This BR-KLASSIK CD features recordings of concerts on February 28 and March 1, 2013 in the Philharmonie im Gasteig.

Zubin Mehta is closely associated with the city of Munich and the orchestras based there. From 1998 to 2006, he was General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and has similarly close ties with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Tchaikovsky wrote his Symphony No. 5 in E minor, op. 64, the so-called "Fate Symphony,” in 1888. All four movements of the work are permeated by the so-called “fate” theme. Together with his fourth and sixth (“Pathétique”) symphonies, the fifth is one of Tchaikovsky's most popular.

Franz Liszt's symphonic poem "Mazeppa" is based on a poem by Victor Hugo and uses musical material from the composer’s fourth "Etude d'exécution transcendante" from 1846. The symphonic poem was composed in 1850 during Liszt's tenure as court conductor in Weimar, and was first performed on April 16, 1854. Liszt's symphonic poem describes the wild ride across the steppe of the emaciated and exhausted Ivan Masepa (Mazeppa), tied to the back of a horse. He is finally rescued by Cossacks, who take him to Ukraine.

"Transformation" is the debut album of Austrian cellist Jeremias Fliedl, laureate of the Queen Elisabeth Competition who is at the beginning of an international career. On this album, he presents works such as Tchaikovsky's famous Rococo Variations and Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 in a version for 9 cellos, with all parts recorded and produced by him. Jeremias Fliedl plays the famous "ex-Gendron" Stradivarius from 1693.

For many people Christmas time has come when the broadcasting stations start playing the specific music everybody knows and hears each year. However, not always music performed around Christmas has originally been composed for Christmas too. Especially our earliest and therefore most emotional memories are closely related to this festivity. The music we associate with these emotions does not necessarily have to be Christmassy, but should intensify and reflect those feelings. In December 2022 the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie under chief conductor Pietari Inkinen performed a festive concert in the main broadcasting studio of the Saarländischer Rundfunk in Saarbrücken. Entitled "Festklänge" (Festive Sounds), the concerto was a compilation of Christmas music and music associated with Christmas, featuring the soprano Sarah Romberger and the mezzo-soprano Elsa Benoit as soloists. It contains next to Hely Hutchinson's excerpts from Humperdinck's opera Hansel and Gretel as well from Tchaikovskys' The Nutcracker.

Witold Rowicki, one of Poland’s most important conductors of the 20th century and leading figure of his generation, is internationally known especially for the complete recording of Dvorák’s symphonies with the London Symphony Orchestra as well as for his impulsive Tchaikovsky performances. In his native country he was admired as the conductor to whom Witold Lutoslawski dedicated his brilliant Concerto for orchestra and who strongly promoted the music of his compatriots. The Tchaikovsky studio recordings presented here were made in 1962 (Fifth Symphony) and 1969 (Sixth Symphony) with the Südwestfunk Symphony Orchestra and in 1979 (Nutcracker Suite) with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. Rowicki had many other appearances with German orchestras, each of them enthusiastically greeted by the press and the public.

REVIEW:

Witold Rowicki was surely Poland’s ‘number one’ conductor in the second half of the 20th century, a fascinating musician not to be underrated, who always had plenty to tell us about whatever repertoire he tackled.

What a pity that Rowicki didn’t tackle the Nutcracker Suite in the studio. Well, happily SWR has come up with an all-Tchaikovsky double-pack featuring that very suite (with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, 1979) in addition to Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6, both with the SWR Symphony Orchestra.

The suite’s highlights are surely the incisive, super-swift Overture and a ‘Waltz of the Flowers’ that is elegant, unhurried and precise. Both the suite and the Pathétique are offered in reasonably good stereo sound, the symphony volatile in the extreme, the initial statement of the first movement’s secondary theme free and rhapsodic, the Allegro molto vivace third movement broadening near the close before speeding up again, the finale charged with emotion.

The Fifth (1962) is heavier, the transition to the second idea very emphatic, the Andante cantabile slow movement deeply elegiac, with raging full-orchestral interjections. The finale is broader than is generally the fashion nowadays but is none of the worse for that, its peroration speeding excitedly. A fascinating set that should prove stimulating for all fans of charismatic conducting and will hopefully prompt further Rowicki releases and reissues. There must surely be plenty of broadcast recordings hidden away in various radio archives.

-- Gramophone

Is there any music more instantly recognisable and beautifully scored than Tchaikovsky’s wildly popular ballet Swan Lake? These and other works have become enduring classics, yet they were not uncontroversial in Tchaikovsky’s day, and there are those that still wonder if his style is fundamentally European or ardently Russian. Find out more about Tchaikovsky’s childhood obsession with music, his turbulent relationships with friends and colleagues, and how he overcame the deepest of personal crises to transcend all with a creative ambition that has left us with some of the greatest music ever written. The narrative is illustrated with musical excerpts from Piano Concerto No. 1, Symphonies Nos. 4 and 6, the 1812 Overture,The Nutcracker, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, among others.