{"title":"Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"pfitzner-das-christ-elflein-op-20-orfeo-dor-orfeo","title":"Pfitzner: Das Christ-Elflein, Op. 20 (Orfeo D'Or)","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Orfeo","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":44624316039402,"sku":"4011790437224","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2056509.jpg?v=1778290329"},{"product_id":"oberto","title":"OBERTO","description":"OBERTO","brand":"Orfeo","offers":[{"title":"Vinyl","offer_id":44711907164394,"sku":"4011790105314","price":53.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3893010_145ecfb8-7155-4846-8763-62e81625c5e6.jpg?v=1778397187"},{"product_id":"don-giovanni-2","title":"DON GIOVANNI","description":"DON GIOVANNI","brand":"Orfeo","offers":[{"title":"Vinyl","offer_id":44722664505578,"sku":"4011790214214","price":37.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3893045.jpg?v=1778397183"},{"product_id":"wolfgang-sawallisch-complete-symphonic-lieder-choral-recordings-warner-classics-edition-vol-1","title":"Wolfgang Sawallisch: Complete Symphonic, Lieder \u0026 Choral Recordings - Warner Classics Edition, Vol. 1","description":"For five decades Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923-2013) held a central position in the musical world. That centrality was reflected in a series of top orchestral and operatic posts and in his interpretations, free of self-regarding eccentricities. His modest but highly effective conducting technique also made him the ideal recording artist. Sawallisch was a Bavarian born in Munich, city of orchestras and a great opera company, which he headed for 21 years. He started his career as an outstanding pianist and remained a sought-after accompanist to great Lieder singers and instrumentalists. Volume 1 of a complete conspectus of his Warner Classics recordings (made for Electrola and EMI Classics between 1954 to 1997) includes wonderful Lieder and song collaborations, as well as famous concerto accompaniments for eminent soloists and a heartwarming traversal of Schubert's secular vocal and sacred choral music with Bavarian Radio colleagues. But the main focus among the 65 discs is on his symphonic achievements: Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bruckner and Dvor�k - the latter's Eighth Symphony was his first published recording, from 1954. Richard Strauss, an early influence, is strongly represented. This 65CD-box brings together all the non-operatic recordings that the German conductor and pianist Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923-2013) made in the years from 1954 to 1997 for EMI Classics and Electrola (now Warner Classics).","brand":"WARNER CLASSICS","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":45862031163626,"sku":"5054197832178","price":200.17,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4337089-3177571.jpg?v=1778371592"},{"product_id":"mozart-idomeneo","title":"Mozart: Idomeneo","description":"Idomeneo has long been one of Sir Simon Rattle's favourite works, and with good reason. Mozart's \"dramma per musica\" from 1781 completely revitalised the opera seria genre, which had previously been considered outmoded. It opens the series of operas from the composer's mature period. For this commissioned work for the excellent ensemble of the Munich Residenztheater, Mozart had unlimited musical resources at his disposal. It was his most extensive and ambitious stage work to date, featuring demanding arias, differentiated role portraits, a virtuoso orchestral part and several large choral scenes that rank among the most impressive in his oeuvre. - Mozart's first great opera gave Simon Rattle the opportunity to work intensively with the Chorus immediately after taking up his position as the new Chief Conductor of the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra in the autumn of 2023, further deepening his interest in historical performance practice in Munich. He was supported by an exceptional cast of singers, including British tenor Andrew Staples in the challenging title role, soprano Sabine Devieilhe and mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena as the tender lovers Ilia and Idamante, soprano Elsa Dreisig as the envious and distraught Elettra, and several other soloists and choral soloists. Howard Arman directs the Bavarian Radio Chorus, and Simon Rattle conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012433006826,"sku":"4035719002157","price":34.39,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4439247-3413028.jpg?v=1778194833"},{"product_id":"caplet-le-miroir-de-jesus-4035719003420","title":"Caplet: Le miroir de Jésus \/ Arman, Munich Radio Orchestra","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLe miroir de Jésus\u003c\/em\u003e (The Mirror of Jesus) for mezzo-soprano, women's choir, strings and harp, the last major work composed by the French composer André Caplet in the spring and summer of 1923 and based on fifteen poems by the French writer Henri Ghéon, was subtitled \"Mystères du rosaire\" (Mysteries of the Rosary). The mystical work, whose form and genre defy the usual categorizations, revolves around the most important stations in the life of Jesus, told from the perspective of the Virgin Mary and mirrored, as it were, in her gaze. Each of the three parts consists of an extended instrumental prelude and five episodes. The first begins with the Annunciation, recounts the Visitation of Mary, the birth of Christ and his time in the Temple of Jerusalem. The second part turns to the mysteries of pain: Jesus' scourging, the crown of thorns, the way of the cross and the agony, and finally his death. The last part reflects on the \"Glorious Mysteries\": Jesus's Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost and finally Assumption and Coronation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA mezzo-soprano takes on the perspective of Mary. Occasionally the voice changes to recitation or even recitative, but the singing always serves the text, guaranteeing its comprehensibility and at the same time interpreting the words through musical means. Later, the choir introduces the respective poem titles and also emerges at a few points that are all the more significant: at the end of the first rosary, it reinforces the message of Ghéon's text with a Latin biblical quotation, and later on with eulogies such as \"Sanctus\" and \"Alleluia\". In \"Le miroir de Jésus\", Caplet found a musical form for the mysteries of the ancient passion story that brings together past and present into a peaceful synthesis.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEWS:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLe Miroir de Jésus\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ewas André Caplet’s last major completed work, composed two years before his early death at the age of 46.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCaplet’s writing is precise and considered, and his accomplished use of melancholic presentiment – as in the Nativité of the First Part – possesses a simplicity, and yet a directness, that proves consistently compelling. His handling of what are deliberately reduced orchestral forces of strings and a harp reveals a master orchestrator. Incidents such as the rippling water evocations in the Présentation simply reinforce his command of impressionist-derived devices put to his own use.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eArman and the Munich Radio Orchestra catch the spare unisons in Part Two’s Prélude and they expand density over the final bars the better to explore the Gregorian implications of the succeeding\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eAgonie au Jardin\u003c\/em\u003e. Over this section one encounters reflective lyricism and much beauty as well as terse, jagged writing in the scene where Christ is crowned with thorns.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe richness and variety of his imagination is palpable throughout and in the Prélude to Part Three Arman ensures that Caplet’s presaging of elements of minimalism is clear even as Caplet generates a halo-like subtlety after the Resurrection scene. The spiritual intensity reaches a transcendence and moving intensity, the women of the choir of Bavarian Radio exuding exultant echo effects as the work draws to a close, Vondung both speaking and then singing rapturously with choral support.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe performance is beautifully balanced and is taken from a live performance in the Herz-Jesu-Kirche, Munich – not that one would know it’s live, as there’s no audience noise audible. Vondung is a splendid exponent, as she has proved in Baroque Passions and cantatas on disc, whose mezzo provides a sympathetic and rich-voiced conduit both for Ghéon’s texts and for Caplet’s richly varied, spiritually charged music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eArman paces the work perfectly drawing out its radiance as well as its ethereal beauties, and – occasionally – its more harmonically astringent elements.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere’s a good booklet and full texts are provided in French with German and English translations.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e-- \u003c\/span\u003eMusicWeb International\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012446540010,"sku":"4035719003420","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4164088-2937099.jpg?v=1778249689"},{"product_id":"puccini-messa-di-gloria","title":"Puccini: Messa di Gloria","description":"Puccini's \"Messa di Gloria\" is one of the most popular settings of the Latin Mass, and is also featured on many concert programmes in the Puccini Year of 2024. The musical quality, energy and freshness of this youthful work ensured it's ever-growing popularity after it's rediscovery in the early 1950s. The composer even went on to quote some of the melodies in his famous operas, notably \"Manon Lescaut\". The \"Messa di Gloria\" was most recently performed on June 27, 2024 in the Herz-Jesu-Kirche in Munich by the Bavarian Radio Chorus and the Munchner Rundfunkorchester under it's chief conductor Ivan Repusic. To mark the 100th anniversary of the death of the great Italian composer, BR-KLASSIK is now presenting the live recording of this outstanding concert on CD.    Giacomo Puccini wrote his \"Messa a quattro voci con orchestra\" (\"Mass for Four Voices with Orchestra\") between 1878 and 1880 as the final thesis of his music studies in his hometown of Lucca. The first preparatory work was done when he was just eighteen, and the young composer was only 21 when the work was first performed on July 12, 1880. The Mass remained unpublished during his lifetime but became immensely popular after it's rediscovery in the early 1950s. However, in the first printed edition and in later performances it was inaccurately described as a \"Messa di Gloria\", a term that in fact refers to a (usually shorter) composition consisting only of Kyrie and Gloria; Puccini's Mass is in fact a full work, the complete setting of the Latin Ordinary with Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus\/Benedictus and Agnus Dei. Puccini had begun his work on the Credo as early as 1878.     In the \"Messa di Gloria\", the choir takes centre stage with increasingly beautiful melodies; the solo parts for tenor and baritone are sung by Tomislav Muzek and George Petean. The approximately 45-minute-long work is complemented on this CD by Puccini's orchestral works \"Preludio sinfonico\" and \"Crisantemi\" - the latter in an arrangement for string orchestra by Lucas Drew. (Studio recordings from February 2023.)","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012455682282,"sku":"4035719003543","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4371508-3238016.jpg?v=1778231955"},{"product_id":"arman-davis-angelus-ad-pastores-weihnachtsgeschichte-bavarian-radio-choir","title":"Angelus ad Pastores - Weihnachtsgeschichte \/ Arman, Bavarian Radio Choir","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the Revelation of James, an apocryphal gospel that was not included in the Bible, events and details surrounding the birth of Christ are reported that do not appear in the better-known versions of the Christmas story from the gospels of Matthew and Luke. The Christmas story is presented by James in a vivid, dramatic, and almost theatrical manner.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHoward Arman's Christmas Story follows the tradition of works such as Bach's \"Christmas Oratorio\", where newly-composed settings of the Gospel alternate with chorales. Here, Gregorian and polyphonic chorales as well as several motets from the 17th century are woven into Arman's composition and form a second narrative level. They frame the episodes of the Christmas story and can also be understood as musical reactions to the narrated events.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis new BR-KLASSIK CD is complemented by the chorales from Peter Maxwell Davies' Christmas cantata \"O magnum mysterium\". Arman contrasts the powerful language and mysticism of James’ gospel by reducing musical means to their essentials: monophonic singing, syllabically conceived solo passages and, as the only accompanying instrument, a hurdy-gurdy, which with its monotonous, archaic sound represents a certain timelessness. All of this results in maximum text comprehensibility, whereby the emotional declamatory singing style almost makes the figures resemble characters in a stage play. A key moment is Joseph's vision shortly before the birth of Christ: time seems to stand still, and the mystical and sublime aspect of this scene is intensified by poetic words full of linguistic contrasts and contradictions. – The chorales and motets integrated into Arman’s Christmas Story gradually develop ever greater polyphony. Thus, three settings by Nicolaus Zangius, Hieronymus Praetorius and Hans Leo Hassler, scored for ever greater numbers of voices, lead to a fourth, ten-part composition by Melchior Vulpius, which concludes with the words \"Peace on earth\". In its formal layout, Arman's Christmas Story bears similarities to Peter Maxwell Davies' cantata \"O magnum mysterium\". This work, written in 1960 for the choirmaster of Manchester Cathedral, also consists of chorales and instrumental sonatas, although the order is not compulsory. The four a cappella chorales in particular constitute a self-contained unit in terms of both content and music.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012462432490,"sku":"4035719005318","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4412819-3337353.jpg?v=1778199795"},{"product_id":"papandopulo-hrvatska-misa","title":"Papandopulo: Hrvatska misa","description":"On February 1, 2025, Ivan Repusic, chief conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra, directed Boris Papandopulo's 1942 Croatian Mass for soloists and a cappella choir in Munich's Prinzregententheater with the Bavarian Radio Chorus. BR-KLASSIK is now presenting this outstanding interpretation of the impressive sacred composition on CD as a live recording.    The Croatian composer and conductor Boris Papandopulo (1906-1991) worked as a choirmaster, conductor and opera director in Split, Rijeka, Zagreb and Sarajevo. He created more than 400 compositions, spanning almost every genre. Although of Greek origin, Papandopulo was deeply rooted in the Croatian musical tradition, and his broad stylistic spectrum extended to neo-classicism, jazz, pop and folk music. His works combine elements of Croatian folk music with twelve-tone music and demand a high level of virtuosity. Papandopulo completed his training in Zagreb and at the New Conservatory in Vienna, spending the majority of his life in Croatia.    The Croatian Mass is a sacred work in the spirit and style of centuries-old Croatian vocal music as well as being a practical choral composition. It is composed without orchestral or organ accompaniment, as Croatian choral music is almost exclusively sung a cappella. Papandopulo composed the mass for the First Croatian Choral Society Kolo, which he directed from 1928 to 1934 and again from 1938 to 1946. He completed his Croatian Mass in 1938, and it premiered in Zagreb on April 1, 1942, performed by the Croatian Choral Society Kolo under the composer's direction. Although the Croatian translation of the Roman Catholic liturgy gives the work a certain national flavour, the piece is primarily influenced by the tradition of old Dalmatian church hymns. Composed in a polyphonic style, it's syllabic and diatonic text settings are generally characteristic of Croatian vocal music.","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012463186154,"sku":"4035719005325","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4442500-3418392.jpg?v=1778209707"},{"product_id":"carissimi-jonas-monteverdi-lasso","title":"Carissimi: Jonas; Monteverdi \u0026 Lasso","description":"The oratorios of Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674) are seminal works in the early history of a genre that combines sacred narrative, theatrical expression, and musical virtuosity to create a new, dramatic form. Of the mostly Old Testament stories to which Carissimi's oratorios refer, the vivid tale of Jonah stands out. During his divine mission at sea, the biblical hero is caught in a storm and swallowed by a whale. Carissimi shapes this material into a fast-paced plot with emotionally powerful solo recitatives, interspersed with a complex array of choral passages-including a striking double chorus depicting the storm.    Who better to interpret Carissimi's expressive music than Giovanni Antonini, one of the foremost conductors on the period-instrument scene? The performance also features the historically informed performance ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, with instrumentation specially adapted to the Bavarian Radio Chorus and the unique tonal qualities of the oratorio. It's artistic director Giovanni Antonini has worked with the Bavarian Radio Chorus for many years, with critically acclaimed concerts featuring works ranging from the early Baroque period to the First Viennese School-and he also finds the perfect sound for Carissimi's music.    With choral music by Claudio Monteverdi and Orlando di Lasso, this album also traces the development of dramatic vocal music in the transition from the late Renaissance motet to the more emotionally expressive interpretations of the early Baroque period. The famous Lamento d'Arianna is the only surviving piece from the lost opera Ariadne by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), who reworked this lament into an equally expressive madrigal in 1610. Excerpts from the two legendary and mysterious cycles Prophetiae Sibyllarum and Lagrime di San Pietro by the Wittelsbach court composer Orlando di Lasso (1532-1594) conclude the album, allowing us to experience masterpieces of the motet style, to which the Bavarian Radio Chorus regularly devotes itself in historically informed performances.    With it's powerful double-choir storm scene, the oratorio Jonah is a highlight of high Baroque choral music. Carissimi's oratorios are key milestones in the development of the genre. Featuring the renowned early music ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, led by Giovanni Antonini, with whom the BR Chorus has already performed programmes to high acclaim, this release also includes the madrigal version of the legendary Lamento d'Arianna by Claudio Monteverdi, the master of early Baroque opera. Also including excerpts from two important cycles of works by the Munich Renaissance master composer Orlando di Lasso, this dynamic live recording captures performances in Munich's Prinzregententheater.","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012464759018,"sku":"4035719005356","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4466991-3467427.jpg?v=1778196296"},{"product_id":"milica-djordjevic-44-mali-svitac-quicksilver-cvor-mit","title":"Milica Djordjevic, #44 - Mali Svitac; Quicksilver; Cvor; Mit","description":"The music of composer Milica Djordjevic, born in Belgrade in 1984, is based on an exuberant and imaginative use of sound. She has full command of the entire arsenal of contemporary sound and performance techniques, which never cease to surprise. She began her composition studies in her native city of Belgrade, where she was already working with electronic music, then went on to Strasbourg and IRCAM in Paris before completing her studies from 2011-2013 in Berlin with Hanspeter Kyburz at the Hochschule fur Musik Hanns Eisler. Her already extensive oeuvre, which is performed by leading international soloists and ensembles, includes pieces for solo instruments, chamber music works in a wide variety of formations, vocal works, and large-scale orchestral compositions. The diversity of her work highlights her versatility and technical virtuosity. Djordjevic has received numerous prestigious prizes and awards for her compositions, including the Belmont Prize for Contemporary Music (2015), the Composition Prize of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation (2016) and the Claudio Abbado Composition Prize of the Berlin Philharmonic (2020). In Milica Djordjevic's short orchestral work Mali svitac, �estoko ozaren i prestravljen nesnosljivom lepotom (Little firefly, brightly lit and shocked by unbearable beauty), commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic in 2023, the composer is concerned with \"the immense energy it takes to make things glow\". Her extended orchestral work Quicksilver was commissioned by musica viva of Bayerischer Rundfunk and premiered on December 16, 2016 by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Rundel in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz. It is precisely the strict limitation of the melodic movement to very few, narrow interval steps that makes it \"all the richer and more colourful on the inside\". Cvor (Knot) for winds, piano and percussion, a work commissioned for the Donaueschingen Music Festival, briefly but very intensively describes a knot that squeezes and twists and finally bursts. The fourth work on this BR-KLASSIK CD - Mit o ptici (Myth of the Bird) for choir and orchestra - was commissioned by musica viva in 2020 and premiered on October 28, 2022 with the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra under the direction","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012470231274,"sku":"4035719006445","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4348906-3201849.jpg?v=1778236581"},{"product_id":"50-berio-coro-zuraj-automatones","title":"#50 - Berio: Coro; Zuraj: Automatones","description":"From the outset, Sir Simon Rattle's conducting career has been marked by a spirit of innovation and renewal - and contemporary music in all it's facets continues to play a significant role in his work. So it was only natural that, upon taking up his post as chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, he should dedicate a concert to musica viva. The programme featured the world premiere of Vito �uraj's \"Automatones\" as well as Luciano Berio's \"Coro\". Sir Simon Rattle has conducted the latter piece several times before, but this performance marks the first recording under his baton. This is due to the unique demands that the composition places on recording technology: choir singers and orchestra musicians are positioned in pairs on the podium to overcome the visual and acoustic separation of choir and orchestra voices. This presented a particular challenge to the Bavarian Radio recording team, but they rose to it successfully, as can be heard on the new CD from BR-KLASSIK. Composed between 1975 and 1976, Luciano Berio's \"Coro\", for forty voices and orchestra, takes anonymous folk poems by the Sioux, the Navajo and the Zuni, as well as song texts from Polynesia, Peru, Croatia, Venice, Piedmont, Chile, and the Song of Solomon - all of them reflecting the deeply human urge for freedom - and combines them with the moving poetry of Pablo Neruda, whose death coincided with the bloody suppression of the Allende democracy in Chile by Augusto Pinochet in September 1973.","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012474556650,"sku":"4035719006506","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4454935-3445132.jpg?v=1778192874"},{"product_id":"brk-bruckner-mass-in-e-motets-bruckners-world-vanhoefer","title":"Bruckner: Mass in E minor \u0026 Motets - \"Bruckner's World\", an introduction to the works by Markus Vanhoefer","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn addition to his symphonies, Anton Bruckner is best known for his sacred works: his stirring masses and his deeply moving a cappella motets. On this new BR-KLASSIK CD, to mark the Bruckner Year 2024, the Bavarian Radio Chorus and the Münchner Rundfunkorchester conducted by Peter Dijkstra present his Mass No. 2 together with five well-known motets and the two short Aequali for three trombones from 1847. The new studio recordings were made in connection with the opening concert of the 2023\/24 season on October 28, 2023. On a second CD, \"Bruckner's World\" by Markus Vanhoefer offers not only an introduction to the recorded works but also a detailed description of the life and work of this important Late Romantic composer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAfter Bruckner's uncommissioned Mass (No. 1) in D minor had brought him to the attention of a wider public – following its premiere on November 20, 1864 in the Old Cathedral in Linz and a repeat performance in the city’s Redoutensaal – Bishop Franz Joseph Rudigier commissioned a second mass from the composer. Bruckner wrote the work between August and November 1866, and it was to be premiered at the consecration of the Votive Chapel of the New Cathedral; due to delays in the construction work, however, the performance could not take place until September 29, 1869. The premiere of the Mass (No. 2) in E minor for eight-part mixed choir and wind ensemble was also a great success, and Bruckner described it as “the most glorious day” of his life. The unusual instrumentation was due to the occasion and the open-air performance venue on the cathedral building site (the new chapel had proven too small for the choir). The work derives its particular tension from the sharp contrasts between archaic, psalm-like monophony and a strictly polyphonic movement structure modeled on Palestrina, combined with the \"modern\" wind accompaniment in sweeping, romantic harmony.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBruckner thoroughly revised the Mass (No. 2) between 1876 and 1882, and the premiere of the second version in the Old Cathedral on October 4, 1885, as part of the Diocesan Jubilee in Linz, was once again an outstanding success. The composer \"stood at the organ during the performance and gazed rapturously at the vault of the cathedral, his lips moving in silent prayer.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBruckner's sacred motets are characterized by Catholic worship and the church spaces that were Bruckner's home from childhood. In 1837, at the age of 13, he was admitted as a choirboy to the Augustinian canons' monastery of Sankt Florian near Linz, where he worked as an organist from 1848 to 1855. His religious devotion and early influence meant that he initially saw himself as a church musician, before broadening his scope to include symphonic music - in whose sound architecture the organ also found an audible echo.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012484616426,"sku":"4035719009408","price":23.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4322768-3149130.jpg?v=1778201035"},{"product_id":"messiaen-mozart-beethoven-braunfels-schubert-sacred-wo","title":"Messiaen, Mozart, Beethoven, Braunfels \u0026 Schubert: Sacred Wo","description":"Selected sacred works under the direction of Gunter Wand  Wand's music-making moved those who heard it with it's impeccable balance of perfection coupled with faithfulness to the original, emotional fulfilment, intellectual control, utmost sensitivity and spiritual penetration. He described his mission as \"serving music\", a cause to which this totally unpretentious man remained committed for seventy years. He rose to be one of the true \"greats\" of the twentieth century, a figure standing head and shoulders above our restless times, his name synonymous with the highest musical quality","brand":"Haenssler Classic","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012520825066,"sku":"881488240313","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4344206-3202062.jpg?v=1778236297"},{"product_id":"massenet-ariane-bruzane","title":"Massenet: Ariane \/ Campellone, Munich Radio Orchestra","description":"\u003cp\u003e‘It would be difficult to find a simpler and more poignant subject’, Massenet remarked during the composition of Ariane, a vast score in five acts premiered at the Paris Opéra in October 1906. The libretto by Catulle Mendès is part ancient drama, part symbolist poem, and sets Phaedra and Ariadne, two sisters in love with Theseus, in violent conflict with each other. This epic work does not shrink from relating the combat against the Minotaur, from showing a ship tossed by the raging billows, nor even from transporting the audience to the Underworld where Persephone reigns. Despite its flamboyant orchestration, its grandiose scenography and its triumphant premiere, Ariane remains one of the few Massenet operas never recorded until now. The young Egyptian soprano Amina Edris takes the title role with ardour and passion, surrounded by a cast well versed in the specificities of the French style. The Bavarian Radio Chorus provides dedicated support in the epic scenes, under the baton of Laurent Campellone, a great champion of Massenet.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bru Zane","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012553199850,"sku":"8055776010120","price":33.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4235471-3144017.jpg?v=1778233848"},{"product_id":"clemence-de-grandval-mazeppa","title":"Clemence de Grandval: Mazeppa","description":"'The subject of Mazeppa has inspired Mme Cl�mence de Grandval to write a truly remarkable score, the success of which will cause a stir in the musical world.' It was with these flattering words that the press greeted the premiere of the five-act opera by one of the women composers most frequently performed in late nineteenth-century France. For her career was regularly marked by flattering reviews and lasting successes, spanning all genres, from chamber music to oratorio and opera. Yet Mazeppa, though regarded as her testamentary work, did not enjoy the honour of a premiere at the Paris Op�ra and had to fall back on Bordeaux to reap the rewards of glory. A model of concision, this powerful, dramatic opera relates in a little over two hours the apotheosis and fall of the Cossack general Ivan Mazeppa, a fugitive in war-torn Ukraine. It was predicted that the work would enjoy a long career, but the subsequent evolution of the musical language of the Belle �poque, followed by the composer's death, meant that Mazeppa sank into oblivion for more than a century. It was high time for it's hero to get back in the saddle.","brand":"Bru Zane","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012562243818,"sku":"8055776010250","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4484259-3505487_b898cf87-65f0-48a1-8693-b0fd5594ecc0.jpg?v=1778218606"},{"product_id":"romeo-et-juliette-op-17","title":"Romeo et Juliette, Op. 17","description":"When 23-year-old Hector Berlioz saw Shakespeare's \"Romeo and Juliet\" on stage for the first time in 1827, he was deeply moved by the experience, probably not least because of the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, who played Juliet. She became Berlioz's wife in 1833, and another six years later he completed his chorus-symphony \"Romeo et Juliette\", Op. 17. \"Romeo et Juliette\" is by no means intended as an attempt to transpose Shakespeare's drama as faithfully as possible; not a single verse of Shakespeare's text was included in the libretto, which was written by the poet emile Deschamps based on Berlioz's drafts. When the Prologue refers to Shakespeare as the only person who knew the highest secret of poetry, it is clear that the listener is deliberately placed in Berlioz's perspective, whose imagination is ignited by Shakespeare's genius. As in the case of the \"Harold\" symphony based on Byron, Berlioz adapts the original very freely. In both cases, he develops entire movements from episodes that are of only minor importance in the poem and adds scenes that do not appear there at all.    The present live recording from 1982 showcases Gary Bertini at the peak of his career, conducting the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra of the SWR. An exquisite cast of singers - Alfreda Hodgson, Philip Langridge and John Shirley-Quirk - as well as internationally renowned choirs like the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the SWR Vokalensemble (known until 1998 as Sudfunk-Chor) accompany him in the performance of one of the most complex symphonic works of the Romantic era.","brand":"SWR","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012719137002,"sku":"747313916788","price":28.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4439333-3412755.jpg?v=1778194617"},{"product_id":"part-berliner-messe-poulenc-stabat-mater-stravinsky-psalmensymphonie","title":"Pärt, Poulenc \u0026 Stravinsky: Choral and Orchestral Works \/ Jansons, BRSO","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThree 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. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe 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.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan id=\"ctl00_MainContent_gvReviews_cell3_12_ASPxPopupControl1_ASPxLabel2\" class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003eJust 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.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003e\u003cspan id=\"ctl00_MainContent_gvReviews_cell3_12_ASPxPopupControl1_ASPxLabel2\" class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003eThis 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.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003e-- Ludwig van Toronto\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eA\u003cspan class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\" id=\"ctl00_MainContent_gvReviews_cell1_12_ASPxPopupControl1_ASPxLabel2\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003epproaching these works with the great seriousness they deserve, Mariss Jansons and the choir create wonderous moods and make the music float in evocative fashion. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e-- Pizzicato\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012791849194,"sku":"4035719002010","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4080200-2818700.jpg?v=1778240786"},{"product_id":"bellini-i-capuleti-e-i-montec","title":"BELLINI: I CAPULETI E I MONTEC","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Sony Masterworks","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012837986538,"sku":"886978565228","price":9.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1836874.jpg?v=1778299399"},{"product_id":"verdi-attila-repusic-munich-radio-orchestra-291941","title":"Verdi: Attila \/ Repusic, Munich Radio Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Choir","description":"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.","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012861219050,"sku":"4035719003307","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3812178-2561278.jpg?v=1778257964"},{"product_id":"part-stabat-mater-repusic-chor-des-943301","title":"Pärt: Stabat mater \/ Repušic, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Münchner Rundfunkorchester","description":"\u003ctable\u003e  \u003ctbody\u003e  \u003ctr\u003e  \u003ctd\u003e  \u003cp\u003eAfter 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.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003c\/td\u003e  \u003c\/tr\u003e  \u003c\/tbody\u003e  \u003c\/table\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46012903129322,"sku":"4035719003352","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3993593-2736354.jpg?v=1778230218"},{"product_id":"elgar-partsongs-from-the-bavarian-highlands-hanft-397628","title":"Elgar: Partsongs - From The Bavarian Highlands \/ Hanft, Arman, Bavarian Radio Chorus","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe British composer Edward Elgar wrote a great deal more than just his “Pomp \u0026amp; Circumstance” marches: his highly diverse oeuvre encompasses symphonies, concertos, chamber works, piano music and numerous choral works (oratorios, cantatas and partsongs). On this release, partsongs by Elgar can be heard with and without accompaniment as part of a representative selection of live and studio recordings. The album begins with the song cycle “From the Bavarian Highlands” op. 27; its six cheerful numbers were written while Elgar and his wife were on holiday in Garmisch in 1895. Alice Elgar had sketched verses from Bavarian folk melodies, and Upper Bavarian songs and dances can be heard in her husband’s settings. These were happy memories of carefree holidays in a region rich in music and full of fine landscapes. The Bavarian Radio Chorus, conducted by Howard Arman, sings the songs in their original version with piano accompaniment (the orchestral version came later). As a composer of English-language choral songs, Elgar is still little-known on the European mainland; in the United Kingdom, however, the situation is very different. The country has long had a lively choral scene, focusing primarily on English music – from Purcell and Handel to Hubert Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford and Elgar, all the way to Benjamin Britten and today’s contemporary composers. The program on this release has been compiled and conducted by the Englishman Howard Arman, one of today’s most knowledgeable experts on British choral music and artistic director of the Bavarian Radio Chorus, and these recordings should do much to boost the popularity of this highly appealing music on the European mainland as well.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013167534314,"sku":"4035719005226","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3890285-2659418.jpg?v=1778249683"},{"product_id":"bach-johannes-passion-dijkstra-concerto-koln-dvd-140388","title":"Bach: Johannes-Passion \/ Dijkstra, Concerto Köln","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe music of J.S. Bach's \"St. John Passion\", which the composer wrote for Holy Week in 1724, immediately after his appointment as cantor of St. Thomas's Church in Leipzig, still retains all its freshness and vitality nearly 300 years later, and is a true Baroque delight. The two main choruses \"Herr, unser Herrscher\" and \"Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine\" form the beginning and culmination of a large-scale orchestral and vocal structure in which Bach reveals his absolute mastery of polyphony. Inwardly reflective chorales are as much interwoven into the events of the Passion as the haunting arias which comment on the biblical texts of the Gospel of St. John. Throughout this solemn Passion oratorio, there is a constant emphasis on Baroque musical magnificence. What makes this live recording of the concert version in March, 2015 so special? The fresh voices of the young and excellent vocal soloists, the regularly praised \"astonishing three-dimensionality\" and \"crystalline clarity\" of the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks under the direction of Peter Dijkstra and, of course, the renowned period instrument ensemble Concerto Köln.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"DVD","offer_id":46013205610730,"sku":"4035719005158","price":23.19,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3571968.jpg?v=1778302054"},{"product_id":"requiem-d-moll-kv-626-396581","title":"Mozart: Requiem (with Intro \u0026 Commentary) \/ Arman, Academy of Ancient Music Berlin","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe version submitted by Howard Arman for the Bavarian Radio Chorus is based on surviving Mozart sources as well as on his colleague Süßmayr's additions; in several places, however, it reaches new conclusions that are implemented with due caution and humble respect for Mozart's magnificent original. Mozart's \u003cem\u003eRequiem\u003c\/em\u003e is followed by Neukomm's Respond Libera me, Domine – and for musical, liturgical and chronological reasons, the programme begins with Mozart's \u003cem\u003eVesperae solennes de Confessore\u003c\/em\u003e KV 339 (1780), composed of psalms from the Old Testament as well as the Magnificat from the Gospel of St Luke and composed for the liturgical festival of a holy confessor. Howard Arman has prepended Mozart’s movements for the festival vespers with antiphons taken from the vespers \u003cem\u003eDe Confessore Pontifici\u003c\/em\u003e (for a confessor who was a bishop) of the Gregorian \u003cem\u003eLiber usualis\u003c\/em\u003e, and has also composed his own organ intonations to enhance the antiphons.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough it remained incomplete as Mozart’s last work, the \u003cem\u003eRequiem\u003c\/em\u003e in D minor (1791) ranks as one of the most important settings of the Latin Mass for the Dead ever written. Immediately after Mozart's all too premature death, his pupil Franz Xaver Süßmayr elaborated a completed version that is still appreciated and regularly performed to this day because of its close proximity to the original – and this despite a number of new adaptations created over the years that sometimes add cautious improvements to the Süßmayr version or instead follow their own lights entirely. – \u003cem\u003eMozart’s Requiem\u003c\/em\u003e KV 626 from 1791 is followed by Sigismund von Neukomm's \u003cem\u003eLibera me, Domine\u003c\/em\u003e, the Respond from the Liturgy of Exequies composed by Neukomm in 1821 as a liturgical completion of Mozart's \u003cem\u003eRequiem\u003c\/em\u003e for a performance in Rio de Janeiro (the Salzburg composer Neukomm had emigrated to Brazil in 1816).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEW\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan id=\"ctl00_MainContent_gvReviews_cell11_12_ASPxPopupControl1_ASPxLabel2\" class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003eHoward Arman conducts all pieces with assurance, in a period-informed style. Choral singing complements the accomplished period-informed playing of the thirty-four-strong Akamus on authentic instruments. The world-class Bavarian chorus shows a unanimity of cause, and supplies an inspired sacred sound, ardent, ample and immediate. Arman’s vocal soloists integrate splendidly and convincingly. Amid the emotional drama generated in the performances, the reverential nature of these sacred scores remains fundamental, and is honoured here faithfully.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003e–\u003cem\u003eMusicWeb International\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013226975466,"sku":"4035719009262","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3851154-2606596.jpg?v=1778263800"},{"product_id":"fall-die-rose-von-stambul-schirmer-937388","title":"Fall: Die Rose von Stambul \/ Schirmer, Munich Radio Orchestra","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eOur Leo Fall cycle continues with Die Rose von Stambul (The Rose of Stamboul). This operetta in three acts offers music that is full of feeling. This highly emotional work celebrated its premiere with great success at the Theater an der Wien in 1916. Die Rose von Stambul’s 422 straight performances made it the most successful operetta in the history of the Theater an der Wien, next to Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow. Within the shortest time performances followed throughout Central Europe. However, like Emmerich Kálmán’s The Csárdás Princess, it did not become an international success – primarily because of World War I, since the theaters of the Allied counties had stopped staging German-language works. Achmed Bey, the son of a Turkish minister, is married to Kondja, “The Rose of Stamboul.” However, she has exchanged letters with a passionate novelist and fallen in love with him. What she does not suspect: none other than her husband is behind this pseudonym –which provides plenty of opportunities for the expression of emotions – rendered in the Viennese waltz mode (“Ein Walzer muss es sein”) or tunes of Oriental flair.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CPO","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013252600042,"sku":"761203503629","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3978770-2717174.jpg?v=1778226674"},{"product_id":"bach-mass-in-b-minor-4035719009101","title":"Bach: Mass in B Minor \/ Landshamer, Dijkstra, Concerto Köln","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor Bach, the Mass in B minor marked the culmination and also the end point of his life’s work as a composer. This \"great Catholic Mass,\" the only mass he composed, and in which he set to music the complete Ordinary of the Latin Mass, was his last great vocal work. The Mass, completed in 1748\/49, is a musical masterpiece in which the Baroque musical splendor is always to the fore, though reflective moments and intense, heartfelt chorales are also very important elements. The Latin Ordinarium constitutes the silk thread along which all these musical pearls are strung. Even after almost three hundred years, the music of Bach's Mass in B minor is still animated, fresh, and a true Baroque delight – whether heard live in concert or recorded.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat makes this concert version of April 2016 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz so special that it should definitely be added to any audio collection? The fresh voices of the young but excellent vocal soloists: the regularly praised \"astonishing three-dimensionality\" and \"crystalline clarity\" of the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks under the direction of Peter Dijkstra and of course of the renowned period instrument ensemble Concerto Köln; and last but not least, the exciting live atmosphere of a concert event that delighted the audiences, and even managed to coax the word “magical” from Munich’s music critics – rare praise, but in this case, richly deserved!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eREVIEW\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDijkstra obtains remarkably sympathetic playing from the Concerto Köln. This engaging performance has plenty of vitality when needed, with the textures of the period instruments sounding clean and transparent. Up to its usual level of consistency, the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks gives a performance high on radiance and reverence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRecorded at live performances in the renowned acoustic of the Herkulessaal, Munich, the BR Klassik sound engineers provide reasonably close sound that feels warmly atmospheric and seems to add to the sense of sacred awe. The clarity is pleasing and the balance between the soloists, chorus and orchestra is satisfyingly achieved. In the accompanying booklet, full texts of the Latin Mass with a German translation are provided.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDijkstra’s compelling live performance, full of insights and detail, can take its place alongside the finest recordings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e--\u003cem\u003eMusicWeb International\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013279043818,"sku":"4035719009101","price":23.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4035719009101.pt01.jpg?v=1778264028"},{"product_id":"bellini-i-capuleti-e-i-montecchi-abbado-142366","title":"Bellini: I Capuleti e I Montecchi \/ Abbado, Kasarova, Mei, Vargas, Munich Radio Symphony","description":"\u003cp\u003eI Capuleti e i Montecchi, Bellini’s exquisitely lyrical treatment of Romeo and Juliet, has garnered renewed popularity in recent decades. The 1998 Munich recording reissued here is one of the catalogue’s most acclaimed, particularly for the vibrant, expressive Romeo of mezzo Vesselina Kasarova and the conducting of Roberto Abbado, who, wrote Gramophone, “has Bellini’s lyricism within him (hear the finale to Act 1, for instance). He elicits fine playing from the Munich orchestra.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sony Masterworks","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46013409624298,"sku":"889854043223","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3519882.jpg?v=1778292580"},{"product_id":"donizetti-la-favorite-kasarova-viotti-munich-radio-284349","title":"Donizetti: La favorite \/ Kasarova, Viotti, Munich Radio Orchestra","description":"This 1999 recording of Marcello Viotti conducting La Favorite is the most recent of the reissued sets from Sony. This four act grand opera by Donizetti is based on the play Le comte de Comminges by Bacular d’Arnaud. The work which premiered in 1840 at the Academie Royale de Musique in Paris has a French libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaez. Ramon Vargas is a featured soloist, who has long been praised for his fluent, stylish arias. He meets the high range of these pieces with virtuosity. “(Marcello Viotti) gets the long lines of Donizetti’s melodies just right and holds the big ensembles together well. His Munich forces play and sing handsomely…” (ClassicsToday.com)","brand":"Sony Masterworks","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46015551242474,"sku":"888751947627","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3312442.jpg?v=1778257799"},{"product_id":"lachner-catharina-cornaro-weikert-munich-radio-orchestra-70260","title":"Lachner: Catharina Cornaro \/ Weikert, Munich Radio Orchestra","description":"\u003cp\u003eAt a time when the majority of German composers turned from the opera to the singspiel and its considerably smaller dimensions, Franz Lachner continued the tradition of the grand historical opera with Catharina Cornaro. Lachner’s once so very successful opera, last performed in Munich in 1903, was forgotten for many decades, but a few years ago the editor Volker Tosta of Stuttgart prepared a new edition of this work, its first published version, especially for the concert performance by the Munich Radio Orchestra. The action of the tragic opera is based on the true-life story of the Queen of Cyprus. Political intrigues and great passions distinguish the plot. It is difficult to believe that this musically so very appealing work, which captivated the audience at Munich’s Prince Regent Theater already with its highly atmospheric overture during the performance on which this album is based, ever could be forgotten. “With this opera the German school has been enriched with a dramatic work that has to be counted as one of the most genial and magnificent of the works belonging to it.” This is what the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung wrote after the premiere, and Max Zenger’s Geschichte der Münchner Oper of 1923 documents the pathbreaking effect of this opera when it states that Catharina Cornaro had “quite literally become Munich’s hallmark, like the two towers of the Cathedral of Our Lady.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CPO","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46020003463402,"sku":"761203781225","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3821134.jpg?v=1778247939"},{"product_id":"sondheim-sweeney-todd-henschel-stone-schirmer-241367","title":"Sondheim: Sweeney Todd \/ Henschel, Stone, Schirmer","description":"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eSONDHEIM \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eSweeney Todd \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e Ulf Schirmer, cond; Mark Stone (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eSweeney Todd\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Jane Henschel (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eMrs. Lovett\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Gregg Baker (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eAnthony Hope\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Rebecca Bottone (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eJohanna\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Jonathan Best (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eJudge Turpin\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Adrian Dwyer (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eBeadle Bamford\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Diana DiMarzio (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eBeggar Woman\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Ronald Samm (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003ePirelli\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Pascal Charbonneau (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eTobias\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Bavarian R Ch; Munich R O \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e BR 900316 (2 CDs: 123:59) Live: Munich 5\/6\/2012 \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eComposer-librettist Stephen Sondheim maintains that \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eSweeney Todd\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e is not an opera, and so does the annotator for the present release. Nevertheless, \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eSweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e (its full title), since it premiered on Broadway in 1979, has been revived by several opera companies, including the New York City Opera, the Houston Grand Opera, and the Chicago Lyric Opera. Why? Musically, it is highly sophisticated, and operatic voices are not wasted on it. Furthermore, with its larger-than-life dramatic themes, including mistaken identity, lust, vengeance, obsession, madness, and murder, how more operatic could a theatrical work be? \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eThere have been several recordings of this work, including the unforgettable original cast recording on RCA with Len Cariou in the title role, and Angela Lansbury in the role of Mrs. Lovett, his cheerfully amoral partner in crime. That version will never be eclipsed, but each new recording adds a welcome new perspective. The one reviewed here, recorded in the Munich’s Prinzregententheater, is the most operatic yet, even more than the one with the New York Philharmonic which features singers such as Heidi Grant Murphy (Johanna), John Aler (Beadle Bamford), and Paul Plishka (Judge Turpin). This time around, we have legitimate operatic singers in all of the main roles; only DiMarzio appears not to be a “classical” musician per se. In other words, here we have an ensemble of acting singers, as opposed to singing actors such as Cariou, Lansbury, George Hearn, Patti LuPone, and Michael Cerveris, who all have made major contributions to this opera’s . . . I mean, \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003emusical’s\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e performance history. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eIt turns out fairly well. I was immediately pulled in by Ulf Schirmer’s conducting, which is tense, taut, and stylish. In fact, you might not hear a better conducted \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eSweeney Todd\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e anywhere. The Bavarian Radio Choir also adds much to the success of this performance. Although their diction is less clear than that of English-speaking ensembles who have recorded this music, their dramatic involvement is high, as is their musicianship. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eThis is an actual performance. Apparently the time, funds, or energy to correct the inevitable live lapses was unavailable, and thus we have oddities such as Henschel at one point rechristening Beadle Bamford as “Beadle Rumford.” A few memory lapses are covered professionally, but will leave those who know the show well asking, “What did (s)he just sing?” These issues are minor, though. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eI’m more concerned about two other points. One is the lack of (black, very black) humor in this production. For example, I can’t understand why, in “A Little Priest,” the wonderfully uncomfortable pun about a meat pie made from a general (“With or without his privates?”) has been removed. This is a grim show, still there is much about it that can be very funny, and allowing it to be so makes the gore and horror even more effective. As the original Mrs. Lovett, Angela Lansbury was charming and endearing; she might bake you into a meat pie, but you couldn’t stay angry with her for long! Henschel can’t inspire that kind of affection, and she makes it clear that her murderous instincts were present even before opportunity allowed them to come out. The other thing that concerns me is the way in which some of the big dramatic moments are almost thrown away. Todd’s aborted murder of Judge Turpin (interrupted by Anthony’s untimely arrival) should be a big moment, but it isn’t. Similarly, soon after, in Todd’s “Epiphany,” we should feel his mind crack and his murderous rage insanely swell to encompass all of mankind, not just the Judge, but Mark Stone is not that fine an actor, the direction is too hurried, and one of the show’s most Brechtian moments doesn’t come off. The last segment of the show, with its string of murders and its Grand Guignol effects, moves forward jerkily, sometimes grinding to a halt, and sometimes not pausing long enough to make its points. On Broadway, Harold Prince would have fixed these miscalculations, but, at least as I am hearing them on CD, they were not addressed in Munich’s Prinzregententheater. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eAll of the singing itself is very fine. One curiosity is a baritone Anthony; Gregg Baker’s voice is darker than Mark Stone’s. Anthony is supposed to be an inexperienced sailor, newly arrived in London, and the early scenes between him and Todd feel strange, because the voice relationships have been inverted from the original production. I really missed hearing a tenor’s voice soar into “Johanna,” one of Sondheim’s most rapturous love songs. Also, the multinational cast presents a variety of accents. In 1979, Cariou had almost no accent at all, while Lansbury made the most of hers. Here, we have the reverse: a cockney Todd in Baker, and a Mrs. Lovett of no particular nationality or region in Henschel. Someday, there will be a production of this work in which everyone gets on the same page with dialects. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eSo, if you want an operatic \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eSweeney Todd\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, or a fresh look at it, this new recording will satisfy. It has many enjoyable moments, but a few unfortunate ones as well. If you do not know this show at all, however, the Broadway cast recording—still in print, thank goodness!—is the only place to begin. This show is one of the masterpieces of American musical theater, and absolutely needs to be heard. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan style=\"font-weight:bold\"\u003eFANFARE: Raymond Tuttle \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46024137507050,"sku":"4035719003161","price":23.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2109104.jpg?v=1778326157"},{"product_id":"beruhmte-opernchore","title":"Berühmte Opernchöre","description":"Fuoco di gioia -at the beginning of Verdi's \"Otello\", the compatriots of the victorious protagonist cheer his triumphant return to his home port with a vocal \"fire of joy\". The opera quote is also the title of this new album recently recorded by the Bavarian Radio Chorus, together with the M�nchner Rundfunkorchester under it's chief conductor Ivan Repu�ic. The opera chorus from \"Otello\" begins this selection of famous choruses and instrumental pieces from stage works of Italian belcanto (Verdi), Italian verismo (Leoncavallo, Puccini, Mascagni), Russian opera (Borodin, Glinka, Tchaikovsky), and the romantic operas of Richard Wagner. These very recent recordings from January, February and July 2019 contain well-known and enjoyable melodies that are perfect for singing along to (secretly or otherwise)!","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46024137900266,"sku":"4035719003291","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3738135-2519784.jpg?v=1778271944"},{"product_id":"verdi-i-due-foscari","title":"Verdi: I due Foscari","description":"Ivan Repusic, who made his debut as Principal Conductor of the Munchner Rundfunkorchester in the autumn of 2017 with Giuseppe Verdi's \"Luisa Miller\", now presents a further and lesser-known masterpiece by the famous Italian opera composer. The concert performance of Verdi's early stage work \"I due Foscari\" was recorded on November 25, 2018 at the Munich Prinzregententheater. Outstanding performers provide an authentic atmosphere and vocal magnificence, and no less a person than the multiple-award-winning Italian baritone Leo Nucci was successfully engaged for the role of the Doge of Venice. This highlight of the Munich music scene from late last year is now available from BR-KLASSIK as a double album. Verdi's early masterpiece \"I due Foscari\" was the first of the operas he wrote for the Teatro Argentina in Rome. He had already worked on the material (Lord Byron's drama \"The Two Foscari\"), and, after a first subject had been rejected by the Roman censors, Verdi returned to it and had the libretto written by Francesco Maria Piave. Although the opera's premiere on November 3, 1844 was only moderately successful and Verdi would even distance himself from it later on, the work was still frequently performed up to the 1870s. It was rediscovered during the early 1950s and has since become a fixed part of the international opera repertoire. The concert performance (sung in the Italian original) in Munich's Prinzregententheater received great acclaim from audience and critics alike, again justifying the Munchner Rundfunkorchester's strategy of successfully reviving underrated music-theatrical works by means of standard-setting performances. Ivan Repusic conducts a genuine theatrical Verdi here: vital, robust, fiery and extremely lively.","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46024138391786,"sku":"4035719003284","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3927497.jpg?v=1778274973"},{"product_id":"amor-fatale-rebeka-armiliato-munich-radio-orchestra-62625","title":"Amor fatale \/ Rebeka, Armiliato, Munich Radio Orchestra","description":"\u003cp\u003eMarina Rebeka is one of the most successful sopranos of her generation. To mark the occasion of the upcoming Rossini year of 2018, she and the Munchner Rundfunkorchester, conducted by Marco Armiliato, have recorded an album of highly dramatic opera arias that is now being released by BR-KLASSIK. The album \"Amor fatale\" offers the opportunity to reacquaint oneself with the great soprano arias from Rossini's less well-known but musically convincing tragic operas, in a fine interpretation.The concept album entitled \"Amor fatal\" focuses on powerful female roles from the operas Otello, Armida, La donna del lago (The Lady of the Lake), Maometto II, Semiramide (Semiramis), Moïse et Pharaon (Moses and Pharaoh) and Guillaume Tell (William Tell). The women are obliged to choose between love and duty, and frequently have to subordinate their personal fate to that of their family, nation or homeland.The Latvian soprano has quite some experience with roles in Rossini, above all from his great tragic operas: the role of Anna Erisso from Maometto II, which she performed in 2008 at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, the composer’s birthplace, marked the very start of her career. She went on to attract international attention in 2009 when she debuted at the Salzburg Festival, as Anaï in Moïse et Pharaon. For her album she has worked through Rossini's original handwritten manuscripts and included this in her performance; she also developed her own coloratura, which not only suits her voice both musically and technically, but also best corresponds to the specific stage events and emotions encountered in her respective operatic roles.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46024138424554,"sku":"4035719003215","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3740130.jpg?v=1778261847"},{"product_id":"graupner-das-leiden-jesu-solistenensemble-ex-tempore-barockorchester-mannheimer","title":"Graupner: Das Leiden Jesu - Passion Cantatas \/ Solistenensemble Ex Tempore, Barockorchester Mannheimer Hofkapelle","description":"Classical Music","brand":"CPO","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46025339175146,"sku":"761203733026","price":36.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1550369.jpg?v=1778333345"},{"product_id":"lehar-das-furstenkind-schirmer-muenchner-rundfunkorchester","title":"Lehar: Das Furstenkind \/ Schirmer, Muenchner Rundfunkorchester","description":"\u003cp\u003eDas Fuerstenkind (The Prince’s Child) has always been an “insider’s tip” in Lehár’s oeuvre, and the composer himself regarded this robbers’ tale from Greece premiered in 1909 as one of his best works. It was also his problem child because it never became a sensational success. The reason may have been due to the works blurring of boundaries between opera and operetta.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CPO","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46025345237226,"sku":"761203768028","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2248404.jpg?v=1778305761"},{"product_id":"bruckner-mass-no-3-wab-28","title":"Bruckner: Mass No. 3, WAB 28","description":"�Bruckner's last mass is a masterpiece. Rooted in the traditional Austrian mass, it also contains symphonic elements found only in Beethoven's Missa solemnis, although Mahler can be seen on the horizon. Premiered in Vienna in 1872 to immense acclaim, the work is now performed both in the liturgy and in concert, a permanent part of the repertoire. In contrast to the monumental symphonies, here we encounter a very special soundscape, reaching from soft ethereal sounds to jubilant surges","brand":"Tudor","offers":[{"title":"SACD","offer_id":46025514746090,"sku":"812973011934","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2565752.jpg?v=1778295595"},{"product_id":"carl-orff-antigonae-sawallisch-modl-radev-dooley-74225","title":"Carl Orff: Antigonae \/ Sawallisch, Modl, Radev, Dooley, Kuen, Uhl","description":"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eORFF \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12b\"\u003eAntigonae \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond; Martha Mödl (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eAntigone\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Carlos Alexander (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eCreon\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); William Dooley (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eChorus Leader\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Fritz Uhl (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eHaemon\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Marianne Radev (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eIsmene\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Paul Kuen (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eGuard\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Joseph Traxel (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eTiresias\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Kurt Böhme (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eMessenger\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Lilian Benningsen (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eEurydice\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e); Bavarian RSO \u0026amp; Ch \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e PROFIL 09066 (2CDs: 143:06) Live: Munich 1958 \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eEvery collector knows Orff’s \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eCarmina Burana\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e. Many are acquainted with the \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eCatulli Carmina\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e. Fewer know that Orff, after World War II, produced three theater works that aimed to create a contemporary equivalent of the ancient performances of Greek tragedy, heightening the texts with his paradoxically archaic-sounding modern music, and with dance. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eAntigonae\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e first in 1949 and then \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eOedipus der Tyrann\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e in 1959 make use of the highly expressive 1804 German adaptations of the Sophocles plays by Friedrich Hölderlin. (\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003ePrometheus\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, from 1968, sets Aeschylus’s Greek.) \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eAs in the setting of Catullus poems, the orchestra is stripped of much of the color that makes \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eCarmina Burana\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e so popular, while retaining the visceral impact of a large ensemble. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eAntigonae\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e requires six pianos, four harps, six each of flutes, oboes (three doubling English horn), and muted trumpets, nine double basses, and a large battery of percussion. The combination makes a wonderful noise in full cry, though Orff uses the whole orchestra sparingly and, much of the time, quite delicately. Opera singers of the first rank are required, but it is not an opera as such. The text is generally sung with little accompaniment, frequently at the extremes of the range, in an intensely rhythmic chant. Piano and tuned percussion are used to establish key, add color, and punctuate the line. Occasionally greater forces are used to amplify emotion, as in Creon’s and Antigone’s pivotal scenes, and to accompany the chorus. There are, however, lengthy stretches of heroically declaimed, sparsely accompanied German. This may sound monotonous, but throughout the many hours spent listening to three versions of the two-and-one-half hour work in review, plus a recording of the later \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eOedipus\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, I did not find it so. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eI say this despite little German comprehension, and the recording’s lack of texts, or even a reasonable synopsis. One may secure a translation of Hölderlin’s verse, which Orff set line-for-line, but at more than half of the cost of the recording. Doing so \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003ewill\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e add to the appreciation of the work, yet in truth, with some knowledge of the story, Orff and the extraordinary performers make this a moving experience without translation. For those fluent in German, the wonderful diction and clear recording should make a libretto unnecessary. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eIf lack of text is a weakness—and in fairness, this is common to all releases—it is the only one. If one is going to issue a recording of such an obscure work, one best make it a superlative one, and that is just what Profil has done. On disc, the work has been almost exclusively the property of the Bavarian Radio. After the 1949 premiere at Salzburg, recorded but currently out of print, all but one CD release has been made in Munich either by the Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, or the State Opera. Georg Solti’s 1951 recording on Orfeo is distinguished by the incomparable Creon of Hermann Uhde, but is put out of contention for a general recommendation by some rather scrappy orchestral and choral execution. Ferdinand Leitner’s is a studio recording from 1961, notable for the conductor’s subtle and nuanced pacing, which gives a spiritual quality to a performance that emphasizes character delineation. Inge Borkh is a vulnerable Antigone, heartbreaking in her grief and moving in her preparation for death. The recording, which I admire greatly, is currently available only as a download, so the discovery and release of this Sawallisch live recording from 1958 is particularly welcome. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eSawallisch was recording a fair amount of Orff in this period: a 1956 monaural EMI \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eCarmina Burana\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e that rivals Jochum’s classic account (DG) for acute conducting, and splendid recordings of the two fairy tale operas, \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eDer Mond\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e and \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eDie Kluge\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, also for EMI in 1956–57. He was therefore an old hand at Orff by the time he led this performance. He does not linger as much as Leitner—his performance is more than a quarter-hour faster—exchanging some poignancy and understatement for an implacable sense of impending doom. Martha Mödl’s imperious Antigone fits into this approach perfectly, as does Carlos Alexander’s pitiless Creon and Fritz Uhl’s desperate Haemon. Paul Kuen is a fine Mime-like Guard, but must give pride of place to Gerhard Stolze’s conspiratorial reading for Leitner. William Dooley sings the Chorus Leader movingly, and the men of the Bavarian Radio Choir are the finest group to record this music, even preferable to their subsequent outing three years later. The remaining singers are equally fine, with special mention necessary of Kurt Böhme’s sonorous Messenger. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eThe recording itself is a marvel, showing almost no sign of its age. It is monaural, but with subtle ambient processing that provides some sense of space without adding artificial reverberation. (The booklet is silent on the matter, but the effect is pleasantly audible, and visible when scoped.) The sound is detailed and immediate, with remarkable percussion transients, solid bass, and the voices placed naturally in relation to the instruments. (Leitner achieves some of his delicacy and intimacy through forward placement of the voices.) The audience is almost completely silent. In all, this is the most desirable of the recordings of this work, a superb introduction to Orff’s too-seldom explored Greek tragedies, and a gripping dramatic experience. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan style=\"font-weight:bold\"\u003eFANFARE: Ronald E. Grames \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Profil","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46026133274858,"sku":"881488906653","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1626658_731435a9-1932-4431-a97b-fc24a28ed90c.jpg?v=1778328907"},{"product_id":"mendelssohn-elias-1","title":"Mendelssohn: Elias","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Profil","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46026179969258,"sku":"881488701951","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1855888.jpg?v=1778333864"},{"product_id":"dvorak-stabat-mater-original-1876-version","title":"Dvorák: Stabat Mater (original 1876 version)","description":"The \"Stabat mater\" by the Bohemian composer Antonin Dvor�k, well-known in it's later orchestral version, was initially composed with piano accompaniment. This rarely-heard original version has now been recorded for BR-KLASSIK, featuring the excellent Bavarian Radio Chorus under the direction of Howard Arman, and accompanied by Julius Drake on the piano. The young Dvor�k was a well-studied and experienced church musician. Having graduated from the organ school in Prague, he spent three pious years as an organist in the city's St. Adalbert's Church. The search for a \"truly sacred music\" preoccupied him from the very start. The contemporary Caecilian Movement for church music reform led him, like many of his colleagues, to re-examine the Palestrina style, which represented a return to the more modest, less ostentatious and yet at the same time contrapuntally ingenious church music of a previous epoch. He duly composed a \"Stabat mater\" without orchestral splendour and with a simple piano accompaniment. Shortly before Dvor�k wrote down this first version of his \"Stabat mater\" between February 19 and May 7, 1876, a heavy blow had struck the young family. On December 19, 1875, his daughter Josefa died two days after she was born. Dvor�k did not set all the verses of the hymn to music, and chose an ensemble of four soloists, a choir and a piano. This original version from the spring of 1876, with it's seven-movement structure, is not a fragment, draft or piano reduction but an independent and self-contained work in it's own right. In the autumn of 1877, when he composed the missing four verses and scored his \"Stabat mater\" for a large orchestra, he effectively created a new and different work.","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46026653794538,"sku":"4035719005264","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3718695-2503923.jpg?v=1778274956"},{"product_id":"bach-magnificat-handel-dixit-dominus-dijkstra-concerto-80448","title":"Bach: Magnificat; Handel: Dixit Dominus \/ Dijkstra, Concerto Koln","description":"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eHANDEL \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eDixit Dominus. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eBACH\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12b\"\u003e Magnificat \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e Peter Dijkstra (cond); Christina Landshamer (sop); Diana Haller (mez); Maarten Engeltjes (ct); Maximilian Schmitt (ten); Konstantin Wolf (bs); Bayerischen Rundfunks Ch; Concerto Köln (period instruments) \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e BR 900504 (56:07 \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003eText and Translation) \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eHandel composed his \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eDixit Dominus\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e in 1707, the same year that Bach composed his first cantata, \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eAus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e (BWV 131). Both men were 22 years old and presumably intent on announcing to the world that they were ready to take it on—which both emphatically were. It’s interesting to compare the two works, both harbingers of things to come. Bach’s cantata is appropriately serious and introspective, given its somber text (“Out of the depths…”), whereas Handel’s Psalm, mirroring its text, is rife with fireworks, vocal and choral. Like many another emerging artist he obviously set out to toss everything he knew into the project. There’s nothing wrong with fireworks, as long as they are as skillfully executed as they are here. Peter Dijkstra fans the flame in this high-energy realization. The \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eGloria Patri\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e, which ends the work, is done at break-neck speed and then some. To call it exhilarating is perhaps an understatement. Yet it’s sung with remarkable precision and gusto by the Bavarian Radio Choir. And it’s not all flash; the duet in the penultimate movement is especially touching, with Christina Landshamer’s soprano soaring ethereally over Diana Haller’s lovely mezzo. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eBach’s Magnificat, originally in E?, dates from 1723 but was later revised and transposed to D, probably some time between 1728 and 1731. Both Bach and Handel, in their early-40s, were at the height of their powers then. Bach was settling in at Leipzig. Handel, in London, was producing Italian operas for his English audiences: \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eOttone, Giulio Cesare, Rodelinda, Tolomeo\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e. If anything, Bach’s Magnificat, with its high trumpets and kettle drums, is even more magnificent that Handel’s \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eDixit Dominus\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e. Again maestro Dijkstra draws a vital performance from his talented forces. The choir, 33 strong by my count, is splendid throughout, as is their instrumental counterpart, Concerto Köln. The well-matched solo quintet, named above, is as near to flawless as one could reasonably expect: not a moment of weakness in either work. Overall, this is a deeply satisfying release. Competition for the \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eDixit Dominus\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e is relatively sparse. Dijkstra’s would be hard to beat. There are many fine Magnificats out there. I’m currently carrying Richard Hickox’s version (Chandos) on my MP3 player. I may have to rethink that. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan style=\"font-weight:bold\"\u003eFANFARE: George Chien \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46027472961770,"sku":"4035719005042","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/1806081-2707201_7a3bc6ba-d4ab-4d93-9e72-9f0fe1b00fc0.jpg?v=1778312943"},{"product_id":"part-live-bavarian-radio-choir-munich-radio-241369","title":"Part: Live \/ Bavarian Radio Choir, Munich Radio Orchestra","description":"Arvo Pärt (b. 1935, Estonia) has succeeded in bringing sacred music back to a broader audience, and away from the confines of the church service, more than almost any other contemporary composer. The meditative character of his works, and his return to the simplest and most basic musical forms, convey moments of intense spirituality. Even before his emigration from the Soviet Union to Austria and then to Germany, Pärt had already invented what he termed the tintinnabuli style of composition (from the Latin word for a bell). He produced an early and important example of this style in 1977 with the \"Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten\", scored for string orchestra and bell, and it is also a key feature of the three great choral works that form the greater part of this new BR-KLASSIK CD \"Arvo Pärt: Live\", namely the \"Seven Magnificat Antiphons\" for mixed choir a capella, the large-scale oratorio \"Cecilia, vergine romana\" for mixed choir and orchestra, and the vocal work „Litany – Prayers of St John Chrysostom for Each Hour of the Day and Night” for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra. Also included on this CD is the \"Collage on B-A-C-H\" for strings, oboe, harpsichord and piano. Composed in 1964, before Pärt's aesthetic reorientation, it is one of his most famous works.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  -----\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  REVIEW:\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  Despite the 11-year span of these live recordings and four different churches used as locations, the album’s aural impression is uniform, the sound very good, and the singing crisp and up to the high standards of this phenomenal professional chorus.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  – ClassicsToday","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46027479417066,"sku":"4035719003192","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3629449.jpg?v=1778292792"},{"product_id":"rossini-sigismondo-wilson-bavarian-radio-choir-209003","title":"Rossini: Sigismondo \/ Wilson, Munich Radio Orchestra","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Italian composer Gioachino Rossini is best known for his operas. Many of their overtures and arias were catchy tunes at the time and have remained so to this day. Although it is Rossini’s comic operas that are primarily performed today, more than half of his stage works are in fact based on serious themes. One veritable rarity is the stage work \"Sigismondo\", which premiered in 1814 at the famous Teatro La Fenice in Venice but was only ever rarely performed afterwards. Presumably, the story on which it was based had no appeal for the audience at that time, because musically, the work is hardly less impressive than the \"Italian Girl in Algiers\", written during the previous year, or the \"Barber of Seville\", which followed two years later. The subject of the opera is, however, based on a long tradition. Rossini shows his protagonist, the fictional King Sigismondo, in extreme states of mental distress. Confusion and insanity reveal inner feelings, and it is only delirium that finally brings the truth to light. This \"madness opera\" is highly topical, both in its subject matter and its musical language – after all, Rossini is among the top ten most-performed composers of our time. A concert performance of this little-known and unjustly neglected masterpiece was given at Munich’s Prinzregententheater on October 14, 2018 - in the original language, and by performers highly familiar with Rossini’s music, which seems so easy but is in fact extremely difficult to sing. This extraordinary opera event – a festival of singing that received tumultuous applause as well as great critical acclaim – is now being released on BR-KLASSIK as a live recording.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eREVIEW:\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIt would appear at first glance that the release of this recording of one of Rossini’s more egregious operas has been primarily designed as a promotional exercise for the conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson. How else does one explain that hers is the only artist biography in the 36-page German-English booklet?\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eShe is good. But the singers are good too: an exceptional cast to be assembled for a Sunday radio transmission. But that’s Germany for you, the one country in Europe which still has the desire and the wherewithal seriously to invest in opera.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSinging Rossini live under a skilled if sometimes hard-driving conductor is not without its perils, as is occasionally evident with the one soprano in the cast, the gifted Hera Hyesang Park, who sings the role of the exiled wife of the delusional Polish king Sigismondo. But she, too, generally acquits herself with distinction, not least in Aldimira’s striking Act 2 aria.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSigismondo, an old-fashioned travesti role, is sung by Marianna Pizzolato. Both she and Kenneth Tarver as the king’s devious and sexually ambitious Prime Minister are class acts. It’s also good to hear the young Irish mezzo Rachel Kelly in the comprimario role of the minister’s sister, Anagilda.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eKeri-Lynn Wilson — or Mrs Peter Gelb as one’s probably not allowed to call her — is an experienced conductor who has worked in leading houses across the world. Here the drive and authority of her conducting work wonders for the piece. I like the way she rescues the Overture from buffo banality by giving it a rumbustious, even dangerous feel. I also like the way the performance culminates in an electrifying account of the Act 2 quartet. Identifying and realising any work’s one true climax is a skill that eludes all too many stick-wavers.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eRossini wrote Sigismondo for Venice’s Teatro La Fenice in the autumn of 1814. He was 22 and on the cusp of a move to Naples and the second great phase of his career. The impresario of La Fenice warned him that the libretto wasn’t up to much and Rossini seems to have agreed. Still, he set to and came up with some vital and at times forward-looking music that had the singular merit of appeasing the first-night audience. Which is why it doesn’t perhaps matter that BR-Klassik has been negligent in its presentation—no text and translation, such as one has with Bongiovanni’s highly recommendable 1992 Rovigo theatre recording conducted by Richard Bonynge, nor the kind of track-by-track synopsis such as Naxos provides in its altogether less well-sung and less efficiently recorded 2016 Rossini in Wildbad performance.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"dxeBase_PlasticBlue\"\u003e– Gramophone\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46027480006890,"sku":"4035719003277","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3687202-2414145.jpg?v=1778274996"},{"product_id":"j-s-bach-st-matthew-passion-bwv-244","title":"J.S. Bach: St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244","description":"To follow the Christmas Oratorio, the Bavarian Radio Choir under its artistic director Peter Dijkstra again present a major work by J.S. Bach, in a live recording on CD and DVD: the St. Matthew Passion. The choir's partner is the renowned period instrument group Concerto Köln, already heard together with the choir on several BR-KLASSIK CDs. Julian Prégardien sings the part of the Evangelist.  The DVD edition of this live recording features highly atmospheric lighting effect","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46027550851306,"sku":"4035719008005","price":27.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2545421_e10b582b-c11c-4c68-adfd-c50396fa8091.jpg?v=1778308793"},{"product_id":"verdi-oberto-gardelli-dimitrova-bergonzi-panerai-227624","title":"Verdi: Oberto \/ Gardelli, Dimitrova, Bergonzi, Panerai","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Orfeo","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46027615731946,"sku":"4011790105222","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2056654.jpg?v=1778290666"},{"product_id":"famous-opera-arias-orfeo-2","title":"Famous Opera Arias","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Orfeo","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46027615797482,"sku":"4011790177120","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2056280.jpg?v=1778319663"},{"product_id":"handel-occasional-oratorio-hwv-62-live","title":"Händel: Occasional Oratorio, HWV 62 (Live)","description":"For his ''Occasional Oratorio'', composed in 1746 in an age of personal and political upheaval, Handel made generous use of much of his own earlier material, and this resulted in something quite close to an anthology: a choice collection of his most beautiful and most famous pieces - as it were, a ''Best Of''. The ''Messiah'' librettist Charles Jennens complained loudly that the oratorio was ''a triumph for a victory not yet gain'd'', and that its libretto, by a certain Newburgh Hamilton, was an ''inconcevable jumble of John Milton and Edmund Spenser''. Nevertheless, the ''Occasional Oratorio'' offers the modern listener magnificent and largely familiar melodies, highly virtuosic Baroque arias, moving choruses and, above all, a magnificent Late Baroque sound that, in this extremely compact score, is quite unique. Audiences at the time probably considered this to be ''Handel at his best'', and today's public doubtlessly shares that opinion. This virtuoso and colorful interpretation, recorded recently on February 11, 2017 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz, was an exemplary success, delighting the audience and the trade press alike. Howard Arman conducted the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, teh Akademie fur Alte Music Berlin with its historically informed performance practice, and a line-up of highly talented English soloists.","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46027618910442,"sku":"4035719005202","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3676749.jpg?v=1778279549"},{"product_id":"joy-to-the-world-arman-reiss-bavarian-241371","title":"Joy to the World \/ Arman, Reiss, Bavarian Radio Choir, Munich Radio Orchestra","description":"Christmas carols are indeed numerous, ranging from church hymns from the Middle Ages to naïve children’s songs, pastoral pieces and festive Lutheran chorales all the way to spirituals and even pop songs. The repertoire is vast and constantly expanding- as is also clear from the wealth of requests received every year by the Office for Christmas Carols in the city centre of Graz, Austria. During Advent, and for over 25 years now, the Styrian Centre for Folk Music has provided valuable support and advice, helping people fill gaps in texts or remember forgotten melodies, and providing information on all issues concerning Christmas customs. The current album, with the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Munich Rundfunkorchester conducted by Howard Arman, is full of festive Christmas music. It contains a compilation of all kinds of different carols and songs from Poland, Greece, and Germany, as well as compositions by Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Mendelssohn and Berlioz. Whether popular, traditional, sophisticated, or closer to pop music, the songs and the melodies radiate all the power and the charm of Advent and Christmas- bringing festive magic and a solemn grandeur to our modern, enlightened times.","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46027629199594,"sku":"4035719005219","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3820384.jpg?v=1778247824"},{"product_id":"mozart-mass-in-c-minor-kv-427-80452","title":"Mozart: Mass in C Minor, KV 427 \/ Arman, Bavarian Radio Choir, Berlin Akademie fur Alte Musik","description":"\u003cp\u003eWritten in 1782, Mozart's Mass in C minor - although incomplete – ranks as one of the outstanding Mass settings in European music history. The very recent reconstruction\/completion of the Mass by Clemens Kemme in the spring of 2018 confines itself to the original sources, avoiding any arbitrary additions. The work was recorded in this critically acclaimed version for the Bayerischer Rundfunk during the summer of 2018, and conducted by Howard Arman. This album is thus the first recording of the definitive version of this new and intelligently edited reconstruction of Mozart's Mass in C minor. An introduction to the work is also included, enabling this masterpiece to be approached from new perspectives. In Vienna in the summer of 1782, Mozart started writing a new Mass despite having apparently received no commission to do so. On August 4, 1782 he married Constanze Mozart, and from his correspondence it appears that he had made himself a promise to “have a newly-composed mass performed in Salzburg if he brought her there as his wife.” The work may have been performed on October 26, 1783 in St. Peter's Church in Salzburg, with Constanze as the soprano soloist; concrete evidence of such a performance is however lacking. Nevertheless, the Mass can probably be seen as a kind of votive offering for Constanze. The fact that the work was not completed may be due to the church music reforms implemented by the Emperor Joseph II, who preferred sacred music to be performed on a smaller scale. In 1785, Mozart eventually reworked the “Kyrie\" and \"Gloria\" from the mass for his cantata Davide penitente.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46027691131114,"sku":"4035719009170","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/3581419.jpg?v=1778281356"},{"product_id":"bach-christmas-oratorio-dijkstra-harnisch-vondung-schmitt-169269","title":"Bach: Christmas Oratorio \/ Dijkstra, Harnisch, Vondung, Schmitt, Immler","description":"After the success of his introduction to the St. Matthew Passion, author Wieland Schmid takes US on a journey through the Christmas Oratorio with thrilling insights into Bach's creative process and background information on the composition. Outstanding narrators and the complete recording of the 2010 performance of the Christmas Oratorio with the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Akademie fer alte Musik Berlin under the direction of Peter Dijkstra make this 4-CD set the ideal Christmas gift.","brand":"BR Klassik","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46027693850858,"sku":"4035719009026","price":39.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2051565_09828de9-82b3-4070-b09f-417d7881d9fc.jpg?v=1778320506"},{"product_id":"das-dunkle-reich-von-deutsche-orfeo","title":"Das Dunkle Reich, Von Deutsche","description":"Classical Music","brand":"Orfeo","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46027736350954,"sku":"4011790273228","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/2056508.jpg?v=1778319731"}],"url":"https:\/\/arkivmusic.com\/collections\/chor-des-bayerischen-rundfunks.oembed","provider":"ArkivMusic","version":"1.0","type":"link"}