Starter Packs

Complete your collection with these curated titles, grouped at a special discount.

Shop Now
ICA Classics

Mahler, Wagner, Haydn & Brahms: Works for Orchestra / Walter, BBC Symphony

$26.99 Only 3 left

Details

Composer
BRAHMS HAYDN MAHLER WAGNER
Artist
Walter
Format
CD
Label
ICA Classics
Released
Oct 05, 2018
Catalog #
ICAC5151
UPC
5060244551510

About

This set of ‘live’ authorized recordings featuring the highly distinguished conductor Bruno Walter with the BBC Symphony Orchestra comes from the BBC’s annual May Festival, held in London in 1955. None of these recordings has been published before, and in the case of Wagner’s Faust Overture, this is Walter’s only post-war account. The mid-1950s saw Walter at the height of his powers, and the ‘live’ recordings here are very focused, having a great sense of forward movement and excitement – most notably in Haydn’s Symphony No.96 and Mahler’s Symphony No.1 – compared to some of the studio accounts in the early 1960s when Walter was well into his 80s. The set also contains Walter with the great German soprano Irmgard Seefried in ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen’ from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which illustrates both her superb artistry and his genius as a Mahler conductor. Brahms’s Song of Destiny (Schicksalslied), a Walter favorite, completes the set. All recordings have been sourced from the Richard Itter archive, as Beecham caught ‘live’ often showed the mercurial side of his character, and no performance was the same either in the studio or in the concert hall. All the performances included here from the Edinburgh Festival, London’s Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall and the BBC Studios are from Beecham’s final years, from 1954 when he had fully established the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and himself as central figures in England’s musical life, to 1959 when he conducted an extraordinarily memorable account of Brahms’s Symphony No.2. Every broadcast is captured here in exemplary sound for the time.

Tracklist 11 tracks

  1. Disc 1
  2. 1 I. Langsam, schleppend 12:08
    Track
    1
    Title
    I. Langsam, schleppend
    Duration
    12:08
    Composer
    Gustav Mahler
    Ensemble
    BBC Symphony Orchestra
    Conductor
    Bruno Walter
  3. 2 II. Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell 06:23
    Track
    2
    Title
    II. Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell
    Duration
    06:23
    Composer
    Gustav Mahler
    Ensemble
    BBC Symphony Orchestra
    Conductor
    Bruno Walter
  4. 3 III. Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen 11:51
    Track
    3
    Title
    III. Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen
    Duration
    11:51
    Composer
    Gustav Mahler
    Ensemble
    BBC Symphony Orchestra
    Conductor
    Bruno Walter
  5. 4 IV. Stürmisch bewegt 19:18
    Track
    4
    Title
    IV. Stürmisch bewegt
    Duration
    19:18
    Composer
    Gustav Mahler
    Ensemble
    BBC Symphony Orchestra
    Conductor
    Bruno Walter
  6. 5 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: No. 9. Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen 05:13
    Track
    5
    Title
    Des Knaben Wunderhorn: No. 9. Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen
    Duration
    05:13
    Composer
    Gustav Mahler
    Performer
    Irmgard Seefried
    Ensemble
    BBC Symphony Orchestra
    Conductor
    Bruno Walter
  7. Disc 2
  8. 1 A Faust Overture 12:02
    Track
    1
    Title
    A Faust Overture
    Duration
    12:02
    Composer
    Richard Wagner
    Ensemble
    BBC Symphony Orchestra
    Conductor
    Bruno Walter
  9. 2 I. Adagio - Allegro 05:33
    Track
    2
    Title
    I. Adagio - Allegro
    Duration
    05:33
    Composer
    Franz Joseph Haydn
    Ensemble
    BBC Symphony Orchestra
    Conductor
    Bruno Walter
  10. 3 II. Andante 05:59
    Track
    3
    Title
    II. Andante
    Duration
    05:59
    Composer
    Franz Joseph Haydn
    Ensemble
    BBC Symphony Orchestra
    Conductor
    Bruno Walter
  11. 4 III. Menuetto: Allegretto 05:36
    Track
    4
    Title
    III. Menuetto: Allegretto
    Duration
    05:36
    Composer
    Franz Joseph Haydn
    Ensemble
    BBC Symphony Orchestra
    Conductor
    Bruno Walter
  12. 5 IV. Finale: Vivace assai 03:28
    Track
    5
    Title
    IV. Finale: Vivace assai
    Duration
    03:28
    Composer
    Franz Joseph Haydn
    Ensemble
    BBC Symphony Orchestra
    Conductor
    Bruno Walter
  13. 6 Schicksalslied, Op. 54 13:46
    Track
    6
    Title
    Schicksalslied, Op. 54
    Duration
    13:46
    Composer
    Johannes Brahms
    Ensemble
    BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra
    Conductor
    Bruno Walter