Mozart’s Motet Exsultate, Jubilate was originally written in Milan in 1773 for the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini but is now frequently used as a showpiece work for the soprano voice. The motet is considered to be an excellent example of sacred music that is Baroque in structure and mood. Ruth Ziesak’s melting soprano voice sounds impressive throughout this exultant music especially in the brilliant concluding section which is spun elaborately around the single word Alleluia.
Wolfgang Rihm (born in 1952) is one of the most important European composers of the late twentieth to early twenty first centuries, but his work is little known in America. He is famous for his productivity; before his 50th birthday, he had written over 400 pieces. The four concertos recorded here are similar in their manic energy, offering few moments of repose. The expressive directions for Music for oboe and orchestra include the instructions "as if overwound," "wild and funny," and "frantic," and those phrases aptly describe the effect of his work. Rihm is an unabashed modernist, and the surface of his music may be too prickly for some listeners, but it's deeply expressive, and at times very funny, such as at the end of the oboe concerto.
In a scene where the recordings of young sopranos tend toward an extreme sameness, Austria's Anna Prohaska would deserve kudos simply for the ambition of this release of soldiers' songs. The idea, especially for a female singer, is original, and the music draws on a great variety of sources, from Scottish song to Wolfgang Rihm. Better still is the execution, which shows Prohaska's extreme versatility.
Carl Seemann's Complete Deutsche Grammophon Recordings box set features recordings with Fritz Lehmann, Berliner Philharmoniker, NDR Sinfonieorchester, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, Bamberger Symphoniker, Mnchner Philharmoniker, Ferdinand Leitner and many more. Highlights include his celebrated Mozart records on 11 CDs and his famous Beethoven and Brahms duo recordings with violinist Wolfgang Schneider.
Carl Seemann's Complete Deutsche Grammophon Recordings box set features recordings with Fritz Lehmann, Berliner Philharmoniker, NDR Sinfonieorchester, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, Bamberger Symphoniker, Mnchner Philharmoniker, Ferdinand Leitner and many more. Highlights include his celebrated Mozart records on 11 CDs and his famous Beethoven and Brahms duo recordings with violinist Wolfgang Schneider.
Concerts with Maria Schneider are something special. They are stylistically not only out of the ordinary, they also manage to bring large orchestras to perform artistically at high voltage, with an energy and at a creative level which is otherwise known only in much smaller ensembles. It is not the music alone that drives the participants, but rather the serene seriousness of a band leader who demands a maximum of intensity from her compositions and passes this premise on to their interpretation. It is impossible to conceive of compositions for jazz orchestras more stringently. The instrumentalists know this too, and therefore feel called upon not only to reproduce the charts accurately but to work out all the contained hints, implications, and visions of sound down to the deepest levels. This original recording was made in May 2000 when Schneider appeared alongside the SWR Big Band. And for the SWR Big Band, those days in May 2000 are some of the highlights of their orchestral history.
Peter Serkin, whose recorded output is dwarfed by his father's in sheer size but by no means in artistic distinction, is spotlighted in a new release playing Mozart: his complete RCA recordings of the composer. When his set of Piano Concertos Nos. 14-19 was released in 1973, High Fidelity's reviewer wrote: "I have heard no other pianist who seems to follow every pulse of this Mozartean vitality quite as beautifully as Peter Serkin, and the combined efforts of Serkin fils with Alexander Schneider and the English Chamber Orchestra on this RCA set form very simply one of the most important contributions to the Mozart discography." The new box also contains Serkin's distinguished mid-1970s recordings of the Clarinet Quintet and Piano-Wind Quintet K 452 with members of his distinguished ensemble TASHI.
Peter Serkin, whose recorded output is dwarfed by his father's in sheer size but by no means in artistic distinction, is spotlighted in a new release playing Mozart: his complete RCA recordings of the composer. When his set of Piano Concertos Nos. 14-19 was released in 1973, High Fidelity's reviewer wrote: "I have heard no other pianist who seems to follow every pulse of this Mozartean vitality quite as beautifully as Peter Serkin, and the combined efforts of Serkin fils with Alexander Schneider and the English Chamber Orchestra on this RCA set form very simply one of the most important contributions to the Mozart discography." The new box also contains Serkin's distinguished mid-1970s recordings of the Clarinet Quintet and Piano-Wind Quintet K 452 with members of his distinguished ensemble TASHI.
Peter Serkin, whose recorded output is dwarfed by his father's in sheer size but by no means in artistic distinction, is spotlighted in a new release playing Mozart: his complete RCA recordings of the composer. When his set of Piano Concertos Nos. 14-19 was released in 1973, High Fidelity's reviewer wrote: "I have heard no other pianist who seems to follow every pulse of this Mozartean vitality quite as beautifully as Peter Serkin, and the combined efforts of Serkin fils with Alexander Schneider and the English Chamber Orchestra on this RCA set form very simply one of the most important contributions to the Mozart discography." The new box also contains Serkin's distinguished mid-1970s recordings of the Clarinet Quintet and Piano-Wind Quintet K 452 with members of his distinguished ensemble TASHI.