Leon Botstein, Bbc Symphony Orchestra Foulds A World Requiem, Op 60

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.

Chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra since 2013, Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo has a special affinity with the music of his compatriot Sibelius which this recording admirably demonstrates. Sibelius’ ever-popular ‘Lemminkäinen Suite’ is coupled here with ‘Spring Song’, and the lesser-known Suite from ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’. Sibelius composed the ‘Lemminkäinen Suite’ (also called the Four Legends, or Four Legends from the Kalevala), Op. 22, in the 1890s. Originally conceived as a mythological opera, Veneen luominen (The Building of the Boat), the suite is based on the character Lemminkäinen from the Finnish epic, the Kalevala.

Hot on the heels of their acclaimed recording of Britten’s Peter Grimes, Stuart Skelton and Edward Gardner join forces with Christine Rice and the BBC Symphony Orchestra for this fascinating programme of early twentieth-century works. Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht needs no introduction, but far rarer is Oscar Fried’s contemporaneous setting of the same poem. Composed in 1901 for soloists and orchestra, Fried’s version is a true setting of (as opposed to Schoenberg’s reflection on) the text by Richard Dehmel. Lehár wrote Fieber in 1915 as the closing part of his song cycle Aus eiserner Zeit – he then made the orchestral setting a year later. Korngold’s Lieder des Abschieds (Songs of Farewell) date from the early 1920s, whilst he was still in Vienna, and shortly after he had completed the opera Die tote Stadt. Setting poetry by Christina Rossetti, Edith Ronsperger, and Ernst Lothar, the cycle is a poignant reflection on the Great War.

Alexander Ullman was the winner of the 2011 Franz Liszt International Piano Competition in Budapest. He studied at the Purcell School, the Curtis Institute and the Royal College of Music. His teachers include William Fong, Leon Fleisher and Dmitri Alexeev. Alexander’s debut album on Rubicon was a recital of great Russian ballet music arranged for piano – Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky – and received enthusiastic reviews from around the world. This album is his first concerto recording – the two Liszt Concertos are coupled with the B minor Sonata.

Born in 1885, Alban Berg was one of the most significant composers of the Second Viennese School, whose output proved tremendously influential in the development of music in the twentieth century. He was a student of Schoenberg, who found that his juvenile compositions were almost exclusively written for voice; his natural ability to write lyrical melodic lines (even in later life while following the restrictions of twelve-tone serialism) probably remained the most outstanding quality of his style. His Op. 1 Piano Sonata was the fulfilment of a task set by Schoenberg to write non-vocal music. The Passacaglia, written between the sonata and World War I was only completed in short-score, and may have been intended to form part of a larger work. Both pieces are recorded here in skilful orchestrations by Sir Andrew Davis. The Three Orchestral Pieces were composed alongside his first great masterpiece, Wozzeck, and could be seen as a tribute to his musical hero, Mahler.

John Adams’ 2005 opera explores the personal and moral issues surrounding the invention of the atomic bomb. Captured live in concert, it has colossal power and conviction. At its center is Gerald Finley’s commanding performance as Robert Oppenheimer, a scientist wracked by doubts. Having sung it at the premiere and many times since, he produces a magnificently characterized creation. Julia Bullock, Brindley Sherratt, Samuel Sakker, and Andrew Staples are all superb in supporting roles and Adams himself draws virtuoso playing from a truly galvanized BBC Symphony Orchestra. A major recording of a modern operatic classic.

Alexander Ullman was the winner of the 2011 Franz Liszt International Piano Competition in Budapest. He studied at the Purcell School, the Curtis Institute and the Royal College of Music. His teachers include William Fong, Leon Fleisher and Dmitri Alexeev. Alexander’s debut album on Rubicon was a recital of great Russian ballet music arranged for piano – Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky – and received enthusiastic reviews from around the world. This album is his first concerto recording – the two Liszt Concertos are coupled with the B minor Sonata.

Alexander Veprik was regarded as a star in the young Soviet generation of composers of which Dmitri Shostakovich was a member, and his music was enthusiastically performed even in the distant West. But then he fell out of favour as a victim of Stalin's anti-Semitic policies and was banned to the Gulag. His name disappeared from program pages - and has yet to reappear. Veprik's rehabilitation is long overdue, a fact impressively demonstrated by Christoph-Mathias Mueller on this new recording with the fantastic BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Highly expressive melodies, compelling expressivity, and captivating tone colours will fascinate and captivate.