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Adam’s Passion is the moving first collaboration between two “masters of slow motion who harmonize perfectly with each other” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). In the spectacular setting of a former submarine factory, American director and universal artist Robert Wilson creates a poetic visual world in which the mystical musical language of the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt can cast its meditative spell. Three of Pärt’s major works – Adam’s Lament, Tabula rasa, and Miserere, as well as Sequentia, a new work composed especially for this production – are brought together here using light, space, and movement to create a tightly-woven Gesamtkunstwerk in which the artistic visions of these two great artists mirror each other.

Arvo Pärt
ADAM’S PASSION

Lucinda Childs
Michael Theophanous
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Tallinn Chamber Orchestra
Tõnu Kaljuste, conductor

Robert Wilson, stage director, set and lighting designer

Recorded from Noblessner Foundry, Tallinn, 12 May 2015

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Latin, Russian (orig. sung languages), German, English, French, Korean, Japanese
Running time: 94 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Always smile and always be cheerful, always satisfied, no matter what happens, smile in spite of your sorrows and a thousand aches and pains, sings Prince Sou-Chong, thus introducing the fundamentally melancholic tone of Das Land des Lachelns (The Land of Smiles), which has a tragic ending in store. For the new production of this operetta, world-class tenor Piotr Beczala returned to the Opernhaus Zurich as Sou-Chong. He has an equal partner in Julia Kleiter, who plays the role of Lisa. Fabio Luisi and Andreas Homoki also know that the genre of operetta requires particular care- which is why they have assumed personal responsibility for this production. Homoki let's the plot take place in a Paris Variete theater from the 1920s, complete with show staircase and heavy curtains. To emphasize the operatic elements, he condensed the piece, cutting several secondary roles and shortening dialogues. This production was recorded at the Opernhaus Zurich in June 2017.

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Johann Sebastian Bach
ST MATTHEW PASSION, BWV 244

Christina Landshamer, soprano
Stefan Kahle, alto
Wolfram Lattke, tenor
Martin Lattke, tenor
Klaus Mertens, bass
Gotthold Schwarz, bass

Leipzig St Thomas Boys Choir
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Georg Christophe Biller, conductor

Recorded live from the St Thomas Church, Leipzig, 5 and 6 April 2012

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: German, English, French, Korean
Running time: 164 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

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More than 200 years after its premiere at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Isabelle Faust, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Martin Helmchen have congenially mastered the artistic challenge of Beethoven’s gemstone. Under Herbert Blomstedt's sensitive direction, the soloists unite chamber musical intimacy together with virtuoso sophistication – and prove once again that the Triple Concerto is an unduly underestimated, much too rarely programmed masterpiece. With the composer's 5th Symphony, Blomstedt succeeds in achieving an entirely new perspective of this work. In his Sixth Symphony, the “Pastoral”, Ludwig van Beethoven conveys his musical message in such a way that lets the listener literally “see” images of beautiful nature, tempestuous storms, and shepherds singing in the fields, whereas in his Seventh Symphony, Beethoven lets the music speak for itself. The performances of these works by the Gewandhausorchester give the uplifting feeling that the intentions of both composer and performers are united in serving the musical message. The humanist and musician Herbert Blomstedt embodies this truth in a unique way, creating an atmosphere where the wonders of music all become true. 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. Herbert Blomstedt 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.

When the First World War broke out in 1914, the music world did not remain unaffected. Artists inevitably became involved, either as soldiers at the front or as composers of patriotic music or musical memorials to a lost world. The three-part documentary series investigates the (un)known, overt and hidden connections between music, power, war and revolution. Beginning with what led to this great human tragedy, each episode addresses different perspectives of the relationship between music and politics. While Parts One and Two explore both the hopeful and subsequently tragic entanglements of art and politics to which so many artists fell victim during the First World War and the October Revolution, Part Three embarks on a search for the political aspects of music up to this day. Featuring Daniel Barenboim, Valery Gergiev, Ivan Fisher, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Steffen Schleiermacher, Julia Sophie Wagner, Vladimir Stoupel, and many more, this release is a production of Accentus Music in co-production with WDR, in co-operation with Arte and supported by Mitteldeutsche Medienf�rderung.

Anyone familiar with Bruckner, his symphonic architectures reaching for the stars as well as his later Missas from the 1860s, may well be amazed at how deep his Missa Solemnis is still rooted in the solid tradition of Viennese Classicism. In this recording, this rarely heard and recently re-edited and newly published gem is put into the context of the inauguration service of collegiate provost Friedrich Mayr on 14 September 1854 in St. Florian, for which it was written. It is interspersed with the original Proper settings by Robert Fuhrer, Joseph Eybler, and Johann Baptist Gansbacher. This brilliantly mastered album was recorded at the Konzerthaus Berlin in June 2017 as a coproduction with Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

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Christian Spuck puts the literary origin at the heart of his choreography of “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”, emphasizing the fantastical nature of the original rather than the delightful Christmas fairytale and bringing back the tale of princess Pirlipat, who turns into a nut monster, as told by E.T.A. Hoffmann. On stage, Drosselmeier’s workshop turns into an old revue-theater, where the ballet’s characters come to life. Spuck’s choreography plays with the richness of characters in Hoffmann’s narrative cosmos, the absurdity and overwrought humor that inhabit them, while at the same time looking down into the dark abyss of Romanticism. This production was recorded at the Opernhaus Zürich April 2018

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Johann Sebastian Bach
MASS IN B MINOR
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Reglint Bühler, soprano
Susanne Krumbiegel, mezzo-soprano
Susanne Langner, alto
Martin Lattke, tenor
Markus Flaig, bass

Leipzig St. Thomas Choir (Thomanerchor Leipzig)
Freiburg Baroque Orchestra
Georg Christoph Biller, conductor

Recorded live at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig, 23 June 2013

Picture format: 1080i Full-HD
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Latin, English, Korean
Running time: 114 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 25)

The 24 preludes for cello solo by Mieczyslaw Weinberg have a particular history. Composed in the late sixties for Mstislav Rostropovich, he never actually played them. Their musical language is aphoristic, often brutal, provocative in it's inner conflict. It contains many different gestures and is very intense. To perform these preludes might have been problematic in the Soviet Union back then. Gidon Kremer has adapted the Preludes for solo violin and this is the world premiere recording of his adaptation. In his concerts, Kremer often plays them to projections of works by the Lithuanian photographer Antanas Sutkus in the background. This album was recorded at Paliesiaus Dvaras in Lithuania in December 2017.

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Also available on standard DVD

All are equal before the work, before the mysteries of a score; this was Claudio Abbado’s heart-felt conviction. For him, the willingness to be open to one another and to the independent life of musical processes was the only prerequisite for making music. In the live performances documented here for the first time on DVD/Blu-ray, Abbado could be sure of the devotion of these world-class artists: the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the sopranos Christine Schäfer and Juliane Banse, as well as the actor Bruno Ganz. They shared his credo of “listening togetherness” (Die ZEIT) that made possible those precious moments of musical truth toward which this great conductor strove throughout his life.

CLAUDIO ABBADO CONDUCTS MOZART AND BEETHOVEN
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Misera, dove son!, K. 369
Ah, lo previdi, K. 272
Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio, K. 418
Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385, “Haffner”

Ludwig van Beethoven: Egmont, Op. 84

Christine Schäfer, soprano
Juliane Banse, soprano
Bruno Ganz, narrator

Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Claudio Abbado, conductor

Recorded live at the Concert Hall of KKL Luzern, 19–20 August 2011 (Mozart) and 8–10 August 2012 (Beethoven)

Picture format: 1080i Full-HD
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Italian, German, English, Japanese, Korean
Running time: 89 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 25)

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem in D minor, K. 626
(Sanctus completed by Robert Levin. All other movements completed by Franz X. Sussmayr, edited by Franz Beyer.)

Anna Prohaska, soprano
Sara Mingardo, alto
Maximilian Schmitt, tenor
Rene Pape, bass

Bavarian Radio Chorus
Swedish Radio Chorus
(chorus master: Peter Dijkstra)
Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Claudio Abbado, conductor

Recorded live at the Concert Hall of the Culture and Convention Center, Lucerne, 8 and 10 August 2012

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Latin, English, Japanese
Running time: 60 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

A documentary by Günter Atteln

with
Sofia Gubaidulina
Paul Hillier
Gidon Kremer

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: German, English, French, Korean, Japanese
Running time: 56 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Golden-globe winning Chinese film director Zhang Yimou has staged his first Peking opera at the NCPA, spectacularly fusing the traditional and modern together for his production of You and Me. This production is an overwhelming feast for the senses. Lavish and colorful costumes, unique music composed and conducted by Zhu Shaoyu, and a world class ensemble that features the greatest stars of the Peking opera, including Meng Guanglu, Shi Yihong, and Li Mingyan, turn You and Me into an unforgettable experience. You and Me is based on the age-old tale from the Zuo legend, “Lord Zheng defeats Duan in Yan,” which is a story about deceit and the power of filial love. Zhang Yimou recounts the story using the stylistic elements of the Peking opera, which in turn he makes accessible for an entirely new audience. This release also includes Tradition versus Modernity, a documentary about Peking opera and the making of You and Me.

When Alban Berg attended the first production of Georg Buchner’s play Woyzeck, he immediately knew that he wanted to base an opera off of the story line. His opera, Wozzeck, was composed between the years 1914 and 1922, and received its debut performance in 1925. The dark storyline centers around the soldier Wozzeck, who travels through a callous and at times sadistic world that he doesn’t understand. He is tortured with medical experiments, ridiculed by his captain, and his lover, Marie, betrays him. He becomes a murderer and eventually secures his own demise. Renowned stage director Andreas Homoki brilliantly creates this dark and mysterious world, which explores the thin line between the unfathomable and ridiculous. Christian Gerhaher’s dramatic subtlety and vocal prowess is breathtaking in the title role, alongside the equally impressive Gun-Brit Barkim as Marie.

The story of Shakespeare's star crossed lovers has been adapted and retold by composers, librettists, playwrights, and choreographers for centuries. Since the Renaissance, everyone seems to have put their own spin on the story. This release features Vincenzo Bellini's frequently overlooked gem "I Capuleti e i Montecchi." This work is unique in that it is not simply a retelling of Shakespeare's story set to music. Rather, the opera tells the account of the last 24 hours in Romeo and Juliet's lives. Desperation and melancholy draw to a tragic cataclysm as the young lovers choose to end their lives. This production, directed by Christof Loy and conducted by Fabio Luisi, originates in Zurich, and was wonderfully received by both audiences and critics. Joyce DiDonato dazzles in the role of Romeo alongside Ukrainian soprano Olga Kulchynska, who plays Giulietta.

On this new release, The Klenke Quartett, who are well-versed in the performance of Mozart, present the Mozart’s String Quartets Nos. 1-6. The Klenke Quartett, based in Berlin and Thuringia, was founded in 1991 at the Musikhochschule Weimar. Since then, and still in its original formation, it enriches the concert life “as one of the most distinguished European ensembles.” (Gewandhausmagazin) The immediate response of the musical world to the Klenke Quartett’s performances and recordings of Mozart’s string quartets was one of acclaim and superlatives. In the view of the music magazine Rondo: “With their precise, controlled, and masterly grasp of the music, the four women of Weimar moved international critics to a storm of enthusiasm.” And Deutschland Radio exclaimed: “They are four equally talented musicians, who interact in the most marvelous, indeed, most exquisite fashion.”

REVIEW:

The Klenke Quartett’s new 3-disc set of Mozart’s complete string quintets (with guest violist Harald Schoneweg) constitutes a welcome return for the group to the music of Mozart. This new release shows some familiar strengths: a fine ensemble sound, careful but not over-precise, with enough character to set these performances apart even from such well-known groups as the Amadeus Quartet with Cecil Aronowitz or the Guarneri Quartet with Michael Tree, both of which I find just a bit superficial. My gold standard for these great works has always been the 1973 Philips set with Arthur Grumiaux and four other very fine instrumentalists (or, as they say in the Season One Gilligan’s Island theme song: “and the rest”). Of course, this new recording comes from a completely different tradition of playing, more historically informed and without the fine Corinthian leather upholstery of earlier days, but it has the same high standard of musicianship and not-too-careful tightrope-walks between dancing joy and intense despair. The Accentus engineers provide a surprisingly big, resonant space which matches well with the big sound of these fine string players. This is a more than just an enjoyable release; it’s a profound experience.

– Music for Several Instruments

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Christian Spuck puts the literary origin at the heart of his choreography of “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”, emphasizing the fantastical nature of the original rather than the delightful Christmas fairytale and bringing back the tale of princess Pirlipat, who turns into a nut monster, as told by E.T.A. Hoffmann. On stage, Drosselmeier’s workshop turns into an old revue-theater, where the ballet’s characters come to life. Spuck’s choreography plays with the richness of characters in Hoffmann’s narrative cosmos, the absurdity and overwrought humor that inhabit them, while at the same time looking down into the dark abyss of Romanticism. This production was recorded at the Opernhaus Zürich April 2018

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and their Music Director Riccardo Chailly have already acquired legendary status – glorious reviews and many awards for their recordings testifying to their continuing success. At Leipzig’s International Mahler Festival, to mark the centenary of Mahler’s death, they performed his monumental Second Symphony in the Gewandhaus – together with two marvellous soloists and choral forces quite beyond compare. About the final movement the composer said: “The increasing tension, working up to the final climax, is so tremendous that I don’t know myself, now that it is over, how I ever came to write it.” The painting "Morgenrot" was chosen by internationally acclaimed artist Neo Rauch to feature on the cover of this release on DVD and Blu-ray.
Recorded live at Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, 17 and 18 May 2011.

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, German, French
Running time: 95 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Also available on Blu-ray

For the very first time Daniel Barenboim tackled Franz Liszt's two highly virtuosic piano concertos in a single concert. With Pierre Boulez, his friend and esteemed colleague of many years, conducting Barenboim’s own orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, they were showered with praise on their tour across Europe. For both musicians, Liszt was one of the most important pioneers of modern music, as composer, conductor and pianist. He influenced revolutionary contemporaries such as Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner. Two examples of the latter's magnificent orchestral work round off this concert programme celebrating Liszt’s bicentenary.

LISZT: PIANO CONCERTOS

Franz Liszt:
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, S124/R455
Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major, S125/R456
Consolations, S172/R12: No. 3 in D flat major
Valse oubliée No. 1

Richard Wagner:
A Faust Overture
Siegfried Idyll

Daniel Barenboim, piano
Berlin Staatskapelle
Pierre Boulez, conductor

Recorded live at the Philharmonie Essen on 9–10 June 2011 during the Klavier-Festival Ruhr

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 90 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Karol Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony, composed only seven years apart, while differing widely differing in their choice of soloists, are united in their source of inspiration. The Lyric Symphony is Zemlinsky’s best known work and an homage to Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde”. It sets poems by Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) to equally poetic music. Szymanowski likely received his inspiration for the violin concerto from “Noc Majowa” (May Night), a poem by the Polish poet Tadeusz Micinski. The work is recognized as the first “modern“ violin concerto, as Szymanowski rejects the 19th-century tradition and the major-minor system, introducing a new music language full of ecstatic raptures and poetic tension.

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REVIEW:

This performance of Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony can be considered at least the equal of Chailly's or Eschenbach's notable readings. Although the singers are forwardly balanced, the recording is of surpassing transparency and richness, allowing Zemlinsky’s iridescent score to be heard to ravishing effect, and Liebreich conveys the music’s mingled ardour, otherworldliness and heartbreak with tremendous conviction.

Vähälä’s plays the Szymanowski with litheness and spontaneity, alongside an impressive technical command and a sense of rapture at key moments. The contribution of the Polish orchestra under Alexander Liebreich is as refined and impassioned as any rival.

– Gramophone

Zhu Xiao-Mei writes of this new release: “It is with children in mind that I recorded these French Suites, always having heartfelt simplicity and purity in their mind. Children see the world with hope, optimism, and cast in light – much like Miró sees the world. I find a childlike purity in him, similar to what I hear in the French Suites. There is a quote by Miró that touches me enormously and makes me think a lot whenever I play, as it reflects something that may be the most difficult aspect of musical interpretation – and of art in general: „To gain freedom is to gain simplicity.” This release was recorded at the Mendelssohnsaal of the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, May 2016.

This music is more serious and more significant than one had thought, the Berliner Zeitung summarized in it's review of Daniel Barenboim's celebrated Bruckner cycle with the Staatskapelle Berlin. Bruckner's unfinished Symphony No. 9 brought to an end, in a poignant manner, the work of one of the greatest symphonic composers of the Classic-Romantic era. Once more the essential elements of Bruckner's symphonic style are present; the technical standard, the intensity of sound, and the enormous richness of expression are in this singular work brought to an unsurpassed niveau.

Nothing else that he wrote is as all-encompassing as the Mass in B minor, not even the great Passions,” says Herbert Blomstedt about Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Opus summum”. The Dresdner Kammerchor and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under the musical direction of Herbert Blomstedt have merged ingeniously to conclude the Bachfest Leipzig with this unrivaled work – a work that bears close connections to choir and orchestra, as well as to Herbert Blomstedt himself. J. S. Bach Mass in B minor, BWV 232 Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. Performing this monumental work is the ever-capable Dresdner Kammerchor conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. Featured soloists include Christina Landshamer, soprano, Elisabeth Kulman, alto, Wolfram Lattke, tenor, and Luca Pisaroni, bass.

With the "Messa da Requiem“, Christian Spuck brought one of Verdi’s key works to the stage. In a large-scale co-production by the Ballett and Oper Zurich, the German choreographer and director ventured to portray an unusual interpretation of Verdi’s funeral mass in his scenic choreographic production. 36 dancers, the choir and supplementary choir of the Opernhaus Zurich as well as four highly acclaimed soloists joined together under the direction of Fabio Luisi for 13 wide ranging scenes dedicated to one of the most fundamental themes of humanity. Christian Spuck does not seek a mere religious interpretation of the liturgical text. Instead, he is interested in focusing on people who, in their vulnerability and helplessness, are in the search for comfort. In poetic tableaux he deals with basic human emotions and focuses on the feelings of fear, rage, pain, sadness and the search for redemption.

When Bach composed them, in his last years in Kothen, those pivotal years that were to lead him to Leipzig, he already had an incredible number of masterpieces behind him. He took the trouble to make a beautiful fair copy of this work. It's a product of his maturity. But since these pieces serve as a basic tool for learning the piano, they're inevitably overshadowed by the larger cycles, like The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Goldberg Variations, The Art of Fugue and so on. But that's a mistake, because there's an extraordinary density of music in the Inventions and Sinfonias. Zhu Xiao-Mei