This recording of the 1993 Schwetzingen Festival has already achieved cult status. The then, 78 year old Sviatoslav Richter plays for the first and last time in public Gershwin's jazzy Concerto in F-sharp. Gershwin's works had always been suspect under the Soviet regime. All the more surprising was Richter's decision to perform this work in his maturity. Needless to say, Richter never made a formal, studio recording of this work. It is not only a unique recording, but also a document of Richter's expansive interest in all musical repertoires than came under his purview. The Fifth Piano Concerto by Camille Saint-Saëns was eclipsed by the same composer's more popular "Second" Concerto throughout Richter's performing career. With the exception of one album, he never again recorded this work and there is no record that he ever again performed it internationally. With this concert, there can be no dispute that we are dealing with a real rarity.

In 2013, Florian Uhlig released a recording with French Piano Concertos and it received excellent reviews from critics all over the world and became one of that year's bestsellers. Uhlig is here again, accompanied by the German Radio Philharmonic under Pablo Gonzales - a collaboration which already made his first recording a massive success. This album contains again, piano concertos by Ravel and Francaix, which supplement the concertos of the 2013 album, and rarely performed and very imaginative works for piano and orchestra with concert character by Germaine Tailleferre and Nadia Boulanger. Tailleferre's Ballad for Piano and Orchestra passed through different phases from 1920 - 1922, starting as a pure orchestral work, then becoming a solo piece, and then finally as work with concerto character in the final version. Boulanger originates from a musical family and is famous for her pedagogical passion. Among the concertos on this album, her work was inspired by her idols Cesar Franck and Sergei Rachmaninov.

This release is the 10th in a unique collection of popular German songs, performed by Fritz Wunderlich, this album focusing on recordings from the 1950's and 60's. It is well known that Wunderlich was an exceptional singer, yet it never fails to surprise when hearing him singing works from different genres and discovering how he developed from his early performances to later in his career. This album focuses on the recordings which began his career and the sames repertoire which he later returned to with a more mature sound and approach. Both this release and all future volumes contain recordings that Wunderlich made for the company from which SWR grew. They are only available here.

If there is a country famous for its reservoir of extraordinary musicians and its significant composers in particular, then it's Finland, which is all the more astonishing when you consider the size of its population - Finald has 5.5 million inhabitants. The country's distinguished tradition of music-making is fundamental to this reputation for artistic excellence. Finland can be rightly called a "country of singers". Even when it comes to contemporary compositions, traditional music always plays an essencential role in the pieces, contributing to their accessibility. This collection of Finish choral music includes works by renowned composers of the last century: Jean Sibelius, Einojuhani Rautavaara and Kaija Saariaho. This album provides a definitive and entertaining cross-section of the most important Finish choral music, it also coincides with the 100th anniversary of Finland's independence.

This is the fifth and final installment of the Strauss Complete Tone Poems Cycle performed by the Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg under their chief conductor Francois-Xavier Roth. The other volumes in this cycle have been positively reviewed all over the world. The orchestra and conductor are a perfect match for Richard Strauss’ lively and ecstatic music. Completed on New Year’s Eve, 1903, Strauss’ Symphonia domestica, like his ensuing final tone poem, Eine Alpensinfonie, are paradoxically termed ‘symphonies.’ Symphonic poems are usually based on an extra-musical programme, while the genre of the symphony embodies the concept of absolute music, intended as a counter-world to reality. Strauss disregarded this separation and designed the Symphonia domestica as a symphony, but with a programme, namely “a symphonic self-and family-portrait.” The composer depicts both himself, his wife, and his son in various musical tableaux. Revolving around the banalities of everyday life, the music has a twinkle in its eye.

“For me jazz music is without bounds, a sanctuary for creativity,” says the Cuban-born and New York-based pianist Fabian Almazan. This is apparent in all the exciting aspects of his double album: Almazan made use of the time during the SWR NEWJazz Meeting to create music that he cannot under conventional conditions. When in 2015 the jazz department of the broadcasting station SWR gave him a blank check for the SWR NEWJazz Meeting, he spontaneously assembled for the improvisation sound lab the band “Realm of Possibilities.” It is comprised of six ambitious performers who are the spearhead of the young New York scene but who worked together for the first time in the band: Anna Webber (tenor sax, flute), Ryan Ferreira (guitar), Chris Dingman (vibraphone), Linda Oh (bass) and Henry Cole (drums). All of them are strong creative personalities, with extremely different musical backgrounds.

This album showcases one of Ginette Neveu's last recordings of Beethoven's concerto, recorded only weeks before her death. The Brahms Concerto was recorded live in 1948 and the Beethoven Concerto was also recorded live in 1949.

Karel Mark Chichon leads the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie through a passionate, colorful and meticulously prepared interpretation of Dvorak's Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4. This release is the third installment of SWR Klassik's Dvorak Symphony Cycle.

This third volume of our Michael Gielen Edition is devoted to music by Johannes Brahms, with all the recordigns taken from the archives of the Southwest German Radio. These recordings were made between April 1989 and January 2005. Michael Gielen enjoyed a felicitous involvement with Brahms' chamber music, particularly the late piano works where, in Schoenberg's words, the "progressive Brahms" is most evident. Maybe that's why Brahms' first piano quartet, orchestrated by Arnold Shcoenberg, sounds so ravishingly sharp under Gielen's direction. The solemnity of Schicksaslied calls for sincere commitment on the part of the conductor. Working as one, the Symphony Orchestra of Baden-Baden and Freiburg and Michael Gielen achieve an interpretation of this work that is both balanced and comforting.

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REVIEW:

Gielen proposes we listen to Brahms for the sake of his musical arguments rather than for the lustrous sounds that he's capable of conjuring, an approach that seems eminently sensible, and a valid alternative to various fleshier interpretive options.

– Gramophone

Fritz Wunderlich's early recording of Bach's Christmas Oratorio, from a performance in the Stuttgart Markuskirche in 1955, presents the singer of the century at the beginning of his career. The other performances in this collection took place between 1955 and 1959 - they are studio recordings, all of them rarities from Wunderlich's repertoire, which exist only in this early series of Stuttgart radio productions.

The Ballets Russes was a series of ballet events held in Paris between 1909 and 1929, founded by the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev. The series Diaghilev - Les ballets russes, which has been supported for man years now by SWR, has committed itself to presenting all of the works composed for and by this series.

Annie Fischer enjoys a singular reputation within the great tradition of Hungarian pianists due to her deeply moving and romantically intimate performances. She became famous and admired on account of her uncompromising spiritually absorbing interpretations. Like many other musicians, Fischer only left behind a few studio recordings however the few that were left became benchmark interpretations.

Genoa native Niccolò Paganini revolutionized violin playing like no other who came before or after him. Paganini was a solitary genius who, drive to constant advancement by a father whose methods verged on torture, pursued his path relentlessly from the Italian province to world success. These concertos did not appear until after Paganini's death. The recordings on this release were made in 1968 under the direction of Ernest Bour, whose attention was devoted to accuracy, clarity and elegance.

Thematically, this collection of great Polish choral works turns between religion, war and Polish folk culture. The wide range and compositional depth of the pieces are simply spectacular. Considering Poland's turbulent political history, it is surprising that the country has produced so many outstanding composers, particularly those of the 20th century such as Karol Szymanowski, Krzystof Penderecki and Witold Lutoslawski.

Maurice Ravel's predilection for fantasy worlds and exotic ambience can be heard in many of his orchestral works. Even as a student he composed the Ouverture de Sheherezade and had planned to write an opera based on the fairytales of teh Arabian Nights. in the end, all that remains are three poems for voice and orchestra. Stéphanie d'Oustrac sings these songs rapturously and with exactly the right feel for oriental opulence.