It has been claimed time and again that Gabriel Fauré was a reluctant and indeed unsuccessful composer for orchestra. Fauré certainly appears to take little interest in symphonic tone and timbre. The 100th anniversary of the composer’s death on 4 November 2024 offers an opportunity to reassess his orchestral oeuvre.

A text by Alain Claude Sulzer that explores human beings’ fear of dying forms the basis of Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini's “Dies illa” for choir and orchestra. The world premiere is scheduled for November 2023 in Basel.

A ten-minute orchestral tutti, comprising an “archaic unison movement” and “iambic percussive accents”, opens the single movement First Symphony by Heinz Winbeck with almost elemental power. This is followed by more peaceful passages, but the basic mood of the music remains anxious and driven. In between, allusions to, or direct quotations from Gustav Mahler’s 3rd and 10th Symphonies are constantly heard, as an expression in sound of longing and evocation of a different, more humane world. Heinz Winbeck (1946–2019) ambiguously named his First Symphony “Tu solus”, which refers firstly to the Gloria of the Catholic rite, but secondly to the absolute isolation in the sense of “you are alone”, and dedicated it “to the memory of Sophie Scholl”.

Composer and conductor Carl Davis CBE passed away on 3 August 2023 in Oxford at the age of 87. A true musical polymath, Davis created soundtracks for some of Britain's best-loved screen dramas. He was the driving force behind the reinvention of silent movies in concert, and composed a substantial body of internationally acclaimed ballet and concert works.

Opera or oratorio? There is still uncertainty about the classification of Handel's "Semele". What is certain is that this full-length work is filled with musical gems and lends itself well to staged performances due to its fast-paced plot.

During the fasting season in Handel's London, dramatic works were not allowed to be performed. This prompted the composer to revive an Italian oratorio he had composed thirty years earlier in 1737 and enrich it with choruses.

Georg Friedrich Handel's "Song for Cecilia's Day" HWV 76, composed in 1739, underwent, like many works of genius, revisions and expansions. The new volume in the "Halle Handel Edition" includes all early and late versions, enabling historically informed performance practice based on the latest source evaluation.