Brilliant Classics have celebrated the 150th Anniversary of Reger’s birth last year by expanding their Reger Collection of a decade ago from 11 to 18 CDs. Added to the original set, which presented Reger’s best known works – the glorious orchestral Böcklin Suite, the Mozart, Beethoven and Hiller Variations, the mighty piano and violin concertos, the beautiful clarinet quintet (not in the least inferior to Brahms’ masterpiece), the complete Chorale Fantasias for organ (Reger, an organist himself, wrote extensively and superbly for his instrument) and a fine selection of choral music – is a new set of chamber music including the Piano Trio, Flute-Violin-Viola Serenades, Clarinet–Piano Sonatas and other works, and Reger’s compositions for solo viola and for solo cello. The transparency of the chamber music genre particularly highlights the composer’s absolute mastery of counterpoint. Also new is an expanded keyboard section, with more works for the organ – so associated with Reger – including the Sonatas and Fantasy–Fugues, and a new solo piano CD recorded in 2023 by Eden Walker featuring Dreams by the Fireside and the Bach Variations and Fugue.

When Capriccio started out in 1982, still producing LPs and tapes, it was the first digital Beethoven Symphony cycle with the Dresden Philharmonic and Herbert Kegel that first turned heads. Several other key projects were pivotal to the label quickly establishing a reputation as a source of quality music and performances. Foremost among them, never out of the catalogue and still loved today, are the recordings with Sandor Végh. Then, in the mid-nineties those of Sir Neville Marriner’s, who, after long being synonymous with the Philips label, recorded widely for Capriccio, both with his Academy Of St Martin in the Fields and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. Contemporaries of Mozart’s that have emerged on Capriccio include Joseph Martin Kraus, François-Joseph Gossec, and Jan Ladislav Dussek. They are performed by early music and classical period Capriccio-favorites such as Concerto Köln or the CPE Bach Chamber Orchestra. This box set features the label’s most important ensembles, orchestras, and conductors, from the classical period to the 20th century, when, in 2005, Capriccio released the first complete Shostakovich Cycle with the Gürzenich Orchestra and Dmitrji Kitajenko.

Featured in the New York Times' "5 Classical Albums You Can Listen To Right Now"

The Dresdener Philharmonie, Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden and conductor Daniel Oren present Verdi’s masterpiece La Traviata, together with a stellar cast including René Barbera as Alfredo, Lester Lynch as Germont, and world star soprano Lisette Oropesa as Violetta. Verdi’s opera from 1853 was revolutionary in the sense that it presented a subject of its own time, rather than the usual historically-remote stories. Interestingly enough, this tragic story of a woman sacrificing her love to save the honor of her beloved’s family still feels as fresh and topical as ever before, explaining its unrelenting popularity. La Travatia is an endless outpour of memorable melodies with a gripping dramatic pace, as well as a tale that is both heartrending and provocative. The main soprano role gradually shifts from coloratura virtuosity to a more lyrical, dramatic idiom when the tragedy progresses, and this performance shows Oropesa’s fluency in both styles. After having sung the title role in the greatest opera houses worldwide, this studio recording captures her unparalleled interpretation for generations to come. Star soprano Lisette Oropesa made her PENTATONE debut with Ombra Compagna; Mozart Concert Arias in 2021. Lester Lynch has a vast PENTATONE discography, including Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, La Fanciulla del West (both 2021) and Il Tabarro (2020), as well as Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (2020) and Verdi’s Otello (2017). The Dresdener Philharmonie featured on those recordings of Puccini’s Il Tabarro and Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, while also releasing acclaimed recordings of Beethoven’s Fidelio (2021) and Weber’s Der Freischütz (2019) on PENTATONE. Daniel Oren and René Barbera, who both enjoy a thriving career on the operatic stage, make their PENTATONE debut.

REVIEW:

Daniel Oren, now in his mid-sixties, has had an important international career since he won first prize in the first Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition in 1975. He knows how to build up the prelude from an atmospheric murmuring of the strings to the caressing love theme and then back to a soft end, but as the curtain opens, he shifts gear to a swift, exuberant party mood where everyone is in high spirits. Maybe the rhythms are too accentuated, too rustic for a Parisian upper-class festivity, but one feels the pulsating fervour.

Alfredo sings his Brindisi with his light lyric tenor and Violetta responds with easy effortless tones. Un di, felice is soft, almost dreamlike and very sensitively nuanced, and then comes Violetta’s grand aria: È strano, sensitively, almost hesitatingly, stunned by the sudden feeling of love she has never experienced before; Ah! fors'è lui, beautifully sung and filled with expectations; then she has second thoughts: Follie – This is madness – Sempre libera – Free and aimless I shall flutter. But when she repeats this stanza, she hears Alfredo echo her words from earlier, and even though she adheres to her decision we know that love is going to win...It was a long time since I was so spellbound by this scene.

The playing of the orchestra cannot be faulted and Pentatone’s sound staff deliver an expert recording. Lisette Oropesa...should be heard by every lover of this opera.

-- MusicWeb International

Lisette Oropesa makes for a lovely Violetta, with a quick, touchingly fragile vibrato and a jewel-like voice that catches light in beautiful ways. She can dash off high D flats as a steely, love-averse courtesan in Act I, and move a solo oboe to tears in “Addio del passato” come Act III.

Daniel Oren, more interested in small gestures than gleaming sound, begins the first scene with bumptious brasses and a breakneck tempo that make the room spin, spelling disaster for Verdi’s hard-partying demimondaine. Unwritten flourishes — a crescendo here, some rubato there — add to the impetuous atmosphere.

“La Traviata” rises or falls on the strength of its heroine, and this one soars.

-- New York Times (Oussama Zahr)

Following the success of 100 Christmas Classics (Capriccio C7331) comes Christmas Meditation, featuring 100 choral and vocal works from across the centuries. The set encompasses sacred Renaissance treasures including Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Bach/Gounod’s Ave Maria, Handel’s Baroque masterpiece Messiah (‘He shall feed his flock’) and classic Christmas carols such as It Came Upon A Midnight Clear by Richard Storrs Willis and Franz Xaver Gruber’s Stille Nacht (‘Silent Night’). Featuring some of the most renowned choral institutions, Christmas Meditation offers listeners a classical Christmas to remember.

REVIEWS:

A rather sumptuous collection of seasonal choral works, instrumental pieces and carols. --BBC Music Magazine

After the success of the 5 CD box “100 Christmas classics” (Capriccio C7331), the new 5 CD box “Christmas Meditation” contains 100 choral and instrumental works from past centuries. It contains works from 43(!) composers, including excerpts from Bach's Christmas Oratorio, Bach/Gounod's Ave Maria, Handel's Baroque masterpiece Messiah, and traditional and classical carols such as "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" by American composer Richard Storrs Willis, and Franz Xaver Gruber's "Silent Night”. With some of the most renowned choirs, “Christmas Meditation” offers you an unforgettable Christmas.

In addition to world-famous Christmas music, in this box you will also discover previously unknown but no less beautiful work by Bruch, Rheinberger, Carl Neuner, Wagenseil, Robert Fuchs, Johann Philipp Reichert or Johann von Herbeck. Cannot be missed!

--Stretto

Certainly, the 'quietest time of year' is also the time when music is to be most frequently heard - not only in public, in shops or markets, but also in the countryside, where Christmas is the time when perhaps the most singing is done. The music author Marius Schneider once underlined this fact by writing:"God hungers for songs." And thus the time which celebrates the symbolic birth of the Lord is a great time for music - even for people who may have no direct religious beliefs. With this 5CD-Set Capriccio presents in total 100 Classical Christmas titles, sung by most famous choruses and soloists. And draws a bow from the high classical Christmas Oratorio by Bach to more simple songs from the country side. And of course the most famous song can't be missed: "Silent Night, Holy Night."

Since the beginning of Capriccio's catalog, the sacred repertoire has held a very special place among the label's recordings. Started with the most famous boys' choirs in the former German Democratic Republic (such as the Dresden Boys' Choir and Thomanerchor Leipzig), continued with boys' choirs in the West (including the Vienna Boys' Choir, Tölz Boys' Choir, and Regensburger Domspatzen), and up to artists like the Rheinische Kantorei with Hermann Max, top-tier ensembles have filled the gaps in recording history. Here, long-silent cantatas and oratorios by Zelenka, Hasse, Telemann, and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach appear having been revived by Capriccio. This 40th Anniversary Box includes several remastered versions of long-out of print records, as well as a representative selection of niche- and standard repertoire productions.

REVIEW:

It must not have been easy to select which music to include in this commemorative package for the 40th anniversary of the Capriccio label, but the truth is that the more than 10 hours of music that they offer us is exquisite and an excellent example of the trajectory of this record label...which has always opted for the opening of new territories.

Let's highlight the obvious: the ten albums are dedicated to religious music mostly performed by groups of German origin, such as Das Kleine Konzert and La Stagione. They offer works by authors who are consecrated today, but were not always so much when Capriccio bet on them, as in the cases of C.P.E. Bach and Telemann.

The care of the sound recording (from the first minute of the beautiful first disc with Monteverdi's Vespers) makes it possible to distinguish all the flourishes of this music, either with its melodic ornaments, or with its intricate contrapuntal textures, such as in Bach's Motets, given by a boys' choir, the Rostocker Motettenchor. And it also has a section dedicated to 19th century music, with Schubert's Hymns, Brahms's German Requiem, and music by Saint-Saëns and Mendelssohn. All recorded between 1983 and 2002, this music is a living testimony of the good work of this still-active label. Long live Capriccio!

-- Ritmo

A New Yorker Notable Recording of 2022!

On her second solo album Lisette Oropesa has combined two of her greatest loves, the French language and Italian bel canto. This recording with the Dresdner Philharmonie under the baton of Corrado Rovaris showcases the variety of lesser-known and more popular works by Rossini and Donizetti, featuring arias that contain coloratura, lyricism, drama, heightened emotion, and even comedy. Star soprano Lisette Oropesa made her Pentatone debut with Ombra Compagna, Mozart Concert Arias in 2021, and sung the title heroine in a complete recording of Verdi’s La Traviata, also released on the label in 2022. The Dresdner Philharmonie was involved in that same recording, and has also participated in several other recordings released by Pentatone, such as Weber’s Der Freischütz (2019), Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Puccini’s Il Tabarro (both 2020) and Beethoven’s Fidelio (2021). Conductor Corrado Rovaris particularly excels in bel canto and verismo repertoire, and makes his Pentatone debut.

REVIEW:

Oropesa's very first notes here, from Le Siège de Corinthe, are warm and pleading, the tone round and full–and utterly beautiful. As the voice rises, it doesn’t lose texture. The coloratura is close to flawless, as is her pitch. The roulades and runs are so fierce in the Rossini selections that, let’s face it, a touch of hesitation is to be expected and it is just that–a touch.

This is very difficult music–just think of how few recital CDs have included these two scenes. The necessary legato, the sadness, the darkening of the tone, and the purposeful use of vibrato are rare indeed; there is a true musician in the house.

Mathilde’s aria from Guillaume Tell is sure-fire. She manages it beautifully, the start of each phrase knowing full well the direction in which it’s going, the breath control natural. “Salut à la France” is divine: carefree, joyous, full of perfect downward scales and staccatos, and capped with a fine E-flat.

More than anything else, you come away from this recital with the realization that Oropesa and, indeed, the Dresden Philharmonic and conductor Corrado Rovaris, have fashioned a warmhearted, stylistically impeccable look at French bel canto, frequently overlooked. There’s nothing hackneyed here, and no ear fatigue listening to a high solo voice for 65 minutes...what a fine disc!

-- ClassicsToday (Robert Levine)

Marek Janowski, the Dresdner Philharmonie, and the MDR Leipzig Radio Choir present Haydn’s oratorio "Die Schöpfung" (1798), together with soprano Christiane Karg, tenor Benjamin Bruns, and bass Tareq Nazmi. During his London sojourns, the aging Haydn was astounded by the audience engagement at performances of Handel’s oratorios, and he aimed to realize something similar in his own work. From the legendary breakthrough of light in the orchestral introduction all the way to the hymn to the almighty creator in the finale, Haydn offers a sweeping, colorful tableau of God’s creation of the world. As such, the work offers the apotheosis of the eighteenth-century oratorio while also serving as an inspiring example to nineteenth-century Romantic composers. Janowski and his forces realize both the Classical transparency and Romantic drive of this epoch-making piece.

Marek Janowski is one of the most celebrated conductors of our time and has a vast Pentatone discography, chiefly consisting of German operas and symphonic works. From 2019 to 2023, he was Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Dresdner Philharmonie. "Die Schöpfung" is his sixth Pentatone recording with this orchestra, with whom he recently released Schubert’s Unfinished and Great Symphonies (2023), as well as Schumann’s complete symphonies (2024). The MDR Leipzig Radio Choir has frequently featured on Pentatone recordings and starred on "Bruckner Haydn Motets" (2021) and "Mendelssohn Choral Works" (2023). Christiane Karg, Benjamin Bruns, and Tareq Nazmi all make their Pentatone debut.

Marek Janowski presents his first purely-orchestral Schubert recording, together with the Dresdner Philharmonie, performing the composer’s two final, groundbreaking and most famous symphonies. While the two movements of the “Unfinished” symphony in B Minor reach a level of perfection despite the work’s apparent incompleteness, Robert Schumann praised the “Great” symphony in C Major for its “heavenly length”. Janowski’s interpretation combines a sense of tradition with vitality and intensity.

Marek Janowski is one of the most celebrated conductors of our time. After having recorded Schubert songs in orchestrations by Reger and Webern with the tenor Christian Elsner in 2015, Janowski now adds this symphonic Schubert album to his impressive Pentatone discography, following complete recordings of Bruckner, Brahms and Beethoven’s symphonies, several works by Richard Strauss, as well as Wagner’s ten mature operas. He works together with the Dresdner Philharmonie, with whom he already released complete recordings of Beethoven’s Fidelio (2021), Puccini’s Il Tabarro and Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (both 2020).

Marek Janowski presents Schumann: Complete Symphonies, a comprehensive collection recorded together with the Dresdner Philharmonie. After a fruitful decade as a composer for piano and voice, Schumann then began writing symphonic works in 1841, marking a new phase in his life. Recorded between 2021 and 2023, Janowski interprets Schumann’s symphonies with great vitality and intensity in this release that celebrates the culmination of his tenure as chief conductor with the orchestra.

Marek Janowski is one of the most celebrated conductors of our time. This remarkable recording of Schumann’s complete symphonies follows 2023’s Schubert Unfinished & Great Symphonies (also with the Dresdner Philharmonie), complete recordings of Bruckner, Brahms and Beethoven’s symphonies, several works by Richard Strauss, and Wagner’s ten mature operas. From 2019 to 2023 Janowski was chief conductor and artistic director of the Dresdner Philharmonie, and also realized complete recordings of Beethoven’s Fidelio (2021), Puccini’s Il Tabarro and Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (both 2020) with the orchestra.