Gefangene Liebe 1994 Film

A brilliant and radiant performance of Lehar's valedictory composition, his only operetta written for the august Vienna State Opera, which premiered the piece in 1934. Edith Moser and Nicolai Gedda head up a good cast in this work, which is more serious and profound than most of Lehar's music. The music is as attractive as in any Lehar work, but at times more self-consciously dramatic than in any piece except The Land of Smiles, despite the relatively straightforward subject, about the unhappy romance between the married title character and the officer she has run away with.

A brilliant and radiant performance of Lehar's valedictory composition, his only operetta written for the august Vienna State Opera, which premiered the piece in 1934. Edith Moser and Nicolai Gedda head up a good cast in this work, which is more serious and profound than most of Lehar's music. The music is as attractive as in any Lehar work, but at times more self-consciously dramatic than in any piece except The Land of Smiles, despite the relatively straightforward subject, about the unhappy romance between the married title character and the officer she has run away with.

It's good to report Naxos again sweeping aside the competition not only in price, but in the quality of both performance and recording as well. Not that Brahms's organ works have received quite as much exposure on CD as one would have expected. The 11 Chorale Preludes, Brahms's swan-song (the cynics would describe it as a deathbed conversion), for all their popularity are elusive works attempting a synthesis between the essentially functional chorale prelude form and the intimate, personal language of an impromptu.

The works collected and revised by Bach probably between 1744 and 1747 and included in the so-called Leipzig Autograph, the Leipziger Originalhandschrift, were largely composed between 1708 and 1717, the years spent in Weimar. The chorale, the congregational hymn of the German Protestant church, had its roots in pre-Reformation practices. Its importance in Lutheran church music may in some respects be compared with the importance in Catholic tradition of plainchant, itself a source for some chorale melodies. As in other fields of music, Bach's varied treatment of the chorale sums up and crowns a long tradition.

When Deutsche Harmonia Mundi released this disc of lieder by Schumann, Schubert, and Mendelssohn in 1994, it was considered a part of the historically informed performance practice movement because it featured performers closely associated with the movement. Prior to this release, tenor Christoph Prégardien was best known for his work with Gustav Leonhardt and Philippe Herreweghe, while fortepianist Andreas Staier made his mark playing continuo with Musica Antiqua Köln. Listening to the disc a decade later, however, the performances sound less like a memento of their time than like still vital artistic achievements.