There's a lot to like in this recording of Shostakovich's Second and Fifteenth symphonies with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra led by their young conductor, Vasily Petrenko.

"… (Tingaud) is an inspirational guide to the composer’s vivid and fastidious sound world …

Memory is at the forefront of this program, which pairs Steven Mackey's moving, evocative violin concerto, Beautiful Passing, with Mnemosyne's Pool, his expansive symphonic saga, to explore the different ways in which we engage with that most human of experiences. These performances capture the enduring relationship between David Robertson and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, in a stunning rendering of works by a composer Robertson has long championed. Anthony Marwood brings a performance that is lyrical, touching and thrilling in equal measure.

This recording marks the beginning of the collaboration between the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and its new music director, the French conductor Alain Altinoglu, who conducts the leading European and American orchestras and has made a reputation for himself in every repertory – not forgetting opera at Salzburg, Bayreuth, and La Monnaie in Brussels, where he is music director.

The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, is one of the world’s best-known choral groups. Founded in the 15th century, it ranks among the oldest of its kind, and, while originally created for singing the daily services in the college chapel, now enjoys an international tour schedule that has seen it perform all over Europe and beyond. Every Christmas Eve, millions of people tune in to watch the choir’s A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s – a service which has been continuously broadcast since 1928.

Premiere recordings of piano cycles by Sadie Harrison and Cecilia McDowall, plus shorter works by Ruth Barrett, Andrew Downes, Richard Francis, Richard Pantcheff and Jenni Pinnock.

How to read Ronsard today? Simply aloud or in singing it, like back then. Because, for Ronsard, nothing is more obvious than to unite music and poetry: “I also want you to encourage you to pronounce your verses loudly in your room, when you do them, or sooner sing them, whatever voice can have. »

In a year that has already seen two extraordinary recordings of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, Leonard Slatkin's 2012 release on Naxos faces serious competition indeed.

When Heitor Villa-Lobos was commissioned to contribute a composition to the 400th anniversary of São Paulo in 1954, he was not disappointed: his 10th symphony "Ameríndia" is a huge work. Oratory?

This box set is a compilation of the individual recordings in the Shostakovich cycle released by conductor Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra between 2009 and 2013.

Czech composer Franz Xaver Dussek (or Frantisek Xaver Dusek), apparently unrelated to Jan Ladislav Dussek, was a friend of Mozart, who stayed with him in Prague while finishing Don Giovanni.

Coming as it does after disappointingly turgid readings of Brahms' four symphonies with the London Philharmonic, Marin Alsop's powerful recording of Dvorák's Ninth with the Baltimore Symphony is a surprise.

Composer, poet and folk fiddler, Wiljami Niittykoski (1895–1985) came from the Kaustinen village of Salonkylä in Western Finland, a region renowned for its lively folk music tradition. With the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival first held in the 1960s and the new folk music era he came to be an artist famous and popular the length and breadth of Finland. As a young man, he initially made a living as a joiner, then by tending the farm hacked out of the wilds by his parents where he spent his whole long life.

I do not intend to evaluate the music of Johann Sebastian Bach in any form here. The basic situation for me in this respect is very simple: I have not been able to identify with any intellectual argumentation or analysis, for I have always had a feeling of incompleteness. No superlative seems sufficient to me. Regarding the tunes of Bach, the saying that music begins where the word ends is the truest one for me.

There are generally two ways one can face a crisis. One can give up, or one can persevere and use it to one’s advantage. Choir director Dominick DiOrio definitely chose the latter during the pandemic, turning his reflections and sentiments about it into a profoundly engaging, almost philosophical choral album titled WHAT IS OURS. DiOrio conjures a formidable cross-section of music by a range of contemporary composers that not only reflects the diversity and multiplicity of modern-day America, but also its underbelly of struggle, challenge, and an eventual triumph of humanity.