Brahms, Violin Concerto in D major, op. 77

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. For the concertos, Bernstein enlisted the services of some of the finest Brahms interpreters of the time: the violinist Gidon Kremer, the cellist Misha Maisky and the pianist Krystian Zimerman.

Beethoven, King Stephan Overture, op.117

In October 1811, a new German theater was due to be opened in Pest (now part of Budapest); and Beethoven was commissioned to write the inaugural music for the event. The King Stephen Overture, named after the Hungarian King, begins with a slow introduction. Then follows a lively Hungarian tune and a “Friss,” a quick and melodic section of the “csárdás.” Indeed, Leonard Bernstein has described this overture as “a charmer and a curiosity, a cross between Béla Bartók and Shortnin’ Bread.” 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, Music from the ballet “The Creatures of Prometheus”, op. 43

The Creatures of Prometheus, a ballet produced in Vienna in 1801, was not well received at its first performance. Today, aside from the overture, the ballet music is rarely heard. This work was composed during a time of intense personal crisis for Beethoven. In 1801 he wrote a friend, “I am leading a miserable life; for almost two years now I have been avoiding all social functions simply because I feel incapable of telling people that I am deaf.” The ballet is based on the myth of the god Prometheus, who stole the fire from the heavens and gave it to mankind, along with the knowledge of arts and sciences. In writing the Prometheus score, Beethoven had to adhere to the conventions of ballet music, which required a chain of relatively short pieces. 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.”

Wendung

“Schubert saw himself as a wanderer, as a guest on this earth. Many of his works mark the stations of his wanderings – phases of his roaming about in the darkness. For the immediate goal is death, but the later goal the immeasurable heaven he has carried with him in his mind’s eye since his childhood. The composer has varied and glorified this idea of death as the gentle friend of youth. And it comes through again in many of his movements, not only the slow ones, where this glorification and gracious melancholy are no less clear, even when it is only implied and seems secret. It is Schubert’s most profound acknowledgement of this life and the life to come.” (John Neumeier) The ballet was recorded at the Hamburg State Opera in the fall of 1979.