Richard I. Levin

Masters of Classical Music is an informative and captivating guide to twenty of the most important works in music history. Outtakes from the original scores within the documentaries, assist the viewer by making it easier to follow the music and to overall comprehend the structure of the works. The viewer will travel back in time to experience the birth places of these compositions and will thereby gain insight into the lives of the composers whilst receiving a thorough introduction to the works.

Gidon Kremer … his tone colour changing in chameleon fashion to match mood and style. He is wispy and wiry in the spare, fugal opening, but as the music blossoms into Straussian warmth, he plays with a creamy, ripe sweetness that could grace an old Hollywood weepy. Yet there is always clarity in the playing, a feeling for the contours of the music and where they are leading. –Tim Homfray, The Strad, about Kremer s Bartók Violin Concerto

Even though the 1792 completion by Franz Xaver Süssmayr is regarded by many as the standard performing version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's unfinished Requiem in D minor, several musicologists have tried their hands at alternative versions with varying degrees of success. In his masterful edition, Robert Levin preserves all that is reliably Mozart's music, substantially recomposes the inept Osanna fugue, and here and there touches up faulty harmonies and clumsy orchestration. Levin also replaces the cadential close of the Lacrimosa with a completion of Mozart's sketches for an Amen fugue, a feature of this completion that some listeners may find startling, but sufficiently Mozartian and ultimately satisfying as a solution.

The sixth disc in this highly acclaimed series combine two works in which Mozart's powers as an orchestrator come to the fore. Concerto No. 18 in B flat major, K 456, is sometimes referred to as one of the composers military concertos on the basis of the march-like main theme of the first movement. But more striking is the variety of ways that Mozart employs the various groups of instruments: strings, wind instruments and, of course, the piano. This aspect certainly didn't pass unnoticed by a listener as initiated as Mozart's father Leopold: in a letter to his daughter Nannerl he described how his enjoyment of the orchestral interplay had brought tears to his eyes.

DG 111: The Conductors gathers all the great conductors on Deutsche Grammophon from the 1930s to the 2000s in one essential box set. A 40CD original-jacket collection with iconic recordings alongside rarer gems, several of the recordings found herein are new to CD or are experiencing their first international CD release.

All the great conductors on Deutsche Grammophon from the 1930s to the 2000s in one essential box set! A 40-CD original-jacket collection! Several recordings are new to CD, or have their first international CD release. Iconic recordings alongside rarer gems. 112-page booklet with new liner notes by Julian Haylock. The ideal cornerstone for any library of orchestral music.

Gidon Kremer - Edition Lockenhaus (2011) {5CD Box Set, ECM New Series 2190-94}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.22 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 679 Mb
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© 2011 ECM Records | ECM New Series 2190-94 / 4764509
Classical / Chamber Music / Concerto / Modern / Romantic / Neo-Classical

Five-CD limited-edition box set, issued in time for the 30th anniversary of the Austrian chamber-music festival. “Edition Lockenhaus” returns long out-of-print titles to the catalogue, with some of the finest musicians of the New Series, including Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, Heinz Holliger, Thomas Zehetmair, Thomas Demenga, Robert Levin, Eduard Brunner and many more. Gidon Kremer: “The artistic atmosphere in Lockenhaus soon has everybody speaking on the same wavelength.” The set opens with previously unreleased recordings – from 2001 and 2008 – with Sir Simon Rattle and Roman Kofman conducting Kremerata Baltica in revelatory performances of Richard Strauss’s “Metamorphosen” and Olivier Messiaen’s “Trois petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine”: the committed interpretations convey the spirit of Lockenhaus. Discs two through five focus on music of César Franck, André Caplet, Francis Poulenc, Leos Janácek, Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich and Erwin Schulhoff. Original liner notes, an interview with Kremer, and new texts complete a very special edition.