Both a challenge and an adventure, the recording I made of the Etudes by Debussy lives on as a wonderful memory of friendship. Having encouraged me to record the complete set of twelve works, my friend and respected colleague Catherine Collard, an irreplaceable artist and great admirer of Debussy, did me the honour of acting as artistic director. Her unobtrusive presence and sensitive, insightful feedback gave me wings. [...] Taking the genre beyond the dry term of study", Debussy and Chopin, true geniuses the pair of them, dazzle and move their listeners. Within this music lies life, anything but abstract." - Anne Queffelec, 2023
The German-born conductor Otto Klemperer, a towering figure in the musical history of the 20th century, died at the age of 88 on July 8th 1973, so 2023 will mark the 50th anniversary of his death. His complete recordings on Warner Classics catalogue are being made available for the first time in 2 huge separate boxes; the first volume with the Symphonic Works, Concertos & Lieder (95CD) will be released in June 2023. All recordings are remastered in HD 192/24 from original sources. Beethoven's Symphonies by Klemperer and the Philharmonia Orchestra are one of the most well-known and acclaimed versions of these works, and the "Choral" Symphony with no doubt one of it's highlights.
THE CHICK COREA SYMPHONY TRIBUTE. RITMO was recorded live back in July 2021 at the ADDA Auditorium in Alicante (Spain) during the FIJAZZ Festival. Conceived and produced by conductor/drummer JOSEP VICENT, ADDA Symphony Orchestra's Music Director, with arrangements by Latin Grammy Award Winner pianist and composer Emilio Solla, RITMO is a celebration of Chick Corea's music and it's tremendous influence in contemporary Jazz and it's fusion with Latin music. Featuring 5 times Grammy Award & 14 times Latin Grammy Award winner saxophonist PAQUITO D'RIVERA and flamenco singer and saxophonist ANTONIO LIZANA, RITMO is created for a full 80 piece Symphony Orchestra and jazz trio to produce "One of the most magnificent musical sounds that has ever existed" in the words of Chick Corea himself about Symphony Orchestras. 12 among the most iconic and remembered pieces of Corea's immense production are revisited, reconceived and exalted through the impressive sonority of The ADDA Symphony Orchestra of Spain and the inspiration of the extraordinary soloists. Paquito de Rivera said about the project: "We all love Chick's music, so the impeccable arranging work of Emilio, the quality and dedication of a very young and talented orchestra and conductor, plus the typical enthusiasm of the Spanish people at a magnificent auditorium, worked all to our advantage."
Claudio Arrau (1903-1991) is a pianist fully deserving of the epithet 'legendary'. His rigorous intellect and sense of the sublime found expression in his transcendent technique and sumptuous, yet lucid sonorities. The recordings in this 24CD collection, a significant portion of Arrau's legacy from the years between 1921 and 1962, are indispensable to his extensive discography. They can now be heard in their full glory, thanks to a process of restoration and HD remastering using the original tapes (for recordings from the LP era) or the best available source (for 78s). Among them are four world premiere releases: Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30, op. 109, a Chopin etude, and two pieces by Liszt.
Not only was Rostropovich a towering musician, he became a figure of international humanitarian and political significance: he and his wife, the celebrated soprano Galina Vishnevskaya (1926-2012), were exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974 (and deprived of Soviet citizenship in 1978) for their support of the dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whom they offered refuge in their home. - In 1970 Rostropovich had written an open letter advocating artistic freedom. It was refused publication by the Soviet newspaper Pravda, but was published in the West. It read: "Every man must have the right fearlessly to think independently and express his opinion about what he knows, what he has personally thought about and experienced, and not merely to express with slightly different variations the opinion which has been inculcated in him." - In November 1989, at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Rostropovich gave an impromptu solo recital at the spot known as Checkpoint Charlie. - Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya did not return to Russia until 1990, the era of glasnost and perestroika, when Mikhail Gorbachev rehabilitated them; Rostropovich played an active role in promoting ideological change at this momentous time. - In 1991, at the time of the August Putsch - when Communist hardliners attempted to wrest control from Gorbachev - Rostropovich armed himself with a gun to defend the Russian Parliament against attack. - He and his wife established the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Foundation, which focuses on large-scale vaccination programmes. To date, it's programmes have benefited more than 10 million people in the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.
Itzhak Perlman, born in 1945, is the supreme violinist of his time. More than a decade after his first recording of the Mendelssohn and Bruch concertos (with Andre Previn), Perlman returned to them with Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw Orchestra, bringing new insights and a still more acute sense for their Romantic contrasts and drama.
The Christmas Oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach captures the musical essence of the festive season. The most important Christmas setting by Leipzig's famed grandmaster is heard in concerts all across the world every year. This reference recording of all six cantatas is resplendent and features a dream group of Bach specialists as soloists. The festive grandeur of the sections with full orchestra and the intimacy of arias with vocal and instrumental soloists in virtuoso dialogue have been combined by Ton Koopman into a convincing and timeless overall concept. Koopman allows the music to flow and breathe naturally, and constantly demonstrates his keen sense for tantalising the senses with tonal colours. - Rondo
In choosing Movements as the title for this album of piano works, George LI highlights both their structure and their dancing spirit: the 18 movements of Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze (supplemented by his Arabeske in C major) are followed by Ravel's eight Valses nobles et sentimentales and three movements from Stravinsky's score for the ballet Petruskha. "There are intriguing and intoxicating elements in this dance programme that captured me from the outset when crafting it," says the Boston-born pianist. "Broadly speaking, I love the effects of color and harmony in these works, as well as the general feeling of an evolution, or perhaps a continuous battle, between the introverted and extroverted impulses... The Davidsbündlertänze embodies the full spectrum of human emotion - despair, anxiety, sorrow, triumph, bliss, or pure love, to name a few... Another fascinating element in this program is the motivic and harmonic threads which connect the smaller pieces into a cohesive whole. Recently, I've developed a great obsession with learning how to weave musical moments into a single overarching architectural narrative. This program offers a different challenge - giving space for each musical moment to be it's own distinct individual voice, while also still maintaining the narrative arc..."
Voted Young British Classical Performer of the Year at the 2006 Classical Brits, Alison Balsom follows her critically-acclaimed album Bach: Works for Trumpet with Caprice, a novel and demanding program of specially arranged popular classical works. The album features sparkling transcriptions of Mozart's 'Rondo alla Turca' and the Queen of the Night's aria (from the Magic Flute) as well as the scintillating 'Variations on Bellini's Norma' by the French virtuoso Jean-Baptiste Arban. Amongst the more lyrical numbers, Balsom plays arrangements of Rachmaninov's haunting Vocalise and the exquisite Nocturne from Tomasi's Trumpet Concerto. She also brings her unique sound to two pieces played by the trumpet alone: Paganini's well-known violin Caprice No.24 and Debussy's Syrinx.
With this latest release on EMI Classics from Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker the team returns to the 19th-century Germanic repertoire on which the orchestra's heritage has been based since it's formation 125 years ago. Following in the historic footsteps of Klemperer, Celibidache, Tennstedt, Fischer-Dieskau, Schwarzkopf and many other distinguished EMI artists, Simon Rattle brings to the label Brahms's most substantial yet intimate large-scale work.
