Although Kurt Weill's principal legacy lies in music theatre works of both popular appeal and intellectual weight, he was equally at home in purely orchestral works as evidenced by his two symphonies. Written just over a decade apart, they reveal his chameleon-like ability to work with any range of style and form. The Symphonie in einem Satz (Symphony in one movement), completed when he was barely 21, adopts an expressionist idiom that shows intricate writing, dense counterpoint and quick shifts reminiscent of Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony. Completed in France in 1934 after Weill had to flee Nazi Germany, the Fantaisie symphonique is filled with allusions to the 'sung ballet' The Seven Deadly Sins, composed at the same time.

BIS present a disc of works by the Japanese composer Mari Takano, composed between 2003 and 2009. The four duos and trios that share the title LigAlien are all results of the idea of what would it be like to implant ‘alien’ music into one of Ligeti’s works. Interspersing the four 'LigAliens' are two solo pieces, Jungibility for piano and Full Moon for violin and electronics, which also embrace a wealth of ideas both musical and otherwise from Duke Ellington, Omar Sosa and Stockhausen (Jungibility) and Björk, Pina Bausch and Miles Davis (Full Moon).

This is the second recording by BIS of Sally Beamish’s music, and the four pieces it contains confirm utterly her high standing. Her work is thoughtfully lyrical, intense, individual, instinctively dramatic, in ways that remind me somewhat of Nicholas Mawmusic. Like him she has a particular gift for expressive harmony and timbre. The earliest piece here is No, I’m not afraid (1989), six poignant poems written from prison by Irina Ratushinskaya spoken – by Beamish herself – against sparse but hugely effective instrumental backgrounds and interspersed with five purely instrumental interludes. The disc opens with The Caledonian Road of 1997. The name of this piece refers not just to the north London thoroughfare remembered by Beamish from childhood but to her own pilgrimage northward to Scotland, where she now lives. The music resonates with a sense of ritual, of something inevitable. By contrast, the work that follows, the unabashedly poetic The Day Dawn (written for a summer school organised by Contemporary Music-making for Amateurs in 1997, and revised in 2000) derives from a Shetland fiddle tune, and is all about new beginnings.

On Synergy, flautist Sharon Bezaly and her musician friends demonstrate that one plus one can be much greater than two. Featuring works that celebrate the coming together of like-minded musicians, this project is a reminder, after more than two years of a pandemic that has affected all of us, that true musical synergy can only be achieved 'face-to-face’, rather than ‘remotely’.

It was only after his death that Franz Schubert’s symphonic works made an impact in music history. In fact, the first public performance of any of Schubert’s symphonies took place at a memorial concert held a few weeks after the composer had passed away, on 19th November 1828. The work that was heard at that occasion was Symphony No.6, D589, the ‘Little C major’, while the two undisputed master works of the series – the ‘Great C major’ and the ‘Unfinished’ – had to wait until 1838 and 1865, respectively, before being performed.

Having begun their collaboration in 1997, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and its conductor laureate Thomas Dausgaard have developed an unusually tight partnership. Nowhere is this demonstrated more clearly than in their cycles of the symphonies of Schumann, Schubert and, most recently, Brahms – performances which have been characterized by reviewers as variously ‘fresh’, ‘vivid’, ‘transparent’ and ‘invigorating’.

Thomas Dausgaard's recordings with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra of three of Franz Schubert's middle symphonies are displays of authentic period practice in state-of-the-art reproduction, and it's a winning combination. The watchword here is clarity, because these symphonies are models of Classical form and precision, with orchestral writing that is utterly transparent and ideally balanced, so the music is only enhanced by the spacious multichannel recording and direct stream digital processing. The Swedish Chamber Orchestra offers pristine string sonorities, and the winds have the distinctive and slightly pungent timbres of the 18th and early 19th century instruments Schubert knew. Dausgaard's interpretations are clearheaded and meticulous, and it's obvious that his musicians respond to his cogent direction with energy and enthusiasm. BIS recorded these performances on different occasions between 2009 and 2011 in the Örebro Concert Hall in Sweden, so in spite of the breaks between sessions, there is consistently superb sound quality, thanks to the first-rate engineering team and the unchanging venue. Highly recommended.