Lothar Boländer

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.

Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. He selected poems from classical Greece, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from eighteenth-century German authors, early Romantics, Biedermeier poets, and Heine. The Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition presents all Schubert’s Lieder, over 700 songs, grouped according to the poets who inspired him. Thanks to the Bärenreiter’s Neue Schubert-Ausgabe (New Schubert Edition), Tübingen, which uses primary sources, the performers have been able to benefit from the most recent research of the editorial team.

As part of Decca's acclaimed Entartete (German for Degenerate) series devoted to either suppressed or forbidden music during the first half of the 20th century, Franz Schreker's opera Die Gezeichneten (The Branded) is a period masterpiece. This story of a dying woman painter Carlotta betraying here longstanding faithful lover Alviano for a newer more physically attractive Tamare and the consequences that ensue is certainly intriguing. Lovers of expertly-crafted, infectiously beautiful orchestration however will simply rejoice in the massive 120+ member ensemble Schreker requires assembled here. All of the vocalists deliver energetic, passionate performances throughout and Decca's sound is state of the art. All in all a remarkable achievement!