Blomstedt

Maestro Herbert Blomstedt and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig present the first fruit of their integral Brahms symphonies project with a recording of the composer’s First Symphony in C Minor, alongside his Tragic Overture.

Christian Ferras will most likely be remembered as the violinist who was filmed shedding tears at the end of the slow movement of Sibelius's Concerto in 1965, and who, after a dramatic downturn in his career, took his own life at the age of 49.

Anton Bruckner is a composer with an unmistakable musical language: darkly glowing, overwhelmingly beautiful, but also energetic and innovative. For the Berliner Philharmoniker, this music has been part of their artistic identity for over a hundred years. The orchestra now presents Bruckner’s symphonies in an exclusive edition, recorded over the last ten years together with some of the foremost Bruckner interpreters of our time.

Bruckner's Nine Symphonies are a constant in the repertoire of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, as in those of all major orchestras. The special feature of the 9 album being presented here by BR KLASSIK is that the recordings are conducted by not only one but a total of four conductors closely associated with the orchestra, all of them proven international Bruckner experts. More than in any other compilation, common features in interpretation (also due to the same orchestra) as well as fascinating differences due to the various interpretive approaches of the respective conductors can all be detected.

Nolwenn Bargin, a French-Swiss flutist of Breton origin, shows an early interest in the flute.

The incomparable lied baritone, Christian Gerhaher, revisits Gustav Mahler in his latest release Mahler: Orchestral Songs. Accompanied by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra , under the elegant baton of Kent Nagano, Gerhaher has recorded three Mahler song cycles in their authentic orchestral versions for the first time. On Mahler: Orchestral Songs, Gerhaher manages to blend with the compelling sound of the orchestra, but at the same time makes his baritone hover above the instruments, so that every word and nuance comes across without ever sounding forced. Simple in style and full of empathy, this is the art of song at its finest.

Joel Braun is Associate Professor of Double Bass at the University of Texas at Austin. As an orchestral musician he has performed with many of the world's leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, and the New York City Ballet Orchestra.

Edo de Waart conducts the San Francisco Symphony for performances of Grieg's "Peer Gynt" Op. 23: Incidental music to Ibsen's Play and Sir Neville Marriner conducts for Holberg Suite, Op.40. This reissue series of classical music masterpieces by Esoteric has attracted a lot of attention, both for its uncompromising commitment to recreating the original master sound. This series marks the first hybrid SACD release of historical recording selections that have been mainstays of the catalog since their initial release.

When the Bamberg Symphony and their principal conductor Jakub Hrůša went on tour in Germany with Mahler's Fourth Symphony in January 2020, no one would have thought that this symphony in particular would become a kind of "symphony of fate" of the year, for only two months later, the performance of major symphonic works was impossible for a long time after the "corona lockdown" in Germany, which hit cultural institutions particularly hard.

The Japanese pianist, Michie Koyama, started learning piano playing at the age of 5.