The Missa Cellensis in honorem Beatissimae Virginis Mariae in C major by Joseph Haydn, Hob. XXII:5, Novello 3, was originally written in 1766, after Haydn was promoted to Kapellmeister at Eszterháza following the death of Gregor Joseph Werner. The original title as it appears on the only surviving fragment of Haydn's autograph score, that has been discovered around 1970 in Budapest, clearly assigns the mass to the pilgrimage cult of Mariazell, Styria. Until that discovery, the work was known as Missa Sanctae Caeciliae, or in German Cäcilienmesse, a title probably attributed to the mass in the 19th century. Whether the alternative title refers to a performance of the piece by the St. Cecilia's Congregation, a Viennese musician's fraternity, on some St. Cecilia's day (22 November), as has been suggested, remains speculation.

Because the release of this magnificent SACD of Arnold Schoenberg's Gurrelieder was intended to celebrate conductor Michael Gielen's 80th birthday, the enterprise seems a fitting present to him, since few conductors have been more devoted to the composer's cause; this brilliant performance appears to be a fulfillment of Gielen's long-held wish to record this mammoth oratorio with maximum clarity and lustrous sound.

Giovanni Antonini has been recording the complete symphonies of Joseph Haydn with the Alpha label for more than five years. Now the series is enriched by another monument by the Austrian composer: Die Schöpfung (The Creation), recorded in 2019 with the Bavarian Radio Chorus and his own orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico. This great oratorio was inspired by those of Handel, which Haydn heard performed by very large forces during his visits to England.

Milica Djordjevic's extended orchestral work Quicksilver was commissioned by musica viva of Bayerischer Rundfunk and premiered on December 16, 2016 by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Rundel in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz. It is precisely the strict limitation of the melodic movement to very few, narrow interval steps that makes it "all the richer and more colourful on the inside". Cvor (Knot) for winds, piano and percussion, a work commissioned for the Donaueschingen Music Festival, briefly but very intensively describes a knot that squeezes and twists and finally bursts.

The award-winning early music ensemble Capella de la Torre is releasing its new recording of musical treasures from the early Baroque period in collaboration with the Bavarian Radio Choir - one of Germany's top choirs - and conductor Florian Helgath.

In addition to his symphonies, Anton Bruckner is best known for his sacred works: his stirring masses and his deeply moving a cappella motets. On this new BR-KLASSIK CD, to mark the Bruckner Year 2024, the Bavarian Radio Chorus and the Münchner Rundfunkorchester conducted by Peter Dijkstra present his Mass No. 2 together with five well-known motets and the two short Aequali for three trombones from 1847.

The Te Deum in C major, WAB 45, is a setting of the Te Deum hymn, composed by Anton Bruckner for SATB choir and soloists, orchestra, and organ ad libitum.

Ivan Repušić made his debut as principal conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra in September 2017 with Giuseppe Verdi's "Luisa Miller". It was followed by "I due Foscari" in October 2018 and "Attila" in October 2019 (the complete recordings have already been released by BR-KLASSIK on CD 900323, 900328 and 900330). His successful cycle of early masterpieces by the Italian opera composer continues with the recent concert performance on April 23, 2023 of Verdi's stage work "I Lombardi" – also at the Prinzregententheater in Munich.

In the Revelation of James, an apocryphal gospel that was not included in the Bible, events and details surrounding the birth of Christ are reported that do not appear in the better-known versions of the Christmas story from the gospels of Matthew and Luke. In particular, it portrays very real people, full of emotions and conflicting feelings. Mary, not Jesus, is the focus of the narrative.

'It would be difficult to find a simpler and more poignant subject', Massenet remarked during the composition of Ariane, a vast score in five acts premiered at the Paris Opera in October 1906. The libretto by Catulle Mendes is part ancient drama, part symbolist poem, and sets Phaedra and Ariadne, two sisters in love with Theseus, in violent conflict with each other. This epic work does not shrink from relating the combat against the Minotaur, from showing a ship tossed by the raging billows, nor even from transporting the audience to the Underworld where Persephone reigns.

Seven musical character images – each one immensely sensual and expressive, and standing on its own like a monument. The British composer Gustav Holst, fascinated by (esoteric) astrology, chose the planets of our solar system and the characteristics attributed to them as the basis for what he referred to as musical ""mood pictures"" or ""embodiments"". Ultimately, the seven movements of his orchestral suite “The Planets”, op. 32, composed between 1914 and 1916, can also be understood as general explorations of human traits.

Valentin Silvestrov is probably the best-known Ukrainian composer, and his Requiem for Larissa, now released on CD by BR-KLASSIK, was written in response to the unexpected death in 1996 of his wife, the music and literature scholar Larissa Bondarenko. She had stood by his side from the very beginning of his artistic career. It was in 1999, shortly before the turn of the millennium, that Silvestrov was finally able to complete his Requiem.

On the occasion of the 85th birthday of Arvo Pärt (September 2020) and the 75th anniversary of the Bavarian Radio Chorus (May 2021). The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, born in 1935, has succeeded in bringing sacred music back to a broader audience, and away from the confines of the church service, more than almost any other contemporary composer.

Ever since his brilliant first appearance in Munich with the Requiem, he is still a regular guest at the BR. Riccardo Muti is currently regarded as a mature representative of the great Italian tradition. This CD release therefore has to be seen as a “classically polished gem” – a gem that shines and flashes as beautifully and as brilliantly as ever!

Time flows and stands still in this contemplative music that sounds old and new and yet neither old nor new, naive art and higher mathematics, a child‘s game, a glass bead game, like first steps and last words – all rolled into one. The compositions that Arvo Pärt has been writing for almost half a century defy any labelling or ideology. In his anachronistic art, the Estonian composer – who emigrated from the Soviet Union with his family in 1980 and found a refuge in (West) Berlin – chose the path of renunciation, reduction, and voluntary poverty.