Faust Concerts

When the New York Philharmonic fired conductor Artur Rodzinski in 1946, Leopold Stokowski saw an opportunity – he had long desired the post of principal conductor in New York and went to work trying to obtain it. From 1947 to 1950, Stokowski made himself available to New York on an on-call basis, conducting children’s concerts, fill in concerts for other conductors, anything that New York would assign to him, remaining visible until the long process of choosing a music director was finished. Alas, it became clear by early 1950 that Stokowski was not going to be New York’s choice for the position, awarded instead to Dimitri Mitropoulos.

The ten symphonies of Louis Spohr span a period of forty-six years which saw music move from the Classical dominance of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven to the Romantic era of Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner. Spohr himself was an important link in this development, through his exploitation of chromatic harmony, his formal experiments and his four programmatic symphonies. When Spohr composed his first symphony in 1811, Beethoven still had to write his seventh, eighth and ninth, but by the time of Spohr’s final one in 1857 the entire symphonic output of Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann had come and gone, and all three of these composers were dead.
Keith Warsop

When David Bowie and Iggy Pop escaped LA to go Interrailing in the mid-70s, they heard a new European music that was largely devoid of Anglo-American rock influence: the German motorik sound, flashes of jazz, experimentation and electronica. In West Berlin, one of their favourite haunts was Kreuzberg’s Cafe Exil, a smoky hang-out for beats and intellectuals. This is its imaginary soundtrack.

Berlioz, the passionate, ardent, irrepressible genius of French Romanticism, left a rich and original oeuvre which exerted a profound influence on 19th century music. Berlioz developed a profound affinity toward music and literature as a child. Sent to Paris at 17 to study medicine, he was enchanted by Gluck's operas, firmly deciding to become a composer.

Ferruccio Busoni - Claudius Tanski - Piano Works
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 180 MB | Full Artwork: 174 | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: MDG, NDR # MDG L 3436 | Country/Year: Germany 1992
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic, Early 20th Century

Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor. Most of Busoni's works are for the piano. Busoni's music is typically contrapuntally complex, with several melodic lines unwinding at once. Although his music is never entirely atonal in the Schoenbergian sense, his mature works, beginning with the Elegies, are often in indeterminate key…