Einhorn: Voice of Light

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 18 & Rhapsody on a T

This selection is a Super Audio CD, which is designed for use only on
Super Audio CD players.

Beethoven: Missa solemnis, Op. 123

VIVALDI: 6 CONCERTOS GALWAY,

Her performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto in the early 1950s, under Ferenc Fricsay, was pervaded by a delicate lyricism and a romantic sorcery rarely encountered elsewhere. Joachim Hartnack about Gioconda De Vito Gioconda De Vito, one of the great violinists of her time, was considered a Brahms specialist. The only evidence to date of her work with Ferenc Fricsay and the RIAS Orchestra is the above mentioned quote. Precisely this collaboration was captured in a superb monaural recording by the RIAS broadcasting company in Berlin - a stroke of luck, for De Vito had an aversion to the recording studio. Gioconda De Vito, Ferenc Fricsay and the RIAS-Symphonie Orchester produce an exemplary realization of the concept of the "symphonic concerto". A great deal of the cogency of this realization is owed to the precise dovetailing of soloist and orchestra, even in those passages in which De Vito grants herself a liberal use of rubato. With wonted translucence, Fricsay allows the solo instrumentalists in his orchestra to share the limelight with the violinist. The recording reveals all of Gioconda De Vito's strengths. She unfolds a large, singing tone, at once brilliantly radiant and warm. This accurate, crisply recorded performance by the RIAS-Symphonie-Orchester under Fricsay also brings out the very deliberate rhythmic organization with which she shaped her cantilenas. Under Fricsay, the RIAS-Symphonie-Orchester also succeeds in turning their recording of Brahms's Second Symphony into a touchstone of Brahmsian "orchestral chamber music." " "Sales Inventory

Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 - Rimsky-Korsakov: Ca

Continuing the recording series of instrumental music by Eduard Franck which already includes his Violin Concertos Op. 30 and Op. 57, and also his Symphonies Op. 42 and Op. 47, now presents Franck's orchestral works. Once again, we hear music of the highest technical quality as well as a characteristic idiom. All were written during the 1840s when Franck set out on his career as a composer, attracting the interest of the music critics who from this time onwards were increasingly to influence musical history. The works recorded here reveal an attractive amalgamation of classicist and progressive trends, referring on the one hand to Schumann and Brahms, and on the other to Wagner and Liszt. They more than hold their own as original contributions to nineteenth century instrumental music.

...By far the most interesting box in Sony's 31-volume "Isaac Stern - A Life in Music" is the fourth (® CD SX12K67196; 12 CDs), which contains Vols. 23-31 and includes a number of recordings that are either first-ever releases or new to the UK... [Alexander] Zakin takes over [as accompanist] for...a concert of music by Hindemith (the 1939 Sonata, recorded in 1946), Bloch (Baal Shem and the First Violin Sonata - recorded in 1961 and 1959, respectively) and a 1968 recording of the Copland Sonata with the composer at the piano (Vol. 28). This is a really superb recital...

-- Gramophone [9/1996]
reviewing the complete "Isaac Stern - A Life in Music" box set

The WDR Sinfonie Orchester and the Norwegian conductor Eivind Aadland continue their survey of Edvard Grieg's orchestral works with this selection from the composer's orchestral repertoire which he liked to conduct across Europe.

Classical Music

Brahms: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1, 2 & 3

Zino Francescatti never made a better disc than his 1958 coupling of Mozart's Violin Concertos Nos. 3 in G, K216 and 4 in D, K218. The Californian sound is again warm and well balanced and Walter and the Columbia Symphony provide affectionate, immaculately turned accompaniments. The slow movements are slightly romantic in feeling, but agreeably so, and the overall impression is one of freshness combined with the performers' love for the music.

-- Gramophone [8/1995]

Having already enjoyed substantial reissue programmes devoted to Furtwangler, Klemperer and Toscanini, I was delighted to receive the initial instalment of Sony Classical's admirable "Bruno Walter: The Edition", doubly so in view of its superb presentation, exceptional technical quality (the best of Walter's stereo recordings were always remarkably lifelike) and its rich trawl of topdrawer repertory. This particular feast includes two violin concertos: the Beethoven with Szigeti, and the Mendelssohn with Milstein-interpretatively worlds apart but instructive in that Walter's accompaniments reflect (and respect) the very different styles of his two soloists. Then there is a two-CD Wagner compilation [ Sony 64459] that gathers together all the stereo Columbia Symphony material and adds a 45-minute Siegfried Idyll rehearsal, and a magnificent run of Mahler: the NYPO Dos Lied von der Erde (with Ernst Haefliger and Mildred Miller—and in my view one of the most profoundly inspired ever made, certainly in terms of the conducting and orchestral playing [ Sony 64455]), the NYPO Fourth and Fifth Symphonies (from 1945 and 1947, respectively), the Lieder und Gesfinge aus der Jugendzeit (with Desi Halban and Walter at the piano) and the stereo Mahler recordings—the First, Second and Ninth Symphonies (the latter appended with "A Talking Portrait" and "A Working Portrait"), and the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Mildred Miller.

-- Robert Cowan, Gramophone [2/1995]

Classical Music

Classical Music

Recorded in a 1955 concert at Carnegie Hall, the conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos with the New York Philharmonic was an advocate and champion of Gustav Mahler. Said by some to bring a radical perspective to Mahler's scores, this re-issue of the so-called "Tragic" symphony enables us to appreciate the much talked about and legendary 1955 performance with superb sound acoustics but has suffered the fate of going in and out of print over the years.

Since 2011 Marcus Bosch has been General Music Director of the Nuremberg State Theater. He is attracting new audiences with a range of innovative concert formats. He is continuing the orchestra's series of CD releases with a complete recording of the symphonies of Antonín Dvorák. The symphonies no. 3 and no. 7, which are not so famous and in their substance very contrary, start the series. Bosch elaborates the sensitive differences in both symphonies and he conveys the fascinating transparence once again.

Classical Music

This CD launches a complete series of recordings of Robert Schumann's orchestral works, performed by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Heinz Holliger. Holliger's performances draw on a lifetime study of Schumann's music, thought, personality and fate. His approach imparts lightness and lucidity to these opulent scores through a hierarchical balance of parts, delicately gradated dynamics, and invigorating tempos. The widespread image of this romantic composer as a weak orchestrator receives a refreshing and well-grounded correction. Volume 1 of the series presents the First Symphony in B-flat major (Op. 38), Overture, Scherzo and Finale (Op. 52) and the original 1841 version of the Fourth Symphony in D minor (Op. 120).

This new release features Saint-Saëns' Second Piano Concerto with Nelson Freire under the baton of AdAm Fischer. Not many pianists are able to accomplish the stylistic and technical challenges of this concerto, demanding complete precision in fingering and leaps, as well as perfect command of the "jeu perlé": Nelson Freire masters this work with great aplomb, quiet assurance and, at times, a twinkle in his eye. He is completely committed and happy to take risks, triggering veritable "Sturm und Drang", and always congenially accompanied by AdAm Fischer. Twenty years previously, the Brazilian pianist (then aged 22) had made his German radio debut with a recital programme which he recorded at the RIAS's Lankwitz studio in Berlin. In Grieg's Lyric Pieces and the Hungarian Rhapsodies Nos 5 and 10 by Liszt, as well as his Polonaise in E major, Freire not only demonstrated his stupendous manual prowess, but also what was already at that stage his extraordinary touch and stylistic confidence. These early solo recordings anticipate his brilliant later style, completing the picture of the exceptional pianist. All recordings on this album are released for the first time.

A journey into the spheres of improvisation and traditional requiem chants. Hansjörg Fink and Elmar Lehnen prove to be border crossers, demonstrating that contrasts can be tied together. Age-old tradition meets vibrant, jazzy joie de vivre; composed music meets improvisation; liturgy meets world; spirituality meets sensuality. Fink and Lehnen move assuredly on historic foundations, adding their own, liberal figures. Sombre moments of death appear here in a new, milder light.

Audite here presents the second volume of the complete recording of Robert Schumann's orchestral works. The series includes all the symphonies, overtures and concertos. Heinz Holliger and the WDR Symphony Orchestra have recorded the works with an orchestra of the same size available to Schumann. In so doing, they not only uncover the sonic ideal of the composer, but also its consistent and convincing realization. Holliger's performances draw on a lifetime study of Schumann the man and the musician.

At age 22, Mozart wrote two concertos on commission from Ferdinand DeJean, a wealthy Dutchman. One of those was the Flute Concerto, K313, arguably one of the finest flute concerto ever written. This release features that piece, along with two other concertos performed by the Bavarian Radio Symphony. The 1981 recording of the Flute Concerto K. 313 with Slovenian soloist Irena Grafenauer is one of the few recordings with the great Günter Wand on the conductor’s podium. Oboe soloist François Leleux is featured in a 2001 recording of Mozart’s Oboe Concerto accompanied by “his” orchestra, in which he held the position of principal oboist until 2005, with Sir Colin Davis, the long-standing Chief Conductor of the orchestra.

The first of a three-part series of the famous Organ Symphonies this release commemorates the 75th anniversary of the death of organist composer and pedagogue Louis Vierne. These earliest of the Organ Symphonies steeped in rich timbres cyclic forms and the mysticism of Vierne's religious background are performed on the Goll organ of St. Martin Memmingen.