Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th Symphony and the musical city of Leipzig are closely intertwined with each other: Felix Mendelssohn, Kapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester, made the work an indispensable part of the concert hall repertoire and Arthur Nikisch, one of his successors, established in 1918 the worldwide tradition of performing this groundbreaking and pioneering work at the end of the year. The phenomenal Herbert Blomstedt, Gewandhaus-kapellmeister from 1998 to 2005, once again conducted Beethoven's Ninth in Leipzig for the 2016 New Year celebrations. With his former orchestra, of which he has been Conductor Laureate since 2005 and with whom he enjoys a close friendship, he achieves a gripping interpretation of this monumental work. Under the direction of Blomstedt, together with his excellent musicians, the choirs, and an outstanding quartet of soloists led by the magnificent voice of Christian Gerhaher, the utopia of global freedom and humanity in Friedrich Schiller's "Ode to Joy," penned in Leipzig in 1785, grows to overwhelming dimensions.

This new OSR recording presents the two most ambitious musical responses to Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1893 epoch-making play Pelléas et Mélisande. Conductor Jonathan Nott has created a new suite of Debussy’s opera, which is much more extensive, and focuses more on the actual drama and symphonic development than existing suites that rely heavily on Debussy’s interludes. Schoenberg’s Pelléas und Melisande is often perceived as relatively “amorphous”, its narrative structure obscure, leaving concealed all but the most explicit references to the drama on which Schoenberg based it. In this recording, Jonathan Nott introduces a novel track division and analytical track titles that make the music’s relation to the story much more tangible to the listener. Programming it next to the music of Debussy’s opera allows us to compare both works, and to see how the most important innovators of turn-of-the-century music responded to this haunting, Symbolist story. The arrangement of Debussy’s music on this recording is the work of Jonathan Nott.

REVIEW:

For many listeners, conductor Jonathan Nott's new version of Debussy's work will be reason enough to check this album out. While his task was a difficult one, the results give a feel for the flow of the opera. But there's more. Nott has configured the track divisions and track titles of Schoenberg's single-movement Pelleas und Melisande in a novel way. In part, he seems to have relied on Alban Berg's analysis of the work as a combination of four-movement sonata form and the Wagnerian leitmotif technique, and the track titles, Nott's own, reflect this. One might debate what has been done in the cases of both Debussy and Schoenberg, but there's no debating the value of his effort; comparing the Debussy and the Schoenberg side by side is fascinating. Nott further emphasizes the direct comparison with his relatively straightforward performances of the two works, avoiding operatic gestures in the Debussy, and the venerable Swiss orchestra follows him well through unfamiliar interpretations. This is highly recommended for aficionados of the early 20th century.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

In November 1949, at the age of eight, Idil Biret entered the studios of ORTF (Radiodiffusion Television Francaise) in Paris and made her first recordings; these were works by Couperin, Bach, Beethoven and Debussy. In the following decades she made nearly 100 LPs and CDs, released on ten record labels (Pretoria, Vega, Decca, Atlantic/Finnadar, Pantheon, EMI, Naxos, Marco Polo, Alpha, BMP) and many recordings for radio and television stations around the world. These included the complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninov as well as the Sonatas of Boulez and the Etudes of Ligeti. The Idil Biret Archive (IBA) is now bringing together her past and present recording; as the copyrights are obtained, old recordings no longer available commercially are being released together with her new recordings. The transcriptions by Liszt of Beethoven's Symphonies, originally recorded for EMI, and the newly recorded 32 Sonatas and all the Piano Concertos of Beethoven were released by IBA and also made available in a box set. All the Piano Concertos of Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Grieg and the nine LPs recorded for Atlantic/Finnadar in New York which include works by Boulez, Webern, Berg, Ravel and Stravinsky were also released. Among the recent new releases are Liszt's Etudes and the piano transcription of Berlioz's Harold en Italie, Schumann's Carnaval, Fantasie and other works, all five Piano Concertos of Hindemith and, in the Archive Edition, the early LPs made in France for Pretoria (Schumann, Brahms), Vega (Bartok, Prokofiev, Brahms, Beethoven) and Decca (Rachmaninov). IBA is distributed worldwide by Naxos.

The three great Brahms Sonatas for Violin and Piano certainly need no introduction. These are superb performances by violinist John Fadial and pianist Andrew Harley. Violinist John Fadial serves as Professor of Violin at the University of Wyoming. At the age of eleven, he performed for President Gerald Ford and since has appeared around the globe as chamber musician, soloist and pedagogue. His performances have been praised by the critics. “Sparkling Technique,” (L’Est Republicain) “Wow! Great Stuff,” (The Washington Post.) He has toured internationally for the US State Department as a United States Artistic Ambassador, and has served as Concertmaster of the North Carolina Opera, the Colorado Festival, ProMusica Colorado, the Menuhin Festival Orchestra of Saumur (France), the Heidelberg Schloss-Spiele (Germany), and Greensboro (NC) Symphony Orchestra (eighteen seasons). English pianist Andrew Harley enjoys an internationally recognized performing and teaching career. Specializing in instrumental chamber music and song literature, he has been heard in live broadcasts on national radio and television, as well as on numerous recordings.

Resound brings Beethoven’s symphonies and concertos back into the concert halls in which they were performed during the composer’s lifetime. Four of the six venues for the premieres of the nine symphonies still survive, as do the eight Viennese halls and theatres in which Beethoven’s orchestral works were played during his lifetime. The Orchester Wiener Akademie and its conductor Martin Haselböck continue the Resound Beethoven series, performed on period instruments and scrupulously respecting the orchestral layout of 200 years ago. Volume 7 is devoted to the Fourth Symphony, and the Piano Concerto No.4 in G major op.58, first performed in 1807. The recording took place in the Palais Lobkowitz in Vienna, in the venue of their premiere in March 1807. The concerto is performed by the Austrian pianist Gottlieb Wallisch, who was also heard on the previous volume.

Percussion instruments have only recently become the last members of the symphonic family to be used fully and sensitively by composers, long after strings, woodwinds and brasses have been effectively exploited. Creative interest in the symphonic percussion section began in earnest in the late 1940s and has not yet abated, with rather impressive musical results thus far achieved. It is safe to say that the skillful use of a liberated percussion section has changed the very sound of contemporary symphonic music. One of the by-products of this welcome development has been the emergence of the percussion ensemble as an independent performing entity throughout the US and all over the world. These ensembles have programmed new works by some of our most gifted composers and they are responsible for adding a new dimension to America’s listening experience. The four composers whose works have been adapted to create this program are all quite different from one another, yet, they have been approached as a single musical organism, with the hope that, even after transfer to the same sound source, they would coexist with one another without giving up or cancelling outany of their respective original characteristics of style, color, or content.

As a pianist, Mozart performed at many concerts and music academies, for which he had to build a repertoire; similarly, he was in need of educational repertoire for his students. Between 1782 and 1786, Mozart composed, in addition to piano sonatas and variations, fourteen new concertos for piano with orchestra. He was certainly no novice in this field, already having no less than ten piano concertos under his belt (not to mention his violin concertos and his first collection of concertos for wind instruments). As such, Mozart’s Vienna period begins with a remarkable trio of piano concertos, K. 413, 414 and 415. Mozart undoubtedly wrote them for himself. His concert activity in Vienna was extraordinary, especially in the first years, where he met with success as both a soloist and as a composer. He therefore decided to publish this trio at his own expense (on a subscription basis), obviously with an eye towards having another source of income.