Brahms: Complete Symphonies - A German Requiem / Landshamer, Boesch, Norrington, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR
SWR
CD
$28.99$37.99Save 25%Sep 10, 2021
Sir Roger Norrington has been chief conductor of the former Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (today the SWR Symphonieorchester) for thirteen years. During this time he has caused a stir internationally with what has come to be termed ‘The Stuttgart Sound’: a synthesis of historically-informed performance practice with the technical capabilities of a modern orchestra. Whether in Mozart, Haydn, Bruckner or Brahms, Norrington has sought to capture the performance experience of the time, adjusting the orchestra’s size and seating plan to create an authentic sound without vibrato. The present reissue of Brahms' four symphonies, recorded back in 2005, is no exception to Norrington's artistic credo of keeping as close as possible to the composer's expectations. And one of the main features – beside the "pure sound" without vibrato – are the quick tempi. Brahms left no metronome indications in his symphonies. However, the overall timings left by the Brahms conductor von Bülow are so short, compared to today, that there can have been no very slow tempi in his interpretations. Additionally, Norrington considered also one of the many hints left by another admired conductor and friend of Brahsm, Steinbach: “By all means conduct the opening of Brahms First Symphony in 6. But it must sound in 2.” 'A German Requiem' is one of the most popular compositions by Johannes Brahms. Although the texts are taken from the Bible, the piece is not part of any ecclesiastical-liturgical tradition, it is aimed – as Brahms himself expressly emphasized – at people “who are in mourning” and unlike the “Requiem”, the Catholic Mass of the Dead, it is not a liturgical prayer for the souls of the deceased, but rather intended to console the bereaved.
This third installment in a series documenting the works of Maurice Ravel includes his longest work, Daphnis et Chloe, as well as Valses nobles et sentimentales. The works are performed here by the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR). Founded in 1945, the ensemble is one of the most significant musical ambassadors for Germany. The SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart are also counted among the top ensembles in Germany. They frequently perform concerts on their home stages, and are often invited abroad.
Ravel: Orchestral Works / Denève, SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart
SWR
CD
$37.99May 13, 2022
Stéphane Denève, triple winner of the Diapason d’Or of the Year, produced many outstanding recordings as chief conductor of the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart from 2011 until 2016 when the orchestra merged with its sister orchestra from Baden-Baden and Freiburg to form the SWR Symphony Orchestra. They are now reissued as a five album boxed set including the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, Ravel's longest work, written for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and the operas L'Heure espagnole and L'Enfant et les sortileges. Although the two operas cannot be strictly considered orchestral works, they are essential to understanding the œuvre of a composer who had a great predilection for fantasy worlds and the exotic. As a student Ravel composed the Ouverture de Shéhérazade and, several years leter, three poems for voice and orchestra on the same topic – both works form part of this set. Throughout his entire career, from Une barque sur l'ocean to Ma mère L'Oye Ravel created magical soundscapes in a highly original manner and with great stylistic freedom. A big inspiration for him was American operetta but also jazz and fairy tales. The formal structure of his works has the clarity of crystal and the elegance of mathematics. The SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart and the cast of young singers selected by Denève give thrilling interpretations.
REVIEWS:
Denève was the final Chief Conductor of this orchestra, from 2011-2016, after which they merged with the South West German Radio Orchestra for budgetary reasons. Their timbre is mellow and warm, akin to that of the Boston Symphony, but their ensemble playing and attack are tight.
The set is a highly worthwhile investment if you want a single collection of Ravel’s orchestral music. The sound is warm, clear, and spacious. Highly recommended.
-- Limelight (Australia)
Denève is very consistent in his meticulously prepared if slightly detached style. The playing and engineering is consistently very good indeed. The price of this box set is attractive. The song cycle and the two operas engaged me the most.
When 23-year-old Hector Berlioz saw Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" on stage for the first time in 1827, he was deeply moved by the experience, probably not least because of the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, who played Juliet. She became Berlioz's wife in 1833, and another six years later he completed his chorus-symphony "Romeo et Juliette", Op. 17. "Romeo et Juliette" is by no means intended as an attempt to transpose Shakespeare's drama as faithfully as possible; not a single verse of Shakespeare's text was included in the libretto, which was written by the poet emile Deschamps based on Berlioz's drafts. When the Prologue refers to Shakespeare as the only person who knew the highest secret of poetry, it is clear that the listener is deliberately placed in Berlioz's perspective, whose imagination is ignited by Shakespeare's genius. As in the case of the "Harold" symphony based on Byron, Berlioz adapts the original very freely. In both cases, he develops entire movements from episodes that are of only minor importance in the poem and adds scenes that do not appear there at all. The present live recording from 1982 showcases Gary Bertini at the peak of his career, conducting the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra of the SWR. An exquisite cast of singers - Alfreda Hodgson, Philip Langridge and John Shirley-Quirk - as well as internationally renowned choirs like the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the SWR Vokalensemble (known until 1998 as Sudfunk-Chor) accompany him in the performance of one of the most complex symphonic works of the Romantic era.
What distinguishes Fauré's Requiem from numerous other settings of the requiem text is it's rather intimate, restrained, almost chamber-music nature, a "lullaby of death", as it has also been called, initially more as a criticism of a work that for most of the time avoids depicting the dread of death and the Last Judgement. Fauré's reply "But this is how I feel about death: as a happy liberation, as a striving for happiness in the hereafter rather than as a painful transition", not only perfectly describes essential characteristics of his Requiem, but also reveals it to be a very personal expression of the composer's very own artistic nature. Two generations after Fauré (and Fauré's grand-disciple through his teacher Koechlin), Francis Poulenc's (1899-1963) displayed a significantly different approach to religion. Poulenc, who like Fauré was from the southern part of France, had been shaped by his homeland in the sense of a 'rural', intense but joyous Catholicism. He regarded his Gloria as a more joyful counterpart to some of his other sacred works, and it is in this spirit that the first movement, begins in a festive mood with a striking, fanfare-like motif in the full orchestra. If Poulenc cited Gozzoli frescoes with monks sticking out their tongues and Benedictine monks playing football as the source of inspiration for his Gloria, then nowhere is this more immediately comprehensible than in the second movement, with it's rhythmically pointed Laudamus te, of the choir. In both the opera house, and concert hall, Prêtre's interpretations were notable for their full-blooded and highly romantic character; in style, they were often different from those of French conductors of the previous generation. He was an effective conductor not only of the French repertoire, but also of the music of Italy, and Germany, a fact reflected by the admiration in which he was held in both countries. A highly experienced and polished recording artist, Prêtre had many years' experience of working in the studio. His discography was large. Especially important were his recordings of the music of Poulenc.
'The Fifth is a cursed piece. Nobody understands it,' said Gustav Mahler in March 1905 after a performance of his Fifth Symphony in Hamburg. He had been working on his new symphony for almost three years before it premiered on 18 October 1904: in Cologne, with the Gurzenich Orchestra and Gustav Mahler at the podium. To many of his contemporaries, the work seemed too bold, too radical - perhaps also insufficiently explained, given that programmatic explanations had been added to the so-called 'Wunderhorn' Symphonies Nos. 2 to 4. Not only the number and the order of the movements seemed new, but stylistically Mahler also broke new ground with his Fifth. But now, all at once, his musical language changed, a transformation that evidently gave him some unease later. Shortly before his death, he made corrections to the instrumentation. Today the work is considered the beginning of his new creative phase, which culminated in his Ninth Symphony and it's one of his most popular symphonies. Gary Bertini was born in Bessarabia (now Moldova) in 1927. After the Second World War, he studied at the Milan Conservatory, then at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music (where he graduated in 1951), and finally at the Paris Conservatory and the ecole Normale de Musique. He founded and directed first the Rinat Choir - later named the Israel Chamber Choir - and then the Israel Chamber Ensemble with which Bertini made numerous appearances in Europe and the USA. Over the years, he has been principal conductor of the Frankfurt Opera and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, artistic director of the New Israel Opera, and music director of the Rome Opera and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. Bertini's breadth of repertoire was very impressive, reaching from the 16th century to contemporary composers.
Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake takes a special place in Ahronovitch's life. The conductor was just five years old when he visited a performance of the ballet at the Kirov Theater. He was so fascinated that he announced to his parents his decision to become a conductor himself. In the midst of the turmoil of war, he did indeed studied at the conservatory and graduated with honors in 1954. In the course of his career, he was chief conductor of the Gurzenich Orchestra (as successor of Gunther Wand) and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and also conducted numerous important orchestras around the world. On Swedish television, Ahronovitch once made the following statement that is so characteristic of him: "I was never the conductor of the orchestra, I was always a colleague, a friend and a partner." This humanistic approach combined with a laid-back unaffectedness and a self-evident demand for perfection characterized his conducting style. Tchaikovsky composed the Orchestral Suite No. 4, usually referred to as "Mozartiana", for the centenary of Don Giovanni: Four orchestrated movements based on original Mozart works, although none of them directly related to the well-known opera. Tchaikovsky ends with the variations KV 455, "Unser dummer Pobel meint", based on a theme by Christoph Willibald Gluck. In these 15 minutes, Yuri Ahronovitch shows how melancholy and cheerfulness, dark, earthy colors and shimmering, bright moments come together.
As winner of the international conducting competition "Guido Cantelli", Eliahu Inbal was already in demand as a guest conductor with the world's leading orchestras at the age of 26. Over the years, he has been principal conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra del Teatro la Fenice, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI Turino, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. The present album contains recordings from 1971 and 2012.
This album contains the symphonic suite "Scheherazade" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and the short composition "The Enchanted Lake" by his student Anatoly Lyadov.
In 1887-88, after the sudden death of his brilliant friend Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov composed those three orchestral works which crowned his Russian national period and has made his name a permanent part of the worldwide concert repertoire: the "Capriccio espagno"l, the symphonic suite "Scheherazade", and the concert overture "La Grande Pâque Russe". With Scheherazade Rimsky-Korsakov did not tell a story, he rather set individual, unconnected episodes and images to music.
Anatoly Lyadov has a reputation of being lazy – based solely on Rimsky-Korsakov’s opinion of him – yet his ambition was for every piece of music he created to be flawless. One consequence of this was that his entire œuvre consists entirely of miniatures. The "Enchanted Lake" does not tell a story but is purely impressionistic music about a Russian forest lake, on a level with Ravel and Debussy. Conductor Dmitri Kitayenko conducted various orchestras in Moscow, became chief conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic in 1976, and took over the Symphony Orchestra of the Hessischer Rundfunk in Frankfurt am Main in 1990-96. He went on to hold principal positions with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bern Symphony Orchestra, the KBS Symphony Orchestra in Seoul and finally, in addition to his worldwide activities as a guest conductor, was appointed Honorary Conductor of the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne.
Among the early 20th century composers involved in the transition from romanticism to modernism, Carl Nielsen was particularly conspicuous for his originality which deviated from everything known and was perceived at the time as downright provocative. Today we see in Carl Nielsen’s six symphonies – all as strikingly different from one another – consistent genre contributions of unique and outstanding importance. Yet Nielsen’s international breakthrough only began in the 1950s and today his works are still far from being commonplace in our concert halls. The Symphony No. 4 was considered by the composer himself as one of his best works and it is until today one his most performed ones. The Symphony No. 2 was inspired by paintings in a pub, showing grotesquely exaggerated depictions of the four human character archetypes. Listeners shouldn’t be surprised that there’s a lot more humor at play here than is apparent in most other works.
The Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1945 and in the following seven decades became one of the most important musical ambassadors of Germany. World-renowned conductors, as well as some of the world’s greatest soloists, have been guests, including: Carlos Kleiber, Kurt Sanderling, Maria Callas, Yehudi Menuhin, Alfred Brendel, and Lang Lang. Sir Roger Norrington has worked at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and at the English National Opera, with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Concertgebouw Orchester as well as many renowned British and American orchestras.
Bohuslav Martinu’s six symphonies were composed between 1942 and 1953 during the composer’s years in America. He completed the first five symphonies at the astonishing rate of one per year, although not at any artistic expense – years later, he described the Fifth Symphony as a ‘well organized, organic, well ordered work’ in an interview with The New York Times. A full seven years elapsed, however, before Martinu completed his Sixth. One of his ‘unexpected’ works, it took, quite unusually for him, two years to complete, and its form proved to be a radical change from his previous symphonies. As he wrote to his friend Šafránek – ‘I am about to create fantasias!’
In November 2021 Sir Roger Norrington announced his retirement from conducting. From 1998 to 2011 he was chief conductor of the former Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (today the SWR Symphonieorchester), and during that time caused an international stir with what came to be known as the ‘Stuttgart Sound’ – a synthesis of historically-informed performance practice with the technical capabilities of a modern orchestra. Whether Mozart, Haydn, Bruckner, Brahms or Martinu, Norrington sought to recreate a faithful performance experience, adjusting the orchestra’s size and seating plan, and creating an authentic sound without vibrato.
Christian Ferras will most likely be remembered as the violinist who was filmed shedding tears at the end of the slow movement of Sibelius’s Concerto in 1965, and who, after a dramatic downturn in his career, took his own life at the age of 49. And, of course, as the child prodigy from the French provinces who became – at the height of his fame – Herbert von Karajan’s favorite violinist.
His artistic personality was shaped by his utter, though humble, devotion to the music, demonstrated by his appropriate yet lively tone, elegant bowing, effervescent, energetic fingering and considered phrasing. The recordings of Christian Ferras with pianist Pierre Barbizet are of the utmost importance, with the musicians forming an inimitable partnership. The concertos in this collection showcase the violinist as a captivating soloist – Müller-Kray follows his every move in the Beethoven and Tchaikovsky with dynamic sensitivity, Gielen’s analytical expertise within the Berg is unrivalled and Ferras’s partnership with Blomstedt results in a profound interpretation of the Brahms.
REVIEW:
Ferras had a chameleon facility of adapting his style and affect to the composer in hand, a quality most noticeable when we move from the overtly assertive Kreutzer to the dreamy, ethereal little Debussy sonata, to the wild, Romany Ravel display piece, whose recording is notably vivid.... Ferras was a champion of modern, contemporary music and considered himself to be a student of the Romanian composer and the pair’s empathy with this strange, haunting music is not in doubt. Schumann’s powerful, impassioned Violin Sonata No. 2 was premiered by Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim – who rated it very highly - and it is easy to hear its influence over Brahms. Its performance here is masterly.
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.
Annie Fischer enjoys a singular reputation within the great tradition of Hungarian pianists due to her deeply moving and romantically intimate performances. She became famous and admired on account of her uncompromising spiritually absorbing interpretations. Like many other musicians, Fischer only left behind a few studio recordings however the few that were left became benchmark interpretations.
