Morgenlicht Rundfunkchor Berlin

With the Mass op. 54 for five solo voices and two five-part choirs and the Three Psalms op. 85, we present Spohr's sacred a cappella choral music. Spohr has also achieved something new and extraordinary in this field In the 1821 mass, for example, there are echoes of the Russian Orthodox liturgy which Spohr had become acquainted with during an early trip to Russia. Nothing academic adheres to the works collected here; it is rather expressive music of the highest content, and only Mendelssohn and Brahms were later to write choral music of similar perfection It is sung by the Rundfunkchor Berlin under the direction of Michael Glaeser and Dietrich Knothe.

Verdi was on a war footing with the Catholic Church from a very early age. It is true that he was brought up to believe in God, as was usual in Italy at that time, and it is no less true that his first music teacher, Ferdinando Provesi, was the organist at the Church of San Bartolomeo in Busseto, but when the then sixteen-year-old composer applied for the post of church musician in the town in 1829, his application was rejected – not because his musical abilities were in any way deficient but because he was regarded as a protégé of Antonio Barezzi, a local businessman with a reputation for his anti-clerical views. He fared little better when he submitted his first sacred works – a Laudate pueri, a Qui tollis and two settings of the Tantum ergo – in the early 1830s, when the Church authorities complained that the music sounded “theatrical, lascivious, bellicose and indecorous” . In short, it was hardly calculated to foster a sense of piety and devotion.

Simon Rattle: The Berlin Years [45CD Box Set] (2024)
MP3 320 Kbps | Run Time: 01:22:33:12 | 6.28 Gb
Genre: Classical | Label: PLG UK Classics

The chemistry between tradition and innovation powered Sir Simon Rattle’s relationship with the Berliner Philharmoniker, above all during his time as the orchestra’s Chief Conductor and Artistic Director (2002-2018). As the successor to Wilhelm Furtwängler, Herbert von Karajan and Claudio Abbado, his mission was to take this pre-eminent musical institution into the 21st century.

Simon Rattle: The Berlin Years [45CD Box Set] (2024)
MP3 320 Kbps | Run Time: 01:22:33:12 | 6.28 Gb
Genre: Classical | Label: PLG UK Classics

The chemistry between tradition and innovation powered Sir Simon Rattle’s relationship with the Berliner Philharmoniker, above all during his time as the orchestra’s Chief Conductor and Artistic Director (2002-2018). As the successor to Wilhelm Furtwängler, Herbert von Karajan and Claudio Abbado, his mission was to take this pre-eminent musical institution into the 21st century.

Ernst Pepping - Passionsbericht des Matthäus
Rundfunkchor Berlin / Stefan Parkman
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 291 MB | Full Artwork: 187 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Coviello Classics # COV 40801 | Country/Year: Germany 2008
Genre: Classical, Sacred | Style: Contemporary, Vocal

Ernst Pepping was once hot stuff, with conductors of Furtwängler's ilk recording his works. Indeed, there remains a famous 1943 recording of Pepping's Second Symphony with Furtwängler leading the Berliner Philharmoniker that has been reissued on a variety of labels. The conservative German modernist's star has sunk since then, however, and there are barely a handful of his works in print on CD. Pepping's Passion According to St. Matthew, for example, received over 500 performance in the first five years after its premiere, but this recording with Stefan Parkman leading the Rundfunkchor Berlin from 2007 is only the second of the digital age – and the first was from 1991…

The Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and conductor Carlo Montanaro present a powerful interpretation of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, together with a cast of soloists including Melody Moore (Tosca), Ștefan Pop (Cavaradossi) and Lester Lynch (Scarpia). Tosca has been an audience favourite from the onset. Premiered in 1900, it marks the beginning of twentieth- century opera, in which sex, violence and the uncanny abysses of the human psyche would be explored, inspiring composers to expand the musical means of expression in all thinkable ways.

In 1718 Vivaldi entered the employment of Prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt who had been appointed governor of Mantua, then part of the Austrian Empire. His responsibilities seem to have been varied but probably the most important of them was to provide operas for his employer’s court. One of these was Tito Manlio, which was produced for the Mantuan Carnival season in 1719; and, if we are to believe a note by Vivaldi himself at the head of the score, written in the space of five days.