Ondine's successful Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) recordings with the NDR Sinfonieorchester conducted by Christoph Eschenbach continue with another release featuring two major symphonic works by the composer: Symphonie ‘Mathis der Maler' and Symphonie in E-flat.

The orchestra's and Christoph Eschenbach's previous Hindemith release together with Midori won a Grammy Award in 2014.

The ‘Mathis der Maler' Symphony is based on an opera that treats the life of the Renaissance painter Mathias Grünewald. Hindemith started to work on the symphony already prior to the completion of the opera. The symphony was premiered with great success by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwängler on 12 March 1934. This performance was the last premiere of an orchestral work by Hindemith in Germany before the National Socialist regime issued a general performance prohibition applying to his works in 1936.

Hindemith wrote his Symphonie in E-flat during his exile in the United States in 1940. The Symphony is absolute music in the tradition of the four-movement symphony of Beethoven and the romantic period.

REVIEW:

Eschenbach’s trademark fondness for textural warmth and clarity is much to the fore in Mathis, where strings and woodwind are admirably numinous, the complex counterpoint in both the ‘Engelkonzert’ and the ‘Temptation’ beautifully detailed. The central ‘Grablegung’ is slow, rich-sounding and very introverted. The state-of-the-art recording, pristine and wide-ranging but with no sense of dynamic exaggeration, helps him at the big climaxes, which are imposing, at times even monumental, and there’s a beguiling elegance to the instrumental solos that thread their way through the textures. Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic on DG have more dramatic bite but this is superbly done nevertheless.

Eschenbach’s approach to the underrated Symphony in E flat, meanwhile, is epic, thoughtful and at times startlingly measured. He is wonderfully attuned to the complex trajectory of a work that looks back from a newly acquired place of safety on an old world irrevocably damaged. The opening Sehr lebhaft has terrific élan, the scherzo a supple, gracious wit. The orchestral clarity is again breathtaking. But placed beside the almost reckless energy of Bernstein (Sony—nla) or Hindemith himself (DG), you notice a grander manner and slower speeds. Eschenbach’s longbreathed way with the crucial Sehr langsam steers it closer to ritual mourning than private grief, though his treatment of the work’s closing pages, in which sadness briefly threatens to intrude upon gathering joy, is moving in the extreme.

-- Gramophone

This program by the award-winning Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under the direction of its artistic director and chief conductor Kaspars Putnins includes Franz Liszt’s (1881-1886) mystery-filled Via Crucis as well as four enigmatic and spiritual choral works by Arvo Pärt (b. 1935). Liszt’s Via Crucis is one of his religious keyworks representing his late modern style. Liszt joined the Franciscan Order in Rome in 1865 and remained as a devout Catholic until the end of his life. Liszt became interested in the Gregorian chant and the works of Palestrina. His stay in Rome inside the Vatican walls inspired him to write several religious works, including the Via Crucis. During Liszt’s lifetime, and even today, his religious works were somewhat neglected: Via Crucis was completed in 1879, but not premiered until 1929. This recorded version for choir and piano features Kalle Randalu, one of Estonia’s internationally most well-known pianists. This recording includes Arvo Pärt’s first choral work, Solfeggio, from the 1960s, which is already looking towards his later style. Pärt has described his Summa from 1977 as his “most strict and enigmatic work” in his series of works in the tintinnabuli style. The two other choral works are based on biblical passages from the Gospels of Luke and Matthew.

Classical Music

Ondine’s releases on Baltic composers continue with a new exciting release featuring recent orchestral compositions by New York-based Lithuanian composer Žibuokle Martinaityte (b. 1973) composed within a span of six years performed by Lithuanian orchestras conducted by the young talented Lithuanian conductor Giedre Slekyte and pianist Gabrielius Alekna as soloist. Martinaityte was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020. Among her output are impressive orchestral compositions with evocative titles and beautiful orchestral textures with precision to detail. The most recent of the works, Saudade (2019) symbolizes the stratum of multiple yearnings: sadness for missing and happiness for experiencing the past. Millefleur (2018) is a work that the composer has described as “acoustic hedonism, a search for acoustic pleasures”. Martinaityte’s Chiaroscuro trilogy (2017) is a 3-movement work for piano and strings, reflecting the very essence of our existence; the various grades of darkness and light. Horizons (2013) was written in New York and Lithuania and was inspired by two movies, Cloud Atlas and The Hours as well as Italo Calvino’s novel If on a winter’s night a traveler. In this work the listener travels through one story to another.

REVIEWS:

When listening to Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, you might be tempted to assign her to a school. The composer clearly likes extended time scales and slowly mutating materials, so does that make her a Minimalist? Further evidence for such a label includes praise she has received from the composer Ingram Marshall.

The Ondine imprint’s new album-length survey of her orchestral music, “Saudade,” doesn’t radically upend such a classification—though it does complicate the story. While the title track invites comparison to works like John Luther Adams’s calmly roiling “Become Ocean,” other pieces on the album show off Martinaityte’s distinctiveness.

She can create hovering nimbus clouds of harmony with the best of them. Yet she’s not afraid to throw a thunderbolt through her subtle, scenic designs. Midway through the otherwise beatific “Millefleur,” a percussive edge emerges, offering an unexpected martial cast to the work. And on “Horizons,” as played by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, the handoffs between strutting flutes and stark strings also serve notice regarding this composer’s winning unpredictability.

-- New York Times

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė (b. 1973) is a Lithuanian composer whose orchestral music has links to the French Spectral school, Minimalism, and the world of Pärt, Silvestrov, and the Eastern European “Spiritual Minimalists.” She is interested in sonority (like the Spectralists), but her sonorities, while they sometimes employ avant-garde playing techniques, are not necessarily dissonant. Martinaitytė has moved beyond shock value: She uses tonal harmonies and, while her textures are highly imaginative, she tends to avoid ugly noise. Nor is her music simply feel-good New Age doodling: she recognizes the symphony orchestra has immense power, which she summons up expertly at climactic moments. The performances are dazzling, and the sound picture captures everything in a satisfying balance. I heartily recommend this program to listeners who think they may not like it.

-- Fanfare

Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov (b. 1937) is an important contemporary voice in vocal music, a fact highlighted by this new release of recent, spiritual, hauntingly beautiful vocal works, sung by the Latvian Radio Choir under their director Sigvards Kļava. During his artistic career Silvestrov has explored a number of musical styles and techniques; the demise of the Soviet Union, however, enabled Silvestrov to openly compose works of religious import, inspired and influenced by his love of the Russian Orthodox Church and imbued with his own unique sound.

Classical Music

Ondine is proud to release its 17th album together with the award-winning Latvian Radio Choir and conductor Sigvards Kļava dedicated to a cappella words by Anton Brucker. Anton Bruckner (1824–1896) is known as one of the greatest of 19th century symphonists. Yet, also choral music formed an integral part of the composer’s output. This album includes a selection of smaller choral works written between the years 1848 and 1892. Many of these works were long forgotten. Yet after a long stretch on the periphery of the choral world, Bruckner’s motets have now finally returned to a broader consciousness. The Latvian Radio Choir (LRC) ranks among the top professional chamber choirs in Europe and its refined taste for musical material, fineness of expression and vocal of unbelievably immense compass have charted it as a noted brand on the world map. The repertoire of LRC ranges from the Renaissance music to the most sophisticated scores by modern composers; and it could be described as a sound laboratory –the singers explore their skills by turning to the mysteries of traditional singing, as well as to the art of quartertone and overtone singing and other sound production techniques. The choir has established a new understanding of the possibilities of a human voice; one could also say that the choir is the creator of a new choral paradigm: every singer is a distinct individual with his or her own vocal signature and roles in performances.

REVIEW:

It is probably heretical to say so, but I have to confess that I listen to Bruckner’s choral music far more often (and with more satisfaction) than I listen to his symphonies. In part this is because I generally find more delight in the sound of a choir than in that of a symphony orchestra. But another – more important - factor is that the relative brevity of, say, Bruckner’s motets offers the composer less opportunity for the kind of prolixity which, to my mind, is all too common in his symphonies (I feel sure that by now, I shall have offended some readers!).

The ‘concise’ Bruckner is to be found, above all, in his motets. In the symphonies the affirmations of glory and the passages of spiritual radiance have to be discovered amidst very different materials, whereas they permeate every bar of the best of his motets. This, it seems to me, is a context in which that over-used slogan “small is best” really rings true. The thirty-four extant motets by Bruckner were written between 1835 (as an 11/12 year- old) and 1892 (four years before his death). Where Brahms, being a Protestant, found primary inspiration for his motets in those of Bach, the ardent Roman Catholic Bruckner turned to Renaissance polyphony, and to Palestrina in particular, for his models. Bruckner does not seem to have had, at any point, a formal relationship with the Cecilian movement for the reform of church music, but he clearly seems to have shared some of that movement’s important principles – such as the admiration of Palestrina and the belief that the structures of Gregorian chant should be fundamental to church music; Bruckner also shared the Cecilian dislike of over-theatrical church music. Such affinities are evident in motets like ‘Os Justi’, ‘Ave Maria’, ‘Locus iste’ and ‘Tota pulchra es Maria’.

Simple (though some have called it only ‘deceptively simple’) yet sublime, ‘Locus iste’ is a well-nigh perfect example of the motets written by the mature Bruckner, characteristic, that is, of the realization of those Brucknerian/Cecilian principles outlined above. The performance here by the Latvian Radio Choir brings out the distinctive qualities of the piece (and of the choir) – precise yet intense, fervent yet restrained, voices perfectly blended, with the basses wonderfully rich without the vocal balance being disturbed. Under the direction of Sigvards K?ava the result is both prayer-like and exalted, in the certainty of the faith expressed. ‘Locus iste’ was written for the dedication of theVotivkapelle (a beautiful chapel well worth visiting) at the new Cathedral in Linz (the building of which began in 1862). It was written in Vienna during Bruckner’s time as Professor of Harmony and Counterpoint at the Conservatory. It sets a three-line text – “Locus iste a Deo factus est, / inestimabile sacramentum, / irreprehensibilis est.”. (The text is drawn from Genesis 28:16 and Exodus 3:15). Bruckner’s setting begins in quiet calm, but still has a strong sense of confident affirmation. The strength of feeling gradually increases, but Bruckner avoids any sense of the excessively dramatic – the loudest dynamic marking is only mf. Yet, given the quietness around it, this is powerfully effective. Bruckner’s effects, indeed, are achieved very economically, as, when the first line is repeated, one is startled to find that the closing phase (“factus est”) is omitted and its place is taken by a beautiful melisma (the only one in the piece) on the word “Deo”. Lovely as the motet is, its power resides, in part, in what is not done, what is, as it were, held in reserve – a musical strategy which recognizes the divine power by being humble before it.

The use of the idiom of traditional chant – a fondness for which, as suggested earlier, Bruckner shared with the Cecilians – is especially successful in ‘Os Justi’. It is worth noting that this motet is dedicated to Ignaz Traumhiler, Regens Chori at The Abbey of St. Florian and an enthusiastic advocate of the Cecilian movement. As the booklet notes by J?nis Torg?ns observe, “in a feature that is quite striking for this period in Bruckner’s output (c.1875-1885), the piece combines the archaic colours of ancient modes (Lydian, Phrygian, etc.) with his [i.e. Bruckner’s] characteristic harmonic language.” The setting also includes, as Torg?ns points out, a clear allusion to the “‘faith’ motto from Parsifal” and “a marked and extensive fugato”. This, then, is a far more complex piece than ‘Locus iste’, a perfect example of multum in parvo, with so much happening, musically speaking, in a piece that takes little more than four minutes to sing. Such a mixture of ancient and modern in the work of one of our own contemporaries might seem like sophisticated postmodernism; in Bruckner it speaks of the pursuit of an idiom which is ‘outside time’. Put side by side, ‘Os Justi’ and the utter simplicity of Bruckner’s ‘Ave Maria’, and it is very clear how variously Bruckner makes use of the motet form. So, for example, in other motets Bruckner uses Phrygian resources to create pieces which are very much in the spirit of ancient chant, even if they don’t quote it directly – such as ‘Pangelingua et Tantum Ergo’, ‘Tota pulchra es Maria’ and ‘Vexilla Regis’ (all three are discussed in perceptive detail in Anthony F. Carver’s article ‘Bruckner and the Phrygian Mode’ in Music and Letters, 86 (1), 2005, pp.74-99).

Bruckner is, at times, both harmonically and dynamically adventurous in his motets. One vivid example of this is ‘Christus factus est’, in which violent dynamic contrasts (of a sort which Ignaz Traumhiler might not have approved of), such as that between the fff climax at “quod est super omne nomen” and the ppp at the very close of the motet. ‘Virga Jesse’ (written for Traumhiler) is also very dramatic. It begins quietly (p) and ends even more quietly (pp); in between there are several climaxes, each followed by a fermata. The result is highly expressive, a vivid musical embodiment of the emotions of the text – the gradual Virga Jesse floruit – not least in the wonderful closing Alleluia (bars 63-91).

The Kronstorfer Messe – an a cappella setting, minus Gloria and Credo – is an early work, written when Bruckner was a schoolteacher’s assistant in Kronstorf in Upper Austria in his twenties. It makes very clear his attachment to Palestrina – the brief discussion in James Garratt’s Palestrina and the German Romantic Imagination (CUP, 2004) is worth reading. It is performed very infrequently and has rarely been recorded. Even in a performance by a high-quality choir such as the Latvian Radio Choir, it isn’t hard to see why. The young Bruckner’s respect for tradition seems to inhibit him and the resulting work is relatively lifeless; it lacks the variety and vitality necessary to bring its four movements (Kyrie-Sanctus-Benedictus-Agnus Dei) fully alive. It is useful to have a well-sung recording of the work available (primarily as an aid to understanding Bruckner’s later development), but I can’t help wishing that the choice had been made to record more of Bruckner’s motets (perhaps ‘Inveni David’ and ‘Afferentur regi - see also below), rather than this pleasant but rather limited work.

The singers of the Latvian Radio Choir impress in every work on this disc. If I have a ‘complaint’ it concerns a matter of omission rather than commission. I very much regret the absence of ‘Ecce sacerdos magnus’, a favourite of mine since I first heard it more than 50 years ago.

Hitherto, I have most often turned to recordings of Bruckner’s motets on two Hyperion discs: by the Corydon Singers conducted by Matthew Best (CDA66062) and by Polyphony, directed by Stephen Layton (CDA67629). In future I shall be at least as likely (if not more so) to take this disc from my shelves.

– MusicWeb International (Glyn Pursglove)

This new album release by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu presents a new contemporary voice within Finland’s contemporary music scene: Antti Auvinen. This album includes three recent orchestral works by the composer marked by highly pressurised and explosive rhythms and sounds.

The premieres of Antti Auvinen’s (b. 1974) Junker Twist (2015) and Himmel Punk (2016) in the mid-2010s electrified the scene of Finland’s contemporary music: music critics felt that a new major voice in the country’s music scene had been born. Auvinen’s works are often thematically connected to events in the surrounding society. Junker Twist (2015) deals with the topic of rising neo-Nazist ideologies, while Himmel Punk (2016) takes a stand against religious discrimination. The most extensive work of this album, Turbo Aria (2017/2018), is partially based on arias sung by Finnish sopranos a century ago. These ‘arias’ sung by Alma Fohström, Aino Ackté and Järnefelt and the sounds of the accompanying instruments are augmented by the crackles, pops, hisses and other mechanical noises made by the original discs. Yet the work also has a second underlying theme: the refugee crisis. Is this program music? Perhaps – but it does not matter, because the music is equally impressive with the narrative or without it. In 2016, Auvinen was awarded with the Teosto award, one of the biggest music awards in the Nordic countries.

Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks (b. 1946) is one of the most prominent names among living composers today. This album by the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andris Poga includes the first recording of Vasks’ atmospheric and pastoral Oboe Concerto written for the centenary celebrations of Latvia’s independence in 2018 and performed by one of today’s leading oboists, Albrecht Mayer. The new concerto is coupled with two early orchestral works from the 1980s, Vestijums and Lauda – both musical manifestations from the final years of the Soviet Union when occupied Latvia started its peaceful fight to regain the country’s independence.

REVIEW:

Although he was a septuagenarian when he composed this Oboe Concerto in 2018, on a commission from oboist Albrecht Mayer, the music of composer Pēteris Vasks has continued to evolve. The inclusion here of two of Vasks’ 1980s orchestral works is to the point, for they are clearly works of the same composer as the Oboe Concerto, showing a characteristic departure from Baltic minimalism in a Romantic direction. Yet Vasks’ weaving of Romantic and minimalist has deepened over the years. One feels that the performances here by are unusually committed; the effect is hypnotic. The detailed notes, providing a good deal of context relevant to the development of Vasks’ increasingly influential music, form another attraction.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

Austrian composer Thomas Larcher (b. 1963) is one of the great symphonists of our era. This album by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Hannu Lintu includes the first recording of his 2nd Symphony, ‘Kenotaph’, and the song cycle ‘Die Nacht der Verlorenen’ performed by the world-known baritone Andrè Schuen. Larcher’s symphony was written in 2015–2016 to a commission from the National Bank of Austria for its bicentenary. The premiere was given by the Vienna Philharmonic under Semyon Bychkov at the Musikverein in Vienna in June 2016. Larcher’s work, originally intended as a concerto for orchestra, engages with tradition as a fertile background, while still embodying the sound and consciousness of our time. The subtitle to Larcher’s work was motivated by the painful awareness of the thousands of refugees who have drowned in the Mediterranean. The work can also be understood as a more general meditation on human tragedy and an exploration of profound existential issues. Larcher ties the material of the work together with a strong sense of dramaturgy, intense emotional expression and a feeling for musical narrative. The song cycle ‘Die Nacht der Verlorenen’ for baritone and large ensemble sets fragments by Ingeborg Bachmann (1926–1973) that were posthumously published. Bachmann’s dark texts inspired Larcher to write intense and compelling music that is entirely in tune with the mood of the poems. Overall, the work is dominated by slow, meditative and often dreamlike and unreal moods, effectively underpinned by delicate and carefully designed scoring that conjures up a multitude of colors and shades.

REVIEW:

This release...offers an excellent musical programming concept, with all three works captured live in performances that are absolutely stunning and fully competitive with the best available. Both the Bartók and Martinů pieces were composed during their respective composers’ exile in America, while Gideon Klein’s Partita (an arrangement for string orchestra of his String Trio), is the result of “internal exile” in the Terezín concentration camp. All three men found ways to continue making music despite displacement, personal misfortune, and against the background of the rise of Nazism and the onset of war. More to the point, the program works because it offers plenty of purely musical contrast and variety.

Martinů’s Memorial to Lidice, a town wiped out by the Nazis as an act of retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, is a harrowing but ultimately hopeful orchestral elegy that receives the most gut-wrenching performance yet recorded. Eschenbach is about 50 percent slower than Ancerl (or anyone else), but he uses the extra time to excellent effect, revealing every luminous detail of Martinů’s orchestration and building the music to a shattering climax, with Beethoven’s Fifth balefully intoned by the horns. Klein’s Partita has much in common with Bartók’s Divertimento, with its folk-inflected thematic material. Its central movement is a very attractive set of variations on a Moravian theme, and it’s clear from this performance that the Philadelphia tradition of great string playing is very much alive and well. Eschenbach leads a performance both warm and incisive, revealing a major work in the process.

The Philadelphia Orchestra already has at least two recordings of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra to its credit, both with Eugene Ormandy--a fine early stereo version on Sony, and a mediocre early digital remake on RCA. This newcomer clearly is finer than either of those, as exciting a rendition as any available. Eschenbach thankfully eschews the excessive slowness that has marred his recent Mahler performances and lets the various sections of the orchestra display their considerable prowess in what remains one of the repertoire’s great showpieces. Listen to the rush of excitement in the transition to the first-movement allegro, or to the beautiful balance between woodwinds and harps in the second subject; notice the brilliant brass fugato that initiates the recapitulation, and the driving coda. It’s the real deal, from the very first note.

The sonics are markedly superior to what Sony, RCA, and EMI used to get in any of the various venues that they used, at least in stereo. The microphones are close to the players, the better to reduce the occasional noise from the audience (the occasional light cough isn’t at all bothersome), but the orchestra can take the exposure, and the sonic impact is pretty thrilling. I’m pleased (and honestly relieved) to be able to recommend it to you in the strongest possible terms.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Since its foundation in 1985, record label Ondine has remained true to its guiding principle: an uncompromising devotion to excellence in recorded music. Over the past three decades Ondine has become a prestigious international label, and in collaborations with many well-known artists and orchestras the label has been honored with several major music awards. One of Ondine’s key missions has been to introduce new audiences to Finnish composers and artists, and some of the country’s finest classical innovators can be found by browsing the pages of Ondine’s continuously expanding catalogue. Through this catalogue we invite you to join us in exploring this fantastic repertoire! The catalogue album features German star violinist Christian Tetzlaff with virtuoso Romantic concertos by Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann. The Mendelssohn Concerto is one of the most frequently performed violin concertos of all time, with an unfailing popularity among audiences. Also included is Schumann’s more seldom recorded Fantasy for Violin and orchestra, which he completed shortly before writing the Concerto. One of Schumann’s last significant compositions, the long-lost Violin Concerto saw its première performance only in 1937, and was hailed by Yehudi Menuhin as the “historically missing link of the violin literature.” Christian Tetzlaff is accompanied on this recording by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra – whose Artist-in-Residence he became in 2008/09 – and their acclaimed music director Paavo Järvi.

Latvian composer Peteris Vasks(b. 1946) has earned much international acclaim through his deeply spiritual works of choral music, symphonies and concertos. Vasks’ list of works also includes several pieces of chamber music. This album by Trio Palladio from Latvia includes Vasks’ works for the piano trio. Trio Palladio is a chamber music ensemble of three established Latvian soloists, avid chamber musicians and acclaimed recording artists Eva Bindere, Kristina Blaumane and Reinis Zarinš. Each of them is the laureate of the Grand Music Award of Latvia, and in 2019 they were nominated for this prestigious award as a trio. Recently the trio had its debut recital at the London Wigmore Hall and the trio’s interpretations have been broadcast live on the BBC Radio 3,as well as the Polish and Latvian radio. Trio Palladio creates conceptual programs with rich variety of classical, romantic and contemporary chamber music, with particular focus on works by Latvian and Baltic composers.

REVIEW:

What I admire most about Peteris Vasks is his deep spirituality. It permeates all of his music, even his early avant-garde compositions. This release features three of his works for piano trio. All three are quintessentially Vasks.

Three of Latvia’s best chamber musicians comprise the Trio Palladio. Their performances of their compatriot’s music plumb the depths of Vasks’ works. The trio plays not just beautifully, but lovingly. And that makes this an album I’ll revisit time and again.

– WTJU-FM (Charlottesville, VA) [Ralph Graves]

Ondine celebrates Beethoven’s 250th anniversary of birth by re-issuing Olli Mustonen’s Beethoven cycle with the Tapiola Sinfonietta. The three volumes were originally released in three separate volumes from 2007-2009. Mustonen, described by The Sunday Times as “living dream of pianism”, is known for delivering fresh and visionary approach to standard works – this is evident in these masterful recordings of Beethoven’s concertos. Mustonen is a particularly fitting exponent for Beethoven’s music as the composer himself was also both visionary and revolutionary in his approach to tradition. The recording of Piano Concerto No. 1 includes Mustonen’s own cadenzas. Beethoven’s own Piano Concerto arrangement of his Violin Concerto is also featured – one of Mustonen’s signature pieces.

REVIEW:

Mustonen plays the five concertos of a piece, not starting out with Mozartean elegance in the first two and building up to mature Beethoven somewhere in Concerto No. 3. He attacks every bar vigorously and with decisive intent. In my experience, no one since Mikhail Pletnev’s highly original and at times eccentric cycle on DG has sounded so personal in music that too often trips off the fingers with glib sameness.

My overall defense of a cycle that will strike other listeners as totally arbitrary comes down to Mustonen being a composer, not a touring pianist playing subscription concerts. These are a composer’s responses to Beethoven, and Mustonen has the fingers to express them with confident assurance and at times with dazzling flourishes. In my corner this release is one of the most refreshing of the Beethoven year.

– Fanfare

This album presents a sequel for the award-winning album (ICMA Choral disc of the year) of Tchaikovsky’s sacred choral works by the Latvian Radio Choir and conductor Sigvards Klava. These two albums together form the composer’s complete sacred works for the choir. The All-Night Vigil Op. 52 for mixed choir, also known as the Vesper Service, was written between May 1881 and March 1882. It was first performed by the Chudovsky Chorus conducted by Pyotr Sakharov in Moscow at the concert hall of the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition on 27 June 1882. Tchaikovsky described the work as ‘An essay in harmonization of liturgical chants.’ For this work the composer carefully studied the tradition of musical practice in the Russian Orthodox Church, which could vary considerably from one region to another. This beautiful, yet rarely recorded work is accompanied by four other choral works all written during the same decade: Hymn in Honour of Saints Cyril and Methodius as part of commemorations of the 1000th anniversary of the death of Saint Methodius, A Legend, originally coming from the collection Sixteen Songs for Children, Jurists’ Song, for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in St Petersburg, and The Angel Cried Out, a beautiful traditional Russian Orthodox Easter hymn and Tchaikovsky’s final choral work.

This second album of early 19th century bassoon concertos by Jaakko Luoma and Tapiola Sinfonietta includes four concertos written for Frans Carl Preumayr (1782-1853), proficient and talented bassoonist who moved to Stockholm in 1802. Most of the works were taken with him on his grand tour as a soloist throughout Europe 1829-1830. Probably the best-known of the works were written by his Finnish father-in-law Bernhard Henrik Crusell and Franz Berwald, Sweden's most famous composer of the Romantic period. However, the impressive bassoon concerto by the Swiss-born edouard Du Puy is a gem that has been very rarely heard. In a similar fashion also the German-born composer Eduard Brendler has been largely forgotten by history. All four works are powerful, interesting, and demanding solo compositions which are also giving light to the music life in one of the Nordic music capitals 200 years ago.

This special three-album edition celebrates Peteris Vasks' 80th anniversary in 2026. The release consists of Vasks' first three award-winning album releases on Ondine. The debut album of Vasks' music on Ondine, featuring his 2nd Symphony and Violin Concerto 'Distant Light', was a major international breakthrough for the composer, earning two Cannes Classical Awards in 2004, including 'Album of the Year'.

Star-violinist Christian Tetzlaff, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor John Storgards present in this album two major British violin concertos written between a century, in 1910 and 2005. Elgar's passionate violin concerto, completed in 1910, is a classical-romantic violin concerto in three movements. This huge and highly emotional work was in the wake of modernism neglected for several decades before entering into standard concerto repertoire. Here Christian Tetzlaff follows the model of the early recordings of Elgar's concerto with substantially quicker tempos compared to most modern recordings, and having a great influence on the impact of the piece. Ades' violin concerto 'Concentric Paths', is already a modern classic and no doubt one of the most important concertos written during this century. With it's very demanding violin part the work has all the elements of a true concerto, allowing the soloist to sing with his instrument. The beauty of this music lies that everything is written so clearly.

- Series of award-winning recordings by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Nicholas Collon continue with a new album of orchestral works by Richard Strauss (1864-1949). This release includes Strauss' longest and final major orchestral work, the Alpine Symphony together with Four Songs, Op. 27 sung by soprano Louise Alder, one of the most in demand singers today.

This album by pianist Reinis Zarins and the Trio Palladio is a special personal tribute to composer Arvo Part (b. 1935), one of the most influential composers of our time. This album includes Part's timeless piano works together with a selection of his chamber works, including the famous Fur Alina, Fratres and Spiegel i'm Spiegel alongside his early works. The programme also includes two special dedications by two Latvian composers, Georgs Pelecis and Andrejs Selickis, who both as composers have been greatly influenced by Arvo Part's example and ideas. These two works, written in 2025 for Arvo Part's 90th birthday, receive their first recordings.

The final volume in a new groundbreaking and much-praised complete symphony cycle of Ferdinand Ries' (1784-1838) symphonies by the Tapiola Sinfonietta and conductor Janne Nisonen includes the composer's two final statements in the symphony genre. Like most of his symphonies, also Ries' Symphony No. 6 was premiered in London in 1822. His 7th Symphony, written a decade later, remained in the shadows and was published only in 2004. Both works, however, are full of discoveries.

Conductor Nicholas Collon's second Sibelius album together with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra focuses on works written by Sibelius just before World War I, and culminating in the 5th Symphony, one of the composer's symphonic key works. Two opuses for violin and orchestra, Two Serenades and Two Serious Melodies, one of Sibelius' most religious works, are featuring star violinist Christian Tetzlaff. Sibelius' music for Strindberg's Symbolistic play Swanwhite is a rarely performed gem with interesting thematic connections to other works included on this album, including the 5th Symphony.

Pianist Tuija Hakkila enjoyed a close friendship with composer Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023) that lasted for over 40 years until the composer's death in 2023. Tuija Hakkila played a pivotal role in Saariaho's creations for the solo piano and harpsichord. Although Kaija Saariaho wrote several compositions featuring the piano, the composer felt that writing music for solo piano was particularly challenging due to the restrictions of the instrument. Although few in number, Saariaho's piano works are 21st century gems continuing the path set by Debussy's late works and Messiaen.

This new album from pianist Peter Jablonski and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra under Lukasz Borowicz, includes the world premiere recording of pianist-composer Andre Tchaikowsky's (1935-1982) 1st Piano Concerto and the first studio recording of the composer's 2nd Piano Concerto together with the Piano Sonata.

- "Passionately played by the Tapiola Sinfonietta, under Janne Nisonen's direction, these skillfully-crafted works emerge as noble rediscoveries," wrote the BBC Music Magazine on the second volume in the ongoing Ferdinand Ries (1784-1838) complete symphony cycle by the Tapiola Sinfonietta and conductor Janne Nisonen. This Vol. 3 includes two delightful symphonies written at the height of the composer's creative period when the influence of his composition teacher Beethoven was less evident in the composer's symphonic writing.