The lasting fame of conductor Karl Böhm is based on qualities that were praised by listeners, musicians and critics throughout his long career: his discipline and meticulousness when rehearsing compositions as well as his modesty, his willingness to take second place to work and composer. After many years serving as principal conductor in several opera houses he left his administrative duties behind and embarked on an international career as an acclaimed guest, concert and opera conductor. He was regularly invited by the New York Met and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, to the festivals in Salzburg (as of 1938) and Bayreuth (as of 1962), he gave guest performances from Tokyo to Moscow, from Milan to Buenos Aires, and at the broadcasting corporations in Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt and Stuttgart where he was invited whenever there was something important to celebrate.

The Radio Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart (formerly known under a few different names and since 2016 merged with its sister from Baden-Baden and Freiburg to form the SWR Symphonieorchester) not only played in its home region, the Southwest of Germany, but toured extensively all over Europe. It has a catalogue of several hundreds of recordings and accompanied during its history many famous soloists. Branka Musulin was an extraordinary pianist who worked with some of the most important conductors of her time, among them Willem Mengelberg, Hermann Abendroth, Franz Konwitschny, Georg Solti and Sergiu Celibidache.

For many decades the orchestras of the German broadcasting service SWR have worked together with many famous musicians from all over the world, including the outstanding pianists selected for this collection, among them Clara Haskil, Jörg Demus, Paul Badura-Skoda, Alicia de Larrocha, Wilhelm Backhaus, and Géza Anda. Furthermore, Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau (1903–1991) is regarded as one of the supreme keyboard masters of the 20th century and must feature in any comparative survey of performances of the central repertoire from Beethoven to Brahms. Annie Fischer (1914–1995), a pupil of Ernst von Dohnányi later went on to make some legendary recordings with Otto Klemperer. Friedrich Gulda (1930–2000) polarized the music scene by embracing the parallel worlds of classical music and jazz in equal measure. He was not only one of the most brilliant pianists of the 20th century with regard to tone and technique, but also one of the wittiest and most musically competent. For decades Wilhelm Kempff (1895–1991) was seen as the leading interpreter of German music from Beethoven and Schubert through Schumann and Liszt to Brahms.

In addition to his popular compositions such as orchestral works and chamber music, György Ligeti also wrote vocal music, among them numerous and demanding a cappella choral works. These, just like his canonically treated instrumental works, reflect his changes of style. With the exception of the Latin 'Lux aeterna' (1966) and 'Three Fantasias' based on Friedrich Hölderlin (1982) Ligeti exclusively set Hungarian poetry to music, showing a marked preference for texts by Balint Balassa (1554-1594) and Sándor Weöres (1913-1989). Ligeti wanted to set the respective contents to music programmatically but focussed especially on particular phonetic sound sequences, rhythms, intonations and accentuations of the Hungarian language. Translations of this speech music are nigh on impossible and even dispensable as you do not have to understand the words in order to experience the choral works as music that is rich in tone colours, rhythmically concise and extremely expressive. The radio choir of SWR is one of the international top ensembles on the professional choir scene. Ever since the ensemble was founded almost 75 years ago it has devoted its passion and extraordinary vocal competence to exemplary performances and the further development of vocal music. Award-winning Yuval Weinberg has been the chief conductor of the SWR Vokalensemble since the beginning of the season 2020/2021.

Shostakovich never wrote an original composition entitled “Chamber Symphony”. Works known under this title are arrangements of the composer’s string quartets by the conductor Rudolf Barshai and authorized by the composer. The String Quartet No. 1, Op. 49 was written in 1938, after the Great Terror from 1937 and can be considered as an act of inner emigration. The String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 was written 22 years later, within three days, from 12 to 14 July 1960, in the Saxon health resort of Gohrisch. The Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op. 35, written in 1933, is one of the last works written in Shostakovich’s first creative period which was not yet overshadowed by Stalinist repressions and is peppered with a great deal of parodistic allusions. With the present recordings the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie under its young, energetic chief conductor Pietari Inkinen draws a dramaturgically convincing bow across Shostakovich's work.

REVIEW:

Long feted by Japanese collectors, Schuricht had less credit than was his due in a Karajan-dominated postwar Europe, and his records were discussed in highly patronizing terms in the West as late as the 1970s.

On the day, Schuricht’s approach to Mahler 2 is not so far removed from the ancient Oskar Fried account, in tempo and tone. There’s a Berlioz edge to the “O glaube” orchestral sections, and in the Allegro. Schuricht also invokes Liszt (Dante Symphony especially) as much as Bruckner and Wagner, as one of the work’s godfathers. This helps make the Allegro into a bracing and exciting journey, rather than a portentous experience, ending with a quiet echo of the Liszt Sonata. It lacks the inevitable symphonic tread of a great Klemperer reading of Mahler 2, but it’s tense and unsettling. The “paradise” theme is slow and nicely phrased, though the winds and strings do not always keep it together. But early hopes are not dashed in the first movement.

The colorful sprawl of the Finale is also Lisztian (and Delius-like in some of the detail, perhaps). This recording probably won’t convince you the cinematic fifth movement is a masterpiece, if you’re an agnostic, but the second half is direct, and moving. The scale of expression is human, without layers of religioso varnish, or apocalyptic apoplexy. The pause just before “Sterben” is a shade too long, as Schuricht applies the brakes. The final choral hymn feels less like a church service than usual, and it’s quite a joyous release, at a moderate speed.

The Mahler plays for a shade under 80 minutes, and one disc would have been enough. It’s a shame to restrict a recommendation, except to Schuricht enthusiasts with deep wallets. But the Haydn 86th is so opulently scored the immediate effect is substantial, and it is not dwarfed by Mahler. The radio sound, from May 20, 1954, is fine, and while the orchestra sometimes cuts corners, the performance has some enjoyable sections, if it’s also rather tense. The opening is heavy and slipshod, but the stern Largo of the Capriccio is matched by the drive of the Finale. Look elsewhere for Tom and Jerry fun and games in your Haydn. This Menuetto is tough and quite ugly, dancing in as if to collect your protection money. Unlike the Mahler Second, the “Paris” symphony is not over-recorded, and this version does mature Haydn some mature and old-fashioned, if occasionally rough justice.

The instrumental coda suggests arrival at one of those dumbfounding crosses men have hauled to the summit of many Austrian Alps. Ironically, they disappear from thought once you reach them, just as soon as you experience the view from the top. Before your own climb is over, by all means hear this interesting, untidy, and modest Schuricht reading of Mahler 2, a young person’s truly unruly symphony.

-- Fanfare

REVIEW:

Among quartets that dominated the recorded chamber music scene during the period from the 1960s through to the 1990s, two in particular stand out for their refinement and perfectionist attention to detail. Although the Juilliard Quartet has in general fared well on CD, much of Sony’s ‘Epic’ Juilliard legacy has yet to reappear. Like the Juilliards, the Tokyo Quartet excelled in Bartók. Their superb 1975-80 set of the quartets for DG, recorded in London and New York, has just come out on DG Eloquence (480 7120) but a rival version of the First Quartet, recorded some eight years before the DG version—just two years after the ensemble was formed—has recently been released by Hänssler Classic as part of a recital from the 1971 Schwetzingen Festival. Personnel-wise, only the second violinist is different (Yoshiko Nakura would be replaced by Kikue Ikeda). The performances of Bartók’s First Quartet are conceptually similar: if you cast an eye across comparative timings, the third ‘movement’ opens at different points of the score on each disc, though in general the 1971 live performance trades pointillist precision for a more robust approach. Likewise Beethoven’s Harp Quartet, where the Presto tears off at a terrific lick, though much else is poised and the work’s closing moments have impressive panache. My favourite performance, though, is Berg’s Quartet, Op 3, the second movement awash with shifting textures and expressive gestures. That one item alone makes the CD a pretty enticing prospect.

-- Gramophone

Although Marilyn Horne was 58 years old at the time of this concert, no weakness clouded the beauty of her voice. Among the recordings over the course of Horne's career, there are many Rossini operas. This all-Rossini program shows that she could convincingly dominate the smaller forms as well.

REVIEW:

Little needs be said about Marilyn Horne, one of the greatest singers of all time, with a highly distinctive voice, immediately recognizable and colorful, a deep sense of musicality, and a vocal technique that is awe-inspiring. No ornamentation, no roulade, no trill, not the longest phrase, were beyond her phenomenal breath control. Add to this her almost magical personality.

Liederabend does need a word of explanation. The Liederbands (Liederabenden) were an extensive series of vocal recitals (over 60 years) performed at the Schwetzingen South- West Radio (Germany) Festivals. For all its touting as a Liederabend Horne’s program is all-Italian, all-Rossini (a Horne specialty). 19 songs, early and late, familiar and unfamiliar; all musical delights. Among the better known are ‘La pastorella’, ‘Bolero’, ‘La molinara’, the arias ‘Cruda sorte!’ (Italiana in Algeri and ‘Di tanti palpiti’ Tancredi. A few from ‘Sins of my Old Age’ are included.

Here is a great singer at the top of her form with most entertaining music. No texts, but a biography of Horne and a history of the Festival are included.

-- American Record Guide

REVIEW:

Furtwängler famously considered himself a composer who conducted, rather than vice versa, and his most familiar surviving work is without question his Second Symphony. It’s a lovable outpouring composed in the last year of the Second World War but that has both its head and its heart buried among the dying embers of late Romanticism. Bruckner, Strauss, Brahms and Reger are all there in attendance and, although the work is well worth sampling, one laments the fact that, while we have at least four recordings of Furtwängler conducting it, we have none of him conducting the Missa solemnis or Parsifal. The 1954 Stuttgart RSO recording of Furtwänger’s Second, reissued here by Hänssler Classic, comes paired with a typically marmoreal account of Beethoven’s First. Both performances are characteristic...it’s nice to have seven minutes’ worth of Furtwängler in (German) conversation with the conductor Hans Müller-Kray, a privilege included only on the Hänssler Classic set.

-- Gramophone

The fifth and final installment of the Géza Anda's SWR recordings, and the first performance (and first recording) by Anda of Bartok’s Second Piano Concerto, which he later helped to receive worldwide recognition. Géza Anda is a representative of artistic honesty, a pianist with deep insight into the works he performed. These are the first and last concert recordings Anda recorded with the SWR - from 1950 and 1973 – available for the first time on a single CD!

REVIEWS:

Géza Anda gave these concerto performances with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, almost a quarter of a century apart. The disc thus documents a musician who had developed and matured over a period of a generation, playing two works strongly associated with him. But one concerto was as yet not solidly part of his repertoire—it had yet to be stabilised interpretatively. It is thus fascinating to hear his performance of his compatriot Bartók’s Second Concerto, here given with conductor Hans Müller-Kray in November 1950.

This 1950 visit was Anda’s first to the SWR orchestra but he was to return several more times. In 1973 he and Ferdinand Leitner performed the Tchaikovsky First—the same year the BBC taped him in Bartók’s Second [BBCL 4247-2]. As ever in this work—witness, say, another of his German broadcasts in his earlier collaboration with Solti and the Cologne Radio Symphony in 1958 [ICA Classics ICAC5092]—he marries poetic finesse and triumphant virtuosity. There are moments of spellbinding lyricism, as well as dramatic flourishes, none of which are marred by thumping. He was ever a natural poet of the keyboard, but one who could roar with the best of them. Fortunately the recorded sound here is excellent, and whilst some orchestral detail is smudged and there are some passing ensemble incidents this is a galvanizing reading through and through.

For Anda admirers here is an opportunity to hear his Bartók concerto in embryo, and to take pleasure in his Tchaikovsky.

-- MusicWeb International

REVIEW:

Hungarian virtuoso Géza Anda (1921-1976) opens a recital derived from radio broadcasts from SWR Stuttgart with Haydn’s perky F Major Sonata (17 April 1950), given a sparkling bravura rendition. Anda’s pearly play and deft touch make themselves felt in every concerted bar, and the runaway Presto finale might be a minor meteor. Schumann ever maintained Anda’s devotion, and he often programmed Symphonic Etudes, including the free interpolation of the five posthumous variations. The rendition included here (2 October 1951) includes two of the posthumous etudes, nos. 4 and 5, inserted after the sixth and eighth of the traditional studies. The first exploits sweeping arpeggios and glissandi techniques; the latter opens a jeweled music-box filled with nectar crystals. The serenity yields to the following Etude, a staccato study in syncopations that becomes quite frantic. Etude X, for want of a better term, has always struck me as “Brahmsian” for its double octaves. The agitato mysteries of Etude XI have rarely been so rarified in their mist contours, except perhaps from Cherkassky. The Etude XII finale, besides its obvious, heroic bravura, exudes the Innigkeit requisite...

The Ravel waltzes, in their sturdy percussion, date from 19 May 1951. Anda does not spare the fortissimos nor the pedal, moving to extremes in the first two waltzes, from aggression to erotic insinuation. The dance marked “Presque lent--dans un sentiment intime” has its perfect executor in Anda, which rivals the classically-chiseled entry by Robert Casadesus. Lithe and sensuously nimble, the last two waltzes--Moins vif et Epilogue--combine Vienna glitter and Schubert’s intimate suggestiveness in Ravel’s idiosyncratic kaleidoscopic panoply. Rolf Liebermann’s 1951 Sonata (2 October 1951) marks one of the few pieces Anda programmed that post-date World War II. His “modern” repertory ceased, for the most part, with the 1945 Third Concerto of Bartok. Liebermann (1910-1999) begins his nine-minute work with a toccata-style Vivace with periodic moments of pointillist staccati. The heart of the piece is the Andante espessivo, rather angular and reminiscent of Ravel, Gershwin, and modal Poulenc.

The second disc is devoted to the 1955 (May 21) recital at Ludwigsburg, a venue frequented by Anda’s esteemed colleague, Clara Haskil. Anda opens with the First Ballade of Chopin, a reading of balanced intensities, gothic and introspective at once. The music’s fierce Neapolitan harmonies and inner tumult manage to find a noble repose in the course of its poetic declamation mid-way, only to yield to the Dionysiac dramaturgy of its late pages with a passionate abandon that belies Anda’s repute for “objectivity.”

Anda recorded the Op. 25 set of Chopin Etudes for EMI, and he often featured the complete ensemble as a concert staple. He plays the A-flat Major for its serene beauty, and thus sets the tone for the remainder, to be played in the classic style of Backhaus, for poetry and strength of form.

The Brahms E-flat Major intermezzo, a simple, nostalgic folk song evocation, makes the perfect commentary to all of the “learned” counterpoint of this evening’s colossal recital at Ludwigsburg, where the spirit of colleague Clara Haskil must have lingered nigh.

-- Audiophile Edition

This recording presents Ludwig van Beethoven's most important overtures composed for his stage works, which were few and far between yet cover a wide variety of styles: the three overtures for his only opera Leonore which was later known as Fidelio followed by the introductory music to the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus and by music for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play Egmont, which had previously been rather unsuccessful on stage but enjoyed greater popularity once Beethoven set it to music. The last piece is the Overture to Collin's tragedy Coriolan, written at a time when the drama was hardly performed anymore, and which therefore became a concert overture.

The Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1945 and became one of the most important musical ambassadors of Germany. World-renowned conductors, as well as some of the world’s greatest soloists, have been guests of the Stuttgart RSO, including Carlos Kleiber, Ferenc Fricsay, Karl Böhm, and Wilhelm Furtwängler as well as Maria Callas, Yehudi Menuhin, Alfred Brendel, Hélène Grimaud, Anne Sophie Mutter, Elina Garanca, Rolando Villazon, Hilary Hahn, Sol Gabetta and Lang Lang. Sir Roger Norrington was the principal conductor of the Stuttgart RSO from 1998 to 2011 and has been its Conductor Laureate since 2011. Norrington has succeeded in giving the orchestra its unmistakable image through the use of historically informed performances coupled with the implementation of the resources of a modern symphony orchestra. His work focuses on the symphonic cycles of works by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, and Elgar. He has conducted numerous international orchestras including the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Concertgebouw Orchester, and the Orchestre de Paris as well as many American orchestras.

Among the early 20th century composers involved in the transition from romanticism to modernism, Carl Nielsen was particularly conspicuous for his originality which deviated from everything known and was perceived at the time as downright provocative. Today we see in Carl Nielsen’s six symphonies – all as strikingly different from one another – consistent genre contributions of unique and outstanding importance. Yet Nielsen’s international breakthrough only began in the 1950s and today his works are still far from being commonplace in our concert halls. The Symphony No. 4 was considered by the composer himself as one of his best works and it is until today one his most performed ones. The Symphony No. 2 was inspired by paintings in a pub, showing grotesquely exaggerated depictions of the four human character archetypes. Listeners shouldn’t be surprised that there’s a lot more humor at play here than is apparent in most other works.

The Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1945 and in the following seven decades became one of the most important musical ambassadors of Germany. World-renowned conductors, as well as some of the world’s greatest soloists, have been guests, including: Carlos Kleiber, Kurt Sanderling, Maria Callas, Yehudi Menuhin, Alfred Brendel, and Lang Lang. Sir Roger Norrington has worked at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and at the English National Opera, with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Concertgebouw Orchester as well as many renowned British and American orchestras.

The Modern Jazz Quartet was formed in 1952, largely by the rhythm section of the Dizzy Gillespie Band. When these recordings were made, John Lewis was still trying to develop the Modern Jazz Quartet as a jazz chamber group, attempting to make a unique style of jazz, free of cliché. The motto of the MJQ was “Change your attitude.” Each of the thirteen tracks on this album show the ensemble’s unique and dignified style. As Andre Francis wrote of the group, the musicians are “a sensitive instrument which vibrates in the same universe of sound, achieving a communion unique in the world of jazz.”

Les Ballets Russes was founded by director Sergei Diaghilev in 1909. The company never actually performed in Russia – it made its debut in Paris, and the world was to be its home during its 20 years of existence. With his concepts and commissions, Diaghilev fostered collaborations between the most exciting artists of the time, working with composers such as Stravinsky, Ravel, Prokofiev, Debussy and Satie, artists like Picasso, Kandinsky and Matisse, choreographers including Fokine, Nijinsky and Balanchine, and costume designers such as Coco Chanel. He set in motion a groundbreaking artistic revolution, the echoes of which still reverberate even today. The company’s productions were hugely successful, and Diaghilev most certainly elevated the careers of the artists he commissioned, in the process introducing an international audience to myths and legends and music and design motifs that would otherwise have remained unknown. The significance of music within all this cannot be overestimated – Diaghilev, in fact, came to ballet through his love of music.

SWR CLASSIC has released many of the ballets commissioned or produced by Diaghilev, featuring music by composers from Stravinsky through to Richard Strauss. These are now being re-released as a 10 album boxed set.

Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936) enjoyed right from the beginning a roaring success, being praised by critics as a masterpiece. It was also the composer's last work published by Universal-Edition in Vienna. A fierce opponent of Nazism, he stopped co-operating with his main publisher soon after. The Divertimento (1939), though definitely not a “lightweight”, does hardly give any indication of the political circumstances and events at the time it was created. The piano works on the present recording, arranged for percussion ensemble, are in their original form miniatures whose strong rhythms almost predestinate them for percussion arrangements (Bartók himself experimented extensively with percussion instruments and was familiar with them).

Pietari Inkinen is one of the noted rising stars on the international conducting scene. His comprehensive experience in both opera and symphonic repertoire enable him to shape various repertoire into powerful, convincing interpretations. As chief conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, he achieved superb performances