Munich

This CD box set from BR-KLASSIK combines Mendelssohn's twelve string symphonies, his 'Symphoniesatz' in C minor (No. 13) and his early violin concerto in D minor in the form of studio recordings made by the Münchner Rundfunkorchester under its leader Henry Raudales.

Disco project based in Munich, Germany, led by Giorgio Moroder and with participation by producers Pete Bellotte, Stefan Wissnet, Günther Moll and others…

2013 remaster of the Giorgio Moroder produced 1979 album. Includes booklet with extensive liner notes by Record Collector journalist Michael Haetley. A loose collective of German session musicians, Munich Machine made three albums in their own right under the guidance of legendary disco producer Giorgio Moroder. Their third album ‘Body Shine’, released in 1979 on Casablanca, featured dance floor favourite ‘Space Warrior’. By this final album, the band officially consisted of Günter Moll and Stefan Wissnet, along with singers Judith Jones and Yolande Howard. 4 extra tracks are presented with this edition: 2 Bonus tracks, including the 1979 single version of ‘Party Light’ and B-side ‘Bolectro’, plus: 2 Special bonus tracks comprising Blue Eyed DJ remixes of ‘Space Warriors’ and the ‘Giorgio Moroder Medley’, taken from a 1983 promo release.

This is an album featuring path-breaking works for orchestra and for violin and orchestra. Lutoslawski, Verese, and Ligeti certainly need no introduction. Conductor Christian Baldini is also a first-rate composer. Two superb violinists, Miranda Cuckson and Maximilian Haft are featured performers. "Christian Baldini brings symphonic revival" commented the Buenos Aires Herald on Baldini's recent concerts at the Teatro Argentino featuring Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Varèse's Amériques. Based in California, Baldini conducts regularly several international orchestras including the Munich Radio Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra (of Argentina and the US), Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto (Portugal), San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and Ensemble Dal Niente. Baldini recently made his debut conducting Verdi's Aida in London for English National Opera, and has conducted new productions at the Teatro Coln in Buenos Aires, where he received the National Critics Association Award for best operatic performance.

Disco project based in Munich, Germany, led by Giorgio Moroder and with participation by producers Pete Bellotte, Stefan Wissnet, Günther Moll and others…

At around autumn 1809, the management of Vienna’s imperial Hofburg Theatre commissions Beethoven to compose the incidental music for Goethe’s play Egmont, which premiered in Mainz in 1789. The plot of this tragedy is very much in keeping with the patriotic trend: it is set in Brussels, which is threatened by Spanish troops, and focuses on resistance against oppression and foreign rule. The hero, Egmont, places too much trust in the common sense and discretion of those in power – and this is his tragic mistake. In good faith, he allows himself to be lured into a deadly trap by the sinister Duke Alba, to whom he even explains his ideals of freedom and just rule. His lover Klärchen fails to persuade the cowardly citizens of Brussels to take violent action to free him, and, in her desperation, she commits suicide. What remains is the vision of a future freedom and victory – one that appears to Egmont in the form of Klärchen as he awaits execution in his dungeon.

Joseph Haydn once remarked: ‘I was not a magician on any instrument, but I knew the power and effect of all of them.’ This knowledge he used to good effect in his cello concertos, composed some twenty years apart for two different cellists in ‘his’ orchestra at the court of Prince Esterhazy. Both works are firmly established in the concert repertoire, but this has not always been the case.

With her new album, Sophie Dervaux brings to the fore two composers who have received less attention so far - despite their great surnames Bach and Haydn. For it is not works by "our old favorites" Johann Sebastian and Joseph that the bassoonist has chosen for her third recording on Berlin Classics, but rather Bach's youngest son - Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782) - and Johann Michael Haydn (1737-1806), Joseph Haydn's younger brother. Sophie Dervaux has been principal bassoonist of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra since 2015. Previously, she was principal contrabassoonist of the Berlin Philharmonic. As an ambassador for her instrument, she is committed to expanding the repertoire for bassoon by rediscovering works or commissioning new ones. She has been a "Püchner Artist" since 2014 and is passionate about making her instrument even better known.

The protagonist of Saint-Saëns’ Proserpine, premiered at the Opéra-Comique on 14 March 1887, is no reincarnation of the ancient goddess, but a Renaissance courtesan well versed in culpable amours. According to the composer, she is ‘a damned soul for whom true love is a forbidden fruit; as soon as she approaches it, she experiences torture’. Yet for all the innocence of her rival Angiola, the unexpected happens: ‘It is the bloodthirsty beast that is admirable; the sweet creature is no more than pretty and likeable.’ Visibly enraptured by this delight in horror, Saint-Saëns indulges in unprecedented orchestral modernity, piling on the dissonances beneath his characters’ cries of rage or despair. He concluded thus: ‘Proserpine is, of all my stage works, the most advanced in the Wagnerian system.’ The least-known, too, and one which it was high time to reveal to the public, in its second version, revised in 1899.