“Grandiose, unaffected, expansive, majestic, immovable…” – Christian Thielemann’s description of Anton Bruckner’s music vividly captures its essence and uniqueness. And he himself captures the soul of the great romantic composer in his interpretation of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony with the Munich Philharmonic. Recorded live at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden on 14 November 2006, the concert also features three orchestral preludes from the opera “Palestrina” by another late-romantic composer, Hans Pfitzner (A05512085 / Length: 25′)
Pfitzner, Three Preludes to “Palestrina”
“Grandiose, unaffected, expansive, majestic, immovable…” – Christian Thielemann’s description of Anton Bruckner’s music vividly captures its essence and uniqueness. And he himself captures the soul of the great romantic composer in his interpretation of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony with the Munich Philharmonic. Recorded live at the Festspielhaus Baden- Baden on 14 November 2006, the concert also features three orchestral preludes from the opera “Palestrina” by another late-romantic composer, Hans Pfitzner. The preludes from Pfitzner’s “Palestrina”, the composer’s most well-known work, evoke the events about to transpire in the acts that follow them. While the subtle, refined nuances of the first prelude suggests the creative crisis of the opera’s hero, the Renaissance composer Palestrina, the second reflects the turbulent atmosphere of the Council of Trent and the third the inner peace found at long last by Palestrina beneath the cupola of St. Peter’s. Completed in September 1883, several months after the death of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 in E major is a stunning homage to the composer of the “Ring”. A passionate admirer of Wagner, Bruckner claimed that he had the master’s death in mind while writing the Adagio of this symphony. With its particularly soaring and melodious themes, the Seventh is Bruckner’s most popular and accessible symphony. It would be difficult to find a better team to interpret Bruckner’s music today than Christian Thielemann and the Munich Philharmonic. Thielemann, the General Music Director of the Munich ensemble, is a universally recognized Bruckner and Wagner expert, who inaugurated his tenure at the head of the Philharmonic by conducting Bruckner’s Fifth. The Munich orchestra has a long-standing tradition of performing Bruckner’s music and boasts a particular attachment to the Seventh: it was the second orchestra to play the work, and the success it obtained with it in 1885 helped establish Bruckner as a major contemporary composer. Thielemann also led the Munich Philharmonic and the Regensburg Boys’ Choir in the first concert given in honor of Pope Benedict XVI in Vatican City in October 2005, which was also recorded by Unitel/Classica.
Documentation about “Norma”
Portrait Anne-Sophie Mutter – My Mozart
In the “making-of” documentary on “My Mozart” Anne-Sophie Mutter talks about her relationship to Mozart’s music and is joined by her colleagues André Previn, Lambert Orkis and Daniel Müller-Schott.
Anne-Sophie Mutter plays Mozart: Sonatas for Violin and Piano
An important part of Anne-Sophie Mutter‘s ‘Mozart Project’ is to present the composer‘s mature violin sonatas. Between 2005 and 2007, Anne- Sophie Mutter and pianist Lambert Orkis toured throughout Europe, North America and Asia with the Mozart sonatas. In major musical centers such as Paris, London, Vienna and New York, they offered the entire cycle over three consecutive evenings. This three-evening survey was recorded in Munich in February 2006. The last sonatas were written by Mozart between 1784 and 1788 and include Ms. Mutter‘s favorite, the B flat major Sonata K. 454, ‘a monumental achievement,’ as she puts it.
Also available:
‘The Making of The Mozart Project’ (45’), in which Anne-Sophie Mutter
talks about her relationship to Mozart’s music.