Berlin Finale

Brilliant Classics proudly presents the brand-new 5-CD sets series: QUINTESSENCE, attractively priced compact box sets containing essential core classical repertoire in outstanding performances. Aimed at attracting both the discerning classical connoisseur and the classical newcomer it presents the pillars of classical music: Beethoven complete symphonies, Bach Passions, Schubert symphonies, Mozart piano sonatas, Telemann Tafelmusik, Vivaldi 4 Seasons plus concertos, Shostakovich string quartets, Dvorak symphonies, Grieg Lyric Pieces, Haydn London Symphonies. World class performers include Staatskapelle Dresden with Herbert Blomstedt, Staatskapelle Berlin with Otmar Suitner, Klára Würtz, Håkon Austbø, Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra with Ádám Fischer, Rubio Quartet and others. The fresh and colourful artwork is eye-catching while the booklet contains liner notes in English.

With this album, Naxos and Spectrum Concerts wish to champion a composer who was universally respected and admired during his life, but whose work has for the most part languished unheard since his death over a century ago.

The choice of works on this amply filled album, as well as the performances are the result of Lorenda Ramou’s research into the artistic environment of Nikos Skalkottas, in Berlin (1921–33) and in Athens (1933–49). The programme is organized as a triptych, focusing on three distinctive compositional styles. First, all surviving Berlin works for piano solo are presented in chronological order, showing how the young composer was reacting to the new and exciting jazz/dance music, but also to the people around him and to events in the musical world of Berlin in the 1920s.

The choice of works on this amply filled album, as well as the performances are the result of Lorenda Ramou’s research into the artistic environment of Nikos Skalkottas, in Berlin (1921–33) and in Athens (1933–49). The programme is organized as a triptych, focusing on three distinctive compositional styles. First, all surviving Berlin works for piano solo are presented in chronological order, showing how the young composer was reacting to the new and exciting jazz/dance music, but also to the people around him and to events in the musical world of Berlin in the 1920s. This is followed by Suites Nos 2, 3 and 4, a group of mature works composed at the beginning of World War II (1940–41).

This live recording of a group of Haydn's late masterworks lies at the intersection of several tales of trouble – that of Simon Rattle's conductorship of the venerable Berlin Philharmonic, that of the EMI label's flagging fortunes and those of the classical recording industry in general, and that of the attempts of the massive symphony orchestras rooted in the nineteenth century to remain relevant in music written by composers who for the most part had no inkling of their existence. The results are, well, troubled. Rattle tries to borrow a page from the authentic-performance book, using a small group of strings with little vibrato and striving for transparent textures that reveal Haydn's wind and horn parts.

Dmitry Shostakovich holds a place among the most important composers of the 20th century, and his Fifth Symphony is a symphonic masterpiece, which helped him secure that position. Kurt Sanderlings interpretation with the Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester was louded by the composer himself. He was the first conductor to conduct Shostakovichs music following the ostracism of 1948. Sanderling's wife Barbara, a double bassist with the BSO, stated that her husband had developed an unbelievable understanding of this music. It was providential that Shostakovich expressly confirmed what Kurt Sanderling had read into the music.

When Mozart took up the popular genre of the serenade, it was to transcend it and lend it new lustre. A festive masterpiece of simplicity and emotion, his Gran Partita quickly became a genuine ‘hit’! Thanks to the distinctive, spellbinding timbres of their period instruments, the members of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin give a unique flavour to these two extraordinary serenades, over which there blows – as it were – a tremendous wind of freedom.