Vienna Philharmonic Leonard Bernstein

Dietrich Fischer Dieskau makes for an intriguingly offbeat, enjoyably seedy knight under Leonard Bernstein's baton. Bernstein has some interesting ideas about this opera, and not all of them work, but he grounds the opera with a solid, inspiring cast. Regina Resnik is clearly having a ball as Quickly, Rolando Panerai is fantastic in one of his most reliable roles. Only Juan Oncina and Graziella Sciutti, as the young lovers, disappoint. Best of all is Ilva Ligabue, caught in her prime in one of her best roles. Most of the cast would also feature in Bernstein's studio recording, but this live performance has a vitality absent from the more well-known studio effort.

Leonard Bernstein was a musical titan of the 20th Century as a composer, a conductor and a communicator. This Limited Numbered Edition boxed set is the largest of DG’s suite of beautifully-conceived albums and sets marking the 2018 centenary of a remarkable human being and musical legends.
“The greatest pianist among the conductors, the greatest conductor among composers, the greatest composer among pianists … He is a universal genius” - Arthur Rubenstein.

The Grosses Festpielhaus in Salzburg has been the scene of countless memorable musical events - operas, concerts and recitals - for 50 years. Here is a unique chance to celebrate the glories of this distinguished era. In an exceptional collaboration with the Salzburg Festival, we have prepared a 25-CD box set - 5 complete operas, 10 concerts and 2 recitals - featuring many of the world's greatest artists, in recordings with classical status and others that are appearing on CD for the first time. Concerts (five out of ten are first-time releases): with Abbado, Bernstein, B hm, Boulez, Karajan, Levine, Mehta, Muti, Solti.

Mahler's Fifth was one of the pieces Leonard Bernstein owned. This interpretation is broader than the one he recorded with the New York Philharmonic in the early 1960s, but it's little changed in feeling. It is, however, far more polished and a good deal more persuasive. The recording, like all of Bernstein's later Mahler cycle, was made live; here, he and the Vienna Philharmonic give a gripping performance full of telling nuance, intensely expressive yet thoroughly controlled. It's a reading both Dionysiac and "Bachic"–as in J. S. Bach, not Bacchus–one in which the impetuous energy of the score is transmitted to the fullest degree, but not at the expense of the extraordinary (for Mahler) contrapuntal detail.

"Bernstein stamps his outsize personality on every bar and regularly has you convinced it is Mahler's own" (Gramophone). Filmed on tour at Berlin's Philharmonie, this account of the valedictory Ninth Symphony is an intense interpretation, expressing Bernstein's conviction that modern man had at last caught up with the message encoded in Mahler's last completed work. Having made his famous 1966 studio recording of "Das Lied vin der Erde" in Vienna, Bernstein re-recorded this in Israel with the same searing subjectivity. René Kollo draws on the voice of a great Wagner tenor, while Christa Ludwig, the greatest exponent of the contralto songs at the time, is unbearably poignant in the final movement's fusion of elation and sadness.

Bernstein delivered a powerful and now legendary live performance of Beethovens String Quartet Op. 135 transcribed for String Orchestra and performed by the Vienna Philharmonic. For the first time ever this performance is now being released on DVD and Blu-ray. Another definitive Bernstein performance debuting now on both mediums is the enigmatic maestros reading of Haydns Missa in tempore belli, filmed live in concert at Ottobeuren in 1984, using to maximum effect the deeply impressive setting of the monasterys magnificent Baroque basilica.

Mischa Maisky performs with the Vienna Symphony and Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein in concertos by Haydn and Schumann. “Maisky and his players perform the Haydn with warm, polished energy. His Schumann, with a fairly restrained Bernstein, sometimes overdoes the languishing, but it's beautiful playing, and visually compelling.” (BBC Misic Magazine)