Romantic Era
3839 products
Mariss Jansons - His Last Concert / Bavarian Radio Symphony
For the last seventeen years of his life – from 2003 to 2019 – Mariss Jansons was chief conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Bavarian Radio Chorus. Both ensembles and their conductor appreciated each other deeply on an artistic as well as a human level, and this resulted in numerous unforgettable concerts. Jansons’ unrelenting demands on himself and his musicians, his always respectful treatment of his colleagues, and his great devotion to music all played a lead role in their work together. Mariss Jansons occupies a place of honor in the orchestra’s history, and its players will always revere and cherish his memory. With the death of Mariss Jansons one year ago, the music world lost one of its greatest artistic personalities.
Born the son of conductor Arvids Jansons in Riga in 1943, the young Mariss studied at the Leningrad Conservatory before completing his studies with Hans Swarowsky in Vienna and Herbert von Karajan in Salzburg. In 1971 he was a prizewinner at the Karajan Conducting Competition and began his close collaboration with today's St. Petersburg Philharmonic. From 1979 to 2000, Jansons was Music Director of the Oslo Philharmonic; from 1997 to 2004 he conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; and in the 2003/04 season he became Chief Conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Bavarian Radio Chorus. The 2004/05 season marked the start of his tenure at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, which ended in 2015. As a guest conductor, he worked with all the leading orchestras of Europe and the USA, and his discography includes many award-winning recordings.
Liszt: Sonata in B minor
Hidden Treasure: Viola Masterpieces
STRING QUARTETS NOS. 1 & 2 (LP
Beethoven: Complete Works for Piano Trio, Vol. 6
Mendelssohn, Felix: Piano Concerto No. 1 / Chausson, E.: Con
Rossini: Peches De Viellesse, Vol. 7
Volume 7 of Rossini’s complete piano music, Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age), ranges across six of the fourteen albums to include works for both solo piano and for piano and voices. Two of the pieces – Andantino mosso (track 3), recently discovered in manuscript, and La notte di Santo Natale (track 5) receive their first recording. ‘Alessandro Marangoni sounds completely at home… and he presents the music with style, good humour and no mean virtuosity’ (MusicWeb International on 8.573107 / Volume 6).
Verdi: La Traviata / Delunsch, Polenzani, Sado
'This is the story of a dying woman. It is written as such. This is what it tells. During the performance, this woman dies before your eyes, in what is practically a live event. There is no way to conjure the fact away. The main subject of this opera is death and there is no way to avoid that. Death with love. Love with death. One and the other, one in the other.' - Peter Mussbach A production by Festival d'Aix en Provence 2003.
Beethoven/Liszt: Symphony V & VII
Schumann: 1839 - Year of Piano / Alexandra Papstefanou
1839 was Schumann’s most productive year of writing for solo piano, and the last year he wrote a major work for piano solo. The following year, Schumann wrote no works for solo piano, focusing a new energy in writing songs. 1840 is famously known as his ‘Year of Song’ (Liederjahr), hence our coined title ‘Year of Piano’ with all the works on this album, apart from 3 Stücklein, written in 1838. This is Papastefanou’s third album for FHR. Alexandra Papstefanou graduated from Athens Conservatoire, where she studied piano under Aliki Vatikioti. She followed her studies with Olga Zhukova at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, with Peter Solymos, at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest and, on a scholarship from the Alexander Onassis Foundati on, at the University of Indiana in Bloomington, USA, with the highly infl uencial teacher György Seb?k. She has also taken lessons from Alfred Brendel.
Otto Klemperer conducts Beethoven, Vol. 1 (1960)
Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 1-4 / Jordan, Vienna Symphony Orchestra
After the critically acclaimed recording of Beethoven's nine symphonies, the Wiener Symphoniker present now under the direction of their outgoing Music Director Philippe Jordan another cyclical recording: The Symphonies by Johannes Brahms. It had taken 14 years of preparatory work before Brahms ventured to complete his First Symphony in 1876. The four symphonies that emerged in the following decade are not only touching measurements of the human soul's landscape but also the central creative legacy of the great romantic composer. All four symphonies were recorded live in the Golden Hall of the Wiener Musikverein in autumn 2019 – a hall that arguably meets the tonal requirements of the works like no other. After all two of the four symphonies had been premiered here while the other two had been performed here for the first time in Austria. This latest production by the Wiener Symphoniker marks the end of Philippe Jordan's tenure as Music Director of the traditional Viennese orchestra but also represents the culmination of their internationally celebrated artistic collaboration. With the new publication, the Wiener Symphoniker are presenting the twenty-first release on their eponymous label founded in 2012.
Lorin Maazel Conducts Beethoven & Bartók
Schumann: Piano Quartet, Piano Quintet / Schumann Quartet
Quatuor Schumann and Gyula Stuller propose a truly fresh and transparent reading of these two masterpieces of Robert Schumann's literature for piano and strings. Unanimously celebrated by the critics for their first Chausson-Fauré record, published under the Aeon label, this young ensemble of Swiss musicians shows perfect delicacy and clarity, as well as hypersensitive romanticism. Indeed, one can hardly wish for a more appropriate or more complete vision of what constitutes the true spirit of chamber music, where each individual surpasses himself without ever losing the unity of the group.
Schumann: Lieder on Record & Legendary Cycle Recordings
In 1984, just as the long-playing gramophone record was supposedly fading into the sunset, the British record company EMI issued an 8-LP box in green livery compiled by Keith Hardwick and entitled “Schumann & Brahms Lieder on Record 1901-1952”. That was the year after the introduction of the Compact Disc, which was expected to deliver the coup de grâce to the vinyl record introduced in 1948. Fast forward to today: LPs are still around, so are CDs, but EMI as the world’s oldest and once greatest recorded music organization is no more – its heirs and successors are the majors Warner and Universal. Be that as it may, the English company has won eternal honor for its invaluable service to music in preserving historic vocal documents in such painstakingly edited sets as “The Record of Singing” or indeed “… Lieder on Record” (RLS 1547003). However, the Schumann-Brahms box was not available “overseas” – in countries outside Great Britain, that is – save for brief periods and in homeopathic quantities, and then only as an import. Hänssler Classic and editor Dieter Fuoss are now closing the gap, initially with the part devoted to Robert Schumann (born June 8, 1810, Zwickau – died July 29, 1856, Endenich on the outskirts of Bonn). He fills the first three albums with “Lieder in historic recordings”. A fourth album completes the set with three song cycles by Schumann in legendary interpretations.
REVIEWS:
The Profil series Lieder on Record has had a new addition. Volume 2 with songs by Robert Schumann has been released. If you want to find out how important Schumann interpreters have performed his songs, you can’t miss this box. The songs are heard in historic recordings made between 1901 and 1951. The performers include Lotte and Lili Lehmann, Friedrich Schorr, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Victoria de los Angeles, Leo Slezak, Feodor Schaljapin, Richard Tauber, Elisabeth Schumann, Karl Erb, Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender, Frida Leider, Hans Hotter, Elisabeth Höngen, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and many others.
-- Pizzicato
This set is a treasure trove for anyone who would like to hear dozens of singers from the first half of the 20th Century sing songs of Robert Schumann. It shows how performance style evolved in that time, including interpretive liberties taken. It offers a chance to hear dozens of voices, many I’ve never heard—or even heard of—before. You get to hear how different singers perform some of the same songs.
This set will appeal mainly to people interested in hearing how people of the first half of last century approached lieder. Some of them are very good, others are terrible. Many of the singers are hardly remembered today, and the liner notes tell us little about them. The liner notes give only general background information. As you would expect, texts and translations are not supplied.
-- American Record Guide
UGAB: L'univers de l'orgue - La Dalbade (France, 1888)
Franz Schubert: Impromptus Op. 90 - Sonata in B flat Major,
Mendelssohn: Elias (Recorded 1962) [Sung in German] [Live]
Beethoven: Gassenhauser Trio, Symphony No. 6
In a series of 3 albums, the Beethoven Trio Bonn explores the confrontation between one of Beethoven’s standard works for piano trio with a further “house music” arrangement of one of his orchestral works. More than providing an interesting pairing, the Beethoven Trio Bonn was keen on interpreting an original work for piano trio alongside an arrangement of an orchestral work “downsized” to piano trio format. Here the very well-known Piano Trio No. 4 (Gassenhauer) with his enormous witty playfulness (we listen to the version with the violin instead of the clarinet) and his three (!) movements is partnered with the Symphony No. 6, in an arrangement of the Brahms friend Christian Gottlieb Belcke.
Bruckner: Symphony No. 6 / Poschner, Linz Bruckner Orchestra
Start of the most comprehensive Bruckner Symphonies Edition incl. all available 19 versions. Bruckner burst out of the confines of the cathedral using that most secular of musical forms: the symphony. It is with reflexive reoccurrence in music history that supposed performance traditions burn themselves into a score as if they were a given… and the more so, the further we get from the work’s creation. So many clichés and truths about his person and his work are at last being questioned or, if they aren’t yet, are overdue some scrutiny. It is an essential aspect of this album edition to read and understand the text fresh and anew. Whence does Bruckner’s music come and whereunto does it point? With the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra Capriccio could engage two of the best Austrian orchestras for this in total 19 versions counting cycle. With about 1065 minutes of music this complete symphonic edition will be finished in 2024, when we will celebrate Bruckner’s 200th Birthday.
REVIEW:
This is the first release in what promises to be a complete cycle of all of the Bruckner symphonies in all of their various versions. It would be more exciting if the industry hadn’t already been spitting out Bruckner symphony recordings like a baseball dugout chewing tobacco, but perhaps when this series concludes, in 2024, the 200th anniversary of Bruckner’s birth, the mania will subside for a while and we can move on to other things. Of course, this assumes that the moronic apparatus known as Bruckner “scholarship” stops issuing new editions of the symphonies.
Markus Poschner’s view of the Sixth reminds me of Jochum’s. It’s a lively, rhythmically alert interpretation that permits a welcome flexibility of pulse, reserving the moments of gravity for the Adagio and such intimate passages as those in the finale’s second subject. Poschner’s careful attention to rhythm pays big dividends in the first movement’s development section, and especially in the scherzo, which is unquestionably one of the finest on disc. I do wish he had made a bit more out of the finale’s closing pages. He just plows straight through them, accepting the slight feeling of anticlimax that results; but then, that’s really Bruckner’s fault.
Of course, the Bruckner Orchestra of Linz knows the music as well as any group in existence, but what impresses most is its ability to keep it sounding so fresh. I mean, imagine growing up on a diet of Bruckner and Philip Glass symphonies. Kill me now. So good job all around, including the clean and clear engineering. Up next: the 1890 Eighth in Nowak’s edition. Keep your fingers crossed.
– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)
Schubertiade with Arpeggion (A)
Fauré: Songs For Bass Voice & Piano / Schwartz, Howat
This collection of Gabriel Fauré’s mélodies is the first recording to be conceived for a bass voice. It juxtaposes some of the composer’s best-loved songs with some of his lesser-known works. This recital program draws out connections of poets and poetic themes, some of which restore the composer’s own original groupings. This is also the first recording to be based on the new Peters Edition, which eliminates countless errors in older publications. The young American bass Jared Schwartz received the 2013 ‘People’s Choice’ Award in the American Traditions Vocal Competition.
REVIEW:
There are a total of 25 songs on this disc and each of them has been recorded with care and affection for the music of this wonderful French songwriter. Schwartz’s excellent new recording on Toccata gives us pristine sound; it is a recording that should be in the collection of everyone who loves French song.
-- Fanfare
Verdi: I Lombardi alla prima crociata / Mariotti, Teatro Regio Torino
I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata is an operatic drama in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The work is based on an epic poem by Tommaso Grossi, which was “very much a child of its age; a grand historical novel with a patriotic slant.” Verdi dedicated the score to Maria Luigia, the Habsburg Duchess of Parma, who died a few weeks after the premiere. "I Lombardi best encapsulates the spirit of the Italian people’s desire for nationhood. One would be pleasantly surprised, full as it is, of rousing choruses and musical numbers of great beauty, with music wonderfully expressive and perfectly in accord with drama at times. Visually and musically a sumptuous staging, full of contrasting colors and glorious singing for this young Verdi's rare work." (review by Alan Nelson / Operawire). American soprano Angela Meade and the Italian tenor Francesco Meli star in the main roles of this production, which is conducted by Michele Mariotti and was recorded in April 2018.
Wagner: Parsifal
Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier / Beethoven: Fidelio
Schubert: Winterreise / Held, Beskow
Music For Harp And Piano / Anna Pasetti, Michele Gioiosa
The repertoire for harp and piano is modest indeed; only Carlos Salzedo’s Sonata (1922) enjoys any currency on disc. However, the combination of plucked and keyed chromatic instruments is one that affords any number of imaginative possibilities and a broad palette of timbres, especially in the contrasting sustain and decay patterns of each instrument. For her second album on Brilliant Classics, after the critical success of ‘Dionysus and Apollo’ (95925, featuring equally rare Romantic flute and harp repertoire), Anna Pasetti explores the work of four mostly Milanese-based composers. First among them is Francesco Pollini, dedicatee of Bellini’s I Sonnambula and composer of a ‘Grande Sonate’ in a concertante style, exploiting the idiomatic contrast between the instruments to the full. The Capriccio by Benedetto Negri is written in the form of a nocturnal divertimento typical for the time: a cantabile introduction prefacing an elaborate variation set with a brilliantly figured coda. Best known of our quartet is Saverio Mercadante for his operas and florid variation sets on popular operatic themes which cling to the fringes of the instrumental repertoire, especially for flute. His rhapsodic Melodia is a chamber arrangement of a concertante work for harp and small orchestra, with an opportunity for improvised virtuosity in the form of a cadenza which Pasetti has devised for herself. Neapolitan by birth and training as an operatic composer, Lauro Rossi took charge of Milan’s conservatoire before succeeding Mercadante at the head of the Naples conservatoire. His Divertimento is an early work, dedicated to a talented pair of musician sisters, in which the piano takes the lead role, unlike the other works here.
Tradition und Vision
Wagner-Regeny: Genesis / Kalitzke, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
Despite a certain inner distance to the Communist regime, Rudolf Wagner-Régeny was considered one of the most distinguished artistic personalities in East Germany. Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan were only two of the distinguished conductors to champion his music. Although he himself was not regarded as a stylistic pioneer, the way Wagner-Régeny took up and blended old and new elements formed a highly individual musical diction that might well be defined as a personal style. Genesis (1955/56) is a blend of oratorio and cantata. It was written prior to East Germany’s ambivalent attitude towards the church. The latter represented the strongest opposition to the regime and was discriminated mainly during Walter Ulbricht’s tenure as the chairman of the Central Committee.
