The Gershwin titles included on this album are from the new Gershwin Critical Edition which seeks to publish the definitive versions of the composer’s works. All are premiere recordings. Joan Tower’s 1920/2019 is a propulsive study in rhythm and texture, while ghostly waltz evocations can be heard in Steven Stucky’s Dreamwaltzes.

Anton Bruckner - Symphony No. 7 Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, Eliahu Inbal.

Sony Classical releases the full cycle of Bruckner’s symphonies recorded by the Vienna Philharmonic under Christian Thielemann on 11 CDs. The box set, featuring the composer’s nine numbered symphonies, his ‘Study Symphony’, his ‘Nullified’ symphony, and a 172-page booklet. This release constitutes the first complete recording of the Austrian composer’s symphonies from the orchestra under a single conductor. Christian Thielemann enjoys a strong rapport with the Vienna Philharmonic and has established himself as one of his generation’s most esteemed interpreters of the Romantic Austro-German repertoire.

Past praise for previously released CDs included in this set:

Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 / Thielemann, Vienna Philharmonic

This new Bruckner Fourth deserves a strong recommendation. It is a reading of undeniable power and presence.

-- Fanfare

Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 / Thielemann, Vienna Ohilharmonic

Overall, there’s an aliveness to the music, inspired by the concert setting, which adds another reason this Bruckner Eighth is so satisfying. If you want to hear Thielemann at his best, conducting a stupendous orchestra, that’s precisely what we have here.

-- Fanfare

Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 . Thielemann, Vienna Philharmonic

Thielemann's interpretation has intimacies hard to find in other versions, and a vulnerability movingly communicated in the Vienna Philharmonic’s super-empathetic playing.

-- BBC Magazine

This final release of Capriccios Bruckner Symphonies - The Complete Versions Edition includes his very first and last Symphony. In March 1861, Anton Bruckner completed his counterpoint studies with the renowned teacher Simon Sechter who had also taught Schubert. His graduation signaled the end of an extended compositional hiatus. Bruckner's F-Minor Symphony was conceived in the classical and early romantic tradition of Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann. Bruckner's Ninth: his best (as some say) symphony, certainly his most daring and, thanks to the missing finale, his most mysterious. It is where Bruckner meets Mahler and, while working on it, his maker. He wanted to write a finale, of course, but too much remains missing. What is left, is a heavenly Adagio, which quietly fades away with references in the brass to the two preceding symphonies. Thus ends Bruckner's uncompleted life's work.

Anton Bruckner finally received the award of an honorary doctorate of the University of Vienna on 11 December 1891. For Bruckner, receiving the doctorate fulfilled a long-time wish. He had spent most of his life pursuing academic credentials and applied for honorary doctorates at Cambridge University in 1882 and at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Cincinnati in 1885. Two days later, Hans Richter conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the first performance of the second or so-called “Vienna” version of the composer’s First Symphony, which he had dedicated to the university in gratitude for the degree. The changes Bruckner made in the revised version of the First Symphony are not as extensive as those he made to the Third, Fourth, and Eighth Symphonies during the late 1880s and early 1890s. His revisions to the First Symphony did not affect the overall form of any of the movements. He changed many details of orchestration, articulation, and phrase length, some of which are difficult to notice on first hearing. The 1891 autograph score is, nevertheless, the composer’s final word on how he wanted his First Symphony to be performed and understood.

Daniel Rieppel, a native of Minnesota of Austro-Hungarian descent, performs Mozart’s Fantasy and Sonata in C minor, the Piano Variations of Aaron Copland and Symphonic Etudes by Robert Schumann. Dr. Rieppel performs widely in North and South America and Europe (most recently in Iceland) and has been Professor of Music at Southwest Minnesota State University for over a quarter century. He has international recognition for his research into Schubert’s incomplete sonatas, finishing several that will be the subject of his next recording.

Bruckner’s Second Symphony is a rare enough encounter in its 1877 version, but it’s virtually unperformed in the 1872 original version. This is not owing to some deficiency of the earlier ideas compared to the later alterations. It’s mainly habit and convenience because to get new parts and re-learn something ostensibly known, that differs in a great many details, means an extra expense of effort and resources. That’s a shame, really, because it is decidedly worth discovering the original, not-yet-ironed-out rawness of Bruckner’s early masterpiece, which was something unheard of at the time – but needn’t remain unheard now.

By his own reckoning, Bruckner began his career as a professional composer when he was thirty-nine years old. With a mere exercise for a symphony under his belt – the unnumbered one in F minor – he was now ready to write his first true symphony. The world was not. First performed in 1868 in Linz – badly – the work flopped and was put aside until nine years and five symphonies later, when it was gently adjusted. A subsequent performance in 1884 was Bruckner’s “most successful Viennese performance to date”, prompting, perplexingly, a thorough revision that would be the 1891 “Vienna” version. This recording uses the unadulterated 1868 “Linz” version.

“Since Beethoven, nothing has been written that even comes close!”

The great conductor Arthur Nikisch made this remark to Bruckner’s former student, Joseph Schalk and also his fellow conductor, Hermann Levi, described the piece as “the most significant symphonic work since Beethoven’s death.”

Arthur Nikisch conducted the first performance in the Stadttheater, Leipzig, on 30 December 1884, with Bruckner in the audience. While the performance was not a total triumph, it brought the sixty-year-old composer significant international recognition for the first time. During the composer’s lifetime, the Seventh, especially its Adagio, was his most popular symphony, and it remains among his most beloved and frequently performed works.

Among Bruckner’s Symphonies, the Fifth is his contrapuntal masterpiece; the grandest until the Eighth. The tour-de-force of a finale gives us an idea of what the finale of the Ninth might have been like. Its magnificent dark and halting opening with the descending bass line – so effectively recalled in the finale – is inimitable. Although long available only in a disfigured version by Franz Schalk, it is also distinct for never having been the subject to revision or, perhaps, even doubt on the part of Bruckner – who never heard it performed with an orchestra. And yet, when Bruckner wrote this masterpiece, he was still far from establishing himself as a composer in Vienna and his spirits were as low as ever, writing a friend that “my life has lost all joy and delight – in vain and for nothing.” A radiant pinnacle from amid darkness.

Bruckner’s Third Symphony had always been something of a problem child among Bruckner’s symphonies, from its disastrous first reception (an enthused youthful Gustav Mahler notwithstanding) until well into the 20th century. In its original form, it is the longest, most Wagnerian of his symphonies – and often considered, rightly or not, the first truly Brucknerian symphony. While some cherish the uncompromising originality of the first version, Bruckner himself wanted the third, much tightened Edition performed, finding it “incomparably better”. It is that final version that is here recorded – and listeners can now easily decide for themselves.

November 20, 1961 Dizzy Gillespie brought on stage of Falkoner Centret, Copenhagen the quintet version of “Gillespiana Suite”, composed originally for his 16-piece orchestra by young Argentine composer/pianist Lalo Schifrin. The suite was recorded in the previous year to become a huge success. This composition paved the way for Schifrin to become one of the most popular screen music composers. The program finishes with Gillespie’s own Kush which stayed in his repertoire for the next 15 years

Bruckner’s frantic revisions of his symphonies Nos. 3, 4, and 8 were borne out of his disappointment with Hermann Levi rejecting the original version of the 8th symphony. Helping in this large-scale revamping effort were former Bruckner-students Franz and Joseph Schalk, Ferdinand Löwe, Max von Oberleithner, and Cyrill Hynai, which resulted in these versions’ reputation – and especially that of the last version of the 4th – being varnished as something not quite Echt-Bruckner.

It wasn’t until the discovery of photographs of the 1888 version’s manuscript score and the subsequent publication of Benjamin Korstvedt’s edition thereof that it became clear: This late edition really did reflect Bruckner’s intentions. To ears familiar with the still better-known 1881 version, the result might sound mystifying, even troubling, but it also surprises with many particularly exquisite passages!

As a winner of numerous national and international youth competitions, Robert Neumann (born 2001) was awarded with the International Classic Music Discovery Award 2017. In 2018, the Jury of the SWR (radio broadcasting corporation in Southwest Germany) chose Robert as the"SWR New Talent". For his debut CD at SWRmusic, Robert was awarded the OPUS KLASSIK Young Artist of the Year 2021. The young pianist made his orchestral debut with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra when he was eight, and since then he has appeared with other orchestras, including the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, German State Philharmonic Ludwigshafen, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Liechtenstein Symphony Orchestra, SWR Symphonieorchestra, Praga Philharmonic Camerata and the Gewandhaus Orchestra. For his second album, Robert Neumann chose two works which can easily be placed side by side and that are both close to the pianist’s heart. Robert Schumann‘s Kreisleriana is about a character from several tales by E. T. A. Hoffmann and Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition describes walking from one work of art to the next. Both are programme music pieces with somewhat comparable ideas but, as Neumann puts it: „One idea deals with a real character, the other one doesn’t […]. And I think both show in an exemplary manner how flawlessly and also in different ways a great Romantic cycle can be structured, formed.

Conductor Dalia Stasevka, who received the BBC Music Magazine’s ‘Personality of the Year’ Award in 2023, and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra present three works by the Finnish composer Helvi Leiviskä, who was Finland’s first major female composer. Initially inspired by the language of late Romanticism – she mentioned Brahms as her favorite composer – Leiviskä developed an original, modern style that eschewed all schools, convinced that it was more important to tread one’s own path than to follow fashionable styles. While her output may seem small in terms of quantity, it more than makes up for it in the quality of the works, especially her symphonies, a genre she considered ‘the highest manifestation of music’.

This disc presents three works: the Sinfonia Brevis, a confidently crafted work reminiscent of Sibelius; the austere, restrained, melancholy and at times very dissonant Symphony No. 2, which could be called ‘tragic’; and the Suite for orchestra No. 2, which uses material from a powerfully descriptive score originally composed for a film. This recording bears witness to the ‘Leiviskä renaissance’ that has taken place in recent years, which has contributed to the rediscovery of a neglected but important voice in Finnish music.

Paul B�ttner was born in Dresden in 1870 and studied violin and oboe there at the Conservatory. Over the years, B�ttner increasingly established himself as a fantastic musician in Dresden. But he stayed virtually completely unknown before 1915, when the famous Arthur Nikisch premiered his Symphony No. 3. Since then, B�ttner was named one of the greatest and most important contemporary symphonists in succession to Brahms and Bruckner. His Symphony No. 4 from 1917 continued the success and was performed by many different orchestras. In 1933, his music was marked as "unwanted," and the regime deleted him completely from the public music culture.

To mark the 120th anniversary of Estonia's national composer Eduard Tubin, this exuberant chamber music programme, including two world premiere recordings, traces Tubin's life, which is clearly marked by the dramatic upheavals of the 20th century. Early works side by side with late compositions show deep insights into the artist's soul - we hear his inner struggles, his development and his joys in top-class interpretations by pianist Kart Ruubel and her twin sister Triin, violin, as well as Xandi van Dijk, viola and Theodor Sink, cello.

Christian Sinding might be thought of as a Grade-B composer. That’s not a dismissal, merely an assessment to adjust the expectations. He’s not the symphonic Grieg we’ve been missing, nor a Nordic Brahms that’s been overlooked. He’s an – essentially German – symphonist of the second rank who wrote very pleasing works that we will sadly not hear in the concert halls, but which can enliven our musical diet on record if we need to take a break from the usual suspects. To unfold their inherent fervour, his compositions are dependent on sensitive and enthusiastic interpretations, but that’s exactly what they get from the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra under Karl Heinz Steffens, for whom Sinding has become a composer close to his heart.

For his performance of Johannes Brahms's symphonies, Kirill Petrenko returns to their roots - and to his own: in Meiningen. Hans von B�low was the first to perform Brahms's works there, before Fritz Steinbach succeeded him as court conductor in 1886. Thanks to Brahms's regular visits to Meiningen, Steinbach became extremely familiar with his music during his 17 years at the court - and meticulously recorded the composer's wishes as performance notes in the scores.

Provocation! Anarchy! Scandal! All too often we encounter Arnold Schoenberg in writings as an enfant terrible, as a radical innovator who sacrificed late Romantic tonality for his highly complex system of "composition with twelve tones related only to each other". In this edition, the Berliner Philharmoniker and chief conductor Kirill Petrenko demonstrate that in Schoenberg's music "heart and brain" - as the composer entitled one of his essays - are in fact in balance, and that the twelve-tone technique is also entirely at the service of expression. Released in the aftermath of the 150th anniversary year of the composer's birth, it presents five central works that illustrate all of Schoenberg's stylistic periods.

The music of Rachmaninoff is of “enormous significance” to Kirill Petrenko. In it, he finds his “musical home”. His third edition together with the Berliner Philharmoniker is dedicated to the Russian composer, the 150th anniversary of whose birth was celebrated in 2023. It presents four key works: the Second Symphony, the Piano Concerto No. 2 and The Isle of the Dead – Rachmaninoff regularly performed them together until his emigration in 1917 – and the Symphonic Dances, which the composer wrote shortly before his death.

It was more than just breathing together in the music that made this relationship so extraordinary: Seiji Ozawa earned the respect and affection of the orchestra from the very first time he met the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1966. The young Japanese conductor knew exactly what he wanted on the podium and knew the scores down to the smallest detail. Nevertheless, the always polite and approachable conductor never imposed his views on the orchestra. The result was a partnership on an equal footing, which was not only rewarding on a personal level, but above all enabled music-making in which there was always room for freedom and spontaneity. Our edition is a tribute to this special friendship with Seiji Ozawa, who the Berliner Philharmoniker made an honorary member in 2016.

Fondamenta: Kirill Gilels, the grandson of the famous pianist Emil Gilels, made the decision to entrust us with the results of several years of research: he gave us a list of dates and places of the previously unreleased recordings of his grandfather. It was in Amsterdam where at last we succeeded in extracting five recordings of performances Gilels, one of the most important pianists of the twentieth century, had given between 1975 and 1980 at the Concertgebouw - recordings that had fallen into oblivion.

Unsuk Chin’s music is a magical realm: sometimes it unfolds labyrinths of innovative sounds and complex structures, then again moments of otherworldly beauty. Her astonishing ingenuity gives each work its own character – which makes the encounter with Chin’s music a "continuous adventure" for the Berlin Philharmonic.

For the orchestra, many highlights of this fruitful collaboration are linked to special memories: Chorós Chordón, for example, accompanied the Philharmonic on their last tour of Asia with Simon Rattle. This edition documents all the works by Unsuk Chin that have been performed by the Berlin Philharmonic to date.

In addition to the recordings on CD and Blu-ray and a bonus film, the hardcover edition features an attractively designed accompanying book with moiré effect art by Takahiro Kurashima, and introductory texts.

For the first time, this cycle is now being released as a limited vinyl edition on 17 LPs. The edition brings together Berliner Philharmoniker recordings from the last ten years. It includes the nine completed symphonies and the Adagio of the Tenth, whose performance under the direction of Claudio Abbado on the 100th anniversary of Mahler's death is one of the highlights. In addition to chief conductor Kirill Petrenko and his predecessor Sir Simon Rattle, the edition features other outstanding Mahler interpreters closely associated with the orchestra: Gustavo Dudamel, Bernard Haitink, Daniel Harding, Andris Nelsons and Yannick N�zet-S�guin.

In June 2015, the Berliner Philharmoniker elected Kirill Petrenko as chief conductor, and he took up office in 2019. Our exclusive vinyl edition presents key recordings of this phase of anticipation and new beginnings. Performances of works by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Franz Schmidt, and Rudi Stephan reveal not only the first important programme directions, but also the exciting, intensive music-making in this partnership.

At the heart of this project lies "I Loves You, Porgy," a timeless composition from George Gershwin's 1935 folk opera Porgy and Bess. The melody, built on just five simple notes, is unforgettable-a testament to Gershwin's genius. Inspired by it's charm, we decided to center our album around this piece. While "I Loves You, Porgy" has been a staple for countless jazz musicians, our approach was not merely to improvise on it. Instead, we aimed to create "variants"-transformative interpretations that grew from this iconic piece. It's a unique exploration inspired by Geroge Gershwin.

Carl Orff Carmina Burana Orfeon Pamplones Escolania de Nuestra Senora de los Desamparados Orquesta de Valencia Alexander Liebreich Sara Blanch, soprano Joaquin Asiain, tenor Andre Baleiro, baritone They are one of the most famous and frequently performed works of classical music: Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana". The Latin title refers to a collection of songs from Benediktbeuren dating from the 11th and 12th centuries with texts written in Middle Latin, Old French and Middle High German. Orff chose 24 of these songs, their topics ranging widely from the volatility of happiness and prosperity to the fleeting nature of life, from the joy of the return of spring to the pleasures and dangers of drunkenness, gluttony, gambling, and lust. In June 2024, at the Palau de la M�sica in Valencia, the Orquestra de Valencia, one of the great Spanish symphony orchestras, together with the leading local boys' choir as well as one of Spain's oldest choirs, Orfeon Pamplones, performed this epic work under the musical direction of Alexander Liebreich. They were joined by soloists Sara Blanch, Joaquin Asiain, and Andre Baleiro. The live recording of this lively and captivating concert evening is now available. Recorded live at the Palau de la M�sica, Valencia June 2024

A wide-ranging introduction to the distinctive compositional voice of Amy Beach through her solo piano music, featuring both well-known and unfamiliar pieces. While Amy Beach is now among the best-known female composers of classical music history, her story becomes more remarkable as details of it are disseminated. The pianist Mark Viner introduces her life and music in a detailed but approachable essay to accompany this new recording of her piano music on Piano Classics. She was essentially self-taught, and a prodigy to match any previous celebrated male examples, at least in technica l terms. She translated Berlioz's treatise on orchestration in order to use it herself. She became a formidably accomplished pianist in her own right, but was then prevented from giving more than two recitals a year by her husband. Beach continued to compose, however, and steadly so through the last decade of the 19th century and well into the 20th. The earliest piece on Martina Frezzotti's recital is also one of her most familiar, the nocturne Dreaming from 1892, in which she emulates a Chopin model with piano writing that's deceptively simple on the page but uniquely haunting on the ear. The album's most substantial work is the 25-minute Variations on Balkan Themes, from 1904. The four themes in question were passed on to her by a missionary to the region, and the piece amounts to a proud cry for Serbian nationalism in the post-Lisztian style. Through it's course, Beach writes in the style of a barcarolle, a parlour waltz, a funeral march, a Hungarian dance and much more, weaving together her material with a sure hand. Beach's own skill as a pianist surely contributes to the soft tonal shades she conjures in her transcription of Richard Strauss's song St�ndchen. She also explored the possibilities of making accurate musical transcriptions of birdsong decades before Olivier Messiaen did so, and her most celebrated work in this vein is the achingly beautiful Hermit-Thrush at Eve from 1922. Martina Frezzotti's album of Fanny Mendelssohn for Piano Classics (PCL10238) won enthusiastic praise from David Hurwitz on a video review for Classics Today. According to pianodao. Com (Andrew Eales), 'Frezzotti proves a brilliant advocate for these pieces in this recording, combining a poetic sensibility with the necessary weight and flair to showcase the more dazzling elements of Mendelssohn's piano writing. The recording is bright, reverberant and luminous.

Krzysztof Penderecki’s works for (string) quartet neatly encapsulate the stylistic breadth and trace the development of Poland’s most important modern composer throughout his six-decade-long career. From the avantgarde rhythmical study that is Quartet No.1, via an ode to Webern, to the neo-romantic elder Penderecki’s Schubertian Clarinet Quartet, this collection covers all his chamber music for three and four strings, even the early neo-baroque outlier of his Three Pieces adapted from his film music for the steamy 1964 movie, The Saragossa Manuscript.

REVIEW:

From wild child of the experimental avant-garde to luscious neo-Romantic, Krzysztof Penderecki had an unusually profound stylistic transformation across his career. When his string quartets neatly encapsulate that trajectory, written as they were between 1960 and 2016, it’s no mean feat to pull off the entire cycle in consistently convincing and compelling fashion. Yet, that is what the Meccore Quartet has done here.

-- The Strad