Zubin

In his second EMI Classics recordings of Bruch’s two best-loved works, Perlman is joined by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Zubin Mehta. He dedicated this recording to his great predecessor Jascha Heifetz, saying that “his artistry will always be my inspiration”.

In his 2003 production for the Maggio Musicale in Florence, director Jonathan Miller invested the complex relationships between the characters with countless tiny erotic charges and even obvious sexual symbols. The artistic director of the renowned Maggio Musicale festival Zubin Mehta brings out not only the tension and drive of the music but also its harmonic richness. The singers all belong to the international opera scene and not only provide excellent vocal quality but also strong acting skills, which help to tell the gripping story with its many disguises, mix-ups and discoveries: Russian soprano Eteri Gvazava internationally recognised since her sensational Traviata à Paris filming partnering José Cura is wonderful to watch and to hear in the role of the sad but contriving Countess Almaviva.

Zubin Mehta has had a decades-long artistic relationship and deep friendship with the Munich Philharmonic. Since conducting his first concert with the orchestra in 1987, he has been a regular guest there and in 2004 was named the orchestra's first and so far only "honorary conductor". Twenty years later, the orchestra celebrated this anniversary with the two piano concertos played by one of today's most celebrated and admired pianists: Yefim Bronfman.

John Knowles Paine (1839–1906) was a pioneer—the first university Professor of Music in America (at Harvard), the first American composer to have a symphonic work published in full score. Yet there is nothing primitive about this pioneer. If anything, his music is polished and conscientious to a fault, displaying an apparently uncritical adherence to European models of the kind that would eventually drive Charles Ives and other radicals to revolt.

The libretto, by Henri Meilac and Ludovic Halévy, is based on a novella by Prosper Mérimée. The first performance of Carmen on 3 March 1875, produced such a hostile reaction that Bizet left Paris physically and psychologically ill, and died only three months later on 3 June 1875, following two serious heart attacks. The massive scandal of the premiere may have been partially the result of Bizet’s attempt to reform the Opéra Comique genre, yet it must still be said that Carmen is operatic history’s most famous example of a failure being corrected by the passage of time: Carmen is now one of the most frequently performed operas in the world.

“La forza del destino” (The Force of Fate), premiered in St. Petersburg 1862, is one of Verdi’s most important opera compositions. Its plot is complicated and combines a sequence of interlaced unfortunate strokes of fate. Donna Leonora is the centre of events, together with her brother Don Carlo di Vargas and her lover Don Alvaro. The story was originally set in 18th century Spain, however the French director Nicolas Joël established the action in a slightly later period, in the time of the Empire, the early 19th century.