ME and the middle and later ones. A result of the the Pandemic and challenging the re discovery of Beethoven’s sonatas Vol. III.

Following their much-praised Schubert recording (‘the most thrilling account of Schubert’s last symphony’, BBC Music Magazine), Maxim Emelyanychev and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra are reunited for their highly anticipated second album on Linn, this time performing Mendelssohn’s Symphonies Nos. 3 & 5. Inspired by the natural beauty of Scotland – and what better way to celebrate SCO’s 50th anniversary in 2023 than the ‘Scottish’ Symphony! – No. 3 has a fiery character well suited for the ‘dynamic, energetic and exciting to watch’ conductor Maxim (The Guardian). Despite its numbering, No. 5 (known as the ‘Reformation’) is an early work which evokes the struggles and triumph of Protestantism. Its final chorale based on Luther’s much celebrated ‘Ein feste Burg’ draws the album to a reaffirming end.

Ravel’s early masterpiece, Daphnis et Chloé, was commissioned by Serge Diaghilev for his Ballets Russes, and was premièred in the Théâtre du Châtelet in July 1912. Described by Ravel as a ‘symphonie chorégraphique’ (choreographic symphony), the work was performed just twice in that 1912 season, and was given only three more performances the following year. Press reaction was muted, and it is now much more often performed as a concert work than as a ballet.

Life was a long time coming. Culture Club began work on a reunion album in 2014, recording a bunch of tracks with Youth, but that project was scrapped by 2016. Instead, the group decided to retain some of the songs, pluck a few tunes originally planned for a Boy George solo record, add some new cuts, and record all of them as Life, their first album in nearly 20 years. Two decades is a long time and that distance seems even greater thanks to how Culture Club faded after 1983's Colour by Numbers, scoring some hits while George and the rest of the crew figured out how to navigate their seismic international fame. The remarkable thing about Life is how doubt never seems to be part of their equation, either in the composition or the recording.