The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and their Music Director Riccardo Chailly have already acquired legendary status – glorious reviews and many awards for their recordings testifying to their continuing success. At Leipzig’s International Mahler Festival, to mark the centenary of Mahler’s death, they performed his monumental Second Symphony in the Gewandhaus – together with two marvellous soloists and choral forces quite beyond compare. About the final movement the composer said: “The increasing tension, working up to the final climax, is so tremendous that I don’t know myself, now that it is over, how I ever came to write it.” The painting "Morgenrot" was chosen by internationally acclaimed artist Neo Rauch to feature on the cover of this release on DVD and Blu-ray.
Recorded live at Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, 17 and 18 May 2011.

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, German, French
Running time: 95 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Also available on Blu-ray

For the very first time Daniel Barenboim tackled Franz Liszt's two highly virtuosic piano concertos in a single concert. With Pierre Boulez, his friend and esteemed colleague of many years, conducting Barenboim’s own orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, they were showered with praise on their tour across Europe. For both musicians, Liszt was one of the most important pioneers of modern music, as composer, conductor and pianist. He influenced revolutionary contemporaries such as Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner. Two examples of the latter's magnificent orchestral work round off this concert programme celebrating Liszt’s bicentenary.

LISZT: PIANO CONCERTOS

Franz Liszt:
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, S124/R455
Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major, S125/R456
Consolations, S172/R12: No. 3 in D flat major
Valse oubliée No. 1

Richard Wagner:
A Faust Overture
Siegfried Idyll

Daniel Barenboim, piano
Berlin Staatskapelle
Pierre Boulez, conductor

Recorded live at the Philharmonie Essen on 9–10 June 2011 during the Klavier-Festival Ruhr

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 90 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Karol Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony, composed only seven years apart, while differing widely differing in their choice of soloists, are united in their source of inspiration. The Lyric Symphony is Zemlinsky’s best known work and an homage to Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde”. It sets poems by Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) to equally poetic music. Szymanowski likely received his inspiration for the violin concerto from “Noc Majowa” (May Night), a poem by the Polish poet Tadeusz Micinski. The work is recognized as the first “modern“ violin concerto, as Szymanowski rejects the 19th-century tradition and the major-minor system, introducing a new music language full of ecstatic raptures and poetic tension.

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REVIEW:

This performance of Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony can be considered at least the equal of Chailly's or Eschenbach's notable readings. Although the singers are forwardly balanced, the recording is of surpassing transparency and richness, allowing Zemlinsky’s iridescent score to be heard to ravishing effect, and Liebreich conveys the music’s mingled ardour, otherworldliness and heartbreak with tremendous conviction.

Vähälä’s plays the Szymanowski with litheness and spontaneity, alongside an impressive technical command and a sense of rapture at key moments. The contribution of the Polish orchestra under Alexander Liebreich is as refined and impassioned as any rival.

– Gramophone

This music is more serious and more significant than one had thought, the Berliner Zeitung summarized in it's review of Daniel Barenboim's celebrated Bruckner cycle with the Staatskapelle Berlin. Bruckner's unfinished Symphony No. 9 brought to an end, in a poignant manner, the work of one of the greatest symphonic composers of the Classic-Romantic era. Once more the essential elements of Bruckner's symphonic style are present; the technical standard, the intensity of sound, and the enormous richness of expression are in this singular work brought to an unsurpassed niveau.

Nothing else that he wrote is as all-encompassing as the Mass in B minor, not even the great Passions,” says Herbert Blomstedt about Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Opus summum”. The Dresdner Kammerchor and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under the musical direction of Herbert Blomstedt have merged ingeniously to conclude the Bachfest Leipzig with this unrivaled work – a work that bears close connections to choir and orchestra, as well as to Herbert Blomstedt himself. J. S. Bach Mass in B minor, BWV 232 Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. Performing this monumental work is the ever-capable Dresdner Kammerchor conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. Featured soloists include Christina Landshamer, soprano, Elisabeth Kulman, alto, Wolfram Lattke, tenor, and Luca Pisaroni, bass.

Always armed with wisecracks, umbrella, and a bowler hat, Erik Satie was not only on the outside one of the strangest figures in the early 20th century French avant-garde; he was a composer, designer, church founder, PR pioneer, and master of witty remarks. In playful episodes, the documentary illuminates the overall phenomenon of Satie. His countless imaginary advertisements evolve into real commercials, and his drawings take on a life of their own as cartoons. Divas, dogs, puppets, and children, as well as pianists playing pianos stacked on top of each other are featured in scenic interludes, while performers turn into “musical furniture” in swimming pools, factories, or at train stations. Interwoven with accounts by Satie’s associates and music experts, the film offers a unique insight into Satie’s cosmos of word and sound.

With Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, Henri Sauguet, Georges Auric, Pierre Bertin, Virgil Thomson, Steffen Schleiermacher, GrauSchumacher Piano Duo, Jean-Pierre Armengaud and Patrick Le Mauff

Languages: English, French
Subtitles: German, French, English, Korean, Japanese
Bonus: Music by Erik Satie (La Belle Excentrique, Valse du Chocolat aux Amandes, Ce que dit la petite Princesse des Tulipes, Nocturne No. 4), Stock Market Report à la Satie
Bonus Running time: 15:17 min
Bonus Languages: German
Bonus Subtitles: English

Number of DVDs: 1
Picture Formats: 16:9 NTSC
Sound Formats: PCM Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1
Running time: 56:22 min

Giuseppe Verdi composed over 30 operas, though only about half of them are still regularly staged. For the latest studio recording with the Philharmonia Zurich, Fabio Luisi has chosen overtures and preludes from Verdi’s whole creative period. Next to popular masterpieces like the overture to "La forza del destino", the selection ranges from the earliest works by Verdi, which strongly remind of Rossini and Donizetti, over exceptional preludes he wrote for "Macbeth" or "La traviata" for example, to rarely performed overtures such as "I vespri siciliani" or "La battaglia di Legnano". A special highlight on this recording is the long version of the overture to "Aida", which is never heard in combination with opera. Furthermore, the ballet music for the French version of "Don Carlos" also found its way onto the album. Thus, the compilation unites pieces that belong to the day-to-day repertoire of the Philharmonia Zurich with those that are also rarities to orchestra musicians.

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REVIEW:

Luisi is never subject to the temptation of vulgar crashing or rhythmic idling. Rather, he has an unmistakable sense of the music's many chamber-like intimate moments, as well as the great dramatic psychological aspects of these miniature masterpieces. Overall then, an impressive record of the work this podium maestro has accomplished in Zurich.

– Online Merker (Austria; Ingobert Waltenberger)

The Zurich Opera Orchestra recently re-branded itself as the Zurich Philharmonia. Along with its relaunch it launched its own CD label. With an energized, undistracted Fabio Luisi at the helm, this is paying big dividends in this CD of popular Wagner overtures. The sensual, calm flow of the Rienzi Overture is exemplary for his Wagner: Luisi unfolds the music with a resting, slow magnificence before rolling out the full brunt of this powerful overture. The whole two-CD album continues in this vein. Indeed, this is now my favorite disc of orchestral Wagner!

– Forbes (Jens F. Laurson)

Also available on Blu-ray

Giacomo Puccini
La Bohème
from the Palau de les Arts "Reina Sofía", Valencia

Directed by Riccardo Chailly
Staged by Davide Livermore

Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana
Cor de la Generalitat Valenciana
Escola Coral Veus Juntes de Quart de Poblet
Escolania de la Mare de Déu dels Desemparats

Gal James (Mimì), Aquiles Machado (Rodolfo)
Carmen Romeu (Musetta), Massimo Cavalletti (Marcello)
Gianluca Buratto (Colline), Mattia Olivieri (Schaunard)
Matteo Peirone (Benoît)

The musical notes of this Puccini masterpiece provide the starting point and foundation for a new, highly successful collaboration between Riccardo Chailly and Davide Livermore. In their interpretation, there is "no moment, no movement, that goes against the musical meaning" (R. Chailly). The result is an energetic, authentic, and atmospherically strong Bohème, "in which every sacred phrase receives its own orchestral colour, its own dynamic and its own expression." (Corriere della Sera)

Bonus Film (20 min)
“The Making of La Bohème in Valencia”
(Subtitles: Italian, English, German, French)

Picture Format DVD: NTSC 16:9 Sound Formats DVD: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, PCM Stereo
Region Code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Original (Italian), English, German, French, Korean, Japanese
Running Time: 114:13 min
Number of Discs: 1

Mieczyslaw Weinberg composed his 24 solo cello Preludes in the late 1960s for Mstislav Rostropovich. The pieces are terse, aphoristic, and unpredictable, redolent of Shostakovich’s late-period chamber works, or the miniatures of Kurtag. Although Rostropovich never played the Preludes, something of this cellist’s exuberant spirit can be found in Josef Feigelson’s emotive, large-scale performance on Naxos. The same holds true for Gidon Kremer, who has transcribed the Preludes for violin.

Although one loses the the cello’s bass-to-treble-register tessitura, Kremer compensates by intensifying dynamic contrasts and articulations. As a result, the repeated phrases of Nos. 2 and 19 sound fascinatingly quirky and obsessive here, rather than merely playful. On the other hand, the violin arguably lends itself better to No. 7’s rapidly spinning figurations. On violin, the Sarabande (No. 18) takes on a stentorian character quite different from the cello’s warmer resonant overtones. The elegant concluding Menuet (No. 24) falls within the cello’s tenor and mezzo-soprano ranges in such a way that the long lines suggest a seamless conversation between two singers. By contrast, the music’s high-lying range on the violin conveys a completely different impression: ethereal, otherworldly.

I wouldn’t want to be without Feigelson’s standard-setting recording of Weinberg’s original cello versions, yet Kremer’s effective arrangements and fiercely focused interpretations deserve equal consideration. Allow these pieces to grow on you over time; they’re well worth your attention.

– ClassicsToday (Jed Distler)

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD
Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 is an incomprehensible wonder of music history, rigorously peculiar, disturbingly new, and timelessly modern. “Wie ein Naturlaut” (Like a sound of nature) is indicated above the first notes of the symphony. It is both the prelude and the key to his symphonic cosmos as a whole. Mahler captures this music of the world, transforms it into a symphony in the old, comprehensive sense of the word and uses it to create his masterpiece of harmony. Composed over the course of just a few months at the beginning of 1888 in Leipzig, this symphony is a true musical awakening. Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig bring Mahler’s sounds of nature to life in a riveting performance. This production was recorded live in January 2015 at the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig. As a bonus, this release also includes an exclusive interview with Riccardo Chailly.

Filmed in North and South Korea, "Inbetween", a film by Maria Stodtmeier, explores whether music can overcome the boundaries of a divided country. There is one figure representing the two Koreas, a figure whose life in itself forms a bridge between both worlds: Korean composer Isang Yun is one of the very few people acknowledged on both sides. The film traces the course of a life that has been interpreted in different ways, examining the worlds of North and South Korean music, taking the viewer on an exciting journey through two political systems that Isang Yun spent his life trying to reconcile. Since the establishment of ACCENTUS Music, Maria Stodtmeier has been involved in the enterprise as author, director and producer. Ms. Stodtmeier was co-director with Paul Smaczny on the documentary "El Sistema" (Grand Prix Golden Prague. "A composer cannot view the world in which he lives with indifference... Where there is pain, where there is injustice, I want to have my say through my music." - Isang Yun, 1983

From the Church of St Mary, Marienberg

Sächsische Bläserphilharmonie
(The Saxony Philharmonic Wind Orchestra)
Thomas Clamor, Conductor
Ruth Ziesak, Soprano
Rundfunk – Jugendchor Wernigerode
Peter Habermann, Chorus Master
Ensemble Sonora

TRACK LIST
1. Wolfgang Schumann: Christmas Toccata
2. Gloria in Excelsis Deo
3. George Frideric Handel: Arrival of the Queen of Sheba
4. George Frideric Handel: Let the bright Seraphim
5. George Frideric Handel: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion
6. From Heaven above to Earth I come (trad.)
7. Richard Wagner: Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral
8. Blest Mary wanders through the thorn (trad.)
9. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Excerpts from the “Nutcracker” Suite
10. Felix Mendelssohn: Christmas / In Advent
11. Lo, how a rose e’er blooming (trad.)
12. Felix Mendelssohn: For He shall give His angels charge
13. Let us listen, blessed angels (trad.)
14. Eduard Ebel: Snow falls softly at night
15. Sweeter the bells never sound (trad.)
16. Richard Eilenberg: St Petersburg Sleigh Ride
17. Roger Harvey: Festive Cheer
18. John Francis Wade: Adeste fideles
19. Engelbert Humperdinck: Evening Prayer
20. Siegfried Köhler: A thousand stars are a cathedral
21. Franz Gruber: Silent night, holy night
22. Oh, how joyfully (trad.)

Picture Format DVD: NTSC 16:9
Sound Formats DVD: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, PCM Stereo
Region Code: 0 (worldwide)
Running Time: 84:15 min
Number of Discs: 1
Disc Format: DVD-9

Also available on Blu-ray

All are equal before the work, before the mysteries of a score; this was Claudio Abbado’s heart-felt conviction. For him, the willingness to be open to one another and to the independent life of musical processes was the only prerequisite for making music. In the live performances documented here for the first time on DVD/Blu-ray, Abbado could be sure of the devotion of these world-class artists: the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the sopranos Christine Schäfer and Juliane Banse, as well as the actor Bruno Ganz. They shared his credo of “listening togetherness” (Die ZEIT) that made possible those precious moments of musical truth toward which this great conductor strove throughout his life.

CLAUDIO ABBADO CONDUCTS MOZART AND BEETHOVEN

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Misera, dove son!, K. 369
Ah, lo previdi, K. 272
Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio, K. 418
Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385, “Haffner”

Ludwig van Beethoven: Egmont, Op. 84

Christine Schäfer, soprano
Juliane Banse, soprano
Bruno Ganz, narrator

Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Claudio Abbado, conductor

Recorded live at the Concert Hall of KKL Luzern, 19–20 August 2011 (Mozart) and 8–10 August 2012 (Beethoven)

Picture format: 1080i Full-HD
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Italian, German, English, Japanese, Korean
Running time: 89 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

By the time Bach relocated to Leipzig, he had already composed a number of masterpiece works. During his pivotal years at Köthen, he composed his Inventions and Sinfonias. These pieces, although typically overshadowed by his larger works such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, show Bach’s maturity as they serve as a fundamental tool for learning the piano.On this album, recorded in Leipzig, pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei does an extraordinary job of bringing out the musical density in these pieces.

In 1786 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach presented the greatest musical achievements of his century to a captivated audience and enthusiastic reviewers. The music director from Hamburg arranged a remarkable program for a charity concert, including not only his own music, but also popular and forgotten works by his father J S Bach and works by George Frideric Handel.

As a tribute to the 300th anniversary of CPE Bach, the RIAS Kammerchor and the Akademie für Alte Musik in Berlin revive the memorable concert from April 9, 1786 and reawaken a great historic moment in music history.
C.P.E. BACH: THE 1786 CHARITY CONCERT – A Revival

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach:
Introduction to the Credo of J.S. Bach’s Mass BWV 232, H. 849
Sinfonia in D Major, Wq. 183/1, H. 663
Magnificat, Wq. 215, H. 772
Heilig, Wq. 217, H. 778: Herr, wert, dass Scharen der Engel / Heilig ist Gott

Johann Sebastian Bach: Mass in B Minor, BWV 232: Credo

George Frideric Handel: Messiah, HWV 56: Ich weiss, dass mein Erloser lebet / Hallelujah!

Christina Landshamer, soprano
Wiebke Lehmkuhl, alto
Lothar Odinius, tenor
Thomas E. Bauer, bass

RIAS Chamber Chorus
Berlin Akademie für Alte Musik
Hans-Christoph Rademann, conductor

Recorded live at Konzerthaus Berlin, 15 June 2014

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Latin, German, English, French, Japanese, Korean
Running time: 109 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

MAHLER Symphony No. 6 & • Riccardo Chailly, cond; Gewandhaus O • ACCENTUS 20268 (DVD: 86:25 + 18:28)

& Panel discussion with Riccardo Chailly and Reinhold Kubik

A Mahler Sixth in which the Andante movement comes second? And where the last movement has two hammer blows, not the three that Mahler himself included at the premiere)? Well, yes, and those are just two of the things that make Riccardo Chailly’s interpretation of this over-familiar work sound new. Another is the incredibly swift, truly scherzo-like tempo with which Chailly takes the (now) third movement, not at a pace mimicking the first, as usually happens when it comes second.

Some of the mystery is explained in the 18-minute conversation that Chailly holds in the bonus feature. The “wrong” order of the movements (Allegro energico, Andante moderato, Scherzo, and Finale: Sostenuto) is how they appeared in the conductor’s score that was actually published in March 1906. By the time a second score was published in November of the same year, the Scherzo now came second, and this is how it was premiered. In addition, the premiere had three hammer blows in the last movement, not the traditional two; that came later, too. Early in the interview Chailly admitted that he had copiously studied the scores owned by conductor Willem Mengelberg, who had known Mahler and who wrote down all sorts of things, including metronome markings (usually not in Mahler’s symphonies), that he slavishly followed for years. “But now,” Chailly says, “I am no longer such a slave to tradition.” Musicologist Reinhold Kubik of the Mahler Society mentions that when Mengelberg wrote to Alma Mahler about the order of the movements, she said that the Andante came second—and she stuck by that judgment even as late as 1957. Was she wrong? She did mention that he had conducted it that way in a city where he never played this work, but memory is a tricky thing, and the fact that she emphatically insisted that the Andante came second in letters written some 40 years apart should count for something.

Whatever your judgment of these decisions, there is no question that Chailly’s Sixth is simply mind-boggling. The first movement itself is taken at an Allegro that is certainly more energico than I’ve ever heard it before in my life. In a certain sense, this new, brisker tempo rather eliminates the feeling of jackboots marching that most other conductors bring out in it; rather, it sounds like the blind rush of a madman, interrupted by the calmer middle section.

But there is much more to Chailly’s Mahler than just faster tempos. There is a much stronger feeling of organic unity and structure in the music, a more songful legato line in each and every movement, and the playing of the Gewandhaus Orchestra is staggeringly beautiful and dramatically effective. Chailly seats the orchestra the way Mahler himself wanted it: first and second violins split left and right, cellos in the middle right behind them, other instruments spaced out so as to create the balances Mahler so carefully constructed. (Michael Gielen seated his orchestra the same way when he conducted Mahler in Cincinnati during the 1980s.) The “traditional” seating used by most orchestras, Kubik tells us, originated from that used by Leopold Stokowski when he conducted Mahler in America in the early-to-mid 20th century. And in the last movement, which runs 34 minutes, Chailly creates a world-within-a-world. His hammer blows are not just some bangy little hammer on an anvil, but a HUGE wooden mallet that looks like it needed Thor to handle it.

On the podium, Chailly presents the image of an excited schoolboy, jumping up and down, raising his arms and slicing his baton through the air like the drop of a guillotine. Perhaps it is a bit overdone, especially if you are accustomed (as I am) to watching such conductors as Kempe, Böhm, Toscanini, Gielen, and Ormandy conduct, but it doesn’t really seem like an affectation, either. Most of what he does is either in response to the music or in anticipation of how he wants the next attack or the next phrase to go. He is simply emotionally involved in each and every bar of the score, and he wants it just so. Considering the great results he gets, I can’t really find much fault with that. After all, he does ask all the principal wind players to stand up and take a bow at the end.

So often, for me, watching a conductor perform an orchestral concert is a bit like watching paint dry, unless you are a really big fan of conductor X and you want to study the way he moves on the podium, but in this case I found myself completely caught up in watching Chailly and the orchestra because they’re so deeply into what they are doing. In the trailer on this disc for his video of the Fourth Symphony, Chailly mentions that both he and the Gewandhaus Orchestra musicians have come to an understanding of how to best play Mahler: They get involved but always remain in control. “If you let Mahler control you,” he warns, “you’re heading for trouble.” In addition to all this, the high-resolution digital sound is as spectacular as Chailly’s interpretation, capturing the slightest rustle of harp strings and the sound of stays on the oboe with astounding clarity.

Looking at the trailers, there are also DVDs out of Chailly conducting the Second, Fourth, and Eighth Symphonies. The snippets I’ve heard of all of them sound amazing. I recommend looking for all of them, and also awaiting the rest of the series.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley