This release features the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR performing Antonin Dvor�k's Symphonies No. 7 and 8, led by Roger Norrington. These two mature, symphonic masterpieces, full of wonderful melodies, preceded Dvor�k's famous Ninth Symphony. They are magnificent works that have enjoyed enduring popularity with audiences. The scholarly English conductor, Roger Norrington, is a native of Oxford, England, where he came from a University family with strong musical connections. He was a talented boy soprano, studied the violin from the age of 10, and singing from 17, but his higher education was in English Literature at Cambridge University. After several years' experience as a violinist, tenor and conductor, he returned to his studies at the Royal College of Music under Sir Adrian Boult. His work on scores, sound, orchestra size, seating, and playing style has had a profound effect on the way nineteenth century music is now perceived and, not surprisingly, he is in great demand by symphony orchestras worldwide.

On this album Roger Norrington leads the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR in a profound performance of Franz Schubert's Ninth Symphony, the "Great" C Major. The programme also includes the overture to Schubert's melodrama Die Zauberharfe. Schubert's Symphony No. 9 is the last Symphony completed by the composer. It's nickname of the "Great" C Major is intended to distinguish it from his Sixth Symphony, the Little C major. Usually, the subtitle is taken as a reference to the symphony's majesty. Unusually long for a symphony of Schubert's time, a typical performance lasts around 55 minutes. While early ensembles often wouldn't perform the work due to it's length and virtuosic requirements, on this release Norrington and his Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR rise to the occasion in brilliant fashion. The present album is part of a new re-release series (Century Classics) consisting of SWR music bestsellers. The series is competitively priced, optically highly attractive and contains acclaimed SWR recordings of the SWR orchestras and their chief conductors.

Classical Music

Zbigniew Seifert (1946-1979) had studied violin in his hometown of Krakow, was converted to woodwinds on the way to jazz, only then to devote himself again increasingly to the strings in the late sixties. The big three of Coltrane, Coleman and Ayler had blazed a path along which legions of saxophone epigones trudged. But hardly any violinists dared this uncompromisingly energetic form of expression and possessed the playing skills to pull it off. Seifert was therefore a pioneer, unintentionally so, because he was not interested in revolutionizing his instrument. He wanted rather to discover the secrets of the heroes of his time and understand, for example, how Coltrane managed to convey impressions of texture without having to forego linear melodies. It helped that he knew how a saxophone behaves musically. With this attitude he was ahead of his contemporaries, who were still working their way through structure and aesthetics. That was probably one of the reasons, in combination with his early death from cancer, that Seifert was forgotten for so long by the jazz world. The recordings in the SWR archive are therefore all the more exciting. Angel Wings is from 1973, a stimulating time for Seifert, when he left Poland and settled in West Germany. The sextet at the New Jazz Meeting in Baden-Baden gave him room to prove himself in the fusion context, with a touch of Mahavishnu in the aura, but above all a document of exuberant jazz-rock power. The duo recordings that were made three years later in Donaueschingen are real gems. There Seifert had in Albert Mangelsdorff a partner who understood him. Like Seifert, the trombonist Mangelsdorff had fought battles to liberate his instrument from the brass section and, by simultaneously overblowing and singing, had fetched it into polyphony.

Classical Music

The two-compositions featured here, the Trio, op. 8 and the Sonata, op. 65, rank among the very few chamber music pieces Chopin left behind. Whilst predominantly piano-focused, those few occasions when Chopin did explore other idioms always prominently featured the cello, so naturally this disc is a feast of musical riches for young cellist Johannes Moser. The needed ability to draw out every emotion and nuance from these works, from the noble to the pathetic, from soaring lyricism to sober solemnity, are known and admired characteristics of Mr. Moser and his esteemed ensemble partners.

Classical Music

Classical Music

This is a re-release within the new SWR CLASSIC-series "Century Classics". It contains the rarely performed chamber version of Carmina Burana interpreted by the excellent SWR Vokalensemble, SWR Vokalensemble is the vocal ensemble of the broadcaster S�dwestrundfunk (SWR), based in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1946 as S�dfunk-Chor Stuttgart in 1946 to perform studio work for S�ddeutscher Rundfunk (SDR) which merged in 1998 with the S�dwestfunk to form the SWR. The ensemble was awarded the Echo Klassik in both 2011 and 2012. The ensemble is led by Austrian composer and musician Rupert Huber.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Richard Strauss spent nearly a decade and a half writing Eine Alpensinfonie, a work describing the impressions of a mountain hike with such clarity that the score could almost be considered film music sans film. Don Juan's premiere (1889) established the reputation of the 24-year-old Strauss as the most important composer since Richard Wagner. Francois -Xavier Roth, one of the most charismatic and enterprising conductors of his generation, took on the role of Principal Conductor of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg in September 2011.

Antonio Salieri had long arrived at the height of his European fame as an opera composer when he began dealing with smaller forms of vocal music, including several collections of Scherzi armonici, canons, divertimenti vocali, as well as many duets and trios. This new recording will be of tremendous interest to both aficionados and scholars as it presents an area of Salieri’s output previously overlooked. The performers, Ilse Eerens, Annelie Sophie Müller and their experienced accompanist Ulrich Eisenlohr, elevate this recording into something much more than an academic curiosity!

Classical Music