This performance of Weber’s Missa Sancta No. 1 in E flat was recorded live from the baroque monastery at Waldsassen in Bavaria.
Requiem
Mozart’s last work, the Requiem Mass in D minor K626, receives a strong performance from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Mozart specialist Sir Colin Davis in a classic recording made in 1984.
This live recording from the Herkulessaal in Munich featthe Maestro conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Chorus and Orchestra with the outstanding Peter Schreier, Edith Mathis and Trudeliese Schmidt as well as ever-popular Welsh bass Gwynne Howell.
Song Recital: Liebeslieder Walzer
The Romantic Brahms is well observed in his many lieder, with their typically fluent melodies and rippling accompaniments. The pieces performed in these three programmes bear witness to the tremendous care Brahms took over the composition of these charming and simple settings. Liebeslieder Walzer (R0047.1) Volkslieder (R0047.2) Volkskinderlieder (R0047.3)
Missa Sancta Caecilia
A legendary performance of Haydn’s Missa Sanctae Ceaciliae conducted by Rafael Kubelík live from the Basilika Ottobeuren. The work was without doubt one of the highlights of the wonderful Kubelík era. Under his guidance the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks also became one of the world’s foremost Haydn orchestras. When the orchestra discovered the baroque Basilica of Ottobeuren as the perfect venue for sacred music of the classic-romantic repertoire, their concerts enjoyed huge popularity, leaving a lasting impression on those who experienced them at first hand.
Montserrat Caballe & Marilyn Horne Gala
Two great stars of the operatic stage, Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé and American mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, give magnificent performances in these superb gala concerts featuring a variety of popular arias and duets from: Bajazet (Vivaldi), Les Huguenots (Meyerbeer), Le due ilustri rivali (Mercadante), Tancredi (Rossini), Semiramide (Rossini), Rodelinda (Handel), Giulio Cesare (Handel), Semiramide (Rossini), La donna del lago (Rossini), Gianni Schicchi (Puccini), Les Contes d’Hoffmann (Offenbach).
Christmas with Kiri Te Kanawa
Coventry Cathedral is the magnificent setting for this concert, designed to trace the history of the Christmas carols from the dark ages up to the present day.
Solti conducts Haydn: The Creation
Haydn’s oratorio Die Schöpfung (The Creation) is one of the enduring miracles of classical music: a work of visionary scope and life-affirming freshness, created by a composer approaching his 70th birthday. Sir Georg Solti was nearing the end of his long and extraordinary career when he made this unique recording under studio conditions in the Herkulessaal, Munich – and in the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, he could hardly have had more inspirational collaborators. With a trio of handpicked soloists, the result is a performance with an unforgettable atmosphere: a deeply moving meeting of two of music’s most irrepressible spirits.
Ingo Metzmacher conducts Hans Werner Henze’s Requiem
Few modern composers had a more meaningful relationship with both past and (very real) present than Hans Werner Henze – or a more acute ear for beauty. His Requiem of 1993 is simultaneously typical and utterly original: nine wordless concertos for trumpet, piano and a shimmering chamber orchestra, each charged (in Henze’s own words) “with the human fears and problems of our time, with illness and death, love and loneliness”. This film captures the world premiere performance in Frankfurt in February 1993, with Ueli Wiget on piano and the incomparable Håkan Hardenberger on trumpet – a landmark in postwar musical history.
Harnoncourt conducts Bach: Advent Concert from Melk Abbey
From the magnificent surroundings of Melk Abbey in Austria, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and his Concentus Musicus Wien present a glorious programme of favourite choral works by Johann Sebastian Bach: two of his best loved cantatas alongside the celebratory Magnificat in D Major, BWV 243. Filmed in December 2000, the concert features a superb quartet of some of the finest singers of the time, including soprano Christine Schäfer and tenor Ian Bostridge. The Arnold Schoenberg Chor completes the line-up for this inspiring concert for Advent.
Segerstam conducts Rautavaara: On the Last Frontier
“Music needs personality” said the conductor Leif Segerstam, speaking of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s choral “fantasy” On the Last Frontier. “It needs something between the lines”. And the imitable, irrepressible personalities of both of these much-missed artists are plain to see and hear in this 1998 concert from Helsinki’s Finlandia Hall. Rautavaara took his inspiration from a novel by Edgar Allan Poe, but Poe’s narrative of Antarctic exploration soon takes on a spiritual, almost other-worldly quality, in music of rapturous beauty and visionary power. Segerstam’s personal empathy with the composer gives this world premiere performance an unforgettable sense of occasion.