The performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony by "Emperor" Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker on October 21, 1979 was broadcast live nationwide from the venue on NHK. was broadcast on FM. This recording is the first digital recording of NHK, a historic one, and was handed down as a masterpiece of the peak of both Karajan / Berlin Philharmonic. The tremendous concentration invites listeners into an overwhelming impression. This time, the world's first CD release of this famous performance has been realized! At the time of its release, the latest remastering technology that Deutsche Grammophon boasts has been used to improve the sound quality astonishingly, and it has been revived.

The eleventh volume of the complete HAYDN2032 symphony cycle moves it's focus to Paris: 'Every day one perceives more clearly, and consequently admires more, the productions of this great genius, who, in every one of his works, knows so well how to draw rich and varied developments from a single subject', wrote the Mercure de France in April 1788, adding that Haydn was 'quite different from those sterile composers who constantly move from one idea to another…'. The symphonies presented here are no.2 (the first to be published in France), no.24 (the first to be performed there) and the so-called 'Paris' symphonies nos. 87 and 82 'L'Ours', with it's references to fairground atmosphere and it's famous contredanse finale.

Following the 2011 landmark Beethoven cycle, Riccardo Chailly returns with a recording of the complete Brahms symphonies and orchestral works including the overtures and Haydn Variations. Rarities include world premiere recordings of two piano intermezzi orchestrated by Paul Klengel (brother of the Gewandhaus’ long-standing principal cellist Julius Klengel); the 9 Liebeslieder waltzes; the original first performance version of the Andante of Symphony No. 1 and the even rarer revised opening of the Fourth Symphony. Chailly has radically rethought his approach to these works, re-examining the scores and returning to the recorded interpretations of a generation of conductors alive during Brahms’ lifetime, principally Felix Weingartner and one of his Gewandhaus predecessors Bruno Walter.

This album uses the term “discoveries” rather loosely, especially as it applies to the Piano Concerto No. 3 in E minor, for which the third movement existed only as an incomplete sketch. This was reconstructed and finished by Mendelssohn specialist Marcello Bufalini and premiered in 2007. The resulting work is full of buoyant energy, but it’s oddly short on melodic distinction–not a characteristic we normally associate with Mendelssohn. What it does have is some wonderfully bravura piano writing, delivered with engaging brio by Roberto Prosseda, whose masterful technique makes it a bit easier to overlook the music’s shortcomings.

Gösta Nystroem may have been diffident in his life decisions – he only chose music as a career in his mid-thirties – but it is clear from the two works on this 2004 BIS release that he was an earnest composer indeed when he set his mind to it. Perhaps too earnest: the Symphony No. 4, "Sinfonia shakespeariana," and the Symphony No. 6, "Sinfonia Tramontana," are long essays of some technical competence, but also unrelievedly gray, joyless creations that require a great deal of patience to get through.

The German label CPO, consistently dedicated to underappreciated music, has brought along many recordings of unfamiliar works ranging in status from central to the literature to wholly unworthy of revival. One of the most distinguished, and consequential, projects that CPO has undertaken is its recording of the complete Symphonies Concertantes of Johann Christian Bach as performed by the Hanover Band under Anthony Halstead.

These four discs collect Leif Segerstam's second cycle of the symphonies of Sibelius. First issued by Ondine in the early years of the 21st century as separate discs filled out with symphonic poems, the symphonies are here condensed into a cold, hard block of eternity. Segerstam's first Sibelius cycle for Chandos in the early Nineties aimed both barrels at eternity, but with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra's colorful and dedicated but sometimes too cheerful playing, he didn't always hit it.

Einojuhani Rautavaara may well be the most popular symphonist alive today. On the occasion of his 80th anniversary, Ondine pays homage to its longtime house composer by releasing the first-ever edition of the complete eight symphonies, in a special box set. Rautavaara is recognized as the greatest Finnish composer after Jean Sibelius. He has often described symphonic music as a journey through human life.

Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) only began composing symphonies after fleeing the Nazis into American exile in 1941. He was of a generation that saw the symphony as passe Bartok was born in 1881 and Stravinsky in 1882, and Martinu was born in 1890 while Mahler was born in 1860, and Sibelius and Nielsen in 1865. Modernism entailed new forms and styles, and while Martinu was never a modernist he did inhabit a soundworld with a lighter touch full of dance rhythms, not heavy, four-square symphonies.

The Bamberger Symphoniker and Jakub Hrůša’s cycle of the four Brahms symphonies and Dvořák’s last four symphonies is the first recording to give an overview of their extraordinary universe and cast light on their musical affinity, in a vivid soundscape with a contemporary pulse.

The Bamberger Symphoniker's collaboration with Tudor has evolved in cycles. It began with Joachim Raff's œuvre, a pioneering step into overlooked repertoire. Then stepped up to the Greats with Schubert's symphonies: the first recording to follow the new Schubert edition was enthusiastically hailed as a refreshing new departure interpreted with historical awareness. Reaching for the stars under the aegis of Jonathan Nott, the scores of Gustav Mahler then entered the Bamberg Konzerthalle. That whole cycle has won countless prizes and awards, becoming a milestone of Mahler discography. The next step? Staying in Vienna with symphonies by Johannes Brahms while remaining true to Gustav Mahler's Bohemian homeland with Antonín Dvorák.

The Bamberger Symphoniker and Jakub Hrůša’s cycle of the four Brahms symphonies and Dvořák’s last four symphonies is the first recording to give an overview of their extraordinary universe and cast light on their musical affinity, in a vivid soundscape with a contemporary pulse.

This recording showcases the superb John Grew, a leading figure among Canadian organists, performing on the 1914 Casavant organ in Montréal’s l’Église Très-Saint-Nom-de-Jésus. Grew is University Organist at McGill University, where he is also chair of the Organ and Church Music area of the Schulich School of Music. With 90 stops over four manuals and an electro-pneumatic action, the Casavant organ is divided into two parts in the French cathedral style. At the time of its installation in 1915, it was the largest organ in Montréal, and still enjoys a world-wide reputation for its fine balance and finish, perfected by the Saint-Hyacinth-based organ builders Casavant Frères.

This long-term edition of symphonies by Johannes Brahms and Antonín Dvořák, performed by the Bamberger Symphoniker led by their chief conductor Jakub Hrůša, springs from a wish to stimulate a deliberate, interiorized and unbiased listening experience. Associating these two Romantic geniuses, bound by a unique friendship, in one edition enables a new viewpoint. It immediately becomes apparent that the two last symphonies of Brahms and Dvořák have more than their key in common - yet this also illuminates their differences.

French composer Florent Schmitt, a part of Ravel's Les Apaches group around 1900, has received renewed attention from recording companies, and this release is part of a group of Schmitt discs from Chandos, which has the engineering chops to handle their bulk. The suites from Antoine et Cléopâtre here were part of the music written for a six-hour ballet commissioned by dancer Ida Rubinstein.