2012 OCT NRG

SEP-OCT 2012

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NEW RELEASE GUIDE THIS MONTH’S HIGHLIGHTS:

Franz SCHUBERT

8.572764

HMC902136.37

HMC902124

Johann Sebastian BACH

Frederick DELIUS

Soli Deo Gloria

Johann Sebastian BACH Cantatas for Christmas

Mark-Anthony TURNAGE

OPOZ56031CD (2 CD s) / OPOZ56029DVD (DVD) / OPOZ56030BD (Blu-ray)

(DVD) 101 659 / (Blu-ray) 108 070

2087898

Georg Solti

LPO-0066

SDG178

COR16105

Giovanni Pierluigi da PALESTRINA Volume 2

Benjamin BRITTEN

Giuseppe VERDI

Naxos International (Far East) Limited 5B, Blue Box Factory Building, 25 Hing Wo Street, Tin Wan, Aberdeen, Hong Kong Tel: 2951 9557 Email: info@naxos.com.hk

The King’s Singers: David Hurley (countertenor) Timothy Wayne-Wright (countertenor) Paul Phoenix (tenor) Christopher Bruerton (baritone) Christopher Gabbitas (baritone) Jonathan Howard (bass) GRAMMY® Award winners in 2009, The King’s Singers are one of the world’s most celebrated ensembles. Their programming concept in this disc is unique: built upon the individual clauses of The Lord’s Prayer, beginning and ending in plainchant, it ranges over the centuries to explore the spiritually charged text. Chant is at the heart of the programme, and each composer’s setting illuminates the others, shedding rich interpretative light on the poetic and devotional aspects of the prayer.

One of the world’s most celebrated ensembles, The King’s Singers have a packed schedule of concerts, recordings, media and education work that spans the globe. Championing the work of both young and established composers, they are instantly recognisable for their spot-on intonation, impeccable vocal blend, flawless articulation of the text and incisive timing. They are also consummate entertainers: a class act with a delightfully British wit.

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Frederick DELIUS (1862–1934) Appalachia • Sea Drift

Leon Williams (baritone) The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay • James K. (Bass) • The Florida Orchestra • Stefan Sanderling Appalachia (a native American word for North America) is a set of variations based on a slave song about the tragedy of the cotton planters ‘being sold down the river’. Delius heard the song when teaching the violin in Virginia, but the primary inspiration was his formative experience of the semi-tropical beauty of Florida’s Solano Grove where he had managed an orange plantation. In Sea Drift Delius absorbed a further American influence in the nature mysticism of Walt Whitman. The symphonic poem, one of his greatest works, is a song of love and death in which the baritone soloist is both a participant in the drama and offers a commentary upon it.

8.572764 TAN Dun (b. 1957) Symphonic Poem on Three Notes • Orchestral Theatre • Concerto for Orchestra Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra Tan Dun

The multifaceted and multi-award winner Tan Dun has made an indelible mark on the world music scene with a creative repertoire that spans the boundaries of classical music. The Symphonic Poem on Three Notes describes an evolutionary arc from nature through industry and back to nature, the traditional orchestra augmented with a range of unorthodox sound sources such as wind, stones and car brake drums. The drama of Orchestral Theatre centres on memories of ritual from the composer’s childhood, linking folk music styles to Western atonality, while the Concerto for Orchestra describes the exoticism of Marco Polo’s geographical, musical and spiritual journeys.

Tan Dun is a recipient of today’s most prestigious honours including the GRAMMY® Award, Academy Award and Musical America’s Composer of The Year, and his music has been played throughout the world by leading orchestras, opera houses, international festivals, and on radio and television.

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Ignatz WAGHALTER (1881–1949) Violin Concerto, Op. 15 Rhapsodie, Op. 9 Violin Sonata, Op. 5 Idyll, Op. 19b • Geständnis

Gioachino ROSSINI (1792–1868) Complete Overtures, Vol. 1 Prague Philharmonic Choir Prague Sinfonia Orchestra Christian Benda

Rossini wrote some of music’s most masterful and lovable operas.

His gift for comic and tragic forms was matched by a relish for characterisation, qualities that are always evident in his overtures. La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) is perhaps the most famous, one of the world’s most popular concert openers. But in Otello he reveals his more complex turns of phrase and in Le siège de Corinthe the writing is dramatic and colourful. The overture for Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra was used again a year later by Rossini for Il barbiere di Siviglia. This is the first of four discs of the complete Rossini Overtures.

Christian Benda his descended from a long line of musicians. He is chief conductor and artistic director of the Prague Sinfonia Orchestra with which he has recorded numerous standard classical works, as well as Schubert’s and Rossini’s complete overtures.

Irmina Trynkos (violin) • Giorgi Latsabidze (piano) • Royal Philharmonic Orchestra • Alexander Walker World Première Recording Born only two years earlier than Webern and successful as a conductor in Berlin, Ignatz Waghalter built on the tradition of Schumann and Brahms rather than seeking revolutionary innovation.

The inspiring melodic and rhythmic invention of his 1911 Violin Concerto led a contemporary reviewer to recommend that ‘violinists should take it up without hesitation!’, while the earlier Violin Sonata won the coveted Mendelssohn Prize in 1902. A milestone in violinist Irmina Trynkos’ ‘Waghalter Project’ (www.waghalterproject.com), this release brings to light one of the most unjustly forgotten musicians of interwar Europe.

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Simon MAYR (1763–1845) Arianna in Nasso (Ariadne on Naxos)

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Cornelia Horak (soprano, Arianna) Thomas Michael Allen (tenor, Bacco) Simon Mayr Chorus and Ensemble Franz Hauk (directed from the harpsichord)

The Butterfly Lovers Piano Concerto • The Yellow River Piano Concerto Chen Jie (piano) New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Carolyn Kuan

The Yellow River Concerto is one of the most popular of all Chinese works, a richly melodic exploration of scenic variety, and a forceful expression of patriotic pride. Written in 1958 by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao, The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto has achieved world renown for its moving and beautiful synthesis of Western and Eastern traditions. In 1985 Chen Gang made an arrangement for piano and orchestra, played on this recording in the edition by the brilliant international soloist Chen Jie. These two hugely popular Chinese works make a perfect pairing not least because there is a twist. The Yellow River Concerto fuses Western and Eastern ideas in a highly approachable way; so too does the companion work, The Butterfly Lovers Piano Concerto which is a 1985 arrangement of the very famous The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, of which there are several versions on Naxos. The arrangement was made by the co-composer of the original work, Chen Gang, and it has independent status.

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The Bavarian-born composer Simon Mayr spent his compositional life in Italy, spreading the influence of Viennese classicism whilst himself being influenced by prevailing Italian models. His cantata Arianna in Nasso (Ariadne on Naxos) was written for the leading soprano Isabella Colbran, who was later to marry Rossini. Her virtuosity inspired Mayr, and his cantata is a stirring example of vivid nature writing, refined pathos, and joyous celebration.

Franz Hauk and the Simon Mayr Chorus and Ensemble are the world’s leading Mayr exponents and their recordings have received the highest critical acclaim.

The Simon Mayr Chorus and Ensemble were established by Franz Hauk in 2003. The chorusʼs repertoire ranges from the sixteenth to the twentieth century and a special emphasis is laid on historical performance techniques and the performance of vocal music by Simon Mayr. Franz Hauk has done much to revive interest in the music of Simon Mayr and since October 2002 has taught in the historical performance and church music department of the Munich Music and Theatre Hochschule.

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Iwan MÜLLER (1786–1854) Souvenir de Dobbéran, Op. 28 Clarinet Quartets Nos. 1 and 2

Gabriel JACKSON (b. 1962) Requiem • In all his works • I am the voice of the wind

Le rêve, Op. 73 Scène romantique, Op. 96 Fantaisie sur un Thème de Mozart Le château de Madrid, Op.79 Friederike Roth (clarinet) Erika le Roux (piano) • Wenzel Fuchs (clarinet) • Berolina Ensemble

Carl Herring (Guitar) • Vasari Singers • Jeremy Backhouse While the unifying thread which links these works is that of loss, the underlying focus is an uplifting celebration of life and love. Gabriel Jackson’s Requiem combines traditional solemnity with poems which embrace wide-ranging spirituality, resulting in images of light and radiant optimism. Contrasting poignancy of expression is heard in personal tributes from John Tavener and Francis Pott, while Bob Chilcott uses Pachelbel’s famous Canon to set Oscar Wilde’s Requiescat. Vasari Singers’ Great British Anthems (8.572504) was described as ‘essential listening’ by Gramophone.

Founded in 1980, Vasari Singers is among the leading chamber choirs in Britain, performing music ranging from Renaissance to contemporary. The choir performs regularly in London as well as visiting many of England’s cathedrals to sing services, with recent trips to Canterbury, Salisbury, Bath and Ripon. The choir and Jeremy Backhouse are deeply committed to contemporary music and have commissioned over twenty works since 2000, including works by Francis Pott and Gabriel Jackson.

Clarinet virtuoso Iwan Müller succeeded in developing the possibilities of his instrument beyond its limitations in Mozart’s time into the modern clarinet, though his compositions have long been overlooked. The beautifully proportioned Clarinet Quartets Nos. 1 and 2 form a complementary pair, placing lyrical ease and virtuoso refinement into ‘impossible’ keys as a demonstration of Müller’s innovations. The remaining works often follow an Italianate bel canto style, while his popular Souvenir de Dobbéran is a prototype of the musical postcard genre.

Friederike Roth was awarded the special prize of the Wiesbaden Mozart Gesellschaftʼs clarinet competition and received the prize for best interpretation at the Alice Samter Chamber Music Competition with her Clarinetquartett “Blattgold”.

8.572885

8.573049

SEP-OCT 2012

SEP-OCT 2012

CLASSICAL MUSIC

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Pater NOSTER A Choral Reflection on The Lord’s Prayer

Franz SCHUBERT (1797–1828) Symphony No. 8 in B minor ‘Unfinished’, D. 759 Symphony No. 9 in C major ‘Great’, D. 944 Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra • Failoni Orchestra Michael Halász

Schubert’s last two symphonies are ambitious in scale and brimming with striking ideas, though only two movements of the Symphony No. 8 were finished and the score rediscovered and first performed 43 years after the composer’s death.

The ‘Great’ C major Symphony marks the summit of Schubert’s achievement in the form, combining his unforgettable lyrical gift with the spirit of Beethoven. Michael Halász has been acclaimed for his “delightful performances” of Schubert. (Penguin Guide on 8.553094, Symphonies 3 and 6)

8.572939 CHORUSES FOR MALE VOICES AND ORCHESTRA

Mikael Stenbaek (tenor) • Daniel Hellström (baritone) • Lund Student Singers • Malmö Opera Orchestra • Alberto Hold-Garrido Drawing on the romantic spirit in music, Schubert’s moving setting is of a poem by Goethe which compares a rushing waterfall to the soul of man, while Strauss’s gorgeous Mittagsruhe depicts the peace of a summer noontide.

Narrative vocal traditions are heard in Sibelius’s nationalist Vapautettu kuningatar, Bruckner’s heroic Helgoland, and Grieg’s Landkjenning, which tells of the 10th century Norwegian king Oleg Tryggvason. Das Liebesmahl der Apostel anticipates the religious ecstasies of Wagner’s Parsifal, while Debussy’s early cantata Invocation resonates with Gallic sparkle.

Lund Student Singers was founded in 1831 and is one of the oldest choirs in Sweden. In spite of its long history, the choir has maintained its vitality over the years thanks to a combination of professional and dedicated choral directors and invigorating turnover of singers – a typical feature of a university-based choir.

8.572871 AURELIO MAGNANI (1856–1921) Divertimento Nos. 1 and 2 • Elegia • Romanza e Valzer Melodia romantica • Mazurka-Caprice • Solo de concert Sergio Bosi (clarinet) • Riccardo Bartoli (piano)

Considered one of the foremost soloists of his day, Aurelio Magnani was the father of the modern Italian clarinet school. His pupils filled prestigious positions in orchestras worldwide. He was also a composer, having studied in Bologna, and in addition to operas wrote extensively for his own instrument. These fantasies, paraphrases and melodies embrace florid virtuosity and melting lyricism alike, and are inspired and sophisticated works revealing the best in Italian style.

Sergio Bosi is Principal Solo Clarinet in the Orchestra Regionale delle Marche and teaches at the G. Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro. As a promoter of Italian repertoire he records for Naxos, Bongiovanni, Arcam Cambridge, Mondomusica EMI, winning critical acclaim and awards.

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Eckerle Piano Duo (Mariko Eckerle and Volker Eckerle) World Première Recording Piano arrangements were the main way for people to become acquainted with concert repertoire in Schumann’s day, and publishers ensured that the huge demand for such versions was met. Otto Dresel’s arrangement of the String Quartet, Op. 41, No. 3 was approved by the composer. Clara Schumann was dedicatee and soloist for the Piano Quintet, Op. 44, and she was able to draw on her intimate knowledge of her husband’s work to make her own highly effective arrangement. This is the first of seven volumes including Schumann’s entire orchestral works arranged for piano duet.

PERCIVAL’S LAMENT Medieval Music and the Holy Grail Capilla Antigua de Chinchilla José Ferrero

The Holy Grail has occupied a central place in Western life. It was believed by many to have been used by Christ at the Last Supper, and in the Middle Ages writers saw the Grail as a dish, or a chalice, or a precious stone. Songs and instrumental music celebrated its mystical power and were composed by some of the greatest troubadours, mystics and singer-poets of the age: Chrétien de Troyes, Walther von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Hildegard of Bingen.

This disc uniquely focuses on the common threads between Grail literature and music.

8.572877

8.572800

Helmut WALCHA (1907–1991) Chorale Preludes, Volume 1 – Nos. 1-25

8.572910

St. Louis Symphony Leonard Slatkin • Hans Vonk

Claude Baker is a much-honored composer whose music is alive with connections and inter-related ideas. The Glass Bead Game feasts on dreamlike associations and, through deliberately invoking other composers’ music, thrilling collage. Awaking the Winds is, by contrast, ‘absolute’ music, and in a resonant single-movement structure. The haiku is explored in Shadows in which parallels between written texts and music are accomplished with great refinement and poignancy.

Inspired by Walt Whitman’s poetry, The Mystic Trumpeter offers a commentary that includes musical quotation and deft tone-painting.

The Elora Festival Singers perform the music of: Arvo PÄRT / Morten LAURIDSEN / Eric WHITACRE

Autobiographical in content, Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben is one of a series of tone-poems, including Also sprach Zarathustra (Naxos 8.571215), in which he explored the utmost limits of extra-musical content in this form. The hero passes through love and adversity, confrontation, triumph in battle and fulfilment in a single, powerfully descriptive symphonic span. Gerard Schwarz’s Ein Heldenleben has been acclaimed as “exciting and inspired” (Gramophone). The opera Capriccio is a romantic struggle to choose between words and music which opens with a gloriously bittersweet string sextet.

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This disc demonstrates the vibrancy and versatility of the American trumpet tradition. The focus here is on the brilliancy and advocacy of Jeffrey Silberschlag and in conductor Gerard Schwarz we have one of the great trumpeters of his own generation. There has been a recording of Starer’s Invocation but only in its trumpet-and-piano form, not for orchestral forces.

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Vivian FUNG Violin Concerto • Glimpses for prepared piano Piano Concerto ‘Dreamscapes’

Great Conductors • Robert KAJANUS (1856–1933) Kajanus Conducts Sibelius, Vol. 1

Kristin Lee (violin) • Conor Hanick (piano) • Metropolis Ensemble • Andrew Cyr

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SEP-OCT 2012

David Ritt (trumpet) Seattle Symphony • Gerard Schwarz

Richard Strauss revived some of his less well-known scores in later years, turning his richly imaginative fairytale opera Die Frau ohne Schatten into an attractively compact orchestral tone-poem. Strauss preserved the storyline and tuneful highlights of both this and his Diaghilevcommissioned ballet Josephs-Legende, which describes a biblical drama in soaring themes and splendid orchestral effects. The charming and lyrical Serenade for Winds, written when Strauss was only 17, drew the composer to the attention of Hans von Bülow, whose support and influence was of importance to Strauss’s early career.

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The three works in this programme reflect different aspects of Strauss’s compositional life. The tone-poem Macbeth, written between 1888 and 1891, offers a grippingly taut narrative. The Dance of the Seven Veils from the 1905 opera Salome is one of its most exciting and intoxicating moments. Towards the end of his life, facing the ruin wrought by World War II, Strauss took inspiration from Goethe and wrote Metamorphosen, one of the most moving of all twentiethcentury works.

8.571219

8.503264 (3 CDs)

Vivian Fung’s work is influenced

by Asian sources such as Balinese gamelan music. Violin Concerto soloist Kristin Lee’s shared experience of Bali with the composer resulted in an intensely lyrical and virtuoso work in which West and East collide to create music of remarkably fresh sophistication. Fung draws on John Cage’s ‘prepared’ piano techniques to create often eerie and otherworldly effects in Glimpses, ideas from which expand into the Piano Concerto.

Subtitled ‘Dreamscapes’, this work explores contrasts ranging from hauntingly sustained calm to moments of brutal power.

Richard STRAUSS (1864–1949) Symphonic Fantasy on Die Frau ohne Schatten, TrV 234a Serenade for Winds in E flat major, Op. 7 Symphonic Fragment from Josephs-Legende, TrV 231a

Seattle Symphony • Gerard Schwarz

“Eric Whitacre’s choral works have been generously surveyed on disc…He couldn’t have more luminous or illuminating interpreters than the Elora Festival Singers, a choir that I’ve heartily praised in the past and that deserves the same recognition here. Highly recommended…” – David Vernier, Classics Today

The unique qualities of the American trumpet tradition are celebrated in this wideranging disc. From the drama of Leo Eylar’s dazzling Dance Suite to the wit of William McKinley’s Miniature Portraits, virtuosity and brilliance are assured. The two songs from Sondheim’s musical Sweeney Todd, orchestrated by McKinley with the composer’s consent, convey a quality of ardent determination. Jeffrey Silberschlag is the dedicatee of a number of these works and he carries on the illustrious lineage of American trumpeters. He is partnered by Gerard Schwarz, himself one of the great trumpeters of his generation, before turning to conducting.

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Richard STRAUSS (1864–1949) Macbeth, Op. 23, TrV 163 Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome, Op. 54, TrV 215 Metamorphosen, Op. 142, TrV 290

“Exquisite also describes the performances of the Elora Festival Singers…A truly enjoyable hour of music, essential for Pärt aficionados and choral enthusiasts.” – Victor Carr Jr., Classics Today

Jeffrey Silberschlag, trumpet Deborah Greitzer, bassoon • Seattle Symphony • Gerard Schwarz

The wind band offers considerable variety and color to composers, as demonstrated by these three disparate works. Jennifer Higdon’s Soprano Saxophone Concerto brings to the instrument an unerring warmth and sizzling dexterity perfectly suited to its plangent beauty. Kurt Weill’s 1924 Violin Concerto exudes neo-classicism, Mahlerian influence and a pungent dynamism that account for its popularity. Chen Yi’s Dragon Rhyme employs musical intervals familiar from Beijing Opera, in a work rich in textual color and vivid intensity.

Ilkka Talvi (violin) Seattle Symphony Gerard Schwarz

Classics Today praises these performances by the Elora Festival Singers: “If I were Morten Lauridsen and my work was in the artistic care of a choir like the Elora Festival Singers I would feel that my creative vision was in exceptionally good hands.” – David Vernier, Classics Today

THE AMERICAN TRUMPET

Carrie Koffman (soprano saxophone) • Anton Miller (violin) The Hartt School Wind Ensemble • Glen Adsit

Richard STRAUSS (1864–1949) Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40, TrV 190 Capriccio, Op. 85, TrV 279a: Sextet

Emory Symphonic Winds Scott A. Stewart

The Emory Symphonic Winds, comprised of members of the Emory Wind Ensemble and the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony, are American leaders in the commissioning of new music. Bruce Broughton’s In the World of Spirits was dedicated to the ensemble and is a work of action, dynamism and electric physicality. Christmas carols and hymns are explored by Gustav Holst while Jennifer Higdon charts the intangible beauty of music itself. Alfred Reed’s Russian Christmas Music is a classic of symphonic band writing: rich, colorful and sonorous.

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DRAGON RHYME (1864–1949)

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IN THE WORLD OF SPIRITS Christmas Classics for Wind Band

Wolfgang Rübsam (organ)

A native of Leipzig and steeped in the musical tradition of J. S. Bach, Helmut Walcha was one of the most influential organists of the 20th century. Building on Baroque examples, Walcha started composing the Chorale Preludes during the war years and they became popular teaching pieces as well as ideal vehicles for expressing the clarity and colour of organs both historic and new. As one of Walcha’s most renowned students, Wolfgang Rübsam’s interpretations are uniquely authoritative. This is the first of four volumes of Walcha’s complete Chorale Preludes.

Claude BAKER (b. 1948) The Glass Bead Game • Awaking the Winds Shadows: Four DirgeNocturnes • The Mystic Trumpeter

CLASSICAL MUSIC

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Robert SCHUMANN (1810–1856) Arrangements for Piano Duet, Vol. 1

1930 and 1932 studio recordings Mark Obert-Thorn (producer and audio restoration engineer)

Jean Sibelius wrote that “there are none who have gone deeper and given [my symphonies] more feeling and beauty than Robert Kajanus”. The nobility and affection in this première recording of the First Symphony makes it uniquely cherished amongst Sibelius aficionados. Pohjola’s Daughter is a supreme masterpiece, filled with brooding atmosphere and tension, and Tapiola is a graphic evocation of destructive climate and landscape. This is the first of three volumes containing Robert Kajanus’s complete Sibelius recordings.

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SEP-OCT 2012

Great Pianists • Arturo Benedetti MICHELANGELI The Early Recordings, Vol. 3 (1939-1948) Ward Marston (producer and audio restoration engineer)

Michelangeli was a peerless aristocrat of the piano. He had made his recording début for HMV in Milan in 1939, and in 1942 went into studios in the same city to record two major concertos for German Telefunken. Schumann’s Piano Concerto is played with a dazzling, almost improvisatory freedom, whereas the Grieg Piano Concerto is a forthright, poetic and virtuosic performance, albeit one of great warmth. The smaller pieces reveal his outstanding gradations of tone. Remarkably, Michelangeli never re-recorded either concerto again in the studio.

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Robert SCHUMANN (1810–1856) Kreisleriana, Op. 16 • Blumenstück, Op. 19 Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26

Vienna Johann Strauss Orchestra • Johannes Wildner The Strauss family was one of music’s greatest dynasties. In this glittering disc, we hear such classics as the Radetzky March of Johann Strauss I, and his son, Johann Strauss II’s overture to Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron), one of the enduring masterpieces of the Viennese concert repertoire. The irresistibly exciting Unter Donner und Blitz (Thunder and Lightning) offers thunderous delight, whilst An der schönen blauen Donau (On the Beautiful Blue Danube) is one of the most unforgettable melodies ever written. Strauss the Elder’s second son, Josef, was an outstanding composer in his own right, as demonstrated by the frenzy of excitement that is the Jokey-Polka (Jockey-Polka).

Idil Biret (piano)

Born in Ankara, Idil Biret was a pupil of Alfred Cortot and Nadia Boulanger, and a lifelong disciple of Wilhelm Kempff. Her more than eighty records since the 1960s include the complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin, Rachmaninov, the three Sonatas of Boulez, the Etudes of Ligeti and the complete Firebird piano transcriptions by Stravinsky. Her Chopin recordings received a Grand Prix du Disque Frédéric Chopin award in Poland and the Boulez recording the Golden Diapason of the year award in France.

Jan van GILSE (1881-1944) Symphony No. 4 • Concert Overture • Funeral Music

Netherlands Symphony Orchestra David Porcellijn The third instalment of cpo’s van Gilse Symphony series includes the popular Symphony No. 4. Van Gilse helped to fund the printing of hundreds of scores so it was for this reason his powerful and individual fourth symphony was not forgotten.

In contrast his Concert Overture has almost completely disappeared from the stage and the Funeral Music on the Death of Uilenspiegel had to wait until the end of World War II before it received its premiere.

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After positions as Chief Conductor of Prague State Opera and First Permanent Conductor of Leipzig Opera, Johannes Wildner was the General Music Director of the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia (Germany) for ten years from 1997. His years of experience as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra have given his conducting a distinctive stamp.

Georg Philipp TELEMANN (1681-1767) Cantatas Vol. 2

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Veronika Winter (soprano) • Lena Susanne Norin (alto) • Jan Kobow (tenor) • Ekkehard Abele (bass) Rheinische Kantorei • Das Kleine Konzert • Hermann Max

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The gripping cantatas heard on this new CD, recorded during one of the Festival Days of Magdeburg, prove Telemann was the Eighteenth-Century’s most important composer of sacred music.

Alexandre DANILEVSKI THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE

Ensemble Syntagma • Flanders Recorder Quartett • Larissa Groeneveld

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The Uncertainty Principle is a journey into the mystical musical world of Russian composer Alexandre Danilevski, where music and instruments from the middle ages to modern day meet and create an unexpectedly beautiful soundscape.

Paul JUON (1872-1940) Piano Quintet • Piano Sextet

Danilevskis’ compositions are at the same time refering to ancient sources and to modern art and science, moving through centuries of musical and aesthetic developments with ease and free of conventional restrictions regarding musical styles and paradigmas.

On this recording, Danilvski’s own ensemble Syntagma interprets two of his works for mixed ensemble and voice, while the Flanders Recorder Quartet plays his “Antiphones” and cellist Larissa Groeneveld presents “Revelation”, a concerto for cello solo.

CD 16291

On a Cold Winter’s Day

HARRY OUR KING

Quadriga Consort

As the cold and bleak winter days descend upon us, the Quadriga Consort presents longforgotten carols and age-old tunes of the festive season. With its arrangements for period instruments, the ensemble brings you a programme that is at times peaceful and reflective, and then again merry and buoyant, conjuring memories of bygone days and awakening in us that sense of peace, wonder and excitement the Christmas season once held.

CD 16293

Capella de la Torre Katharina Bäuml (direction) Charles Daniels (Tenor) “Harry our King”, the new CD of the well-known German ensemble Capella de la Torre, is a fairytale-like interpretation of music from the court of King Henry VIII Tudor of England.

King Henry was a well-educated and creative art lover, who played and composed music himself and gathered at his court artists and scholars from all over Europe. On this vibrant new recording songs and dances of Henry VIII and his contemporaries are made into a musical caleidoscope of courtial life with all its aspects of love, leisure and religiousness. Famous tenor Charles Daniels with his unique Old English pronounciation makes this music very much alive!

CD 16292

Giovanni Pierluigi de PALESTRINA Volume 2 Harry Christophers & The Sixteen

Following the success of their first CD devoted to Palestrina The Sixteen releases the second volume of the series which features the Christmas Mass Hodie Christus Natus Est.

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SEP-OCT 2012

Oliver Triendl (piano) • Thomas Grossenbacher (violoncello Sextet) • Carmina Quartett

Russian born composer Paul Juon is relatively unknown. A contemporary critic has termed this late-romantic composer the missing link between Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky.

Following the release of his Piano Quartets (777 278-2), cpo now present his Piano Quintet and Sextet.

The two works recorded here are obliged to Brahms and Chopin and of course to the Russian tradition. They are distinguished by bold harmonies and unusual or irregular rhythms.

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Carl NIELSEN (1865-1931) Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3 New York Philharmonic Alan Gilbert Erinn Morley (soprano) Joshua Hopkins (baritone)

This is the first volume in the New York Philharmonic's new Nielsen Project. With this new series of recordings, Nielsen crosses the Atlantic as the New York Philharmonic and their Music Director Alan Gilbert shed new light on the composer's uniquely Nordic symphonic sound. All works are recorded live during the New York Philharmonic's concert series in Avery Fisher Hall which has already impressed critics and audiences alike. In this interpretation, Maestro Gilbert's personal passion for the music of Carl Nielsen shines through every note, and the series will shed exciting new light on the indomitable Danish symphonist, leading up to the celebrations of his 150th birthday in 2015.

“I’m sure that Nielsen’s time is coming, and I’m looking forward to sharing this wonderful music with the audience.” Alan Gilbert

6.220623 (Hybrid SACD)

SEP-OCT 2012

Sigismund von NEUKOMM (1778-1858) Three Orchestral Fantasies • Sinfonie Heroïque Die Kölner Akademie Michael Alexander Willens

During the first half of the nineteenth century Sigismund von Neukomm was one of Europe’s most highly regarded composers. Although he maintained an intimate artistic friendship with Joseph Haydn until the older composer’s death, he was a composer with a mind of his own and full of originality. This fact is very convincingly demonstrated by his four orchestral fantasies presented here which he termed an ‘Essay in a New Genre’. Here we encounter Sturm und Drang and anticipations of romanticism in their purest form.

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Antonio ROSETTI (1750-1792) Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791) Bassoon Concertos Vol. 2 Eckart Hübner (bassoon & direction) Kurpfälzisches Kammerorchester

CPO’s survey of Rosetti’s Bassoon Concertos with Eckart Hübner is now complete. On volume 1 the Financial Times praised Hübner for playing with “a wonderfully well-rounded, very noble tone and lyrical cantabile reflection”. Rosetti’s concertos are presented with Mozart’s earliest concerto for a wind instrument.

777 742-2

Francis POULENC (1899-1963) Wind Sonatas • Wind Trio Ensemble MidtVest

Poulenc’s chamber music for wind is music that is mirthful as well as serious, entertaining and demanding, and superficial as well as profound and the ideal repertoire for the debut of an aspiring young ensemble from Denmark: the Ensemble MidtVest on cpo. Its core formation for string quartet, wind quintet, and piano promotes flexibility, variation and rich colour in the combination of instruments.

777 711-2

Poul ROVSING OLSEN (1922-82) Piano Concerto and Orchestral Works

Christina Bjørkøe (piano) Odense Symphony Orchestra Bo Holten The Danish composer Poul Rovsing Olsen’s background was in the Danish-French tradition, and his works are typified by clear-cut rhythms, expressive melody lines and colourful tonal effects.

This world première recording of his dazzling Concerto pour Piano et Orchestre together with his two major orchestral works Variations Symphoniques and Au Fond de la Nuit features pianist Christina Bjørkøe accompanied by the Odense Symphony Orchestra and conductor Bo Holten.

8.226038

7

CLASSICAL MUSIC

CLASSICAL MUSIC

STRAUSS FAMILY Favourite Dances

Claude DEBUSSY Maurice RAVEL String Quartets

Philippe Bianconi (piano) Philippe Bianconi has achieved recognition as one of France's most accomplished instrumentalists despite his reluctance to embrace the capital. The interpretation of French music has always been of great importance in his repertoire.

"Debussy has always been part of my life" says the pianist about the composer so close to his heart.

Discophiles have been impatiently awaiting his recording of the towering Préludes, but Philippe Bianconi has taken his time before entering the studio to capture what he calls "the quintessence of Debussy's art". Beneath his fingertips, which conjugate a profound attention to detail with an irresistible poetic imagination, the art of Claude de France reveals all its riches and its startling modernity.

The enchanting sonorities and the density of Philippe Bianconi's interpretation make his new CD a major addition to the list of great versions of the Préludes, enhanced by the exceptional sound quality of the recording itself, to which the pianist has devoted particular attention.

LDV07

Talich Quartet Jan Talich (violin) • Roman Patocka (violin) • Vladimir Bukac (alto) • Petr Prause (cello) Certain things are immutable in art and destined to endure over time—due either to the indestructible nature of their foundations or their perpetual renewal. When they express something primal, essential and stunningly beautiful, they are enriched by the highly qualified and talented individuals who serve them and uphold them. And when these individuals have given all they can, having devoted themselves fully to beauty, others come along to bear this centennial flame high so that it continues to blaze eternally.

This new recording devoted to quartets by Debussy and Ravel, where the Slavic accents of the four Prague natives meet French genius, is truly marvellous. The album represents a new phase in the quartet’s career that will highlight the sheer versatility of this talented group so proud of its roots.

Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921) Complete Piano Works • 3

Mieczysław WEINBERG (1919-96) Complete Piano Works • 3

Geoffrey Burleson

Saint-Saëns’s first published works for piano were these vivid and characterful Six Bagatelles, Op. 3.

Album, Op. 72 dates from SaintSaëns’s mid-career and teems with rich colours and textures – haunting and exciting alike.

Also includes the richly evocative tone poem Rhapsodie d’Auvergne.

Saint-Saëns was a piano prodigy, eulogised by Liszt amongst many others.

Saint-Saëns’s facility to evoke scenes, personalities and colours was profound along with his ingenious use of baroque and classical forms.

Geoffrey Burleson has performed to wide acclaim throughout Europe and North America, and is equally active as a recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician and jazz performer. His numerous solo appearances include prominent venues in Paris, New York, Rome, Athens, Mexico City, Rotterdam, Chicago, Boston, Washington, Switzerland, England, Spain, and elsewhere.

Allison Brewster Franzetti

Presented here are twenty-three charming miniatures written to meet the strong demand for children in the Soviet Union.

Although these pieces can be appreciated by children, they nevertheless are sophisticated and

well worked compositions.

The 21 Easy Pieces for Piano provide an insightful harmonic microcosm of Weinberg’s style. The Can-Can is a little “jeu d’esprit“ dedicated to Olga Reznitskaya, Weinberg’s second wife.

2008 Grammy® Nominee for Best Instrumental Soloist without Orchestra for 20th Century Piano Sonatas on Naxos Records, Allison Brewster Franzetti has received international acclaim from critics and audiences alike for stunning virtuosity and musicality.

GP609

LDV08

CLASSICAL MUSIC

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Claude DEBUSSY Preludes

GP610

Florent SCHMITT (1870-1958) Complete original works for piano duet and duo • 1

Felix MENDELSSOHN: Complete works Gary HOFFMAN (Cello) • David SELIG (Piano)

THE INVENCIA PIANO DUO

Music, rather than simply being a question of technique and practice, is a labour of love, born out of pleasure and created with pleasure…

A pleasure that Gary Hoffman and David Selig share: "Our rehearsals are not moments where we have decided in advance to work on this or that. We start with the music and our choices are made naturally, instinctively… I don't ask myself questions, I just play", says Gary Hoffman.

Having entered the Rostropovitch Competition, and needing a pianist to accompany him, Gary Hoffman met David Selig and they have since become close friends as well as collaborators. They share a passion for the underestimated genius of the German 19th Century composer Felix Mendelssohn. For Gary Hoffman, Mendelssohn is as great as Schumann, Bach, Beethoven and Mozart; his works are exquisitely written and physically demanding; his vision poetic, ample and modern.

To repair the injustice of Mendelssohn’s current reputation with musicians as a "minor" composer, Gary Hoffman and David Selig have recorded his complete works for cello and piano or the French label Dolce Volta. In order to do justice to Mendelssohn, the perfectly constructed balance of the pieces and the interplay between the two instruments, it was necessary to unite two close friends, working together in perfect harmony.

The first of four volumes dedicated to unpublished work and rarities for piano duo and duet.

Schmitt stands alongside Debussy and Ravel as one of the most original and influential French composers of his time.

Beyond a few works such as the Trois rhapsodies, Op. 53, Schmitt’s piano duos and duets have been hardly known on disc.

Includes rarities such as the unpublished Rapsodie parisienne.

Schmitt’s warm melodic gift, sensual and subtle harmonies and rhythmic inventiveness makes this disc rewarding listening.

The Invencia Piano Duo has won high critical acclaim for its compelling interpretations of a vast and diverse repertoire. Lutsyshyn was a prize winner at the Vienna Modern Masters International Performers’s Recording Awards Competition and the William Kapell International Piano Competition. Kasparov won the Albert Roussel Prize at the Orléans International Piano Competition and gave the première of Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 to great acclaim.

GP621

LDV05 Bedrich SMETANA The Bartered Bride

J.S. BACH Christmas Oratorio & Introduction

BBC Symphony Orchestra Jiri Belohlavek

After the success of his introduction to the St. Matthew Passion, author Wieland Schmid now takes us on a journey through the Christmas Oratorio with thrilling insights into Bach's creative process and background information on the composition. Outstanding narrators and the complete recording of the 2010 performance of the Christmas Oratorio with the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Akademie für alte Musik Berlin under the direction of Peter Dijkstra make this 4-CD set the ideal Christmas gift.

900902 (4 for 2)

Kaija SAARIAHO (1952) Trios

Steven Dann (viola) • Pia Freund (soprano) • Tuija Hakkila (piano) • Mikael Helasvuo (alto flute) • Florent Jodelet (percussion) • Anssi Karttunen (cello) • Ernst Kovacic (violin) The trios are composed for different combinations of instruments, each of them demonstrating their individual colours.

Ondine has previously released the orchestral version of Mirage, and here presents the world première recording of the trio version.

Musicians on this recording have performed Saariaho’s work for a number of years and display a striking affinity with her music.

ODE 1189-2

8

"A classic!" And yet Smetana was thoroughly irritated by the torrents of praise lavished, in the last years of his life, on this "Bartered Bride" which had been categorically rejected at its premiere (1866) by a Czech public waiting to hear the "genuine" national opera. Four versions of the work later, and after many critical complaints (sometimes it was found too long, sometimes too short), it was realised that the composer had given birth to a genre built to last. For nearly 150 years now, "The Bartered Bride" has triumphed in opera houses all over the world; and in the present recording it is in the hands of a true team of experts.

HMC902119.20 (2 CDs)

Richard STRAUSS (1864–1949) Three Hymns • Opera Arias

Soile Isokoski • Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra • Okko Kamu The rarely recorded Three Hymns are coupled with arias from Ariadne auf Naxos, Der Rosenkavalier and Capriccio.

Soile Isokoski performs those (and other) operas regularly at opera houses across the world including Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera House, Milan’s La Scala, the Semperoper in Dresden, Paris and at festivals including Salzburg, Edinburgh, Orange and Savonlinna.

Three Hymns is a major work, and places considerable vocal demands on the soloist. These atmospheric concert pieces show Strauss’ orchestration in full bloom.

ODE 1202-2

SEP-OCT 2012

Franz SCHUBERT Piano Sonatas Paul Lewis (piano)

'Lewis's mature insight into the workings and emotional characteristics of these works lends his interpretations particular power and depth.' – Daily Telegraph 'The Impromptus are a particular delight, projecting Schubert at his most lyrically flamboyant.' – The Scotsman 'Arguably the finest Schubert interpreter of his generation [. . .] Time and again, you marvel at the confidence and sureness of Lewis's playing, combined with the finesse and musicality that he has always displayed.' – Gramophone Recording of the Month, February 2012

HMC902136.37 (2 CDs)

SEP-OCT 2012

NAPOLI & La FOLIA Concerti & sinfonie per flauto "anno 1725" Maurice Steger

In the "holy year" of 1725, the most famous flautist of his time, J. J. Quantz, visited Naples. He inspired a host of sonatas and concertos by the great Alessandro Scarlatti and his most talented successors. Now Maurice Steger brings these treasures back to life, drawing on a Neapolitan collection dating from 1725. He has assembled the leading specialists in the genre, whom you can see in the enthralling DVD included here. The result is dazzling, poetic, in a word, masterly.

HMC902135 Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Moto Perpetuo Javier Perianes (piano)

In search of perpetual time.

If the device known as moto perpetuo has travelled all through the history of music, from FrancoFlemish polyphony down to the American minimalists, it is probably because it encourages us to question our relationship with the infinite. More than a century before the constructivist movement, when he explored this eminently mechanistic form, Beethoven already took that process of questioning to the brink of existential vertigo! His works form the basis of the enthralling programme presented here by Javier Perianes.

HMC902138

9

Michael Morpurgo (author/narrator) Alison Reid (narrator) Jack Liebeck (violin) Nicholas Collon (conductor) Simon Reade (director) London Philharmonic Orchestra

Vladimir Jurowski, Marin Alsop, Markus Stenz (conductors) Christian Tetzlaff (violin) Michael Collins (clarinet) Lawrence Power (viola) London Philharmonic Orchestra British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage is widelyadmired for his distinctive blending of jazz and contemporary classical traditions, high energy and elegiac lyricism.

His music is colourful, rhythmic and always distinctive, with an innate dramatic sense. Powerful in its contrasts, his music and texts hold up a mirror to the realities of modern life and make a broad appeal to an enquiring contemporary audience.

Turnage was the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Composer in Residence from 2005-10, during which time the Orchestra released two highly acclaimed CDs of his orchestral music. This is the third and final volume of Turnage’s music to be released on the LPO Label. It features five works recorded for the first time, including the world première peformance of his violin concerto Mambo, Blues and Tarantella with soloist Christian Tetzlaff. The CD also features performances by soloists Lawrence Power (viola) and Michael Collins (clarinet).

LPO-0066

Children’s author Michael Morpurgo narrates his book The Mozart Question, an eloquent and ultimately uplifting story charting a small boy’s discovery of his love for the violin, and of his parents’ traumatic past in a concentration camp during the Second World War. This CD weaves together the book’s narration with musical extracts to bring the story alive, featuring pieces

by Beethoven, Vivaldi, Bach and Mozart performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

The musical extracts interpersed with the narration include movements from Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, and Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Nicholas Collon conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra with violin soloist Jack Liebeck.

LPO-0067

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Piano Concertos Nos 17 & 26 Ronald Brautigam (fortepiano) Die Kölner Akademie Michael Alexander Willens

Described in International Record Review as 'an absolutely instinctive Mozartian, with fleet fingerwork to match any, and with melodic playing of consummate beauty', Ronald Brautigam returns with the third instalment in his series of Mozart’s piano concertos. As on the two previous discs, he is joined by the period band Die Kölner Akademie conducted by Michael Alexander Willens, forming a partnership described on website klassik-heute.de as ‘Mozart interpreters of the first order’. The present disc includes Piano Concerto No.26 in D major, K 537, nicknamed the ‘Coronation Concerto’ on the basis of the slightly misleading information given on the title page of the first edition of the work, stating that the work was ‘performed by the composer at Frankfurtam-Main on the occasion of the Coronation of Emperor Leopold II’, in October 1790. Mozart did in fact perform the work in Frankfurt, but the concert took place a week after the actual coronation, and was not part of the official festivities. Nor was it written for the occasion – Mozart had in fact premièred it the previous year, in Vienna. Popular for its beauty and rococo style, it is here preceded by Piano Concerto No.17 in G major, K 453, one of the rare concertos that Mozart composed with another soloist than himself in mind.

BIS-1944 (SACD)

Richard STRAUSS Eine Alpensinfonie

Robert SCHUMANN • Frédéric CHOPIN Bronska Katia Bronska is Polish by birth, Parisian by adoption. Acclaimed by the critics, she has captivated audiences around the world, meeting with success and triumph in great cities such as Paris, New York and London.

Her music shows a fascinating personality. She has caught the attention of great musicians such as Yehudi Menuhin, who wrote: "I have just heard Katia Bronska and I am thrilled! She plays Chopin's works with a precise and intrinsic rubato, with a tempo that leads you from one enchanting moment to the next."

She was an exceptionally gifted child, who received the gold medal in Poland's National Piano Competition for Promising Young Talent at the age twelve. She studied with the great piano teachers Krystyna Jastrzebska and Zbigniew Sliwinski, before going to work with some of the most distinguished professors in St Petersburg.

AP039

Joseph HAYDN (1732-1809) The Cello Concertos Harriet Krijgh (cello) Wiener Kammerphilharmonie Claudius Traunfellner

Anna Christensson (piano)

This is Harriet Krijgh’s second recording for Capriccio. Her debut disc entitled ‘The French Album’ was highly praised with The Strad magazine calling it “a promising debut from a young Dutch cellist’.

On this disc Harriet shows off her virtuosity and technical finesse performing both Cello Concertos by Joseph Haydn.

C5139

DEMILITARISED ZONES MARCHES HR brass • Lutz Köhler

This re-release on Capriccio contains music picked by HR-brass.

As with most brass band ensembles, they stand in the old tradition of music with ‘trumpets and drums’.

HR-brass has taken a stand with their own CD on the subject of marches. This disc includes a varied programme from 10 Marches to miss the victory by Mauricio Kagel and demilitarised zone by HK Gruber to Beethoven’s Marschlied from “Egmont” and Wagner’s Funeral March from “Götterdämmerung”.

C5121

10

Hilding ROSENBERG (1892-1985) Piano Rarities Hilding Rosenberg was of the most important personalities of Swedish musical life of the 20th century and quickly established himself as one of the key players of Swedish modernity. The young Swedish pianist Anna Christensson superbly interprets the five piano pieces heard on this recording.

Called a ‘symphony’ by its composer, Richard Strauss’ Alpine Symphony is nevertheless a symphonic poem, and as such it is the last in a series of works that includes such masterpieces as Don Juan, Also sprach Zarathustra and Ein Heldenleben. In 1900, when Strauss first mentioned any plans for the work, he spoke of a symphonic poem in two parts that would begin with a sunrise in Switzerland. When he returned to the idea some ten years later, the work soon grew so vast that he decided to be content with one single movement, depicting the ‘worship of eternal glorious nature’. To regard the Alpensinfonie simply as an impression of landscape would be a mistake, however. It does make use of Strauss’ entire repertoire of orchestral pictorialism, but behind it are ideas much less simple: nature is being worshipped in the intoxicated spirit of Nietzsche’s superman, the liberation of the soul is achieved through hard work – the climber’s struggle to gain the mountaintOp.The work is divided into 22 sections that flow in an unbroken sequence, marking the ascent and descent of the mountain, from before sunrise to after sunset. It was scored for the largest orchestra ever used by Strauss for a purely orchestral piece, and he later said that it was in the Alpine Symphony that he had ‘finally learned how to orchestrate’.

BIS-1950 (SACD)

Felix MENDELSSOHN The Complete Symphonies, String Symphonies and Concertos

C5116

ISRAEL IN EGYPT – from slavery to freedom

Yair Dalal • Tölzer Knabenchor • The Al Ol Ensemble • L’arte Del Mondo • Werner Ehrhardt This project is based on Israel in Egypt, one of the best-known and most popular oratorios by Georg Friedrich Handel, and has been created on the basis of the common history and roots of three religions; Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Musicians from the (Western) European Baroque tradition (Baroque orchestra and choir), and hence from a Christian background, are joined by musicians from Jewish and Muslim backgrounds. The basic musical form of Handel’s oratorio and its narrative structure remains untouched, for the most parts.

C5151 (2 CDs)

SEP-OCT 2012

Amsterdam Sinfonietta • Lev Markiz Gathered here, the three discs with Felix Mendelssohn’s symphonies recorded in 2007 and 2008 by Andrew Litton and his Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra were warmly received by the reviewers when they were first released. And as if all this wasn’t enough, a further four discs offer all of the eight concertos that Mendelssohn composed.

These include the youthful works with string orchestra accompaniment (concertos for violin, for piano, for violin and piano, and for two pianos), as well as the mature works for violin and for piano and full orchestra, performed here by Isabelle van Keulen ‘with a soft tone like the finestspun silk - plus strength to match, when required’ (Gramophone), and Ronald Brautigam, in what has been described as ‘one of the great piano recordings’ (In Tune).

BIS-2002

SEP-OCT 2012

Christian Poltéra (cello) Kathryn Stott (piano) Antonín Dvořák’s path to his famous cello concerto was long and far from direct. Certainly he had used the instrument to great effect in his orchestral music, but for a long time he doubted its suitability as a solo instrument. To some extent, this disc charts the process of the composer towards the recognition of the full capabilities of the cello, as it includes chamber works that Dvořák composed directly for cello and piano, or arranged for the combination.

The earliest of these, although not published until long after the composer’s death, was the Polonaise in A major, a piece lyrical and virtuosic in turns. Some thirteen years later, in 1892, Dvořák composed the Rondo in G minor and arranged Silent Woods, originally a piano duet. Shortly after he also made versions for cello and orchestra of both pieces, almost as if preparing himself for the concerto, which he began writing in 1894. Dvořák’s own practice of arranging existing works has encouraged Christian Poltéra to select a number of the composer’s violin pieces and songs, performing them here in his own transcriptions. These include the Violin Sonatina, from the same time as the Rondo and Silent Woods and originally intended for Dvořák’s own children.

BIS-1947 (SACD) Coloratura

São Paulo Symphony Orchestra Frank Shipway

Katia Bronska (piano)

Antonín DVOŘÁK Silent Woods

Anu Komsi (soprano) • Lahti Symphony Orchestra • Sakari Oramo Coloratura – the colouring of a note, a phrase, an entire aria with trills, ornaments, death-defying leaps and dynamic shadings of infinite variety.

For more than two centuries, the art of coloratura was a central aspect of the vocal art, and especially of opera, developed largely by the castrato singers at first, and later by generations of star performers and their vocal coaches. In the mid-nineteenth century this great tradition was all but broken – neither Wagner nor Verdi were prepared to accommodate it in their different brands of music drama, and as both the opera houses and their orchestras grew larger, a different, heavier and more powerful style of singing was favoured. But the fascination and awe inspired by this almost supernatural phenomenon has never died, among audiences, singers or composers. Anu Komsi, Finland’s ‘coloratura assoluta’, here presents a selection almost as wide-ranging as her own vocal technique, with mad scenes and rage arias from 18th- and 19th-century operas, Alyabyev’s ever-soaring Nightingale and the silvery tinkling of Lakmé’s Bell Song. Later examples of the lengths a singer may be expected to go to are Glière’s glittering (and strikingly anachronistic) Concerto for coloratura and orchestra from 1943, and La Machine de l’être by the composer John Zorn (b. 1953).

BIS-1962 (SACD) Pavane

Maxim Rysanov (viola) Ashley Wass (piano) In his Treatise on Instrumentation, Hector Berlioz wrote of the viola that ‘the sound of its strings is particularly telling, its upper notes are distinguished by their mournfully passionate accent, and its quality of tone, of a profound melancholy, differs from that of other instruments played with a bow’. In devising the present programme, Maxim Rysanov could almost have been inspired by this description, and by the affinity between the timbre of the viola and the particular colours in French music. The pieces – all arrangements – by Ravel, Fauré and Debussy are bathed in an atmosphere of calm beauty with a hint of melancholy. Framed by two Pavanes, they include perennial favourites such as Après un rêve and Clair de lune, performed by a player who ‘couldn’t make an ugly sound if he tried’ and who ‘better than almost anyone else is able to bring out the beauties of the viola’ according to reviews in International Record Review and on website klassik.com respectively.

BIS-1773 (SACD)

11

CLASSICAL MUSIC

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Michael MORPURGO The Mozart Question

Mark-Anthony TURNAGE Orchestral works vol. 3

Yevgeny Sudbin plays LISZT, RAVEL & SAINT-SAËNS

London Baroque

Yevgeny Sudbin (piano)

In their survey of the trio sonata, the four members of London Baroque have already visited France, England and Germany before arriving at the actual birthplace of the genre – Italy in the 17th century. There the years around 1600 had seen ground-breaking developments in vocal music, such as the seconda prattica characterised by the clear division between a single melodic line and a supporting continuo bass.

Now instrumental music was becoming important in its own right, and soon the violin was recognized as the ideal vehicle for a new style which is obvious already in the very first trio sonatas, such as Giovanni Paolo Cima’s Sonata a tre from 1610. The term ‘trio sonata’ is a later expression, and in 17th-century Italy the terms commonly used were ‘Sonata a due’ (two melody instruments plus continuo), and ‘Sonata a tre’ (three melody instruments – usually two soprano and one bass – plus continuo).

BIS-1795

Antonín DVOŘÁK

Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra Claus Peter Flor ‘The most gripping Dvořák to come along in many years’ is how website Classics Today described the recently released disc with the composer’s Seventh Symphony, performed by Claus Peter Flor and the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. This was quickly followed by the same team’s recording of Symphony No.8, and now the turn has come to Antonín Dvořák’s final work in the genre: Symphony No.9 – the ‘New World Symphony’. It was composed entirely on American soil, and the composer himself acknowledged that it ‘would not have been written this way if I had never seen America’. Nevertheless, and contrary to what is often claimed, he also maintained that he had not used any existing material, but ‘simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of the Indian music’, developing them ‘with all the resources of modern rhythms, harmony, counterpoint and orchestral colour.’

BIS-1962 (SACD)

BEETHOVEN • LISZT Symphony No.6 ‘Pastoral’ Ashley Wass (fortepiano)

An exciting new recording of Liszt’s extraordinary piano transcription of Beethoven’s most popular Pastoral Symphony performed here by one of Britain’s favourite young pianists.

Performed on a historically fascinating fortepiano, one of a collection of historical keyboard instruments housed in the stunning Restoration House in Rochester, inspiration for Miss Havisham’s house in Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations.

ORC100024

Following a series of highly acclaimed recordings dedicated to individual composers, Yevgeny Sudbin has combined works by Liszt, Ravel and Saint-Saëns into a recital with the three-stranded theme Love, Delirium and Death. First to make its presence felt is death, in Funérailles, Liszt’s grandiose elegy for his Hungarian countrymen who died in the 1849 uprising against Habsburg Rule. It reappears in Ravel’s depiction of a hanging – Le Gibet (The Gallows) from the triptych Gaspard de la Nuit – and closes the programme in Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre in which Death personified provides the music for a morbid ballet of corpses, playing a fiddle and tapping his foot on a tombstone. Love enters the programme with the Petrarch Sonnets, originally song settings by Liszt of three of the many poems in which Petrarca immortalized Laura, the object of his life-long but unrequited passion, and later reworked for piano solo by the composer.

Ines Maidre (organ)

The music of the Estonian organistcomposer Peeter Süda (1883–1920) combines contrapuntal mastery with a virtuosic command of the Romantic organ. Süda’s brief life and his perfectionism meant that his output – exclusively for the organ – remained small, but it is beautifully crafted and highly expressive. This handful of original works is complemented by a mighty transcription of Liszt’s symphonic poem Tasso.

TOCC0056 Vladas JAKUBĖNAS Chamber and Instrumental Music

Vilnius String Quartet (string quartet) Kasparas Uinskas (piano) Rusnė Mataitytė (violin) Edmundas Kulikauskas (cello) Albina Šikšniūtė (piano) St Christopher Chamber Orchestra, chamber orchestra Donatas Katkus (conductor)

BIS-1828 (SACD)

Felix MENDELSSOHN Lieder ohne Worte (I) Ronald Brautigam (piano)

If claims could be made for a certain composer to have invented a genre single-handedly, Felix Mendelssohn would be a strong candidate with his ‘Songs without Words’. The term itself can be traced back to 1828, and a letter in which Fanny Mendelssohn mention having received a ‘song without words’ as a birthday present from her brother. Although Mendelssohn continued an existing tradition of writing short lyrical pieces for the piano, the concept of ‘wordless songs’ was new, and indeed the great majority of the Lieder ohne Worte display some sort of songlike structure (melody in the upper voice, an accom¬paniment that is predominantly chordal or arpeggiated, ABA-form). Immediately popular with a wide audience, and soon a staple ingredient in domestic musicmaking all over Europe, the Lieder ohne Worte were also highly regarded by fellow composers, who imitated the style of Mendelssohn’s pieces, and sometimes adopted his title for them as well.

BIS-1982 (SACD)

BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No.1 in C KUHLAU Concerto in C, Op.7

Marianna Shirinyan • Copenhagen Phil • Michael Francis • Rolf Gupta Marianna Shirinyan, an Armenian pianist resident in Denmark, is one of this generation’s leading pianists, having won no less than five prizes at the ARD International Music Competition in 2006, and numerous prizes since then.

As composer, critic, teacher and musical activist, Vladas Jakubėnas (1904–76) was one of the major cultural figures in pre-World War Two Lithuania, before his post-War exile in the USA. As a student of Schreker in Berlin in 1928–32, he initially wrote in a Neoclassical style – as most of the works on this CD attest – and was nicknamed ‘the Lithuanian Hindemith’. Back home, he began to compose in a late-Romantic, gently modernist idiom, tinged with the influence of Lithuanian folk-music.

TOCC0013

Jean-Philippe RAMEAU The Complete Keyboard Music, Volume Two Stephen Gutman (piano)

Rameau was one of the great composers for the keyboard. But because pianists have not adopted his harpsichord music as they have that of the other great names of the Baroque – Bach, Handel and Scarlatti – his stature as one of the world’s major keyboard composers is not as fully acknowledged. This series of three CDs underlines that claim by presenting all his keyboard music on the piano: the familiar suites, a number of discoveries and arrangements by himself and his contemporaries.

TOCC0051

Dai Asai (piano)

The Japanese concert pianist Dai Asai expresses his love to Chopin in this recording of his most beloved and legendary Nocturnes, the Barcarolle, Ballade and Fantasie Impromptu – this is performend on a Steinway Concert Grand D Hamburg and recorded with the most state of the art digital microphone technology without any loss in the signal chain – directly from the microphone membrane to the Harddisc Recorder, mastered in True Peak EBU R128 standard for most natural dynamic and most excellent sound quality. Running Time 74:40 – PCM Stereo

EA3012

SEP-OCT 2012

Jānis MEDIŅŠ: 24 Dainas (Preludes) Jonathan Powell (piano)

Jānis Mediņš (1890–1966) was one of the pioneers of Latvian music: his works include the first Latvian opera, and he was also an important conductor and teacher. His 24 Dainas for piano – he took the title from Latvian folk-poetry – show the influence of Rachmaninov, Grieg and Scriabin and have a modal colour inherited from Latvian folk-music.

Although their composition was spread over four decades – interrupted by the Second World War and Mediņš’s exile in Sweden – the Dainas are unified by their passionate lyricism and epic sweep.

TOCC0097

Alexander Tcherepnin Piano Music 1913–61

Alexander Tcherepnin (piano) Mikhail Shilyaev (piano) This unusual album begins with archival recordings, in excellent sound, of the Russian-born composer-pianist Alexander Tcherepnin (1899–1977) playing some of his most memorable piano music. The early Sonata No. 1 (1918–19) is a brilliant, virtuosic study in dramatic Slavic romanticism; the atmospheric late Sonata No. 2 (1961), never commercially recorded by the composer, stands as a paragon of elegant modernism in continuous thematic evolution. The second part of the CD, performed by the Russian pianist Mikhail Shilyaev, presents a selection of attractive, rarely heard works from various periods in Tcherepnin's career, further illustrating his Prokofiev-like fondness for spiky humour, pungent harmony and crisp melody.

TOCC0079

Buxton ORR Chamber Music for Strings

Beethoven String Trio of London (string trio) • Pavlo Beznosiuk (violin) • Andrew Roberts (violin) • Jeremy Williams (viola) • Richard Tunnicliffe (cello) • Maya Homburger (baroque violin) • Barry Guy (double-bass) The music of Buxton Orr, born in Glasgow in 1924, was hardly overexposed during his lifetime but has encountered even more neglect since his death in 1997. This CD takes a step in the right direction, presenting Orr’s mildly modernist, elegant and honest music in first recordings of four of his chamber works for strings.

TOCC0103

Soli Deo Gloria

JS BACH Cantatas for Christmas Monteverdi Choir English Baroque Soloists John Eliot Gardiner

ORC100025

DAI ASAI plays CHOPIN

12

Peeter SÜDA Complete Organ Music

It features a cast of stellar soloists including Magdalena Kožená, Bernarda Fink, Michael Chance, James Gilchrist, Christoph Genz, etc.

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloist give their customary brilliant performances, making this release a must-have gift this Christmas season.

It includes some of Bach’s best known cantatas, including the glorious Christen, atzet diesen Tag (CD1), the festive and brilliant Unser Mund sei voll Lachens (CD2) , the infectiously rhythmic Ich freue mich in dir (CD3), Gelobet seist du (CD1) and many other “jewels” which glow with that special sense of expectation that is the hallmark of Bach’s Christmas music.

SDG178 (6 for 2)

SEP-OCT 2012

BEETHOVEN Symphonies 5 & 7

Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique John Eliot Gardiner Nearly twenty years after their acclaimed Beethoven Symphonies recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique returned to this repertoire for the first time last year, in a tour that took them to London, Philadelphia, Washington and New York.

The concert in Carnegie Hall was broadcast live by WQXR, who kindly agreed to make the recording available to us to release on our label.

Sir John Eliot’s Gardiner’s reading of these familiar pieces highlights their revolutionary origin.

Performing on period instruments, the ORR brings light, clarity and brisk energy, as well as a warm and genuinely thrilling sound.

SDG717

13

CLASSICAL MUSIC

CLASSICAL MUSIC

The Trio Sonata in 17th-Century Italy

Roger Norrington (Conductor) Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart Roger Norrington and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra SWR continue their survey of the major works of the 19th Century symphonic repertoire with two symphonies by Schubert. Throughout his decade of working with the RSO, Norrington has transformed the sound of a modern symphony orchestra into an ensemble capable of delivering authentic historically informed music making. By employing both the benefits of authentic performance practice and technically superior modern instruments Norrington has left a legacy that has opened the ears of romantic "purists" as well as delighting devotees of authentic performance practice.

CD93.288 MARTIN • RAVEL • SCHUBERT • STRAUSS Gérard Souzay (Bariton) Dalton Baldwin (Piano)

The baritone Gérard Souzay had no long operatic career, so he never had the opportunity to develop a following, as did many of his peers.

Yet, connoisseurs recognized his innate musicality and his perfect pronunciation of German - indeed, his Lieder interpretations are considered legendary. Souzay limited himself to recitals of German Lieder and French mélodies, yet what you'll hear provides sheer delight. He still is a singer for connoisseurs, but this historic recital, recorded in his prime, will surely further this great singer's reputation throughout the world.

CD93.717

Zino Francescatti plays BRAHMS

Zino Francescatti (Violin) Ernest Bour (Conductor) Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freibu (Orchestra) lthough Zino Francescatti (19021991) had a long and successful career, which ended in 1976 with his retirement, the number of his recordings available today is very low.

Most were made for Columbia (now Sony) and are now sadly, out of print.

His incomparably noble tone and beauty of his playing were celebrated throughout the major concert venues of the world. This performance of the Brahms violin concerto is a rarity insofar as it was recorded just two years before his retirement from the concert stage.

CD94.219

Gottfried Heinrich STÖLZEL Franz TUNDER Dietrich BUXTEHUDE Nicolaus BRUHNS Adam KRIEGER Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sings Baroque Arias Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Bariton)

The great bass-baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau has been involved with the music of Bach throughout his career. Even as a student, he studied the cantatas and in his first Post-War concert in 1947, he was a soloist in the "St. Matthew Passion." As the singer's career progressed, performances of the music of Bach and his contemporaries became increasingly rare. However, in the 1950s, while at the beginning of his career, Fischer-Dieskau produced a series of radio recordings featuring not only the music of Bach but other Baroque composers such as Schütz, Tunder and Stölzel. A rare document of this legendary singer's early career!

CD94.218

14

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN The Complete Symphonies

Charles KOECHLIN Magicien orchestrateur

Michael Gielen (Conductor) SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Fr RundfunkChor Berlin (Choir)

Heinz Holliger (Conductor) Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart Florian Hoelscher (Piano) When listening to the orchestral music of Charles Koechlin, one is immediately captivated by the intoxicating range of colors he was able to craft into every score.

Given his extraordinary sensitivity to instrumental textures, it is hardly surprising that he would, upon occasion rework - or be asked to score - the music of others, giving those pieces new life with a splash of unexpected color. Debussy's late ballet "Khamma" is such a piece, orchestrated by Koechlin from the composer's short score, as was Fauré's "Pelléas et Mélisande." In Franz Schubert's "Wanderer Fantasy," Koechlin offers an orchestral version of this most symphonic of piano pieces, whereas Chabrier's "Bouree fantasque" is a delightful fantasy.

CD93.286

Michael Gielen is in many ways the "elder statesman" among conductors.

His experience and breadth of interests set him apart of his - or any other generation. The sum of his artistry is reflected in this Beethoven cycle, recorded over a space of just three years. As the former chief conductor of the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg, he follows in his interpretive decisions with complete abandon. Gielen's orchestral conducting is compelling and high-spirited, and as always, penetrating in its insight and clarity.

CD93.285 (5 CDs)

Marcus Ullmann (Tenor) • Martin Bruns (Bariton) • Andreas Frese (Piano) • Bennewitz Quartett

André Watts (Piano)

CD93.718

Géza Anda plays MOZART & RAVEL

Antonin Dvorák 's "Cypresses" Opus 1 was a cycle of 18 songs, and a source of enduring inspiration that he repeatedly returned to in subsequent decades as a quarry for other works.

The original Op. 1 cycle, composed for tenor, baritone and piano, has yet to be recorded in its entirety.

Dvorák would later arrange twelve of the "Cypresses" songs as a string quartet. The string quartet version is beautiful in its own right, deepening the emotional experience of the songs as well as existing as an independent work. In order to complete the musical experience of hearing all 18 of the songs in both versions, the composer HansPeter Dott arranged the six remaining pieces not originally transcribed

by Dvorák for string quartet. Thus, in this recording, we can hear in its entirety the complete "Cypresses" both in their original song version as well as in a lovely string quartet arrangement.

Géza Anda (Piano)

CD98.641 (2 CDs)

Géza Anda was among the small group of 20th Century pianists whose playing and artistic point of view became a seminal force for future generations. Anda's live performances presented a balance of spontaneity and reflection achieved through his complete devotion to realizing the composer's creative vision. Anda's interpretation of Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand and Orchestra is a fascinating addition to his discography, providing new insights to this haunting score and Anda's extraordinary interpretive abilities.

CD94.216

Felix MENDELSSOHN Streichquartette op. 13, 12 Minetti Quartett

"A musical sensation from Austria" wrote the Berlin Tagesspiegel of the young Minetti Quartett's debut at the Berlin Philharmonie in 2009.

The name "Minetti Quartett" refers to a play by famous Austrian author Thomas Bernhard (1939-1989), who lived in Ohlsdorf, the birthplace of the quartet's two female members. The "European Rising Star Series" presented the Minetti Quartett during the 2008-09 season on the stages of the prestigious European concert halls. Since then appearances included Wigmore Hall, London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Koelner Philharmonie, Palais des Beaux Arts Brussels, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Mozarteum Salzburg, Beethovenhaus Bonn, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Konserthuset Stockholm and of course the Vienna Musikverein. Die Presse in Vienna summed it up after one of those concerts: "The youthful freshness of the quartet's interpretations charms audiences since 2003. There are top musicians with spirit and dedication at work who charge the music of the classic and romantic periods with energy for the new millennium".

CD98.645

Joseph HAYDN Symphonies Nos. 1, 4, 5, 10 (Volume 17)

Vladimir Bunin (Piano) Pavlos Hatzopoulos (Piano) This compilation includes some of the best-known works of Chopin, featuring the "Revolutionary Etude", the Barcarolle Op. 60, the Second Sonata and the Fantaisie-Impromptu.

These works, from the intimate Nocturnes to the symphonic drama of the B Minor Sonata, offer a good overview of the genius of Chopin.

Michael Korstick (Piano)

SEP-OCT 2012

This year, we are delighted to share with you a Best of the Musikalischer Adventskalender with a delightful disc that has assembled the most perfect musical moments from the past nine years.

CD93.291

Frédéric CHOPIN

Claude DEBUSSY Piano Music Vol. 1

This recording offers an exciting mix of known and unknown piano works

by Debussy. The featured work is the well-known First Book of "Preludes" together with rarities like "Toomai des eléphants" (completed by Debussy and Satie expert Robert Orledge) originally intended by Debussy for the second Book of "Préludes" but later discarded. Also featured is another Debussy discovery, the "Petite valse," dating from 1915. Even the piano score of "Khamma" is not among the composer's more frequently recorded works. This is the first volume of Michael Korstick's recording of the complete piano works of Claude Debussy.

Korstick's extraordinary sensitivity and stylistic mastery of 20th century French piano literature have earned him and his recordings of the piano music of Charles Koechlin considerable critical praise. His delicate touch and idiomatic approach to every nuance of these suggestive scores will no doubt bring an exciting dimension to interpreting Debussy in the 21st century.

CD93.290

For the past nine years, the hänssler CLASSIC/SWR co-production of the Musikalischer Adventskalender has been one of the most eagerly anticipated releases for the holiday season! Each recording documented the wealth and variety of choral and instrumental ensembles in the southwest of Germany, sharing the many musical faces of Christmas with the world: ancient and modern, small ensembles, choirs or orchestras, rhythmic, celebratory and contemplative.

Antonín DVORÁK Cypresses

Franz LISZT

André Watts was born in 1946 in Nuremberg, the son of an American soldier and a Hungarian pianist.

He was just 9 years old when he made his concert debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra playing the Haydn D Major concerto. As a 16-year-old, Leonard Bernstein asked the young man to step in for a performance of Liszt´s First Piano Concerto. It was Watt's breakthrough concert and thereafter, Bernstein would become his mentor and Leon Fleisher his teacher.

His career continued to develop over the following decades and Watts maintains his mastery to this day, though he performs with less frequency. This recording comes from 1986 and shows the pianist at the full disposal of his virtuoso skills.

Der musikalische Adventskalender Vol. 10 - 2012

Thomas Fey (Artist) Heidelberger Sinfoniker (Orchestra)

In 2011 Thomas Fey was nominated for a Grammy for his world premiere recordings of the music of Antonio Salieri. Every new release of Haydn symphonies from Thomas Fey and his ensemble is greeted with enthusiasm; truly this is how Haydn should sound today. To bring this about, Fey's musicians bridge past and present, performing both on modern string instruments and replicas of authentic period woodwind, brass and percussion instruments.

CD94.612

CD98.633

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Posthorn Serenade, Symphony No. 33, Haffner Serenade, Symphony No. 35 Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Iona Brown (Conductor)

For this latest release in hänssler CLASSIC's Premium Composers edition we have selected a program of serenades and symphonies from Mozart's Salzburg period. Mozart's late years in Salzburg were extremely productive especially in the sphere of orchestral music. Among the works written this particularly creative period were the Symphony K. 319, the Posthorn Serenade and the Haffner Serenade, written for the wedding of Marie Elizabeth Haffner. Mozart would return to this score again in 1782, when time constraints prevented him for composing a new work for the Haffner family, writing instead what has come down to us as the "Haffner" Symphony KV 385.

Altogether, a delightful sampling of some of Mozart's most extrovert and joyous music!

CD94.613

SEP-OCT 2012

15

CLASSICAL MUSIC

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Franz SCHUBERT Symphonies 4 & 5

Oktoberfest

Classical Chinese Folk Music

The perfect music for your Oktober Fest celebration, with the first rate 15-piece brass band d’Wyn Mugge!

Info about the band in English and German.

A selection of beautiful classical Chinese folk songs played eloquently by top-class musicians on traditional instruments including pipa, dizi, konghou and erhu. Information about the artists, instruments and songs in four languages.

d’Wyn Mugge

Kenneth Karlsson (piano)

In this recording pianist Kenneth Karlsson, for many years the artistic director of the Cikada ensemble, brings together Rolf Wallin and Asbjørn Schaathun, two Norwegian composers of truly European format, inviting them to join in close combat with one the major works of expressionism, the revolutionary "Sechs kleine Klavierstücke Op.19" by Arnold Schönberg, written in the space of one day in February 1911.

In the same fashion Wallin and Schaathun are challenged by Karlsson to also write their replies to Schönberg's six pieces on one and the same day - the 29th January 2011. Thus a new version of Schönberg's classic is born in the collective opus "Zwölf Kleine Klavierstücke".

2L085SACD

Cantatas for Epiphany The Liturgical Year with Johann Sebastian BACH

Thomanerchors Leipzig Gewandhausorchesters Thomaskantor Georgs Christoph Biller Like the recently released CD containing cantatas for Advent, the disc for the feast of Epiphany presents works for the beginning of the liturgical year: the Epiphany is the first ecclesiastic feast day of the new calendar year. Celebrated on 6 January, it follows on seamlessly from the Christmas celebrations and those for the turn of the year.

Translated from Greek, epiphany originally means ‘appearance of the Lord.’ The recorded cantatas “Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen” (BWV 65), “Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid” (BWV 3), and “Alles nur nach Gottes Willen” (BWV 72) emphatically relate the biblical message to the reality of mankind in the present.

ROP4038

Sinfonieorchester Basel Dennis Russell Davies

Sinfonieorchester Basel Dennis Russell Davies

EUCD2382

Music of Tunisia

Flamenco Rumba Guitarras

Traditional songs and music played on traditional instruments, such as oud, qanun, darbouka, tar, bendir, sagat, duf, as well as violins and double bass. Lyrics and information in English and German translations.

Rumba is the most popular style of Flamenco (Gypsy Kings et al.). Rafa El Tachuela presents a gorgeous album filled with fiery and passionate Rumba Flamenco compositions with fast and furious guitars, zapateos (Flamenco “stepdance”) and palmas (syncopated clapping).

Ez-Zouhour

Thomanerchors Leipzig Gewandhausorchesters Thomaskantor Georgs Christoph Biller

Arthur HONEGGER Symphony No. 1 Symphony No. 3

Franz SCHUBERT Symphony No. 3 Symphony No. 5

EUCD2392

Cantatas for Advent The Liturgical Year with Johann Sebastian BACH

Following the publication of discs with cantatas for the Reformation, Christmas, and Pentecost, the newest release is the fourth recording of the ten-disc series: it presents the cantatas Schwingt freudig euch empor BWV 36 and Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland BWV 61 and 62 which Johann Sebastian Bach composed for performances on the First Sunday of Advent. As cantor at St Thomas Leipzig he followed the town’s adherence to the practice of tempus clausum, the period of silence: no polyphonic music was performed in services between the Second and Fourth Sundays of Advent.

ROP4040

Pan Jing & Ensemble

Rafa El Tachuela

EUCD2403

EUCD2404

Celtic Harp

Selected Music & a Written Guide to Arabic Rhythms and Dance - Hossam Ramzy’s Bellydance Workshop

Margie Butler • Aryeh Frankfurter • Harpers Hall 18 pieces, almost 70 minutes, of the most beautiful, atmospheric and relaxing harp music. From Margie Butler’s ethereal tone, to Aryeh Frankfurter’s beautiful arrangements including violin, cello, mandolin, guitar…, to the many harpists of Harpers Hall, a glorious album of wonderful traditional and modern Celtic and Scandinavian harp tunes.

Info in English, German, French and Spanish.

Hossam Ramzy

A must for every bellydancer’s arsenal, this is a double CD of Hossam Ramzy’s most popular Bellydance Workshop music.

Features a personally written guide to Arabian rhythm and dance, including exercises in interpreting the music. Extensive information in English and German.

EUCD2379

LP

SOB 001

dances and ceremonies.

Antonio Zambujo: Quinto

EUCD2390

Gypsy Romances from Russia

Two Headed Dog Duncarron Electric

Delightful Russian Gypsy romances, passionate and romantic, accompanied on guitars and violins. “… the passion in her voice shines through in this impressive recording.”

- Wanderlust

Scottish pipes & drums untamed with the addition of powerful electric guitar and bass arrangements. This is the hard rock version of Saor Patrol’s album “Duncarron” (not all songs are the same)! Information about the group and the music and about the Clanranald Trust and Duncarron in

Valentina Ponomareva

António Zambujo (voice and acoustic guitar) • José Manuel Neto (portuguese guitar) • Bernardo Couto (portuguese guitar) • Carlos Manuel Proença (acoustic guitar) • Ricardo Cruz (portuguese bass and double bass) • José Miguel Conde (bass clarinet and clarinet) • Jon Luz (ukulele and guitar) • André Conde (trombone) • Mário Delgado (electric guitar) • Alexandre Frazão (drums) António Zambujo is revolutionizing Fado with amazing finesse. With a rustling clarinet and cavaquinho here and there, his velvety voice sparkles across the sensual music on this new album dominated by the guitar and led by the contrabass of Ricardo Cruz, Zambujo's faithful producer.

Saor Patrol

English and German.

Quinto with its fifteen refreshing new titles reflects cozy light and cool jazz mixed with soft Bossa. More than ever considered the guarantor of a tradition and an innovative pioneer, Zambujo is as much an heir to Amália Rodrigues as he is to Chet Baker and João Gilberto.

WV479069

SEP-OCT 2012

Authentic recordings of ceremonial and social music of the Navajo Indians from the Four Corners area of northern Arizona, north-western New Mexico, and south-eastern Utah. Male and female singing accompanied on various ceremonial drums, water drums and rattles.

Detailed information about the music,

EUCD2389

WS 001 (CD) / WSLP 001 (2 LPs)

16

American Indian Pow Wow Music of the Navajo Indians

Saor Patrol

Overlooking the gateway to the Scottish highlands Duncarron Fort stands proud on a hillside. Stir the clans within and feel the pounding pulse of the drums and the untamed power of the pipes… Information about the group and the music, and about the Clanranald Trust and Duncarron. (‘Unplugged’ version of Two Headed Dog).

Vienna Symphony Orchestra • Fabio Luisi

WORLD MUSIC

Duncarron - Scottish Pipes & Drums Untamed

SOB 002

Gustav MAHLER Symphony No. 1

EUCD2398 (2 CDs)

EUCD2394

SEP-OCT 2012

EUCD2395

17

WORLD MUSIC

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Kenneth Karlsson the view was all in lines

Dizzy Gillespie

What you get with Zoot Sims in Baden-Baden, recorded on 23 June 1958, is a single jam session in which each number features a different line-up and instrumentation: Sims and Koller on tenor sax get in the frame with “All The Things You Are”, before switching to clarinet for Hammerschmid’s composition “Minor Meeting For Two Clarinets”– a reference to Lester Young’s love of the instrument. Then, simply sublime, Zoot Sims’ rendition of “Tangerine”.

Koller’s reply is “Fallin‘ In Love” – elegant and nimble, played like a young Stan Getz on his way to Brazil.

101710 (CD) / 101715 (LP)

“The Mooche” of 1928 was created

by Duke Ellington for the trumpeter Bubber Miley. In a 15-minute version, performed in Stuttgart in 1961, Dizzy Gillespie explores the concept at length. Lalo Schifrin’s extended piano solo uses block chords to further heighten the dramatic intensity of this soul version. Schifrin had had doubts in 1960 whether Dizzy even wanted him in his band; he could never get hold of him by telephone and very nearly returned home to Buenos Aires. “I’ve had many mentors in my life, but only one master – Dizzy.”

101711 (CD) / 101713 (LP)

Selections compiled and introduced by David Timson Read by Simon Callow Charles Dickens was a prolific writer of letters throughout his life. There are extant more than 13,000 letters that he wrote to friends, family, fellow authors and actors as well as many letters written to people involved in good causes he espoused. In the hands of actor and writer Simon Callow, one of the most prominent Dickens interpreters of our time, this informative and entertaining selection shows Dickens in his many guises. We know Charles Dickens the author, but these letters offer a fascinating glimpse into Charles Dickens the man.

NA0116 (4 CDs)

It is hard to believe this concert lay all but forgotten in the archives for almost 50 years – particularly as it marks the breakthrough of Albert Mangelsdorff as Germany’s one true international jazz star.

Remembrance of Things Past is one of the monuments of 20th-century literature. Neville Jason’s widely praised 36 CD abridged version has rightly become an audiobook landmark and now, after numerous requests, he is recording the whole work unabridged which, when complete, will run for some 140 hours.

At the insistence of Joachim-Ernst Berendt, head of SWF’s jazz department, the Goethe Institut dispatched Mangelsdorff and his quintet on a tour of Asia in 1964. Nobody had reckoned on concert sell-outs, a frenzied media circus and prestigious honours. Back home and swinging from their encounters with Asian folk and dance music, the Quintet guested in Freiburg with a performance of pure avant-garde: a tense, frantic bop, shifting playfully between musical styles from Mali (“Burungkaka”), Thailand (“Ramwong”) and Japan (“Sakura Waltz”) and ultimately reaching the point of entry to free jazz.

The Fugitive is the sixth of seven volumes. The Narrator’s obsessive feelings of possession for Albertine has forced her to flee. It comes as a terrible shock and is followed by further destabilising news about other friends.

NA0100 (11 CDs) The Mill on the Floss

101 706 (CD)

The ingenious artist, Piazzolla who crossed borders to mesh musical style and culture, symbolizes the many values that Daniel Yvinec holds dear, and that are inherent to the artistic approach he has used with his ONJ since 2009. Piazzolla's works are the perfect exploration playground for an orchestra accustomed to in-depth examination of sound, colour, individual and group playing that advocates open jazz far from parochial and stylistic concerns. Daniel Yvinec worked closely on the conception of this new repertoire with the brilliant musician and arranger, Gil Goldstein.

Their work focuses on the melodies and rhythm developed throughout the Argentinean master's works, as much as it does on Piazzolla's bandoneon playing - the essential components that give this music its very special flavour. Piazzolla! by the ONJ celebrates the diversity of this music, offering a new and audacious reading full of surprise.

JV570007

Americans In Paris The City Of Love And All That Jazz

Dizzy Gillespie • Chet Baker Quartet Mary Lou Williams •Sarah Vaughan • Harold Nicholas • June Richmond • Andy Bey • Harold Nicholas et son orchestre • June Richmond and The Quincy Jones Orchestra • Andy And The Bey Sisters Paris was Paradise – especially for African-American Jazz-musicians in the years after WWII. Treated like second class citizens at home, many Jazz-stars not only got more recognition and respect in the French capital, but found much better playing conditions as well. From concert-halls like "L'Olympia" to the clubs of the "Latin Quarter" they were appreciated and celebrated, and their music met with a glowing enthusiasm. And not only by a select few, but by "tout Paris" – from students via moviestars to journalists and authors, and especially the existentialists surrounding Sartre, Camus and De Beauvoir.

233569 (10 CDs)

Nina Simone The Complete 1960-1961 Nina Simone (vocals)

Let’s begin with the A-sides of her singles, now quite rare, which feature as the opening tracks on the second CD of our re-release. At the time they originally came out, between early 1960 and late 1961, singles were still more important than albums on the pop music market. Jazz music was soon to generate the trend for LP’s, but at the time, Nina Simone was not a jazz artist like the others. Moreover, her label was neither Blue Note, nor Verve, nor Impulse! but Colpix, a spin-off from the television division of Columbia Studios. The word Colpix was made up from the ‘Col’ of Columbia and ‘Pix’ for Pictures. Their target listeners were fans of pop music, doowop and folk, all of whom bought as many singles as albums, if not more. At Colpix, the man in charge of artistic development was a producer and conductor called Stu Phillips. Aware that Nina Simone’s sales had been stagnant since she signed with the label, he tried to stimulate them by releasing two very different tracks one after the other in early 1960: “She wasn’t making any money, see.

We needed to get Nina into a pop groove.”.

2742210.11

18

Best known for his masterpiece of horror, Dracula, Bram Stoker wrote a number of other novels and many short stories, all on supernatural themes or filled with a physical terror reminiscent of Poe. Dracula’s Guest was originally part of the great novel, but was excised and published separately. Some of these stories, such as The Squaw, The Judge’s House and The Burial of the Rats, rank very high among classic tales of the macabre. These stories deserve to be better known for the light they shed on the enigmatic author of one of the world’s supreme literary adventures into the realm of nightmare.

NA0075 (5 CDs)

Marcel Proust Remembrance of Things Past Volume 6 (Unabridged) Read by Neville Jason

Albert Mangelsdorff

Orchestre National de Jazz Daniel Yvinec

Bram Stoker (Unabridged) Read by Rupert Degas

The Fugitive

Albert Mangelsdorff Quintett

Orchestre National de Jazz Piazzolla!

Dracula’s Guest and Other Stories

AUDIO BOOKS

Charles Dickens A Portrait in Letters

Dizzy Gillespie Quintet

Zoot Sims

SEP-OCT 2012

George Eliot (Unabridged) Read by Laura Paton Maggie Tulliver has two lovers: Philip Wakem, son of her father’s enemy, and Stephen Guest, already promised to her cousin. But the love she wants most in the world is that of her brother Tom. Maggie’s struggle against her passionate and sensual nature leads her to a deeper understanding and to eventual tragedy.

NA0095 (16 CDs)

A Musical Journey POTSDAM • GERMANY A Musical Visit to Sanssouci and the Bach Museum in Leipzig Music by Johann Sebastian Bach

The Places • Potsdam owes its development as a garrison town to the soldier king of Prussia, Frederick William I. The park and palaces of Sanssouci, however, largely reflect the very different taste of his son, Frederick the Great, who reigned from 1740 to 1786. The park of Sanssouci, established first in 1725, includes later changes in a number of distinct horticultural styles, with lay-out in Dutch, French and English taste.

The Music • Bach’s set of six concertos known as the Brandenburg Concertos was completed in 1721 at Cöthen, where Bach was director of court music, possibly using some compositions written during earlier years at the court of Weimar. Bach presented the set to the Margrave of Brandenburg, prefaced by a dedication in French, from which it seems that the prince had asked Bach for something of his at a meeting some two years earlier in Berlin. There is no indication that the works were performed, and at the Margrave’s death in 1734 the manuscripts were sold, apparently in a lot of 77 concertos ‘by different masters’. The fame and wide popularity of the Brandenburg Concertos was to come later. Included here are the first three concertos and a Siciliano.

2.110339

SEP-OCT 2012

At the Mountains of Madness H.P. Lovecraft (Unabridged) Read by William Roberts

At the Mountains of Madness first appeared in 1936, in the February, March and April editions of the American magazine Astounding Stories. One of H.P. Lovecraft’s most chilling works, it draws on Edgar Allan Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, as well as Lovecraft’s deep fascination with the Antarctic. The sinister discoveries made by a group of explorers in At the Mountains of Madness are testament to the author’s enormous powers of imagination.

NA0090 (4 CDs)

A Musical Journey: VIENNA – Austria’s City of Music Music by Johann Strauss II

The Places • Vienna was already an ancient Celtic town called Vindobona when around 15 BC the Romans fortified it with a military camp. The town prospered and grew, undergoing considerable further development under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who died there in AD 180. In later times Vienna assumed the greatest importance as the capital of the Habsburg Empire and as a bulwark defending Western Europe from invasion from the East, although it failed to repel Napoleon, who occupied the city twice in the first decade of the 19th century.

The Music • The eldest son of Johann Strauss I, the younger Johann Strauss was born in 1825, the year in which his father established his popular dance orchestra. The father intended other professions for his sons, but in 1844, two years after his father had abandoned his wife in favour of his mistress, the younger Strauss set up his own orchestra, an enterprise in which he later compelled his younger brothers, Joseph and Eduard, to share. In 1863 Strauss was appointed Imperial Music Director for the balls held at court, a position he held until 1871, when he was succeeded by his brother Eduard. He then began writing a series of operettas, including in 1874 the best known of all, Die Fledermaus. He died in 1899 after a busy and successful career, having composed some five hundred pieces of music – waltzes, polkas, marches, quadrilles and stage works.

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JAZZ HIGHLIGHTS & JAZZ LP

Zoot Sims

Erin Wall (soprano) • Mark Padmore (tenor) Hanno Müller-Brachmann (baritone) City of Birminghan Symphony Orchestra CBSO Chorus & CBSO Youth Chorus Conducted by Andris Nelsons

Music by Chabrier • Ravel • Fauré • Offenbach • Godard • Debussy & Saint-Saëns

The Places • The places visited are on the coast of Southern France, from Fréjus and Cannes to Marseille. They include the Château of King René in Tarascon and the famous island Château d’If, where the fictional Edmond Dantès was held prisoner in The Count of Monte Cristo. There is particular attention given to the flat marshland of the Camargue, with its wild horses and its associated festivities in Arles.

The Music • The music that accompanies the tour is all by French composers, from Saint-Saëns and Offenbach to Debussy and Ravel. Included are Gabriel Fauré’s evocative Berceuse, Sicilienne and Pavane, and Ravel’s nostalgic Pavane sur une infante défunte. The tour starts in cheerful mood with Chabrier’s Marche Joyeuse.

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Giuseppe VERDI Oberto

Pentcheva • Bertagni • Sartori • Battaglia • Parodi • Cerboncini • Sassu • Orchestra e Coro del Teatro • Regio di Parma • Antonello Allemandi Oberto was the first of Verdi’s operas to be staged and was heard for the first time at La Scala, Milan, in November 1839. As a young and unknown composer, Verdi was subject to the rules then governing the opera industry in Italy. Even so, there are already many scenes in this early work that reveal unmistakable signs of the composer’s individual style.

720008 (DVD) / 720104 (Blu-ray) Giuseppe VERDI Nabucco

Nucci • Ribeiro • Surian • Theodossiou • Chiuri • Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma • Michele Mariotti Nabucco was Verdi’s third work for the stage and proved his first great success when performed in 1842. It deals with the Hebrew’s attempts to break free from the yoke of their Babylonian oppressors and is nowadays numbered among Verdi’s most popular works, not least on account of its famous Chorus of Hebrew Slaves, which has one of the best-loved melodies in the whole history of opera.

720408 (DVD) / 720504 (Blu-ray)

Andrés Segovia Segovia at Los Olivos The Song of the Guitar

101 659 (DVD) / 108 070 (Blu-ray)

Loconsolo • Porta • Antonacci • Marianelli • Magrì • Bordogna • Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma • Donato Renzetti Un giorno di regno is the rare case of a musical comedy by Verdi. But his second stage work proved a complete fiasco when unveiled at La Scala, Milan, in 1840 and more than half a century was to pass before he attempted a second comedy with his final opera, Falstaff. Today, conversely, Verdi’s early melodrama giocoso enjoys increasing popularity thanks to its wellspring of musical ideas and effervescent melodies.

720208 (DVD) / 720304 (Blu-ray)

TUTTO VERDI The Complete Operas – Highlights Two operas in the series, Un giorno di regno and Alzira, will be released for the first time on DVD. 15 operas will be released for the first time on Blu-ray: Luisa Miller, Il Corsaro, Giovanna d´Arco, I lombardi, Nabucco, I due Foscari, Un giorno di regno, I vespri siciliani, La Battaglia di Legnano, Stiffelio, Alzira, I masnadieri, Don Carlos, Ernani, Oberto.

725608 (DVD) / 725704 (Blu-ray)

John CAGE Journeys in Sound

In Segovia at Los Olivos, Segovia talks, in the relaxed atmosphere of his new home and in his inimitable Spanish way, about his objectives, his convictions, his career and his music. He plays pieces by Bach, Torroba, Llobet, Tarrega, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Granados.

In The Song of the Guitar Segovia speaks, out of vision, except for a short statement near the beginning and he talks, not about his career and his achievements, but about his youth and the spirit in which he set out on his remarkable quest — a great artist in late maturity, reflecting on the genesis of his extraordinary journey. It is made as a poetic recollection of the atmosphere, rather than the facts, of his passionate beginnings — nearly 70 years earlier. Andrés Segovia was a poet in almost everything that he did.

In the second film he plays music by Albeniz, Granados, Scarlatti, Rameau, Sor, Ponce, Aguado, Bach, Chopin and Torroba.

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DANCE CRAZY IN HOLLYWOOD War Requiem

Frank Sinatra • Rita Hayworth • Ginger Rogers • Kim Novak • Shirley Maclaine • CYD Charisse • Bob Fosse • Sally Forrest Hermes Pan began choreographing Hollywood musicals in 1933, when his long-standing collaboration with Fred Astaire began. For over three decades he was the man who made the stars dance - Ginger Rogers, Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Cyd Charisse, Shirley MacLaine and many others. Assimilating elements from the multitude of cultures that co-existed around him, Pan created a style of dance that was truly American.

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Franz SCHUBERT Die Schöne Müllerin

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone) András Schiff (piano) In 1991, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau agreed to perform Schubert‘s Die Schöne Müllerin at the Feldkirch Schubertiade - he had not sung the song-cycle in public for twenty years. The great baritone belonged to the innermost circle of artists who give this unique, Austrian festival of chamber music its distinctive character. He had performed Schubert there on many occasions, but never Die Schöne Müllerin. The pianist András Schiff was another long-standing member of the inner circle, but this was the artists‘ fi rst collaboration in Feldkirch and so Austrian Television (ORF) recorded the concert.

During another Schubertiade a few years earlier, Dietrich FischerDieskau was interviewed by music journalist Franz Zoglauer.

Allan Miller • Paul Smaczny

Andrés Segovia

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Giuseppe VERDI Un giorno di regno

2012 brings the 50th anniversary of the premiere of Britten‘s War Requiem, one of the most powerful pacifi st statements in music. The first performance took place in 1962 in the newly consecrated Coventry Cathedral, built alongside the ruins of the old cathedral, left as a sombre reminder of the wartime bombings. On 30 May 2012, 50 years to the day, Britten‘s masterpiece returns to the cathedral, performed as at the premiere by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and vocal soloists from three once warring nations.

A sonic innovator or an expert on chance? A writer or an anarchist?

A specialist in mushrooms or a performance artist? A Zen master or a cook? John Cage was all of these things.

On the occasion of his centenary in Autumn 2012, this documentary by Oscar-winner Allan Miller and Emmywinner Paul Smaczny pays tribute to the most fascinating American avant-garde composer John Cage. Shot in America, Germany and Japan, the program premieres rare archival footage; presenting concert excerpts and a set of short episodes, featuring associates of Cage and contemporary artists, playfully delineating different aspects of John Cage.

The documentary features interviews with Yoko Ono, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, Steffen Schleiermacher, Irvine Arditti, Toshio Hosokawa, Mayumi Miyata, Calvin Tomkins and many others.

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The resulting documentary of singer, painter and private person augments the concert presented on this DVD. The singer speaks of his affi nity to Schubert and the composer‘s infl uence on the whole Lieder repertoire.

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Giovanni Battista Pergolesi Il Prigionier Superbo & La Serva Padrona

Antonio Lozano • Marina Rodríguez Cusí • Marina De Liso • Ruth Rosique • Marina Comparato • Giacinta Nicotra Conducted by Corrado Rovaris Il prigionier superbo tells the story of two rival kings and a princess in distress. In order to strengthen his power, Metalce, imprisons his rival Sostrate. Further, he tries to obtain Rosmene’s love. Proud like her father Sostrate, she persistently thwarts the tyrant, while on the other hand she forces herself to hate her beloved Viridate.

La serva padrona is the short comedy of Serpina and Uberto: the wily maidservant, hell-bent on her willing to become the mistress of the house, thinks up a plan in order to convince her master to marry her.

101 654 (DVD) / 108 068 (Blu-ray) SASHA WALTZ S

Sasha Waltz & Guests In 1999 Sasha Waltz started working on her three-piece choreographic cycle about the human body. In »Körper«, following up this extraordinary research, she investigates the anatomy and the physical appearance of the human being, relating her dancers’ bodies to architecture, science, and history. »S« searches for the origin of life, of Eros, and of sensibility. »noBody« asks about the metaphysical existence of humanity.

101 584 Erich Wolfgang KORNGOLD Die Tote Stadt

James King • Karan Armstrong • William Murray • Margit Neubauer • Donald Grobe Heinrich Hollreiser Of all the successful composers of opera in the 1920s, it is perhaps Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957) whose career took the most surprising turn following the banning of his works as “degenerate” in Germany. In 1934 he was invited by Max Reinhardt to Hollywood, where Korngold turned the new genre of fi lm music on its head. No composer before or since ever achieved such a prominent position within film production. Instead of the director or producer deciding on a scene’s musical accompaniment, it was Korngold’s score that determined the timings and dramatic sequences of the camera positions.

Even today Korngold is best known as a composer of film scores.

Despite the many successful performances of works such as his violin concerto and his chamber music, today only Die tote Stadt has survived as a rarity on the programmes of the world’s major and medium-sized opera houses.

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»The Reichsorchester«

The Berlin Philharmonic and The Third Reich Enrique Sánchez Lansch In 2007 the Berlin Philharmonic celebrated its 125th anniversary. It has chosen to mark this anniversary year by highlighting a previously unknown chapter in its history – the years from 1933 to 1945. Financed by the German Reich and answerable directly to the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, the Berlin Philharmonic was not only Germany’s flagship orchestra; it also became an ambassador for the National Socialist regime, particularly on foreign tours. In this new documentary by Enrique Sánchez Lansch (RHYTHM IS IT!) the spotlight is on the orchestra itself – the musicians, the people, their individual destinies. Although its members were much less exposed than their principal conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, they, like him, moved in circles close to the powers that bestowed privilege and there by encouraged people to shirk individual responsibility. The unique and microcosmic world of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra proves a fascinating subject for examination. First-hand accounts of life in and around the orchestra, delivered by contemporary witnesses still alive today, as well as a wealth of previously unevaluated archive material, provide a highly authentic glimpse into the period under the swastika. The film brings to life, in a manner as fascinating as it is sensitive, this chapter in the history of Germany and its capital Berlin, and explores the question: How does one tread the fine line between independence and individual responsibility?

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Benjamin BRITTEN War Requiem

A Musical Journey: FRANCE Marseille • Tarascon • Cannes • Côte d’Azur • Camargue

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Itzhak Perlman

The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is a cultural ambassador for Israel, and is regarded as one of the best orchestras in the world.

Recorded in the Mann Auditorium, Tel Aviv in March 2010, this concert sees the Israel Philharmonic conducted in this all-Beethoven programme by the eminent conductor and violinist Itzhak Perlman.

2058598 (DVD) / 2058594 (Blu-ray)

Georg Solti – 100th Anniversary 3 DVD Box Set Chicago Symphony Orchestra Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Sir George Solti, one of the greatest conductors of our day, died on 5th September 1997.

The definitive profile “Solti – The making of a Maestro”, made during the last year of his life, captures the amazing energy and passion for music of this remarkable man. Filmed with Solti in Budapest, Bavaria, Chicago and London, the documentary charts his exceptional musical journey; from his early years in Hungary to his accalaimed leadership of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. A film by renowned director Peter Maniura, coproduced with the BBC. Solti was a most energetic conductor in both rehearsal and performance, with a frequently sharp and stabbing conducting style.

At the same time he was also capable of producing the most beautiful legato playing.

2087898 (3 DVDs)

WAGNER: The Ring Without Words

Berliner Philharmoniker Lorin Maazel (conductor & arrangement) A unique synthesis of orchestral music from Wagner's Ring cycle. Arranged by Lorin Maazel, the work was designed to be free flowing (no breaks) and chronological, beginning with the first note of Rheingold and finishing with the last chord of Goetterdaemmerung. All the music is Wagner's, and even the transitional material is drawn from the original scores. To convey the breadth and scope of the entire work, Maazel also excerpted material from each opera in proportion to the whole cycle. The result is a 75-minute symphonic journey through Wagner's four great operas.

2020228 (DVD) / 2057607 (Blu-ray)

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra 75 years Anniversary Concert

TCHAIKOVSKY: Iolanta STRAVINSKY: Perséphone

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Zubin Mehta

The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra - a cultural icon of Israel and one of the greatest classical ensembles in the world - celebrated its 75th Birthday on December 26th, 2011 together with three outstanding soloists of the younger generation – Julian Rachlin, Evgeny Kissin and Vadim Repin. The concert took place in the spectacular Hangar 11 at the harbor in Tel Aviv. Zubin Mehta conducted a spectacular programme of Saint-Saëns, Bach, Chopin, Chausson and Beethoven.

2059098 (2 DVD) / 2059094 (Blu-ray) My Favourite Opera Ruggero Raimondi W. A. Mozart "Don Giovanni"

C ( H ) OEURS WAGNER • VERDI

Ekaterina Scherbachenko • Alexej Markov • Pavel Cernoch • Dmitry Ulianov • Willard White • Vasily Efimov • Pavel Kudinov • Ekaterina Semenchuk • Irina Churilova • Letitia Singleton Dominique Blanc • Paul Groves Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Real Teodor Currentzis Iolanta is a one act lyric opera, sung in Russian, by Tchaikovsky. Performed in the style of a nineteenth-century Italian melodrama, the scenes have a recitative introduction followed by a single arioso, aria, duet or chorus.

Perséphone is a three act melodrama, sung in French, by Stravinsky.

It is a story of regeneration, symbolised in Sellars use of dancers from the Cambodian dance company, Amrita Performing Arts.

Chorus and Orchestra of Teatro Real Madrid Symphony Orchestra and Chorus • Marc Piollet C(h)oeurs, a mix of Choirs (choeurs) and Hearts (coeurs) in French, is a new musical drama set against the backdrop of contemporary international economic crisis and national protests, and the ensuing changes in society.

Pursuing a reflection on the emotions felt by the individual and generated by the masses, singers from the internationally renowned Chorus of the Teatro Real perform alongside dancers of Alain Platel’s company les ballets C de la B in a spectacular presentation of excepts from Verdi’s and Wagner’s distinct works.

TR97011DVD (DVD) / TR97010BD (Blu-ray)

Ruggero Raimondi Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Communale Di Bologna Riccardo Chailly (conductor)

TR97013DVD (DVD) / TR97012BD (Blu-ray)

AN EVENING WITH THE ROYAL OPERA

Here we study the results of involvement with a specific role. We witness musical and stage rehearsals in 1992, listen to what the artists have to say about the work in progress and share in private moments.

An Evening with the Royal Ballet Coppélia • Giselle • La fille mal gardée • Romeo & Juliet • Swan Lake • Sylvia The Firebird • The Nutcracker • The Sleeping Beauty • Divertissements

The Barber of Seville • La traviata • Carmen • Rigoletto • Le nozze di Figaro La bohème • Dido & Aeneas • Don Giovanni • Hansel & Gretel, Die Zauberflöte Gianni Schicchi • Falstaff

He worked alongside conductor Riccardo Chailly and stage director Luca Ronconi as well as a distinguished cast of fellow singers. As the production develops he takes time out to reflect on his career with his family in the beautiful Italian countryside, coaches students at the Bologna Conservatory who are themselves studying Don Giovanni, and reflects on the character of another great operatic Don, Massenet’s Don Quichotte, inspired by Cervantes’ immortal Don Quixote.

Ballet principals include: Carlos Acosta, Tamara Rojo, Lauren Cuthbertson and Marianela Nunez

A unique collection from one of the world’s finest opera houses, showcasing the international opera stars and famous Royal Opera House productions.

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Ingenious Opposites Robert SCHUMANN • Franz LISZT

Giuseppe VERDI La Traviata

Roman Zaslavsky (piano)

Russian-Israeli pianist ROMAN ZASLAVSKY is a master of piano technique that espouses nuance without resorting to arbitrary mannerisms. He first gained recognition by taking 1st prize— the Primer Gran Premio—at the José Iturbi International Music Competition in Valencia, Spain and concert tours brought him around the globe with rave reviews after performances in Israel, Germany, Netherlands, France, Japan, Canada and Latin America.

EA3002 (CD) / 2003022 (Blu-ray Audio)

Matthews • Terranova • Summers • Plummer • Buckingham • Clayton • Hillier Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra • Brian Castles-Onion • Francesca Zambello La Traviata, one of the world’s best loved romantic operas, and is performed under the stars on a floating, mirrored stage in Sydney Harbour, with the city, Opera House and Harbour Bridge acting as a stunning backdrop.

Giuseppe Verdi's captivating music is performed with the orchestra concealed in a studio beneath the stage to ensure the finest amplified sound combines with the superlative singing of the cast. With the singers discreetly miked, the recorded sound is presented here in superb quality.

Emma Matthews is continually being garnered with praise - ‘Emma Matthews could inspire the dead, turning in one of the finest readings of this role I’ve ever heard’ (International Record Review on Rigoletto), ‘As Gilda, Emma Matthews is outstanding’ (Opera Now on Rigoletto) – and doesn’t disappoint.

Includes a glittering Swarovski chandelier illuminating the stage and fireworks decorating Sydney Harbour’s sky-line, which render this production as something truly spectacular.

OPOZ56031CD (2 CDs) / OPOZ56029DVD (DVD) / OPOZ56030BD (Blu-ray)

Our Labels MOZART: Le Nozze di Figaro Paris Opera Orchestra & Chorus Philippe Jordan (conductor)

The legendary production by Giorgio Strehler filmed at the Paris Opera with a cast that unites the finest Mozartians of our time.

A revival of Strehler's 'Marriage of Figaro' is always an event. In 2010, 37 years after its creation, it rose again in triumph at the Opera Bastille with a new generation of performers: Ludovic Tézier (Count Almaviva), Barbara Frittoli (Countess), Ekaterina Siurina (Susanna), Luca Pisaroni (Figaro) and Karine Deshayes (Cherubino).

Conductor, Philippe Jordan directs the Orchestra and Chorus of the Paris Opera.

Also in this bonus edition, there is an interview with Humbert Camerlo who has worked extensively with Giorgio Strehler and achieved this staging for the revival, which continues from September 15 to October 25, 2012 at the Opera Bastille for 14 special performances.

Soli Deo Gloria

SIMAX

classics

"The Marriage of Figaro is a masterpiece. More at the Paris Opera where, in 1973, Italy's Giorgio Strehler (1921-1997) created a staged entry into legend. Thirty-seven years later, the Bastille is still a triumph."

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BEETHOVEN Overture to Egmont; Concerto in C Major Op. 56, Symphony No. 6 in F Major