Recipient of the prestigious Brahms Prize of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society in 2024, Kent Nagano and the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra, of which he was principal conductor from 2015 until 2025, perform the first two symphonies by the Hamburg-born composer, recorded in concert. Completed in 1876 after more than twenty years of hesitation, Brahms's First Symphony in C minor, Op. 68, bears the full weight of it's long gestation. Rooted in late Beethoven - Hans von Bulow famously called it the 'Tenth' - it traces a compelling per aspera ad astra journey: from the chromatic, drum-led opening's Faustian struggle, through a luminous slow movement and buoyant third, to a finale that breaks triumphantly into radiant C major. Critically admired but not widely loved, it remained music for connoisseurs. Composed swiftly during the summer of 1877 at the Worthersee, Brahms's Second Symphony in D major, Op. 73, stands in luminous contrast to it's brooding predecessor. Freed from the pressure of a symphonic debut, Brahms produced a work of natural ease and lyrical abundance: from the horn-launched opening movement to the enchanting third-movement minuet and the exuberant finale, it extends it's warmth - in Hanslick's words - to 'connoisseurs and laymen alike.'

Kent Nagano and Jan Vogler, the American in Germany and the German in the United States, perpetually crossing the Atlantic and calling both continents home, embody and live this once so powerful transatlantic ideal in every respect. For they are bound by much more than a deep artistic friendship and their collaborative work. They share-even more comprehensively-a worldview and understanding of life based on the Western, humanistic canon of values that Europeans once carried across the Atlantic to their new world... "It was precisely this transatlantic idea that drove me when Jan and I developed this project a few years ago," says Kent Nagano. "Hamburg was the link to the New World not just for the people of Hamburg, but for millions of Europeans." This was to be reflected in a musical work capable of carrying this idea into the future. For good reason: for years, the continents have seemingly been drifting apart. The world-renowned conductor does not hide his concern about this development. "It was also important to me to anchor the transatlantic idea in the next generation through children's and youth choirs on both sides of the ocean, who could work together and spend time with each other." The result is the oratorio "An einem klaren Tag - On a Clear Day" for cello, choir, and orchestra. The participants in the project underscore the thematic concern: the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra, texts by the well-known German poet Ulla Hahn set to music by the young American composer Sean Shepherd, who made a name for himself in the United States at a very early age, various youth choirs from Germany and New York, along with the German star cellist Jan Vogler and Nagano as the American conductor of the Hamburg State Opera, who grew up where America is farthest from Europe-in a fishing village on the American West Coast between San Francisco and Los Angeles ... (Excerpts from booklet notes by Inge Kloepfer)

Recently awarded the prestigious Brahms Prize of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society, Kent Nagano and the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra, of which he was principal conductor from 2015 until 2025, perform the last two symphonies by the Hamburg-born composer, recorded in concert. The most personal of Johannes Brahms's four symphonies, the Third is both heroic and deeply troubled; moreover, all four movements end quietly. After the heroism of the First Symphony and the pastoral flavours of the Second, the Third Symphony reveals Brahms at a crossroads: the youthful impulses are now reined in and the mood is more one of profound reflection on life and death. The theme of the slow movement has been adapted many times and even sung by Frank Sinatra under the title of 'Take My Love'. The Fourth Symphony might be described as the most classical of Brahms's symphonies, not least because of it's chaconne finale, a variation form inherited from the baroque era. Described as an 'autumn symphony' or 'elegiac', it's mood is sometimes tormented and fiery, sometimes harsh and solitary. The culmination of a genre that cost him so much effort, the Fourth is the last word of Brahms the symphonist; he would never compose another work of this kind.

Recorded in August 2022 at concerts given in Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie by the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg under Kent Nagano, this version of Johannes Brahms's celebrated choral masterpiece will come as a surprise to many. The German Requiem is heard not in it's usual seven-movement version, but rather as it was first performed in Bremen Cathedral on 10th April 1868 (Good Friday) under Brahms's direction, without the fifth movement for soprano and choir that was completed later that year. On the other hand there are numerous interludes, instrumental and vocal, secular and sacred, by Bach, Tartini, Schumann and Handel - including pieces that were then regarded as essential parts of a Good Friday concert. Such a programme might seem unusual today, but these musical additions shed new light on Brahms's work, which in this version manifests itself as what Umberto Eco might have described as an 'open work'. Presenting the work in the form heard at the Bremen premiere is more than just a reconstruction: it enriches our understanding of this unique music.

Mari Kodama, Momo Kodama, Karin Kei Nagano, and Kent Nagano present Double and Triple Concertos by Mozart and Poulenc, together with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. This unique project highlights the musicality and congeniality of this extraordinary family of performers. On this album, the husband (Kent Nagano) conducts his wife (Mari Kodama), daughter (Karin Kei Nagano), and sister-in-law (Momo Kodama). The collective performance on this album resonates with Mozart’s own practice of playing his music together with his father and sister. Despite belonging to different ages in music history, Mozart and Poulenc share a combination of playfulness and seriousness, and the latter composer manages to integrate touches of Mozartian neoclassicism into his genuinely French and twentieth-century double concerto. Sharing the stage on this recording is a dream come true for the Kodama-Nagano family.

Mari Kodama, Momo Kodama, and Kent Nagano have appeared on Pentatone frequently, including recordings of Tchaikovsky Ballet Duos (2016) and Martinu Double Concertos (2018) featuring the two sisters. Karin Kei Nagano makes her Pentatone debut.

Few performers are more familiar with the musical language of the French composer Olivier Messiaen than the American conductor Kent Nagano. Nagano has had Messiaen's orchestral works and oratorios in his program for several decades now, and he also participated in the world premiere of “Saint François d'Assise”, Messiaen's only opera. During the year 1982 Nagano spent his time with Messiaen in Paris, where not only an artistic relationship but also a close personal one developed between the two musicians.

BR-KLASSIK has now released three masterpieces by the French composer with the magical sound, presented by Kent Nagano to the Munich concert audience in recent years as conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks: the oratorio “La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ" (The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ) for chorus, seven solo instruments and orchestra, the song cycle "Poèmes pour Mi" for soprano and orchestra, as well as "Chronochromie" for large orchestra. These three live recordings document outstanding artistic events from the Munich concert program of June 2017, July 2018 and February 2019.

Krzysztof Penderecki's setting of the Passion story as told in the Gospel of St Luke was premièred in 1966 and immediately established a place for itself among the most important large-scale choral works of the twentieth century. Despite its decidedly modernist idiom, the music’s emotional power, glowing colors and sonic impact spoke to audiences as well as critics, one of whom described St Luke's Passion as ‘the most important bridge between the spirit of the liturgy and modern music.’

Strongly influenced by the Passions of J. S. Bach, Penderecki pays homage to the great composer by using the B-A-C-H motif throughout the work, and like Bach he has arranged his Passion in two parts, with monumental choral numbers framing the whole. The score is for large forces including an extended orchestra, three mixed choirs, plus a boys’ choir, speaker and three vocal soloists (soprano, baritone and bass). On 20th July 2018 these all convened at the Felsenreitschule in Salzburg: l'Orchestre symphonique de Montréal with their principal conductor Kent Nagano, the Warsaw Boys Choir and Kraków Philharmonic Chorus, the three soloists and the actor Slawomir Holland. The occasion was the opening concert of the Salzburg Festival, and in the audience was the composer himself, Krzysztof Penderecki. Present was also a recording team led by Robert Suff, senior producer at BIS, and this album is the document of this very special occasion.

Together with the Berlin based Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, Mari Kodama and her husband Kent Nagano have now completed the recording of all of Beethoven's piano concertos by jumping, as it were, back in time twice: the last element of this recording series that has spanned more than 13 years was Beethoven's concerto "number nought” WoO 4- personally edited by Mari Kodama from the autograph score. The original manuscript of this piano concerto is kept at the State Library in Berlin. This is not a completed score, because there is no orchestration. That said, Beethoven annotated the short score, especially in the first two movements, with indications as to which instrument was to play which part. The orchestra score which is available today was written in the early twentieth century based on those annotations. The only problem is "armed with the knowledge we now have acquired about the young Beethoven, we would perform this concerto quite differently in places," explain Mari Kodama and Kent Nagano in unison. They therefore present a very personal adaptation that emerged during rehearsal with the orchestra and at the recording sessions, and which reflects Kodama's and Nagano's individual image of Beethoven. They aim to make audible the exuberant freshness and urgent sense of awakening in the young, almost childlike Beethoven's writing shortly before his artistic powers were to burst forth, the joie de vivre and vital energy in a style that owes something to the playfulness of both Haydn and Mozart. That is Mari Kodama's intention, and she plays it in precisely such a versatile manner.

Modest Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov stands out among the major works of the opera repertoire in having an extremely complex creative history. The original libretto, by the composer himself, was based closely on Pushkin’s Shakespeare-inspired drama about the ill-fated Russian ruler. Mussorgsky completed the score in 1869, and submitted it to the committees of the Imperial Theatres. It was rejected, however, primarily because of the lack of a female lead and therefore a love interest, but Mussorgsky’s unadorned style has also been mentioned as a reason. In 1871 the composer therefore reworked the opera extensively, adding new scenes – and a female principal in the form of the Polish princess Marina Mniszek – and changing the overall structure from seven scenes into a prologue and four acts. The revised Boris was completed in 1872, and two years later it was finally performed in St Petersburg, while the Moscow audience had to wait until 1888, seven years after the death of its composer. In order to promote the work, Mussorgsky’s colleague and friend Rimsky-Korsakov undertook to revise the work, making the orchestration more traditional and colorful and softening a number of harsh harmonies. It was the Rimsky-Korsakov version that took the opera out of Russia and without it, the opera would not be as widely known as it is today. In recent times, however, several opera houses have begun performing the more abrasive original version from 1869, and it is this ‘Ur-Boris’ that has been recorded here. It is performed by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under its principal guest conductor, Kent Nagano. They are joined by a cast of mainly Russian vocal soloists, headed by Alexander Tsymbalyuk as Boris, a role he performed under Nagano already in 2013 at the Bayerische Staatsoper. In the opera, as in Pushkin’s drama, the Russian people plays a hugely important role – here performed by the Göteborg Opera Chorus.

-----

REVIEWS:

Tsymbalyuk’s young-sounding Tsar is beautifully sung, gaining in intensity from the scene in the Kremlin onwards; but the developing extremity of his emotional responses is never overdone and his death scene remains restrained, with no scenery-chewing.

– Opera

This new account, based on live performances, is beautifully sung and played, and recorded in surround sound. Although one can nitpick many aspects of this recording, there is much to enjoy. It is especially valuable to now have a recording of the opera as Mussorgsky first intended it.

– MusicWeb International

In their very first recording together, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin render Frédéric Chopin’s concertos for piano and orchestra, two vibrant and poetic works that the composer wrote in his early 20s. Charles Richard-Hamelin is impressive with his extremely refined playing and the OSM, under the direction of Kent Nagano, offers wonderfully fluid performances that are charged with contagious energy. Charles Richard-Hamelin is a silver medalist and laureate of the Krystian Zimerman Prize at the 2015 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. He stands out as one of the most important musicians of his generation. In 2014, he also won second prize at the Concours musical international de Montreal and third prize at the Seoul International Music Competition in South Korea. Charles is the recipient of the Order of Arts and Letters of Quebec and the prestigious Career Development Award offered by the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto.

-----

Richard-Hamelin and Nagano render both Chopin concertos with such freshness and breathtakingly lithe phrasing that they seem a virtual revelation. Highly recommended.

– Audio Visual Club of Atlanta

This album is the recording of the inaugural concert of the Grand Orgue Pierre-Béique at the Maison Symphonique in Montreal. For grandeur, majesty and sheer tonal opulence, few symphonies can stand beside the Third Symphony of Saint-Saëns. The prominent contribution from the organ, the “King of Instruments,” provides an additional measure of imposing sonority to the work.

The entire symphony is based on the principle of continual transformation of a “motto” theme. This theme makes its first full appearance in the restless series of short detached notes in the violins, following the slow, mysterious introduction. The attentive ear will pick out this theme in its rhythmic and coloristic metamorphoses throughout the symphony – at varying times flowing and lyrical, detached and fragmented, broad and noble, or agitated and restless.

Olivier Latry is organist at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris and organ professor at the Paris Conservatory. His appointment to France’s premier cathedral in 1985 at the age of 23 propelled him onto the international scene: he has appeared in more than 50 countries and on all five continents, as a recitalist or with orchestra.

This recording features the rare version of this score with baritone replacing the mezzo-soprano. Sony Music have released this CD to mark the company’s centenary.

Review:

"Nagano brings to the listener the full depth and breadth to this lapidary score in which the realism of nature and the outdoors speaks with forceful impact from the concert platform."

The story goes that Mahler did not dare to call Das Lied von der Erde a symphony, for fear that being his Ninth it would also be his last as it was also for Beethoven and Bruckner. Even so, he entitled it: “Symphony for tenor, contralto (or baritone) and orchestra” but did not call it “Symphony No. 9”. It is this seemingly hybrid form that makes Das Lied the epitome of Mahler’s two poles: song and symphony. The hybrid form drew from him some of his most masterful music as it did with Richard Strauss some forty years later in Vier letzte Lieder.

What are those qualities, those ‘basic elements’ of Mahler’s sound-world that captivate people today? It’s an intriguing question. After all these elements are the driving force behind the continuing popularity of the music in concert-halls and on record and the vital spark that gives life and momentum to “Mahler Societies” worldwide: Chicago, Hong Kong, London, Malaysia, New York, Toronto and Vienna. Those elements involve an ingenious combination of early twentieth-century polyphony, late-Romantic pentatonic monumentalism and his ability to recapitulate the “yin and yang” of life. His music has the potential to amaze even a century later.

Das Lied reflects the composer’s perception of time, of life and nature, and demonstrates a peculiar affinity with the arabesques of Orientalism. Contemporaries like Debussy, Ravel, Puccini and Stravinsky were equally seduced by the East. However Mahler made music speak in a language never spoken before - a link to the extremes of humanity, the passage of time, and the wonder of nature woven into the notated score. Mahler redefined music as had Bach, Beethoven and Berlioz centuries before him.

With the aid of sound engineers Jeremy Tusz and Carl Talbot Nagano brings to the listener the full depth and breadth to this lapidary score in which the realism of nature and the outdoors speaks with forceful impact from the concert platform. The first song “The Drinking Song of Earth’s Sorrow” (sung by the tenor) ranges from exhilaration to terror. It includes a remarkable passage accentuated by the OSM evoking an animal howling in the moonlight over the grave. It anticipates Schoenberg’s expressionist art. The second song “The Lonely one in Autumn” (sung by baritone) is in D minor, a key laden with autumn tints supported by the veiled, damped sonorities of the violin ostinato and a lyrical solo oboe line by Theodore Baskin. Nagano's flexible tempi allow the performers full expression of their solo entries. His understanding of the philosophical tone of the original Chinese poems has, I am sure, contributed to the musical drama. Listen to his way with the extremes of existential anguish in the three songs “Of Beauty”, “The Drunkard in Spring”, and “The Farewell” (sung by tenor, baritone, tenor). Nagano’s understanding of Mahler’s music is like fitting hands into a pair of perfect gloves.

Surprisingly, what is marvelous throughout this recording is not the grandeur or boldness of the sound, but Nagano’s keen perception of softness. Through quietude and suggestion Mahler makes his greatest impact. For example, the poetic depiction of an autumn landscape in transition toward winter becomes a metaphor for the passing of life. The music becomes a stimulus to trigger memories of the beauty of the earth and of nature, enhancing ones memories of the coniferous and deciduous forests and the serene sounds of meandering river creeks. “The Farewell” (sung by baritone), lasting 29:07, impresses just as vividly as all that has preceded it. This encloses a great funeral march, and when the soloist engages in the words of the final verse, the orchestra intensifies the emotional scale of the text: “everywhere the lovely earth blossoms forth in spring and grows green anew … for ever.” Death is a fact, and this is what Das Lied is about. For this reason, the work has been called "one of Mahler’s surest claims to immortality as a composer.”

Second, the success of this recording owes much to the soloists – tenor Klaus Florian Vogt and baritone Christian Gerhaher. Gerhaher is well suited to the exotic East and his versatile voice is apt to the heart-felt arabesques of the melodic line. But the especial miracle of this performance comes with Vogt's intelligent and relaxed account of the daunting tenor songs. This score has left many a tenor red in the face and struggling to be heard over the welter of orchestral sound. Vogt projects well with a fine and even somewhat baritonal quality. He scales the heights of the text with ease and never seems to strain. His range of expression adroitly conveys the depiction of young people on green and white porcelain and the extrovert vehemence of the springtime drunkard. Yet he also accommodates witty irony amid lightly inflected rhythms. If his voice is well stewarded and not overtaxed Vogt could be one of the great heldentenors of his generation. The attractions of these two singers complement Nagano’s incisive way with the score.

Nagano is one of the few conductors to record this work in one of its rarer versions with a baritone as partner to the tenor in place of the more usual contralto - often sung by a mezzo. He follows in the footsteps of Leonard Bernstein’s infamous 1966 legendary recording with James King and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (reviewed here) and Bernard Haitink’s 1985 Mahlerfest recording with Ben Heppner and Thomas Hampson. More recently we have had Kenneth Slowik’s unique 2003 interpretation of the Schönberg-Riehm chamber transcription with John Elwes and Russel Braun and Michael Tilson Thomas’s revered 2007 recording with Stuart Skelton and Thomas Hampson (reviewed here). One minor downside is that listeners will have to get the text of these poems elsewhere although note-writer Dujka Smoje provides an excellent analysis of each poem in her notes.

This 2009 recording will surely be remembered for long, as one of the quintessential recordings that brought Mahler’s bleeding Weltschmerz to full expressive power.

One final thought and recommendation. Do try listening to your favorite recording of this work in a nearby forest. It really helps to distil the fundamental earthly elements Mahler hoped to convey. You’ll be surprised how satisfying this can be.

- Patrick P.L. Lam, MusicWeb Interantional