For his three-season cycle of Mozart’s Da Ponte operas – The Marriage of Figaro, Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni – the Leipzig Opera’s director Udo Zimmermann turned to John Dew, the Cuban-born, New York-raised British director. Though a staunch believer in authenticity and historical performance practice, Dew feels that it is perfectly acceptable to cast an opera in a modern-day setting. In Dew’s productions, Mozart’s characters seem to have stepped out of a TV series. They’re people of today with problems of today. This is also what Dew sees in the three Da Ponte operas: “They are all about trust and the search for happiness. Maybe we expect more from a work of art. But for me it’s a great deal. After all, personal happiness makes life worth living.” Elsewhere he says: “The purpose of art is to dispel boredom.” Indeed, Mozart’s three Da Ponte operas are guaranteed to provide witty, throught-provoking, stimulating entertainment – anything but boredom!
Beethoven, Symphony No.7 in A major, op.92
Carlos Kleiber’s all too rare concert appearances are always musical occasions to cherish and remember. The vitality and precision of his authoritative gestures never fail to generate excitement and inspire playing of great élan from orchestras throughout the world. When Carlos Kleiber conducts the Concertgebouworkest of Amsterdam in Beethoven, one can expect a performance of intense musical concentration and exceptional expressive power. Carlos Kleiber made this recording with the Dutch orchestra in 1983, conducting Beethoven’s Fourth and Seventh Symphonies. The mesmeric command of this elusive conductor over his musicians is fascinating. With none of the excessive glamor of the star performer, Carlos Kleiber, with meticulous care for detail, creates clear instrumental textures, compelling rhythmic designs and magical moments of fine repose. This is spell-binding music-making. This is vintage Carlos Kleiber.
Brahms, Piano Concerto No.2 in B flat major, op.83
Between 1981 and 1984, Leonard Bernstein recorded nearly all of Brahms’s orchestral works with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra to honor the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 1983. Today, the cycle is considered as a landmark in the interpretation of Brahms’ music. For Bernstein, Brahms was “a true Romantic, containing his passions in classical garb”, but also a “North-German classicist swept away to Vienna, and fired by Danubian, Carpathian and gypsy passions”. Bearing this dualism in mind, Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic have underscored both the classicism and romanticism, the dramatic intensity and the sober restraint of Brahms’s music. The venue was Vienna’s Musikvereinssaal, where two of Brahms’s symphonies were premiered and where Brahms himself conducted. The soloist in Brahms’s concerto is the Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman, who launched his meteoric career when he won the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1975. An important influence in his youth was his friendship with Artur Rubinstein, and other landmarks in his career arose through his work with conductors such as Bernstein, Giulini and Karajan.
Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)
For his three-season cycle of Mozart’s Da Ponte operas – The Marriage of Figaro, Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni – the Leipzig Opera’s director Udo Zimmermann turned to John Dew, the Cuban-born, New York-raised British director. Though a staunch believer in authenticity and historical performance practice, Dew feels that it is perfectly acceptable to cast an opera in a modern-day setting. In Dew’s productions, Mozart’s characters seem to have stepped out of a TV series. They’re people of today with problems of today. This is also what Dew sees in the three Da Ponte operas: “They are all about trust and the search for happiness. Maybe we expect more from a work of art. But for me it’s a great deal. After all, personal happiness makes life worth living.” Elsewhere he says: “The purpose of art is to dispel boredom.” Indeed, Mozart’s three Da Ponte operas are guaranteed to provide witty, throught-provoking, stimulating entertainment – anything but boredom!
Beethoven, Symphony No.3 in E flat major, op.55 “Eroica”
Beethoven originally dedicated this symphony to Napoleon, whom he saw as the champion of the common man, a hero pursuing the ideals of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. However, upon hearing that Napoleon had declared himself emperor, Beethoven became furious and tore up the title page containing the dedication. The “Eroica” marks one of the turning points in music history, heralding a new age in symphonic style. Prior to this work, Beethoven had been a composer with roots in the 18th century. The Third Symphony’s length and the nature of its thematic material, emotional depth, range and harmonic daring set it apart from any earlier symphonic work. This recording is part of Bernstein’s complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra live in Vienna. The series won the Ace Award, the U.S. Cable TV Association’s top award for outstanding quality and entertainment value. Bernstein’s impassioned renderings of Beethoven move audiences in a unique way. “Beethoven has always meant universality to me, ever since my early adolescence, when I first heard that unforgettable cry of ‘Brüder!’. From that moment on, every… symphony came to mean heart-to-heart communication, travelling satellite-fashion via the cosmos itself. I offer [this cycle] to all music-loving ears as a testament of faith and of my most profound reactions to this greatest of all composers.” (Leonard Bernstein, 1980)
Beethoven, Leonore Overture No.3 in C major, op.72a
Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, was composed about 1803. As do so many of the composer’s works, it glorifies the struggle against tyranny and celebrates heroism and humanitarianism. The first performance, which took place in Vienna in 1805, was ill-received; and the opera required 10 years of revision before it was accepted by the public in 1814. Beethoven wrote four overtures to his opera: three are known as the “Leonore Overtures” (named after the heroine of the opera); the fourth, the Overture to Fidelio, is the version now used as a prelude to the opera .The music of Leonore No. 3 refers to the climax of the story in the last act of Fidelio. Today, it is usually played as an interlude between the second and third acts of the opera. This recording is part of Leonard Bernstein’s Beethoven cycle, recorded primarily with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the early 1980s. Writing in The New York Times, critic John J. O’Connor stated: “As Mr. Bernstein says, there is ‘no single body of work in the universe of orchestral music that is in any way comparable to this one.’ Conducted with intense dedication and soaring spirits by Mr. Bernstein, these recordings are superb, both visually and aurally.”
Beethoven, Egmont Overture, op.84
For a stage production of Goethe’s “Egmont” planned for spring 1810, the Vienna Burgtheater commissioned Beethoven to compose incidental music to Goethe’s tragedy. Although Beethoven was a great admirer of Goethe and was profoundly flattered by this commission, he did not complete the music by the time the play was given its premiere on 24 May 1810. Only at the third performance of the play on 15 June was Beethoven’s music heard for the first time. Like the “Leonore” overtures, the “Egmont” also foreshadows the events to come. In “Egmont,” they are encapsulated in the main theme of defiance of tyranny, which gives the music its explosive power. Bernstein’s impassioned renderings of Beethoven move audiences in a unique way. “Beethoven has always meant universality to me, ever since my early adolescence, when I first heard that unforgettable cry of ‘Brüder!’. From that moment on, every… symphony came to mean heart-to-heart communication, travelling satellite-fashion via the cosmos itself. I offer [this cycle] to all music-loving ears as a testament of faith and of my most profound reactions to this greatest of all composers.” (Leonard Bernstein, 1980)
Bach, Weihnachtsoratorium (Christmas Oratorio) BWV 248
Brahms, Symphony No.2 in D major, op.73
Brahms’s sunny Second Symphony is as warm and lyrical as his First had been stormy and dramatic. It quite possibly reflects the idyllic nature around Lake Wörth in Austria, where Brahms composed it in the summer of 1877. Brahms himself, however, called attention to the melancholy current that undermines the pastoral serenity (“You’ve never heard anything as world- weary as this”, he wrote to his friend Schubring). Despite the apparent simplicity of the symphonic writing, the work is strengthened and enriched by many thematic threads that run from one movement to another. It has been a special favorite among music lovers since its premiere in Vienna on 30 December 1877. Leonard Bernstein’s interpretation with the Boston Symphony Orchestra was recorded at Tanglewood in 1972. For Bernstein, Brahms was “a true Romantic, containing his passions in classical garb”, but also a “North-German classicist swept away to Vienna, and fired by Danubian, Carpathian and gypsy passions”. Bearing this dualism in mind, Bernstein underscored both the classicism and romanticism, the dramatic intensity and the sober restraint of Brahms’s music.
Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048
For Johann Sebastian Bach, February 15, 1981 was no doubt one of the darkest days of his afterlife: on this day he lost one of his greatest champions in the 20th century, Karl Richter. Over the course of his long career as conductor, organist and harpsichordist, Richter had become synonymous with Bach. He founded the Munich Bach Choir and the Munich Bach Orchestra. He helped trigger the Bach revival in the 1950s. He was the spirit behind the Ansbach Bach Festival. He turned his adopted city of Munich into a Bach center. And he recorded all the major choral and orchestral works of Bach, including more than 100 cantatas.