Momo Kodama / Seiji Ozawa / Mito Chamber Orchestra HOSOKAWA / MOZART

 

HOSOKAWA / MOZART

Radek Baborák / Mito Chamber Orchestra / Seiji Ozawa MOZART The Complete Horn Concertos

 

THE COMPLETE HORN CONCERTOS

Seiji Ozawa / Saito Kinen Orchestra BEETHOVEN 7 - LEONORE 3

BEETHOVEN 7 - LEONORE 3

Seiji Ozawa / Martha Argerich / Mito Chamber Orchestra BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto 2 GRIEG Holberg Suite

                                            PIANO CONCERTO 2 - HOLBERG SUITE

Seiji Ozawa / Mito Chamber Orchestra BEETHOVEN 9

“Ozawa may be entering a glorious Indian summer of creativity” Gramophone

45 years after his debut Philips recording of Beethoven’s 9th, Seiji Ozawa returns to this epic masterpiece

The Mito Chamber Orchestra features many international star players including Radek Baborák (horn), Ricardo Morales (clarinet) and Philippe Tondre (oboe). The German baritone Markus Eiche leads a quartet of leading Japanese soloists and the Tokyo Opera Singers in a fascinating performance on a chamber orchestra scale.

120 YEARS DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON - THE TOKIO GALA CONCERT

Deutsche Grammophon is marking the 120th anniversary of its company foundation on 6 December 1898 with a carefully curated global programme of DG120 live concerts, special events, record releases and much more. The world’s oldest and best-known classical label will use its anniversary year to continue building a lasting legacy. The company’s unprecedented DG120 programme has been designed to reach existing fans worldwide, attract new followers in Asia and beyond, and share its peerless catalogue with as many people as possible. It has already attracted new audiences in search of great recordings and performances, as well as garnering extensive international media coverage. 

The birthday celebrations began with the spectacular DG 120 – The Tokyo Concert, held at Tokyo’s legendary Suntory Hall last night, 5 December, in the presence of the Japanese imperial family. Anne-Sophie Mutter joined Seiji Ozawa, Diego Matheuz and the Saito Kinen Orchestra for a programme of works by Bach, Beethoven, Saint-Saëns and Tchaikovsky.

Martha Argerich / Seiji Ozawa / Mito Chamber Orchestra BEETHOVEN Symphony 1 - Piano Concerto 1

The first official joint recording from legendary artists Seiji Ozawa and Martha Argerich features the performance of Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto and Beethoven’s First Symphony with the Mito Chamber Orchestra. 

Ozawa and Argerich first performed together nearly 40 years ago in October 1979 when Argerich made her sensational Boston Symphony debut – her rendition of Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto was described as “incendiary” by the Boston Herald. Although their performances have lit up the international concert stage and their friendship has grown since then, the pair have never officially recorded together until now. Beethoven’s First Symphony and First Piano Concerto marks a significant moment in recording history.

This new landmark Beethoven recording is Ozawa’s first release since his 2015 Grammy award-winning Ravel album and is also the first international release by Ozawa and the Mito Chamber Orchestra: a hand-picked ensemble of international players drawn from Japan, Europe, and North America. The orchestra was established in 1990 under Ozawa’s direction and has collaborated with some of the world’s most celebrated musicians – from Szymon Goldberg to Mstislav Rostropovich, Andras Schiff to Ton Koopman. “Whenever I am working with them,” says Ozawa, “I feel I have an invaluable opportunity – as have the orchestra’s musicians – to reflect on what it really means to ‘do music’ once again.”

Seiji Ozawa first recorded a Beethoven symphony half a century ago (the Fifth with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1968). He studied Beethoven with Hideo Saito, the celebrated Japanese conductor, cellist, and teacher who had studied in Berlin and Leipzig in the late 1920s with Emmanuel Feuermann among others. Ozawa famously went on to study with Herbert Von Karajan in Berlin and was Leonard Bernstein’s assistant at the New York Philharmonic in the early 1960s.

Martha Argerich continues to be one of the most extraordinary pianists performing today. Together with Seiji Ozawa, this formidable duo brings spontaneity and insight into Beethoven’s work.

Yundi Li / Berliner Philharmoniker / Seiji Ozawa PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 2 - RAVEL Piano Concerto in G major

Yundi Li's premiere recording with the Berlin Philharmonic under Seiji Ozawa demonstrates his steadfast, consistent approach to the piano. Unfortunately for him -- and for listeners -- that means only one of the two concertos heard here is performed as it should be. The Prokofiev Second Piano Concerto, premiered by the composer when he was only 22 years of age, is ideally suited to 24-year-old Li. It is a work filled with youthful energy, bombast, and technical bravura clearly designed to impress. Li knocks this one out of the park. His more-than-ample technique allows him to perform this incredibly demanding work with apparent ease. The extended passages for solo piano are executed with spine-tingling amounts of power and technical precision. Anyone in the market for a riveting performance of only the Prokofiev need look no farther. But then there's still the matter of the Ravel G major Concerto, a work which, unlike Prokofiev, does not rely on ostentatious displays of technical prowess. Li fails to pull out some introspection and thoughtful interpretation of this much more intimate work. The second movement is disturbingly vertical and angular -- characteristics that worked quite well in Prokofiev but that leave Ravel sounding mechanical. Like many of his earlier recordings, Li again demonstrates himself to be an absolute master of technique, but also as a young artist still searching for deeper musical understanding. (Mike D. Brownell)