Requiring 38 soloists, chorus and large orchestra, “Palestrina”, Hans Pfitzner’s (1869-1949) “most important work” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), is a challenging opera to stage. In Munich, the city in which it was given its world premiere in 1917, the Bavarian State Opera succeeded – director Christian Stückl, best known for his staging of the Oberammergau Passion Play and the Salzburg Festival’s “Jedermann”, transformed the monumental work into an optical pop art event. Stückl’s production infuses such color and life into the serious work that even the German tabloid “Abendzeitung” delightedly wrote: “Who would have thought that Pfitzner could be such fun?”
Young Stars of Classical Music – Johannes Moser and Juraj Valcuha
Johannes Moser is the name to watch among today’s young violoncello virtuosos. Born in 1979, he has already performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras, such as the New York Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, with which he made his U.S. debut under Pierre Boulez. His agenda is packed with appearances ranging from concerto soloist to chamber-music partner to interpreter of avant-garde music on an electric cello… In this concert of late-Romantic music with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, the “Echo Classic Award Winner” 2008 boldly infuses Hans Pfitzner’s Cello Concerto in A minor with a jolt of adrenaline that could very well boost this rarely heard work – which was long thought to be lost – into the concert repertoire. Written in 1883, Richard Strauss’ Romance in F major for cello and orchestra is an early work from the pen of this orchestral master, and another showcase for the talent of Johannes Moser. The concert also features another rising star of the classical music scene, the young Slovak conductor Juraj Valcuha, the principal conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Doing full justice to the refined atmosphere of the German late-Romantic works on the program, which also includes a Wagner overture, excerpts from Pfitzner’s opera Palestrina and Strauss’ Rosenkavalier Suite, conductor Juraj Valcuha soon makes it clear that elegance and transparency are his specialty.
Pfitzner, Three Preludes to “Palestrina”
“Grandiose, unaffected, expansive, majestic, immovable…” – Christian Thielemann’s description of Anton Bruckner’s music vividly captures its essence and uniqueness. And he himself captures the soul of the great romantic composer in his interpretation of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony with the Munich Philharmonic. Recorded live at the Festspielhaus Baden- Baden on 14 November 2006, the concert also features three orchestral preludes from the opera “Palestrina” by another late-romantic composer, Hans Pfitzner. The preludes from Pfitzner’s “Palestrina”, the composer’s most well-known work, evoke the events about to transpire in the acts that follow them. While the subtle, refined nuances of the first prelude suggests the creative crisis of the opera’s hero, the Renaissance composer Palestrina, the second reflects the turbulent atmosphere of the Council of Trent and the third the inner peace found at long last by Palestrina beneath the cupola of St. Peter’s. Completed in September 1883, several months after the death of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 in E major is a stunning homage to the composer of the “Ring”. A passionate admirer of Wagner, Bruckner claimed that he had the master’s death in mind while writing the Adagio of this symphony. With its particularly soaring and melodious themes, the Seventh is Bruckner’s most popular and accessible symphony. It would be difficult to find a better team to interpret Bruckner’s music today than Christian Thielemann and the Munich Philharmonic. Thielemann, the General Music Director of the Munich ensemble, is a universally recognized Bruckner and Wagner expert, who inaugurated his tenure at the head of the Philharmonic by conducting Bruckner’s Fifth. The Munich orchestra has a long-standing tradition of performing Bruckner’s music and boasts a particular attachment to the Seventh: it was the second orchestra to play the work, and the success it obtained with it in 1885 helped establish Bruckner as a major contemporary composer. Thielemann also led the Munich Philharmonic and the Regensburg Boys’ Choir in the first concert given in honor of Pope Benedict XVI in Vatican City in October 2005, which was also recorded by Unitel/Classica.
Documentation about “Norma”
Palestrina
Requiring 38 soloists, chorus and large orchestra, Hans Pfitzner’s masterpiece about historical composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, premiered in 1917 by Bruno Walter, is no easy feat to perform. Christian Thielemann, a tireless Palestrina crusader, “leads a stellar cast to triumph” (Die Welt) with this production at the Viennese State Opera, staged by the late Herbert Wernicke: “It goes without saying that Thielemann is a world champion when it comes to German masterpieces, and yet one is amazed at the structure of the grandiose tutti, the subtle phrasing and the spatial effect of the orchestral sound” (Bachtrack). Michael Spyres sings the “saviour of counterpoint” Palestrina with “a radiant tenor voice and sonorous expression” (Theaterkompass) and the other roles are “splendidly cast” (News), including Günther Groissböck as Pope Pius IV and Wolfgang Koch as Cardinal Borromeo. “A piece of music theatre history that demands to be revitalized” (Die Welt)
The Vatican Concert 2005 – In Honor of Pope Benedikt XVI
Recorded live in the presence of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in Vatican City, this profoundly moving and inspiring concert is a true musical landmark. While the music ranges from the grand to the sublime, the atmosphere retains the warmth and intimacy of a “family reunion”: both the Munich Philharmonic and the boys’ chorus “Regensburger Domspatzen” are world-renowned institutions from the Pope’s native Germany and from cities closely connected with the former Cardinal Ratzinger. Among the works performed is a Sanctus from a mass written by Georg Ratzinger, the Pope’s brother and one-time director of the “Regensburger Domspatzen”. Under the direction of its distinguished young principal conductor Christian Thielemann, the Munich Philharmonic is joined by the boys’ chorus (which also sings a cappella works led by Georg Büchner) in music by Liszt, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Palestrina, Pfitzner, Verdi, Wagner and Georg Ratzinger. The musical event is rounded off with an address to the listeners and performers by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.