Following Giuseppe Verdi's "Luisa Miller", with which Ivan Repušić made his debut as principal conductor of the Münchner Rundfunkorchester in September 2017, and "I due Foscari" in October 2018, the conductor's successful cycle of early masterpieces by the famous Italian opera composer now continues with "Attila". In the recording of the concert performance from the Prinzregententheater, outstanding performers provide authentic fluidity and vocal splendor. This highlight of Munich musical life from the end of last year is now already being released on BR-KLASSIK as a double album.

Puccini’s purely instrumental compositions, whether for orchestra or in the field of chamber music, were almost all written while he was still a student at the Milan Conservatory from 1880 to 1883. These works reflect the musical spirit of the time that shaped the young composer: the melodic influences of his teacher Amilcare Ponchielli and also the impressions left on him by the music of Richard Wagner. At the same time, however, these pieces already point ahead to Puccini the opera composer. It seems only logical, therefore, that many of the themes echoed in them subsequently reappeared in his stage works and became much more famous there than in their original form.

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.

"The folk music of the Croatian peninsula of Istria is as characteristic as it is extraordinary. Its melodies, harmonies and rhythms are unique, and sonorously expressed by the sopila - a traditional shawm instrument - as well as through choral singing and folk dances. The music with its asymmetrical rhythms is based on the so-called 'pentatonic Istrian scale', which consists of major and minor seconds and is thus clearly different from the other musical styles of Croatia.

All the works of the Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks on this CD are written for string orchestra: the three connected compositions 'Musica serena' (2015, dedicated to the Finnish conductor Juhga Kangas), 'Musica dolorosa' (1983) and 'Musica appassionata' (2002), and also Vasks' Concerto No 2 for Violoncello and Strings, also known as 'Klātbūtne' ('Presence', 2011/12). Vasks' three instrumental pieces here are light-hearted, tragic (dealing with the death of his sister as well as the political situation in Latvia at the time), and passionate, providing an overview of the diversity of his work across a timespan of almost three decades.