Liszt had discovered Goethe’s Faust in a French translation just before the premiere of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, and it was Berlioz who drew his attention to it. Though he initially contemplated writing an opera on this topic, he ultimately decided on a symphonic work which he called “A Faust Symphony in Three Character Pictures” which evoke Faust, Marguerite and Mephistopheles. His goal was to create psychological portraits that capture the character from within and, through recurring motifs and melodies, show that the three figures are interconnected. The work was premiered in Weimar on 5 September 1857 under the direction of the composer. In this performance, Leonard Bernstein conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra and tenor Kenneth Riegel at Boston’s Symphony Hall.
Die Schöpfung (The Creation) Hob.XXI:2
Haydn began writing the oratorio “Die Schöpfung” (The Creation) in 1795; it was given its first performance at the palace of Prince Schwarzenberg in Vienna in 1798. Haydn’s life’s work reached its climax and its conclusion in The Creation and in the oratorio The Seasons, written in 1801. Shortly before his death in 1808, Haydn attended another gala performance of The Creation which was received by the audience with wild enthusiasm. Leonard Bernstein’s recording of this work was made at the Benedictine Abbey of Ottobeuren in 1986 with the chorus and Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio with soloists Judith Blegen, Thomas Moser, Kurt Moll, Lucia Popp and Kurt Ollmann. Bernstein himself said of The Creation: “In the beginning of this awesome musical version, Haydn created one of the supreme music dramatizations of all time: the depiction of chaos, as he entitled it – that pre-terrestrial chaos depicted in Genesis by the single line: ‘And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the Deep’. This musical depiction is of a beauty almost frightening in its chromatic and dissonant texture – something outside of Time, and certainly outside of the 1790s, when it was written. … Haydn’s The Creation gives us time to remember – and rejoice in – the purity and grace and fortitude of Nature, to saunter blissfully through that Garden of Gardens along with Adam and Eve; to restore our souls, to recover our moral strength, and to rediscover our power to praise.”
Monteverdi, Vespro della Beata Vergine (Vespers of the Blessed Virgin)
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) contributed more to the music of his time than any other composer: he perfected the art of the madrigal, gave decisive impulses to the young genre of the opera by his imaginative use of descriptive and dramatic effects and by giving each figure an individual character, and introduced the expressive language of secular music into the rigid sacred music of his time. In his “Marian Vespers,” composed in Mantua in 1610, Monteverdi combined elements from the traditional church music style with the new “stile concertato” and polychoral forms, but also boldly made use of Gregorian chant. Whether for solo voice and continuo, for chorus a cappella or for the mighty forces of the chorus and orchestra – Monteverdi cast each single piece in the Marian Vespers in its own mould, thereby obtaining an expressive diversity within a stylistically unified framework. Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Concentus musicus are the ideal interpreters of Monteverdi’s music. Their year-long specialization in the field of early music and original performance practice guarantees an authoritative and gripping interpretation. The concert was recorded at the Baroque Cathedral of Graz, Austria, in 1986.
Mozart, Piano Sonata in A major, K. 331
Ivo Pogorelich is perhaps the only great pianist who became an instant celebrity for the prize he didn’t win. It was in 1980, when he was eliminated in the third round of the Warsaw Chopin Competition. An argument ensued among the jurors, and Martha Argerich, a member of the jury, resigned in protest, claiming “Pogorelich is a genius!” The scandal provoked by Argerich’s reaction made him famous overnight. The eyes of the musical world were soon upon young Ivo Pogorelich, and they have yet to be disappointed. Ivo Pogorelich was born in Belgrade in 1958 and began playing the piano at the age of seven. After his classical training at the Moscow Conservatory, he took master classes from Aliza Kezeradze, who passed on to him the tradition of the Liszt-Siloti school. In an interview with the German weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”, Pogorelich once listed the four most important things he learned from Kezeradze: “First, technical perfection as something natural. Second, an insight into the development of the piano sound, as perfected by the pianist-composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, composers who understood the piano both as a human voice … and as an orchestra with which they could produce a variety of colors. Third, the need to learn how to use every aspect of our new instruments, which are richer in sound. Fourth, the importance of differentiation.” Pogorelich won the Casagrande Competition in 1978 and the first prize of the International Music Competition in Montreal in 1980. Since the Warsaw scandal, Pogorelich has been pursuing a brilliant international career. His debuts in London, Paris, New York, Madrid, Brussels, Amsterdam, Rome, Milan and Tel Aviv were triumphs. He has performed with practically all the major orchestras in the world, and his recitals are almost always sold out. Comparing him with Horowitz, the New York Times once wrote: “He was an entire orchestra.” His often controversial and always stunning interpretations confirm the originality of his talent and intellect. In 1986 and 1987, when Pogorelich was in his late 20s, Unitel recorded a series of six recitals with the artist in venues of particularly striking beauty. The fact that the young pianist chose several pieces that are not among the most spectacular or frequently performed of the piano repertoire already hints at the unique and uncompromising character of this young pianist.
Mahler, Symphony No.8 in E flat major “Symphony of a Thousand”
Leonard Bernstein conducted the work at the Salzburg Festival in 1975 and shortly thereafter in Vienna’s Konzerthaus, where it was recorded. The stage of the Konzerthaus was enlarged to make room for the unusually large orchestra, the two choruses, the children’s choir and the soloists. Bernstein was the first conductor ever to record all of Mahler’s symphonies not only on disk, but also on video. The Mahler cycle was the first project in the more than 20-year-long association between Leonard Bernstein and Unitel. The leading Mahler interpreter of our time, Bernstein recorded all of Mahler’s symphonies between 1971 and 1985, chiefly with the Vienna Philharmonic, producing a unique musical document and triggering a major reappreciation of Mahler’s works. “All Mahler symphonies, all Mahler works for that matter, deal in extremes, extremes of dynamic, of tempo, of emotional meaning. When it is bare, it’s extremely bare, when it is thick and rich, it’s thicker and richer than anything in ‘Götterdämmerung’, and when it is suffering it suffers to a point that no music has ever suffered before.” (Leonard Bernstein)
Bruckner, Symphony No.7 in E major
Sir Georg Solti (1912-1997), one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, was a testament to the elegance and impeccable tastefulness of Central European music-making. Born in Budapest in 1912, he studied with Béla Bartók, Ernö von Dohnányi, Zoltán Kodály and Leo Weiner. In 1937, Toscanini chose him to be his assistant at the Salzburg Festival. After the war, Solti was appointed Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera. Further stations in his career were the Frankfurt Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the London Philharmonic. Solti’s remarkable partnership with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra began in 1954, when he first led the orchestra at the Ravinia Festival. After returning to conduct the ensemble several times during the following years, he was named Music Director in 1969 and held this post for a phenomenal 22 years. He is credited with greatly extending and enhancing the orchestra’s worldwide reputation. “In Chicago he has whipped, cajoled, hammered, burnished and conjured an orchestral sound that manages to be two entirely opposite things at once. On the one hand, there is that seductive, mellow roar from the winds and brass; on the other, a meticulously controlled string tone whereby more than 60 players take on the crispness and clarity of a chamber ensemble.” (Newsweek, Oct. 19, 1987) Solti died in September 1997, just before his 85th birthday. Anton Bruckner began working on his Seventh Symphony in 1881 and completed it on 5 September 1883. The first performance was led by Arthur Nikish in Leipzig on 30 December 1884 and was a success that helped establish the composer as a major composer. The work has since become Bruckner’s most popular symphony. This recording features the Chicago Symphony under Sir Georg Solti.
Schubert, Die Winterreise (The Winter Journey) D.911, op.89. Lieder Cycle based on poems by Wilhelm Müller
The internationally acclaimed baritone Hermann Prey was born in Berlin in 1929. He made his breakthrough in 1956 as Figaro in the Vienna State Opera’s production of Rossini’s “Barber of Seville”. He has since performe at all of the world’s great opera houses and festivals. Hermann Prey has always loved lieder, especially the works of Franz Schubert. This inspired him to found the Schubertiade, a festival in Hohenems, Austria, entirely devoted to this composer’s works. He also established the New York Schubertiade in 1988.
Mahler, Songs from “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”
Gustav Mahler claimed that he had known the collection of poems called “Des Knaben Wunderhorn,” compiled by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, since his earliest youth. In fact, no fewer than half of his songs draw on verses from this collection, including quotations found in Symphonies Nos. 2-4 and other works. Between 1892 and 1895, the young conductor of the Hamburg Opera set to music 12 poems from this collection – the songs “Revelge” and “Der Tambourg’sell” followed in 1899. The Wunderhorn settings administered the death blow to the late-Romantic literary and psychological art song. Mahler felt the Wunderhorn lyrics, the expression of a collective subconscious, to be “essentially different from all kinds of literary poetry, being more nature and life – that is, the sources of all poetry – than art.” Leonard Bernstein leads soloists Lucia Popp (soprano) and Walton Groenroos (baritone) along with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in this recording of all twelve songs.
Bach, Johannespassion (St. John’s Passion) BWV 245
Johann Sebastian Bach composed the St. John Passion in Cöthen during the winter of 1722/23. The text is drawn from chapters 18 and 19 of the Gospel according to St. John, and includes some excerpts from St. Mathew and additional text from a Passion poem by the Hamburg town councillor Barthold Heinrich Brockes. The composer led the first performance at the Good Friday services on 7 April 1724 at St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig, where he had since become municipal music director and cantor of the Thomasschule. This Passion is heard less often today than the St. Matthew Passion, perhaps because the St. John Passion is in some ways more raw and evokes the anguish of the Passion more painfully than the St. Matthew work. A musician’s musician, an occasional firebrand and a constant paradox – Nikolaus Harnoncourt (born in 1929) is one of the most profound and intriguing conductors of our time. Considered one of the world’s leading specialists of Baroque music, he has long since turned his attention to Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and even to Jacques Offenbach and Johann Strauss. He spent many years as a cellist with the Wiener Symphoniker before founding the “Concentus Musicus Wien” with his wife Alice in 1953. It soon became one of the world’s most respected ensembles specializing in the performance of early music on original instruments. In the 1970s, Harnoncourt joined forces with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle to stage a series of Monteverdi operas at the Zurich Opera House. This universally acclaimed cycle contributed to a renaissance of Monteverdi’s music and set standards for early Baroque performance practice. He later began to turn his attention more and more to the music of Mozart, whom he considers “the most romantic of all composers”. Harnoncourt did not make his official debut at the Salzburg Festival until 1992. He has been conducting there regularly since then and is a sought-after guest conductor of such reputable ensembles as the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
Schubert, Die schöne Müllerin (The Beautiful Maid of the Mill), D.795 Lieder Cycle based on poems by Wilhelm Müller
The internationally acclaimed baritone Hermann Prey was born in Berlin in 1929. He made his breakthrough in 1956 as Figaro in the Vienna State Opera’s production of Rossini’s “Barber of Seville”. He has since performed at all of the world’s great opera houses and festivals. Hermann Prey has always loved lieder, especially the works of Franz Schubert. This inspired him to found the Schubertiade, a festival in Hohenems, Austria, entirely devoted to this composer’s works. He also established the New York Schubertiade in 1988.