Mariss Jansons was one of the most important conductors of our time, celebrated worldwide and held in the highest regard – all the more so since his unexpected death on December 1, 2019. "Mariss Jansons - The Edition," comprising 70 recordings and a box set in representative LP format, documents the final phase of his life and career: his work as chief conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Bavarian Radio Chorus between 2003 and 2019. Predominantly live recordings from Munich, Tokyo, Vienna, New York, Waldsassen, and the Vatican enable listeners to experience for themselves musical highlights that are as moving as they are exciting. The set contains a remarkably diverse repertoire, ranging from symphonic music and great choral works to opera, and from the First Viennese School to 20th century classical music. "Mariss Jansons - The Edition" contains works by a broad range of composers, including complete cycles of the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler respectively. It is supplemented by fascinating rehearsal recordings that bear witness to Jansons's trusting artistic collaboration with the musicians in his orchestra, together with a large-format, approximately 72-page-long booklet containing background information, essays, an interview, and a detailed track listing.

SUMMARY OF MAJOR WORKS:

Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1-9 (No. 9 appears twice)

Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique

Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 1-4 (No. 4 appears twice)

Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 3-4; 6-9

Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 1-9 (Symphonies Nos. 3-4, 6, & 8 are FIRST RELEASES)

Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 ("Organ")

Schoenberg: Gurre-Lieder

Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 8 (9); ("The Great")

Schumann: Symphony No. 1

Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 5-7, 9-10

Stravinsky: Petrouchka, Firebird, & Rite of Spring

Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 4-6; Pique Dame

Verdi: Requiem

Edita Gruberova – her very name is melodious. The Slovak soprano is undoubtedly one of today’s most well-known interpreters of coloratura opera singing, and especially of Italian bel canto. She made her debut in 1970 as Queen of the Night in Mozart's "Magic Flute" at the Vienna State Opera and, ever since her performances in the same role at Glyndebourne and Salzburg in 1974, she has been a regular fixture on the world’s leading operatic stages and concert podiums. Flattering epithets such as "the Queen of Coloratura", "the Slovak Nightingale" or "prima donna assoluta" are hardly exaggerated, for they really do represent what Edita Gruberova has embodied for almost half a century. She is celebrated all over the world for her perfect mastery of vocal technique, her astonishing ability to master even the most difficult coloraturas and highest notes, her clear and precise intonation and, most importantly, for something that overshadows and transfigures everything else: the seductive and beguiling timbre of her voice. This album, released by BR-KLASSIK to celebrate her 50th stage anniversary, presents nine recordings made between October 1983 and June 2000 at Bayerischer Rundfunk concerts. In addition to well-known as well as lesser-known arias from operas by Handel, Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini, and also the Couplet of Adele from Johann Strauss' operetta "Die Fledermaus", Edita Gruberova can also be heard in interpretations from Mozart's "Exsultate, jubilate", his “Laudate Dominum” from the “Vesperae solennes de confessore,” and also Michael Haydn’s far too rarely performed Christmas cantata “Lauft, ihr Hirten, allzugleich.” This album is more than a historical portrait – it offers a representative musical cross-section of Edita Gruberova's wide-ranging repertoire, and also includes several surprises that complement and enrich her comprehensive discography.

Taken from the 2012 Japan tour that performed the complete Beethoven cycle in various cities across Japan garnering much acclaim for the Chor and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and now available in single editions, this live recording of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 from Tokyo's Suntory Hall also includes noted vocal soloists, Christiane Karg, Mihoko Fujimura, Michael Schade and Michael Volle, all frequent collaborators with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks.

Poppe’s composition Fett for orchestra dates from 2018/19 and was commissioned by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and its artistic director Gustavo Dudamel, and "musica viva". Enno Poppe is one of the most important younger representatives of New Music. His composition I cannot remember anything for chorus, organ and orchestra, based on words by Marcel Beyer, was written between 2005 and 2015 as a commission for Bayerischer Rundfunk’s "musica viva". The first performance in Germany was recorded on May 8, 2015 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz. The album edition of the “musica viva” series, founded in June 2000 to document the concert series that has existed since 1945, contains selected live recordings of “musica viva” concerts. An integral part of the edition is made up of concerts by the ensembles of the Bayerischer Rundfunk, guest recordings by international orchestras and ensembles, and also historical recordings. With two or three new releases per year, the main focus of the edition -which sees itself primarily as a series for composers –is mainly on portrait albums.

The portrait of the British composer Rebecca Saunders, who lives in Germany, begins with her 2011 two-part violin concerto Still written in 2011. It was premiered at the Beethoven Festival in Bonn (with Carolin Widmann as soloist). The chamber music composition Aether for two bass clarinets was composed in 2015/16; and Albacame from a composition commission in 2014 by Bayerischer Rundfunk’s "musica viva" and BBC Radio 3 for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The album edition of the “musica viva” series, founded in June 2000 to document the concert series that has existed since 1945, contains selected live recordings of “musica viva” concerts. An integral part of the edition is made up of concerts by the ensembles of the Bayerischer Rundfunk, guest recordings by international orchestras and ensembles, and also historical recordings. With two or three new releases per year, the main focus of the edition -which sees itself primarily as a series for composers –is mainly on portrait albums.

Two famous orchestral works that were written in the 20th century but breathe the spirit of nineteenth-century music can be heard on this new album from BR-KLASSIK: the ballet music "Carmen Suite", based on the famous melodies from George Bizet's eponymous opera and masterfully arranged and adapted by the composer Rodion Shchedrin in 1968, and Ottorino Respighi's well-known symphonic poem "Pini di Roma" (The Pines of Rome), written in 1924. The name of the Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin is primarily associated in the West with his "Carmen Suite", which has been highly popular ever since its first performance. The thirteen movements of this ballet music are based on Bizet's opera “Carmen”, and carefully adapted to the musical language of the present day. After Shchedrin's wife Maya Plisetskaya, long-time prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theatre, had vainly asked both Shostakovich and Khachaturian to compose a "Carmen" ballet especially for her, her husband decided to do so instead – a decision that was rewarded with international success. The rousing music in Shchedrin's interpretation sounds very familiar, yet in many ways, entirely new! The Italian composer Ottorino Respighi is especially admired for his masterly instrumentation. The symphonic poems in his "Roman Trilogy", which deal with the fountains, pine trees and festivals of his adopted home city of Rome, made his name immortal. In his “Pines of Rome” he describes four locations in the Eternal City, each with a different historical background. Children play under the pines in the gardens of the Villa Borghese; a solemn hymn can be heard from inside an ancient catacomb; in the pines on Rome’s Janiculum Hill we hear a nightingale singing; and finally, in the morning mists on the Appian Way, we hear a consul leading his army in triumph up the Capitoline Hill.

The 2015 Munich concert year began at the end of January with two highlights: two performances of Bruckner's Sixth Symphony with Mariss Jansons conducting the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. The live recording, previously reserved exclusively for subscribers to the orchestra, is now being released on album by BR-KLASSIK - an outstanding interpretation of one of the most important compositions in the Late Romantic symphonic repertoire.

For a long time, Anton Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony (along with his Second) was regarded as something of a ‘poor relation’ in his immense symphonic oeuvre, even though the composer himself had moodily referred to it as his "boldest". In view of its performance figures and recordings over the decades, this has now changed significantly, and the work has earned itself a permanent place in the repertoire. The Sixth Symphony forms part of the creative process of the two preceding symphonies, the "Romantic" Fourth (1874/1880) and the Fifth (1875), and is now seen as an important preliminary stage in Bruckner’s last great upsurge that followed the composition of the "Te Deum" and culminated in the sublime grandeur of his final symphonies, the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth. Bruckner worked on his Sixth Symphony in A major (WAB 106) from September 24, 1879 to September 3, 1881. He was only able to hear the complete work at one orchestra rehearsal during his lifetime because only the two middle movements (Adagio and Scherzo) were publicly performed in the concert hall of the Vienna Musikverein on February 11, 1883. The first public performance of the symphony as a whole followed only on February 26, 1899 - two and a half years after the composer’s death. It was conducted by Gustav Mahler, who had, however, made changes to the score, presenting it in a radically shortened version.

To follow the release of its November 2015 recording of "Das Rheingold" – the “preliminary evening” of Richard Wagner's cycle "Der Ring des Nibelungen" - BR-KLASSIK is now continuing the cycle with "The Valkyrie". The concert performances were recorded on February 8 and 10, 2019 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz. With his "Rheingold", Sir Simon Rattle has already decisively disproved the longstanding claim that he and Wagner were unsuited to one another. This next collaboration between the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the British conductor – with his white curls, wisdom, and confident pose on the cover – not only features a team of first-rate Wagner singers but also reveals once again how well Rattle understands and interprets Wagner's music. Only a few months after the live event, this mighty music drama – a huge success with the public – is being released for the first time on four very fine albums.

Reasons why "The Valkyrie" has become the most popular part of the tetralogy include the heart-rending encounters between the two Wälsungs Siegmund and Sieglinde, the all-too-human gods – and, of course, such musical highlights as Siegmund's "Winter Storms" monologue, “The Ride of the Valkyries”, or "Wotan's Farewell and Magic Fire Music”. Wotan, the father of the gods, is sung by the English bass-baritone James Rutherford; Elisabeth Kulman is back as his argumentative wife Fricka; Eric Halvarson, who was the giant Fafner in Rattle's "Rheingold", now sings the part of the evil Hunding. New additions to the star-studded ensemble of soloists include Irène Theorin as Wotan's favorite daughter Brunnhilde, and Stuart Skelton and Eva-Maria Westbroek as the incestuous twins Siegmund and Sieglinde.

For the last seventeen years of his life – from 2003 to 2019 – Mariss Jansons was chief conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Bavarian Radio Chorus. Both ensembles and their conductor appreciated each other deeply on an artistic as well as a human level, and this resulted in numerous unforgettable concerts. Jansons’ unrelenting demands on himself and his musicians, his always respectful treatment of his colleagues, and his great devotion to music all played a lead role in their work together. Mariss Jansons occupies a place of honor in the orchestra’s history, and its players will always revere and cherish his memory. With the death of Mariss Jansons one year ago, the music world lost one of its greatest artistic personalities.

Born the son of conductor Arvids Jansons in Riga in 1943, the young Mariss studied at the Leningrad Conservatory before completing his studies with Hans Swarowsky in Vienna and Herbert von Karajan in Salzburg. In 1971 he was a prizewinner at the Karajan Conducting Competition and began his close collaboration with today's St. Petersburg Philharmonic. From 1979 to 2000, Jansons was Music Director of the Oslo Philharmonic; from 1997 to 2004 he conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; and in the 2003/04 season he became Chief Conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Bavarian Radio Chorus. The 2004/05 season marked the start of his tenure at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, which ended in 2015. As a guest conductor, he worked with all the leading orchestras of Europe and the USA, and his discography includes many award-winning recordings.

The beauty that the Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks evokes in his works would not be possible without the experience of violence and cruelty in this world. He grew up in a country deprived of liberty, and because of his faith and his artistic convictions he was exposed to reprisals from Russian cultural doctrine. His father, a Baptist pastor, was regarded as an “enemy of the people”, and his homeland was under Soviet control. As a result, Vasks developed a vision of freedom and subtle protest in his music. In the so-called “singing revolution”, the countries of the Baltic region with their traditional love of choral music initiated their independence from Soviet rule. Vasks' expressive, direct and often deliberately simple music quickly became the mouthpiece of the long-suppressed Latvian people, giving the nation a proud voice that can be heard worldwide.

Today, alongside Arvo Pärt, Vasks is one of the most famous composers from the Baltic states of the former Soviet Union. The works on this release are for chamber-music string ensembles: his first symphony "Balsis - Voices" (1991), the haunting violin concerto "Tala gaisma - Distant Light" (1996/97), and the piece "Viatore” (the traveler; 2001), dedicated to Arvo Pärt, here in a version for eleven solo strings by the conductor, church musician and arranger Stefan Vanselow. The Münchner Rundfunkorchester plays under its chief conductor Ivan Repušic, and the concerto soloist is Stanko Madic, first concertmaster of the MRO.

REVIEW

Distant Light's heartfelt, rooted performance may well prove a front runner in a field more competitive than that of any other concerto by a living composer. There is a strong sense of narrative sound from Repušić’s orchestra but also from Madić, whose control of vibrato and tone colour ranges from nervous intensity to still radiance. The cantabile movements retreat without exactly relaxing, the cadenzas are determinedly articulate and the overall power is cumulative more than choreographed. The difficult-to-record ending comes off well.

Recommended as a string-only immersion in Vasks’s world, a competitive account of his most famous work or just something to keep you going until the light actually returns.

–Gramophone

After TE DEUM (900511), ARVO PÄRT – LIVE (900319) and MISERERE (900527), STABAT MATER is already the fourth album to emerge from the close artistic collaboration between the composer and the Bavarian Radio Chorus, and to be recently released by BR-KLASSIK. - In addition to the impressive STABAT MATER, this newly-released album offers some of the works that are key to the composer's stylistic development, and rarely appear in the concert repertoire or as recordings. Despite or perhaps precisely because of the radical reduction of its means of expression, Pärt's music demands the greatest care in its performance from those playing, and is masterfully realized in this recording by the Bavarian Radio Chorus and the Münchner Rundfunkorchester under the conductor Ivan Repušic. Like almost no other contemporary composer, the Estonian Arvo Pärt (born 1935) has succeeded in bringing sacred music back to the attention of a larger audience, even outside the church service. Because of its meditative character and its return to the simplest basic musical forms, his music gives us an insight into key spiritual moments. To this end, even before his emigration from the Soviet Union, Pärt invented what he referred to as the "tintinnabuli style" (Latin for “little bells”) of composing. In 1977 he delivered one of the first significant examples of this style with the first version of FRATRES (Brothers), which still has no fixed and prescribed instrumentation. In its ascetic austerity and almost liturgical solemnity, the work is reminiscent of a communal prayer or a spiritual act.

One of the most popular symphonic poems by Richard Strauss -actually one of the most famous tone poems ever -is his "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" op. 30, from 1896. The distinctive theme, followed by timpani blows and powerful, surging chords in the brass, was well-known long before it was used for a film score (Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey"). Fifty years ago, this work went far beyond the limits of classical music -and is now familiar to all. The cumbersome title, along with the fact that the composition tackles Friedrich Nietzsche's eponymous poetic and philosophical work may even have initially hampered its overwhelming popularity. Nietzsche himself fittingly commented: "To which genre does this 'Zarathustra' belong, I wonder? I am rather inclined to think it is 'symphonies'. "Strauss’s "Burleske" for Piano and Orchestra sounds completely different. It was composed a decade earlier in 1885/86, when the 21-year-old composer had just begun his first job as Capellmeister of the Meiningen Court Orchestra and as the assistant of Hans von Bülow. Originally referred to as "Scherzo" (Strauss also called it a "piano concerto" ina letter to his mother), the work was dedicated to Strauss’s mentor, Bülow. It was first performed in Eisenach in 1890 by the piano soloist Eugen d'Albert. The themes are cheerful and "burlesque", and the solo instrument and the orchestra perform together in the best sense. The music shows us Strauss in an early phase –he had not yet linked his compositional technique to that of Liszt and Wagner. In the year the work was premiered, Strauss himself referred to the "Burleske" as a work that "he had left far behind him". Only rarely performed for many years, the work regained popularity over the past two decades, thanks not least to Glenn Gould.

Following Giuseppe Verdi's "Luisa Miller", with which Ivan Repušic made his debut as principal conductor of the Münchner Rundfunkorchester in September 2017, and "I due Foscari" in October 2018, the conductor’s successful cycle of early masterpieces by the famous Italian opera composer now continues with “Attila”. In the recording of the concert performance from the Prinzregententheater, outstanding performers provide authentic fluidity and vocal splendor. This highlight of Munich musical life from the end of last year is now already being released on BR-KLASSIK as a double album. Like its predecessors "Nabucco" and "I Lombardi", Verdi's early masterpiece "Attila" is a choral opera in the best sense, and gained an enthusiastic reception from the Italian unification movement: its themes reflected the aspirations of the Risorgimento in the restless Italy of that time. The line "Avrai tu l'universo, resti l'Italia a me" ("You may have the universe, but let Italy remain mine") was enthusiastically received right from the start, helping to pave the way for the opera on the stages of Italy and Europe. It was not only the audience at the premiere at the Teatro La Fenice in Habsburg-ruled Venice who understood the full import of those words. Hardly any other opera by Verdi was received in Italy with so much euphoria. Outside the country, of course, it failed to make a lasting impression – probably also due to the extremely difficult role of Odabella.

This CD box set from BR-KLASSIK combines Mendelssohn's twelve string symphonies, his “Symphoniesatz“ in C minor (No. 13) and his early violin concerto in D minor in the form of studio recordings made by the Münchner Rundfunkorchester under its leader Henry Raudales. The violinist has won several awards and made numerous recordings with the orchestra as a conductor and soloist. (The Violin Concerto and Symphonies Nos. 1-6 have already been released separately). It was thanks to his father's penchant for organizing musical concerts in his family's Berlin apartment on Sunday mornings that the 11-year-old Felix Mendelssohn began to compose quite a long series of string symphonies, and also that the works were initially performed. The study of music and composition spurred the young composer on greatly; his diligence as well as his youthful creativity developed early, and he made astonishing progress. In 1821, he wrote the first half of his string symphonies, which together took less than two years to complete. During performances that formed part of the concerts at home, he always took over the direction of the chamber orchestra, which consisted of amateur and professional musicians from the Berlin court orchestra.

Mendelssohn’s early concerto for violin and string orchestra, written at around the same time for his violin teacher Eduard Rietz, was probably played in the same setting. Formally, it owes much to the concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach, but it clearly sounds like Mendelssohn. Ever since their long-lost manuscripts were successfully rediscovered in 1950, Mendelssohn’s early string symphonies have been a fixed part of the string and chamber orchestra repertoire. In the youthful freshness and carefreeness of these early works, one can already hear echoes of the instrumental masterpieces by this important symphonic composer of early Romanticism that were soon to follow.

REVIEW

The Belgian violinist Henry Raudales, originally from Guatemala and significantly promoted by Yehudi Menuhin, has been concertmaster of the Munich Radio Orchestra since September 2001.

These are gripping interpretations performed at a high technical level. They convince not only with exuberant temperament, tight rhythm, and great textures, but also express the melancholy of the Grave movements very well.

–Pizzicato (Remy Franck)

The Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra were linked by a long and intensive artistic collaboration, brought to an abrupt end by his death in October 2021. BR-KLASSIK now presents outstanding and as yet unreleased live recordings of concerts from the past years. This recording of Mahler's Seventh Symphony documents concerts from February 2011 in Munich.

As an interpreter of the symphonic repertoire, and especially that of the German-Austrian late Romantic period, Haitink was held in high esteem worldwide. With him, the symphonies of Gustav Mahler were always in the best of hands. His driving principle was to take the sound architecture of a musical composition with its many-layered interweavings and render it transparently audible; extreme sensitivity of sound was paired with a clearly structured interpretation of the score.

A valid recording of Mahler's Seventh Symphony places the highest demands on the skills of the conductor as well as on the virtuosity of each individual orchestral musician. Only under such circumstances can the highly complex individual voices merge to form a magnificent whole – an undertaking that achieves breathtaking effects time and again. A conductor is required here who unites the ensemble of individual, soloist-level musicians with an overarching musical concept. With its two grotesque "night musics", its sounds of nature, naïve folk motifs and intoxicating orchestral tutti, the Seventh Symphony is highly typical of Mahler's unique sound world.

BERNARD HAITINK conducts: SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONY No. 15 in A major op. 141. The Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra enjoyed a long and intensive artistic collaboration, which came to an abrupt end with Haitink's death in October 2021. BR-KLASSIK now presents outstanding and previously unreleased live recordings of their concerts from past years. This recording of Shostakovich's Fifteenth Symphony documents a concert given in February 2015 in Munich's Philharmonie i'm Gasteig. Haitink first conducted a Munich subscription concert in 1958, and from then on was a regular guest with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra - either in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz or in the Philharmonie i'm Gasteig. This congenial collaboration lasted for more than six decades. The orchestra musicians and singers enjoyed working with him just as much as the BR sound engineers. As an interpreter of the symphonic repertoire, and especially that of the German-Austrian Late Romantic period, Haitink was held in high esteem throughout the world. With him, the symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich were always in the best of hands. Haitink's driving principle was to make the sound architecture of a musical composition, with it's complex interweaving, transparently audible; extreme sensitivity of sound was combined with a clearly structured interpretation of the score. As the last symphony in the oeuvre of the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, the Fifteenth is a kind of symphonic conclusion. Although the composer set out to write a "happy symphony" and this epithet has since become commonplace, everything cheerful in it has a dimension that is exaggerated into the bizarre and grotesque. The work also contains musical references, for example to Rossini's "William Tell" overture, Wagner's "The Ring of the Nibelung" (the so-called "fate motif") and "Tristan and Isolde", and Alban Berg's "Wozzeck". Quotations from Shostakovich's own earlier works also appear. The symphony was composed in 1971 in Repino, a suburb of St Petersburg. The world premiere took place on January 8, 1972, under the baton of the composer's son Maxim.

This BR-KLASSIK CD features recordings of concerts on February 28 and March 1, 2013 in the Philharmonie im Gasteig.

Zubin Mehta is closely associated with the city of Munich and the orchestras based there. From 1998 to 2006, he was General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and has similarly close ties with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Tchaikovsky wrote his Symphony No. 5 in E minor, op. 64, the so-called "Fate Symphony,” in 1888. All four movements of the work are permeated by the so-called “fate” theme. Together with his fourth and sixth (“Pathétique”) symphonies, the fifth is one of Tchaikovsky's most popular.

Franz Liszt's symphonic poem "Mazeppa" is based on a poem by Victor Hugo and uses musical material from the composer’s fourth "Etude d'exécution transcendante" from 1846. The symphonic poem was composed in 1850 during Liszt's tenure as court conductor in Weimar, and was first performed on April 16, 1854. Liszt's symphonic poem describes the wild ride across the steppe of the emaciated and exhausted Ivan Masepa (Mazeppa), tied to the back of a horse. He is finally rescued by Cossacks, who take him to Ukraine.

Named Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice for December 2022!

For the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the performances on November 26 and 27, 2021 in the Isarphilharmonie marked the beginning of a new chapter in its Mahler interpretation: with its designated new principal conductor Simon Rattle, the orchestra is now headed by a Mahler admirer every bit as ardent as his predecessors Mariss Jansons, Lorin Maazel, and Rafael Kubelík. The musicians dedicated the benefit concert on November 26 to the memory of conductor Bernard Haitink, who died in October 2021 and was associated with the renowned orchestra for 61 years. The very long silence after the final chord was one of those “goosebumps moments” that one goes to concerts for – and for which music is made in the first place.

Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, in particular, is understood as the composer’s reaction to a heart ailment that was diagnosed shortly before he wrote the first drafts in the summer of 1908. He was in deep despair, but still scarcely aware of how few years he actually had left to live. With Mahler, it was always in and through music that he tried to come to terms with his life experiences and such topics as farewell, the meaning of existence, death, redemption, life after death and love. He wrote his Ninth Symphony in Dobbiaco, in a kind of creative frenzy, between 1909 and 1910. Its premiere took place in Vienna on June 26, 1912, when the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra performed the work under Bruno Walter. Mahler did not witness the premiere of his last completed work – he had already died on May 18, 1911.

REVIEW:

I would rank Rattle's performance here with the best of the competition and would add that even the classic recordings of Bernstein, Giulini, and Karajan have no significant advantage over Rattle's. In the end Rattle would be my top choice among newer versions and probably the equal of the classic performances on disc.

-- MusicWeb International (Robert Cummings)

If he has always shown very sensitive affinities with Symphony No. 9, Simon Rattle delivers his most accomplished recording to the Bavarian Radio. Recorded live between November 24 and 27, 2021, at the Isarphilharmonie im Gasteig in Munich by Winfried Messmer, [this] powerful orchestral mass presents both great volume and precise definition of timbre and range.

-- Diapason (citation for a Diapason d'or)

The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and its designated principal conductor dedicated one of the two concerts used for this recording to the conductor Bernard Haitink, who died in October 2021. It is a great tribute to this outstanding Mahler conductor, and Rattle once again proves what a major Mahler interpreter he is as well.

Right in the first movement, he succeeds in drawing the whole Mahler world in its gripping originality with magnificent breath. Rising and collapse are always close together, and the exciting alternation between tension and release is maintained throughout the symphony. At the same time, this reading is not lacking in sensuality. There is both lyrical beauty, full of abyss, and the light-hearted (and artfully illuminated) play of sound and movement. The three-movement back-and-forth of emotions leads to the Adagio finale, which Rattle conducts thoughtfully and in moderate tempo. The music dies away in a deeply moving 24 minutes with nostalgia, sadness and also some thoughts of hope.

The orchestra is brilliantly disposed and fascinates with both differentiated coloration and the greatest possible transparency. Under Rattle’s direction, Mahler, the orchestral musicians, and he himself merge into a single instrument.

-- Pizzicato

Superbly played and recorded, from November last year (Isarphilharmonie im Gasteig), a memorial concert for Bernard Haitink, Sir Simon’s third recording (following Birmingham and Vienna, both EMI/Warner) of Mahler Nine sports a first movement, if not without a few cosmetic touches, that is a flowing and feisty affair, defiant, better to be alive than not, with impassioned fortissimos, and only in the concluding few minutes does the music issue calmness as well as bittersweet sentiments, although it seems too sudden as well as much too soon – bearing in mind how the Symphony will end, spare and fading to nothingness. The second movement, with its competing waltz and ländler, has its tempo contrasts well-managed, but is perhaps a little too manicured – it needs to be rougher, more rustic and pesante. Poker-faced sophistication suits the ensuing ‘Rondo-Burleske’, its counterpoint wonderfully clear (antiphonal violins swirl either side of the podium) albeit greater bite is sometimes required, and it’s a surprise that Rattle doesn’t linger more in the central section (his is a tempo-related ‘trio’), and the conclusion is thrillingly fast and rendered with A+ virtuosity – the abyss awaits. The final Adagio follows more or less attacca (I can vouch for such a joining from an LSO concert years ago) and is a dignified if intense leave-taking, powerful (vibrant strings, eloquent woodwinds) and ethereal, with a cathartic climax and a hypnotically controlled paring down of resources as expression becomes more and more off the radar.

-- Colin's Column

October 29, 1923 - a date steeped in history. In the midst of a year of political and economic crisis, the age of public radio in Germany was ushered in with the first broadcast of the "Berliner Funkstunde", from the attic of an office building on Potsdamer Platz. The composers assembled on this album not only profited from these developments, but also, in part, actively shaped them.

The composer Ernst Toch experienced the crisis year of 1923 in Mannheim, where his "Dance Suite" op. 30 was premiered on with great success. In this work, Toch was able to realize his interest in cross-disciplinary collaboration and new forms of expression. His imaginative use of instruments is one of the most fascinating aspects of the suite.

The "Frauentanz" for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon op. 10 by Kurt Weill, written in the summer of 1923, reflects the interest in chamber music line-ups typical of the time. The decisive factor was not only a new ideal of sound and expression, but also the experience that in times of crisis, pieces with small ensembles had better chances of being performed.

Ernst Krenek had found essential impulses for his work in Berlin; when the crisis came to a head in the summer of 1923 he composed the "Three Mixed Choirs" a cappella op. 22 on poems by Matthias Claudius. Krenek designed these folksong-like works written by a lyricist from the epoch of Empfindsamkeit as parables.

For the festive concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the unification of the cities of Buda and Pest to form the capital and residence city of Budapest in the autumn of 1923, Béla Bartók created his "Dance Suite" for orchestra - a "rather touchy issue", as the internationalist-minded composer explained in a private note.

REVIEWS:

Given [the events of 1923 in central Europe], you might imagine a CD of mostly German music entitled 1923: Wild Sound of the 1920s might sound a bit, well, wild. Far from it. If anything, it shows the opposite: surrounded by violence and the threat of chaos, the four composers represented here by works they composed in 1923 responded by raising their art to the nth degree of refinement and subtlety. Take Ernst Krenek, a composer who nowadays is remembered for a smash hit opera about a Black jazz musician, and for writing later in life some of the most fearsomely intellectualized, complex works in the entire history of music. He’s represented on this disc by three settings for choir of the 18th-century poet Matthias Claudius, of a ravishing otherworldly beauty caught to perfection in these performances.

Kurt Weill, known to the world for his bitingly satirical music dramas, appears as the composer of seven exquisitely allusive, bittersweet songs based on medieval German poems. Ernst Toch’s Dance Suite is a brilliantly imagined set of six “character” pieces for just a handful of instruments, with titles like The Red Whirling Dance and Idyll. Standing somewhat to one side of all this German romantic/modernist intensity and compression is the Dance Suite by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, with its rumbustious evocations of Balkan and North African Music.

The occasional whiff of expressionist harshness or a gently satirical distortion of a waltz shows these composers were not completely cocooned in their composing studios. They were alert to the jarring, shifting currents outside. But what the CD reveals most strongly is how much these composers were focused on their own internal, imaginative world – and how much they cared about craftsmanship. Every bar in all four pieces is exquisitely made, and that quality is caught in the performances, which are all of enormous refinement.

-- The Telegraph

The year 1923 was a year of crisis in Germany; inflation was heating up and far right-wing parties were jockeying for power. In October, the first broadcast of public radio in Germany took place from the “Berliner Funkstunde” station on Potsdamer Platz. This provocative new disc from the Choir and Symphony of Bavarian Radio includes four works written a hundred years ago by a group of innovative composers who all made use of the new, disruptive technology of radio.

Kurt Weill’s Frauentanz is a suite of seven medieval songs, scored for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon. Weill helped to create the familiar soundtrack for Weimar Berlin, and this performance by Anna-Maria Palii and the fine instrumentalists of the Bayerischen Rundfunks orchestra provides the authentic feel of a society that was becoming increasingly decadent and hysterical in 1923 and beyond.

Ernst Toch’s Dance Suite is another clever and imaginative piece with interesting orchestration: flute, clarinet, violin, viola, double bass and percussion. The Berlin sound is also evident here, something a bit harsh and raw, in contrast with the softer-focused, more lyrical and pastoral modernism of Paris.

The Ernst Krenek work is a bit of a surprise: his 3 Choruses for a cappella choir . The ‘antique’ sound of these pieces remind me of two of my favorite works: Vaughan Williams’ G minor Mass, from 1921, and Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Missa São Sebastião, from 1937. All three provide old wine in new bottles: ancient cadences with a modernist twist.

The final work on the disc is probably the best known: Bela Bartok’s Dance Suite for Orchestra. This is an orchestral showpiece, a kind of try-out for his Concerto for Orchestra written more than two decades later. Both pieces treat orchestral instruments in a solistic, virtuosic way. The source material might be folkloric, but this is definitely written in a modernist idiom.

Inflation, far right-wing agitation, disruptive technology: yes, we’re talking about 1923, not 2023. And the music on this disc is as fresh and forward-looking as some of the best music written today.

-- Music for Several Instruments (Dean Frey)

Increasingly, Shostakovich's music is captivating people all over the world and appealing to their deepest emotions. Almost like no other, it bears witness to a traumatic political epoch while remaining a timeless expression of existential human feeling and experience. For me personally, said conductor Mariss Jansons, who died two years ago, "Shostakovich is one of the most serious and sincere composers of them all." Shostakovich's (first) piano concerto features impressive pianistic virtuosity, bold experimentation, satire, and caricatures of different musical styles. The composer wrote it in the summer of 1933, only a few weeks after the completion of his opera " Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk". He himself called it a "mocking challenge to the conservative-serious character of the classical concert attitude". This concerto in particular demonstrates the immense versatility and magnificent talent of the still carefree 26-year-old Shostakovich. He blends a wealth of musical thoughts and ideas into a colorful and fascinating kaleidoscope. Despite the wealth of different stimuli, the concerto does not seem chaotic or overloaded: the young composer effortlessly maintains the balance.

Shostakovich performed a similar balancing act between creative work and conformity to the state in his Ninth Symphony, which premiered on November 3, 1945. Instead of the expected heroic, regime-conformist orchestral thunder along the lines of his Seventh Symphony, the "Leningrad”, the music heard here was playful, without pathos, somewhat witty, full of allusions – yet something did not seem quite right. This musical conundrum, full of ironic refractions and caricatures of melodramatic and triumphant music, was recognized by the censors as a masquerade, yet one that was not easily decipherable. Shostakovich had mocked Stalin without the latter noticing.

"Increasingly, Shostakovich's music is captivating people all over the world and appealing to their deepest emotions. Almost like no other, it bears witness to a traumatic political epoch while remaining a timeless expression of existential human feeling and experience. For me personally," said conductor Mariss Jansons, who died two years ago, "Shostakovich is one of the most serious and sincere composers of them all." Now BR-KLASSIK is releasing two more outstanding performances by this important Soviet-Russian composer: his impressive Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and String Orchestra, and his Ninth Symphony - performed live by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under its long-time principal conductor Mariss Jansons.

Shostakovich's (first) piano concerto features impressive pianistic virtuosity, bold experimentation, satire, and caricatures of different musical styles. The composer wrote it in the summer of 1933, only a few weeks after the completion of his opera "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk". This concerto in particular demonstrates the immense versatility and magnificent talent of the still carefree 26-year-old Shostakovich. He blends a wealth of musical thoughts and ideas into a colorful and fascinating kaleidoscope. Despite the wealth of different stimuli, the concerto does not seem chaotic or overloaded: the young composer effortlessly maintains the balance. Shostakovich performed a similar balancing act between creative work and conformity to the state in his Ninth Symphony, which premiered on November 3, 1945. Instead of the expected heroic, regime-conformist orchestral thunder along the lines of his Seventh Symphony, the "Leningrad”, the music heard here was playful, without pathos, somewhat witty, full of allusions – yet something did not seem quite right. This musical conundrum, full of ironic refractions and caricatures of melodramatic and triumphant music, was recognized by the censors as a masquerade, yet one that was not easily decipherable.

REVIEW:

I don’t think of any first-rate recording as needless, and this release, despite its short timing, features two excellent performances, even though Yefim Bronfman already has a recording of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 on Sony. That version, from 1999 with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the LA Phil, is nimble and quick, and it finds Bronfman more scintillating than he is in Munich in 2012.

The new Symphony No. 9, BRSO version is a live account from Vienna’s Musikverein in 2011, and in every way it is splendid. Superb recorded sound captures every detail and instrumental color in the score, and the orchestra shows off its world-class status. Jansons’s touch is light and lively, giving the symphony an irresistible buoyancy.

Thanks to some highly individual solo playing from the BRSO’s first desks, which expressively ranges from soulful melancholy to dizzying brilliance, this concert performance displays great emotional variety, including wit and suspense. I can warmly recommend it as one of Jansons’s best efforts in Shostakovich, and you can bypass the stingy timing of the CD by resorting to digital downloads and streams.

This CD is extracted from BR Klassik’s 68-disc Jansons Edition. Final applause is briefly included.

-- Fanfare

Three great choral and orchestral works of the 20th century are gathered together in outstanding interpretations on the new album from BR-KLASSIK: Arvo Pärt's "Berlin Mass" for choir and string orchestra from 1990, Francis Poulenc's "Stabat mater" for soprano, mixed choir and orchestra from 1950, and Igor Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms" for choir and orchestra from 1930. The soprano Genia Kühmeier, the incomparable Bavarian Radio Chorus and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra - two undisputedly world-class ensembles! - under the direction of Mariss Jansons guarantee the highest listening pleasure.

The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, famed for his magical sounds, created his "Berlin Mass" as a commission for the 90th German Catholic Convention in Berlin. It was premiered in 1990 for four mixed solo voices and organ. In 1997, Pärt reworked his Mass, written in the so-called "Tintinnabuli" style, for choir and string orchestra. Francis Poulenc wrote his "Stabat mater" in response to the unexpected death of his friend, the artist Christian Bérard. Like other sacred works written after his visit to the Black Madonna of Rocamadour, where he found his Catholic faith, this one ranks among his most important compositions. Igor Stravinsky's well-known "Symphony of Psalms", a three-movement symphonic work for choir and orchestra, was written in 1930 as a commission for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The unusual orchestration – with strong woodwind and brass, percussion instruments, two pianos and only the bass strings (violoncellos, double basses without violins or violas – gives the work its distinctive sound.

REVIEWS:

Just how much we miss Mariss Jansons is manifest in this Munich concert of three sacred works. Jansons, who died in November 2019, aged 76, was not principally noted for religiosity or choral masterpieces, but his shaping of this triptych is so masterful that one can hardly imagine them presented with greater coherence or sincerity.

This is altogether an outstanding record of the conductor’s art. Jansons was one of the greats. Happily, Bavarian Radio have more of his big nights coming out of their archives.

-- Ludwig van Toronto

Approaching these works with the great seriousness they deserve, Mariss Jansons and the choir create wonderous moods and make the music float in evocative fashion.

-- Pizzicato

For today’s musicologists, performers and concert-going audiences, Mozart’s final symphonies are still a veritable miracle. Why they were written remains a mystery, and no-one knows whether Mozart ever heard them performed during his lifetime. One thing is certain: Mozart created three individual, distinctive and unique works here, which complement each other despite their extreme diversity. The symphonies in E Major, K 543 (no. 39), G minor, K. 550 (no. 40), and C Major, K. 551 (no. 41, also known as “The Jupiter”) are the ones that most represent Mozart’s symphonic legacy to later generations of musicians. With its slow introduction, the Symphony in E flat major also opens the entire cycle, already giving the listener a sense of its highs and lows. As early as 1800, the popular "Great" G minor Symphony was praised as the “painting of a passion-stricken soul”. Like its big sister, the "Jupiter" Symphony in C Major, it numbers among the most-played works in classical music and has been immortalized in countless recordings. Nevertheless, these symphonies - probably the most profound ones before Beethoven - reveal themselves as something quite new in every interpretation.

"Mozart placed all the dark sides of human existence into his G minor Symphony", says Herbert Blomstedt, adding that its “passion” continues to fascinate him. The eminent Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt, a close associate and regular guest conductor of the BRSO, conducted the E Major Symphony on December 18 and 19, 2019 in the Philharmonie at the Munich Gasteig, the G minor Symphony in concerts on January 31 and February 1, 2013 and the "Jupiter" Symphony on December 21 and 22, 2017 in the Herkulessaal of Munich’s Residenz. The new 2-CD set from BR-KLASSIK now presents these great cornerstones of Mozart's symphonic oeuvre –in the very best sound quality.

Together with narrator Rufus Beck, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin presents "The Five Thieves and the Secret in the Sack". Inspired by the Thousand and One Nights, it is a magical story about the power of friendship. Author Katharina Neuschaefer and illustrator Martin Fengel captivate their young audience with this exotic tale, set amid the vastness of the desert – and musically illustrated by the colorful sounds of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade".

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) in 2024, the BR-KLASSIK label is releasing previously unreleased recordings of concerts worth listening to, available on CD and as a stream.

Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony remains today one of the greatest and most powerful creations of the Late Romantic period. The immense symphony, longer and more monumental than others, incorporates texts from the collection of poems by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim entitled “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”. Composed over a period of four years from 1892 to 1896, with particular focus during the summers of 1895 and 1896 spent at the Attersee in Austria, it was premiered in its entirety on June 9, 1902, at the 38th “Tonkünstler Festival” in Krefeld. Mahler conducted the Städtische Kapelle Krefeld and Cologne’s Gürzenich Orchestra at this momentous event, which garnered great acclaim from his contemporaries. Between 1902 and 1907, the composer conducted his Third Symphony a further 15 times.

Among the symphony's six powerful movements, the slow fourth movement necessitates not only a large orchestra but also a mezzo-soprano solo for a setting of the “Midnight Song” (“O Man! Take heed!”) from Friedrich Nietzsche's poetical-philosophical work "Thus Spoke Zarathustra." In the cheerful fifth movement, the mezzo-soprano soloist is joined by a children’s choir and a female chorus for the song "Es sungen drei Engel" from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn." The symphony presents a significant challenge for all its performers, and this concert recording from December 2010 features a prestigious lineup: Mariss Jansons conducting the Chor and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, with the Tölzer Knabenchor, and solo parts sung by Nathalie Stutzmann.