WUNDERLICH, Fritz: Rarities from Opera and Operetta

Wunderlich, FRITZ: Historical Recording (1954-1965)

GIELEN: Pflicht und Neigung / SCHOENBERG: Die gluckliche Han

WAGNER: Symphonic Excerpts from Parsifal / TCHAIKOVSKY: Symp

Classical Music

For his fourth CD recording on SWR, pianist Michael Korstick turns his focus and attention toward Claude Debussy and his journey toward artistic maturity, from the French composer's earliest piano pieces, the Deux Arabesques, the Mazurka, ca. 1890/91, and perhaps most conspicuously the Suite Bergamasque (1890, rev. 1905), it's third movement being the famous "Clair de Lune", to the birth of what become known as musical "impressionism", most notably foreshadowed with the Estampes of 1903. Numerous award winning CDs have won Michael Korstick a reputation as one of Germany's leading pianists.

Classical Music

Two well-known and two less-familiar orchestral works by Debussy • A new recording from the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) and Heinz Holliger, following up on their globally acclaimed Koechlin series • A continuation of the orchestra’s exploration of the French orchestral repertoire that began with their CDs of the music of Koechlin • May 21st 2014: Heinz Holliger’s 75th birthday The "Afternoon of a Faun“ together with the orchestral "Images" are among Claude Debussy’s best known and most popular compositions. Both works show different side of the composer: "Afternoon of a Faun" is a textbook example of musical impressionism, while about the "Images", the composer himself said that his goal was to “try to achieve something different – an effect of reality”. The scores contrast well with the two Rhapsodies: the one for clarinet, called the "first" Rhapsody, was sketched out within a few weeks at the end of 1909, while the "second" Rhapsody for saxophone was only completed and orchestrated after the death of its author. The Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) and conductor Heinz Holliger manage to bring out the evocative, dynamic colors and peculiarities to be found in all of these works with precision.

SWR Kultur New Talent is a promotion and support programme of the broadcasting corporation SWR aiming to help exceptional young talents launch their career through concerts, studio productions and media presence over a period of three years. The cellist Lionel Martin has been the 'New Talent' since 2021. In 2017 Anne-Sophie Mutter included him in her foundation of young, outstanding musicians. Since then they have performed together on numerous occasions and he toured with her and her scholarship holders throughout Europe, North and South America - where he performed not only in famous concert halls, but also for social projects in smaller locations. Following his CD debut in 2023 with repertoire by the British composer Tavener, Lionel Martin devotes the present album to Russian repertoire from the 19th and 20th centuries. All three composers on this album come from the same region, and all three struggled with their fate. Kabalevsky and Shostakovich were neighbors, they even lived in the same house for a while. Both dealt differently with the political regime - and the regime with them. Shostakovich was a thorn in the side of the Soviet power apparatus, and his music repeatedly and clearly criticizes those in power. Kabalevsky came to terms with the regime and even worked for it at times. Tchaikovsky also suffered from the conventions of his time and ultimately broke under the strain.

Since 1966 the SWR NEWJazz Meeting, the legendary sound laboratory for improvised music brings together musicians so that they can develop their creative ideas free from the constraints of daily business. For four days, this arrangement creates a free space for experimentation, with the aim of developing a concert programme that is then presented on a tour throughout the broadcasting area. Micah Thomas is a visionary among the pianists of the current New York improvisation scene. He became famous as the alert, energetic piano engine of the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet. As curator of the 2022 SWR NEWJazz Meeting, Thomas put together a band of outstanding NewnYork improvisers. The sextet never played together in this form before. When asked about a name for the SWR NewJazz Meeting project, Thomas said: Forest. The musical fruits of this album in fact shimmer like a dew-covered forest landscape that extends much farther than a single glance could take in. And in this "forest" something magical happens: it is dark, calm and quiet, and then suddenly, for a moment, rare, shy animals appear out of the mist and fog. These tracks, selected subsequently by Thomas, offer such experiences. They are deliberately identified as fragments, highlights from long spontaneous improvisatory passages.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Cultural Revolution did everything in their power to destroy the influence of religion in the Russian Empire. Sacred music was publicly forgotten in the process. Although Schnittke, whose German-born father emigrated to the Soviet Union in 1926, was atheistically influenced by the state education system, he believed spiritually in "something greater". In 1982, he was baptized a Catholic, and shortly before his death he was accepted into the Orthodox Church. The search for a religious identity can also be traced in his works. Vedel and Berezovsky are among the most important composers of Ukrainian classical music of the 18th century. Little is known about Vedel's life. The works attributed to him, including 31 choral concertos, are all set to liturgical texts or Bible verses. In these works, the traditions of the Orthodox church music of his homeland, Ukrainian baroque tradition and folk songs merge with a new Western European operatic and instrumental style. Bortniansky is highly credited with bringing the genre of the sacred concerto to fruition. Consisting of psalm verses set to music, which were sung during the Eucharist in church services, it's purpose at the time was far-reaching: as a universal genre, it was the highlight of the Orthodox liturgy, an adornment of the state ceremony and also intended for a kind of domestic music-making. In the Western repertoire, it comes closest to the instrumental concerto grosso, with the difference that no instruments are permitted in the Orthodox service.

"Pianist Jorge Bolet was renowned as one of history’s great Liszt interpreters. His playing was imbued with a noble sense of design rather than pure pyrotechnics. That this super-virtuosic program also includes pieces by Leopold Godowsky should come as no surprise; Godowsky was the young Bolet’s mentor. This is an exceptional concert by a sterling, yet modest virtuoso. Jorge Bolet was one of the great 20th century pianists A further highlight from the Schwetzingen SWR Festival concert series"

Classical Music

Hermann Prey, like many other musicians with an extensive repertoire,had a specific piece that was a steady constant through his career - Schubert’s “Winterreise.” This wonderful song cycle was frequently performed by Prey from 1952 until his passing almost five decades later. Prey wrote of the work: “I experienced it again and again. “Winterreise” affected me so strongly that it cannot be compared with anything else I have experienced on stage.” This release is a live recording from a 1987 recital at Schwetzingen Palace, with Prey being accompanied by pianist Helmut Deutsch. This performance is sure to give the listener a moving experience.

This is a new installment in the new series "SWR Century Classics." The recording gives testimony of Norrington's specific "Stuttgart Sound" and contains one of the best-known symphonies by Gustav Mahler. This is a re-release of a SWR bestseller, and is published on the occasion of Sir Roger Norrington's 85th birthday. Sir Roger Norrington was born in Oxford, and comes from a musical University family. He was a talented boy soprano, studying the violin from the age of ten and singing from the age of seventeen. He read English Literature at Cambridge University, and spent several years as an amateur violinist, tenor singer, and conductor, before attending the Royal College of Music as a postgraduate student of conducting, studying with Sir Adrian Boult. Norrington's work on scores, orchestral sound and size, seating and playing style has had a growing effect on the perception of 18th- and 19th- century orchestral music. He is in great demand as a guest conductor for symphony orchestras worldwide, working regularly with orchestras in Berlin, Vienna, Leipzig, Salzburg, Amsterdam, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and London. He is Chief Conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and of the Camerata Salzburg, and is closely associated with the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment (which has taken over the work of the London Classical Players) and with the Philharmonia.