Landshamer

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin returns to Pentatone together with soprano Christina Landshamer, presenting La Passione, a collection of dazzling concert arias on love, longing and loss by Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn, paired with the latter’s “La Passione” Symphony. Ranging from pastoral simplicity to exuberant outrage, the programme offers some of the finest vocal writing around 1800, including some of Beethoven’s rare and little-known excursions to Italian bravura opera, as well as one of the most dramatic and expressive symphonies of the eighteenth-century.

Schubert sits at the piano in a bourgeois salon in Vienna, surrounded by around 30 ladies and gentlemen applauding him. The painting by Julius Schmidt dating from 1897 captures one of those convivial musical gatherings known even during the composer’s lifetime as Schubertiades. The term was probably coined by Schubert’s friend Franz von Schober, and the first of these gatherings took place in January 1821 in Schober’s Vienna apartment. From then on, until the composer’s death in 1828, the Schubertiades were held on a regular basis with different hosts from Schubert’s circle, and always proceeded in a similar manner: Schubert played either piano solos or accompanied a singer, and usually presented new works; the guests read poetry and fiction to each other and exchanged ideas; a snack was then served, and this was frequently followed by an evening of dancing or even joint gymnastic exercises. The ritual also included Schubert going out on the town with his inner circle at the end of the evening.

The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and soprano Christina Landshamer present a Telemann monography, consisting of his cantata Ino and instrumental works composed in the same period. Despite, or perhaps actually thanks to, Telemann’s use of just one singer, Ino is highly dramatic, depicting a desperate woman trying to save herself and her son from her husband turned mad, eventually throwing herself off a cliff and then transformed into a goddess. Telemann composed it two years before his death, and the score is exceptionally rich and colourful. The cantata is combined with his Overture in D Major, Divertimento in E-flat Major and Sinfonia melodica, each underlining the exceptional liveliness of this composer well into the ninth decade of his prolific life.

After their acclaimed recording of Weber’s Freischütz, the Dresdner Philharmonie and its Principal conductor Marek Janowski present yet another German opera stereo classic with Beethoven’s Fidelio. They work together with a stellar cast — well-seasoned in German opera — including Lise Davidsen (Fidelio/Leonore), Christian Elsner (Florestan), Georg Zeppenfeld (Rocco), Christina Landshamer (Marzelline), Cornel Frey (Jaquino), Johannes Martin Kränzle (Don Pizzarro) and Günther Groissböck (Don Fernando).