Beethoven – Symphonie # 9, D Moll Op. 125 – Chor Und Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mariss Jansons – 2010 (sacd R, Iso)

Mariss Jansons considers Dmitri Shostakovich to be one of the most serious and sincere composers ever, and finds the fifteen symphonies in particular to be deeply moving and captivating. He sees their music as bearing shattering testimony to a traumatic era of political darkness, while remaining a timeless expression of existential human feeling and experience. Over a period of seventeen years, Mariss Jansons has recorded all the Shostakovich symphonies, on each occasion together with the orchestra he was artistically associated with at the time. Six of the performances were with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks.

The "Great" C major Symphony was the last symphony that Schubert composed – a “Finished” to follow his "Unfinished", the first two movements of which he had just completed before discontinuing work on it (for reasons unknown). Schubert began this composition in August 1824, or possibly even as late as March 1825. Most of the work on it took place in the summer of 1825, during the longest journey of his life. It took him from Vienna via Linz, Steyr, Gmunden (where he found the scenery "truly heavenly"), Salzburg and then up to Bad Gastein, where he saw some magnificent alpine peaks. The first page of the score manuscript is dated "March 1828" – possibly the month in which he finally completed the work.

The 2015 Munich concert year began at the end of January with two highlights: two performances of Bruckner's Sixth Sympho ny with Mariss Jansons conducting the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. The live recording, previously reserved exclusively for subscribers to the orchestra, is now being released on CD by BR-KLASSIK - an outstanding interpretation of one of the most important compositions in the Late Romantic symphonic repertoire. For a long time, Anton Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony (along with his Second) was regarded as something of a ‘poor relation’ in his immense symphonic oeuvre, even though the composer himself had moodily referred to it as his "boldest".

Featuring a true golden-age cast, this 1967 Radio Broadcast hums and bubbles with invigorating warmth and unquenchable passion under the sprightly baton of Rafael Kubelik. Thomas Stewart is a intelligent Sachs, who brings real weight and power to the great Act III monologue but who retains real lyricism for the role's more tender moments. It would be inconceivable that Gundula Janowitz's creamy-voiced Eva would pass him over if it were not for the ardent, fiery Walther of Sándor Kónya, who gives voice to an ethereal rendition of the Prize song. Thomas Hemsley is an nuanced Beckmesser thankfully devoid of caricature, and Franz Crass is a warm, fatherly Pogner. Brigitte Fassbaender may be the most sensuous Magdalena on record, and is paired expertly by the great Gerhard Unger, at his considerable best as David.

Mozarts Requiem may have been written under strange circumstances in the final months of the composers life, but the work itself it is timeless. Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus give a powerful and poignant performance of Mozarts masterpiece with an impressive group of solo singers, in a concert recorded live in Munich in May 2017.

This new release from BR-Klassik brings together the most well-known works of Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius. Included in this disc are Sibelius Symphony No. 2 D Major op. 43, and Finlandia op. 26- Karelia Suite op. 11. The recordings on this album were made during autumn of 2015 in Munich, by The Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. Conducting the orchestra is Mariss Jansons, who is well-known for his interpretation of Nordic music.

Antonín Dvorák's Stabat Mater, Op. 58, written in the aftermath of the deaths of three of his children, is a sober and powerful work, inexplicably neglected and unlike any other work of choral music from the 19th century. Perhaps most performances don't capture its full weight, but this live recording from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Mariss Jansons, does so. There are many deep pleasures here. The orchestra's choir is extraordinary: rich yet without a hint of wobble and utterly clear in its sense of the text. Jansons keeps things at a deliberate pace that lets the music breathe and the currents of personal experience rise to the surface. The soloists, none terribly well known, are fine in their individual numbers, but absolutely transcendent in ensembles, nowhere more so that in the sublime "Quando corpus morietur" finale (track 10); there are a couple of other strong recordings of this work, but it seems likely that no one has ever matched this conclusion. The live recording from the Herkulessaal in Munich is impressively transparent and faithful to the spontaneity of the event. A superb Dvorák release.

Like a prayer that comes from the heart "… stood the mournful Mother weeping" whispers the chorus after the orchestral introduction of Antonín Dvorák 's most celebrated choral work, the Stabat Mater Op. 58. As the work builds to include the four vocal soloists, the obsessively repeated main motif of a descending chromatic line begins to work its magic on the rapt audience.