Dresden

Beethoven's Missa Solemnis was performed on 13 and 14 February, 2010 at the traditional memorial concert to commemorate the bombardement of Dresden during the last weeks of World War II. Under Christian Thielemann, the Staatskapelle Dresden proved itself exeptionally qualified to master this work´s magnificent challenges. Thielemann “conjured up the gigantic cosmos of the Missa with such lightness and grace that its mystery seemed to reveal itself”, wrote the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Antonio Pappano and the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden are presenting a symphonic work with particular relevance for Dresden: Rachmaninoff‘s Symphony No. 2, which was written during the composer‘s years at the Saxon residency. The Petersburg premiere of Rachmaninoff’s 1st Symphony became a fiasco. This rejection, by the public and the critics, plunged the composer into a creative crisis. In 1906, Rachmaninoff moved to Dresden and composed his successful and highly dramatic Second Symphony. Included on this DVD are the full concert performance with Maestro Pappano and Sächsische Staatskapelle and the documentary Sergei Rachmaninoff in Dresden. It is the first time that Sächsische Staatskapelle performed Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No 2 under the baton of Antonio Pappano. The documentary includes extensive archive material, photos, scores and posters from Dresden in the years between 1906 and 1920.

The German composer Johann Gottlieb Naumann is mostly known for his operas. One of them, Gustav Wasa, which he composed in Sweden in 1786 and which he considered his best work, even became a Swedish national opera. This recording shows a lesser known aspect of Naumann's output: his sacred compositions. It contains three works: a large-scale cantata and two short pieces, which are much more modest in scoring and style.

Mieczysaw Weinberg was familiar with the clarinet from his youth, given its prominent place in klezmer bands and theatre ensembles, and he wrote three works specifically for the instrument. In the Clarinet Concerto he draws a wide range of textures from the accompanying strings, over which the soloist explores the clarinets extremes of register in virtuosic fashion. Despite having been written when Weinberg was still in his mid-twenties, the Clarinet Sonata is a mature work with Romantic and folkloric elements. His last completed work was the Chamber Symphony No. 4, an impassioned piece with a wrenching chorale theme and role for obbligato clarinet.