Long-time accomplices, the Messiaen and Xenakis trios join forces to perform an intimate and moving version of Dmitri Shostakovich's last symphony, and mirror the world premiere recording of Thierry Escaich's Vitrail, a spectacular fresco specially composed for the occasion.

This CD offers a beautiful live performance of the Concerto for violin and orchestra op. 64 from Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy with the Italian violinist Christian Joseph Saccon and the prestigious Orchestra of Padua and Veneto conducted by Maffeo Scarpis. Saccon trained at the great Venetian school of Luigi Ferro, then continued his studies by attending masterclasses with the most important European masters: Tibor Varga, Corrado Romano, Franco Gulli, Uto Ughi and Giuliano Carmignola. He plays a Marino Capicchioni violin from 1942 that belonged to Maestro Salvatore Accardo. It was the famous violinist Ferdinand David who commissioned the Concerto for violin and orchestra op. 64 from Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. The first performance took place at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig on 13 March 1845 with David as soloist. The performance was conducted by the Danish composer Niels Gade as Mendelssohn was in poor health at the time. The concerto, performed again in October of that year, with David as soloist under the baton of Mendelssohn himself, was a resounding success. Since then, the concerto has become a staple in concert programmes. In June 1846, the concerto was performed at the Philharmonic Society in London. Mendelssohn personally selected the Genoese violinist Camillo Sivori, a pupil of Paganini, as soloist. On 3 October 1847, it was performed by a young protege of Mendelssohn, the young Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim, who would go on to become a favourite collaborator of Brahms. The concerto is an elegant and skilfully crafted composition, where brilliance and buoyancy conceal the work's constructive genius. The Orchestra of Padua and Veneto conducted by Maffeo Scarpis interprets also the Symphony n.4 "Italiana" op.90 by Mendelssohn with fresh vigor in a brilliant live performance. It is surely one of the most celebrated compositions by Mendelssohn. The CD is completed by a precious bonus track with the pieces played by Saccon as an encore of the live concert: Capricci n.11 and n.24 by Niccolo Paganini, in which Saccon show all his virtuoso skills.

Johann Ernst, the third-born son of Johanna Sophia Siefer and Johann Bernhard Bach, was a musician and organist at the Georgenkirche in Eisenach. He was taught first by his father and then, from January 1737 in Leipzig by his uncle and godfather Johann Sebastian Bach, when he moved there to attend the Thomasschule and later to study law. He was forced to abandon his studies there in 1741 upon being called back to Eisenach to help his ill father, and though Ernst missed the musical activity at Leipzig he was persuaded by Johann Sebastian to remain by his father's side. He eventually succeeded him in the organist post at Eisenach in 1749. J.E. Bach's 6 Sonatas for fortepiano & violin are among the few works the composer managed to have published during his lifetime: the first three in 1770 and the remainder in 1772. Although critics deemed them to be 'too modern', they were received so well by the public that a new edition was released in 1775. Their title does not bear the designation 'with violin accompaniment' typical of the time but rather 'sonatas for fortepiano and a violin': the two instruments are afforded equal importance. In the final three sonatas, the structures become more complex and reveal inspiration from early proponents of classicism like C.P.E. Bach. Although Johann Ernst was known as an organist and harpsichordist, the writing in the fast movements and the lyricism of the slow sections, as well as his inclusion of dynamic markings, suggest that these works were designed for the newly invented fortepiano. All six sonatas are divided into three movements, alternating fast-slow-fast in line with Italian symphonic style. Other information: - Recorded July 2023, Capranica, Italy - Bilingual booklet in English and Italian contains liner notes by the artists, as well as their�biographies - Susanna Pisana plays a violin by Bernardo Calcagni (c.1740); Maurizio Paciariello plays a fortepiano built by Ugo Casiglia, after a model by Anton Walter (1798) - Johann Ernst Bach (1722-1777) was a distinguished composer of the Bach musical dynasty, though less recognized than his famous relatives. As the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach's half-brother, he inherited a legacy of musical genius. In his early life, Bach studied at the Lateinschule in Eisenach from 1732 to 1735. On 16 January 1737 he entered the Thomasschule in Leipzig, where he then became a pupil of his uncle Johann Sebastian Bach. Being a student of J.S Bach, he assisted his uncle in copying his music. Later he became Hofkapellmeister in Eisenach. - Johann Ernst's compositions, spanning vocal works, chamber music, and keyboard pieces, shows his innovative approach, blending the Baroque style of his family with emerging Classical elements. - This new recording presents 6 sonatas for violin and fortepiano. The writing of the fast movements and the cantabile of the slow ones, as well as the presence of dynamic indications, suggest that these works are aimed at the new piano, not the harpsichord. - Played by Maurizio Paciariello and Susanna Pisana.

The six piano sonatas by Brazilian composer Claudio Santoro document the evolution of his creative and formal development, from twelve-tone technique to Brazilian nationalism. The sonatas are performed by the composer's son, Alessandro Santoro.

Wieland Wagner's "Siegfried" live in Bayreuth (1955) Modl is present from the very first note, and, just for a moment, Wagner's idea of the union of man and woman into the perfect human being seems to have become reality. Brunnhilde's visions of fear are then of oppressive intensity, followed by moments of peaceful illusion and elemental power, before she unconditionally relinquishes her divinity. In her autobiography So war mein Weg, Modl confesses that the Siegfried-Brunnhilde interplay was the most difficult role she experienced in the entire Ring: "The part is short, but it is always a third above my register. I had to be particularly careful", something she had to do most of the time. What Wieland Wagner appreciated about her was that "her singing, personality, and acting formed an inseparable unit", most probably the reason he said of her Brunnhilde: "There are none like you!"

The Italian organist Marco Ruggeri offers in this CD a compilation of pieces by various author, chosen to enhance the acoustic qualities of the wonderful historical organ of the church of SS. Faustino and Giovita in Bienno. It dates back to around 1630. At that period Graziadio IV Antegnati (1608-1657) creates a 16-foot organ with an enharmonic keyboard with certainly 4 and possibly 5 broken keys for the Benedictine monks running the parish. In 1750 the instrument is restored, moreover, the organ choirs are replaced with others of a typically Baroque style while the organ case is preserved. Antegnati's organ still exists in 1822 when the scholarly Giacomo Simoni sends one of the Serassi brothers to Bienno recommending that all recoverable Antegnati material must be preserved, yet no agreement is reached. A few years later, an unknown organ builder adds typically 19th-century stops. Finally in 1891, according to the 1881 project, the organ builder Giovanni Manzoni of Bergamo, who had previously worked with Bossi and for a short time with Perolini brothers, restores and expands the organ. He initially works out a two-manual project, later he reduces the instrument to a single keyboard with 47 stops and 1823 pipes. The new structure includes also the 155 Antegnati pipes scattered in different stops, as well as 18 Principale pipes in an almost perfect succession and they confirm the original division. The latter group is moved to the 'organetti morti' (pipes placed in the upper part of the facade). The seventeenth-century case is totally preserved. In 1943 Armando Maccarinelli from Brescia carries out an extraordinary maintenance and remixes some stops. In 1961 Emilio Piccinelli of Ponteranica - without knowing Manzoni's project, found in the parish archive only years later - makes a radical restoration yet very respectful of the 1891 physiognomy. In 2017/2018 the Piccinelli family carries out a philological restoration bringing back the instrument to the exact conditions of 1891, on the precise indications from the Milan 'Servizio Tutela Organi'. The intervention is completed for the larger part by rearranging the pipes, recovering the material set aside and only with the reconstruction of 12 pipes of Cello.

Country boy Nemorino is determined to win the haughty Adina's heart, but she refuses to give him the time of day. Can Doctor Dulcamara's so-called 'elixir of love' work it's magic? Conductor Sesto Quatrini makes his house debut, as does soprano Nadine Sierra in the role of Adina. She is joined by Liparit Avetisyan, Boris Pinkhasovich and the incomparable Bryn Terfel as the genial wheeler-dealer Doctor Dulcamara.

In 2017, Croatian conductor Ivan Repusic succeeded Ulf Schirmer as chief conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra. In this role, he made his cpo debut in 2023 with works by the Swedish composer Gunnar de Frumerie. Now, at the helm of "his" orchestra, he is devoting himself to one of those classics that take second place to the undisputed masters of the era: Johann Wilhelm Wilms (1772-1847), who gained renown in Amsterdam as a composer, organist, and flutist. Two years younger than Beethoven, he was a devoted admirer of Joseph Haydn, whose spirit imparted a peculiar flair even to Wilms' later symphonies. The dramatic tone, which also characterizes long stretches of his overtures, never turns into something fatal and inevitable - and precisely, this balancing act gives the music of the man from Leichlingen in the Bergisch-Gladbach district it's unique charm.

Commissioned by Opera Ballet Vlaanderen at the suggestion of director Calixto Bieito, Les Bienveillantes is based on Jonathan Littell's novel, a harsh and monumental work in terms of it's length, subject, scope and depth - a bestseller in France, Grand Prix du roman de l'Academie francaise and Prix Goncourt, translated into over twenty languages - told in the first person by Maximilian Aue, a former SS officer. Together with Handl Klaus, who wrote the libretto, Hector Parra has achieved a musical, intellectual and human tour de force. These 3 b-records CDs, which inaugurate the new "Villa Medicis Live" collection, allow us to relive the extraordinary world premiere, bringing together a first-rate vocal team and the great conductor Peter Rundel.

With 37 confirmed trio sonatas to his credit, Giuseppe Tartini is the most important Italian composer of his generation for this type of repertoire. It may seem odd therefore that these works have been so sorely neglected; indeed, as of 2022 only around 20 per cent of the repertoire had been recorded and a critical edition had yet to be published. This state of affairs was largely due to confusion regarding sources, with many divergent interpretations and uncertainties regarding the dates of the handwritten scores. Some order has been brought to this originally chaotic situation by the research carried out by Juan Mariano Porta from 2018 to 2022 as part of his doctoral studies, the result of which was the inclusion of the trio sonatas in the upcoming publications of the Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Giuseppe Tartini, with advance materials made available to the Il Demetrio ensemble for recording. Giuseppe Tartini dedicated almost all his energy to his chosen instrument, the violin. His established corpus of works currently numbers 200 sonatas for violin and bass, 150 violin concertos, 37 trio sonatas, a handful of concertos for other instruments, and a small number of quartet sonatas and vocal compositions. Production of the trio sonatas began in the composer's late-mature years, and their style would seem to correspond to Tartini's final compositional period, described as a Drang nach absoluter Musik [urge for absolute music], which began around 1750 without a clear line of demarcation from what came before and continued until the composer's death. The trend was towards simplicity, partly deriving from Tartini's desire to put his theoretical speculations into practice. The trio sonatas no longer feature the virtuoso passages of earlier works. They present a binary form with regular phrasing. Their harmonic rhythm is slow, with the violins mainly proceeding in parallel triplets. The function of the bass is relegated one of harmonic support. This recording contains the sonatas G1, D1, d1 A1, A2, A3, A6, and a1, which date to Tartini's final compositional sub-period. They are little-known pieces, most of them hitherto unpublished.

Love and duty collide and nations clash in Verdi's political drama, starring Elena Stikhina. In this new production, director Robert Carsen situates Verdi's large-scale drama within a contemporary world, framing it's power struggles and toxic jealousies in the apparatus of a modern, totalitarian state. Antonio Pappano conducts Verdi's glorious, monumental score.

From the Second Empire to the Roaring Twenties, Alexandra Soumm, the Orchestre de chambre Pelleas and Benjamin Levy paint a ruffled, nostalgic and swaying portrait of the City of Light, spanning seventy years of music. This recording, a testament to the musical and human affinities forged over many years between these performers, is also a return to the sources of creative fount, with the first recording of Tzigane in the new �Ravel Edition� and the first recording of the orchestration of Emmanuel Chabrier's Bourree fantasque according to the sketches left unfinished by the composer. From the crinolines of Georges Bizet's adolescence to the wisps of cigar smoke in the dreamy Brazil of Le Boeuf sur le toit, let's immerse ourselves in an era when Paris set the tempo for cosmopolitan, carefree celebrations.

'I was drawn to an approach of dealing with the history of slavery within one's family, the ownership of a name and it's 'rebranding' - reflecting on the American Slave and how Black Americans deal with creating a sense of pride, familial storytelling and lineage in contemporary America. This notion of 'rebranding' extends to the 'Negro Melody' My intent with these arrangements is to acknowledge the impact of those melodies on current popular culture, and reflect that influence onto the orchestral stage - to create moments where listeners may participate vocally, with movement, or rhythmically clapping along - to maintain a sense of belonging and recognition - to create community around this music in the classical concert hall - to embrace where all contemporary American Concert music extends from, in my belief - America's mother-music: the Blues.' - Curtis Stewart

A celebration of Bohemian spirit and rhythmic brilliance, Antonin Dvorak's Slavonic Dances come to life in a vibrant new recording by the Czech Philharmonic, led by the masterful Sir Simon Rattle. These vivid orchestral gems, full of rhythmic vitality, folkloric color, and lyrical charm, are central to Dvorak's legacy and pivotal in defining a Czech national sound. Composed at a turning point in the composer's career, the Slavonic Dances radiate with joy, invention, and national character qualities that captivated audiences across Europe and beyond. As Principal Guest Conductor: Rafael Kubelik Chair, Sir Simon Rattle has already graced the label alongside the orchestra and Magdalena Ko�ena with Czech Songs (2024) and Folk Songs (2023). This release continues the exclusive collaboration between PENTATONE and the Czech Philharmonic (awarded Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year in 2024), committed to bringing Czech music to life on a global stage. It follows the acclaimed recordings of Dvorak's Symphonies Nos. 7, 8 & 9 (2024) and, 2025's winner of the BBC Music Magazine Orchestral Award, Smetana's Ma Vlast with Chief Conductor and Music Director, Semyon Bychkov, as well as Dvorak's Legends and Rhapsodies with Tomas Netopil.

Reinhard Goebel, the founder and director of Musica Antiqua K�ln from 1973 to 2005 and a professor of performance practice at the Mozarteum Salzburg from 2010 to 2025, continues to work tirelessly on creating and developing "new" 18th-century repertoire. In May 2025, he once again turned his attention to the masterful arrangement of Mozart's Gran Partita, K. 361, made around 1800 by Munich composer Franz Gleissner. New performances as well as a modern recording were both desired and expected. Goebel performed the works featured on this CD with the M�nchner Rundfunkorchester in May 2025 during their tour of royal residences and castles in Amberg, Ansbach, Dachau, and Oettingen, having recorded them in advance in Studio 1 at Bayerischer Rundfunk. Wolfgang Amad� Mozart composed the Gran Partita, K. 361, one of his most magnificent works, for the former Mannheim orchestra, which had relocated to Munich when the elector was forced to move there for dynastic reasons. This rarely heard work features an unusual instrumentation of twelve wind instruments and a double bass. When it was due for publication in 1800, the Munich composer Gleissner presented the music publisher with a masterful arrangement for a standard orchestra. Reinhard Goebel has repeatedly championed this outstanding arrangement, which was published under the title of "Sinfonia concertante" - and has now done so once again with the M�nchner Rundfunkorchester. He writes: "How barren and empty a world without arrangements would be! Nothing speaks against arrangements, yet the reasons in favour of them can be manifold and complex."

With this new B Records disc, the Miroirs Étendus company revisits one of the greatest classics of the Lieder repertoire, questioning the interpretative heritage that has long been associated with it. Pianist and artistic director Romain Louveau, baritone Jean-Christophe Lanièce and soprano Victoire Bunel propose a multi-voiced Winterreise that disembodies the overused figure of the Wanderer and favors the autonomy of Wilhelm Müller's poems. Like the Schubertian motifs that seem to appear of their own accord, only to eclipse themselves, the musicians venture a depersonalized interpretation that places the figure of the stranger at the center of this lyrical spectacle.

These idiomatic piano transcriptions of Khachaturian's ballet scores and incidental music are performed by Armenian music specialist Mikael Ayrapetyan. Includes the famous 'Sabre Dance' and 'Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia'.

The Italian organist Massimiliano Sanca proposes in this CD (Vol.2 of a project of five cds of Bach complete Organ works) the famos Triosonatas. 1733). In 1727 Johann Sebastian Bach started drafting a manuscript of organ music which included the Leipzig Chorales and the Canonical Variations BWV 769, as well as the six trio sonatas for organ (BWV 525/530). "Trio sonatas" in this case refers to the fact that the two manuals and the pedal are handled independently, though closely related to each other, in "a musical discourse, as if they were three different instruments dialoguing between each other through notes and figures" (N. Harnoncourt). We ought not to forget that in Bach's time, "to play" in the German language was not expressed through the verb spielen, as it is today, but through vortragen, whose translation means "to deliver a speech" through the organ, violin, and so on. Bach did not name the whole work, but he titled each sonata instead, such as "Sonata a 2 Clav. And Pedal by J. S. Bach". According to his biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, the trio sonatas might have been composed between 1727 and 1732, in order to introduce Bach's oldest son Wilhelm Friedemann (who was, from Johann Sebastian point of view, the most gifted of his sons) to the organ practice. As a result, my own interpretation is aimed at highlighting every technical, discoursive and sound detail that Bach teaches us through the use of rhetorical musical figures. The choice of registers in the recording and interpretation performed here is meant to "paint through sounds" the "colour" and feeling into the movement of each sonata, also expressed through "affections" in the different tonalities in a very crystal clear way. Massimiliano Sanca plays on the organ made by Ilic Colzani (2007) for the Sanctuary of Vallio Terme (BS). It is made with mechanical transmission, is strongly inspired by the production of the famous organ builder Gottfried Silbermann, who worked in Germany in the first half of the 18th century in close contact with Johann Sebastian Bach. But this is not a copy, but a totally original project that combines the particular sounds of the pipes made according to the construction specifications and the measures adopted by Silbermann.

Puccini's "Messa di Gloria" is one of the most popular settings of the Latin Mass, and is also featured on many concert programmes in the Puccini Year of 2024. The musical quality, energy and freshness of this youthful work ensured it's ever-growing popularity after it's rediscovery in the early 1950s. The composer even went on to quote some of the melodies in his famous operas, notably "Manon Lescaut". The "Messa di Gloria" was most recently performed on June 27, 2024 in the Herz-Jesu-Kirche in Munich by the Bavarian Radio Chorus and the Munchner Rundfunkorchester under it's chief conductor Ivan Repusic. To mark the 100th anniversary of the death of the great Italian composer, BR-KLASSIK is now presenting the live recording of this outstanding concert on CD. Giacomo Puccini wrote his "Messa a quattro voci con orchestra" ("Mass for Four Voices with Orchestra") between 1878 and 1880 as the final thesis of his music studies in his hometown of Lucca. The first preparatory work was done when he was just eighteen, and the young composer was only 21 when the work was first performed on July 12, 1880. The Mass remained unpublished during his lifetime but became immensely popular after it's rediscovery in the early 1950s. However, in the first printed edition and in later performances it was inaccurately described as a "Messa di Gloria", a term that in fact refers to a (usually shorter) composition consisting only of Kyrie and Gloria; Puccini's Mass is in fact a full work, the complete setting of the Latin Ordinary with Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus/Benedictus and Agnus Dei. Puccini had begun his work on the Credo as early as 1878. In the "Messa di Gloria", the choir takes centre stage with increasingly beautiful melodies; the solo parts for tenor and baritone are sung by Tomislav Muzek and George Petean. The approximately 45-minute-long work is complemented on this CD by Puccini's orchestral works "Preludio sinfonico" and "Crisantemi" - the latter in an arrangement for string orchestra by Lucas Drew. (Studio recordings from February 2023.)

The Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal and it's Music Director Rafael Payare explore Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and Le carnaval romain - two works that reveal the composer's flair for drama, colour, and psychological intensity. In Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz charts the delirious inner world of an artist undone by passion, hallucination, and obsession. From dreamy reveries to a diabolical witches' sabbath, the symphony is a milestone of musical storytelling. Paired with the exhilarating Le carnaval romain, this album captures Berlioz at his most imaginative and uncompromising. In a special touch, the performance of Symphonie fantastique features OSM's two newly acquired carillon bells - G and C - that expand the orchestra's sonic palette and bring striking brilliance to Berlioz's original vision. After their acclaimed PENTATONE recordings of Mahler's Fifth Symphony (2023), Ruckert-Lieder and Strauss's Ein Heldenleben (2024), and Schoenberg's Pelleas und Melisande & Verklarte Nacht (2024), Payare and the orchestra continue their compelling exploration of Romantic repertoire with this vivid Berlioz program.

Andrew Lloyd Webber is world-famous as the composer of the musicals Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, but his Requiem has also achieved international acclaim. Winner of a Grammy Award, this grand-sounding masterpiece of contemporary classical music, written in 1985, is dedicated to the memory of Webber's late father. The recording of a concert by the Munchner Rundfunkorchester on June 15, 2023, a tribute to the British composer who celebrated his 75th birthday in March 2023, is now presented on CD by BR-KLASSIK. This live recording from the Herz-Jesu Church in Munich features the Bavarian Radio Chorus accompanied by a select ensemble of soloists, under the baton of principal guest conductor Patrick Hahn. There was much surprise when Andrew Lloyd Webber presented his Requiem to the public in 1985. Although classical composers had repeatedly ventured into the spheres of the so-called "light muse", hardly any path led in the other direction - from musicals or operettas to the sublime heights of sacred music. The fact that a composer like Franz von Suppe also wrote a requiem as well as operettas is a rarity. Lloyd Webber's career in the "serious" genre, however, was laid in his cradle: his father, William Lloyd Webber (1914-1982), had worked his way up from humble beginnings to become one of the leading church musicians of his day. He encouraged the classical training of his sons Andrew (b. 1948) and Julian (b. 1951), an excellent cellist. Andrew found his niche in the entertainment industry. His song "Try it and see", written for the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest, was not yet a hit, but from a pop cantata he developed his first successful piece Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968), and from the concept album Jesus Christ Superstar, in which "Try it and see" also found a new home, he created the rock musical of the same name (1971). With Evita (1976), Cats (1981), Starlight Express (1984) and The Phantom of the Opera (1986), Lloyd Webber repeatedly demonstrated his flair for contemporary material that lent itself to a new kind of treatment and appealed to a wide audience. By the mid-1980s, he was the most commercially successful composer of musicals. As Requiem Masses had been abolished in Anglican England since the Reformation, the composer did not have to consider liturgical functionality or ecclesiastical suitability. Verdi had demonstrated that the texts of the Latin Requiem Mass provided an excellent model for grand opera. And Lloyd Webber found inspiration for the lyrical dimension with hit potential in composers such as Gabriel Faure. The texts of the Requiem were rearranged with a sense of dramaturgy. The repeated insertion of the pithy lines "Requiem aeternam" and "Dies irae" gave them a fundamental, leitmotif-like character. The theatrical potential of the sequence ("Dies irae") was expanded, as it had been with Verdi, into a kaleidoscope of human emotions in the face of death and the Last Judgement. In a poll conducted by BBC Radio 4 a few years ago, listeners voted Barber's Adagio for Strings the "saddest piece in the world". There is no doubt that it's broad musical lines have an elegiac, almost religious tone - something the composer himself emphasised in the choral version, written as an Agnus Dei. However, the Adagio's association with farewell and mourning was not intended by Barber, who conceived of his work as purely instrumental. It has however been used on repeated occasions to mark the deaths of prominent Americans, including Alfred Einstein, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. As funeral music, the Adagio has also been a feature of several films since the 1980s, and two lines of tradition have emerged. On the one hand, the Adagio is often associated with the death of a main character, as in the final transfiguration of the Elephant Man in David Lynch's film of the same name (1980) or, in a light-hearted alienation of the theme, in The Fabulous World of Amelie (2001), where the heroine imagines her own death being televised. On the other hand, the austere serenity of the Adagio is contrasted with images of violence and suffering, most emphatically in Oliver Stone's anti-war film Platoon (1986). All these traditions came together in the days after September 11, 2001, when Barber's Adagio was played over and over again by American radio and television stations - both as a tribute to the victims of the attacks and as a musical expression of American patriotism. Particularly memorable was the live performance on September 15, 2001, when the American conductor Leonard Slatkin conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Last Night of the Proms in London, leaving the hushed audience deeply moved. Thanks to it's melancholic yet comforting sound, the Adagio for Strings was often the piece of choice internationally during the Covid-19 pandemic to commemorate the many victims - online or "open air", on radio and television, and at concerts and other events.

Beethoven Symphony No. 2 in D major Op. 36 was written in 1802 the same year of the Heilegenstadt Testament, the letter never sanded to all his brothers, where the Magister self confessed with deep soul and pain his inability in having normal relationship with the people and the society due to his deafness. even the Symphony No. 2 has been mainly composed in Heiligenstadt it did not represent a close correspondence between the art and life of the german composer. Symphony No. 2 has a more contradictory character to Symphony No. 1 and for this fact some musical researchers consider it as a"Transition work". But nevertheless its thematic richness it is the most remarkable representation less conventional and formal than the previous Symphony; to a more profound analysis we could say thay Beetohven in this Second Symphony had tired to give unity and harmony to different and heterogeneous music elements. The themes and the ideas which came out from the music are now heroics now gallant and all are expressed by an orchestral language rich of syncopation, “sforzando” and frenetical interplay among micro music motives. With this peculiar inhomogeneity Symphonu No. 2 is work already looking toward the Future without reaching it or synthesize it in a formal and expressive vision well defined as Beethoven realized in Symphony No. 3 The Eroic Op. 55.

IDIS in its serie Karajan Spectacular is presenting all Beethoven Symphonies in a serie of live recordings made by the Great German director between Fifties and Seventies XX Century. In this release the recording of Second Symphony in D major is rare and almost unobtainable performed 10th April 1953 with Torino RAI Symphony Orchestra with Karajan well known soloist. As album ending and amazing performance of Concert in D major for violin and orchestra op 61 live recorded in Lucerne in 1954 where Karajan conducts one of the most soloist of these times Wolfgang Schneiderhan a real expert of this Beethoven Concert.

Louise Farrenc's Rondos - heard here in world premiere recordings - were composed within the period of a decade, and are delicious examples of her art: graceful, elegant and expressive. Some of them are based on operatic themes or on songs, while others are simpler and intended for younger performers. Volumes 1 and 2 of this 6 album cycle can be heard on GP912-13 and GP934.

Russian musical and artistic world has always been a world a part of not easy understanding for the ones who were not Russian. It is between East and West and always on the edge of these sides and It has always been the birthplace of incredible musical talents who did not have a peaceful and easy life outside their homeland. Even classic guitar during XX Century has many incredible talents from Russia as for instance Aleksandr Mikhailovich Ivanov-Kramskoy, whose name will be unknown to many guitar fans and lovers. These six album of Master of Guitar series gives the opportunity to meet the most significant and important XX Century Russian guitarists: very peculiar artist who had a very strange personal history and who lived in a historical period of deep changes and they could testify their love for guitar.

Guido Bardi, the son of the Duke of Florence, kneels before Bianca, the wife of the rich merchant Simone, and holds her hands. Simone, who has returned early from a business trip, then enters the room. The very beginning of Alexander Zemlinsky's one-act opera "A Florentine Tragedy", based on Oscar Wilde's play of the same name in the German translation by Max Meyerfeld, presents the conflict from which the tragedy arises. This stage work by the Austrian composer, who was forgotten for many decades, had its world premiere on January 30, 1917, in Stuttgart and was not performed again until 1977. This CD from BR-KLASSIK documents the Munich premiere on November 27, 2022, with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester conducted by Patrick Hahn, recorded live at the city’s Prinzregententheater.

With the "Florentine Tragedy", albeit rather belatedly, Zemlinsky followed the fashion for Renaissance and one-act works at the turn of the century. Richard Strauss had made his mark in that genre with "Salome" and "Elektra" – and the literary basis for the former had also been provided by Oscar Wilde. In the very first notes, seemingly aware of this similarity with Strauss’s work, Zemlinsky goes on the offensive with an "upbeat fanfare" – as the prelude to an orchestral introduction that can easily be interpreted as a musical representation of the main romantic relationship. At the transition to the actual stage action, however, Zemlinsky switches to a somber minor-key atmosphere. When Simone appears, the music already makes it clear that the plot cannot end otherwise than tragically. For whom, we do not yet know…

In the Munich premiere of Zemlinsky's "A Florentine Tragedy", Rachael Wilson (mezzo-soprano) sang the part of Bianca, Benjamin Bruns (tenor) was Prince Guido Bardi, and Christopher Maltman (baritone) portrayed the merchant Simone. The Münchner Rundfunkorchester performed under the young conductor Patrick Hahn. Last year, the 27-year-old Austrian – who since 2021 in Wuppertal has been the youngest Generalmusikdirektor in the German-speaking world – was engaged as the Münchner Rundfunkorchester’s Principal Guest Conductor.