Bavarian Radio Choir / Julius Drake / Howard Arman DVORÁK Stabat Mater

STABAT MATER

 

Budapest Festival Orchestra / Iván Fischer MAHLER Das Lied von der Erde

DAS LIED VON DER ERDE

Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks / Bernard Haitink BEETHOVEN Symphonie Nr. 9

A recording of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Ninth” is always a great event, especially because the symphony’s final chorus, Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”, is understood around the world as a plea for peace and international understanding. It was no coincidence that the catchy melody to the text “Joy, beautiful spark of divinity” was chosen as the Hymn of the European Union. This recording of Beethoven’s great choral symphony under the direction of Bernard Haitink and with excellent instrumental and vocal soloists is not only an outstanding interpretation of the work but also very much an event in itself – because these recordings document Haitink’s last ever concerts with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. Only a few months after his two Munich concerts on February 21 and 22, 2019, the great Dutch conductor – who celebrated his 90^th birthday on March 4 – announced the end of his career.

The two Munich concert events at the beginning of the year featured the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Bavarian Radio Chorus, two ensembles with whom Bernard Haitink has been closely associated for many decades now, and they were joined by the excellent soloists Sally Matthews, Gerhild Romberger, Mark Padmore and Gerald Finley.

In an interview with the Dutch newspaper “De Volkskrant” on June 12 this year, Bernard Haitink announced his imminent departure from the conductor’s podium. On June 15, he conducted for the last time at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and his very last concert of all took place in Lucerne on September 6. “I’m ninety years old,” explained the maestro, “and it’s a fact that I’m not going to conduct any longer. And once I’ve stopped, I don’t think I’ll be able to conduct again.” Haitink’s decision marks the end of a conducting career spanning 65 years. He has been a regular and highly welcome guest of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and numerous CDs on the BR-KLASSIK label document the exceptional quality of this creative collaboration.

Andris Nelsons / Wiener Philharmoniker BEETHOVEN Complete Symphonies

Andris Nelsons, the leading conductor of his generation, has recorded all nine Beethoven symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic. Their cycle promises to reveal the compelling partnership between the conductor and the most renowned Beethoven orchestra in the world. Beethoven: Complete Symphonies, released 4 October 2019, is presented in a deluxe box set featuring five CDs and a single Blu-ray Audio disc in TrueHD sound quality. The release marks the start of Deutsche Grammophon’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth next year.

Beethoven has been central to Andris Nelsons’ work since he began his career in the early 2000s. The Latvian conductor received outstanding reviews for his 2013-14 Beethoven cycle with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and was critically acclaimed for more recent Beethoven performances as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Leipzig Gewandhausorchester. In March and April this year he joined the Vienna Philharmonic, the world’s supreme Beethoven orchestra, for a series of concerts including works by the composer in Vienna, Hamburg and Hanover, and for the final recording sessions of their complete symphony cycle at the Vienna Musikverein. Nelsons said it was an honour and a privilege to be invited to perform and record the symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic.

“The journey of interpreting Beethoven’s symphonies signifies a great opportunity, responsibility and challenge, but in the end, it’s not about me, it’s purely about the genius and universal quality of Beethoven’s music, which speaks to each and every individual,” explained Andris Nelsons. “Of course, I need to have a vision, and our task as musicians is to find a fulfilling way of presenting Beethoven’s ideas to listeners, but this will always be very subjective and deeply personal.”

Münchner Rundfunkorchester / Howard Arman ROSSINI Stabat Mater

“You tell me that you’ve been sold an item of some value,” Gioachino Rossini wrote angrily to the French music publisher Antoine Aulagnier in September 1841 after a third party had sold Aulagnier the autograph score of the original version of the Italian composer’s Stabat mater and Aulagnier had written to Rossini to ask for his permission to publish it. Rossini refused, arguing that he had “merely dedicated” the work “to the Reverend Father Manuel Fernández Varela, while reserving for myself the right to publish it whenever I consider it opportune. Without entering into the sort of swindle that someone has sought to perpetrate to the detriment of my interests, I declare to you, Monsieur, that if my Stabat mater is published without my authorization, whether in France or abroad, my firm intention is to pursue the publisher and hound him to death. What is more, Monsieur, I must tell you that in the copy I sent to the Reverend Father, there are only six numbers of my own composition, a friend of mine having been invited to complete what I could not nish myself because I was seriously ill.”