Klesie Kelly sings Lachner, Schubert and Spohr

Pavel Gililov plays Chopin

This extraordinary album by the artist Agata Maria Raatz combines the best of two musical worlds: Interpretation and composition. The artist is not only a soloist, but also the creator of a new musical work - Reflexe 1766. The album forms a sound bridge between Mozart's time and our present, a musical reflection on past and present experiences. Inspired by a real journey through Switzerland in the summer of 2024 in the historical footsteps of the Mozart family, this album creates a multi-sensory sound journey. The experiences of this route have been deeply incorporated into the composition. A special highlight: the soloist wrote her own cadenzas for both recorded violin concertos. They are artistic statements, personal reflections on Mozart's music. In terms of sound, the recording moves between past and present: historically informed playing meets modern instruments. This subtle balance of tradition, authenticity and innovation creates a touching sound language and an immersive listening experience. Mozart & Modern not only invites you to listen, but also to experience it. The violin becomes a narrator between the times, an echo of Mozart's operatic voice and the voice of a contemporary artist. This album is no ordinary classical music product. The Swiss Mozart Route is artistically anchored in the European cultural heritage, in which QR codes, places and history have just as much a place as water, light, movement and silence. Mozart & Modern is a concept album that needs to be experienced - Agata Maria Raatz takes us on this extraordinary musical journey.

Palestinian-born musician Marwan Abado has resided in Vienna for nearly forty years. The album “Longa Vienna” emerges just before his reflective gaze at these decades. “Longa” denotes an oriental musical form introduced to the Ottoman Empire from Romania by the Roma people around the mid-18th century. Originally a fast-paced dance music signaling the conclusion of a concert, Arab musicians and composers within the Ottoman Empire embraced and further developed this form as a part of the Arab instrumental music tradition. “Longa Vienna” serves as a musical odyssey through Vienna – the cultural crucible of the city becomes audible, resonating with the vibrant life of the urban landscape, imbued with colorful, poetic, and intricately woven musical narratives. The contemporary Viennese sound, as interpreted by Marwan Abado on oud and vocals, Maciej Golebiowski on clarinets, Arnulf Lindner on bass guitar, Peter Rosmanith on percussion, with Syrian singer Dima Orsho as a guest, captivates listeners with its rich tapestry of melodies and rhythms.

Götterdämmerung ('Twilight of the Gods') is the final opera of Wagner’s epic tetralogy "Der Ring des Nibelungen" ('The Ring of the Nibelung') in which his visionary masterpiece reaches its cataclysmic conclusion. Betrayal and death, murder and remorse, lie at the opera’s heart, in a work that draws together every plot element in writing of blazing intensity. As the ring is restored to the Rhinemaidens, the age of the gods ends, with the opera offering the certainty of destruction but the consolation of renewal. Staged by the award-winning director Stefan Herheim, this innovative new production from Deutsche Oper Berlin features a leading international cast conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles. The release includes "Making Of" documentary featuring interviews with Stefan Herheim and Sir Donald Runnicles, and behind the scenes footage.

Enoch Arden is an important work by Richard Strauss that is unfortunately seldom performed. Set to words by Alfred Lord Tennyson, it was originally composed with a German translation of the text. Here, the original Tennyson text is untilized, and wonderfully narrated by Marina Sirtis, who was a star of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as counselor Deanna Troi.

Viviane Goergen has not only made a name for herself with her recordings of Ernst Toch's piano works, among others, through far-sighted repertoire enrichment, but also with an interpretation concept that offered new approaches for interpreters as early as the 1980s through the use of meditation, autogenic and mental training, among other things, which also benefits her Schumann recording from 1988.

In this recording, Viktoria Elisabeth Kaunzner has compiled a thrilling selection of contemporary works for violin and orchestra by female composers. She describes her vision thus: "I always saw Antonio Vivaldi as an important role model - as solo violinist, composer and mentor of orphaned girls who took instruction in the violin from him. He founded the orchestra of the Ospedale della Piet� in Venice with them, drawing connoisseurs and amateurs from all over Europe and beyond to hear his celebrated violinists. During my long period in Seoul as a practising as a professor of violin, violin soloist and composer. I heard and saw the ballet Giselle to music by Adolphe Adam and was enchanted by an orchestration completely new to me: the instruments of the classical symphony orchestra were augmented by a few selected instruments with silk strings and rosewood such as are familiar in east Asia. I found this combination of tone colours exceptionally attractive and resolved to try out this blend of sounds for myself at home in Europe and bring them to life in an ensemble of my own with selected virtuosos." Violin soloist and composer Viktoria Elisabeth Kaunzner is hailed by the press as a "cross-cultural traveller" for her idea of merging Eastern and Western traditions in music. It is one of her goals to "to feed the channels of the European ear with new things in an intelligent manner". "Like many composers who make music themselves as practitioners, she has a deeper insight into the music than others (American Record Guide)", a combination she pursues with passion that revives the tradition of the composing virtuosos of yesteryear." For that very reason she aims to encourage composers male and female to write new works for violin and orchestra.

This new album presents three major orchestral works by British composer William Mival, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins. Spanning two decades, the album features the expansive new symphony Vale, the contemplative Tristan - still, and the Welsh-themed Pluen (feather). Together, they trace Mival's engagement with tradition and landscape. From the concentrated focus of Tristan - still to the folk-song variations of Pluen and the broad, five-movement design of Vale, the recording offers a clear overview of Mival's approach to writing for large forces.

The Salzburg violinist Benjamin Schmid’s preoccupation with the violin works of W.A. Mozart has now lasted for more than four decades, was initially influenced by the then Mozarteum professors Sándor Végh and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and received numerous awards as his style of interpretation became increasingly personalised. His first CD recording in 1990 with Mozart’s Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg led by Hans Graf was also celebrated by reviewers as a discovery. 32 years and hundreds of performances later, Benjamin Schmid now completes his recordings of the violin concertos with the Sweden based Musica Vitae, of which he has been the musical director since last year, and describes his journey as follows: “As a violinist who grew up in Vienna and Salzburg, Mozart was ultimately always the most important composer for me; I defined this preference as early as elementary school age, and the interest grew with the discovery of the complete works of this probably at least most gifted of all composers. For me, the key to Mozart interpretation lies in the duality of singing and speaking; singing as immediate emotion and phrasing and articulation as form-giving grammar.”

Together with Op. 150, the Violin Duos Op. 148 and 153 form Spohr's last cycle in this genre. It is as if Spohr, whose last published compositions included the new duos, once again wanted to show all his ability to write large-scale music with the limited instrumentation. Ursula Schoch and Tjeerd Toch are both members of the famous Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Originally from northern California, Tyler Futrell is an eclectic Oslo-based composer. His music attempts to synthesise almost contradictory historical branches yet his goal remains to write coherent music combining intellectual interest and perceptual fascination. His influences include musique concrete instrumentale, sacred minimalism, late romanticism, spectral music, formalism, and contemporary choreography and theatre. Tyler Futrell's Stabat Mater immerses us in the rich history of this religious text. Preserving the melancholic beauty of the Stabat Mater settings composed over the last 600 years, Futrell exposes aspects that have previously been obscured and incorporates the concept of the glorification of suffering more generally, alluding to Samuel Barber's Adagio. A modern take on a sacred text, and music that raises such questions as 'why so beautiful?' and 'can we tolerate this beauty?' Two other works by Futrell are also included. Vuggesang - 'lullaby' in Norwegian - is a meditative piece directly linked to a quotation from Brahms's famous piece in the Stabat Mater. Brittle Fluid is also thematically and causally linked to the Stabat Mater. The title evokes a frozen waterfall, and the composer wanted to represent something both static and dynamic in which death is also present, inspired by Tarjei Vesaas's novel The Ice Palace.

The composer Hans Schaeuble was born in Arosa on 31 May 1906 and died in Zurich on 19 December 1988. His parents were both from Germany. He created 26 operas of all genres and instrumentations, totalling 51 works. All four of these works were premiered before his death on 19 December 1988. He spent the last 20 years of his life revising his oeuvre, sometimes several times, but always marginally: - Wealthy from birth, he established the Hans Schaeuble Foundation to support young musicians and musicologists, who primarily take on the works of the founder. The Music for Clarinet and String Orchestra op. 46 from 1961 is the middle of three wind concertos that Schaeuble apparently composed according to plan between 1959 and 1962. The symphonic-concertante Music for string orchestra with obbligato piano op. 33, composed in January and February 1949, is Schaeuble's third of a total of five works for piano and orchestra. The Music for 2 Violins and String Orchestra op. 18 is the first of only two violin concertos from Hans Schaeuble's pen. Schaeuble wrote the only 'real' one, the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra op. 24, at the beginning of the war and completed it on 15 December 1940 in Arosa. Composed in Berlin in 1935, the present music op. 18 was published by Bote & Bock in Berlin in 1936, according to Schaeuble. However, no copy of it has survived either in the estate or in the libraries; worse still, the autograph score and the parts were apparently stored by the publisher and were destroyed during the war.

According to an old tradition, it is perfectly legitimate to arrange works for one instrument to another, if this does not detract from the substance of the work. This is what the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart likely told himself when he arranged three piano sonatas by his admired role model Johann Christian Bach into small concertos (KV 107) in his early years. This is also what Silke Aichhorn told herself with equal justification when she arranged one of these pieces for the harp alongside concertos by the German Johann Samuel Schroter, who was almost the same age. The pairing is no coincidence. Mozart and his father both admired the works of Schroter, born in Guben, Lusatia, who enjoyed a distinguished career as a pianist. In 1782, he succeeded the "London Bach" as music teacher to Her Majesty Queen Charlotte - unfortunately not for very long. Schroter died three years before Amadeus and at the same age.

Symphonic works by the long-forgotten Russian composer Vasily Kalinnikov

Ingrid Marsoner dedicates her latest recording to Franz Schubert’s late piano works and contrasts the “Four Impromptus D 899” with the more intimate and much less frequently performed “Three Piano Pieces D 946”. The Impromptus D 899 were composed in 1827, around a year before Schubert’s death and close in time to the “Winterreise” D 911. The composer was in a particularly gloomy mood at the time and it was certainly no coincidence that he chose such distant keys as G-flat major for the third piece, in keeping with the eerily moving beauty of these works. The “Three Piano Pieces, D 946” were composed in 1828, the year of Franz Schubert’s death. They were not published during his lifetime and were only discovered and published by Johannes Brahms. At the end of his life, Franz Schubert studied counterpoint intensively and even attended a lesson with Simon Sechter, Vienna’s first music theory teacher. In the middle section of the first piano piece in particular, one can discover a surprising polyphony for the composer. The CD concludes with the Allegretto in C minor D 915, also composed shortly before his death at the age of 31.

Music of Johann Sebastian Bach was always fundamental for Aliya Turetayeva. From the first listening of his Mass in B minor in her childhood, his music has accompanied her through her life. Almost every day she starts with the music of Bach in order to be "well-tuned" throughout the day. She always felt connected with eternity through his music and shared many happy and tragic moments during the years listening to his output. Bach's music was always a symbol of faith for the artist - many times in life his music gave Aliya Turetayeva strength to live further and not to give up; it will remain to be a symbol of faith for her, to be her Credo. Aliya Turetayeva was born in 1986 in Almaty, Kazakhstan and received her first piano lesson at the age of five. Aliya moved to Cologne, Germany to continue her studies at the Hochschule fur Musik und Tanz Koln as a student of Professor Pavel Gililov. She was awarded her Masters degree in 2010. As well as her work as a soloist, Aliya Turetayeva is a dedicated chamber musician. She recorded chamber music works by G. Crumb and A. Schnittke for WDR Radio Cologne. She also completed 2013 her postgraduate studies at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg under the tutelage of Professor Gililov with the highest mark.

Like no other, the universal artist Robert Schumann knew how to merge music and literature into a single entity. The CD "Mondnacht" is sounding proof of this. The combination of Schumann's music with Eichendorff's poems to form the Liederkreis op. 39 is regarded as the epitome of Romanticism par excellence. Chamisso's cycle of poems "Frauenliebe und Leben" is elevated to a highly emotional, personal level by Schumann's settings. With the lesser-known songs op. 107, the performers create a congenial link between these two song cycles. The poetic piano pieces "Arabeske" and "Blumenstuck" harmoniously round off the CD as a whole. Together with the sensitive pianist Mamikon Nakhapetov, the wonderful soprano Angelika Huber crowns her tenth art song CD with Schumann's masterpieces.

The recording of Mozart's Piano Concertos No. 20 and 24 is intended as a contrasting twin project to the first recording of No. 15 and 21 released on the Solo Musica label in 2024. The two recordings are like the "yin" and the "yang," the moon and the sun, demonstrating the multifaceted nature of Mozart's creativity. As a pianist, Zhen Chen wants to demonstrate his ability to develop and perform works of different artistic modes. Furthermore, since the pianist and the orchestra remain the same in the two recordings and only the baton has been changed-from the hand of the Austrian conductor Thomas Rosner to the French conductor Paul Meyer-these two recordings are an interesting pair, allowing listeners to savor the difference in the artistic direction of the two conductors. No. 15 and 21 are, in his opinion, the quintessential Mozart piano concertos in major key. They are gleeful, humorous, and uplifting, while No. 20 and 24 are the rare gems of Mozart's multi-movement piano works in minor keys. Out of a total of 27, he composed only two piano concertos in minor keys. They are among the few works by Mozart dominated by an unsettling and gloomy sense.

This Signum Classics release presents four orchestral works by leading Chinese composer Xiaogang Ye, performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Dane Lam. Recorded in February 2024 at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, the album features The Backyard of the Village alongside two concertante works: The Memories of Mount Jing Gang with violist Diyang Mei, and My Faraway Nanjing with cellist Guy Johnston, plus the overture The Loquat in Five Colors. Ye's music blends contemporary orchestral writing with Chinese history, landscape, and cultural memory, reflecting his distinctive international voice.

That's what happens when you let yourself be guided by prejudices: Emilie Mayer's contemporaries in the mid-19th century were unaware of the outstanding quality of her compositions because they only saw a woman rather than hearing the composer. You might think you missed something when you listen to the brand-new Super Audio album of the Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle: with chief conductor Mark Rohde on the podium, the musicians from Schwerin succeed in a salvation of honor that could not be more attractive.

Financially independent at an early age, Emilie Mayer was able to devote herself entirely to her passion for composing. Her misfortune: instead of salon music, thought of as the best women could hope to compose, she ventured into the grander forms. Eight symphonies alone came from her pen, as well as several overtures, of which only the "Faust" overture appeared in print during her lifetime. Interestingly, in her interpretation of Faust, Mayer places Gretchen at the center, the brooding seriousness receding in favor of Margareth's naivety and piety. In her earlier works, the composer orientates herself on classical models; the overtures No. 2 and 3 hint at memories of Haydn and Mozart. But she is also no stranger to the Romantic, and the D minor overture unfolds a world of sound reminiscent of Bruckner. The most extensive work of this commendable new publication is the "Sinfonie militair", whose genesis can perhaps be traced back to the influence of Mayer's teacher, the Prussian military musician Wieprecht. But here, too, Mayer finds a very individual approach: instead of triumphant sounds, an adagio of deep seriousness ends the half-hour opus - an ending that leaves room for far-reaching associations.

The pianist Andreas Eggertsberger, who studied in Austria and the USA with Karl Heinz Kämmerling and Oleg Maisenberg, among others, deals with the late works of three composers on his new album “Spätlese” (Late Harvest): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms and Frédéric Chopin. Whether a work is considered a late work has less to do with the composer’s age and more to do with where the breaking points and further developments are in a composer’s oeuvre. Some of the three selected masters were still young when they entered their late phase: Mozart was in his late twenties when he composed his Fantasia K. 475 and Sonata in C minor K. 457, Chopin was thirty-four when he composed his third and final Sonata in B minor, and Brahms was fifty-nine when he composed his Three Intermezzi Op. 117. Many a future is anticipated. Mozart, for example, builds a bridge to Beethoven with his Fantasy and Sonata in C minor. Chopin, on the other hand, takes a look at late Romanticism and beyond with his increasingly bold harmonies, and Brahms foreshadows musical developments that would only become influential in the 20th century.

Ukrainian mezzo-soprano Zoryana Kushpler was an ensemble member of the Vienna State Opera from 2007 to 2020 and performs regularly on the major international stages and festivals as both an opera and Lied singer. Kushpler pays special attention to music from and around her home country. Less than six months after the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in violation of international law, she gathered the Luhansk Symphony Orchestra, which had fled it's home town in it's entirety, in Lviv to record opera arias by Ukrainian composers and arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs for this CD production in collaboration with conductor Ivan Ostapovych. The resulting album "Ukrainian InterMezzo" offers an insight into the work of the most important Ukrainian composers such as Mykola Lysenko, Julij Mejtus, Borys Lyatoshynsky, Oles Chyshko, Viktor Matyuk, Anatoliy Kos-Anatolsky or Oleh Kiva, which is characterized by the special local color and themes such as love, longing and homeland.

Raff completed the score of his little-known opera Die Eifersuchtigen, heard here in it's world premiere recording, a few weeks before his death. With tight organisational control, a strong grasp of musical and dramatic relationships, and speech melodies based entirely on German prosody, Raff's final opera is marked by clarity, concision and economy of means. World premiere recording

The biographies and the music of Debussy, Ravel, and de Falla contain multiple hidden reflections, many elements that mirror each other. These reflections are so clear-cut that it becomes difficult in many cases to make out the original image. Music inspired by Iberia and the piano as an instrument were certainly common ground, on which the three composers engaged in a lively artistic exchange. The Romantic piano repertoire has appropriated music of the most diverse origins. Considering the particular instrument that originally inspired it, we could almost call the result regeneration rather than mere transcription, as if the music were reborn in it's pure form. The works included on this CD showcase guitar, harp and piano in just such a complementary relationship. Indeed, Maurice Ravel personally noted in his score of Miroirs for the pianist Vlado Perlemuter, that he should imitate the guitar or the harp in certain passages. In his article La guitara, Manuel de Falla in his turn writes of how marvellously Debussy depicts the artistic qualities of the instrument, without ever having used the guitar at all in his works. Having grown up with the Romantic tradition, many pianists of the time had difficulties doing justice to the new musical imagery of Symbolism. Chronicles from the time reveal a certain impatience in composers, who required from interpreters a new technique and a different use of the sustaining pedal. Unlike the piano, both guitar and harp emit softer, less defined contours, in keeping with the melancholic and equivocal timbres of Debussy and Ravel. Ever since his student days, Maurizio Grandinetti's main interest has been broadening the musical horizons of his instrument. He is currently soloist, chamber musician and improviser. His career so far has taken him to the most important festivals and concert halls in numerous European countries, Brazil, the USA and China. For 14 years Consuelo Giulianelli was professor for harp at the Stella Matutina Private Music Academy in Feldkirch, Austria. Alongside studies with Mirella Vita and Ursula Holliger, that she completed with distinction, she attended courses by Marielle Nordmann and Pierre Jamet, who premiered the Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp by Claude Debussy.