As well as for EMI and DG, the two labels harboring the lion’s share of his discography, Herbert von Karajan also worked and recorded for Decca for a time in the 1950s and 1960s, exclusively with the Vienna Philharmonic, bringing the orchestra to a peak in performance following the inflicted personnel ravages that dimmed its luster. The unforgettable Brahms First Symphony was recorded in 1960, the Tragic Overture in 1964. The very sensitive and gentle performance of the Haydn Variations was realized in 1955 with the Philharmonia Orchestra. All recordings were newly re-mastered in 2015.

Of the artists active today, Ricardo Muti has already been a welcome guest at the Festival for more than forty years. His first conducting engagements there did not just provide the basis for his current “telepathic” relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic, but also brought collaborations with important soloists of the older generation. Thus the new CD in the series Festival Documents includes the Piano Concerto by Robert Schumann under Muti's baton, with Sviatoslav Richter once more proving the uniqueness of his pianistic gifts. Over and above all its virtuoso challenges, Richter and Muti together give an account of the work triumphant in its formal cohesion and in which they sculpt it as a large-scale musical arch. Muti's deep understanding of Rossini and Mozart - represented here by the Overture to Semiramide and the Sinfonia Concertante K 364 respectively - is also clearly evident in these early recordings.

Mahler: Symphony No. 5

Since 1939, the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert has become a tradition and the world’s most famous classical music event. The list of names of leading conductors who have led the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concerts reads like a veritable who’s who of great maestros: Herbert von Karajan, Lorin Maazel, Claudio Abbado and Riccardo Muti to name a few. For the New Year’s Concert 2016 world-renowned conductor Mariss Jansons returns to the podium for the third time for this extraordinary event. Ever since their first concert together in 1992, Mariss Jansons has belonged to the circle of conductors with whom the Vienna Philharmonic feels a special bond. His first New Year’s Concert in 2006 was widely acclaimed by both audiences and the media. Jansons won a Grammy Award® in 2006 for Best Orchestral Performance and ECHO Klassik honored him in 2007 as Conductor of the Year.

The Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert is unique and has often been imitated, but not equaled, with a live broadcast on television in over 90 countries around the world with over 40 million viewers. PBS aired the 2015 concert on over 181 stations and will broadcast the 2016 concert nationally. The repertoire for the New Year’s Concert features works by members of the Strauss Family – Johann Strauss, father and son, as well as Eduard and Josef Strauss. Old favorites from their works are played alongside others that have never been recorded or are rarely heard. All of them programmed around two fixed points in the concert, The Blue Danube Waltz and the Radetzky March.

Newly released as part of the Archipel Desert Island Collection, this luminous May, 1962 Vienna Philharmonic performance of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9/Te Deum coupling marked the first of more than a dozen Herbert von Karajan’s performances of this symphony to be captured for posterity between 1962-1986 with either the Vienna or the Berlin Philharmonic. + The impressive soloist quartet roster for the Te Deum included soprano Wilma Lipp and tenor Nicolai Gedda.

A timely re-issue of the legendary 1960 live concert performance in Salzburg featuring a dazzling firmament of legendary singers all in the prime of their singing careers: Leontyne Price, Eberhard W�chter, Hilde R�ssel-Majdan, Fritz Wunderlich and Walter Berry. With the great Herbert von Karajan leading the Vienna Philharmonic and the soaring Wiener Singverein, this is a most distinguished performance of Mozart's Requiem.

This is an excellent sample of the Salzburg/RCA Zauberflote. With the extended dialogue of the original excluded one can fully appreciate the attraction of Levine's poised, sane direction of the piece and the excellent work of his predominantly satisfying cast.

– Gramophone

Schmidt, a cellist of the Vienna Philharmonic, let hte orchestra premiere his symphony in 1913, which since then belongs to their main repertoire. With Semyon Bychkov they are a proven team to champion Schmidt's Symphony. The Second Symphony is the most brilliant and extroverted one with the biggest instrumentation. "It remains that rare combination, a work of tremendous immediate appeal and a compositional tour de force." (Gramophone Magazine) The recording features the famous intermezzo from the same-named opera by Strauss. It's full of Straussian yearning and lyricism performed by The Strauss Orchestra.

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REVIEW:

It's apparent here the amount of affection with which conductor and orchestra approach this work. The symphony is an essentially sunny and pastoral work of shifting, beautifully dappled colors. There are disparate hints of Strauss, Reger, and Bruckner, and others, as well as a couple of passages that look forward to future Schmidt work.

The performance here determinedly lets the music develop at its own pace; Bychkov is not a conductor to seek out cheap thrills. One admires what the conductor achieves with the variations in the second movement, for example, and the slow-burn momentum of the initally underwhelming finale.

A persuasive case is made here for a work of considerable beauty. A gentle, tender account of Strauss' most famous Intermezzo interlude makes a charming coupling.

– Gramophone

Rued Langgaard (1893–1952) was a major Danish late-Romantic composer who did not gain recognition in his mother country. His greatest successes took place in Germany and Austria, where his Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6 were met with considerable acclaim. Back home, he never received that kind of backing and praise. He died a careworn and despairing individual. On this recording with one of the world’s leading orchestras, the tradition-conscious Vienna Philharmonic, one is therefore able to hear Langgaard's music 'return home' to a central European musical culture. At the same time things were going swimmingly for his colleague Jacob Gade (1879–1963) whose ‘Tango Jalousie’ has become the absolutely most frequently played piece of Danish music for almost a century. The two pieces are juxtaposed here to create a delightful programme.

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REVIEW:

Oramo and the Vienna Philharmonic [take] on two contrasted works by Rued Langgaard that illuminate this composer in all his stylistic diversity and recklessness. Such an idiom should be in this orchestra’s blood and the VPO do not disappoint – whether in the lyrically effulgent initial movement, with its discreetly modified sonata form, or the lithe finale. A mandatory purchase for its interpretative insights, committed playing and tangibly realistic sound.

– Gramophone

Brahms: The Symphonies, Haydn Variations & 8 Hungarian Dance

Overtures

Sony Classical releases the third installment of Christian Thielemann’s complete cycle of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic – the orchestra’s first Bruckner cycle under a single conductor. “The claim that this orchestra is essentially the only genuine original sound ensemble for the music of Anton Bruckner should remain beyond dispute” raves Die Presse. The Vienna Philharmonic premiered four of Anton Bruckner’s nine symphonies, including No. 4 in 1881 and has enjoyed a unique relationship with the Austrian composer’s music since 1873. The Fourth was the first of Bruckner’s symphonies that Thielemann conducted. Half a century later Thielemann has come as close as possible to the ideal Bruckner sound with the Vienna Philharmonic: full-toned, warm, with registrations that are full of countless colours, clear without sounding harsh and well-contoured without seeming angular. Thielemann’s interpretations of Bruckner’s music are rooted on deep expertise and sympathy. Few conductors can match the solemnity and patience he finds in composer’s symphonies, or his ability to draw on the unparalleled beauty of the orchestra’s sound and the special acoustic of its home in Vienna, the Musikverein. Christian Thielemann, Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden, Artistic Director of the Salzburg Easter Festival since 2013 and Music Director of the Bayreuth Festival, is his generation’s most esteemed interpreter of the Romantic Austro-German repertoire. In the midst of a mutually stimulating relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic, he conducted his first New Year’s Concert with the orchestra in 2019. The Vienna Philharmonic will issue the final release of the live cycle in 2024, marking 200 years since the Bruckner’s birth.

Drawn from the worldwide catalog holdings of Sony Classical, which includes both the Columbia/CBS and RCA Victor label imprints, the SONY Classical Originals, SONY Classical Masters Singles and Box Sets, and SONY Opera House series offer an extensive selection of highly desirable and collectible EU (Germany) pressed import editions, smartly-designed and graphically-pleasing, featuring the most sought-after recordings by the world’s preeminent, legendary artists both past and present, with many titles newly re-mastered in 24bit High Resolution Audio.

Also available on Blu-ray

Gloriously affirming the Salzburg Festival’s long-standing reputation as a supreme musical event, this concert honours one of its founding fathers, Richard Strauss. Renée Fleming, Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra unite for a programme of song, opera and tone poem, genres central to the composer’s extraordinarily fruitful career. Fleming interprets four of his songs with orchestra, including the deeply moving Befreit, and provides a substantial taste of perhaps her finest operatic role, Arabella. New vistas then open as Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic take the spectacular mountain journey mapped by the composer in his titanic Alpine Symphony.

Richard Strauss:
Befreit, Op. 39, No. 4
Winterliebe, Op. 48, No. 5
Traum durch die Dämmerung, Op. 29, No. 1
Gesang der Apollopriesterin, Op. 33, No. 2
Arabella: Mein Elemer!
Eine Alpensinfonie, Op. 64

Renée Fleming, soprano
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Christian Thielemann, conductor

Recorded live at the Salzburg Festival, August 2011

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format; LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
Running time: 84 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

R E V I E W:

R. STRAUSS An Alpine Symphony. Befreit. Winterliebe. Traum durch die Dämmerung. Gesang der Apollopriesterin. Arabella: act I concluding scene • Christian Thielemann, cond; Renée Fleming (sop); Vienna PO • OPUS ARTE 7101 (Blu-ray: 84:00) Live: Salzburg 8/2011


Renée Fleming, Christian Thielemann, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra giving a Richard Straus concert at Salzburg would seem to be a no-brainer for Richard Strauss fans. Put it on your Blu-ray machine, turn off the lights, and surrender to Strauss’s beloved soprano voice and luscious orchestration. Fleming has stated that his music is ideal for her voice. And so it is. Strauss was seemingly addicted to the soprano voice, but you have to wonder if he ever heard an instrument like Fleming’s singing his music. Her rich, creamy tone blends so perfectly with Strauss’s lush orchestration that you have to forgive her when she sometimes tends to over-interpret these songs. Her lovely tone and wistful mood are perfect for the concluding scene from Arabella. Yes, she owns the part with a voice that is even more innately suited to this music than Kiri Te Kanawa’s. Gesang der Apollopriesterin is overwhelming in the hands of Fleming, Thielemann, and the Vienna Philharmonic. Despite sometimes seemingly getting lost in the sheer beauty of the sound of her voice as it relates to this music (who can blame her?), Befreit also shows why Fleming is a great Straussian. The magnificent Vienna Philharmonic plays an equal role in the songs, as it should.


For some, An Alpine Symphony will never be more than a monstrous exercise in musical megalomania (sometimes I wonder whether those critics are afraid to allow themselves to actually enjoy music, rather than view it as a painful academic exercise). After all, orchestration and melody are in many cases just as important as counterpoint and structure (which is not to say that Strauss could not write structurally sound music, even if he was not a symphonist). Anyway, Thielemann seems content to let the orchestra do its thing with just the right amount of control, and the video director discreetly gives us a helpful view of all the soloists within Strauss’s gigantic orchestra, especially the woodwinds. What a pleasure it is to hear the trumpets playing effortlessly without sounding annoying or inappropriately piercing through the instrumental fabric. And those trombone fanfares are stunning. Thielemann’s tempos are generally slow, but he presses forward in the climactic “At the Summit,” thus assuring that his interpretation does not bog down or sound over-indulgent. On the other hand, he slows too much to the point of micro-managing without enhancing the music’s atmosphere for the “Vision,” “Elegy,” and “Calm Before the Storm.” For Thielemann, the true climax appears to be “Sunset,” where he broadens the tempo and unleashes a torrent of luxurious sound. The organ is too subdued in the “Storm,” but blends nicely with the orchestra elsewhere.


The DTS surround sound is ideal for the Alpine Symphony, and the video direction shows plenty of detail without being choppy. My one quibble would be that you never get a complete view of the important percussion section. There are extreme close-ups of drum sticks (but not the timpanist) and the wind and thunder machines, but not the rest of the players. Subtitles are available in English, French, German, and Spanish. What more can I say? It is hard to imagine a better audio-visual feast for Straussians.


FANFARE: Arthur Lintgen

A New Yorker review about Rudolf Serkin from 2017 states: “his performances… reflect his sense of titanic struggle to realize the ideas and emotions that he found in the words that he played. He bypassed the surface sheen of ingratiating sounds to render the beauty of that struggle; his piano tone is itself the sound of struggle filled with the meeting of metal and wood and evoking spiritual exaltation through physical and intellectual exertion.”

Rudolf Serkin was born in 1903 in Bohemia. His musical gifts emerged early, and he made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at 12. His European career extended throughout the 20s and 30s. He first played in the United States in 1933, and three years later appeared with the New York Philharmonic under Toscanini, eventually performing with them over 100 times. Rudolf Serkin became one of the most admired pianists of the 20th century. He performed and recorded extensively with the top international orchestras and conductors. This release contains first releases of live performances of Four Mozart’s piano concertos.

Sony Classical releases the full cycle of Bruckner’s symphonies recorded by the Vienna Philharmonic under Christian Thielemann on 11 CDs. The box set, featuring the composer’s nine numbered symphonies, his ‘Study Symphony’, his ‘Nullified’ symphony, and a 172-page booklet. This release constitutes the first complete recording of the Austrian composer’s symphonies from the orchestra under a single conductor. Christian Thielemann enjoys a strong rapport with the Vienna Philharmonic and has established himself as one of his generation’s most esteemed interpreters of the Romantic Austro-German repertoire.

Past praise for previously released CDs included in this set:

Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 / Thielemann, Vienna Philharmonic

This new Bruckner Fourth deserves a strong recommendation. It is a reading of undeniable power and presence.

-- Fanfare

Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 / Thielemann, Vienna Ohilharmonic

Overall, there’s an aliveness to the music, inspired by the concert setting, which adds another reason this Bruckner Eighth is so satisfying. If you want to hear Thielemann at his best, conducting a stupendous orchestra, that’s precisely what we have here.

-- Fanfare

Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 . Thielemann, Vienna Philharmonic

Thielemann's interpretation has intimacies hard to find in other versions, and a vulnerability movingly communicated in the Vienna Philharmonic’s super-empathetic playing.

-- BBC Magazine

Sony Classical releases the fourth installment of Christian Thielemann’s complete cycle of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic – the orchestra’s first Bruckner cycle under a single conductor. “The claim that this orchestra is essentially the only genuine original sound ensemble for the music of Anton Bruckner should remain beyond dispute” raves Die Presse. The Vienna Philharmonic premiered four of Bruckner’s nine symphonies and has enjoyed a unique relationship with the Austrian composer’s music since 1873, when it gave the first performance of his Symphony No 2.

Thielemann has come as close as possible to the ideal Bruckner sound with the Vienna Philharmonic: full-toned, warm, with registrations that are full of countless colours, clear without sounding harsh and well-contoured without seeming angular. Thielemann’s interpretations of Bruckner’s music are rooted on deep expertise and sympathy. Few conductors can match the solemnity and patience he finds in composer’s symphonies, or his ability to draw on the unparalleled beauty of the orchestra’s sound and the special acoustic of its home in Vienna, the Musikverein.

Christian Thielemann, Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden and Artistic Director of the Salzburg Easter Festival since 2013, is his generation’s most esteemed interpreter of the Romantic Austro-German repertoire. In the midst of a mutually stimulating relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic, he conducted his first New Year’s Concert with the orchestra in 2019.

The Vienna Philharmonic will issue the final release of the live cycle in 2024, marking 200 years since the Bruckner’s birth.

Beethoven was Wilhelm Furtwängler's guiding musical force. In his interpretations of the symphonies, the conductor generates irresistible dramatic momentum - and a constant sense of imaginative freshness - through the interrelationship of form, harmony, texture, rhythm and tempo. These recordings, all made in the late 1940s and early 1950s, in the Musikverein in Vienna and at concerts in London, Bayreuth and Stockholm, have been remastered in 192kHz/24-bit at Art & Son Studio (in 2021 for the 7 recordings included in The Complete Wilhelm Furtwängler on Records and newly for this edition for the 3 other ones), bringing their sound more alive than ever before and for the first time here on a physical medium.

As a bonus the 5th Symphony live performance from 1950 in Copenhagen restored in HD from an excellent condition analogue source has been added.