Rattle

English conductors, including Thomas Beecham, John Barbirolli, Anthony Collins, and Colin Davis, have an excellent track record recording the symphonies of Jean Sibelius. Thus, when Simon Rattle first took a shot at Sibelius with his 1981 recording of the Fifth with the London Philharmonia, hopes were high that the next generation of English Sibelius conductors was ready to take up the torch.

Even if one always has doubts about Simon Rattle conducting Mahler - doubts about his sincerity and his seriousness - even if one has always questioned his radically wrong tempos in the Second and Fourth and his amazingly uncomprehending interpretations of the Sixth and Seventh - one has to admit that Rattle has over time gradually been getting better at recording Mahler.

Veteran metallers THE RODS have signed with Massacre Records. The band's new studio album, titled "Rattle The Cage", will be available as a CD digipak, limited vinyl LP and digital formats on January 12, 2024.THE RODS are a storied heavy metal band that rocked their way through the '80s with a powerful, raw energy that had fans and critics alike calling them "the American MOTÖRHEAD." Once the go-to opening act for some of the biggest metal bands in the world, THE RODS toured throughout the '80s with the likes of JUDAS PRIEST, OZZY OSBOURNE and IRON MAIDEN, among others.

One of Rachmaninoff’s most popular pieces, the Second Symphony is an indulgently melancholic and sentimental work: a magic box of the late-Romantic orchestra. Dramatic sections played by the full orchestra contrast heart-breaking swells that only this composer could have written. The LSO has a long history with the Second Symphony, recording it many times with conductors such as André Previn, Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Valery Gergiev. For this recording, which was captured during the opening of the London Symphony Orchestra's 2019/20 season at the Barbican Hall, the Orchestra's Music Director Sir Simon Rattle conducted from memory, performing the uncut version of this symphonic treasure.

Magdalena Kožená presents a recital of Czech songs, together with the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. The first impression of Czech songs may be atmospheric nature scenes, or stories about pretty peasant girls and village pranks, but the selection on this album demonstrates that the imagination of Czech song composers stretched far wider. For example, Bohuslav Martinů’s Nipponari were inspired by Japanese culture, whereas his folksy Songs on One Page obtain a deeper meaning knowing that he wrote them in the US, having fled the Nazi threat. His colleagues and contemporaries Hans Krása and Gideon Klein did not manage to get away, and both died in concentration camps.