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

After Rhinegold, the first evening of the Ring tetralogy, Oehms Classics released The Valkyries at the same time as the premiere of Siegfried at the Hamburg State Opera, which took place on October 18, 2009.

Including a booklet printed in four colours throughout and containing many impressions of Claus Guth’s production as well as the complete libretto, this is once again an exceptionally elaborate product. While the premiere of the Valkyries suffered due to Falk Struckmann (Wotan) having to pull out at short notice because of illness, this production was recorded during later performances which show Struckmann in full possession of his vocal powers. Simone Young guided her orchestra and the chorus through the famous score in great, irresistible waves of sound while still paying attention to the finest, meticulously rehearsed structural details.

REVIEW:

This performance, recorded live in Hamburg in October, 2008, is a wonderful surprise. Conductor Simone Young brings out the score's mood changes with great drama; you can practically see the shadow of Hunding passing behind the Twins in Act 1, and with each entrance of the tender love music--sometimes just the leitmotif itself--the listener feels a sense of joy.

Young has a particularly youthful-sounding Siegmund in tenor Stuart Skelton, a tireless, intelligent singer without the baritonal low register some prefer, and she emphasizes the brightness of the brass to play against his sound. She also takes the Brünnhilde/Wotan duet in the second act at a nicely quick conversational pace, making it less introspective than usual but also bringing it great urgency. And her final act is glorious, from a thrillingly played and sung ride (complete with trills from the Valkyries), to an ecstatic "O hehrste wonne", through a psychologically exhausting "War es so schmälich", and an exquisite, touching final scene. There isn't a dull moment in this Walküre.

Opposite Skelton's young, impetuous Siegmund we have a mezzo Sieglinde--Yvonne Naef--and rather than this being a drawback, it is a dark-hued, emotionally telling portrayal. There's the occasional strain in the upper register, including at "O hehrste wonne", which, as suggested above, is a knockout--perhaps because it does not sound easy. Mikhail Petrenko's Hunding is too mellow and carries little danger. Jeanne Piland's Fricka is second-rate.

Falk Struckmann's Wotan is brilliantly thought out, and save for a lunged-at high note or five, it's handsomely sung, with a beautiful legato and long breath. His concept of the role (or the director's, or conductor's) is as a loving father to Brünnhilde primarily--hence his rage (which abates) in the third act. He has the authority, but not the inner depth of feeling, of Thomas Stewart or Hans Hotter...I found it poignant in this context.

Deborah Polaski's Brünnhilde, as she nears 60 years of age, seems more solid than ever before. A wobble rarely enters the voice, and though she seems to tire in the third act's second scene, she recovers entirely for her confrontation with Wotan. And when she sings pianissimo, as in the Announcement of Death and "War es so schmälich", she's riveting.

In short, this is a Walküre that is all of a piece, like Furtwängler's, with seamless moves from scene to scene. It isn't nearly as dark or "cosmic", but it is a beautiful reading, and the singing, despite the fact that there are no Varnays or Vickers, is quite fine.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Robert Levine)

Young's balancing of orchestral textures is interestingly calculated, often novel, and most attentive to the written dynamics. …Polaski… is compelling. With Struckmann's Wotan… she achieves a rather wonderful, and sadly beautiful, account of the final duet in the closest communion with Young in the pit.

-- 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

The Brodsky Quartet, continuing to pioneer unique repertoire on Chandos Records, presents a programme of works from the ‘New World’ that explores an American sound in the string quartet. The earliest piece on the disc is the American String Quartet, in F major by Antonín Dvorák, the only non-American composer in the release. His attempt to capture an American sound results in music of notable simplicity, directness, and good humour. In the String Quartet by Samuel Barber we hear an unashamedly romantic composer displaying a more European style. The central Adagio has become enormously popular in an arrangement for string orchestra. Far more distinctively American in idiom is the music of George Gershwin whose Lullaby was his first attempt at classical composition. Copland’s Two Pieces, a work written as a tribute to Gabriel Fauré, is featured along with an original arrangement by members of the Brodsky Quartet of his Hoe–Down. This famous work is enormously evocative of rural America and is heavily indebted to traditional tunes from Celtic settlers. Dave Brubeck is best known as a jazz pianist but he employs his classical training in Regret, which evokes the soundworld and emotional depth of the high baroque style while creating a unique link between the worlds of classical and jazz. - Chandos

Classical Music

On this disc, Carl Maria von Weber’s Invitation to Dance and Symphonies Nos 1 and 2 are performed by the BBC Philharmonic under its Chief Conductor, Juanjo Mena. Scottish bassonist Karen Geoghegan joins them as the soloist in the Bassoon Concerto

Between 1841 and 1843 Schumann wrote some of his greatest chamber works, among them the Piano Quartet and the Piano Quintet, both in E flat major. Written in an astonishing five-day period, the Quintet displays both the heroic and the lyric impulses in his music, boldness contrasting with songful tenderness, and march themes with lyricism. The Piano Quartet also exudes such qualities, not least in the ravishing slow movement, and the masterful breadth of Schumann's expression. The four Me�rchenerzahlungen are happy, energetic pieces. Winning high praise from the American press, pianist Xiayin Wang has toured with the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra in St Petersburg itself, as well as in the United States. Founded in Chicago in 1946, and based at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee since 1963, the Fine Arts Quartet is one of the elite few to have recorded and toured internationally for over half a century.

Hungarian-German Pianist Julian von Karolyi (19914-1993) studied with Erno Dohnanyi and Alfred Cortot. He excelled in the romantic repertoire and possessed a prodigious virtuoso technique. He was particularly known for his interpretations of Chopin and Liszt. Von Karolyi has recorded for both Deutsche Gramophone and Electrola. This release, which features these recordings available for the first time on CD and digital platforms, includes a varied programme of Tchaikovsky, Schumann, and Liszt.

After a highly successful recordings of works by Brahms, the Schumanns, and Chopin, Imogen Cooper plunges into the world of another great romantic, Franz Liszt, and places him alongside that other giant, Richard Wagner. This is an evocative programme of original compositions and intimate transcriptions, ranging from poetic movements from the Années de Pèlerinage: Italie to dark and deeply elegiac pieces, including Liszt's La lugubre gondola I and Wagner's Elegie. It also features a transcription by Zoltán Kocsis of the intensely passionate prelude to Tristan und Isolde. The famous pianist and conductor died prematurely in November, 2016. It was his work that inspired this recording to begin with, and Imogen Cooper dedicates the album to his memory. Breathtaking music in unique interpretations: romanticism without melodrama, virtuosity without fuss.

The history of writing music for the piano is linked to the creation, in 1711, of the prototype of the present day piano and to its evolution from the pianoforte- an instrument suited for salon music-making- to the modern concert grand. The tradition of home music-making dates back therefore to the middle of the 18th century, with piano-playing for four hands very soon becoming its all important element. This gave rise to the development of a repertoire that lent itself to arrangement and performances in such a chamber environment. Compositions of this type had already been penned by Johann Christian Bach, Joseph Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. By the end of the 18th century, compositions for piano four hands had achieved extraordinary popularity. However, only a small amount of the output by Polish composers was published. Thanks to the interest of present-day Polish publishers these forgotten pieces, several of which are presented here, can now be enjoyed by performers and enthusiasts alike.

Classical Music