Franz Peter Schubert

A new dimension is added to the marvellous transition from the simple horn melody to a symphony when it is played on natural horns. Why did Schubert choose horns? Three notes sound open, the next stopped, the next stopped in a different way, like a melody roughly hewn from marble. Only when the oboe takes over is the unevenness polished away, removing limitations and barriers and transporting us into a magical realm of eternity. I must say that I find this transition most touching if the natural horn players do their best to equalize, to overcome their natural unevenness – like handicapped athletes do. Small C-clarinets and narrow trombones give this symphony a special colour. The woodwinds have a leading role, playing all the Viennese songs, serenades, popular tunes and dances. Even if it is an orchestral work, here and there it feels like the seventh volume of Schubert’s Lieder. Iván Fischer

Iván Fischer The partnership between Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra has proved to be one of the greatest success stories in the past 25 years of classical music. Fischer introduced several reforms, developed intense rehearsal methods for the musicians, emphasizing chamber music and creative work for each orchestra member. Intense international touring and a series of acclaimed recordings for Channel Classics have contributed to Iván Fischer's reputation as one of the worlds most visionary and successful orchestra leaders.

Sony Classical ORIGINALS offer listeners outstanding enjoyment, authentically recapturing the fascination of legendary recordings from the age of long-playing records and preserving worthwhile releases from two labels with particularly long and distinguished traditions: RCA Red Seal and Columbia Masterworks. These superb recordings by great artists have enjoyed international acclaim ever since they were first released. Showered with critical plaudits, they are part of the 20th century’s cultural legacy. All have been remastered and carefully restored using the latest studio technology in order to reproduce the original interpretations as faithfully as possible. The CD covers are taken over from the original LPs. The original introductions and LP labels are also reproduced in full, making Sony Classical ORIGINALS unique documents in the history of recorded sound.

Featuring original LP cover artwork in full size and reproduction of original labels in mini LP design.

Contains original liner notes in 3 languages (English, French and German) Jewel case packaging with fully coloured booklets.

The Sony Classical Originals bring together for the first time at the Mid Price the greatest recordings from across all of the labels which are part of the Sony Classical umbrella, and are a perfect starting point for any classical collector.

Compelling for her intensity and integrity as much as for her unmistakeable voice, Dame Janet Baker struck a distinctive path as a performer, primarily on the concert and recital stage. Among her most celebrated recordings are her interpretations of Elgar with Sir John Barbirolli, here complemented by songs and oratorio arias by composers such as Bach, Handel, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, Strauss, Fauré, Vaughan Williams and Britten.

This latest release from the multi-award-winning partnership of Gerald Finley and Julius Drake features a literary and musical form which inspired the greatest voices of German Romanticism. The foremost poets and composers of the age saw the ballad as a direct link to the folk-minstrels of the past. Frequently ghoulish and sensational in character, ballads satisfied the popular taste for the Gothic. This disc contains some of the greatest examples of the form, including Schubert’s Erlkönig, as well as some fascinating and lesser-known works. The disc also includes selections from the ever popular English ballad tradition.

Gerald Finley’s unrivalled gift for characterization and story-telling, honed both on the stages of opera houses around the world and through his extraordinary Lieder recordings, makes him the ideal performer of these works. This is a genuinely entertaining and original disc.

Argerich is now approaching her 70th birthday – on the 5th of June this year. One of the releases marking this occasion is a further instalment in the very successful Martha Argerich Collection (already available: Solo Recordings, Concerto Recordings, Chamber Ensemble Recordings) with a set devoted to her complete recordings for the Philips label.

Here we find her in partnership with Stephen Kovacevich and Nelson Freire, with discs of two-piano and piano duet works. Then there are the classic live recordings of the Tchaikovsky First and, above all, the Rachmaninov Third Concertos, with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly; as well as an inimitable Carnival of the Animals (with Freire, Kremer, Maisky and others).

Schubert and Schumann works for cello and piano feature Mischa Maisky.

A 32-page full colour booklet contains photographs and new liner notes by Jed Distler.

Three double digipacks from the label Andante are here gathered together in a limited edition box set. The set offers more than 7 hours of music performed by legendary artists, among them conductors Herbert von Karajan and George Szell, the Vienna Philharmonic and Staatskapelle Dresden orchestras, as well as the Amadeus Quartet, pianist Nikita Magaloff and several great singers including Giulietta Simionato and Nicolai Gedda. Featured are Bizet’s opera Carmen, orchestral music by Beethoven and Bruckner, and chamber music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert.

Klaus Tennstedt was born on 6th June 1926 in Merseburg a small Saxon town between Leipzig and Halle. He was a highly talented violinist and followed his father into the Halle Opera orchestra of which he was made leader whilst still in his teens. He also studied in Dresden and as a member of the fire brigade was detailed to dig bodies out of the rubble after the city was blitzed in 1944. A solo career awaited him but a growth on his left hand brutally cut this short at the age of 19 but, after months of depression, he emerged as the opera’s repetiteur. He naturally watched conductors but was not given an opportunity to try until, at an hour’s notice, he took over a performance.

The experience galvanised him to seek this path as a career but his refusal to join the Communist Party ensured that he was limited to poorer opera houses. In his mid-30’s he went to Berlin seeking a chance to defect, but it was not until March 1971, aged 44, when he was allowed to conduct in Gothenburg. The freedom in the West did not give him many major opportunities either; however the offer of the musical directorship of the Kiel Opera was offered and accepted. A manager from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra heard him and duly invited him to Canada.

A chance stand-in engagement in Boston conducting Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony was met with such ecstatic reviews and audience enthusiasm that he was offered dates with the finest orchestras. He was 48 and after his years spent in provincial theatres this sudden fame and fortune must have been overwhelming for such a sensitive man. Luckily for the musical world he then discovered the composer whose music would make his career; a composer who like himself, suffered from self-doubt: Gustav Mahler. He had had no chance to hear any of his music during his student years as it had been banned by the Nazis.

He was uniquely able to identify with Mahler’s life-and-death struggles and the shear intensity that he brought to the performances made them unforgettable. It could be argued that his concerts provided the stimulus for the major record companies to change their policy of recording exclusively in the studio to one of taping live and relying on careful editing to remove any blemishes.

His repertoire was far from limited to Mahler – the romantics from Beethoven to Richard Strauss all received thoroughly detailed and considered readings.

He was popular too with soloists – his experience as a repetiteur and soloist gave him an unique understanding of what they needed in an accompanist.

Everything seemed to be set fair but the angst that he would, like Mahler, die prematurely proved correct for in his 60th year throat cancer struck. Initially he was able to continue conducting if at a reduced pace, but gradually the disease took its awful toll. His final engagement was in Oxford where he rehearsed the University orchestra before receiving an honorary doctorate in June 1994.

It is highly appropriate that Klaus Tennstedt’s career should be reassessed in 2011 as it is the year that not only marks the centenary of Mahler’s death but also what would have been the year of Tennstedt’s 85th birthday.