Das Vokabular Der Psychoanalyse

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was at the height of his fame and technical mastery by the time he began work on his fourth opera in 1923. Prominent opera houses clamored to stage his works, and the Viennese premiere of Das Wunder der Heliane (‘The Miracle of Heliane’) featured Lotte Lehmann among its star cast. Its story is one of the redemptive power of love over injustice and adversity, expressed in music that is richly impressionistic and intensely dramatic.

Terry Goodkind zieht die Hörer in seinen Bann und lässt sie nicht wieder los! Eine phänomenale Saga von unendlichem Einfallsreichtum! Wer viel Fantasy hört und liest, dem kommt mit der Zeit so Einiges ins Haus. Denjenigen ist zu sagen, dass sie sich vielleicht daran gewöhnen müssen, mit Allerweltsnamen für die einzelenen Charaktere konfrontiert zu werden und das es gleich ohne große Vorgeschichte zur Sache geht. Genau darin liegt aber auch der sagenhafte Vorteil der Fantasy von Terry Goodkind. Der Zuhörer steht dem Helden in nichts nach, wenn es darum geht, die Entwicklung der Geschehnisse zu verfolgen oder die Länder und Bräuche des Epos zu erkunden…

After 1933 nobody had the opportunity to hear this opera. Then the Osnabrück Music Theater rediscovered Das Lied der Nacht by Hans Gál and performed it in 2017. This late-romantic opera to a text by Karl Michael von Levetzow premiered in 1926, but since its composer was of Jewish origin, the Nazis prohibited stage productions of it. During his later years Hans Gál was doubly forgotten: as one of the many Jewish artists who were forced into exile by the Fascists and as a conservative "very-latest romanticist" pursuing paths laid out by Brahms and Richard Strauss.

This is the second release ever of Henzes famous Oratorio, after the release of the general rehearsal for the world's first premiere from 1968 by Deutsche Grammophon. Excellent sound technique, first class singers and orchestra (conducted by none other than Peter Eötvös) as well as a booklet containing detailed liner notes and the libretto contribute in making this album a very important testimony about the music of the 20th century. Henze wrote the Oratorio as a Requiem for Che Guevara and set it to a text by Ernst Schnabel. It tells the story of the French frigate Meduse, which ran aground off the west coast of Africa in 1816, immortalized in the painting of the same name by Theodore Gericault. The work employs a large orchestra, a speaker, a soprano, a baritone, and choruses. In the course of a performance, the chorus members move from left side of the stage, “the Side of the Living,” to the right side, “the Side of the Dead.”