Gramophne 2023

The orchestra began its performing activity on 1 September 1967 as Symphonisches Orchester Berlin, under the auspices of the Berliner Orchestervereinigung e.V., after the merger of two independent orchestras, the Berliner Symphonisches Orchester and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester. Carl August Bünte, who had been chief conductor of the Berliner Symphonisches Orchester, was the first chief conductor of the newly formed ensemble, and held the position until 1973. From 1967 to 1990, the orchestra performed as the Symphonisches Orchester Berlin. In 1990, the orchestra was renamed the Berliner Symphoniker.

Among the major opera stars of the 20th century, soprano Joan Sutherland excelled in bel canto roles and later in dramatic coloratura singing. Her voice was legendary for its agility, accuracy, and brilliant upper register. Sutherland was born on November 7, 1926, in Sydney. Her parents were from Scotland. Sutherland's mother was a mezzo-soprano and gave her singing lessons all through her childhood and adolescence. At 18, she began voice lessons in Sydney with John and Aida Dickens, who directed her into the soprano range (she began as a mezzo like her mother).

Germaine Thyssens-Valentin was a classical pianist of Franco-Dutch parentage, noted for her performances of French music. She studied under Gabriel Fauré at the Paris Conservatoire, and in the 1950s, after a long absence from performing while she raised a family of five children, she recorded a series of discs of Fauré's music that have been reissued on compact disc to considerable acclaim.

Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, CH (29 April 1879 – 8 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras.

Gennady Rozhdestvensky was born in Moscow.

Germaine Thyssens-Valentin (27 July 1902 – 7 July 1987) was a classical pianist of Franco-Dutch parentage, noted for her performances of French music. She studied under Gabriel Fauré at the Paris Conservatoire, and in the 1950s, after a long absence from performing while she raised a family of five children, she recorded a series of discs of Fauré's music that have been reissued on compact disc to considerable acclaim.

German conductor Otto Klemperer attended the Hoch Conservatorium in Frankfurt-am-Main, studied violin and piano at the Klindworth-Scharwenka and Stern Conservatories in Berlin, and composition with the German composer Pfitzner. He made his début in Berlin in 1905, where he conducted fifty performances of Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, not a work that would now be identified with Klemperer's serious and profoundly personal approach to music. Shortly afterwards, he visited Gustav Mahler in Vienna and impressed the composer by playing a scherzo from a Mahler symphony by memory at the piano.

The English born soloist Solomon (the only name he ever used in his professional life) was fortunate in having found success in two separate careers as a pianist. From the age of eight until his early teens, he was one of the most celebrated child prodigies of his era, a national phenomenon in England right up until the time of the First World War. He developed a distaste for his instrument, however, and on the advice of conductor Sir Henry Wood, he gave up music for several years.

When it comes to the great English pianists of the twentieth century, none was greater than Solomon. Born Solomon Cutner, he was a child prodigy who worked himself into a nervous breakdown by the age of 15.

BABIN, VICTORIA (VITYA) VRONSKY (August 22, 1909-June 28, 1992) was a distinguished pianist and teacher long associated with the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF MUSIC (CIM). A native of Yevpatoria in the Russian Crimea, she was the daughter of Michel and Sophia Blinkoff Vronsky. Graduating from the Kiev Conservatory of Music at fifteen, she went to Berlin to study piano under Artur Schnabel, whose students at the time also included another Russian, VICTOR BABIN. Vronsky appeared as a soloist with the leading orchestras and conductors of Europe before marrying Babin in 1933. As half of the piano duo of Vronsky and Babin, she toured and recorded extensively for the next quarter century, making her American debut in 1937.