Staatskapelle Dresden

The German baritone Hermann Prey was born in Berlin in 1929. In a career that spanned some 48 years, he became one of the most popular singers of his time and formed a great bond with his audiences through his unaffected and natural style of singing and his personal charm and acting ability. His repertoire was extremely wide and encompassed all the classic German Lieder, as well as a whole range of operatic roles from the lively Figaro of both Mozart and Rossini to more serious baritone parts in Verdi and Wagner, although it is in the lighter roles that he is most affectionately remembered. He enjoyed great success in the world’s major opera houses including Vienna, Bayreuth, Salzburg, Munich, Milan and New York, and also appeared frequently on German TV and in opera films. He died in 1998.

CD 1 begins with two groups of Lieder by Schubert to words by Schiller and Goethe, followed by a selection of 12 Deutsche Volkslieder by Brahms, while CD 2 contains a complete performance of Schubert’s great song cycle Winterreise. CD 3 is devoted to Schumann, including Dichterliebe and songs with words by Kerner, and CD 4 opens with Schumann’s Liederkreis before going on to a collection of songs by Weber.

CD 5 presents six songs by Beethoven, starting with the popular ‘Adelaide’, and these are followed by a group of songs by Liszt, concluding with his setting of Three Sonnets by Petrarch. CD 6 begins with a group of songs by various composers all to words by Goethe that were recorded in 1974 but issued for the first time in 1998 as a tribute to Prey at the time of his death. These are followed by a very attractive selection of German Folk and Wayfarer songs that show Prey in lighter mood.

In CD7 we have a group of ten descriptive ballads by Loewe including his setting of Goethe’s ‘Erlkönig’ and the traditional Scottish poem ‘Tom der Reimer’ (Tom the

Rhymer). This CD ends with a magnificent performance of Bach’s Cantata Ich habe genug with the Orchestra of the Leipzig Gewandhaus conducted by Kurt Thomas that illustrates Prey ‘s talent for German liturgical music and oratorio.

With CD 8 we move to opera in a wide range of repertoire from Baroque and Classical works by Keiser, Gluck and Mozart to the Romantic music of Wagner and Humperdinck. All the arias from French and Italian operas are sung in German, as was the practice in German opera houses at the time these recordings were made.

CD 9 brings us to some more modern operatic items by Leoncavallo Richard Strauss and Korngold and then two powerful arias by Tchaikovsky, after which the mood lifts with extracts from the operettas Gasparone by Millöcker and Boccaccio by Suppé. Finally we have four romantic songs from American musicals that Prey sings in fine idiomatic style. On this CD we also hear Prey’s frequent partner in both opera and operetta, the much loved soprano Anneliese Rothenberger, in several duets.

The final CD begins with arias from a number of German so-called ‘Spielopern’ by Kreutzer, Nessler and Lortzing before concluding in high spirits with items from operettas by those two masters of the genre, Johann Strauss II and Carl Millöcker.

The composer’s most important works in a single box – a zestful Bach and a fresh and homogenous choral sound. The golden age of Bach interpretations comes alive again here.

“…The set is a document of considerable worth. Jochum’s dedication to Bruckner’s music throughout a long and distinguished career has been exemplary; he loves the music deeply and communicates that love with fervour.” (Gramophone).

The complete Bruckner symphonies (including “Die Nullte”) , the classic and authorative recording of the glorious Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Bruckner veteran Eugen Jochum, a gem from the EMI catalogue, never having lost any of its grandeur, lucidity and spirituality.

Extensive liner notes on each symphony in the booklet.

The collection also includes Bruckner’s Symphony No. 0 – a work that is something of a phenomenon in music history, given that it was never assigned a number by its composer. Due to Bruckner’s evident unhappiness with the piece and its subsequent exclusion from the cycle, the work is rarely performed, but nevertheless its rich harmonic language and polyphonic character are wholly characteristic of the composer’s symphonic style – one which increases in length as the cycle progresses.

The influence of Wagner, Bruckner’s idol who he worshipped with an almost neurotic obsession, permeates throughout – there are echoes of Siegfried and Parsifal among other operas – and then of course there are the Adagios: sublime, timeless works of art in their own right. Joining the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski (Symphony No. 0) is the acclaimed Staatskapelle Dresden, directed by eminent German conductor.

Wilhelm Kempff was one of the truly great German pianists and one of the most remarkable performing artists of the 20th century. Kempff was renowned for his interpretations of Beethoven and this 10-CD compilation features performances of all five of the composer’s Piano Concertos made with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1953, and the Waldstein, Moonlight, Pathétique and Les Adieux Sonatas. The set also includes performances of Mozart, Schumann, Liszt, Chopin, and Brahms recorded between 1953 and 1958.

Last year it was the Kempff solo recordings which brightened up our winter days at the start of the new year and sold nearly 6,000 copies of the 35-CD box.

Now for the first time, comes a compact 14-CD set of his complete concerto studio recordings. They span from his 1925 recording of Beethoven’s First Concerto (the first ever to be made of that work) to his visionary 1977 performances of Mozart’s Concertos Nos. 21 and 22, now receiving their first international CD release. Unlike the solo recordings set, this edition is non-limited.

Kempff traversed the set of Beethoven Concertos three times in the studio (only No.2 was not set down during the shellac era); all those performances are included in this set. There’s more Mozart, Brahms and Schumann. In addition, 1950s Decca recordings of two Mozart concertos, the Liszt and Schumann concertos are also featured.

Thomas Zehetmair is one of the most significant violinists of his generation. He enjoys a successful international career thrilling audiences and critics with his abilities as a soloist, chamber musician and conductor.

As violinist Thomas Zehetmair is a regular guest of the most renowned European and American orchestras as well as leading conductors of the day. He dedicates a large part of his artistic activities to contemporary music and has a second career as a conductor as well as working with leading chamber musicians such as Pierre-Laurent Aimard.

Thomas Zehetmair has recorded nearly the entire violin repertoire on CD, more recently on a number of different labels but in the early part of his career in the 1990’s he made many recordings for Teldec as celebrated in this box set.