Clarinet trio Trio ClariNord, based in Norway, play Beethoven, Frühling and Ness on their debut release on the LAWO Classics label.

Duo Åstrand/Salo follow up their first installment of sonatas by Friedrich Kuhlau with a selection of some of the composer’s most impressive works for violin and piano. Included is what some consider the first Danish violin sonata in the Romantic style, a work that glances towards the composer’s idol Beethoven but contains plenty of individual spice and allure. It is followed by sonatas in all but name, the Trois Duos brilliants from late in Kuhlau’s career. They are brilliant, as the title suggests – three varied, evocative snapshots of the great cosmopolitan of Denmark’s Golden Age.

Composer Ørjan Matre has worked with Oslo Chamber Choir for over a decade. For Veneliti he has been able to profit from the choir's strong traditions in folk music in his sonic interpretations of Norwegian folk songs – fervent hymns, mystical legends and bittersweet love songs. By returning to the songs' sources and how they have traditionally been sung, Matre has preserved their core identity, giving it new life and meaning in his sonic world. Recorded here in immersive audio, you, the listener, take part in this world as if you were sitting in the choir yourself.

André Mathieu: Musique de chambre includes the recording of two unpublished pieces by Mathieu (Désir and Nocturne) as well as his Trio of and Quintet, and works for violin and piano. Pianist Jean-Philippe Sylvestre is joined by sought-after musicians - Andrea Tyniec (violin), Marc Djokic (violin), Elvira Misbakhova (viola), and Chloé Dominguez (cello) – for this album dedicated to André Mathieu, one of the leading figures in the classical music world in Canada.

The gate opens. The music should sound solemn and magnificent, like an overture: majestic, like Beethoven’s Eroica. That is how Hungarian composer György Ligeti begins Musica ricercata, one of his early works from the early 1950s. In exemplary fashion, the cycle blends minimalist structures with a sumptuous array of colors. Behind each note lurks the exigency that nothing should escape the pianist’s attention: he should be aware of all that takes place in the present, while remaining prepared for everything that can occur in the next moment.

Heinrich Sutermeister (1910–1995) belongs to the generation of Swiss composers after Bloch, Honegger, Martin and Schoeck. His operatic version of Romeo and Juliet soon spread his reputation far afield, and conductors as prominent as Böhm, Karajan and Sawallisch championed his works. Although his star has waned in the quarter-century since his death, the four orchestral works recorded here – ranging from the dramatic essay he drew from that first Shakespearean operatic success, via the easy-going charm of two lighter suites, to his deeply felt response to the Swiss landscape – bring a salutary reminder of why his music appeals so directly to its audiences.

Two cantatas written by Johann Sebastian Bach for Michaelmas in 1726 and 1728/29 respectively build the framework of this recording. They tell of the Archangel Michael‘s victory over Satan. At the center of the cantata „Es erhub sich ein Streit“ is the tenor aria „Bleibt, ihr Engel“ (Stay, ye angels), which gives this recording its name.

Since his 2014 victory in BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, Martin James Bartlett has built a considerable international reputation. “Love and Death”, with its imaginatively conceived programme, gives proof of his artistic range.

The Romanze is Strauss’ first attempt at writing for a soloist and orchestra. The influence of Mozart’s piano concertos, which Strauss was studying at the time, is apparent, not least in the writing for solo clarinet and the orchestral bassoon, and re-visited by Strauss in his final instrumental work the Duett-Concertino from 1947. Like other of his late compositions, this work seems to reject the full-blown expressionism for which we know Strauss best, and reflects a more neo-classical sound.

The five cello sonatas span Beethoven’s three creative periods, with the audacious op.5 sonatas dating from the early years on his time in Vienna as a piano virtuoso and aspiring composer (1792-9), the great op.69 sonata is from the period that saw the composition of symphonies 4-8, the violin concerto, Mass in C and the String Quartets op59. The two op102 sonatas are from the cusp of the ‘late’ period, this is the time of the 9th Symphony, the Missa Solemnis, the great string quartets op127 – 135 and the last five piano sonatas.

Why does a composer write a string quartet? Why does he choose a specific key? What lies behind the decision to use certain forms or structures? Are there any hidden meanings – between notes, chords, cadences – which go beyond the strictly musical content? Can music be a Statement of anything else than music?

There's no record quite like Green Balloon, and no band quite like Tank and the Bangas. Green Balloon is 17 songs, featuring 75 minutes of roughly 30 creative souls, recorded in nearly 10 studios. They make music without boundary on instruments ranging from sax, flute, cello, vocal scratches, keyboards, synths, real drums, fake drums, a djembe and, of course, the poetry, philosophy, comedy and voice that is Tarriona "Tank" Ball.

Acclaimed Los Angeles punk rock band Bad Religion will release a new album entitled Age of Unreason on Epitaph Records on May 3. Since the group’s formative years they have steadfastly advocated for humanism, reason, and individualism. Now, when these values are in decline and nationalism and bigotry are on the rise, Bad Religion’s message has never been more essential. Age of Unreason delivers a powerful and inspired response - a political and deeply personal treatise on all they believe in.