Swr Radioorchester

On the occasion of Charlie Parker's 100th birthday in 2020, “Bird Lives” opens, produces and records a new, orchestral view of his music. Played by one of the best big bands in Europe, arranged by Magnus Lindgren and John Beasley and with a squad of top-class guests, some of whom have received Grammy Awards, such as Joe Lovano, Chris Potter, Miguel Zenon, Tia Fuller and many more.

‘Another Side’ is the product of a two day television special recorded with the Grammy Award winning SWR Big Band and Strings. Recorded live at the state of the art SWR TV studios in Stuttgart, Germany and filmed with multiple cameras, the performance was broadcast nationally on mainstream TV in Germany attracting rave reviews. The repertoire, which showcases "Another Side" to Paul Carrack’s incredible musical versatility as he adapts effortlessly to yet another genre of music, includes some classic swing songs, Carrack’s own compositions (including ‘How Long’), songs from Ray Charles & Nick Lowe, and an intimate version of ‘The Living Years’. A must for your Carrack collection.

When Nikolai Kapustin’s music was discovered by a wider audience in the West, it certainly came as a shock: Who was this Soviet composer, whose music mostly resembled an Oscar Peterson improvisation, but was notated in heavily detailed scores? As we continue to discover more of his music, not least on this new recording, Kapustin shows how he developed his style subtly and steadily, always moving with the times. As the music that influenced him changed, so did his own. The development of Big Band Jazz can be traced in his work and, in that sense, Kapustin never settled on one style, except that he fused jazz and classical music so inseparably in the first place.

The 150th anniversary of Charles Koechlin's birth in November 2017 is marked by the reissue of all the Koechlin recordings made by the Sudwestrundfunk. This release of Koechlin's orchestral works includes many world premiere recordings and gives a comprehensive overview of Koechlin's output- from the early orchestral songs to his orchestrations of works by other composers and to his huge later works. Koechlin's compositional style was very subtle, full of delicate, colorful combinations of instrumental sounds. Many of his colleagues allowed him to orchestrate their works, simply because Koechlin was a master of the art.

This is the first release from the recently formed SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart, and there was good reason for it to be a performance of a Shostakovich symphony. This live recording under the experienced baton of Eliahu Inbal shows the extraordinary level at which this orchestra is performing after only five years of existence! Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony focuses on the so-called St Petersburg Bloody Sunday which, according to the Julian calendar, took place on 9 January 1905. Following the format of a classical symphony, the work has four movements; these follow one another without a break, creating a continuous narrative flow.

Giuseppe Sinopoli was a conductor quite versed in Mahler’s music. He left recordings of all the Mahler symphonies made for Deutsche Grammophon (DGG). It is well known that each of these performances is on the highest level. So it is natural that most listeners think these Mahler recordings are the last word of Sinopoli’s interpretation.