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.

When the Berliner “Funk-Stunde” (“Radio Hour”) went out on the air on October 29, 1923, heralding the start of German radio, the first piece of music to be broadcast live was Fritz Kreisler’s Andantino in the Style of Martini. The fact that the era of the new mass medium began with an imitation of an old musical style is not without a certain irony – and reveals how little attention had been paid to the problem of music on the radio. It was indeed to be a further five years before the radio stations commissioned the first compositions for the medium. Here, under the heading of “generic radio music”, the following genres were defined: “radio suite, musical radio play, radio cantata, radio opera and symphonic light music”. Modern composers such as Paul Hindemith, Ernst Toch and Kurt Weill were all commissioned, along with light entertainment composers such as Edmund Nick, Mischa Spoliansky and Eduard Künneke.

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.

29 October 1923 was a date steeped in history. In the middle of a year of political and economic crises, the age of public radio in Germany was ushered in with the first broadcast of the "Berliner Funkstunde" (Berlin Radio Hour) from the attic of an office building on Potsdamer Platz. Radio offered entirely new possibilities for the production and reception of music. The two compositions on this CD not only benefited from these developments but also played an active role in shaping them.

Time and again, composers – well-known and lesser-known – have arranged Franz Schubert's piano songs for orchestra. These versions are not in any way intended to cast doubt upon the powerful quality of the originals, they merely place them in a different light, and/or attempt to make them easier to perform on a larger scale – when an art song cannot be performed in an intimate salon or chamber music hall, it can also make an impact in a large concert hall. Baritone Benjamin Appl has compiled nineteen such arrangements from the 19th and 20th centuries for this new CD from BR-KLASSIK. The Münchner Rundfunkorchester, conducted by Oscar Jockel, provides accompaniment that is subtle and in keeping with the work.

In September 1809, the Vienna Hofburg Theatre commissioned Ludwig van Beethoven to create new incidental music for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's "Egmont". The tragedy had premiered in Mainz on 9 January 1789. It calls for incidental music; but various attempts, some commissioned by the poet himself, remained unfinished or were unsatisfactory. In Vienna, however, the production of "Egmont" was to include the music called for in several places.

Valentin Silvestrov is probably the best-known Ukrainian composer, and his Requiem for Larissa, now released on CD by BR-KLASSIK, was written in response to the unexpected death in 1996 of his wife, the music and literature scholar Larissa Bondarenko. She had stood by his side from the very beginning of his artistic career. It was in 1999, shortly before the turn of the millennium, that Silvestrov was finally able to complete his Requiem.

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.

The career of the trumpeter and composer Nils Wülker is continuously wonderful. The upward curve, which the internationally renowned musician from Germany has described with his last three studio albums, now crowns his previous masterpiece "Continuum". This orchestral, wide-screen and yet filigree album was recorded in autumn 2021 with Wülker's excellent rhythm section and the award-winning BR Münchner Rundfunkorchester and will be released in spring 2022, to coincide with Wülker's 20th stage anniversary. Unpredictable and beyond all genre boundaries, "Continuum" presents fascinating, overwhelming new music: a force of nature composed down to the last detail with lively improvisational peaks - an acoustic panorama whose every musical moment shines with energy, happiness and confidence.

This is an album featuring path-breaking works for orchestra and for violin and orchestra. Lutoslawski, Verese, and Ligeti certainly need no introduction. Conductor Christian Baldini is also a first-rate composer. Two superb violinists, Miranda Cuckson and Maximilian Haft are featured performers.

This CD box set from BR-KLASSIK combines Mendelssohn's twelve string symphonies, his 'Symphoniesatz' in C minor (No. 13) and his early violin concerto in D minor in the form of studio recordings made by the Münchner Rundfunkorchester under its leader Henry Raudales.

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.