Classical Music

Hans Pfitzner’s 1901 opera Die Rose vom Liebesgarten sets a libretto by James Grum, which was inspired by an 1890 painting by Hans Thoma, Der Wachter vor dem Liebesgarten. While the premiere of the first act was quite poorly received, the entire opera finally received a successful staging by Gustav Mahler in Vienna in 1905. This production, featuring world-renowned vocalists Andre Riemer, Tiina Penttinen, Jona Buchner, Astrid Weber, and Andreas Kindschuh, is conducted by Frank Beerman. Beerman has gained international renown as a conductor both on the stage and with his many recordings. His always alert interest in new and undiscovered music and in new interpretations of the core repertoire has brought him numerous prizes and distinctions. His recordings feature the core repertoire as well as rediscoveries and contemporary works. They have won several awards, including Echo Klassik prizes in 2009 and 2015.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Of his important contemporaries, Hans Pfitzner was certainly the one who devoted himself most strongly to chamber music. Often described as the last Romantic, Pfitzner also represents this epoch in a very personal way in his chamber music works.

OehmsClassics’ presents the first complete recording of an opera conducted by Kirill Petrenko. In summer 2013, Petrenko will conduct the Ring des Nibelungen for the composer’s 200th birthday in Bayreuth. The Bavarian State Opera has appointed him its General Music Director as of the 2013/14 season.

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REVIEW:

Conductor Kirill Petrenko, leader of Bayreuth’s bicentenary Ring, matches Rudolf Kempe’s recently rediscovered 1955 Salzburg performance (Walhall): they’re both compelling story-tellers of large-scale operatic narrative who can mix and match dialogue scenes with varied tempi and dramatically appropriate orchestral balance. Frankfurt’s cast has plenty of gutsy ecclesiastical characters in the Council scene, Stallmeister and Mahnke do well by Ighino and Silla (but don’t miss young Elisabeth Söderström’s Son for Kempe), Koch is a worthy Borromeo and the whole is a triumph for British tenor Peter Bronder in the title-role.

– Gramophone

To many contemporaries it might seem incomprehensible that Pfitzner had his poetic and musical masterpiece Palestrina followed by this slight fairy-tale opera, whose libretto could scarcely satisfy higher artistic demands. Pfitzner was captivated by the cozy sphere, reminiscent of old picture-books, of this typically German Christmas fable (in which also appear folklore figures like Knecht Ruprecht). The sound of Christmas bells and carols awakens in an elf the wish to draw close to humans. Although the old fir tree warns the elf of the heartlessness of the human race, he has his way and leaves his forest home. He in fact becomes acquainted with grief and illness and at last offers himself to be taken to heaven instead of Trautchen. The Christ-child agrees to the exchange, Trautchen is cured, and from now on the elf will come to earth from heaven each year at Christmas as a Christmas elf. The piece ends with a happy Christmas party by Trautchen’s family. The present recording is a production by the Bavarian Radio in which the original texts that Pfitzner placed between the individual numbers are replaced by a text by German journalist and literary writer Alois Fink. Sung and spoken in German language, the booklet contains a synopsis in English.

For five decades Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923-2013) held a central position in the musical world. That centrality was reflected in a series of top orchestral and operatic posts and in his interpretations, free of self-regarding eccentricities. His modest but highly effective conducting technique also made him the ideal recording artist. Sawallisch was a Bavarian born in Munich, city of orchestras and a great opera company, which he headed for 21 years. He started his career as an outstanding pianist and remained a sought-after accompanist to great Lieder singers and instrumentalists. Volume 1 of a complete conspectus of his Warner Classics recordings (made for Electrola and EMI Classics between 1954 to 1997) includes wonderful Lieder and song collaborations, as well as famous concerto accompaniments for eminent soloists and a heartwarming traversal of Schubert's secular vocal and sacred choral music with Bavarian Radio colleagues. But the main focus among the 65 discs is on his symphonic achievements: Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bruckner and Dvor�k - the latter's Eighth Symphony was his first published recording, from 1954. Richard Strauss, an early influence, is strongly represented. This 65CD-box brings together all the non-operatic recordings that the German conductor and pianist Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923-2013) made in the years from 1954 to 1997 for EMI Classics and Electrola (now Warner Classics).

Classical Music

VORSPIELE

Pfitzner, H.: Palestrina [Opera]

Classical Music

Classical Music