Haydn Dmitri Babanov

“Sergei Nakariakov plays the trumpet the way the rest of us breathe – if we are lucky.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

“You have the sense when listening to Haydn that you’re in very good company; though he’s a great genius, he somehow seems like one of us”. The words of Philip Setzer. Beautifully recorded, exceptionally well played, the Emerson’s traversal of seven quartets of Haydn offers a wonderful musical journey – 1772 to 1799 in terms of chronology; in terms of musical values and growth, well, Haydn’s inventiveness and imagination are simply remarkable.

Die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Sergiu Celibidache und den Berliner Philharmonikern begann am 29. August 1945, im einem der tragischsten Momente der Orchestergeschichte. Das angestammte Haus, der Konzertsaal in der Bernburger Straße, lag zerbombt in Schutt und Asche, Chefdirigent Wilhelm Furtwängler durfte, auf sein Entnazifizierungsverfahren wartend, nicht dirigieren und Interimsdirigent Leo Borchard war wenige Tage zuvor versehentlich von einem amerikanischen Wachposten erschossen worden. Das verwaiste Orchester suchte händeringend nach einem Leiter, der die bereits geplanten Konzerte übernehmen konnte. Von den großen Dirigenten stand keiner zur Verfügung und so erhielt ein junger, unbekannter Hochschulabsolvent, der gerade den Dirigentenwettbewerb des Rundfunkorchesters gewonnen hatte, seine große Chance: Sergiu Celibidache. Der damals 33-jährige Rumäne, Schüler von Heinz Tiessen und Walter Gmeindl sowie ein großer Bewunderer Furtwänglers, besaß wenig Erfahrung, aber Talent, Ehrgeiz und Charisma.

For his first CD release on Ondine, star baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky has chosen art song repertoire of great intensity and emotion from his Russian home country. The 26 romances by Sergei Rachmaninov on this disc include such popular songs as Spring waters, op.14/11 or In the silence of the mysterious night, op.4/3.

"An excellent master of his craft" (M. Harras). For four decades, bass-baritone Klaus Mertens has been acclaimed by critics in concerts and nearly 200 album recordings as "unearthly radiant" (klassik com), "wonderfully slender, clearly delineating" (mdr Figaro) and "unchanged fresh and immensely homogeneous" (klassik com) for his interpretations of music ranging from early to avant-garde. Dmitri Grigoriev was born in 1979 in Leningrad and studied organ and piano after private lessons at the conservatories in St. Petersburg and Kazan, where he completed his studies in 2007 with the state concert exam. The two musicians play music from "three centuries" on this album. Cantor Dmitri Grigoriev and Klaus Mertens deliberately chose a program for this project that, on the one hand, takes into account the diverse colors and possibilities of the so special organ on site, and on the other hand, is able to provide a small but subtle insight into sounds and styles of vocal music over three centuries.