Baritone Andrè Schuen's Mahler Album Leads This Week's Classical Releases

Baritone Andrè Schuen and pianist Daniel Heide release "MAHLER Lieder" on CAVi Music this week, leading a batch of classical and opera recordings that stretches from Bach cantatas to a Norwegian opera about addiction.

The album gathers four Mahler cycles in their voice-and-piano versions: "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen," "Kindertotenlieder," "Rückert-Lieder" and "Urlicht." Schuen is the headline name, but the release list runs deep. Here's what's out.

What's in this week's releases?

• BMP: SONGBOOK Volumes I & II. Beth Morrison Projects celebrates 20 years with audio albums (CD and digital, originally issued in January) holding more than two dozen selections from two decades of what the company calls "disruption, innovation and leadership in the opera world." Music by Missy Mazzoli, Kamala Sankaram, Paola Prestini, David T. Little and Nico Muhly, among others.
• Of Love and Transience. Soprano Paula Sides and pianist Sergey Rybin collect early-20th-century songs by Alban Berg, Viktor Ullmann, Erich Korngold and Richard Strauss.
• Opera Arias: Donizetti, Bellini, Rossini. Wang Huandong's debut album on Brilliant Classics, with Orchestra Filarmonica della Calabria and conductor Filippo Arlia.
• MAHLER Lieder. The Schuen/Heide release on CAVi Music.
• Echoes. South African tenor and composer Ongama Mhlontlo, based in New York City, pairs the European art-song tradition.

Which archive recordings are back?

Alto leads the remaster wave. The label's 2026 digital remaster of "The Very Best of St John's College Choir Cambridge" collects 19 choral favorites taped in the College Chapel in June 1996 under director Christopher Robinson — four centuries of sacred repertoire by Haydn, Fauré, Mozart, Bruckner, Rachmaninov and Duruflé.

Alto also presents the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge under Timothy Brown in Tudor and early Baroque settings of grief and lament. And the label reissues Sir Colin Davis conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Haydn's "The Creation," originally recorded in 2007 at The Barbican, with soloists Sally Matthews, Ian Bostridge and Dietrich Henschel.

What does the opera side offer?

Solveig Sørbø's opera "Heroin Chic" arrives via Solsnu, distributed by Diger, in digital, 2CD and 2xVinyl formats. It's based on the novel by Norwegian writer Maria Kjos Fonn and, per the release note, "explores addiction, self-destruction, identity, sexuality, death and the tension between innocence and physicality." Soloists Susanna Wolff, Sofia Neacsu, Siv Misund, Ivar Magnus Sandve and Johannes Nikolai Aas perform with Ensemble Oslo under conductor Hans Petter Mæhle; Trond Kjelsås of LydFest engineered and produced.

Alpha Classics launches a cantata series pairing Bach with recorder: the first CD, directed by Andrzej Kosendiak, features Giovanni Antonini, the NFM Boys' Choir and the Wrocław Baroque Ensemble in BWV 106 (Actus Tragicus), BWV 161 and BWV 182.

Who else is on the list?

Louise Adler and Beth Taylor join the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle for a live 2026 BR Klassik recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection."

Taylor doubles up with Hamish Brown on "The Deeps Have Music" (LINN), a debut recital album for both. The sea-inspired program moves from "My Lagan Love" (arr. Hamilton Harty) through Hedwige Chrétien's "Petits Poèmes du Bord de l'Eau," Ethel Smyth's "Three Moods of the Sea" and Elgar's "Sea Pictures," with songs by Schubert and Alma Mahler plus a world premiere recording of Cameron Biles-Liddell's "The Breakers."

Vocalist Emmy Bean and composer-arranger Ronnie Kuller make their recording debut with "Her Only Light: Songs of Connie Converse" on Sono Luminus. CiMA Streams issues James Adler's "Legends, Romances and Lullabies," recorded at Yamaha Artist Services Piano Studio in New York City by Jeanne Velonis, with soprano Shana Farr, flutist Denise Koncelik and cellist Igor Zubkovsky as guests. Navona Records releases "BETWEEN LOVE AND LAW," the debut recording of the University of Memphis University Singers under Dr. Francis Cathlina, drawing on two conference programs: Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics (2024 TnMEA) and 5 Love Languages (2026 Southern ACDA).

Two Mahler recordings and a birthday songbook set the frame: the week's slate shows how labels are splitting between new-music institutions like Beth Morrison Projects and remastered catalog staples — a mix that keeps both ends of the market stocked.