For the 2014/15 Opening Night Concert and Gala, the Los Angeles Philharmonic paid loving tribute to composer John Williams, long a champion and close friend of the LA Phil. Gustavo Dudamel, an awestruck fan of the musical icon, led the orchestra in a crosssection of Maestro Williams’ matchless canon.
Mahler Symphonies Nos. 9 & 10
Gustav Mahler spent 1909 and 1910 working on his final two symphonies. The Ninth has gone down in history as the culmination of his symphonic output and a prophetic anticipation of musical modernism. But owing to his declining health, he had to stop work on the Tenth after a few months and was unable to resume it before his death. Only the first movement,
included here, was orchestrated to a point where it can be performed without non-authorial additions. – The Mahler cycle by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra under Paavo Järvi is appearing complete on DVD and Blu-ray on the C Major label and has already been internationally acclaimed as one of the most important Mahler projects of the new millennium.
“If I knew Mahler only from his music, I would say that he has a huge heart and a deep connection with the soul and humanity.” – PAAVO JÄRVI
Richard Strauss: At The End Of The Rainbow
Eric Schulz reveals in his latest music film a new perspective on the personality and oeuvre of Richard Strauss, who saw himself as the last great composer at the end of an era, “at the end of the rainbow”. This carefully researched production presents spectacular hitherto unreleased pictures of Richard Strauss. Among others: a live recording of the premiere of the “Olympic Anthem” at the Berlin Olympic stadium in 1936. The very first performance of this piece ever to be heard, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic and a choir of 1000 singers conducted by Richard Strauss himself. These spectacular rare pictures are embedded in interviews with relatives, famous musicians and Strauss experts, such as Christian Strauss, Stefan Mickisch and Brigitte Fassbaender.
Richard Strauss Gala
This exceptional programme of highlights from Richard Strauss´s works Der Rosenkavalier, Feuersnot,
Salome, Elektra, Die ägyptische Helena, Arabella, Die schweigsame Frau and Daphne was dedicated to Richard
Strauss 150th birthday in Dresden. The reputation as »THE Strauss-Orchestra« of the Staatskapelle
Dresden results from the special relation to Richard Strauss and his works, which started 130 years ago,
performing many world premieres of Richard Strauss´s operas and orchestral works.
The DVD includes the documentary My Strauss with Christian Thielemann, including a lot of archival
footage with Richard Strauss, rehearsals and concert excerpts of Elektra, Rosenkavalier, Frau ohne
Schatten, Heldenleben, Four last songs and more.
Mahler Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6
Symphonies Nos. 5 + 6 will continue the release of the complete Mahler cycle with Paavo Järvi and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, which since the 80s became a “powerful Mahler orchestra” (Frankfurter Rundschau)
Bonus: Introductions to Symphonies Nos. 5 + 6 with Paavo Järvi
Mahler Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8
In many ways Mahler’s Seventh and Eighth Symphonies are the most unusual works that the late Romantic composer ever wrote. The Seventh was the last in a series of middle-period pieces that were purely instrumental in character. Two movements headed “Nachtmusik“ (night music) and the remarkable writing for a guitar and a mandolin help to create a sequence
of darkly Romantic visions. And even within Mahler’s markedly eclectic output, the Eighth Symphony enjoys the status of an exotic outsider thanks not only to ist two-movement form combining an early medieval hymn and the final scene from Goethe’s Faust but also to the vast forces for which it is scored, earning it the title of “Symphony of a Thousand”.
“If I knew Mahler only from his music, I would say that he has a huge heart and a deep connection with the soul and humanity.” – PAAVO JÄRVI
Vier letzte Lieder
Dresden and the Staatskapelle Dresden have a special relation to Richard Strauss. Many of his compositions had their world premiere in Dresden and the composer dedicated An Alpine Symphony to the Dresden orchestra. The programme includes Four Last Songs, Ernster Gesang by Wolfgang Rihm and the German premiere of the last completed Strauss song “Mallows” in an orchestral version, arranged specifically for Dresden by Wolfgang Rihm.
Tutto Verdi Highlights
TUTTO VERDI – this edition to mark the Verdi bicentenary sets standards by which all similar projects will be judged. It includes all twenty-six operas by the greatest Italian stage composer, together with his immortal Requiem, all of them in definitive performances.
“This is how Verdi should be played” – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on TUTTO VERDI
Otello
TUTTO VERDI – this edition to mark the Verdi bicentenary sets standards by which all similar projects will be judged. It includes all twenty-six operas by the greatest Italian stage composer, together with his immortal Requiem, all of them in definitive performances. “This is how Verdi should be played” – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on TUTTO VERDI
Verdi was over seventy when he set about raising Italian opera to a whole new level, succeeding magnificently in combining two traditions in his penultimate masterpiece. Based on Shakespeare’s famous tragedy, Otello not only sums up the history of Italian opera since Rossini but at the same time looks far into the future.
Falstaff
TUTTO VERDI – this edition to mark the Verdi bicentenary sets standards by which all similar projects will be judged. It includes all twenty-six operas by the greatest Italian stage composer, together with his immortal Requiem, all of them in definitive performances. “This is how Verdi should be played” – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on TUTTO VERDI
Based, in part, on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff is Verdi’s last work for the stage – and only his second comic opera. And yet the humour in this multilayered masterpiece is distinctly wry, for all the main characters exhibit an array of human weaknesses that are implacably exposed by Verdi and his librettist Arrigo Boito.