Classical Music

Classical Music

During his unprecedented 64 years as organist at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, Charles-Marie Widor developed a powerfully symphonic approach to music for the organ, finding new combinations of color, sonority and texture. The ten symphonies for organ are central to his repertory for the instrument. Featured on this first volume are the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, with its homage to Bach, luminous and ceremonial and with virtuoso flourishes; and the Symphony No. 2 in D major offering a fascinating series of contrasts with some spectacular effects. Wolfgang Rubsam plays at the restored E.M. Skinner instrument at The University of Chicago, the largest pipe organ in Midwest America.

Includes work(s) by Antonín Dvorák.

The Hamburg composer Hermann Behn (1859-1927) bore, like numerous other composers of that time, the hard fate of Wagner’s succession. After he had largely ended his compositional activities around 1883, he developed another great talent, i.e., the transference of compositional structures and the musical content of symphonic works by other composers to two pianists on two pianos. Here he broke new ground exactly at the time as the circus of excessive virtuoso opera rhapsodies of the super virtuosos collapsed. Through the use of two instruments and the development of a completely new tonal arrangement, Hermann Behn succeeded in overcoming the limits of the piano. If his arrangement of Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony for two instruments turned out more or less traditional, in that the substance of the score was divided up, well-playable, between four hands, then an entirely new dimension of the rendition of symphonic music on the piano began, after Behn’s extensive studies of individual works, primarily overtures from various epochs, with the turn to Richard Wagner. The undoubtedly most extensive project ever realized in the area of transcriptions for piano, the “Fifty Symphonic Movements from Richard Wagner’s Master Dramas,” was commenced in 1914. Behn found his very personal symphonic sound already in the arrangement of the first fragments of the “Ring of the Nibelung”. To this end, he skillfully employed the doubling of chord progressions and nearly absurdly wide spans in the left hand, which could only be performed in “broken” style, i.e., by means of the rapid arpeggiation of the notes from bottom to top. In this way, an entirely intended inexactness in the congruence between the two players was inevitably produced, which – with ample use of the pedal – leads to an until then unheard-of tonal richness.

Charles-Marie Widor was a hugely influential and venerated musician in his day, and his innovative organ symphonies are both a pinnacle of the repertoire and a testament to his creative and technical mastery of the instrument. These spectacular works are in the grand Romantic manner, but Widor was keenly aware of his musical ancestry, referring to music of the past such as Bach's St. Matthew Passion in the opening of the Third Symphony. The Scherzo of the Fourth Symphony is one of Widor's finest symphonic movements, exploring the organ's sonic beauties. The original E major Scherzo from the Symphony No. 2, which Widor subsequently replaced with a Salve Regina can be heard on Track 6.

Classical Music

Aside from his only opera Fidelio, Beethoven's general link with the theater in Vienna came about largely with incidental music or songs to be inserted into the works of other composers- insertion arias. Konig Stephan was written to celebrate the politically significant opening of a new theatre in Pest, it's triumphant mood honoring the ruling Austrian Emperor. Standard Bearer of female heroism Leonore Prohaska is commemorated with a Soldier's Chorus and a Romance with harp accompaniment. In Friedrich von Matthisson's poem Opferlied ('Sacrificial Song'), a young man prays to Zeus to bestow upon him beauty and goodness in youth and old age. Two of Beethoven's four settings are heard on this wide-ranging programme.

Pianist Swetlana Meermann-Muret takes us on a journey through the heights and depths of the Russian soul in her new GENUIN release. The prizewinner of international competitions devotes herself to gems of piano literature—the rarely recorded miniatures by Anatoly Lyadov and Anton Arensky. Lyadov's Preludes, in particular, are more than just precursors of well-known works by Rachmaninoff and Scriabin! Swetlana Meermann-Muret, a native Russian pianist, devotes herself to these treasures with an attention to detail and a warm sound. Moving testimonies of a lost culture!

The custom of marking the name-day of Princess Esterhazy with a newly composed Mass began in the 1790s and for many years was carried out by Joseph Haydn. In 1807 Beethoven was commissioned and responded with his Mass in C major. Coolly received at court, it is a celebratory work of large-scale brilliance. The cantata Meeresstille und gluckliche Fahrt is set to Goethe’s poems and contrasts calm with exuberance. In 1803 Beethoven set two numbers from Vestas Feuer, written by Emanuel Schikaneder, the librettist of Mozart’s die Zauberflote.

This triple disc set includes the most famous recordings of Alfredo Kraus, Lucia Alberti and Renato Bruson with arias by Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Mascagni etc. Also included are rare opera scenes such as Donizetti’s “Gemmy di Vergy” and Bellini’s “I Capuleti e I Montecchi. This is a highly recommended collection for fans of opera and these Belcanto artists; 38 beautifully sung selections in all!

Hector Berlioz remains to this day the arch Romantic composer. His imagination knew no bounds and through his often-extreme visions, he revolutionized the way composers would approach the orchestra in the future. Spooky, wild, tender and utterly without inhibition perfectly describes the "Symphonie fantastique". But even some of his overtures are not for the faint-of-heart, especially when two masterful conductors at the helms of two of Europe's finest orchestras give these colorful scores full rein. Unquestionably, Berlioz at his best! - Hänssler Classic

Also available on Blu-ray

This magnificent Royal Ballet production of Swan Lake is an unforgettable experience. Anthony Dowell’s interpretation of Petipa and Ivanov’s 1895 St Petersburg version set a standard and style that made it a ‘yardstick for others’ (New York Times). Wonderful choreography for the entire company includes the coveted double role of the gentle and vulnerable swan queen Odette and her predatory alter-ego, the black swan Odile. It is a challenge relished by principal ballerinas, and is danced here in a spell-binding performance by Natalia Osipova, partnered by Matthew Golding as a powerful and empathetic Prince Siegfried. Tchaikovsky’s glorious score shines, given the full force of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by Boris Gruzin, and Yolanda Sonnabend’s detailed, Fabergé-inspired designs evoke the atmosphere of Imperial Russia in the era of the ballet's creation.

Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky
SWAN LAKE

Odette / Odile - Natalia Osipova
Prince Siegfried - Matthew Golding
Von Rothbart - Gary Avis
The Princess - Elizabeth McGorian
The Tutor - Alastair Marriott
Benno - Valeri Hristov

Royal Ballet, Covent Garden
Royal Opera House Orchestra, Covent Garden
Boris Gruzin, conductor

Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, choreographers
Yolanda Sonnabend, set and costume designer
Mark Henderson, lighting designer

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, March 2015

Bonus:
- Introduction with Natalia Osipova and Matthew Golding
- Anthony Dowell in conversation with Darcey Bussell
- Coaching Swan Lake
- Cast gallery

Picture format: NTSC 16:9 anamorphic
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 133 mins (ballet) + 18 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Zelmira was the last opera Rossini wrote for Naples, knowing it would also be his calling card to Vienna where he had been assured performances. Keen to reconcile the alleged incompatibility between 'Italian' melody and 'German' harmony, Rossini employed exciting and daring harmonies and a raft of dazzling orchestral effects in this tragedy in which a daughter saves her father, the king, and her son, from usurpers to the throne. The opera was acclaimed wherever it was heard, and this recording presents the revised and triumphant Paris version.

Roger Norrington and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra SWR continue their survey of the major works of the 19th Century symphonic repertoire with two symphonies by Schubert. Throughout his decade of working with the RSO, Norrington has transformed the sound of a modern symphony orchestra into an ensemble capable of delivering authentic historically informed music making. By employing both the benefits of authentic performance practice and technically superior modern instruments, Norrington has left a legacy that has opened the ears of romantic "purists" as well as delighting devotees of authentic performance practice.

This incredible box set presents the best of Russian opera. Included in the set are Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Pique Dame, Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh, and Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Recorded in renowned opera houses such as Teatro Regio, Torino, and De Nederlandse Opera, these performances are not to be missed.

The London Symphony Orchestra, led by formidable conductor Yondani Butt, presents this outstanding recording of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathetique,’ and The Voyevoda- Symphonic Ballad. The programme was recorded in 2012 at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London. Yondani Butt was born in Macau. He studied conducting with Wolfgang Vacano (1906-1985) at Indiana University, majoring in chemistry. He continued to study conducting with Josef Blatt (1906-1999) at the University of Michigan while pursuing his chemistry degree. Hailed by Robert Marsh of the Chicago Sun Times as “an outstanding talent,” Yondani Butt has received acclamation from critics and audiences for his many album recordings and concert performances. He died on August 28th, 2014.

Johannes Brahms is considered Beethoven’s successor in terms of his orchestral output, but for chamber music it was more the Romantic mantle of Robert Schumann that he assumed, vastly expanding its scale and ambitions in the 19th century and remaining a towering influence until well into the 20th. The First Piano Quartet has a deeply felt Andante con moto at its heart, and a sprightly ‘Gypsy Rondo’ finale. Brahms started writing the Third Piano Quartet in the difficult period of Schumann’s final illness, later re-composing it to create a work of symphonic proportions, distinctive power and striking beauty.

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The players have the feel of a group who have become welded together by years of mutual performances, the balance between them, as melodies are woven, being so perfectly weighted. The tempos also have that natural feel with scherzos that are never rushed, while the string intonation is impeccable.

– David Denton's Review Corner (November 2016)

Classical Music

Pianist and conductor Vladimir Feltsman is one of the most versatile and constantly interesting musicians of our time. His vast repertoire encompasses music from the Baroque to 21st-century composers. He has appeared with all the major American orchestras and on the most prestigious musical stages and festivals worldwide. Born in Moscow in 1952, Mr. Feltsman debuted with the Moscow Philharmonic at age 11. In 1969, he entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory of Music to study piano under the guidance of Professor Jacob Flier. He also studied conducting at both the Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Conservatories. In 1971, Mr. Feltsman won the Grand Prix at the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition in Paris; extensive touring throughout the former Soviet Union, Europe and Japan followed this. A dedicated educator of young musicians, Mr. Feltsman holds the Distinguished Chair of Professor of Piano at the State University of New York, New Paltz, and is a member of the piano faculty at the Mannes College of Music in New York City. This is his 5th volume of Schubert's Piano Sonatas.

Given the popularity of Schumann’s A-Minor Piano Concerto, I’d be willing to wager there are readers out there who have amassed recordings of it in double-digit numbers. If you are one of them, you may already have this one in an earlier incarnation, for the performances on this disc are not new. The concerto comes from a 1988 Budapest production; the Introduction and Allegro appassionato, from a 1992 Belgian production; and the Introduction and Allegro, from a 1996 Polish production.

The current release, however, can be recommended for joining this trilogy of Schumann’s concerted works for piano and orchestra on a single disc. In fact, it is the identical program I praised to the heavens in a review of an MDG DVD-A with Christian Zacharias. If you heeded my advice and acquired that disc, the present Naxos recording, and all others, for that matter, are superfluous. Nonetheless, Jenö Jandó, who has become a well-known Naxos commodity, is a very fine pianist whose playing here is technically flawless and interpretively orthodox. Translation? You can’t go wrong.

One minor editorial correction: the note states that Schumann’s two single-movement concert pieces for piano and orchestra, coupled here with the concerto, are his only other works for this combination. Not so. In 1839, he wrote a Konzertsatz in D Minor for piano and orchestra that predates the works on this program. There is a recording of it on a Koch International Classics CD.

Jerry Dubins, FANFARE

The young Thalia Ensemble erupted into the public spotlight with their being chosen as winners at the prestigious biennial York Early Music International Young Artists Competition. Their debut release spotlights the compositions of Antoine Reicha. Regarded as a pre-eminent composer for winds, Reicha , a flautist had an uncanny gift of melding the various wind instruments into a rich sonic tapestry in his compositions and the Thalia Ensemble’s inspired and dynamic playing proves to be a perfect match with the lively Wind Quintets.

REVIEWS:

The name Antoine Reicha is one which has fairly comprehensively slipped between the floorboards of musical history, except for within one select circle of musicians, wind players. With them Reicha's wind music, and in particular his wind quintets, has remained current and provides a useful and engaging program filler. The present CD brings us two wind quintets and an Adagio for wind quartet and obbligato cor anglais all played on period instruments of the early 19th century. This final detail may seem relatively unimportant in these days of the ubiquity of period performances, but in this case it was a major factor in my enjoyment of the CD. While tuneful and accessible, Reicha's music is occasionally accused of blandness, but when the Thalia Ensemble moved into the more chromatic passages of these works the music became imbued with considerable individuality. As a flute player himself, Reicha writes beautifully for the flute, but what is perhaps most striking is his mastery of the wind quintet as an entity - perhaps not since Mozart and not until Nielsen did anyone write such accomplished chamber music for winds. 5 stars.

– Early Music Review

These are infectious works, intended not to provoke but simply to delight, and in these elegantly shaped performances they do just that.

– Gramophone

A WQXR-FM Best Classical Recording of 2019

With Myrthen, baritone Christian Gerhaher, winner of the 2019 Male Singer of the Year from Opus Klassik, embarks on the second chapter of his once-in-a-lifetime project: the complete recording of Robert Schumann’s lieder output.

Since Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s epoch-making recording of the 1970s, no singer has devoted himself more thoroughly to the lied output of Robert Schumann than Christian Gerhaher. Lauded as the greatest lied singer of our time, he launched his complete cycle of Schumann’s lieder with the album Frage, for which he was named Opus Klassik’s 2019 Male Singer of the Year. The complete recording is the fulfilment of a long-cherished dream and, he emphasises, “probably the most important project of my life”. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung spoke of “consummate vocal artistry. Gerhaher has opened a new door in lied interpretation”. The Guardian named it one of the year’s best new classical releases.

As always, Gerhaher is accompanied by the equally brilliant pianist Gerold Huber. Most of the lieder he will sing himself, but for the other parts, duets and ensembles he has invited singers from his intimate circle of friends who number among the best in their vocal category, including Camilla Tilling, Julia Kleiter, Sibylla Rubens, Wiebke Lehmkuhl and Martin Mitterrutzner.

The complete project will encompass ten CDs, to be issued in a boxed set in 2020. Gerhaher himself is in charge of the project’s conception. Besides Sony Classical, with which he has held an exclusive contract since the onset of his career, he has managed to gain two of his longstanding partners as co-producers in this lavish undertaking: Bavarian Radio and the Heidelberg Spring Festival’s International Song Centre, whose goal is to make artists, concert organisers and audiences alive to the relevance of art song today. Both partners will lend media support to the project.

In the second instalment Gerhaher, Hubert and the Swedish soprano Camilla Tilling will devote themselves to the song cycle Myrthen (Myrtles). It was composed in 1840, Schumann’s “year of song”, when most of his works for voice and piano originated. Conceived as a wedding present for his fiancée Clara Wieck (2019 marks the bicentennial of her birth), Myrthen contains settings of words by nine different poets. As Gerhaher stresses in his notes for the recording, the poems are tightly interrelated in their contents. The sequence Schumann selected creates “not just a picture-book”, Gerhaher writes, “but an anticipatory narrative of the path longed for and awaited by two lovers”, producing “one of the loveliest presents ever bestowed by a loving heart upon another”.

It was in this spirit that Schumann handed Myrthen to Clara on 12 September 1840 in a specially produced luxury edition. Since then it has numbered among the great song cycles in music history.

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REVIEWS:

Tilling’s bright, flexible sound is a perfect foil for Gerhaher’s honeyed warmth. Highlights dotted through the disc include Gerhaher’s performance of Byron’s Aus den Hebräischen Gesängen, with its chromatic, almost Schoenbergian piano introduction. Overall, the disc certainly maintains the standard set by the first one.

– Guardian (UK)

Christian Gerhaher is a deeply impressive singer, as fine as any baritone around in this repertoire. He is expertly accompanied as ever by Gerold Huber, and there is clear well-balanced sound, a very interesting booklet note on the cycle by Gerhaher himself, and full texts and translations.

– MusicWeb International

Written during the late stages of a courtship fraught by opposition from Clara’s father, these 26 songs exalt in the transcendent power of love, and are voiced with exquisite tenderness by German baritone Christian Gerhaher and his partners.

– WQXR-FM 105.9, NYC (Zev Kane)

The 2015 Munich concert year began at the end of January with two highlights: two performances of Bruckner's Sixth Symphony with Mariss Jansons conducting the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. The live recording, previously reserved exclusively for subscribers to the orchestra, is now being released on album by BR-KLASSIK - an outstanding interpretation of one of the most important compositions in the Late Romantic symphonic repertoire.

For a long time, Anton Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony (along with his Second) was regarded as something of a ‘poor relation’ in his immense symphonic oeuvre, even though the composer himself had moodily referred to it as his "boldest". In view of its performance figures and recordings over the decades, this has now changed significantly, and the work has earned itself a permanent place in the repertoire. The Sixth Symphony forms part of the creative process of the two preceding symphonies, the "Romantic" Fourth (1874/1880) and the Fifth (1875), and is now seen as an important preliminary stage in Bruckner’s last great upsurge that followed the composition of the "Te Deum" and culminated in the sublime grandeur of his final symphonies, the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth. Bruckner worked on his Sixth Symphony in A major (WAB 106) from September 24, 1879 to September 3, 1881. He was only able to hear the complete work at one orchestra rehearsal during his lifetime because only the two middle movements (Adagio and Scherzo) were publicly performed in the concert hall of the Vienna Musikverein on February 11, 1883. The first public performance of the symphony as a whole followed only on February 26, 1899 - two and a half years after the composer’s death. It was conducted by Gustav Mahler, who had, however, made changes to the score, presenting it in a radically shortened version.

One of the least explored areas of Beethoven’s compositions is the miscellaneous sequence of canons, early exercises in counterpoint, mature jokes and jeux d’esprit that he wrote over many years. He composed a two-part canon for the composer Hummel in 1816 and in 1823 one for four voices (written in a tavern) for Count Lichnowsky. He also wrote birthday and Christmas greetings for colleagues and friends, and songs that punned on recipients’ names or poked fun at them. Viennese chamber choir Cantus Novus Wiendraws on an extensive repertoire of Baroque, Classical, and contemporary music, including a cappella choral music, oratorios by Handel and Haydn, and requiems by Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, and Fauré. Contemporary music is one of the choir’s focal points, including regular world premieres of commissioned pieces. The choir has been conducted by Thomas Holmes since 2001. Ensemble Tamanial is a vocal quartet based in Vienna, Austria. The ensemble was established to provide a place in which to grow and learn as musicians through undertaking soloist responsibility across a wide variety of musical styles, including Renaissance, Classical, Romantic and also in contemporary works. For these Beethoven recordings the ensemble have been working closely with Thomas Holmes as their musical director and wish to express their deep gratitude.

ALBENIZ / SOLER / DE FALLA / GRANADOS: Piano Espanol

Alexandra Dariescu makes her concerto debut with Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Alexandra Dariescu has garnered an impressive reputation for her outstanding solo recordings and concert performances and was recently named as one of 30 pianists under 30 destined for a spectacular career in the International Piano Magazine.

The German composer Albert Lortzing’s (“Undine”) (1801-51) one-act comic opera “Die Opernprobe oder Die vornehmen Dilettanten” received its first performance in the year of Lortzing’s death. + This Vienna, 1953 performance of this rarely heard opera features famed Bach interpreter Karl Richter conducting an echt-Viennese performance of this little gem of a work.

The piano is a beautiful instrument, and this special release brings together some of the most moving and romantic classics in the piano repertoire. With over two hours of this enchanting music to enjoy, sit back, relax and lose yourself in the timeless melodies of masters including Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Scarlatti, Schubert and Schumann. Savour the tender lyricism of Liszt's famous 'Liebestraum', Debussy's elegant Arabesques and evocative 'Clair de lune', the emotional drama of some of Beethoven's best-loved Adagios for the piano, and the beguiling melodies of Schubert's Impromptus and Chopin's 'Raindrop' Prelude - to name but a few of the many wonderful moments in this collection. These captivating piano works are performed by Misha Goldstein, who has made many acclaimed recordings for Brilliant Classics.

Classical Music