Classical Music

The opportunity to celebrate, in 2020, the 250th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven alongside the 30th anniversary of German reunification is akin to a gift for a label that has been instrumental in preserving the recording heritage of the GDR, offering as it does the opportunity for a retrospective view and assessment of the past. This series with 10 new editions from the archive of ETERNA recordings includes audio productions from the early days of the label as well as later productions from the late 80s. Partly remastered from the original tapes and provided with the original covers, these historic-legendary recordings shine in new glamour. The present volume presents Peter Schreier with Walter Olbertz performing Beethoven’s lieder.

The liberation of the concentration camp at Auschwitz will be commemorated on January 27, 2020. The composer Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944) is representative of many musicians and composers, most of them with Jewish roots, who lost their lives in the Nazis' extermination camps. To mark this 75th liberation anniversary, the pianist Annika Treutler has devoted her new release to proscribed music. To musicians and composers like Viktor Ullmann, Bohuslav Martinu, Pavel Haas and many more: none of whom ever had the opportunity to fully develop their creativity because they were barred from pursuing their artistic careers in freedom. "As a result of the Holocaust a whole generation was officially wiped out and a chapter of music history erased. That means that seventy-five years on, not only Ullmann's music, but the music of a whole generation of composers is utterly unknown, " explains Annika Treutler. Together with Stephan Frucht (conductor and artistic director of the Siemens Arts Program) and the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, Annika Treutler takes a completely new approach in telling the story of Viktor Ullmann in musical terms. In this way, she wishes to preserve the memory of the composer: "It is my aim to make sure his music receives the same recognition and is acknowledged in the same way as that of his contemporaries who were not barred and persecuted. It is certainly worthy of it! In his music, Ullmann developed his own special language, his own form of tonality. Although he was a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg, his music is not atonal; instead he varied the tonality by expanding or reducing intervals. That approach resulted in an enormous build-up of tension which is typical of his style, although the listener nevertheless does not feel abandoned. We frequently think we hear echoes of other composers, and yet Ullmann's music speaks a very unique, unusual language

Claire Huangci went from being "clearly a pianist to follow" to the status of internationally established and acclaimed young pianist even before winning the Mozart Prize at the Concours G�za Anda in 2018. Following on from four successful solo albums from arrangements of Russian ballet music through Scarlatti to Chopin's complete Nocturnes and all of Rachmaninoff's Preludes she now releases her first orchestral album with Berlin Classics. Together with the aspiring young South Korean conductor Shiyeon Sung and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie she plays Chopin's Piano Concerto No 1 and contrasts it with Paderewski's concerto. Chopin's Piano Concerto No 1 is well established on the world's concert platforms. Huangci is well aware that there are two sides to Chopin the man who composed the piano concerto and the creator of the Nocturnes In comparison to Chopin, Paderewski is relatively unknown, yet he was an intensely interesting man and his piano concerto is rich in ideas and resources. The configuration of the recording is ideal- two artists who composed their works early in their careers, interpreted by an equally young pianist. Huangci perceives the youthful verve of the compositions:"Both composers exude a true joie de vivre, a love of life, attributable to their youth. The concertos were clearly written by men who looked with hope to the future." She brings the same youthful elan to her interpretation.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Simone Schneider, Christoph Genz, Cyndia Sieden, and Josef Wagner star in this production of the Schweitzer/Wieland opera event celebrating the reopening of the Anna Amalia library in Weimar.

Classical Music

One of Germany's most prominent pianists, Alexander Krichel from Hamburg, has brought together a couple of heavyweights for his first album with Berlin Classics. He places "Pictures at an Exhibition" by Modest Mussorgsky, a central work of the piano literature, side by side with a rarely heard gem by the Romanian composer George Enescu. Enescu's Second Piano Suite enhances the formal language of the Baroque with Romantic and Impressionist timbres, and entrances the listener with a rich palette of tone colours. To round off the programme, Alexander Krichel plays another work by a composer from Russia's "mighty handful", the Nocturne from the Petite Suite by Alexander Borodin. There's no denying it: born in the Hanseatic port of Hamburg, Krichel feels himself strongly drawn to Russian repertoire. He mastered his art with two of the greatest Russian pianists of modern times: in Hanover, as Vladimir Krainev's last student; and at the Royal College of Music in London, with Dmitri Alexeev. "I've long had Modest Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition' in my repertoire, but now, this piano suite is exactly right with it's strong sense of dedication," says Krichel. "It would be hard to find another piano cycle that has such variety and places such comprehensive demands. Mussorgsky captures a whole cosmos in his 'Pictures'. That links him with George Enescu, who in writing his Second Suite actually composed a tribute to him."

Britten, B.: War Requiem / Penderecki, K.: Threnody To the V

Pfitzner, H.: Palestrina [Opera]

HANDEL, G.F.: Die grossten Werke (Greatest Works)

LUDWIG GUTTLER AND PETER GULKE DISCUSS J.S. BACH'S CHRISTMA

Handel, G.F.: Water Music / Sinfonias in B-Flat Major, Hwv 3

1994 3 X CD collection with Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Christmas Oratorio (Weihnachtsoratorium) BMV 248, Gloria in Excelsis Deo, Kantate BWV 191. Performers include Christiane Oelze, Annette Markert, Hans Peter Blochwitz, Oliver Widermer & more. Conducted by Ludwig Guttler & Herbert Bock.