Claudio Abbado conducts the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela with Anna Prohaska in works by Prokofiev, Berg, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky.

Internationally renowned violinist and conductor Riccardo Minasi and the Orchestra La Scintilla, based at Opernhaus Zürich, enjoy a close working relationship. Together with the ensemble's superb musicians, who specialize in historically informed performance, Minasi has recorded two very different compositions, both entitled “Vier Jahreszeiten” (“Four Seasons”), for Philharmonia Records. In addition to the four famous concerti by Antonio Vivaldi, in which Minasi proves himself to be a brilliant soloist, the recording features ballet music by Giuseppe Verdi, written 125 years later. This pairing gives the ensemble the opportunity to showcase both the breadth of its repertoire and its considerable flexibility. Verdi on period instruments: a completely new aural experience!

This production of Mozart’s famous opera Le Nozze di Figaro comes from the China National Centre for the Performing Arts. This production sheds new light on this 1786 masterpiece, by combining the traditional Western elements of the work with an exceptional Chinese cast. Jose Luis Castro serves as stage director, and is from Seville, where the story takes place. With close ties to this story’s origin, he beautifully embeds the plot into his hometown. Lu Jia conducts the orchestra and chorus, and interprets the music in a fresh and contemporary style which lays the ground for the outstanding soloists. As a bonus, the film “The making of Le Nozze di Figaro,” is also included.

Midori’s recent interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin has earned her many accolades by audiences and the media worldwide. In August 2016, Midori performed these pieces, known as some of the most challenging for any violinist, for an audio-visual recording at the Castle of Köthen (Schloss Köthen) where Bach served as Court Chapel Master between 1717 and 1723. There, in Midori’s precise, light but nevertheless emphatic playing, a unique world of sound unfurls that maybe Bach himself would have imagined while composing these polyphonic masterpieces. Music and space merge exclusively in the acoustic offered by the location, which supports the breathtaking polyphony and the detailed richness of the works as well as the technical brilliance and perfection of Midori’s subtly shaped performance.

Lucerne Festival Opera: Brahms, Featuring: Brahms, Johannes Brahms, Nelsons, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Michael Beyer. Andris Nelsons conducts the Lucerne Festival Opera in this performance of Brahms' works, recorded in August 2014. For the first time, the festival would take place without the incomparable Claudio Abbado, with the young Latvian Andris Nelsons leading the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. Nelsons had already won the trust and respect of both listeners and performers in a moving memorial concert for Abbado in Lucerne. He is known internationally as one of the most gifted conductors of his generation. Now he was poised to lead the prestigious festival into a new era he brilliantly mastered this "greatest challenge" (as he himself called it) of his career. The audience and the musicians responded with heartfelt gratitude. "He is aware of every single player and carries us on an unbelievable wave of enthusiasm", according to concertmaster Sebastian Breuninger. Solo violist Wolfram Christ adds, "Nelsons accepts what is inherent in our orchestra and what comes from Abbado; he builds on it and makes it into something new." The works featured are: 'Serenade No. 2 in A Major', 'Alto Rhapsody' and 'Symphony No. 2 in D Major'. Recorded live at the Concer Hall of KKL Luzern 15-16, August 2014. Subtitled: German, English, French, Japanese, Korean.

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.

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.

In its choreographed version of the St. Matthew Passion, the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart offers new dimensions to Bach‘s musical drama. And, for the one hundred schoolchildren who delved into Bach‘s monumental work and learned to dance as an artistic form of self-expression, it was an opportunity to experience the power of his music first hand. The interplay of professional musicians and young amateurs turned into a creative bridge for all involved. By deciding to have its own baroque orchestra and a choir formed of singers with practical, performing criteria in mind, the Bachakademie is forging a new path. The basic kind of sound, and at the same time the unique international selling point of this new approach underlies the Bachakademie’s decision to commission a historical replica of a chamber organ by the legendary organ builder and contemporary of Bach, Gottfried Silbermann. An original instrument by him has recently been discovered in Seerhausen, Saxony. As an example of the baroque sound, true to the original, this replica embodies the approach at the very heart of a Bachakademie of the future. The newly-founded baroque orchestra and the newly-constituted choir of the Bachakademie will perform under the joint name GAECHINGER CANTOREY from now onwards. Based on the historic foundations of the Bach era, and with roots in the living performance history of the choir founded by Helmuth Rilling, this name represents an integrated musical approach and the aesthetic sound ideal of the baroque.

Midori’s recent interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin has earned her many accolades by audiences and the media worldwide. In August 2016, Midori performed these pieces, known as some of the most challenging for any violinist, for an audio-visual recording at the Castle of Köthen (Schloss Köthen) where Bach served as Court Chapel Master between 1717 and 1723. There, in Midori’s precise, light but nevertheless emphatic playing, a unique world of sound unfurls that maybe Bach himself would have imagined while composing these polyphonic masterpieces. Music and space merge exclusively in the acoustic offered by the location, which supports the breathtaking polyphony and the detailed richness of the works as well as the technical brilliance and perfection of Midori’s subtly shaped performance.

I'm a pukka Indian. Mumbai is my home, says Zubin Mehta about his birthplace. The Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra traveled to India in 2016 with his inspiring 110-member orchestra where together they celebrated Maestro Mehta's 80th birthday with two fantastic concerts at the National Center for Performing Arts in Mumbai. The concert programs featured works of some of Mehta's favorite composers, performed together with three of his closest musical friends: Pinchas Zukerman, Amanda Forsyth, and Denis Matsuev. This live recording features those April 2016 concerts in all their glory, featuring works from Strauss, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Beethoven, and Ravel, all in stunning high definition.

This recording of Anton Bruckner’s eighth symphony is performed in its original version completed in 1887.; Because of the piece’s boldness, Bruckner’s contemporaries criticized the work, and convinced him to revise the piece.; Here, Fabio Luisi leads the Philharmonia Zurich in this “huge cathedral” of a work, bringing out the perfections in the original, unrevised version.

The Polish National Radio Orchestra is the country's leading performing ensemble and one of Europe's finest broadcasting orchestras. Building on a long tradition, the group performs throughout the world as a musical ambassador for Poland, often featuring works by Polish composers - as the pieces by Karol Szymanowski and Witold Lutoslawski on this CD impressively demonstrate. This is the orchestra's second album with their Principal Conductor Alexander Liebreich. Their first CD together, also with compositions by Szymanowski and Lutoslawski, is already cited as a reference recording, with "thrilling, technically brilliant performances." (Der Tagesspiegel) In the work of these twentieth century masters, we encounter "exquisite compositional refinement of the highest order, born of an awareness of the European tradition," according to Alexander Liebreich. Szymanowski's powerful and imaginative Symphony No. 2, Lutoslawski's groundbreaking Musique fun�bre � la m�moire de B�la Bart�k and his masterpiece Livre pour Orchestre were recorded in Katowice's new concert hall, which opened in 2014 and is already celebrated for it's phenomenal acoustics.

It was in devastation at the sudden death of his champion, idol and close friend Tchaikovsky that Sergei Rachmaninov wrote his Trio élégiaque No. 2 (op. 9) for piano, violin and cello in 1893. The work still clearly shows the young composer’s early artistic influences, while also featuring many of the key elements of his later masterly creations. As artist-in-residence with the Philharmonia Zurich, French pianist Lise de la Salle has already performed and recorded works by Rachmaninov for piano and orchestra, the latter on Philharmonia Records in 2015. She now follows this up with a studio recording of his Trio élégiaque No. 2 together with its smaller brother, Trio élégiaque No. 1. De la Salle interprets these rarely-recorded chamber music pieces together with Bartlomiej Niziol, first concertmaster and Claudius Herrmann, solo cellist of the Philharmonia Zurich.

Krzysztof Penderecki is one of the world’s great contemporary composers and a Polish classical music icon. His 80th birthday in November 2013 occasioned an extraordinary gathering of the world's most significant musicians and his most important interpreters. Companions and long-time friends of the composer presented their homage to Penderecki with some of his most famous works being performed: Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, the Duo Concertante, the Concerto Grosso No. 1 and the unique Credo.

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

Also available on standard DVD

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: 1080i Full-HD
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: Latin, English, Japanese
Running time: 60 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 25)