“The Wagner Project” was recorded at the KammerMusikKöln’s “10+1” anniversary concert under the motto of Richard Wagner. With this album the ensemble, consisting of 15 instrumentalist and vocal soloist soprano Kathrin Zukowski, presents arrangements for chamber music ensemble of several rarities by the composer. Among other pieces, it contains the world premiere of Wagner’s extremely rarely performed French Songs in an arrangement commissioned from Simone Fontanelli coupled with the second public performance of Fontanelli’s arrangement of Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder, a further commission by KammerMusikKöln. In addition, Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll is presented, in the composer’s own chamber music arrangement, a particularly gratifying piece for small ensemble.

SOMM Recordings honours Franz Schmidt, one of the great symphonic composers of the 20th century, on the 150th anniversary of his birth with this double-disc set featuring two of his masterworks. Revered in his day in his native Austria as the nation’s leading composer and an elite teacher, cellist and pianist, his name will not be known to many. This is due, at least in part, to a perceived association with the Third Reich (against which there is ample evidence). This first release on CD of two premiere recordings, meticulously produced and restored by Lani Spahr, showcases Schmidt’s unique harmonic language, exceptional contrapuntal skill and mastery of form, qualities which prompted Hans Pfitzner to call Schmidt’s Symphony No. 4 “nearer perfection than Bruckner, more honest than Richard Strauss and more original than Reger”.

The 18th century had a dynamic musical scene in which much experimentation went alongside respect for accepted traditions. A wide range of hybrid forms emerged in the wake of the French dance suite and the new Italian solo sonata: not only sonatas with divergent forms and suites in which French character titles suddenly gave way to Italian tempo indications, but also everything in between. Korneel Bernolet here presents an anthology of European 'compiled' sonatas in the form of or derived from suites, alongside contrasting compositions that sought the true sonata form. He plays the Joannes Daniel Dulcken magisterial 1747 single-keyboard harpsichord, whose ambassador and titular player he is.

This album features the works of German Romantic composer Max Reger by the Woergas Ensemble, which has made numerous rediscoveries in medieval and Renaissance polyphonic music over the past 50 years. Led by choral work specialist Paul van Nervel, the ensemble departs from the usual repertoire of ancient music to explore Reger's vocal music. Max Reger (1873-1916) is a composer best known for his symphonies and organ works, but his vocal music has been largely ignored.