Claudio Abbado was undeniably the supreme Mahler conductor of our time. With his Lucerne Festival Orchestra he has set new standards in the field of classical music, especially in the interpretation of works by Gustav Mahler. The core of the orchestra is provided by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, itself an �lite body of players. Soloists like violinist Kolja Blacher, clarinettist Sabine Meyer, oboist Albrecht Mayer, violist Wolfram Christ, cellist Natalia Gutman, the Hagen Quartet and members of the Alban Berg Quartet to name just a few, make the Lucerne Festival Orchestra a star-studded ensemble. This 4 Blu-ray Disc Box set is including the Mahler Symphonies Nos. 1-7 with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Claudio Abbado. An afficionado must-have! "Has there ever been a suaver, more transparent Mahler performance or one in which everything stays so beautifully in tune?... Abbado's music-making is a celebration of the purest joy." The Gramophone Magazine

This moving documentary takes US from the rubbish dumps and barrios of Caracas to the world's finest concert halls. It shows how El Sistema, Venezuela's unique system of music education which has been founded by the visionary Jose Antonio Abreu.

ALFRED BRENDEL PLAYS AND INTRODUCES SCHUBERT

This Blu-ray sampler with carefully selected-concerts accompanies Seiji Ozawa's impressive career over 3 decades. Seiji Ozawa was not only Japan's best-known conductor but also the founder of the Saito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto, which in 2015 was renamed the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival. Special feature included in this edition from Matsumoto: on the occasion of Maestro Ozawa's 80th birthday, Martha Argerich and Matthias Goerne joined the orchestra to perform Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, Op. 80, plus a rendition of 'Happy Birthday' - a deeply emotional moment for the Maestro! Included in this sampler: the first Seiji Ozawa concert, ever recorded in Europe, from 1989 with Maestro Ozawa and Kazuyoshi Akiyama conducting the Saito Kinen Orchestra at the Alter Oper Frankfurt. Supported by the Marcus Roberts Trio, conductor Seiji Ozawa presented An American in Paris, Rhapsody in Blue and the Concerto in F, turning the Waldb�hne inta a vast, swinging jazz club. The collaboration between Maestro Ozawa and Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, with the members of the Vienna Philharmonic gave a very refreshing and energetic lively and beautiful performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto - a fitting tribute to the late Maestro von Karajan.

When we think of the quintessential Western movie, what music do we imagine hearing as the heroes face off in the sun and sand? Even those of us who have never seen a Western will certainly conjure up the music of the legendary Ennio Morricone. Perhaps chiefly known for his scores of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns-notably The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West-Morricone also provided the music for comedies like La Cage aux Folles, dramas like Cinema Paradiso, and action films like Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, for which Morricone won his first competitive Oscar in 2016 at the age of 87. His influence on contemporaries and successors is immeasurable, ranging from cinema and classical to pop, rock, and world music. Few silver screen composers have made so indelible a mark; his work is powerful enough to make good films great and great films greater. In this 2005 concert from Munich, Morricone conducts his own works, many even more iconic than the films they soundtracked.

When we think of the quintessential Western movie, what music do we imagine hearing as the heroes face off in the sun and sand? Even those of us who have never seen a Western will certainly conjure up the music of the legendary Ennio Morricone. Perhaps chiefly known for his scores of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns-notably The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West-Morricone also provided the music for comedies like La Cage aux Folles, dramas like Cinema Paradiso, and action films like Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, for which Morricone won his first competitive Oscar in 2016 at the age of 87. His influence on contemporaries and successors is immeasurable, ranging from cinema and classical to pop, rock, and world music. Few silver screen composers have made so indelible a mark; his work is powerful enough to make good films great and great films greater. In this 2005 concert from Munich, Morricone conducts his own works, many even more iconic than the films they soundtracked.

Since many years the Berliner Philharmoniker are famous for their acclaimed concerts in Japan. In this live recording from the year 2000, they perform under the baton of Mariss Jansons. Tokyo's Suntory Hall is alive to a program of particular musical energy - sometimes overt and joyous, sometimes suppressed and intense. Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1, featuring top soloist Hilary Hahn, is rendered with poise, elegance and demoniac vigour. This piece is framed by two sprightly works: Weber's charming, zesty Overture to Oberon and Dvor�k's Eighth Symphony, executed with Bohemian-esque lyricism and verve. Hilary Hahn is a two-time Grammy Award-winning soloist. She is celebrated for her probing interpretations, technical assurance and compelling stage presence. Her extensive international performances and recording activities have made Hahn one of the most important artists of our years.

Even a hundred years after his birth, Charles Mingus is still labelled as an artistic genius and the "angry man" of jazz, an uncompromising fighter against racial segregation and for unconditional truthfulness in his music, but who was also mentally unstable, could not control his emotions and often became violent enough in his anger. This image is confirmed by the circumstances of the world premiere of Mingus' "opus magnum", the two-hour suite "Epitaph" on 12 October 1962 in New York's Town Hall, which has long since become a myth in jazz history. Due to the short notice and rehearsal period, the performance itself fell short of the composer's artistic standards. As a result, Mingus asked the audience to leave the hall during the interval and offered to refund their entrance fee, which led to riots in the street outside the concert hall and ultimately forced the police to intervene. After that, Charles Mingus abandoned the attempt to realize "Epitaph" and it was not until the mid-1980s, after the musicologist Andrew Homzy discovered the music notes of the piece in Mingus' estate and, together with Gunther Schuller reconstructed it, that this masterpiece was premi�red in 1989. At the finale of the "Musikfest Berlin" 2022, the musicians of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and their BigBand performed "Epitaph" as a tribute to the 100th birthday of Charles Mingus. Under the energetic baton of Titus Engel, the musicians of the BigBand and the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Jazzinstitut Berlin explore the realms of expression of dark threat, profound songfulness, conflict and ecstasy with irrepressible joy of playing and remarkable clarity. Star trumpeter Randy Brecker let's his wonderfully clear tone clear tone soar to the highest heights.

The Meistersaal Sessions are a 6-part series of chamber music theme concerts with the Freigeist Ensemble at the legendary Meistersaal Berlin, conducted by Joolz Gale. The series starts with arrangements of Sch�nberg, Strauss and Mahler. Each of the four sessions in this album features one musical work that represents the roots of Freigeist Ensemble's oeuvre. Linking the musical worlds of Berlin and Vienna, these early compositions by Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg are all featured in a chamber music format. Winner of the OPUS Klassik 2021, Freigeist Ensemble is a courageous collective of supersonic soloists from German symphony orchestras that repackages symphonic music for new audiences. It's mission is to revolutionize the style, sound and setting of classical concerts. Recent winner of the OPUS Klassik, Joolz Gale is a versatile British conductor who not only offers a historically-informed approach to baroque, classical and early romantic repertoire but also an extensive knowledge of early 20th-century choral and symphonic repertoire.

The setting of the novella Cavalleria Rusticana by the Sicilian writer Giovanni Verga by the Italian opera composer Pietro Mascagni (1863 - 1945) is regarded as the birth of a new style in Italian opera, "verismo", which gained great popularity throughout Italy from it's premiere in May 1890. In terms of content, Italian verismo is in the tradition of French naturalism and depicts the unadorned life of the simple, impoverished bourgeoisie at the turn of the century. The award-winning Spanish opera soprano Saioa Hern�ndez and the Orquestra Titular del Teatro Real under the direction of Carlo Montanaro invite you on an unforgettable musical journey of discovery through the aria world of Italian verismo and present a colorful, nuanced and melodic firework display of glamour and gold. The arias have been carefully selected and compiled by Saioa. The album comprises some of the most important verismo arias and offers a representative cross-section of the world of verismo.

VERDI ARIAS

Experience the popular melodies from "Swan Lake" and "Carmen" recorded by the world-class Rachmaninoff International Orchestra (RIO) under the baton of Mikhail Pletnev. In August 2022, the musicians of the Rachmaninoff International Orchestra gathered in Bratislava to perform their first recording under the direction of founder and artistic director Mikhail Pletnev. You can rediscover Swan Lake in an acclaimed arrangement by Mikhail Pletnev, while Rodion Shchedrin's arrangement of the Carmen Suite based on Bizet's masterpiece is legendary. The Swan Lake Suite is not the usual 6-part suite, but a different and more elaborate arrangement, which Pletnev himself has arranged to a hand-picked selection of Tchaikovsky's ballet music. With a superb RIO, he transforms Swan Lake into a captivating cocktail of color and atmosphere, beautifully poetic and full of fairytale magic, with Tchaikovsky's signature blend of theatrical drama and aristocratic elegance always in perfect balance.

BLUE NOTE