Bamberg Symphony

Alberto Ginastera was one of the most admired and respected musical voices of the twentieth century, who successfully fused the strong traditional influences of his national heritage with experimental, contemporary, and classical techniques. The two Cello Concertos are among his most innovative, brilliant and technically formidable compositions.

Carl Goldmark was not a symphonist – and that is no secret. His few attempts in this field – an early work, in part lost, and his second symphony, his op. 35, did not add up to much, and the Ländliche Hochzeit, to which the generic label 'symphony' was assigned, does nothing more than confirm that this master of orchestral colors was above all good at atmospheric and character pictures. Goldmark very evidently needed a programmatic or dramatic 'pretext' in order to rise up to his creative best, which is why he was able to gain the greatest fame and to score his most important successes with his stage works (tops here: Die Königin von Saba) as well as with his concert overtures. As he himself said, a change of milieu was good for his powers of inspiration, and so he repeatedly sought out extremes while selecting his materials and subjects.

This 17CD Limited Edition Set encompasses the 70-year history of one of Germany’s leading orchestras. Includes no fewer than 5 CDs of world premiere recordings by luminaries such as Kertész, Sinopoli, Blomstedt as well as definitive recordings by all the famous conductors who shaped the orchestra’s distinctive style. Apart from the label’s own repertoire, this set contains recordings licensed not only from various radio stations, but also from numerous classical labels that the orchestra has worked with over the decades (among them Warner, Sony, Tudor and Orfeo). Highlights include some rare historical recordings going back as far as 1940 when the Bamberg Symphony was still the Deutsches Philharmonisches Orchester Prague.