Rudolf Buchbinder BEETHOVEN Piano Concertos

 

PIANO CONCERTOS

 

Wiener Philharmoniker / James Levine MOZART The Symphonies

 

THE SYMPHONIES

Wiener Philharmoniker / Christian Thielemann BRUCKNER 8

SYMPHONY No. 8

 

Wiener Philharmoniker / Valery Gergiev / Jonas Kaufmann SOMMERNACHTS KONZERT 2020

SOMMERNACHTS KONZERT 2020

 

John Williams / Wiener Philharmoniker / Anne-Sophie Mutter JOHN WILLIAMS IN VIENA

JOHN WILLIAMS IN VIENA

OLGA NEUWIRTH ...miramondo multiplo... - Remnants of Songs ... An Amphigony - Masaot / Clocks without Hands

OLGA NEUWIRTH

Vienna Philharmonic / Andris Nelsons NEW YEAR'S CONCERT 2020

                                                             Neujahrskonzert 2020

Wiener Philharmoniker / Franz Welser-Möst THE PEACE CONCERT VERSAILLES

A setlist like no other, a never-heard-before compilation of deeply moving musical pieces highlighting numerous aspects of war and peace. This is how the Wiener Philharmoniker, led by Franz Welser-Möst and supported by an all-star line-up, among them singular pianist Yuja Wang, tackled the highly anticipated concert in commemoration of the end of the 1st world war. 100 years after the first of the devastating humane catastrophes of the 20th century officially ended at Versailles, a group of inspired musicians gathered at the historic site for a concert that will live on in the memory of those who have seen or heard it.

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.”

Wiener Philharmoniker / Gustavo Dudamel / Yuja Wang 2019 SUMMER NIGHT CONCERT

Central to the programme of the Vienna Philharmonic’s 2019 Summer Night Concert is a musical history of the United States of America: the works that are heard this year were composed in or for the USA, while also constituting links with the Viennese musical tradition. At the same time the concert venue – the historic park at Schönbrunn Palace – is celebrating a double jubilee this year. It was 450 years ago that the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II bought the land and the buildings on it and a century ago that Schönbrunn became the property of the newly founded Austrian Republic. This is the second time in the orchestra’s history that the Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel has been in charge of a Summer Night Concert – he first did the honours in 2012. The soloist is the Beijing-born pianist Yuja Wang, who is making her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in Vienna – she has already appeared with the orchestra on tour.

Vienna Philharmonic / Christian Thielemann 2019 NEW YEAR'S CONCERT

There are few concerts in the world that are awaited with as much excitement as the New Year’s Concert from Vienna. Under the direction of Christian Thielemann, the Vienna Philharmonic ushered in the New Year 2019 with a concert in the magnificent Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein.

The concert was broadcast on TV and Radio to over ninety countries all around the world, reaching an audience of more than 50 million people.

The 2019 New Year’s Concert was conducted for the first time by Christian Thielemann. A native of Berlin, Thielemann has been a regular and welcome guest of the Vienna Philharmonic since 2000, with the result that his first New Year’s Concert may be seen as setting an example and providing an appropriate tribute to his previous work with the orchestra. According to the orchestra’s chairman, Daniel Froschauer, orchestra and musicians trust each other completely: “The profound musical understanding and trust that have existed from the outset and that have always functioned perfectly have subsequently borne remarkable fruit in the symphonic repertory as well.”

ABBADO REDISCOVERED

Previously-unreleased live recording from Vienna’s Große Saal, 31st May 1971: these tapes were recently discovered in the archives of Austrian Radio – the ‘ORF’. Abbado’s long association with the Wiener Philharmoniker began when he first conducted the orchestra at Herbert von Karajan’s invitation in 1965. The orchestra was so impressed by what the young music director from La Scala achieved that they immediately invited him to conduct one of their subscription concerts in the season after next in the city’s Musikverein. The programme included Schubert’s “Unfinished” and Fifth Symphonies. Austrian Radio recorded the concert on the morning of Whit Monday, 31 May 1971, but the recording lay untouched in the corporation’s archives until now. Now, nearly fifty years later, this recording allows us to rediscover the maestro as we would rediscover a Vermeer with every fresh viewing.

“The meaning of each individual note and of the pause and silence between the notes – it was this that Abbado, by his own admission, sought in Schubert’s music.” Wolfgang Stähr

GREAT BACH SINGERS

2018 marks 333 years since the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach; music in Bach’s time went far beyond the superficial process of just placing pleasing harmonies on manuscript paper – it had religious significance and meaning built into its very structure. Of particular prominence in some of Bach’s music are references to the number three, reflecting the important doctrine of God’s Tri-unity which lies at the core of Bach’s Lutheran faith. So for Bach at least, 333 would have had real significance.

Michael Barenboim / Daniel Barenboim / Wiener Philharmoniker / Pierre Boulez SCHOENBERG Violin & Piano Concerti

Peral Music—Daniel Barenboim’s digital record label “for the thinking ear”—is proud to release the Vienna Philharmonic’s debut recordings of Arnold Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto and Piano Concerto, featuring the iconic composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, and violinist Michael Barenboim. The new release captures the esteemed Vienna Philharmonic’s first performances of both works.

Dating from 2005 and 2012, these are the Vienna Philharmonic’s first recordings of two of Schoenberg’s works: the Piano Concerto with Daniel Barenboim under Pierre Boulez and the Violin Concerto with Michael Barenboim under the direction of his father.

The Vienna Philharmonic has enjoyed a close bond with Schoenberg’s music, since he himself conducted two performances of his Gurre-Lieder in 1920 and afterwards wrote a personal letter of thanks, expressing his gratitude to the musicians for their work together. Since then there have been more than 100 performances of his works, and the orchestra even played an important part in the foundation of the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna in 1998.

It is all the harder to believe that the Vienna Philharmonic had never previously played either of these two works. For Daniel Barenboim the orchestra’s performances of Schoenberg’s music are full of “tenderness, good-natured informality and naturalness.” Their “playing is very much inspired by the venue.”

This makes it all the more inconceivable that these works by arguably the greatest composer of the 20th century, and a native of Vienna to boot, had been overlooked by the orchestra for so many years.

It was not until 2005 that Pierre Boulez conducted the Vienna Philharmonic’s first performance of Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto, when the soloist was Daniel Barenboim. Seven years later Barenboim returned with his son Michael and the two of them gave the first performance of Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto op. 36 with the orchestra. “Highly explosive music,” Michael Barenboim describes Schoenberg’s piece: “Every bar is aflame.” The work’s difficulties are plain. When it received its first performance in 1940, the composer’s daughter, Gertrud Greissle, remarked that “The difficulties are not purely intentional, but they are unavoidable.” Even today the virtuosity of Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto instils a sense of awe in many violinists. For a time Jascha Heifetz regarded the work as unplayable.

But for Barenboim, “Where other orchestras wrestle with the difficulties, the Viennese may do so as well, but they then discover themselves in the music, and this is really wonderful.”

Wiener Philharmoniker / Valery Gergiev / Anna Netrebko SOMMERNACHTSKONZERT 2018

The Summer Night Concert of The Vienna Philharmonic is the world's biggest annual classical open-air concert set in the magical Schönbrunn Palace Baroque park in Vienna. The concert will take place on 31 May 2018 and its theme for this year is 'An Italian Night'. The concert is broadcast on TV and radio in more than 60 countries, and thus reaches an audience of millions. The evening’s repertoire is an attractive combination of extremely popular works for orchestra including the William Tell Overture, the March from the opera Aida and the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, as well as famous Soprano arias like Vissi d’arte, vissi d‘amore from the Opera Tosca. Valery Gergiev returns to conducts the Summer Night Concert and is joined by star Soprano Anna Netrebko in what promises to be one of the most popular concerts this year! (Presto Classical)

Alfred Brendel LIVE IN VIENNA

Live recordings from Austrian Radio broadcasts (ORF) released for the very first time by one of the greatest musicians of all time.

The Schumann Piano Concerto requires virtually everything a pianist should have to offer: poetry, virtuosity, poised restraint – Brendel passes the test on all accounts with his passionate, insightful and refreshing interpretation.

On this Schumann Piano Concerto performance, taken from Brendel’s 70th Birthday residency in 2001, with the inestimable partners in Sir Simon Rattle and the Wiener Philharmoniker, Alfred Brendel writes that “listening to this live recording I felt that, for once, I heard what I wanted to hear”.

Brahms “Handel” Variations are what many consider to be the most imposing piece of its kind composed in the four decades that separate it from Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations.

A work with a wealth of different characters, colour and masterful disposition. The Fugue in particular is something to marvel at with its contrapuntal and pianistic power. Even Wagner had to concede that the result was impressive, “One sees what can still be done with the old forms when someone comes along who knows how to handle them”.

Brendel has never recorded the Brahms “Handel” Variations in the studio which makes this his first commercially available recording of the work. (Presto Classical)

Leontyne Price / Herbert von Karajan CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS

There are three or four CD's that are required listening in every December. Leontyne Price's makes the list-- with stars. This CD is a reissue from a LP recorded in 1961 and includes many, many great selections: Mendelssohn ("Hark!The Herald Angels Sing"), Schubert ("Ave Maria"), Bach ("Ave Maria" and "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her") and Mozart ("Alleluja"). In addition, "Silent Night," "We Three Kings," "God rest ye merry, Gentlemen" and four other traditional Christmas songs are included. Ms. Price's a capella version of "Sweet li'l Jesus defies description. I'm not sure how to describe what she does on "Angels we have heard on High" except to say that her voice soars and floats as she plays with the melody line. She's obviously having a good time on this one. The two Bach numbers are wonderful, her version of "O Holy Night" is as good as any you'll ever hear, and the closing "Alleluja" is simply magnificent. (F.C.)

Wiener Philharmoniker / Riccardo Muti BRUCKNER Symphony No. 2 - RICHARD STRAUSS Der Bürger als Edelmann

Riccardo Muti chose to celebrate his 75th birthday with a programme at the 2016 Salzburg Festival featuring two masterworks from the Austro-German tradition that had both been premiered by the Wiener Philharmoniker under the direction of their respective composers: Bruckner’s Symphony No.2 and R. Strauss’ Orchestral Suite Der Bürger als Edelmann. Alongside celebrated pianist Gerhard Oppitz is violinist Rainer Küchl, on the eve of his retirement from the Wiener Philharmoniker following a remarkable 45 years of service.

Jonas Kaufmann / Wiener Philharmoniker / Jonathan Nott MAHLER Das Lied Von Der Erde

In an interview that serves as the sleeve notes for his recording, Jonas Kaufmann describes his first encounter as a student with Das Lied von der Erde, in the classic recording conducted by Otto Klemperer. Kaufmann says he immediately tried to emulate Klemperer’s incomparable soloist Fritz Wunderlich in the three tenor songs, but doesn’t reveal whether at that stage he thought he could sing the three other numbers too, which Mahler designated for either a contralto or a baritone. (It’s Christa Ludwig, still unsurpassed, on the Klemperer recording.) Yet here he is tackling all six, in a recording taken from concerts in the Vienna Musikverein last June.

Performances with a baritone rather than a mezzo or contralto as the second soloist appear to have become more common over the last decade, following the example set half a century ago by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Thomas Hampson and Christian Gerhaher, in particular, have showed how effective a second male voice can be. But though Kaufmann’s voice is regularly described as having baritonal qualities, he is not, at this stage in his career at any rate, a true baritone, and there are moments in all three of the contralto songs when he seems to be struggling to muster enough weight of tone to support the vocal line. Parts of the final Abschied are almost crooned, and the repeated closing “Ewig” is virtually toneless.

It’s a triumph of hubris over sound musical judgment, which does nothing for the tonal contrasts between the songs that Mahler carefully built into the work, and has a serious effect on Kaufmann’s performance of the three tenor numbers too. They are a gruelling test for any singer, let alone one who is allowing himself no respite during the other numbers, and even in the opening Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde, there’s none of the effortless power, the sense of the voice surfing over the surging orchestral textures, that the greatest interpreters achieve. It all becomes a bit of a struggle.

A real disappointment, then, which isn’t helped by the rather routine orchestral contributions of the Vienna Philharmonic under Jonathan Nott. At best, this is an interesting experiment that really shouldn’t have been enshrined on disc. (Andrew Clements / The Guardian)

Hélène Grimaud PERSPECTIVES

She could be called a Renaissance woman for our times. Hélène Grimaud is not just a deeply passionate and committed musical artist whose pianistic accomplishments play a central role in her life. She is a woman with multiple talents that extend far beyond the instrument she plays with such poetic expression and peerless technical control. The French artist has established herself as a committed wildlife conservationist, a compassionate human rights activist and as a writer.

The word ‘perspective’ has a Latin root that means ‘to look through’. It is a word that readily applies to Hélène Grimaud’s way of making music and conceiving programs. She never plays a piece simply for the sake of playing it. She ‘looks through’ a composition, scrutinizing its components, its implications, its ambiguities, its position within that particular composer’s output, its commonalities with other like-minded works, and its tactile, spiritual and emotional resonances. For Grimaud, this collection is a retrospective offering new perspectives through a very personal choice of repertoire which creates enlightening new echoes between works. From Bach to Rachmaninov, Mozart to Chopin, Grimaud’s own selection of highlights from her albums reflects her artistic journey through the piano’s most famous solo and concerto repertoire in a series of interpretations that never fail to offer new perspectives on even the most familiar music – to be released in April!