Beethoven Cycle Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
In 2006, conductor and Grammy Award-winner Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen set off on a major adventure: to master all nine Beethoven symphonies in a radical new reading. Järvi’s sensational new approach to these familiar works has won great renown for the orchestra. Their success led to a worldwide tour which included the U.S. and Japan (where the ensemble was ranked among the world’s top ten orchestras), and such prestigious venues as the Salzburg Festival. Wherever they performed, they were acclaimed by the press, who called them ‘the authoritative Beethoven orchestra of our day’. Many consider the Beethoven cycle as ‘without a doubt the best Beethoven in the world’ (Yomiuri Shimbun).
Portrait Alison Balsom – The Trumpet’s Splendour
In only a few years, trumpeter Alison Balsom has shot forward to the topmost ranks of today’s instrumental soloists, reaching untold popularity for her playing – and for the trumpet. At the latest since her appearance in a live international broadcast of the ‘Last Night of the Proms,’ she has become one of the best-known UK artists of today, with sales of her CDs topping the charts. At the center of the documentary are two performances. One is a public performance of Haydn’s celebrated Trumpet Concerto in E flat major with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin under the Chinese conductor Xian Zhang, recorded in the classicistic hall of the Konzerthaus Berlin. The other is a ‘private’ recording of Bach’s Concerto in D major BWV 972 and Gigue BWV 1008, Debussy’s ‘Syrinx’, and George Thalben-Ball’s Elegy for trumpet and organ, performed with organist David Goode at Berlin’s historic Sophienkirche.
Passion – Last Stop Kinshasa
Founded in 1984, Alain Platel’s modern-dance ensemble ‘Les ballets C de la B’ of Ghent, Belgium, has since become a renowned, powerful, highly professional and rousingly virtuoso troupe. The ensemble performed Platel’s work ‘pitié! Erbarme dich’ in many traditional musical centers such as Paris, Berlin and Tokyo. For the final performances of his work, however, Platel wanted a very special venue and chose Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, which gave rise to a daring and enormously enriching experience. Filmmakers Jörg Jeshel and Brigitte Kramer accompanied the ensemble within Europe and then to Africa. They portray the rare encounter of classical music and modern dance with African reality, a celebration of passion and compassion.
Lucrezia Borgia
The phenomenal Edita Gruberova, the world’s undisputed Queen of bel canto, proves once again why she deserves this title: following he tumultuously applauded concert debut as Lucrezia Borgia in Barcelona, her mesmerizing role debut in a staged version of this work took place at the Bavarian State Opera and was acclaimed just as frenetically, and rightly so. Her performance, noted ‘Opera Magazine’, ‘vindicated the Munich audience’s near-idolization of her’. With ‘Lucrezia Borgia’, Gruberova follows up her recent triumphs in ‘Roberto Devereux’ and ‘Norma’ with another bel canto masterwork.
The Mahler Project – Mahler, Symphony No.9 in D major
The Mahler Project: A fascinating documentary on the musical world of Gustav Mahler as seen by the two great musicians, and a recording of Mahler’s colossal Ninth. “Mahler created a new world with each of his symphonies (…) It is a fantastic journey for both of us”. With these few words, Daniel Barenboim sums up the vast scope of a project undertaken with his friend Pierre Boulez: two very different world-class conductors tackle all nine completed symphonies of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) with one orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin. Performed as a complete cycle in Berlin, Vienna and New York, the concerts were a tremendous success. The Financial Times even wrote: “New York is going Mahler mad”.
Michael Nyman in Progress
The film is about a very special moment in the famous composers artistic life. Composing with innovative minimalism for films as memorable as “The Draughtsman’s Contract”, “The Ogre”, “Man on Wire”, and most famously for Campion´s “The Piano”, he has reached an international audience. But now, Michael Nyman is about to become a filmmaker himself. At first it was documenting, „collecting moments“, Michael Nyman was „just curious about the visual world out there“ but right now this turns into an art process. Featuring unprecedented access to the composer and his working life, this film shows one of the great composers of our time in all his diversity and endless energy. From London to Berlin, in Mexico, Poland, the Netherlands and Portugal this film is also a journey through the musical world today. It shows Michael Nyman, the musician, in his concerts with the Michael Nyman Band and live collaborations with other internationally known musicians or orchestras. But throughout his journeys, this film discovers Nymans increasing passion for filming and photography. Witnessing the development of Nyman´s visual works from the very moment of inspiration right through to his editing of the footage and the combination of the visuals with his music, this film gives a unique insight into Michael Nyman´s very personal views, his thoughts and emotions; his world.
Salzburg Festival: Opening Concert 2009
The opening of the Salzburg Festival, for many regarded as the world’s most renowned music festival, is by tradition a high-profile event. In 2009,this first concert given by the Wiener Philharmoniker was conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. The program is, in honor of the 80th birthday of the great Austrian conductor (6 Dec. 2009), a purely Austrian. Though it may seem unusual at first glance, under Harnoncourt’s direction, the disparate works fuse into a moving, slightly melancholy portrait of the Viennese dance in the early 19th century. The concert opens with Anton Webern’s delicate orchestration of Schubert’s “Six German Dances,” which segue into two polkas and a waltz by Josef Strauß, the younger – and bolder – composer brother of “Walzerkönig” Johann Strauß Jr. With this alternation of bittersweet and brassy dances, the stage is set for Harnoncourt’s staggering reading of Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony, in which the dance of death – so Viennese yet so universal – seems to have served as the composer’s model. This concert adds a new milestone to UNITEL CLASSICA’s longtime partnership with the Salzburg Festival, as well as with Harnoncourt and the Wiener Philharmoniker.