Classical 2023

2023's 'Sommernachtskonzert' ('Summer Night Concert') was performed on June 8th, 2023. It is an annual open-air event, which has been held since 2008. The park of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna/Austria is the magical setting for the concert. The illustrious conductors who have previously led the orchestra at this event are Georges Prêtre, Daniel Barenboim, Franz Welser-Möst, Lorin Maazel, Christoph Eschenbach, Zubin Mehta, Semyon Bychkov, Gustavo Dudamel , Daniel Harding and Andris Nelsons.

Immediately upon their debut at the 1969 Marlboro Festival, four brilliant young American musicians calling themselves the Cleveland Quartet were hailed as a chamber ensemble of exceptional quality.

Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759 (sometimes renumbered as Symphony No. 7, in accordance with the revised Deutsch catalogue and the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe), commonly known as the Unfinished Symphony (German: Unvollendete), is a musical composition that Schubert started in 1822 but left with only two movements—though he lived for another six years. A scherzo, nearly completed in piano score but with only two pages orchestrated, also survives.

The international reputation of the Hungarian String Quartet is undisputed. It owes not least to his recording of all Beethoven's string quartets from 1953. Now the recording, which has not been available for a long time, has been re-released.

Leonard Bernstein No figure in 20th century American classical music had as prominent or controversial a career – or did more to sell classical music to the general public as something genuinely exciting, and worth getting into a sweat over – than Leonard Bernstein. For more than 30 years, from his assumption of the post of Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 1958 until the final concerts that he conducted in obviously failing health near the end of his life in 1990, he was the most prominent and widely recognized American-born conductor in the world, and the dominant personality in American classical music as both a conductor and, to a lesser degree, a composer.

Håvard Svendsrud, from Sysle på Modum, is known as one of Scandinavia's most active accordion players. He has been a professional freelance musician for 25 years, and is known from a wide range of music projects, both as a soloist and in various collaborations.

To record an album both fascinating and full of emotions, where I can capture the music that has accompanied me throughout my life, has always been a desire of mine. The double bass is the instrument through which I express myself in its purest form. I feel that creating this album is my way of expressing gratitude to it. It is essential for me that everything has meaning. By taking the sonata form as the guiding thread for the album, I have meticulously assembled the pieces, as if they were a puzzle. Each of the works holds great significance for me, representing an important part of my relationship with music.

On his new album "Fantasia", Igor Levit presents no less than four outstanding works from a period of almost two centuries: from 1720 to 1910. For Levit, these are "works that, for all their frequent intimacy, simply have something incredibly expansive about them, emotionally, but also instrumentally".

For over a decade, Lindsey Stirling has enchanted audiences across the globe by performing a certain spellbinding magic with her electronic violin, dreaming up an exquisitely composed yet boldly inventive sound entirely her own. On her new album Snow Waltz, the classically trained musician/songwriter/dancer/author finds herself fully in her element, sharing a selection of holiday classics and original songs that evoke intense emotion through her immersive arrangements and mesmerizing melodies.

After his much-lauded debut ‘Childish Mind’, classical guitarist Jonathan Bockelmann pays tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto with a series of innovative arrangements of pieces by the Japanese composer.