Mandy Albrecht

This series marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Anton Bruckner, which falls in 2024. It’s dedicated to Bruckner’s symphonies, all recorded in new transcriptions for organ by Hansjörg Albrecht. The fourth recording featuring the Third Symphony was made on the impressive organ of St. Peter’s Church, Munich. A bonus track on each volume will be a brand-new composition for organ that references Bruckner the composer. Two or three volumes will be released each year, with the project reaching its conclusion in 2024.

“I just heard your wonderful Sinfonietta: hope this is the beginning of your American success,” wrote Arnold Schönberg to Zemlinsky. But Zemlinsky was already suffering from the effects of a stroke and died alone in New York just a few days later. In his Sinfonietta, Op. 24 (1934) he reused a short theme from the last of his Maeterlinck-Songs, Op. 13 (1913), “Wohin gehst Du?” (Where are you going?), a theme of “self-doubts” and “farewell” from a time when Zemlinsky was beginning to observe growing anti-Jewish sentiments in Vienna. The Maeterlinck-Songs were praised as “the center of his output” by Theodor Adorno, and transport the listener to a mystic world concerned with life, evanescence and death.