Yuri Ahronovitch

On January 8, 9 and 10, 1979 Yuri Ahronovitch and the Cologne Gürzenich Orchestra bring together Franz Liszt's twelfth symphonic poem Die Ideale met Antonín Dvorák's Eighth Symphony: representatives of two different worlds which undoubtedly influenced one another.

In little more than thirty years, musical revolutions which were even seen as an affront to good taste in some places gave rise to normal and sought-after musical currency.

"With unprecedented energy which also contains needful tonal subtlety, [Ahronovitch] succeeds in bringing together the very divergent parts of the work and sometimes also in pressing them together. Utter commitment is demanded, not least in the second movement.” (jö, Frankfurter Neue Presse, December 5, 1983)

"In the finale with its drawn-out choral vocalises, Ahronovitch whipped up the orchestra to such a hot-blooded climax that one expected the walls of the hall to give way any moment, the ceiling to lift and the blazing sound to rise unhampered into the air as music of the cosmos." (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 12, 1989)

Profil continues its Yuri Ahronovitch series and on this new release offers Brucknerians some rare treats from the German radio archives. His latest offering features a live recording of Symphony No. 7 and sees Yuri Ahronovitch conduct the Guerzenich Orchestra of Cologne.

Psyché was the last and most ambitious of Franck’s symphonic poems. Unlike the programmatic aspect of a tone poem, Sibelius’ symphony No. 2 is a vivid musical portrait of Finland which invokes a sense of national pride told through the music.

The music is performed by the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln and conducted by Yuri Ahronovitch. The fact the recording is a live performance lends a decided "sense of occasion" to the rendition, a factor that certainly makes it worth hearing.

Yuri Ahronovitch quotes: “This symphony is not merely the celebration of victory over Fascism; equally it celebrates the victory of good over evil, of humanism over obscurantism, of life over death”