Marek Janowski
CD Release: The Mastersingers of Nuremberg - Second Part of Wagner Cycle Available Tomorrow
The release of The Mastersingers of Nuremberg tomorrow, Friday, November 18, 2011, is the second SACD in a Wagner cycle by Marek Janowski and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. By the bicentennial of Wagner’s birth in 2013, Wagner’s ten late operas will have been performed in concert versions and recorded live by the label PentaTone classics for release on SACD several months after the respective performance. The orchestra is joined on this project by the prizewinning Rundfunkchor Berlin and international renowned Wagner singers.
The concert of The Mastersingers took place on June 3, 2011, in Berlin’s Philharmonie. The soloists included Albert Dohmen (Hans Sachs), Robert Dean Smith (Walther von Stolzing), Edith Haller (Eva), Dietrich Henschel (Sixtus Beckmesser), Michelle Breedt (Magdalena), and Matti Salminen (Night Watchman).
The advantage of a concert performance of a Wagner cycle is that all the performers and the audience can concentrate entirely on Wagner’s dramatic music. This purely auditory experience makes it possible to discover unsuspected nuances in the reception of Wagner.
Two more operas will be heard in the Wagner cycle this season: Tristan and Isolde (March 27, 2012) and Tannhäuser (May 5, 2012). Early next year Parsifal will be released as a three-CD box. By the end of the Wagner bicentennial in 2012, all ten works will have been released on SACDs.
PentaTone Records (PTC 5186 402)
SA-CD Hybrid Multichannel
PentaTone
18. November 2011
Marek Janowski
New: Janowski’s Berlin Wagner Cycle on CD - The Flying Dutchman is being released as the first of ten live recordings
This live recording of The Flying Dutchman is the first opera from Marek Janowski’s Wagner cycle in Berlin to be released on SACD. By the bicentennial of Wagner’s birth in 2013, Janowski will have conducted concert performances of ten of Wagner’s most important stage works in Berlin’s Philharmonie concert hall, with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Rundfunkchor Berlin, and renowned international Wagner soloists. The Dutch record label PentaTone, in collaboration with Deutschlandradio, will release the entire cycle on CD.
The recording of The Flying Dutchman on November 13, 2010, was the curtain raiser for this large project. A stormy sea journey inspired Richard Wagner to compose this work: A curse forces the Dutchman to wander aimlessly on the seas until he is redeemed by a woman’s fidelity. Matti Salminen sings the role of Daland; Albert Dohmen sings the Dutchman; Ricarda Merbeth performs the part of Senta; and Robert Dean Smith is Erik.
In addition to The Flying Dutchman, last season Janowski also conducted Parsifal and The Mastersingers of Nuremberg. In the current season, the cycle continues with Lohengrin (November 12, 2011), Tristan and Isolde (March 27, 2012), and Tannhäuser (May 5, 2012) in the Philharmonie in Berlin.
This Wagner cycle offers the ideal conditions for live recording. The goal of the project is to dispense with a stage presentation in order to let the dramatic quality of the composition come through on its own. The release of The Mastersingers of Nuremberg is scheduled for November 2011. All of the records will be released before the end of the Wagner bicentennial.
PentaTone Records (PTC 5186400)
EAN: 827949040061
SA-CD Hybrid Multichannel
PentaTone
16. September 2011
Frank Strobel
METROPOLIS von Fritz Lang - Originalmusik von Gottfried Huppertz
Capriccio
12. Mai 2011
Marek Janowski
Hans Werner Henze: Symphonies 3, 4 & 5
WERGO
02. Mai 2011
Ilan Volkov / Marc-André Hamelin (Klavier)
Max Reger: Klavierkonzert f-Moll
Richard Strauss: Burleske d-Moll
hyperion records
15. April 2011
Marek Janowski
Johannes Brahms: A German Requiem
The recording of Johannes Brahms’ German Requiem, produced on the Netherlands-based PentaTone label in cooperation with Deutschlandradio Kultur, has been available in Germany since October of 2010. Marek Janowski, the German Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Radio Choir and soloists Camilla Tilling, soprano, and Detlef Roth, baritone, performed the work in the fall of 2009. Janowski’s interpretation is definitely among the most conclusive; on the whole, his tempos are calm and equitable while not too leisurely or dragging (and fortunately not too jaunty, either – this is, after all, marked as a requiem). The Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra plays with a grandly solemn tone; Camilla Tilling and especially Detlef Roth play their part remarkably well, and the Berlin Radio Choir sings with precision, warmth, emotion and grandeur, clearly bringing to this piece its depth of experience, particularly in connection with this work. But it is first and foremost the greatly homogenous overall impression this recording leaves on the listener that makes its release such a success; Janowski’s interpretation does not (only) grieve over the dead, it also lends strength and assurance to the living, convincing us of the beauty of life and the necessity of the transience of all things.” (www.blog.codaex.de)
PentaTone Records (PTC 5186 361)
EAN: 827949036163
SA-CD Hybrid Multichannel
Listen jpc.de
PentaTone
20. Oktober 2010
Kristjan Järvi
Arvo Pärt: Works for Orchestra and Choir
On September 11, 2010, on the occasion of Arvo Pärt’s 75th birthday, Sony Classical released a new CD of works by the Estonian composer. Conductor Kristjan Järvi, who was also born in Estonia and grew up in the USA, conducts the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and the RIAS Chamber Choir in Arvo Pärt’s Symphony No. 3 as well as the world premiere recording of the new version of Stabat Mater for choir and string orchestra (1985/2008) and the “Cantique de desgrés” (1999/2002).
This recording is preceded by a longstanding friendship between the Järvi and Pärt families that reaches back to the 1960s to span multiple generations, a tie that brings Kristjan Järvi and Arvo Pärt together on both a personal and musical level. Järvi has been working for many years now with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, which is based in Berlin, Pärt’s longtime chosen city of residence.
See trailer
Sony Classical
9. September 2010
Matthias Foremny
Oskar Fried: Die Auswanderer, Verklärte Nacht
The Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra recorded “The Emigrants” and other works by Oskar Fried under the direction of Matthias Foremny in cooperation with and initiated by Deutschlandradio Kultur. Long before World War I, composer and conductor Oskar Fried (1871-1941) was regarded to be a trailblazer of musical modernity in his advocacy for Gustav Mahler’s works and his leadership of well-renowned orchestras. This CD was released on the Capriccio label in August of 2010. “Once again, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra has distinguished itself as the best-positioned defender of early 20th-century music (…) bringing the Capriccio label yet another wonderful coup – and leaving the listener free to wonder what other enlightening discoveries might be ahead,” writes the Neue Musikzeitung.
CAPRICCIO
30. August 2010
Roger Epple
Egon Wellesz: Klavierkonzert op. 49, Violinkonzert op. 84
Egon Wellesz composed his Piano Concerto, Op. 49, in the summer of 1933. This work reveals the composer’s intensive preoccupation at the time with neo-Baroque and Neoclassical compositional techniques. As a musicologist, Wellesz also took part in the initial decryption of Byzantine musical nomenclature and blazed new trails with his works on Baroque Opera and the first biography on Schönberg. As Jew, monarchist and creator of “degenerate music,” 53-year-old Wellesz was divested of all his official posts and went into exile. His violin concerto from 1961 diverges significantly from the piano concerto he wrote nearly 30 years prior. The work was commissioned by Viennese violinist Eduard Melkus and given its world premiere in Vienna in 1962 with Melkus performing as soloist.
CAPRICCIO
19. April 2010
Marek Janowski
Antonìn Dvořak: Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53; Romance in F minor, Op. 11 Karol Szymanowski: Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 35
Arabella Steinbacher is not only among the most highly-profiled violinists of her generation, but has also succeeded in playing her way to a place in the front ranks of violin virtuosos on the international concert stage within the space of a few years. On her PentaTone recording debut with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Marek Janowski, she remains true to her affinity for the 20th Century: In addition to Antonìn Dvořak’s Violin Concerto, she also plays the first violin concerto of the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski.
Pentatone Classics
October 23, 2009
Marek Janowski
Hans Werner Henze: 9th Symphony for Chorus and Orchestra; Text by Hans-Ulrich Treichel based on the novel The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers
Hans Werner Henze himself said of his Ninth Symphony for chorus and orchestra, which sets a text by Hans-Ulrich Treichel based upon Anna Segher’s novel The Seventh Cross to music,
“What happens in this symphony is an apotheosis of that which is horrific and painful. It is the summa summarum of my work, the attempt at a reckoning with a random, unpredictable world that is assailing us. (…) As a German reality, this symphony is above all an expression of the highest admiration for the people who offered resistance in a time of Nazi fascist terror and who gave their lives for the freedom of thoughts.”
The Rundfunkchor Berlin, which previously performed the choral symphony in its world premiere, created this new recording together with theRundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Marek Janowski.
WERGO WER 67222
September 10, 2009
Salomon Jadassohn: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2, Op. 89, 90
Felix Draeseke: Concerto in E flat, Op. 26
"With his virtuously clever, full-bodied and bass-driven sound, and above all with his well-dosed and matter-of-fact style, Markus Becker is the best possible interpreter of these works. And in the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Michael Sanderling, the woodwinds shine once again, setting colorful points of contrast to the pianist, who always maintains a low keyed, chamber musical style where Jadassohn’s and Draesekes‘ sophisticated instrumentation will allow."
rbb Kulturradio, April 16, 2009
hyperion CDA67636
May 10, 2009
Hans Werner Henze
7th & 8th Symphonies
“The structural form of the 7th Symphony is made clearly accessible through the interpretation of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under Marek Janowski. Transparent and coherent from start to finish, one can appreciate the semantic content even without the association to Hölderlin…
The second movement presents itself as a synthesis of elegy and catastrophic expression that is visible down to the bone. It culminates in the relentless scherzo of the third movement and finds its apocalyptic end in a grandiose finale. Seldom has Henze sounded so close to Mahler as in Janowski’s interpretation, and in all its fragility and “broken aesthetic”, that is what makes it unconditionally convincing.”
WERGO, WER 67212
December 10, 2008
Manfred Gurlitt
Goya Symphony, Dramatic Songs
“The world premiere recording of the Goya Symphony, written in the years 1938/39, displays an accomplished dramatic musical style that moves between Richard Strauss and Hindemith. In a work inspired by the life and work of the Spanish painter, folkloric and dramatic passages draft a portrait of time and character that can certainly be interpreted as anti-military. The Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester plays with clear colors and without exaggerated pathos, and the four dramatic voices are an expressive addition. Full of musical associations and drama, a variety of modernity is to be discovered here that carries on in the vein of many traditions from baroque to film music.”
Phoenix Edition, SACD 114
rbb Kulturradio, September 29, 2008
Alfred Schnittke
Piano Concertos
"Frank Strobel ... started out recording Schnittke’s numerous and extremely high-quality film music compositions, but meanwhile he has moved away from a film context. A … recording of three (of the four total) piano concertos by Schnittke, together with the exquisitely disposed Berlin Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester and the Polish pianist Ewa Kupiec, is the current and worthy result; a well-produced booklet to round out the edition is a nice surprise. …
Ewa Kupiec … presents herself together with Strobel as a competent advocate for a work that was postmodern ahead of its time and one deserving of a very different presence in contemporary concert culture."
Phoenix Edition, SACD 103
Frankfurter Rundschau, September 10, 2008
