Salomé Strauss

Toscanini conducted the music of Bruckner on five separate occasions. In December of 1896 in Turin, Toscanini led the Adagio of the Seventh Symphony in commemoration of Bruckner’s passing. In March of 1931, Toscanini conducted the NY Phil in a series of concerts featuring the complete Bruckner 7. Toscanini and the NY Phil performed the Bruckner 4 in November, 1932, and February, 1934 (in a 1932 response to a questionnaire from the Berliner Börsen Zeitung, Toscanini revealed: “In recent years I have thoroughly studied Bruckner’s monumental symphonies”). January 1935 concerts included the Bruckner 7. The January 27, 1935 NY Phil performance of the Bruckner 7 is the only recording of Toscanini conducting music by the great Austrian composer.

Eduardo Mata was an internationally known conductor. He conducted a wide repertoire and was particularly recognized for twentieth century music, particularly of Latin American composers. He began studying guitar when he was about eight years old. In 1953, he enrolled in the National Conservatory of Music, studying with Rodolfo Halffter and Jose Moncayo. From 1960 to 1963, he was in the composition workshop of Carlos Chavez and Julián Orbón. After winning a Koussevitzky Fellowship, he traveled to Tanglewood where he continued his studies in composition under Gunther Schuller and in conducting from Max Rudolf and Erich Leinsdorf.

Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896-1960) was a Greek conductor who came to America in the 1930s and made many recordings with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Like Wilhelm Furtwangler of Arturo Toscanini, Mitropoulos' height of popularity came just before the advent of modern sound technology, so that many of Mitropoulos' finest recordings are marred by distortion and background noises that may make those recordings practically un-listenable to some classical music enthusiasts (although the new Sony Mitropoulos set has advertised that most of those very rough recordings have been "remastered").

Transfiguration is acclaimed star soprano Camilla Nylund’s much-awaited first album of arias. This CD portrays the lyric-dramatic soprano with famous arias and scenes from operas by Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner, including the grueling final scenes from Tristan und Isolde and from Salome. The featured arias reflect the lyrical and dramatic facets of Camilla Nylund’s current roles at such venues as Staatsoper Dresden, Vienna State Opera, and Bayreuther Festspiele. The Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra is led by their chief conductor Hannu Lintu.

Following critical acclaim for their world premiere recording of Stravinsky’s Funeral Song, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly return with a new collaboration featuring some of the greatest works in the orchestral repertoire by Richard Strauss, including Also sprach Zarathustra and Till Eulenspiegel, recorded live at the opening concert of the Lucerne Festival, 2017.