In this collection of orchestral songs by Richard Strauss, including the Four Last Songs, Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski demonstrates that this is obviously repertoire in which she is fully at ease and which is ideally suited to her voice. Strauss demands a nuanced command of a broad range of vocal colors and weights, and Isokoski shows an idiomatic mastery of his style. She has the suppleness and lightness to make "Säusle, liebe Myrte" really sparkle, and she brings a rich warmth to "September" and "Im Abendrot." And she can radiantly soar over the orchestra in "Befreit," and in all the Four Last Songs. Isokoski's voice doesn't have the natural luminosity or openness to put this in the very top ranks of recordings of these songs, but hers is a very fine performance; it should delight her fans and also be of interest to listeners who love the songs and who savor hearing a variety of interpretations. Marek Janowski leads Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in a rhythmically supple performance, although the strings don't have the richness of the most acclaimed orchestras. He doesn't fully capture the twilight glow of the Four Last Songs, and the ending of "Im Abendrot" comes across as flaccid rather than evocative. The sound of Ondine's 2001 recording is warm and nicely ambient, but it tends to slightly favor the orchestra, so that Isokoski doesn't always shine with the brightness of which she is clearly capable.© TiVo

Bach’s St. John Passion, with its famous opening chorus traversed by shadows and light, is a powerful musical and spiritual reflection. Dramatic, grandiose, complex, resolutely theatrical: there has been no lack of superlatives to describe this supreme masterpiece of western music. Philippe Herreweghe and Collegium Vocale Gent present an accomplished reading that reflects their knowledge of the composer, based on extensive research and deepened by countless concerts. Soloists Krešimir Stražanac and Maximilian Schmitt demonstrate the breadth of their talents in the roles of Jesus and the Evangelist. © Phi

Matthias Goerne not only performs at the highest level as a baritone himself, but his piano accompaniments also rank among the Champions League of classical music. For his first album, which was dedicated to Beethoven songs, he brought Jan Lisiecki on board. This was followed by the album Abendrot with melodies by Wagner and Strauss, among others, together with the young talent Seong-Jin Cho. Now we may experience the baritone in duo with the world-class Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, presenting us with a metaphysical program of Berg, Schumann, Wolf, Shostakovich and Brahms.The combination of music and poetry was brought to a climax in the form of the Romantic art song by Franz Schubert. The composers presented here build on this tradition, and despite the wide, temporal span of their publications - there are 135 years between Schumann's Dichterliebe and Shostakovich's Michelangelo Suite - the closeness and significance to the text and its authors is equally evident in all of them. Schumann's Dichterliebe is probably one of the best examples of this: the setting of Heinrich Heine's texts brings together two masters of Romanticism who could not be better interpreted by Goerne and Trifonov. Themes of impossible love and human suffering are unfolded through extremes in the monologue as well as the music, with Goerne maintaining this "strong sensitivity" throughout. In the same vein, the unspoken finds its place on the piano and takes on much more than just an accompanying role in his interpretation - as well as in art song in general. Trifonov is in direct musical dialogue with Goerne, the two artists communicating at eye level.A similar symbiosis is evident in the Michelangelo musical settings by Wolf and Shostakovich. By abandoning tonality in the latter, the connection between piano and spoken word is again reinforced on another level. A unique duo project by two contemporary greats whose paths will hopefully cross more often. © Lena Germann/Qobuz

The gestation of this project lasted two years. Anna Prohaska and Julius Drake finally concentrated their research on the themes of Eve, Paradise and banishment. Some songs were obvious choices, such as Fauré’s Paradis, in which God appears to Eve and asks her to name each flower and animal, or Purcell’s Sleep, Adam, sleep with its references to Genesis. But Anna Prohaska also wished to illustrate the cliché of the woman who brought original sin into the world and her status as a tempter who leads man astray, as in Brahms’s Salamander, Wolf’s Die Bekehrte or Ravel’s Air du Feu. In Das Paradies und die Peri, Schumann conjures up the image of Syria’s rose-covered plains. Bernstein also transports us to the desert with Silhouette.. John Milton’s seventeenth-century masterpiece Paradise Lost was the inspiration for Charles Ives and Benjamin Britten, also featured in this very rich programme that constitutes an invitation to travel and reflection. © Alpha Classics

Bach's 199 surviving sacred cantatas form a repertoire of masterpieces that defy comprehension. It's not just that there are so many of them, it's that every one is unique, exemplified by the seven cantatas on the third volume of John Eliot Gardiner's Bach cantata pilgrimage, three for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity recorded at Tewkesbury Abbey and four for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity recorded at the Blasuiskirche in Muhlhausen. The Tewkesbury cantatas feature a celebratory central choral sung by the strong-voiced Monteverdi Choir in Ein ungefärbt Gemute, BWV 24, a stately aria sung by lush-toned alto Nathalie Stutzman in Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe, BWV 185, and a dancing aria cum trio sonata sung by dulcet-toned soprano Magdalena Kozená accompanied by a wonderfully lyrical obligato bassoon in Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 177. The Muhlhausen cantatas are even richer, with the mournful triple-time chorale that opens Aus dem Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, BWV 131, and the doleful chorale fantasia for soloists and choir that opens Wer nur den lieben Gott lasst walten, BWV 93, plus the blissful duet in Siehe, ich will viel Fischer aussenden, BWV 88, sung with pure, clear tone by alto William Towers and soprano Joanne Lunn. While listeners unfamiliar with the cantatas may initially be intimidated by the size and variety of these works, the sheer beauty of Bach's inspired settings will keep pulling them back. As always in his Bach cantata pilgrimage, Gardiner stresses the bright and hopeful over the dark and despairing even in the gloomiest cantatas, and he elicits powerfully affecting but rhythmically flexible playing from the English Baroque Soloists even in the dourest movements. Despite the change in countries and venues, the digital sound here is close enough to spotlight the soloists and distant enough to encompass the ringing chorals. © TiVo

To say that Christian Thielemann's early March 2020 Gurre-Lieder at the Semperoper Dresden didn't take place a moment too soon is something of an understatement, when less than a fortnight later Europe's international-level live music making scene had been reduced to solo recitals self-filmed on mobile phones and posted onto social media. Equally fortuitously, it was recorded live, meaning we can now all listen to this ambitious project with its international line-up that would, had 2020 turned out differently, have received a second airing the following month at the Salzburg Easter Festival. Broad brushstrokes first, and in orchestral terms there's a wonderful transparency to the sound from the Staatskapelle Dresden bolstered by members of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. As for tone colour, think silvery luminosity from the upper strings and woodwind, balanced by warm, rounded richness from the brass and lower strings - it's both luxuriously warm and sharply defined, making for a heavenly Prelude and Zwischenspiel, and full-throttle drama for the conclusion of Part 2. As for the chorus, there's some thrilling singing from the MDR-Rundfunkchor and Staatsopernchor Dresden, and while “Seht die Sonne” would possibly have packed even more of a punch when heard in the hall (they are perhaps slightly further back in the sound than a studio recording might have given us), “Gegrüßt, o König, an Gurre-Seestrand!” is unequivocally edge-of-the-seat stuff. Thielemann's overall architecture is also eminently satisfying, including a notably seamless-feeling transition over the stylistic shift between parts two and three. On to the soloists, and Camilla Nylund's Tove is warm and supple, losing not an iota of its mellow roundedness as she soars up high, with the climax of her “Du sendest mir einen Liebesblick” truly tingle-inducing. Dark-toned Stephen Gould as Waldemar is ardent in love, and especially compelling in despair, always in control of his own high-register leaps. Christa Mayer's Woodtaube is rich-voiced and passionate, and Kwangchul Youn's Bauer ringing and energetic. Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke makes for a colourful and enjoyably semi- raucous Klaus-Narr; and while Franz Grundheber may no longer be in his baritone prime, his voice is deliciously expressive and multicoloured in his sprechstimme Speaker role, and with a flexibility and strength thoroughly belying his eighty-plus years. If this cast ever gets reunited post-Covid then you should beg, borrow or steal a ticket. In the meantime, crank up the volume on this, and revel in it. © Charlotte Gardner/Qobuz

Recorded live at a performance in Bayreuth on 14 August 2011, this Lohengrin naturally benefits a lot from the place's amazing sound; the listener will surely forgive the little noises from around the stage or hall: it is, after all, a very small price to pay for having a front-row seat at a live performance, and with the element of risk – taken by the singers, at least – which heightens the experience. The production brings together some of the greatest voices of the day, led by the tenor Klaus Florian Vogt, a real free radical, who started his career as... horn player in the Hamburg Philharmonic! But soon he heard the call of the lyrical, and he began a superb career as a tenor, first lighter, in Mozartian roles, and then more powerful with Wagner and the roles of the young "Heldentenor." As Elsa, we have Annette Dasch, who had already made a much-remarked-upon début in Bayreuth the year before – also as Elsa. Bass Heinrich Zeppenfeld is following the same Bayreuth trajectory, as King Henry the Fowler. The ambiguous Ortrud is played by Petra Lang, who since moved on to play Isolde, also at Bayreuth, a few years later – a fine rendition. © SM/Qobuz

Newly discovered orchestral songs by an unsung hero. This is an album full of world-premiere recordings of orchestral songs by Hans Sommer, sung by an excellent quartet of soloists – Mojca Erdmann, Anke Vondung, Mauro Peter and Benjamin Appl – together with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under the baton of Guillermo García Calvo. Sommer was a Liszt student whose operas were performed and praised by Richard Strauss, but sunk into relative oblivion due to his unusual career path and independence from major publishers. The songs were discovered recently and can finally be presented to the world. Focusing mostly on Goethe poetry, combining high Romanticism with folk styles, Sommer’s songs are colourfully orchestrated, harmonically audacious, and often highly dramatic and evocative. This album release, commemorating Sommer’s 100-year death anniversary, sheds light on a fascinating chapter in music history, and will hopefully contribute to a renaissance of this hero. © Pentatone