s Die Presse

"Stupendous brilliance, breathless virtuosity. Anne-Sophie Mutter's Virtuosi thrilled at the Vienna Musikverein." (Die Presse) In June 2023, star violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter gave an impressive concert in Vienna with her Virtuosi ensemble. Based on this, a varied album has now been created, with music by Antonio Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, Joseph Bologne, André Previn and John Williams. "Growing up, I'm on the trail of storytellers," Mutter says of her work with the Virtuosi, a rotating ensemble of current and former Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation scholarship holders.

Freedom, fraternity and humanity – this is what Beethoven’s 9th Symphony stands for. It opens the 10th Grafenegg Festival, performed by the Tonkunstler Orchestra, joined by 24 alumni of the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO) and ‘a soloist quartet which no one could possibly imagine to be more prestigious’ (Die Presse). ‘Vogt’s tenor and the Wiener Singverein were especially moving’ (Wiener Zeitung) and ‘the vocal performance by excellent bass René Pape, the fabulous soprano Camilla Nylund and the brilliant mezzosoprano Elena Zhidkova… in Beethoven’s Ninth was just sensational. Bravo!’ (Kurier) Composer in Residence Christian Jost’s new work also centres around Beethoven, featuring the song An die Hoffnung (‘To Hope’), and ‘convincingly used an impressive orchestra’ (Der Standard), with ‘tenor Klaus Florian Vogt as a well-cast soloist’ (Salzburger Nachrichten).

Christian Thielemann, “by common consent the leading Wagner conductor of our time” (Die Presse), returns to Bayreuth for this radiant account of Die Walküre filmed at the 2010 Festival. Appearing on DVD and Blu-ray for the first time, it provides the only audio-visual document of Tankred Dorst’s Ring production, and follows the hugely successful release of the whole cycle on CD. Two new singers join the cast: Johan Botha as Siegmund, who was showered with praise by the press (“ideal vocal casting” in the words of the critic on the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and Edith Haller, with her “beautiful, strong soprano voice” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) as his sister and lover Sieglinde.