Toteninsel

This is Reger at his most accessible. In both pieces there is plenty of atmosphere and colour. The Hiller Variations is possibly his greatest and most satisfying orchestral work and is indispensable. Reger was a prolific composer, and it has to be said not all that came from his pen was necessarily memorable. However, the two works on this disc are vintage Reger. He lived his short life as fast as he composed his music. His is a special and unique sound-world which offers great rewards to those who take the time to explore it. Radiant playing from the Concertgebouw under Jarvi and sound to match.

Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (19 March 1873 – 11 May 1916), commonly known as Max Reger, was a German composer, pianist, organist, conductor, and academic teacher. He worked as a concert pianist, as a musical director at the Leipzig University Church, as a professor at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig, and as a music director at the court of Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen. Reger first composed mainly Lieder, chamber music, choral music and works for piano and organ. He later turned to orchestral compositions, such as the popular Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart, and to works for choir and orchestra such as Gesang der Verklärten (1903), Der 100. Psalm (1909), Der Einsiedler and the Hebbel Requiem (both 1915).

In 1904 Max Reger wrote what was to be the first in a major sequence of variations on themes by his great predecessors. The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by J.S. Bach was written for piano but its richness and virtuosity exceed the scope of the instrument. Ira Levin’s orchestration clarifies the structure, intensifies climaxes and reduces its length. The Four Tone Poems explore the paintings of the symbolist Arnold Böcklin and form symphonic mood pictures that veer from delicacy to Bacchanalian frenzy.

The Radio Legacy is a compilation of the seven part Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the four box sets devoted to the orchestra s chief conductors Willem Mengelberg, Eduard van Beinum, Bernard Haitink and Riccardo Chailly, and also featuring more recent recordings with Mariss Jansons.

The Masterworks Heritage series, issued in the mid-90s, received outstanding critical acclaim for the choice of repertoire and recordings, for the editorial /packaging and the splendid remastering of early mono and stereo tape masters, This 28-CD-box set contains 20 of the best Masterworks Heritage releases. The CDs are in paper-sleeves with the original artwork of the former CD/LP. The booklet with tracklisting and the original liner notes in in English, all presented in special 2-part-box with slider.

Granting a long-held wish of many record collectors, Sony Classical is issuing the complete monaural American Columbia discography of Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra in a vast box set of 120 CDs, all in new remasterings. Almost all of this material will be appearing for the first time on CD on Sony Classical. Indeed, 152 of these recordings have never been released at all on CD before now.