Lisa Illean (b.1983) invites listeners “to immerse themselves in a world where near silence and stillness shape the very fabric of its sounds” (Gramophone).

Hardly any other contemporary composer has developed such an unmistakable personal style as Beat Furrer. In his 70th year is he reaping the fruits of his artistic consistency.

Oliver Leith’s “Dream Horse” (2018), for soprano, bass, and chamber orchestra, sees the heartfelt and surreal collide. Its eclectic text reflects the scope of the London-based composer’s imagination – by turns sweet and subversive – drawing on the 1923 John Wayne Western musical “Riders of Destiny”, a list of horses named ‘Dream _____’ and Wordsworth’s “The Tables Turned”; Thomas Adès premiered the 15-minute work at the Tanglewood Festival. “Taxa” (2013), recently taken up by Ilan Volkov and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, also reflects his quietly anarchic character; the piece superimposes five expressive postures from mixed groups of instruments – “Sustain”, “Echo”, “Flutter”, “Grind”, “Remnants” – to create a teeming whole that riffs on a fragment of Bach.

The French composer Yann Robin, born in 1974, is one of those composers who work with cycles. At the outset, a piece might not have been conceived as part of a series; it can, however, be the first one of such and inspire research into the problems of form, of sound, of material. It is often an encounter with a musician which sets things in motion. For twenty years Yann Robin has collaborated with the Ensemble intercontemporain and its soloists, with pieces and cycles conceived for and with them. Each exchange, each search leads to the discovery of instrumental potential and unimagined possibilities, and to pushing back the limits of tessituras.

Philipp Maintz has focussed more intensively on the organ in his output in recent years. In a conversation, reproduced here in excerpts, he answered questions from his editor Robert Krampe.

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.

The rental material of the renowned music publisher Ut Orpheus Edizioni, founded and based in Bologna in 1993, will now be distributed worldwide by Alkor-Edition, with the exception of Italy. The attractive catalogue, dedicated primarily to early music, includes the complete editions of Francesco Geminiani, Luigi Boccherini (portrait) and Muzio Clementi. Of particular interest is the “Napoli e l‘Europa” series initiated by Riccardo Muti, featuring previously unpublished operas and oratorios of the Neapolitan School, including “I due Figaro” by Saverio Mercadante and “Demofoonte” by Niccoló Jommelli, A real gem is the Dramma per musica “Francesca da Rimini” by Saverio Mercadante (1795–1870), premiered in 2016 at the Festival della Valle d'Itria Martina Franca. It will be performed for the first time beyond the Alps in the current season as a co-production of the Tiroler Festspiele Erl and Oper Frankfurt, in Erl from 28 December 2022, in Frankfurt from 26 February 2023.