Giulini Brahms

Like Paavo Berglund’s Sibelius symphony recordings, also with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, these Brahms performances inject a certain novelty that will be appreciated especially by the listener who has wearied of them due to excessive repetition. While these are not radically desiccated renditions in the manner of Chailly or Harnoncourt, the COE’s smaller-scaled string body does require a bit of time at first for your ear to adjust to the thinner timbres. But the reward is a harvest of inner detail, much of it barely audible in full-size orchestral performances (but well captured by Ondine’s vivid recordings), which continually surprises and delights.

Something new is always to be expected whenever Nikolaus Harnoncourt turns his attention to an important piece of music. In recent years he has been giving audiences a fresh view on some of the masterpieces of Romantic and late-Romantic music. His account of Brahms’ German Requiem is based on a thorough study of the composer’s ideas on how it should be performed.

The old model for creating a hit classical recording – big-name soloist plus big-name conductor in major repertory work – is not so common anymore, but this live Brahms recording from the Staatskapelle Berlin under Venezuela's Gustavo Dudamel, with Argentine-Israeli-Palestinian-Spanish pianist Daniel Barenboim as soloist, shows that there's life in the concept yet. One could point to the virtues of pianist and conductor separately: it's a rare septuagenarian who can combine power and clear articulation of detail the way Barenboim does, and Dudamel builds a vast sweep in, especially, the Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15. But it's the way that the two work together that really makes news. Chalk it up to shared South American heritage or to whatever the listener wants, but the way the orchestra and piano define separate spheres and work them together is extraordinary. Again, it is in the Piano Concerto No. 1 and its Beethovenian drama that their mutual understanding is most evident, but there is a sense of great variety powerfully unified throughout.

The Vienna Philharmonic (VPO; German: Wiener Philharmoniker), founded in 1842, is an orchestra considered to be one of the finest in the world. The Vienna Philharmonic is based at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria. Its members are selected from the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. Selection involves a lengthy process, with each musician demonstrating his or her capability for a minimum of three years' performance for the opera and ballet. After this probationary period, the musician may request an application for a position in the orchestra from the Vienna Philharmonic's board.

This wide-ranging collection provides an overview of Carlo Maria Giulini's collaborations with London s most distinguished orchestras, including his beloved Philharmonia Orchestra. Released in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the conductor's birth in 2014, this 17-disc set showcases the sheer quality and breadth of Giulini's recorded legacy, and includes reverential and deeply-felt readings of Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann; thrilling performances of overtures by Verdi and Rossini; and vivid and colorful Debussy, Ravel, Falla and Stravinsky, all led with the utmost flair and commitment. Also featured is a fascinating bonus documentary on Giulini's life and career, with contributions by the conductor himself and some of the musicians who worked closely with him.

An acclaimed and versatile conductor, Carlo Maria Giulini started his musical studies as a violinist, attending the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome. He studied conducting with Bernardino Molinari at Santa Cecilia and Alfredo Casella at Accademia Chigiana in Siena. After graduation, he joined the Augusteo Orchestra in Rome as a violist. As an orchestral musician, he came in contact with the great conductors of the time, including Strauss, Mengelberg, Walter, Klemperer, and Furtwängler.

Carlo Maria Giulini was born in Barletta, Southern Italy in May 1914 with what appears to have been an instinctive love of music. As the town band rehearsed he could be seen peering through the ironwork of the balcony of his parents’ home, immovable and intent. The itinerant fiddlers who roamed the countryside during the lean years of the First World War also caught his ear. In 1919, the family moved to the South Tyrol, where the five-year-old Carlo asked his parents for "one of those things the street musicians play". Signor Giulini acquired a three-quarter size violin, setting in train a process which would take his son from private lessons with a kindly nun to violin studies with Remy Principe at Rome’s Academy of St Cecilia at the age of 16.