Ravel Ozawa

Seiji Ozawa conducts the most sensitive and emotional performance of Ravel I have ever experienced. I bought the record 30 years ago and nearly cried hearing it on CD all these years later. If you have not heard this, you have never heard Ravel.

Young piano sensation Yundi Li collaborates with Seiji Ozawa and the Berlin Philharmoniker to present two highly innovative and provocative keyboard works from the 20th-century– Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 and Ravel Piano Concerto in G major.

The 2nd of September 2010 marks Maestro Seiji Ozawa’s 75th birthday.
This new 11-CD set presents Seiji Ozawa in a wide variety of symphonic repertory with the orchestra’s with which he has been most closely associated since the early 1970s – from the San Francisco Symphony in 1972 in a programme of music centred round Romeo and Juliet, through his twenty-nine years at the Boston Symphony, to the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics and the Saito Kinen Orchestra in Japan – a celebration of a truly international Maestro.

Seiji Ozawa was the first Asian conductor to rise to international stardom. After his Koussivitzky Prize at Tanglewood, he honed his skills as assistant to Leonard Bernstein in New York and Herbert von Karajan in Berlin. Directorships of the Nissei Theatre in Tokyo, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Tanglewood Festival, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera followed. In 2016 he withdrew from the international scene to Japan, dedicating his time to the Mito Chamber Orchestra and to teaching.

The 2nd of September 2010 marks Maestro Seiji Ozawa’s 75th birthday. This new 11-CD set presents Seiji Ozawa in a wide variety of symphonic repertory with the orchestra’s with which he has been most closely associated since the early 1970s – from the San Francisco Symphony in 1972 in a programme of music centred round Romeo and Juliet, through his twenty-nine years at the Boston Symphony, to the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics and the Saito Kinen Orchestra in Japan – a celebration of a truly international Maestro.

Krystian Zimerman is getting better as he gets older. He used to be one of a half-dozen great young pianists, a brilliant virtuoso with tremendous expressivity, enormous soul, and a habit of making even fewer recordings than Argerich or Pollini. Over the years of ever-fewer recordings, he's grown into an astounding virtuoso and the emotional power of his interpretations have grown with his technique.

Ravel’s works cover many different styles but his orchestrations and scores are united by their ability to transport the listener – from the majestic Bolero, to the story of Daphnis et Chloe, the enchanting Mother Goose Suite and the atmospheric piano works. Artists include Pierre Boulez, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Martha Argerich and Claudio Abbado.