2025 Bis

The Norrköping Symphony Orchestra (in Swedish: Norrköpings Symfonieorchester) is one of the leaders among Sweden's crop of regional orchestras. It has spawned the careers of several conductors who went on to international renown. Located in the old industrial city of Norrköping in southwestern Sweden, the orchestra was founded in 1912 and offered well-advertised concerts from the start.

Brian Mulligan, ein Bariton, sang die Titelrolle in Richard Wagners Oper Der fliegende Holländer (WWV 63) in einer Aufnahme. Die Oper, die auf der Legende des verfluchten Kapitäns basiert, gilt als Wagners Durchbruch zu seinem eigenen musikalischen Stil und ist bis heute ein beliebtes Werk.

The title of Sebastian Fagerlund's Octet 'Autumn Equinox' derives from it's links with his opera Autumn Sonata, based on the Ingmar Bergman film. Some of the moods and musical material of the opera appear in the octet, as a kind of reflection. With the instrumentation of Schubert's famous octet in mind, Fagerlund has created an intense, sometimes almost explosive work.For Arcantio, a double bass concerto in variation form composed for and dedicated to Niek de Groot, Fagerlund imagined a musical atmosphere from some distant, archaic time. Throughout the concerto the soloist constantly guides the orchestra in new directions - at times a virtuoso, at times meditative, as if in a trance.

Dieses neue Album der London Choral Sinfonia haucht den Werken von Malcolm Arnold neues Leben ein und feiert seine lebendige und meisterhafte Kompositionskunst von Sinfonien bis hin zu Chorstücken und Konzerten.

Following his recordings dedicated to Beethoven's piano concertos (BIS-2281) and Franz Liszt's Transcendental etudes (BIS-2681), the gold medal winner at the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009, Haochen Zhang, now brings these two composers together on this new recording with two summits of 19th-century piano literature: Beethoven's 'Hammerklavier' Sonata and Liszt's Sonata in B minor.

Following his recording of the first book of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier released last year (BIS-2621), which was praised as 'a pleasurable benchmark for anyone seeking a traversal that honours every detail of the music' (Gramophone), harpsichordist Masato Suzuki now offers us his interpretation of the second book of Bach's masterly cycle of preludes and fugues. No other works from the baroque period have been as cherished, performed and studied as these collections, the objectives of which were musical, theoretical and didactic.

Following his exploration of Spain with the music of Federico Moreno Torroba (BIS-2725), Franz Halasz now takes us to Brazil with the complete works for solo guitar by Heitor Villa-Lobos. The music of this extremely prolific composer often combines the influences of European classical music with the popular and traditional music of his homeland, which he played from an early age. The twelve etudes, thoroughly modern, are to the guitar what Chopin's etudes are to the piano. Andres Segovia put it perfectly:

Together with its artistic director Julian Azkoul, the United Strings of Europe develop engaging programmes with the aims of finding threads between different works and epochs, musical cultures and backgrounds, of blending the familiar with the new and of encouraging people to listen to works in different ways and discover new repertoire.