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Anton Bruckner expanded the concept of the symphonic form in ways that have never been witnessed before or since. Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin follow the harmonic development of Bruckner’s Symphonies Nos. 4-9, revealing the breathtaking musical panorama of these exceptional masterpieces. According to Der Tagesspiegel, this unforgettable Bruckner cycle sets new standards and guarantees the Staatskapelle Berlin and their principal conductor “a place in the Bruckner pantheon.”

Anton Bruckner
THE MATURE SYMPHONIES
(6-DVD Box Set)

Symphony No. 4 in E-Flat Major, WAB 104, “Romantic” (1881 version, ed. R. Haas)
Symphony No. 5 in B-Flat Major, WAB 105 (1878 version, ed. L. Nowak)
Symphony No. 6 in A Major, WAB 106 (ed. L. Nowak)
Symphony No. 7 in E Major, WAB 107 (1885 version, ed. L. Nowak)
Symphony No. 8 in C Minor, WAB 108 (ed. R. Haas from 1887 and 1890 versions)
Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, WAB 109

Berlin Staatskapelle
Daniel Barenboim, conductor

Recorded live at the Berlin Philharmonie, 20–27 June 2010

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 7 hrs 8 mins
No. of DVDs: 6 (DVD 9)

Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony shows the culmination of the composer’s career. The concert recorded in this landmark live performance was part of The Mahler Project, in which friends and conductors Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez tackled all of Mahler’s symphonies with the Staatskapelle Berlin. A documentary from Christoph Engel accompanies the concert, in which a diverse selection of statements and conversations from both conductors is featured.

In April, the United Kingdom celebrated the birthday of the longest serving monarch in British history. This release is the perfect soundtrack to the celebrations. Some of Britain’s most popular artists and ensembles have gathered together for this two-disc set, which includes patriotic anthems and popular tunes. Musicians include Russell Watson, Jonathan and Charlotte, The Band of H.M. Royal Marines, The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, and The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Elgar: Symphony No.1, Op. 55, Cockaigne Overture, Op. 40 & R

ELGAR: ENIGMA VARIATIONS, POMP

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A brand new production of ‘Tannhäuser’ from the Staatsoper Berlin, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, staged and choreographed by Sasha Waltz, who has brought to the stage this Romantic Wagner opera with a star cast of some of today's best Wagnerian singers: Peter Seiffert in the title role, Réne Pape as Landgraf and Peter Mattei as Wolfram, Ann Petersen sings Elisabeth and Marina Prudenskaya is Venus.

HD recording: Staatsoper im Schiller Theater, Berlin – 04/2014
DVD Running time: 192 min.
Booklet: French / English / German, Subtitles: French / English / German
16/9, NTSC, Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1

Also available on Blu-ray

The idea of uniting young musicians from Israel, Palestine and various Arab countries still seems incredible today. Yet the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra has been flourishing since 1999, when it was founded by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said. In 2007 the ensemble took a highly acclaimed residency at the Salzburg Festival. The major orchestral concert comprises a Beethoven overture, an intricate and multilayered piece by Schoenberg, and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique, in which Barenboim pulls out all the stops and coaxes rarely heard instrumental lines and accents from his musicians.

Recorded live from the Salzburg Festival, 2007

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Booklet notes: English, German, French
Running time: 125 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Note: This Blu-ray Disc is playable only on Blu-ray Disc players, and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Also available on Blu-ray

Recorded live at the Philharmonie Berlin, 22 June 2010

Picture format: 1080i Full-HD
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 58 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 25)

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

With nearly 450 years of tradition, the Staatskapelle Berlin is one of the oldest orchestras in the world.Daniel Barenboim has served as its music director since 1992, and in 2000 the orchestra appointed him Chief Conductor for Life. Having already performed important cycles such as Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann together, Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle turned their focus toward Anton Bruckner's last six Symphonies, performed in the Philharmonie Berlin in the course of only one week in June 2010. “This music is more serious and more significant than one had thought”, the Berliner Zeitung summarized in its review of Daniel Barenboim’s celebrated Bruckner cycle with the Staatskapelle Berlin. Bruckner’s unfinished Symphony No. 9 brought to an end, in a poignant manner, the work of one of the greatest symphonic composers of the Classic-Romantic era.Once more the essential elements of Bruckner’s symphonic style are present; the technical standard, the intensity of sound, and the enormous richness of expression are in this singular work brought to an unsurpassed level.

Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 9

Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, WAB 109

Berlin Staatskapelle
Daniel Barenboim, conductor

Recorded live at the Berlin Philharmonie, 27 June 2010

Picture format: 1080i Full-HD
Sound format:PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 65 mins
No. of Discs: 1

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Movie soundtracks have a responsibility to heighten the emotional value of the film itself. Barrington Pheloung achieves this in HILARY AND JACKIE. By including Jacqueline du Pré's performance of the Elgar Cello Concerto in its entirety, Pheloung not only pays tribute to du Pré, but allows the listener to get a sense of what she was about in a way the actors can't express. The synergy between du Pré and Barenboim is evident in every phrase, yet Jackie finally outshines even the orchestra. The Elgar was Jackie's piece, and no other recording comes close.
The other music on this disc is simple, yet poignant. Pheloung features the cello in his compositions, and Caroline Dale does an excellent job of being Jackie in her cello playing. Pheloung includes an arrangement of a song which the du Pré sisters sang as children, showing that he is not only a good composer, but is in touch with the material and emotion behind the film. The score is never excessive, and though sentimental at times, it seems appropriate to the tragic nature of this story.

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Based on an historical case, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride takes place in the suburbs of Moscow during the reign of Tsar Ivan IV, “the Terrible”, during the latter half of the 16th c. Widowed, he is looking for a new wife, his third. He chooses the young Marfa. She loves another man but bends to the Tsar’s will and renounces her love for the other. From this plot, Russian director Dmitri Tcherniakov retains only the frame. A live competition is organized for a virtual monarch, much like the reality shows of today. Here, the characters become the various players of the audiovisual industry bringing an acerbic critic to contemporary television. Daniel Barenboim conducts the Staatskapelle Berlin. With Olga Peretyatko, Anita Rachvelishvili and Johannes and Martin Kränzle. Recorded at Staatsoper, Im Schiller Theater Berlin, in October 2013.

1 DVD
Run time 152 min
Subtitles: French, English, German
Picture: 16/9, NTSC
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Based on an historical case, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride takes place in the suburbs of Moscow during the reign of Tsar Ivan IV, “the Terrible”, during the latter half of the 16th c. Widowed, he is looking for a new wife, his third. He chooses the young Marfa. She loves another man but bends to the Tsar’s will and renounces her love for the other. From this plot, Russian director Dmitri Tcherniakov retains only the frame. A live competition is organized for a virtual monarch, much like the reality shows of today. Here, the characters become the various players of the audiovisual industry bringing an acerbic critic to contemporary television. Daniel Barenboim conducts the Staatskapelle Berlin. With Olga Peretyatko, Anita Rachvelishvili and Johannes and Martin Kränzle. Recorded at Staatsoper, Im Schiller Theater Berlin, in October 2013.

Also available on Blu-ray

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In Anton Bruckner’s 7th Symphony, the listener encounters a music characterized by great spaciousness and profound solemnity, a music which speaks of grief and lamentation, but also of their transcendence. With its monumental architecture and intensity of sound, the symphony has moved listeners ever since its triumphal premiere in 1884.

The Guardian calls Daniel Barenboim’s London interpretation “Tremendous … Barenboim and the Staatskapelle seem to have this work in their systems, and the overall impression was of music unfolding organically at its own pace rather than of a work being self-consciously interpreted or led.

Anton Bruckner
SYMPHONY NO. 7
Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E Major, WAB 107 (1885 version, ed. L. Nowak)

Staatskapelle Berlin
Daniel Barenboim, conductor

Recorded live at the Philharmonie Berlin, 25 June 2010

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 72 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

BRUCKNER Symphony No. 7 (1885 version) • Daniel Barenboim, cond; Staatskapelle Berlin • ACCENTUS/UNITEL 102177 (Blu-ray: 72:20) Live: Berlin 6/25/2010

It’s a bit confusing for Accentus/Unitel to refer to this Bruckner Seventh, filmed at the Berlin Philharmonie on June 25, 2010, as a performance of the symphony’s “original version.” The booklet for this Blu-ray release reproduces the title page of the 1885 Gutmann edition, which incorporated changes urged upon the composer by Franz Schalk, Ferdinand Löwe, and Arthur Nikisch, who conducted the premiere in December of 1884. In my mind, the score utilized for the first performance would be the “original version” and the only extant autograph copy already includes after-the-fact changes by Bruckner and his always-eager amenders. So, as far as is known, no “original version” of Symphony No. 7 exists. Amusingly, the Wikipedia entry for Robert Haas describes Daniel Barenboim as a proponent of the Austrian musicologist’s Bruckner editions. The most obvious feature of the Haas edition for non-specialists (such as me) is that the infamous cymbal crash (with triangle and timpani) at the climax of the Adagio is not included. The percussion is there in all its glory for this performance, as it is in Barenboim’s 1992 Teldec recording with the Berlin Philharmonic. So much for the idea of Barenboim as a Haas partisan.

With textual issues out of the way, I can report that Barenboim’s 2010 performance is a very effective one. His interpretation is less “architectural” than many others; Barenboim is happy to highlight small details in a score he knows very, very well (he conducts from memory) without at all underplaying the work’s monumentality. Some may prefer that the dotted figures in the third movement be more tightly wound—Bruckner’s scherzos work best when a maniacally insistent subject contrasts with sunny, relaxed interludes—but that’s a minor complaint. This is a coherent reading that delivers the big picture and pulls the listener in, as it clearly did the audience present at the Philharmonie.

The sound is good, though the strings are a little dull at the outset of the Adagio, as if upper partials are missing. Passages with the four tenor tubas possess a thoroughly Wagnerian sonic density—the composer’s intention, of course. Video quality is superb, with the detail provided of string instruments often eye-popping. (Unfortunately, some knuckle hair is part of the package with this degree of visual resolution.) The editing style is a little jumpy for my taste; especially with a work such as this, I’d prefer more longer takes of the conductor building his performance. Still, this is a video performance of Bruckner’s E-Major Symphony well worth considering.

FANFARE: Andrew Quint

Note: This Blu-ray Disc is playable only on Blu-ray Disc players, and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Recorded live at the Philharmonie Berlin, 21 June 2010

Picture format: 1080i Full HD
Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0 / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 76 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 25)

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BRUCKNER Symphony No. 5 • Daniel Barenboim, cond; Staatskapelle Berlin • Accentus 102175 (Blu-ray: 76:49) Live: Berlin 6/21/2010

Given the forces on stage here—over 100 players, with the wind and timpani parts reinforced—you might well expect to be crushed. But while there’s plenty of gleaming sonority as the 23 brass players ring out the final pages, Barenboim’s performance as a whole is less self-aggrandizing than you might expect. Indeed, while this is an installment of Bruckner: The Mature Symphonies, the series (as I’ve pointed out elsewhere) might equally well be branded “Barenboim: The Mature Conductor.” Having developed an enviable mastery through his long experience in this repertoire (his first Bruckner cycle, with Chicago, was begun more than 40 years ago), he no longer has anything to prove—and with unfailing poise, he coaxes out the music’s beauties without exaggeration and illuminates its spiritual depths (especially in his eloquent, if surprisingly quick, reading of the slow movement) without the kind of self-absorption that mars so many of Karajan’s late performances.

Will those looking for an extremely personal reading be disappointed? Perhaps. Barenboim—not as streamlined as Zander, as apocalyptic as Furtwängler, or as nimble as Kempe (whose performance is seriously underrated)—does not impose a strong interpretive profile on the music. Still, his performance, if generally temperate in mood, is anything but matter-of-fact. There’s plenty of impetus in the faster sections; there’s a fair dose of schmaltz where needed in the third movement; tempos, if never eccentric, are often quite elastic; and there are welcome jolts of humor, especially in the third movement and the quirky opening of the finale. Barenboim exhibits a superb sense of dynamics, too (quiet passages, especially well handled, offer a keen sense of anticipation)—and while the tone of the orchestra, especially in the finale, is wonderfully plush, it never muddies the counterpoint. Most important of all, there’s Barenboim’s sure sense of the symphony’s formal layout (the slow movement is especially well gauged). In tepid hands, this symphony can seem to last forever; but except in a few of the densest of the finale’s contrapuntal excursions (where, as in many performances, the rhythms seem to stall), we always know where we are and where we are headed.

The orchestra responds magnificently—the strings have a luxurious glow, and the solo winds interweave as well as on any performance I know. Kudos, in particular, to the ear-caressing first flute and first oboe—it would be worth acquiring this disc for their contributions alone. As on so many orchestral videos, I find the emphasis on close-ups and the constant motion of the cameras more than a bit distracting—but the sound is rich, detailed, and enveloping. Warmly recommended.

FANFARE: Peter J. Rabinowitz

Note: This Blu-ray disc is only playable on Blu-ray disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Anton Bruckner
THE MATURE SYMPHONIES
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Symphony No. 4 in E flat major, WAB 104, “Romantic” (1881 version, ed. R. Haas)

Staatskapelle Berlin
Daniel Barenboim, conductor

Recorded live at Philharmonie Berlin, 20 June 2010

Picture format: 1080i Full HD
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 69 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 25)