Johannes Brahms’ Liebeslieder–Walzer (1869 & 1875), Op. 52 and Op. 65, are a cheerful, short, witty set of songs full of anger, joy and rejection. These part-songs are accompanied by one piano, with four hands and any number of voices can perform any selection. These enchanting works are performed as part of Barbara Hannigan’s Momentum project, which teams up new talent with more established performers. Here, tenor Nicky Spence, soprano Mary Bevan and pianist Joseph Middleton are joined by three rising stars (mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, bass William Thomas and pianist Dylan Perez) in these love songs said to have been motivated by Brahms’s unrequited love for Clara Schumann.

Dvořák composed the Biblical Songs op. 99 in 1894 during his time in America (1892-95), working as artistic director and professor of composition at the New York Conservatory of Music. His 9th Symphony, appositely termed ‘From the New World’ was to be followed by a further symphony, but Dvořák opted instead for treating the Biblical Songs, which, in their austerity, hardly allow scope for an American scent but rather are possibly reminiscent of the composer’s Czech homeland. Dvořák, the Catholic, had long demonstrated his faith with numerous works of fervent piety: Stabat Mater (1876), Requiem (1890), the Mass in D major as well as the pieces for solo voice and organ, for instance, the works that can be heard on this CD - Ave Maria, Ave Maris Stella and Hymnus ad laudes in festo Sanctae Trinitatis (1877-79) as well as the organ preludes and fugues of 1859 by the then 18-year-old composer.

VISIONS

With Serenade, Thomas Hampson's first album exclusively dedicated to French song, Mr. Hampson brings his passion for works by French opera composers to the PENTATONE label. Curated with the French Literature scholar Sylvain Fort and in a first collaboration with the Polish pianist Maciej Pikulski, the track listing includes romantic and introspective as well as humorous selections by Bizet, Chabrier, Chausson, Gounod, Magnard, Massenet, and Saint-Saëns, featuring texts written by some of France's most revered writers including Victor Hugo, Paul Verlaine, Rosemonde Gerard, and others.

REVIEW:

There are many byways through the well-stocked garden of French song for those who want to explore further afield. Thomas Hampson has put together an imaginative programme that places just a handful of well-known songs along its path, including Chabrier’s jolly parade of ducklings in “Villanelle des petits canards” and Chausson’s hothouse “Le temps des lilas."

-- Financial Times (U.K.)

Aged only 17, Schubert conducted his first complete Mass setting, in F major, D. 105, in September 1814, gaining the approval of his former teacher Antonio Salieri.

Classical Music

Spanning over 50 years of composition, Volume 18 reveals Sousa to be a master of operetta and the ‘humoresque’ just as much as the marches for which he is still referred the world over. Stag Party depicts a students’ night out via a string of imperishable popular melodies, while Among My Souvenirs sees the song lengthened into a vivid narrative ‘sketch.’ There is also the Incidental Suite from The Charlatan, one of his best-known operettas, and March of the Pan-Americans, Part 2, the national anthem spectacular. Trinity Laban Conservatoire is the UK’s only conservatoire of music and contemporary dance. As a leader in music and contemporary dance education, the conservatoire also provides exciting opportunities for the public to encounter dance and music and access arts health programmes. The staff of the conservatoire deliver unequalled expertise and experience, and their world-class facilities are housed in landmark buildings.

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REVIEW:

There is a great deal to enjoy here, and the Trinity Laban Wind Orchestra give us exhilarating performances. Much of the music seems tongue-in-cheek, particularly The Stag Party which in the nineteenth century was a student night out and nothing to do with weddings. The Merry-Merry Chorus is recorded, surprisingly, for the first time.

– Lark Reviews

Sanderling’s German tradition brings great insights to Bruckner’s 3rd Symphony, though he conducted the composer infrequently. It is a rare recording has never been issued before. (ICA Classics)

The Viennese-born Carl Czerny (1791-1857) is best remembered for his countless pedagogical studies, hundreds and hundreds of them. But his astonishing fecundity - his opus numbers go up to 861, and there is much more music than that - has obscured the fact that he was an important composer in his own right, his works forming a link between Beethoven (his teacher) and Liszt (his student), between the Classical and Romantic eras. The four pieces recorded here - two for two pianos and two for piano four-hands - were intended to impress the salons of Biedermeier Vienna. The titles of three of them contain the word 'brillant': Czerny's intention was to dazzle and entertain, and that's just what this sparkling music does.

Classical ballet's most powerful tale of love, treachery and forgiveness returns to the Royal Opera House stage. Out hunting, Prince Siegfried chances upon a flock of swans. One among them transforms into the beautiful human Odette and he is immediately enamoured. But Odette is bound by a spell which keeps her captive as a swan during the day. Can Siegfried free her? Tchaikovsky's sensational score combines with the evocative imagination of choreographer Liam Scarlett and designer John Macfarlane to heighten the dramatic pathos of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov's quintessential ballet classic. Swan Lake remains to this day one of the best-loved works in the classical ballet canon.

Linn is absolutely thrilled to launch a new recording partnership with the Consone Quartet. The first period instrument quartet to be selected as BBC New Generation Artists, the ensemble will embark on a complete Felix Mendelssohn string quartets cycle. Playing on gut strings, thus creating a warm, grainy soundworld akin to analogue photography (as violinist Agata Daraškaite puts it), the four musicians have drawn inspiration from editions of the time, including Ferdinand David’s own scrupulously marked-up parts, to present fresh accounts of the E flat major quartet ‘1823’ and Op. 44 No. 3. These two works paired together – the former is an early work, the latter is the composer’s penultimate achievement in the genre – allow for some revealing comparisons between styles at different points in Mendelssohn’s life.

Linn is thrilled to commence a new collaboration with one of the most renowned orchestras in Germany, Cologne based WDR Sinfonieorchester, with the fast-rising star of the conducting world, Cristian Măcelaru, at the helm. In this first album, the all-Dvořák program includes the composer’s Legends Op. 59 and the Czech Suite in D major, Op. 39. Initially written for piano four-hands – a highly profitable market in those days – the rather contemplative Legends were shortly later orchestrated for relatively small forces by Dvorák. Though not carrying a specific story, the ten Legends have somewhat an epic character as if they fused in one continuous narrative. The dance based Czech Suite epitomizes Dvořák’s unrivaled folk suffused writing. The four-movement work ends with a superb Furiant, which brings the album to a close.

The ultimate song cycle performed by two of today’s foremost lieder interpreters; this release is destined to become the reference recording for anyone interested in the great German song tradition. Baritone Florian Boesch’s eagerly-awaited second album on Linn presents Robert Schumann’s best-loved song cycle, Dichterliebe, Op. 48: sixteen poetic gems by Heinrich Heine which reflect on a poet’s idea of love and loss. Treated on equal terms, the piano plays a decisive role, adding extra layers whilst emphasizing and enhancing the text. The lesser-known Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner complete the programme. This recording reunites the exceptional partnership of Florian Boesch and leading song pianist Malcolm Martineau, whose previous Linn recording, Schumann & Mahler: Lieder, won the 2019 BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award. Surely the lieder recording highlight of the year!

Following his ‘glorious’ Shostakovich concertos recording which was named a BBC Music Magazine Concerto Choice, Simon Trpčeski releases his first solo piano album for Linn. Hailed for his powerful virtuosity, deeply expressive approach and charismatic stage presence, the pianist has recorded five sets of variations by Mozart, Brahms, and Beethoven. In addition to Mozart’s simple, elegant Variations on Salve tu Domine, and his practically unknown Variations on Come un agnello, the recital includes Brahms’s multi-layered, highly romantic Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op. 9, plus Beethoven’s Variations on the Russian Dance, whose classical style belies the composer’s quintessential fierceness. Beethoven’s substantial Variations on an Original Theme in C minor, whose eight-measure theme based on a descending chromatic bass sets off a whirlwind of uninterrupted variations, draws the recital to a close. The wide range of emotions expressed in these variations showcase Trpčeski’s own extraordinary range.

This album features a unique recording of Die schöne Müllerin (The Beautiful Maid of the Mill), one that stands apart from most interpretations. It is the first performance of this song cycle in Poland-and one of the first worldwide-by a countertenor, accompanied by a historical piano. The high register of the countertenor amplifies the sense of innocence and the intensity of the protagonist's emotions-a young miller tragically in love. Written by the 26-year-old Franz Schubert, Die schöne Müllerin is now regarded as one of the pinnacles of the Romantic lieder tradition. The music is not merely an accompaniment to the text, but a complete entity in itself, responding to the subtlest shifts in the character's emotions while masterfully painting the backdrop for the unfolding drama. Although the love story does not have a happy ending, the overall tone of the work remains surprisingly light-hearted, perhaps reflecting the bittersweet nature of the narrative. It is in this delicate balance that the secret to the enduring popularity of Die schöne Müllerin lies. The cycle offers a brief escape, allowing listeners and performers alike to immerse themselves in a world that no longer exists, yet still moves the imagination with equal power.

The first Polish recording of the full cycle of Franz Liszt's Transcendental Etudes in their final version from 1851. Radoslaw Sobczak is a pianist equally endowed with virtuoso instinct and great musical sensitivity; his recitals have graced prestigious events on four continents; winner of an honourable mention in the International Chopin Piano Competition. On the album, he faces one of the most demanding piano pieces, the difficulty of which lies not only in the technical layer, but also, and perhaps especially, in the musical one. Behind the extremely dense texture and the cascades of chords and passages, there is the composer's musical idea, and sometimes even programmatic contents - as in the famous Mazeppa etude. Out of the rush of sounds, lyrical motifs emerge, while complex harmonies reflect an entire range of emotions that need to be conveyed to the listeners. The artist copes with this challenge excellently; his pianism perfectly harmonizes with the spirit of Liszt's virtuosity. Metaphysics and contemplation collide in his interpretations with the saturated, deep sound of the piano.

This BR-KLASSIK CD features recordings of concerts on February 28 and March 1, 2013 in the Philharmonie im Gasteig.

Zubin Mehta is closely associated with the city of Munich and the orchestras based there. From 1998 to 2006, he was General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and has similarly close ties with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Tchaikovsky wrote his Symphony No. 5 in E minor, op. 64, the so-called "Fate Symphony,” in 1888. All four movements of the work are permeated by the so-called “fate” theme. Together with his fourth and sixth (“Pathétique”) symphonies, the fifth is one of Tchaikovsky's most popular.

Franz Liszt's symphonic poem "Mazeppa" is based on a poem by Victor Hugo and uses musical material from the composer’s fourth "Etude d'exécution transcendante" from 1846. The symphonic poem was composed in 1850 during Liszt's tenure as court conductor in Weimar, and was first performed on April 16, 1854. Liszt's symphonic poem describes the wild ride across the steppe of the emaciated and exhausted Ivan Masepa (Mazeppa), tied to the back of a horse. He is finally rescued by Cossacks, who take him to Ukraine.

Frank Almond’s life is intertwined with that of his violin, the “Lipin´ski” Strad, an exceptional instrument named for the famed 19th-century Polish violinist Karol Lipin´ski and first owned by legendary 18th-century Italian composer-violinist Giuseppe Tartini, represented on A Violin’s Life, Volume 3 by his Sonata Prima in D, Op. 2, a trio sonata in all but name. The masterful Piano Trio in E flat by 19th-century Swedish virtuosa Amanda Meier connects with the instrument that had passed on to her future father-in-law Engelbert Ro¨ntgen. Another great Nordic composer, Edvard Grieg, opens the album with his great Sonata No. 3 in C minor.

The legend of the Lipin´ski Strad went viral in 2014 when, following a concert, walking towards his car, Frank Almond was tasered by an assailant and the prized instrument was stolen. An FBI pursuit resulted in the recovery of the instrument within weeks. International media ensued on the BBC, NPR, and a feature in Vanity Fair. An award-winning documentary film “Plucked” premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. Frank Almond’s critically acclaimed and chart-topping recordings of A Violin’s Life are now a trilogy. The “Lipin´ski” Strad lives on.

The unsuspected summits of virtuosity Playing fast and loud... Letting the rapidity of your fingers go to your head... Is this really the definition of virtuosity? Virtuosity has it's origins in 'virtue'; a set of moral qualities, before evolving into something purely technical. By choosing works by Brahms, Mozart, and Liszt, Michel Dalberto will take us on the lengthy journey towards an increased understanding of these pieces. The difficulty of performing them is just one of the ways in which the texts take on their full meaning. So that the scores can reveal the full genius of their creator. Their humanity.

Tomasz Ritter, winner of the Bruges Festival Competition 2024, here follows the traditional overview of Beethoven's musical language and devotes his recital to three sonatas drawn from the three creative periods: op. 2/1 (1795), op. 31/3 (1802) and op. 109 (1820). Ritter has also chosen three instruments that are close to those Beethoven played and reflect the evolution of piano construction: two Viennese instruments copied from originals by Anton Walter and Nanette Streicher, and an original Broadwood piano that is almost identical to the one the famous English piano maker gave the composer.

In January 1973, the Theater Bern put Rossini's early opera buffa "L'equivoco stravagante" on the program in a German text version created for Bern, thus creating a veritable theatrical sensation. The work was performed fifteen times and even had to be included in the 1973/74 schedule - unusual for a municipal theater that did not maintain a so-called repertory business like large opera houses. Responsible for the great success, which caused surprise throughout the German-speaking world, was a perfectly coordinated ensemble under the direction of the phenomenal general music director EWALD KÖRNER. The performance was recorded in stereo by Swiss Radio DRS in the Bern studio after the season. It is thanks to this circumstance that the "Berner version" of the rather lesser-known buffa can now be presented on 2 albums, thanks to the research of RELIEF, in excellent sound quality, with an exemplary booklet and the libretto of the Berner performance.

Beethoven wrote in his diary that he wanted “to show the British what a treasure they have in God Save the King”, a reference to his set of variations on the national anthem, composed in 1803. Sarah Beth Briggs recorded the virtuoso set precisely one month before the passing of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, and the recording heralds the coronation of King Charles III in May 2023. The lesser-known Variations on an Original Theme in F major (1802) represent Beethoven the revolutionary. Uniquely, each variation was written in a different key which would have jarred the ears of the composer’s contemporaries. Sarah Beth Briggs’ collection of Variations underlines a lineage of the genre through the classical and Romantic eras. Opening the program is 9 Variations on a Minuet by Duport by Mozart, whom Beethoven greatly admired. The work takes a theme by cellist Jean-Pierre Duport, chamber music director of the court of the Prussian King, Friedrich Wilhelm II, from whom the composer hoped to gain favor. Mendelssohn’s Variations Serieuses was written as a tribute to Beethoven, and was included in an album of works that raised funds for the now famous bronze statue of Beethoven in Bonn. Mendelssohn’s near contemporary Brahms paid tribute to his troubled friend Robert Schumann, using a melody from Bunte Blätter (“Colorful Leaves”) in his poignant Variations on a Theme by Schumann.

REVIEWS:

Briggs’ execution is fluidly graceful and well-modulated. She approaches this repertoire with a studied care that betrays a love for the period and composers.

-- Wild Mercury Rhythm

All nine of Mozart’s Variations on a Theme by Jean-Pierre Duport, K 573 are quite delicate, sounding here almost as if they were played on a toy piano. Only the finale includes authoritative sounds. Beethoven’s 7 Variations on `God Save the King’ is sturdier; I especially enjoy the lively, witty, chordal IV. Also included is Beethoven’s 6 Variations on an Original Theme. In Variations Serieuses, Mendelssohn managed to write 17 imaginative ones. That number only slightly outdoes Brahms, who came up with 16 Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann. Lovely music, elegant playing.

-- American Record Guide

Teeming with comedy, wit and an abundance of bravura choreography, Carlos Acosta's production brings the Spanish heat and romance of Miguel de Cervantes' classic novel Don Quixote to life. Often regarded as the first modern novel, Cervantes' epic regales the chivalrous adventures of the eccentric nobleman Don Quixote (Gary Avis) and his faithful squire Sancho Panza (Liam Boswell). The ballet focuses on one of their adventures, where they help to bring a vivacious young couple, Kitri (Mayara Magri) and Basilio (Matthew Ball), together.

"DEFINITELY year's-best list material." --Iowa Public Radio

The Knights, the bold Brooklyn-based orchestral collective, embody the spirit of exploration with The Kreutzer Project, a program that posits Tolstoy’s response to Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata: What exactly is it? I don’t understand. What is music? What does it do? And why does it do what it does?

Beethoven and Tolstoy in turn inspired Czech composer Leoš Janácek, whose first string quartet is also called “Kreutzer Sonata”. The Knights’ response to these iconoclastic touchstones is to reimagine the Beethoven as a “Kreutzer Concerto”, arranged by The Knights’ co-founder Colin Jacobsen, who is also the orchestrated version’s violin soloist; and the Janácek as orchestrated by The Knights’ co-founder and conductor Eric Jacobsen. They keep the canon going with Colin’s newly-composed “Kreutzings”, which makes buried allusions to both Beethoven and Janácek; and a commission from Anna Clyne, whose piece “Shorthand” takes its title from a line in Tolstoy’s novella: “music is the shorthand of emotion”.

REVIEW

Arranged by Colin Jacobsen as an orchestral concerto, the “Kreutzer” Sonata explodes into a promethean supernova. The opening bars (also performed by Jacobsen) are played with familiarity and a seemingly deliberate avoidance of showmanship. But then the expected texture of a piano is replaced by woodwinds, offering even more melancholy in the minor key through the hints of oboe and bassoon. The call-and-response echoes aspects of Beethoven’s actual Violin Concerto, and underscores a line in Tolstoy’s own Beethoven-inspired The Kreutzer Sonata: “It seemed to me that he was weary of his solitude.” 

The dramatic potential that can get lost with the wrong pianist (or even simply the wrong listening session) is fully unpacked here, laid out like a sprawling dinner service for 20; crystal stemware gleaming, flatware catching the glint of tapered candles.

The Knights’s “Kreutzer Project” is built on the foundation of Beethoven, bookended by Janáček’s String Quartet No. 1 “Kreutzer Sonata.” This work owes more to Tolstoy’s story, which focuses on a man who kills his unfaithful wife in a Beethoven-fuelled frenzy.

The Knights are no strangers to making orchestrated chamber works come to life in glittering multidimensionality...[but] it could have been overselling to call two works a “project.” Which is why they’ve recorded four, with Colin Jacobsen’s “Kreutzings” and Anna Clyne’s “Shorthand.” Clyne [introduces] the weedy world of Janáček while also riffing on the second movement of Beethoven’s sonata. Her natural predilection for thorny timbres and phantasmal texture work well with the Czech composer’s overgrown paths and houses of the dead, and soloist Karen Ouzounian plays with a voracious, burnished tone, as though the 11-minute work were a full concerto. Perhaps it should be.

--Van Magazine (Olivia Giovetti)

This album features three masterpieces by composers deeply connected to Vienna, two of whom-Haydn and Beethoven-earned the timeless title of "Viennese Classics," while Schubert, ever the bold innovator, explored new musical territories in their shadow. Created within less than fifty years, these works reveal the evolution of the piano sonata genre and the eventual rejection of it's conventional form-from Haydn's Sonata in E Major, which straddles the line between the galant style and fully developed classicism, to Schubert's avant-garde and extravagantly Romantic Fantasy in C Major, a work far ahead of it's time. Schubert's innovation would not have been possible without Beethoven's influence. Beethoven's late-period Sonata in E Major, written just two years earlier, serves as a bridge between the two, clearly paving the way toward a pre-Romantic expressive style. Mariusz Ciolko, an internationally performing artist, pedagogue, and competition juror, brings a unique interpretation to this demanding piano repertoire. He masterfully balances classical elegance with Romantic virtuosity, offering a performance that captures both the technical brilliance and emotional depth of these iconic works.

In a dreamlike vision of Spain, where scorching sun meets simmering tensions, Carmen embodies a magnetic, defiant figure driven by one desire: to live free. Around her, hearts falter-from Don José, the soldier consumed by obsessive love, to Escamillo, the flamboyant toreador. With Carmen, Georges Bizet created more than an opera; he composed a theatre of human passion, where romantic impulses, wounded pride, and an ominous sense of fate collide. Premiered in 1875 to a reception of near indifference, the work has since claimed it's place as one of the great pinnacles of Western operatic art. This recording, brought to life by an outstanding cast and a sharply defined musical interpretation, captures the full modernity and emotional power of Bizet's score-affirming Carmen as a revolutionary work that remains as vibrant and resonant as ever.

All the sacred spirit of the Romantic era is embodied in these pages: Gabriel Faure's Requiem offers itself without artifice, frank and generous. Begun in 1887 and carefully reworked over the years, the work unfolds with a spiritual fervour bathed in a halo of crystalline honesty, carried by a fluid choral writing. Victor Jacob conducts the Orchestre de l'Opera Royal in revealing the 1893 version, the first complete edition of this masterpiece. Selected works by Brahms, Schubert, Rossini, and Rheinberger bridge the divine and the secular, transforming this album into a journey steeped in depth and melancholy, where the purity of the score draws the listener's mind into unsuspected reveries.

Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian has travelled far and wide, as an international opera star and an Armenian who was born in Lebanon, immigrated to Canada, and is now settled in southern California. Her life is a journey that informs her new recording, La Zingarella: Through Romany Songland. “The music transcends geography,” she says. “It taps into human nature and unites us all. It’s about freedom of the spirit, about living life without knowing what tomorrow holds. It’s about enjoying every single minute.” Isabel embarked on an album of art songs that draw on Romani melodies – Brahms’ Zigeunerlieder, Dvorák’s Cigánské Melodie, Bizet’s Habanera – and while those appear here, her journey also led to a wealth of recherché gems.

The title track by French composer Maurice Yvain commingles with fellow-operetta composers Franz Lehár (‘Lied und Csárdás’ from Zigeunerliebe), Emmerich Kálmán (‘Heia, heia, in den Bergen’ from The Csárdás Princess) and Victor Herbert ("Gypsy Love Song" from The Fortune Teller). Two South American Gypsy Songs by American folk song collector Henry F.B. Gilbert set words by ethnomusicologist Laura Alexandrine Smith, whose book lends the album its subtitle. The ever-adventurous Isabel commissioned new arrangements for the songs on this album, with violin, viola, cello, and piano lending a laser beam lucidity to the music that “has a lot of fire in it,” she says with a glint in her eye.

REVIEWS:

Bayrakdarian reigns supreme here. She is nominally a soprano, but her range extends well below the treble staff. She takes on Liszt’s opening `3 Gypsies’ and the succeeding Brahms and Dvorak sets with assurance, and when she moves on to Sebastian Iradier she cleverly follows his `Habanera’ with Bizet’s, so obviously based on it and so obviously a natural improvement in carrying the opening scale further down. The latter half of the disc is excerpts from operettas: Maurice Yvain’s Chanson Gitane, Franz Lehar’s Zigeunerliebe, Emmerich Kalman’s Czardasfurstin, and Victor Herbert’s Fortune Teller. The distance from Romany originals is greatest here, and yet I hear, not cultural appropriation, but cultural appreciation.

-- American Record Guide

Bayrakdarian is in fine voice and exuberant high spirits for these mostly high-spirited selections, yet poignant or sensuous when appropriate. This exhilarating cross-cultural excursion is enthusiastically recommended.

-- The Whole Note (Canada)

For his ballet Tchaikovsky Overtures, Alexei Ratmansky chose overtures by Pyotr Tchaikovsky which the composer had created in various stages of his life for concert performance. Content-wise, these musical works draw on the dramas of William Shakespeare: Hamlet, The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet. Although Alexei Ratmansky clearly has not created a narrative ballet, the narrative motifs from these three of Shakespeare's plays appear on the surface of the choreographic structure time and again, thus, Shakespeare's 'voice' serves as the foundation for both the dance action on stage and the music resonating from the orchestra pit. Traditionally, overtures are heard at the beginning of an opera or a ballet and carry over into a plot. In Alexei Ratmansky's Tchaikovsky Overtures, however, overture follows on overture, whereby a new beginning is truly followed by another one. Interwoven into this is a fundamental pledge of the theatre to have a new world appear with every opening of the curtains and to set a beginning that opens in the future. With the devices and resources of classical and neo-classical ballet, Alexei Ratmansky continuously refers in his choreography to the history of dance art. We should not forget here that ballet literally had to fight to survive in different epochs. The hope that factual reality would dissolve into something dance-like also constantly resonates here. Opalescent in character, the "Fantasy Overtures", the generic name of the orchestral pieces chosen from Tchaikovsky's oeuvre to be performed in the ballet program, become ideal templates for a ballet, which must also be understood as fantasizing. They represent a fantasy about the role of classical ballet today, the memories it carries, and how it might shape it's future.

For his ballet Tchaikovsky Overtures, Alexei Ratmansky chose overtures by Pyotr Tchaikovsky which the composer had created in various stages of his life for concert performance. Content-wise, these musical works draw on the dramas of William Shakespeare: Hamlet, The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet. Although Alexei Ratmansky clearly has not created a narrative ballet, the narrative motifs from these three of Shakespeare's plays appear on the surface of the choreographic structure time and again, thus, Shakespeare's 'voice' serves as the foundation for both the dance action on stage and the music resonating from the orchestra pit. Traditionally, overtures are heard at the beginning of an opera or a ballet and carry over into a plot. In Alexei Ratmansky's Tchaikovsky Overtures, however, overture follows on overture, whereby a new beginning is truly followed by another one. Interwoven into this is a fundamental pledge of the theatre to have a new world appear with every opening of the curtains and to set a beginning that opens in the future. With the devices and resources of classical and neo-classical ballet, Alexei Ratmansky continuously refers in his choreography to the history of dance art. We should not forget here that ballet literally had to fight to survive in different epochs. The hope that factual reality would dissolve into something dance-like also constantly resonates here. Opalescent in character, the "Fantasy Overtures", the generic name of the orchestral pieces chosen from Tchaikovsky's oeuvre to be performed in the ballet program, become ideal templates for a ballet, which must also be understood as fantasizing. They represent a fantasy about the role of classical ballet today, the memories it carries, and how it might shape it's future.