“Gustavo Dudamel puts an intimate flourish on Verdi’s Requiem”, the Los Angeles Times writes about Dudamel’s performance of Verdi’s Requiem at the Hollywood Bowl. “A page was turned and a new chapter begun in the maturation of a music director.” Dudamel is joined by a cast of high-class singers: Ildebrando D´Arcangelo, who regularly performs at La Scala, the Wiener Staatsoper, London’s Royal Opera or the Salzburg Festival, the upcoming star tenor Vittorio Grigolo, who regularly guests at La Scala, Covent Garden, the MET etc., Michelle DeYoung, who performs with leading orchestras like the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra etc., and Julianna Di Giacomo, who regularly guests at the MET, the LA Opera an other international opera houses. Also available: Making Of (18′).
The Glory of Russia – Sound and Sights of Saint Petersburg
Renée Fleming, America’s Queen of Opera, performing with the internationally acclaimed Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, in the Palaces of the Czars in Saint Petersburg. Fleming and Hvorostovsky lead the audience through Saint Petersburg performing in the Gold Ballroom of Peterhof Palace, the White Column Room and the extraordinary baroque Theater of the Yusupov Palace.
Jan Vogler plays Schumann
Jan Vogler presents a revealing reading of Schumann’s Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129 with his own orchestra, the Dresden Festival Orchestra, that consists of more than 50 members from Europe’s most renowned early music ensembles, under the baton of its musical director Ivor Bolton. Exploring Schumann’s “original sound”, Jan Vogler plays on gut strings and the orchestra on period instruments. The concerto connects the Dresden Music Festival and its orchestra to the productive Dresden period of Schumann’s work (1844-50) since Schumann composed the cello concerto immediately after he had left the city.
Chailly conducts Mahler – Symphony No. 7
Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig performing Gustav Mahler’s Seventh Symphony.
Rattle conducts Haydn and Mozart
At this summer’s Lucerne Festival, Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker presented a new Haydn symphony that never existed before: Rattle gathered together ten of the most original and avant-garde-like instrumental movements by Joseph Haydn to fashion a “Symphonie imaginaire,” a new Haydn symphony that never existed before. In addition to this astonishing Haydn Pasticcio, Rattle conducted Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante for violin, viola and orchestra, soloists were Daishin Kashimoto (violin) and Amihai Grosz (viola).
Joshua Bell plays Tchaikovsky
C Major is proud to present the young and brilliant world famous American violinist Joshua Bell, performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major at the Nobel Prize Concert 2010, produced by Accentus Music. As part of the official Nobel Week, the world’s most renowned artists are gathering each year to pay tribute to the Nobel Laureates. The concert is a special highlight in the series. On the rostrum: Sakari Oramo the Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. The evening starts with Beethoven’s Leonore Ouverture and ends with Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 in E flat major.
Rhapsody in Blue – LA Phil Opening Gala with Herbie Hancock & Gustavo Dudamel
The Opening Night Gala 2011/2012 of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra features keyboard legend Herbie Hancock who joins Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic for a high-spirited celebration of quintessential American composer George Gershwin. The concert begins with the iconic Tin Pan Alley composer’s Cuban Overture and his beloved An American In Paris. Then the multiple Grammy Award-winning pianist joins Dudamel and the LA Phil to perform arguably Gershwin’s most famous work, the jazz hued Rhapsody in Blue.
LSO: Rattle conducts Haydn “The Seasons”
The London Symphony Chorus celebrate its 50th anniversary with Haydn’s ‘nature’ oratorio The Seasons, a stellar cast of international singers and Sir Simon Rattle. The Seasons is divided in to four sections: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter charting a musical year with rousing choruses, a riotous wine tasting with dancing peasants, a loud thunderstorm, even the croaking of frogs. In his old age Haydn achieved fame and fortune in London following visits here in the 1790s. ‘Papa Haydn’ was encouraged to write The Seasons by the great success of his previous oratorio The Creation, which was performed all over Europe.
Mariss Jansons conducts Bruckner 9
As part of a fully fledged Bruckner festival, Mariss Jansons is conducting a series of Bruckner symphonies, each paired with a classical solo concerto – great music by great composers. The series gets under way with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, composed in 1795. The work is, in actual fact, Beethoven’s second contribution to the genre, in which he pushes the boundaries of the instrument. The featured soloist is Lars Vogt. One hundred years after Beethoven had written his Piano Concerto, Bruckner concluded his monumental symphonic œuvre with the unfinished Ninth Symphony, leaving behind three completed movements and sketches for a finale in 1896, the year in which he died. In his swansong – the starkly dissonant Adagio –, Bruckner explores the very boundaries of tonality. —— Program: Ludwig van Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 1, Anton Bruckner – Symphony No. 9.
Beethoven: Violin Concerto – Znajder, Chailly
Muscular yet elegant, eloquent and charismatic – terms that flow from journalists’ pens when referring to Nikolaj Znaider. The Danish artist once again affirmed his reputation as one of the most distinguished violinists of our time with his performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s violin concerto with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under the baton of its musical director Riccardo Chailly. Znaider himself speaks of Beethoven’s popular work as “the bible in a violinist’s concert repertoire.”