BR-KLASSIK is dedicating a second portrait edition to the eminent Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink, containing a total of 9 CDs. Bernard Haitink died in October 2021; he would have turned 95 in March 2024.

These exceptional live recordings document the long-standing and intensive collaboration between Bernard Haitink, the Bavarian Radio Chorus, and the BRSO. Since Haitink conducted a subscription concert for the first time in 1958, he repeatedly led the BRSO for over six decades—sometimes in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz, sometimes in the Philharmonie im Gasteig. The orchestras’ musicians and singers were just as happy to work with him as the Bayerischer Rundfunk’s sound engineers.

The box set includes complete recordings of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (CD 1) from 2019, Bruckner‘s Symphonies No. 4 (CD 2) from 2012, No. 7 (CD 3) from 1981, and No. 8 (CD 4 / CD 5) from 1993, as well as his Te Deum (CD 4) from 2010. Also featured are Dvořák‘s Symphony No. 7 from 1981 and his Scherzo Capriccioso (CD 6) from 1981, Mahler‘s Symphony No. 7 (CD 7) from 2011, and Shostakovich's Symphonies No. 8 (CD 8) from 2006 and No. 15 (CD 9) from 2015.

Kyrill Kondraschin and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks: what had been planned as a happy relationship between the significant representative of the Russian conducting school and the first class Munich ensemble ended tragically with the sudden death of the conductor before he could assume the position of Chief Conductor of the orchestra. All the more significant is thus this sound document. The live recording made at concerts in Munich’s Herkulessaal comprises an exciting program that juxtaposes two late romantic works from different symphonic cultures: Rimsky Korsakov’s “Russian Easter” Overture and César Franck’s only symphony, in D minor.

Born in Münster/Westphalia in 1956, Klaus Ospald is one of the most renowned German composers of contemporary music. He studied composition in Detmold and Würzburg, and as a master student with Helmut Lachenmann. His works are played by internationally renowned performers and orchestras, and premieres of them are arranged by leading promoters and contemporary music festivals. Klaus Ospald has received numerous awards – most recently the International Hanns Eisler Scholarship of the City of Leipzig 2022. - This BR-KLASSIK CD presents Ospald's "Más raíz, menos criatura" in a live recording of a performance on November 22, 2019 in a musica viva concert from the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz, and also his "Quintett von den entlegenen Feldern" (Quintet from the remote fields), recorded on May 25, 2019 in the Laboratory for Fluid Mechanics and Turbomachinery at Coburg University of Applied Sciences. The ten-part composition "Más raíz, menos criatura" (loosely translated: "More root than man") ("Entlegene Felder III"/”Remote Fields III”) for orchestra, piano and eight-part chamber choir, based on the poem "El niño yuntero" (“The child as draught animal") by Miguel Hernández, was written in 2014/15 and revised in 2017. Ospald composed it as a commission from the SWR for the ECLAT Festival 2017, and it received its world premiere at the ECLAT Festival on February 5, 2017 at the Theaterhaus Stuttgart, with Yukiko Sugawara (piano), the SWR Vokalensemble and the SWR Sinfonieorchester conducted by Peter Rundel. The composition is part of a triad of works that Ospald wrote between 2012 and 2016 and placed together under the title "Remote Fields". This bundling together of works of different physiognomy is a basic characteristic of Ospald's oeuvre. Musical content is more important to him than performance standards or genre conventions. Such content determines the form and structure of the works and reflects the consciousness of a critical contemporary who has preserved his independence as an artist and human being, and who uncompromisingly defends the rights of the individual. The eight-part "Quintett von den entlegenen Feldern" for string trio, clarinet, piano and live electronics was commissioned by the SWR Experimental Studio in 2012/13, and revised in 2014. It received its world premiere (without live electronics) on May 31, 2014 at the SWR Studio Freiburg, Schlossbergsaal, with the Ensemble Experimental and its world premiere with live electronics on October 3, 2015 at the same venue by the same ensemble, featuring live electronic realisation by the SWR Experimentalstudio. It is important to Ospald that extended sounds become an integral part of the composition and are given their space. This form of live electronics requires a sound director in the performance who – like the musicians – "plays" the electronics according to the score.

Born in Heidelberg in 1968, Arnulf Herrmann is considered one of the most renowned German composers of contemporary music. He studied piano, music theory and composition in Munich, Dresden, Paris and Berlin, where he completed his studies in 2002. In 2003, he was entrusted with a teaching position for theory, analysis and aural training at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin; from 2004, he was the main teacher for composition there and, from 2006, also lectured on instrumentation and analysis. Since 2014, he has held the chair of composition at the Hochschule für Musik Saar. Herrmann mainly composes ensemble and chamber music, but also pieces for orchestra and the stage. In 2012, his opera "Wasser" (“Water”) premiered at the Munich Biennale; excerpts from it had already been heard in 2011 as part of the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik. In 2017, his opera "Der Mieter" (“The Tenant”) premiered with great success at the Frankfurt Opera, which had commissioned the work. Numerous international contemporary music ensembles perform his works at music festivals such as the Donaueschinger Musiktage, the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, and Wien Modern.

"Drei Gesänge am offenen Fenster" (“Three Songs at the Open Window”) for soprano and large orchestra, based on texts by Händl Klaus and Arnulf Herrmann, was commissioned by musica viva/BR. This release documents the live recording of its premiere on October 24, 2014. The performers are Anja Petersen (soprano) and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Stefan Asbury. "Tour de Trance" for soprano and piano, on a text by Monika Rinck, was commissioned by the Musiktage Hitzacker, and premiered in 2017. This studio recording from September 19, 2022 is one of the new versions of the song cycle from the year 2022. Anja Petersen sings, with Björn Lehmann accompanying on the piano.

Leonard Bernstein conducted regularly in Munich from the 1980s onwards. It was during this time that he came to appreciate and love the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in particular. In October 1976, Bernstein had appeared with an all-Beethoven program, and in 1983 he began a series of annual concerts with the orchestra. In 1987, he rehearsed Franz Schubert's Great C Major Symphony, which was performed in the Congress Hall of the Deutsches Museum in Munich. This BR-KLASSIK CD features not only the live recording of this concert event but also a rehearsal recording on a bonus CD, "Conductors in Rehearsal," which has been preserved in the sound archives of Bavarian Radio. Bernstein's warmth and friendliness, as well as his astonishingly good German, are most impressive.

Franz Schubert most probably composed his Great C Major Symphony in Bad Gastein in the summer of 1825. Chronologically speaking, it is his eighth symphony, although it is still sometimes referred to as his ninth. It can be assumed that Schubert, who had witnessed the first performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna in 1824, wanted to be on an artistic level with his much older colleague. He dedicated his work to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, in whose archives the score can be traced back to the end of 1826. However, it was not until 1839—after Schubert's death—that the history of its performance began, after Robert Schumann became aware of the work and organized its publication. In 1840, after the posthumous first performance by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy on March 21, 1839, Schumann formulated one of the most famous quotations about Schubert’s symphony, that of its "heavenly length." Because of the value the composer himself attached to it, and to distinguish it from the much shorter Sixth Symphony in the same key (therefore often referred to as the "Little C Major"), it was titled "The Great.

"The live recording was made on June 13 and 14, 1987, in the Congress Hall of the Deutsches Museum in Munich. In the rehearsal recording “Conductors in Rehearsal – Leonard Bernstein Rehearses with the BRSO in German,” Friedrich Schloffer (narrator) and Johannes Ritzkowsky (horn) can be heard alongside Bernstein.

The BR-KLASSIK label is now commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) in 2024 by releasing previously unreleased recordings of concerts worth listening to on CD and as a stream for the first time. Hector Berlioz's passionate "Symphonie fantastique," the nearly revolutionary symphonic masterpiece by the great French composer, was performed by Colin Davis with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at Munich’s Philharmonie im Gasteig on January 15 and 16, 1987.

In his "Symphonie fantastique", subtitled "Episodes from the Life of an Artist", Berlioz combines the structures of the musical symphony with the form of a five-part classical drama. Using a leitmotif (an "idée fixe"), he narrates to the listener the story of the beloved woman of his dreams. The "Symphonie fantastique" thus paved the way for the symphonic poems of the Romantic period as well as the leitmotif method in Wagner's music dramas.

"I am still unknown," wrote Berlioz in June 1829 at the age of 25 – but he was certain that he could achieve resounding success with the idea of a major instrumental work. With his "Symphonie fantastique", he created a new kind of programmatic music. Berlioz was inspired by the works of Goethe and by Beethoven's symphonic music – and also by the fascination he felt for the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, whom he saw play Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet at the Odéon Theatre in Paris on September 11, 1827. The "Idée fixe", the main theme, represents the artist going through his life story in various inner states of mind.

Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra enjoyed a long and intensive artistic collaboration, which came to an abrupt end with Haitink’s death in October 2021. BR-KLASSIK now presents outstanding and previously unreleased live recordings of concerts from past years. This recording of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony documents concerts given in November 1981 at the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz.

Haitink first conducted a Munich subscription concert in 1958, and from then on was a regular guest with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra – either at the Herkulessaal of the Residenz or at the Philharmonie im Gasteig. This congenial collaboration lasted more than six decades. The orchestra musicians and singers enjoyed working with him just as much as the BR sound engineers. As an interpreter of the symphonic repertoire, and especially that of the German-Austrian Late Romantic period, Haitink was held in high esteem throughout the world. With him, the symphonies of Anton Bruckner were always in the best of hands. His driving principle was to make the sound architecture of a musical composition, with its complex interweaving, transparently audible; extreme sensitivity of sound was combined with a clearly structured interpretation of the score.

REVIEW:

Haitink was a master at pacing large symphonic structures with impeccable, understated eloquence. Few pieces reward this skill like Bruckner’s Seventh, and here he shapes with just enough momentum to propel the vast opening movements onward without sacrificing the music’s sonic splendor. The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra plays with a refinement that’s expected, and a transparency that surprises. The ensemble’s brasses are appropriately potent at the work’s many apexes, but they impress even more when the score calls for delicacy and restraint.

Bruckner front-loads so much in the first two movements that the other half of the symphony can feel like an afterthought. One additional virtue of this account is that Haitink makes the mazelike finale spring with energy, charm and a constant sense of wonder.

-- New York Times (David Weininger)

Following the 2015 release of "The Rhinegold" – the Vorabend or „preliminary evening“ of Richard Wagner's "The Ring of the Nibelung" – and of "The Valkyrie" in 2019, BR-KLASSIK is now releasing "Siegfried" as the second day of the enthusiastically received tetralogy under Sir Simon Rattle - recorded live on February 3 and 5, 2023 at Munich's Isarphilharmonie im Gasteig.

With "The Rheingold", Rattle had already decisively refuted the longstanding claim that he and Wagner were not a good match, and with "The Walküre", he dispelled any remaining doubts. His recent performance of “Siegfried” – with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and a first-class lineup of Wagner singers – proves yet again how well the conductor understands and is able to interpret Wagner's music. Now, just a few months after the live event, this powerful and immensely popular music drama is released on three CDs.

Wagner's "Siegfried" tells the story of how the hero forges his own sword, gains invulnerability by slaying the dragon and bathing in its blood, and finally conquers Brünnhilde. The outstanding soloists include Simon O'Neill (Siegfried), Peter Hoare (Mime), Michael Volle (The Wanderer/Wotan), and Anja Kampe (Brünnhilde). Moreover, orchestral highlights of "Siegfried" such as the lyrical "Forest Murmurs" or the prelude to Act Three are brilliantly performed by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. As Simon Rattle says: “'Siegfried' contains some of the most dramatic, richly-coloured and enchanting music Wagner ever wrote. I am looking forward immensely to the continuation of our 'Ring', together with the greatest singers one could ever wish for.”

After Berg, Schoenberg, Bartók, and Stravinsky, Isabelle Faust now tackles Britten with Jakub Hrůša and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, revealing a little-known facet of the British composer. This concerto, highly personal in it's language, combines drama with humor, seriousness with satire, in music of overwhelming emotional depth. The program is completed by early chamber works.