Classical Music

This is not an historical recording. Yet mysteriously the music is performed in an interpretation which is historically authentic down to the last detail. The key to this mystery is: The original performer was present at the recent recording session, but not physically: The music is heard on a modern Steinway. Never has music stored in the Welte-Mignon system sounded so "right" or so good - so unadulterated that it need not fear comparison with a living pianist! (See detailed text in the enclosed booklet. Can you tell the difference: dead or alive?)

Classical Music

Classical Music

Baiba Skride is not just one of the most sought-after artists when it comes to finding a soloist for one of the great violin concertos. She is also much in demand for chamber music. This makes her ideal for her new recording, her first on the ORFEO label, devoted to the work of Johannes Brahms. It is a highly promising start to our collaboration with this First-Prize winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 2001. Besides Brahms's Violin Concerto, she here offers his Hungarian Dances in the version for violin and piano made by Joseph Joachim. The long-standing musical partnership of Brahms and Joachim is reflected doubly here, for Joachim was also the dedicatee of the Concerto. Baiba Skride's Brahms interpretations are themselves characterized by happy musical constellations. In Sakari Oramo she has a conductor who is himself a violinist and who offers the appropriate momentum with the Royal Philharmonic in Stockholm. One clearly hears the energy and vigour with which every instrumental grouping plays. Thus the great arch of the work is perfectly formed, from the solo interjections (not just from the violin!) to the symphonic dialogue between the partners. The chamber-music intimacy of the Hungarian Dances could not be achieved more powerfully or more beautifully than in Baiba Skride's tried-and-tested duo partnership with her sister Lauma Skride at the piano. Unhindered by the "pianistic" violin part with its many double stoppings, Baiba develops an ensemble that is in tempo and in its gestures carefully moulded with the piano. The piano may have what is clearly an accompanying part, and Lauma Skride certainly adapts to her sister's playing in an unpretentious manner, but nor is her part understated. The result is a performance of these atmospheric dances that is at times resilient and fiery, at other times melodic, gentle and smooth. They belong just as much to Brahms's art as do the formal stringency and unity we find in his large-scale works - and it is all the lovelier when we find all of this on a single CD recording.

One of the great and fascinating singers of her day was the “black Venus” of Bayreuth, Grace Bumbry, who demonstrated her exceptionally wide range at the Salzburg Festival with a gripping Lady Macbeth by the Wagner antipode Verdi as well as with the impressive Lieder recital on this recording, exclusively devoted to the Wagner antipode Brahms – from an age that was more friendly towards Lieder recitals than today, yet still one full decade before Jessye Norman. This album was recorded live on Juli 28, 1965. “Dark, how dark” resounds like a viola the mellifluous voice of the “black Venus” and Lady Macbeth of those years, intelligently shaping her Brahms recital with impeccable diction and great expressiveness.

Symphony No. 2 Brahms's Second Symphony is often called his "Pastoral". It was written during a happy holiday in Portschach in 1877. Brahms wrote to his friend in Vienna, the critic Eduard Hanslick: "The Worthersee is virgin ground. Melodies fly around there, so that you have to take care not to step on them." The work was premiered by the Vienna Philharmonic under the baton of Hans Richter in December 1877. It was a great success and the third movement had to be repeated. Jukka-Pekka Saraste became principal conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 2010/11 season. The orchestra and the conductor can already look back at many years of working successfully together. His recordings with WDR Symphony Orchestra for Profil Edition Gunter Hanssler have earned him high critical praise, and include Schoenberg's Pelleas and Melisande, Stravinsky's The Firebird, Brahms' Symphonies No. 1 and 3 as well as Mahler's 5th Symphony.

This is not an historical recording. Yet mysteriously the music is performed in an interpretation which is historically authentic down to the last detail. The key to this mystery is: The original performer was present at the recent recording session, but not physically: The music is heard on a modern Steinway. Never has music stored in the Welte-Mignon system sounded so "right" or so good - so unadulterated that it need not fear comparison with a living pianist! (See detailed text in the enclosed booklet. Can you tell the difference: dead or alive?)

Classical Music

Classical Music

Following on from the recording of the complete trios of Antonín Dvořák, the renowned and critically acclaimed Smetana Trio have taken the logical step of recording a Johannes Brahms album of the same silk.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music