. Schwarz is a passionate advocate of this music, and it shows.” (The Seattle Times)

Faced with the challenge of following in Beethoven's giant symphonic footsteps, Robert Schumann acknowledged this musical predecessor, but expanded his forms and structures into new and impassioned utterances. Inspired "by the spirit of spring", the Symphony No. 1 was swiftly composed and was a huge success at it's premiere in 1841. The Symphony No. 2 had a longer gestation, but for many has become a symphonic song of praise and rejoicing for which "Gerard Schwarz and his Seattle Symphony Orchestra serve as excellent guides". (Gramophone)