Cologne Atherosclerosis Conference no 2 Lipids

To this day, Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor continues to be the least frequently performed of all his symphonies. Not as revolutionary as the first, or as brutally reckless as the third, Bruckner’s core ambition with his Second is a constant testing, exploration, and expansion of the possibilities of the symphony. Conductor Marek Janowski and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande succeed in doing justice to the work, and the recording is clear proof of Janowski’s brilliance when it comes to conducting Bruckner. In reviewing the recording, Gramophone declared: “There’s more than a touch of the great Eugen Jochum in Janowski’s approach.”

For this 2015 release on Oehms Classics, Dmitri Kitayenko and the Gürzenich-Orchestra of Cologne present two of Sergey Rachmaninov's most popular works: the Symphony No. 2 in E minor and the Vocalise in C sharp minor. If this album seems like any number of CDs with this pairing, be prepared for a surprise, because the Vocalise is performed by Valer Sabadus, a German countertenor whose florid voice may be more familiar from performances of Baroque opera. This rendition of the Vocalise hearkens back to Rachmaninov's original version for soprano voice, as the last of the 14 Lieder, Op. 34, which was subsequently arranged for various solo instruments and orchestra.