UNESCO Concert for Peace

Sir Georg Solti’s unique “all-star” World Orchestra for Peace, with Donald Runnicles conducting a quartet of world-class soloists, chorus members of Bayerischer Rundfunk and the Bayerischer Chorakademie, give a commemorative performance of Beethoven’s legacy to universal peace and brotherhood. They are joined by players of the newly-formed Würth Philharmoniker to add a touching significance on this occasion of remembrance; that the future after any war lies in the hands of the surviving younger generation. Recorded at the exact ’11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month’, when the guns fell silent and World War 1 came to an end in 1918. PROGRAM Beethoven: Symphony No. 9

BPO: Dudamel conducts Bernstein Symphony No. 1

In 1944, at the age of just 25, Leonard Bernstein conducted the first performance of his First Symphony, a work based on the Old Testament lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah and which demonstrates astonishing musical and intellectual maturity. PROGRAM Bernstein: Symphony No. 1 “Jeremiah”

Barenboim conducts Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9

A veritable “Ode to Joy”: the Staatsoper Unter den Linden celebrates its reopening with a rousing open-air performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 by General Musical Director Daniel Barenboim, the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Staatsopernchor, featuring Diana Damrau, Okka von der Damerau, Burkhard Fritz and René Pape as stellar soloists. Set in the heart of the German capital, the Bebelplatz is home to Barenboim’s “Staatsoper für alle”, a yearly open-air tradition that has become a firm favourite with audiences: the maestro “turns cultural performances of the highest level into blockbusters”, “meeting visitors in the streets” and thus making the Staatsoper Unter den Linden the city’s “true Volksbühne” (Berliner Zeitung).

Bruckner, Symphony No. 8 in c minor

Christian Thielemann’s Bruckner “is so mighty, and with such a depth of sound … that one would have to be hard-hearted not to be touched by this heartfelt music” wrote the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel after this concert featuring Anton Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony performed by the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden. The recording of this symphony shall start a cycle of Bruckner’s complete symphonies with the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden under their principal conductor Christian Thielemann that is to be produced over the course of several years – a living monument of musical architecture.

Mozart, Serenade in D major, K.250 “Haffner” (with March K.249) (Mozartwoche 1999)

The Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg has been the orchestra of the city and Land of Salzburg since 1958 and regularly concertizes at the Salzburg Festival and the Mozartwoche. The principal conductor is the Dutch-born Hubert Soudant, who led the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de France in Paris from 1981 to 1983 and the Utrecht Symphony Orchestra from 1983 to 1986. In addition to his activities in Salzburg, Soudant is also the principal conductor of the Orchestra and Opéra des Pays de Loire in Nantes and Angers, France. This work was commissioned by Siegmund Haffner Jr., whose father had been a respected Salzburg businessman and public figure, to celebrate the marriage of one of his sisters. The wedding took place on 22 July 1776, and the serenade played the previous evening. It was performed on many occasions in subsequent years, also in a shortened version as a symphony.

Poulenc, “L’Histoire de Babar” for Speaker and Orchestra (The Story of Babar, the little Elephant)

Loriot, alias Vicco von Bülow, is one of Germany’s most popular and beloved humorists. He delights in unmasking the foibles of everyday life in many animated shorts, cartoons and stories. With the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin conducted by Marcello Viotti, Loriot gives a memorable performance as an avuncular narrator. Loriot revised the original text to make it even more appealing to children of today.

Bruckner, Symphony No.9 in D minor

When Leonard Bernstein died in 1990 at the age of 72, music lovers the world over mourned the loss of one of the 20th century’s artistic giants. In addition to his role as conductor, composer, educator and performing artist, Bernstein was one of the early pioneers in bringing the arts to television. As such, he became one of the most internationally recognized musical personalities in the world. He was a man who not only needed music in order to live, but who saw in artistic communication the means to touch the mind, the heart and the spirit all at once. His need to generate this communication dictated his life from the day he discovered music to the day he died. Recorded in March 1990, this performance is Leonard Bernstein’s last concert with the Vienna Philharmonic, an orchestra he deeply loved.

New Year’s Concert 1992

After this sensational, rousing concert, the most popular event of the year for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the entire Austrian media were unanimous: this was a one-of-a-kind sensation. Broadcast in 25 countries and reaching a potential viewership of a billion viewers and listeners, the concert carried the spirit of Vienna and its most popular son, Johann Strauss Jr., across the entire world. While the waltzes of Johann and Joseph Strauss (as well as an overture by Otto Nicolai) were certainly one reason for the concert’s enormous success, it could not have reached this level of peerlessness without Carlos Kleiber. Known rather as an introspective musician, Kleiber proved in the 1989 New Year’s Concert that he was a master of the light and bubbly as well. All of the works – from the Pizzicato Polka and the Tritsch-Tratsch Polka to the Blue Danube waltz and the Radetzky March – were played with such brilliance, virtuosity and overflowing good spirits that one Vienna daily titled the event “a miracle in 3/4 time.”