Franz Welser-Möst - CD

Sony Classical are proud to release the recording of one of the world’s most famous classical music events: the New Year’s Concert 2013 with the Vienna Philharmonic under the baton of celebrated conductor, Franz Welser-Möst. He returns to direct the 2013 celebrations after his acclaimed debut in 2011. Maestro Welser-Mőst is the former Music Director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Includes the famous waltz "The Blue Danube" & the "Radetzky March". Usual promo & marketing activity across specialist media. The DVD & Blu-Ray formats are released on 21st Jan.

Franz Welser-Möst's first Bruckner performance at the Salzburg Festival was justly celebrated in 1989. He conducted the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in the Seventh Symphony, in an interpretation by these young performers that was astonishing in its transcendence and in its manner of outlining the work’s musical contrasts. It was no surprise that the press greeted the conductor and the orchestra as a sensation and as a great hope for the future – it was also, after all, the first Festival “after” Karajan. Those hopes were later confirmed, and Welser-Möst and the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra have since then returned to Salzburg on a regular basis.

No other 20th century work delights music-lovers as much as Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana". The opening number, "Oh Fortuna", is a huge classical hit in its own right. The recording conducted by Austrian shooting star Franz Welser-Möst brings out the thrilling drama of the whole score.

Produced by EMI Classics in partnership with the prestigious National Gallery in London, The National Gallery Collection is a budget-price catalogue series bringing together the very best in fine art and classical music.

The collection features a selection of classical masterworks in celebrated recordings from the EMI Classics catalogue, brought together with great artworks from The National Gallery’s permanent collection.

Bright cantabile – virtuoso fire: Joachim Kaiser once called Sabine Meyer’s playing “a revelation”; the German music critic praised her wealth of nuance. And A Night at the Opera again bears witness to the artistic earnest of this remarkable musician: the unerring brilliance of her presentation conceals a reflection on the history, the abilities and the limits of her instrument.

For many years derided as a mere film composer, Korngold has now achieved recognition as a master of melody, harmony and orchestration in the late romantic tradition. His soaring themes have universal appeal, and his structural expertise and depth of feeling shine out in his powerful Symphony.

Seen by millions on TV worldwide, the Wiener Philharmoniker’s New Year's Concert from Vienna is one of the best-known classical events in the world. - A perennial best-seller with 102,000 CDs and 45,000 DVDs sold in 2010.

The New Year's Concert, presented in the glittering Musikverein, features a charming programme that offers perennial favourites alongside some intriguing Strauss premieres. The complete programme will be announced beginning of November.

The 2011 concert will be conducted by Austrian-born Franz Welser-Möst - newly installed as the music director of the Vienna State Opera and a favourite with Viennese concertgoers.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) caused a sensation early on in the 20th century with the first performance in 1913 of his ballet Le sacre du printemps (The rite of Spring). This event marked the composer as a musician of the new century and throughout his life Stravinsky remained at the forefront of the musical avant-garde, keeping abreast of musical developments right up to he time of his death. All of the works in this set of orchestral pieces were written during Stravinsky's neo-classical period, which lasted from around 1920 until about 1953, after which he adopted the serial technique first developed by Arnold Schoenberg.

The multi-coloured orchestral world of Franz Schreker, with its flavour of French impressionism, is especially rich in the tone-poems based on two of his operas. There are similarities as well as contrasts with the more Hungarian sound of Schmidt’s exhilarating Variations, and the elegant, passionate austerity of Busoni’s Studies.This will be the fifth release in the 20th-Century Classics series from EMI Classics. Once again the depth of the EMI catalogue is amply illustrated by the range of music offered here: Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams from England; Aram Khachaturian from Georgia; György Ligeti from Hungary; and Franz Schreker from Austria, all go to make up a fascinating release of five 2-CD sets.

Franz Schreker was one of a closely-knit group of young composers working in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century, most notable amongst whom was Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schmidt. The music of these five composers, particularly the first three, is far better-known than that of Schreker. Both Zemlinsky's and, to a lesser extent, Schmidt's music has gone through a revival on CD, but Schreker's name and music remain little-known. This is a pity because it is as fresh and appealing as any of his compatriots', some of whom fell under his influence. This 2-CD set begins with what is Schreker's best-known work, the Chamber Symphony, written in 1916, when he was reaching the height of his career. Success continued during the 1920s until the Nazis came to power, when many of his performances were cancelled and he lost his teaching posts. He died, after suffering a stroke, in March 1934. Anyone with a taste for late-Romantic music, be it by Mahler or the young Schoenberg can be assured that this is a set from which they will derive much pleasure.

The mid-price collection presents some of the most important and admired recordings of the EMI Classics and Virgin Classics catalogue which make EMI 'The Home of Opera'. These performances of Le Rossignol and Oedipus Rex were recorded in 1999 at All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak, London.