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Dvorák: Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" & Carnival Overt
Idil Biret Concertos & Solo Music Edition
Mahler: Symphony No. 5
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 / Sanderling, Stuttgart Radio Symphony
This is a re-release of an SWRmusic-Bestseller. It contains Bruckner‘s most famous symphony heard in an outstanding interpretation. Kurt Sanderling, at that moment already 83 years old, fully demonstrates the experience gained from his long career, at his side an SWR Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart performing at the highest level. More than just a resident of Berlin, Kurt Sanderling has always been very closely connected with the city. It was here that he began his artistic career as voice coach at the Stadtische Oper at the age of eighteen, when Otto Klemperer, Erich Kleiber, Leo Blech and Wilhelm Furtwangler were conducting. Sanderlings guest tours took him almost everywhere in Eastern and Western Europe, to Japan, and the USA, where he conducted the world’s leading ensembles.
Reznicek: Orchestral Works / Solyom, Staatskapelle Weimar
Our comprehensive and successful Reznicek edition now presents three very different works – the Symphonic Suite No. 1 (1882), Dream Play Suite (1915 / 21), and Carnival Suite (1932) – which the composer nonetheless assigned to the suite genre. Taken together, they document his compositional and stylistic development over the decades. Moreover, they are performed by an orchestra that Reznicek himself once had conducted for a short time: the Weimar State Orchestra. His Symphonic Suite is more like a three-movement symphony for full orchestra. It is clearly audible that here Reznicek is not concerned with motivic work and thematic fission but with the contrast of moods. The harmony and the instrumentation leave little doubt about its source of inspiration in Wagner. The suite from the incidental music to Strindberg’s Dream Play is a series of short, atmospherically dense musical pictures, and in terms of its compositional history the Carnival Suite is a symphonic intermezzo dividing the opera Gondoliere des Dogen into two parts. In the manner of a Baroque suite, it consists of seven parts: March – Introduction – Pierrot and Columbine – Gigue – Furlana – Passepied – Aria – Gypsy March. The relation of the suite to the rest of the opera music results from the circumstance that here too the rhythm of the Furlana (dance from the Friuli region) is omnipresent.
Mozart: Die Zauberflöte
Kreutzer: Septet & Trio / Koch, Himmelpfortgrund
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The six-movement Septet Es-Dur op. 62 for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, violoncello and double bass is dated to 1804-10, even though the work was not printed until 1825, so that actually the opus number is not quite apt. The composition is of great musical richness, always soundly interesting, contrastingly attractive. The Ensemble Himmelpfortgrund offers an interpretation of undoubted freshness.
– Klassik.com
V2: SONGS & BALLADS
Rontgen: Piano Concertos Nos. 3, 6 & 7 / Triendl, Baumer, Kristiansand Symphony
Rontgen’s Piano Concertos Vol. 2. Our second album featuring piano concertos by Julius Rontgen presents impressive Romantic music by this composer who was also an outstanding pianist and often interpreted his own compositions. His Piano Concerto No. 3 of 1887-88, by way of exception in four movements, is more reminiscent of Brahms and not at all of the New German School of Liszt adherents. In December 1929 Rontgen began composing his last two piano concertos, both of which are heard on this release. His Concerto No. 6 has one movement and lasts a mere fifteen minutes. The theme consists of repeated gentle wavy motion that recurs at the beginning, in the middle, with the cadenza, and at the end and reflects the bitonality so diligently practiced by Willem Pijper and Paul Hindemith, two composers whom Rontgen held in admiration. His Concerto No. 7, his last such work, has three distinct movements and an ABA structure that would enable it to stand alone. It is Rontgen’s posthumous triumph that his two last concertos have never disappeared from the repertoire and have continued to be regularly performed together. Now for almost ninety years!
Sebastiani: Matthäus Passion / Stubbs, O'Dette, Boston Early Music Festival
Johann Sebastiani’s name no doubt will be familiar only to a few certified music experts. Born in Weimar in 1622, Sebastiani spent a good many years of his life in Königsberg, where he arrived around 1650 and later was appointed court chapel master. He composed countless occasional works as well as a St. Matthew Passion (1672) – a welcome addition to our picture of Lutheran church music and a work closing a gap in the history of Passion settings between Heinrich Schütz and Johann Sebastian Bach. Stephen Stubbs, Paul O’Dette, and their Boston Early Music Festival Chamber & Vocal Ensemble have fond memories of Bremen, where they have recorded in the radio broadcast hall on occasions and produced Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Baroque opera La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers, for which they won a Grammy Award in 2015. Their current release featuring Johann Sebastiani’s St. Matthew Passion pays tribute to Königsberg’s music culture and to the composer who was one of its central representatives.
Telemann: Missa & Cantatas for Countertenor
Woolf Works / Kessels, Royal Opera House Orchestra [Blu-ray]
Also available on standard DVD
Virginia Woolf defied the false order of narrative conventions to depict a heightened, startling and poignant reality. Woolf Works recreates the synaesthetic collision ofform and substance in her writings. Each of the three acts springs from one of Woolf’s landmark novels: Mrs Dalloway, Orlando and The Waves – but these inspirations are also enmeshed with elements from her letters, essays and diaries. Woolf Works expresses the heart of an artistic life driven to discover a freer, uniquely modern realism, and brings to life Woolf’s world of ‘granite and rainbow’, where human beings are at once both physical body and uncontained essence. Woolf Works (2015) was Wayne McGregor’s first full-length work for The Royal Ballet. "At its creation in 2015, Woolf Works felt like a breakthrough for choreographer Wayne McGregor, adding a new emotional weight to his athletic force and fascination with technology. In this first revival, it’s even stronger, with Alessandra Ferri luminous as the Virginia Woolf figure… It’s a thoughtful, heartfelt performance in a ballet that is both intelligent and tender." (The Independent 4 Stars)‘‘Since its premiere in 2015, Wayne McGregor’s first full-length ballet has won the 2015 Critics’ Circle award for best classical choreography and the 2016 Olivier Award for best new dance production, while its star, the fiftysomething ballerina Alessandra Ferri, has won an Olivier for outstanding achievement in dance. No wonder the Royal Ballet decided to revive Woolf Works as part of the celebrations marking McGregor’s tenth anniversary as resident choreographer." (The Times 4 Stars)
Fuchs: Complete String Quartets / Minguet Quartet
When orchestras became larger and larger, instrumentations more and more refined, and sound impressions louder and louder, Robert Fuchs composed . . . string quartets. Working in what is certainly the most intellectual musical genre, he had ears for intimate personal statements, while the music business had eyes mostly for showy spectacles. The Minguet Quartet, now a sought-after ensemble, once rescued Fuchs’s four quartets from decades of neglect when it was as aspiring young formation; the newly released special edition even today makes for true listening pleasure. The namesake of the Quartet is Pablo Minguet, a Spanish philosopher of the 18th century who attempted, in his writings, to facilitate access to the fine arts for all sectors of the population – and this idea is a chief artistic concern of the Minguet Quartet particularly while touring for concerts around the whole world. The passionate and intelligent interpretations of the Minguet Quartet always ensure inspiring listening experiences – “for the joy in sound and expression with which the ensemble makes the works speak enlivens even the smallest detail”. (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
Dutch Cello Sonatas, Vol. 8 / Hochscheid, Van Ruth
An astonishing success story goes into its second overtime on Volume 8 of our Dutch Cello Sonata series. This time this release is really supposed to mark the conclusion, and for this occasion Doris Hochscheid and Frans van Ruth have selected sonatas by Georg Hendrik Witte and Wouter Hutschenruyter made to order for a crowning culmination. Utrecht was the hometown of both composers, but their paths also crossed in other places. On a recommendation from Richard Strauss, White gained a foothold in Essen, where he shaped its expanding music culture over many years. He had a special talent for persuading the greats of the European music world to come to perform in Essen, which until then had been a rather insignificant coal-mining town. A special high point was surely his role in initiating the premiere of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 in Essen’s recently built concert hall- in a performance by the Utrecht Orchestra, which had developed into a phenomenal ensemble with Wouter Hutschenruyter as its principal conductor. The compositions of the two are closely related. Witte had received significant impulses during his studies in Leipzig. The tradition of Schumann and Mendelssohn held in the highest honor in that city is in audible evience in his works. The Drei Stucke in particular clearly reveal Schumann’s famous Fantasiestucke as their source of inspiration.
Baermann: Quintets for Clarinet and String Quartet / Meier, Belenus Quartet
Heinrich Baermann is quite well known today as Carl Maria von Weber's source of inspiration. The famous virtuoso, for whom Weber personally created his clarinet concertos, repeatedly took up the pen on his own - and did so with great success. Several dozen works by Baermann have been transmitted to us. Here Rita Karin Meier and the Belenus Quartet turn to his three quintets for clarinet and strings and with them very outstandingly bring back to life his much-acclaimed cantabile playing as well as his legendary virtuosic capabilities. Especially in the Quintet in F minor, Op. 22 Baermann's closeness to Weber cannot be missed. The tempestuous beginning, in which the strings introduce the yearning and urgency of the Allegro non troppo, is pure romanticism from the very start. The magnificent opera scene in the second movement offers Rita Karin Meier outstanding opportunities to display her wonderfully warm tone in all sorts of different shadings. The Adagio of the Quintet Op. 23, which even today is quite frequently performed, acquired unsual fame. After its rediscovery in 1922 it was initially regarded as a work by Richard Wagner - which absolutely certifies its high quality!
Napravnik: Piano Trios, Opp. 24 & 62 / Spyros Piano Trio
Boieldieu: Piano Concerto & Six Overtures
Great Classic Film Music / Sutherland, Philharmonic Concert Orchestra
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REVIEW:
Expertly recorded by conductor Iain Sutherland and the Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, Great Classic Film Music captures the magic of cinema through the music we know and love.
– Classic FM
Millöcker: Walzes, Marches & Polkas / Simonis, Nurnberger Symphoniker
Previous albums have featured electrifying marches, sparkling polkas, and yearning waltzes by Benjamin Bilse and Richard Ellenberg, the conductor Christian Simonis – this time with the Nuremberg Symphony – now presents peppy popular pieces by Carl Millöcker, who was born in Vienna in 1842. In the context of the Viennese operetta of the nineteenth century, the composer and theater conductor Millöcker is usually mentioned together with the younger Johann Strauss and Franz von Suppé, and he certainly numbers among the most important creative personalities of the »Golden Years« of the Viennese operetta era. His musical oeuvre comprises some 110 stage works (operettas, singspiels, music for farcical comedies – and more), numerous piano compositions, some ninety songs, music for orchestra (waltzes, polkas, marches), choral works, and chamber music. At the time the customary practice was to arrange the best and most beloved melodies from stage works as dance music, as waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and marches, and such was also the case with Millöcker’s music, including the “Sonntagskind-Walzer.” Its formal design is like the one known to us from the Strauss waltzes of this period. After a lavish introduction a series of four waltzes is presented; then a lengthy coda follows in the manner of a reminiscence.
Khachaturian: Cello Concerto; Rhapsody etc. / Thedeen, Raiskin, Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie
Aram Khachaturian was an established Soviet artist when he realized an old dream of his in the first postwar year 1946 and composed a grand, quasi-symphonic work for his main instrument. Following his spectacular concertos for piano and for violin, which in the meantime had taken the world by storm, he now surprised his public with music that only gradually reveals its fiery temperament: we hear very clearly how well the composer knew the violoncello, the instrument on which during his study years he had practiced until his fingers hurt, in all its special qualities and how precisely he knew how to bring out its expressive and velvety autumnal personality. Neither this concerto nor the Rhapsody composed by Khachaturian seventeen years later for Mstislav Rostropovich can be mastered with mere virtuoso ostentation. Both works demand the services of a soloist who does not misunderstand the unprecedented difficulties of his parts as an opportunity for self-display, and Daniel Raiskin has found such an interpreter in the person of the Swedish cellist Thorleif Thedéen: sovereign in every technical respect, he surmounts the enormous challenges even when he removes himself from the intensive dialogues with the orchestra and – left entirely to his own devices – captures the whole of Khachaturian in the monologues.
Styrian Harpsichord Concertos
Schurmann: Die getreue Alceste / Hochmann, Barockwerk Hamburg
In 2016, almost three hundred years after the composition of Georg Caspar Schurmann’s Die getreue Alceste, Barockwerk Hamburg presented a semi-scenic performance of this opera in the atrium of the Hamburg State Foundation for the Promotion of Science and Culture. Ira Hochman founded the ensemble Barockwerk Hamburg in 2007 with the goal of rediscovering both vocal and instrumental chamber and stage music from the Baroque era and bring it back to life. The ensemble draws particularly often from the rich tradition of Hamburg, which not only attracted numerous great musicians during the 17th and 18th centuries, but also the public and patrons from all over Northern Europe. The permanent cast of Barockwerk Hamburg consists of 15 instrumentalists and singers. However, the ensemble cooperates closely with other Baroque specialists and adapts the cast to the requirements of different programs. Its members include musicians with international experience as well as up and coming talents from Hamburg University of Music and Drama.
Strauss II-Korngold: Eine Nacht In Venedig / Burkert, Oper Graz
Erich Wolfgang Korngold greatly revised the comic operetta A Night in Venice by Johann Strauss (Jr.) on the basis of the libretto version by Ernst Marischka. The original Straussian version initially rapidly made its way around the world, with performances in the lands of the Danube monarchy as well as in Hamburg, Munich, and London and even in New York. Nevertheless, until the end of World War I it experienced only about five hundred performances, which means that it was clearly overshadowed by Die Fledermaus. Again and again the attempt was made to reinterpret the text with interventions revising its content. Erich Wolfgang Korngold took an additional step in 1923, when he not only adapted the text but also changed the original instrumentation and integrated inserts into the work from other operettas by Strauss, for example, from Simplicius (1880). For several reasons Korngold’s revised version was a success when it was performed at the Theater an der Wien on 25 October 1923: the stage set was lavish and magnificent, the new orchestration displayed tonal sophistication, and the great Richard Tauber was heard in the role of the Duke in quest of erotic adventures. A few years later Korngold’s version made its way to the stage of the Vienna State Opera.
Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 4 / Vogt, Royal Northern Sinfonia
This recording is the final volume in Lars Vogt’s new cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos on Ondine. It includes Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 4, two outstanding examples of Beethoven's writing. Conducting Royal Northern Sinfonia from the keyboard, Vogt’s fresh interpretations of Beethoven concertos have been widely welcomed, and recently he was nominated for Artist of the Year 2017 by the Gramophone magazine.
Beethoven’s 2nd Piano Concerto was largely written before 1789. The work was premiered in 1795 with Beethoven debuting as piano soloist. This early work shows the influence of Mozart but at the same time it is a powerful evidence of Beethoven’s development as a composer towards maturity. Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto is considered by many as his best achievement in the field of piano concerto. Beethoven opens this work in a revolutionary way by means of a calm dialogue between the piano and the orchestra. The second movement includes some of the most dramatic music that Beethoven ever wrote – only to be contrasted by the boundless joy and freedom of the final movement. Lars Vogt was appointed the first ever “Pianist in Residence” by the Berlin Philharmonic in 2003/04 and enjoys a high profile as a soloist and chamber musician. His debut solo recording on Ondine with Bach’s Goldberg Variations was released in August 2015 and has been a major critical success. Lars Vogt started his tenure as Music Director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia in September 2015.
REVIEW:
It’s perhaps no coincidence, given that Vogt is currently Music Director the Royal Northern Sinfonia, that the rapport between the soloist and this highly accomplished band of musicians is everything it should be, and more. These are marvelous performances, and the recordings, derived from live performances at Sage Gateshead, serve them well.
– Gramophone
Goldschmidt & Reizenstein: Cello Concertos / Wallfisch, Milton, Berlin Konzerthausorchester
In Berlin the composers Berthold Goldschmidt and Franz Reizenstein developed into products of the anti-romantic “new realism.” However, both distanced themselves from this dry objectivity and sought more powerful means of expression while avoiding the late romantic excesses that at the time continued to predominate in Germany. The surprising fact is that neither Reizenstein nor Goldschmidt felt drawn to Schonberg’s method of twelve-tone composition. In 1934 and 1935 both composers fled from Berlin to England, that is, prior to the tightening of immigration requirements. Influences from Reizenstein’s teachers Paul Hindemith and Ralph Vaughan Williams are audible in the rather harsh, expressionistic character of his concerto. Raphael Wallfisch writes of this work, “Reizenstein’s Cello Concerto is a tour de force for the cellist. What is involved here is an epic and heroic statement in which lyrical and dramatic elements alternate.”
