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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Zubin Mehta conducts Mozart, Bartók & DvorakMusic Center, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, January 1977
Zubin Mehta, at the age of 26, was the youngest ever conductor to head a major American orchestra. Truly ingenious, he led them to international acclaim. This DVD was recorded at the height of this collaboration, and beautifully portrays an emerging star. In his youth, Mehta was already so much more than a conductor. His profound connection with the orchestra leads to a unity of sound which is rare in today's jet-set reality. He understands how to stretch the orchestra technically because he knows it inside out. In turn, the orchestra inspires Mehta. In their joyful collaboration, hidden musical meanings emerge. Mehta shows his versatility in his interpretations of great works from the 18th, 19th and 20th century. | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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"It’s different having best friends together. Everyone is there to enjoy making music, to take pleasure, to play with enthusiasm, with passion. They are prepared to do any crazy thing I ask them for the sake of the music. To fly, to walk through fire." (Claudio Abbado) Recorded live at the Concert Hall of the Culture and
Convention Centre Lucerne, 19 August 2007 “One of the greatest Mahlerians alive today, Abbado conducting Mahler's Third Symphony with his own Lucerne Festival Orchestra is not to be missed. Whether you enjoy watching concerts on DVD is a matter largely of personal taste, but those wanting a close-up on Abbado's elegant fingers won't be disappointed. Mahler's Third charts a journey to transcendence from the origins of life - given primordial terror by the LFO brass, every solo amid the immaculate ensemble sound cherished with Abbado's grasp of overarching Mahlerian narrative. Anna Larsson is ethereal in the fourth movement's Nietzschian text, the finale a sublimely convincing interpretation of the transcendence of love.” The Times, 16th August 2008 ***** “…Mahler three of peerless concentration and shape. ...Claudio Abbado never forces the expressivity of the superband Lucerne Festival Orchestra; yet every colour and texture shines through. …the filming of the orchestra is faultless.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2008 ***** “Abbado draws a reading of such commitment, technical polish and interpretative acuity - wondrously linear and yet emotionally true, without a shred of vulgarity - that you can only marvel at Mahler's musical-metaphysical vision and Abbado's sensitive shaping of it.” Financial Times “This truly is a genuine archive treasure” Classic FM Magazine “Abbado's performance of this work at last year's Proms was the highlight of the season: all the reviewers were unanimous. Illness prevented him from then conducting it in New York (Boulez took over) but now we can see the 2007 Lucerne concert
performance and marvel at its comprehensiveness and refinement. This really is the world's greatest chamber group, as Abbado intended it to be!” Hi-Fi News | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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“ The operettas by Franz Léhar are particularly close to my heart because I know that this music is often neglected and misunderstood.” Manfred Honeck Live from the Semperoper Dresden 21st December 2007,
staged by Jérôme Savary “Not until an extended and highly colourful can-can sequence in Act 3 did things really to life for me - as well as, judging by the dutiful applause up to that point, for the audience in the Semperoper. An updated Widow will appeal to some. However, I wouldn't dream of urging this version on anyone ahead of the Zürich version with Dagmar Schellenberger and Rodney Gilfry (ArtHaus) or the San Francisco Opera version in English (Opus Arte, 9/03)...” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2008 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Verbier Festival Highlights 2007
Bartók: | Violin Sonata No. 1, BB 84, Sz. 75 Renaud Capuçon & Martha Argerich | Debussy: | Children's Corner Nelson Freire (piano) | Lutoslawski: | Variations on a Theme by Paganini, for two pianos Martha Argerich & Gabriela Montero | Schubert: | Klavierstück in C major, D946 No. 3 Lars Vogt (piano) | Schumann: | Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44 Hélène Grimaud, Renaud Capuçon, Sayaka Shoji, Lars Anders Tomter & Mischa Maisky Hör' ich das Liedchen klingen (No. 10 from Dichterliebe, Op. 48) Thomas Quasthoff (bass-baritone), Hélène Grimaud (piano) Ein Jungling liebt ein Mädchen (No. 11 from Dichterliebe, Op. 48) Thomas Quasthoff (bass-baritone), Hélène Grimaud (piano) Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen (No. 12 from Dichterliebe, Op. 48) Thomas Quasthoff (bass-baritone), Hélène Grimaud (piano) |
The Verbier Festival, created in 1994, rapidly acquired a reputation for artistic excellence and is now considered to be among the major European music festivals. During a fortnight each July, the greatest stars of the classical music world come together against the magical backdrop of the Swiss Alps. The Verbier Festival gives musicians the opportunity to perform original programmes with fellow musicians they admire, but with whom they may never have performed before.These world première performances produce innovative and exciting results, as much for artists as for audiences. Through the Academy, the Verbier Festival invests in the talents of young artists, while creating, and promoting excellence in the performing arts. “Whatever the reason, Verbier attracts great artists and inspires them to new heights, helped by the canny casting of the festival founder and artistic director Martin Engstroem. Martha Argerich… is absolutely astounding in the finale of Bartók's Sonata for Violin and Piano No 1 with a demonically driven Renaud Capuçon. ...Nelson Freire, offers a tender, one might say avuncular, view of Debussy's Children's Corner, a contrast to the glacial Hélène Grimaud in Schumann and Ravel, and Evgeny Kissin's Liebesträume No 3 where love is clearly a cross to be borne (though his Bizet-Horowitz Variations justifiably raise the roof). Rounding off proceedings is a fired-up Joshua Bell in the finale of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. Visually, the camerawork is efficient and nothing more.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2008 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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Recorded live at the Großer Musikvereinssaal, Vienna, 31 October 2007 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | A film by Frank Scheffer
The film on Karlheinz Stockhausen's “Helikopter-Streichquartett” captures for the viewer a musical event that did not at all seem to be composed for being captured or replayed at all: four string players in four different helicopters! The Helicopter String Quartet is one of the most controversial works of art produced in recent years. Composed for the Arditti Quartet and premiered at the 1995 Holland Festival, it involves the four members of a string quartet playing in four different helicopters flying through the air. The music the quartet plays is then sent to a central space and mixed at a soundboard. In his film, Frank Scheffer documents the complex preparations in the month leading up to the premiere of this work, as well as eliciting insights from the composer regarding how he conceived and executed it. Scheffer goes behind the scenes and, stage by stage, shows the enormous production needed to realize “Helicopter String Quartet”. Stockhausen holds numerous rehearsals with the Arditti Quartet, coaching them on every possible performance detail. He personally handles all the matters of sound himself, even down to the final mixing at the concert. From a camera positioned inside a fifth helicopter, we see the string quartet flying in the skies above Amsterdam in a peaceful moment of almost unnerving freedom and release. “The Helicopter String Quartet is dedicated to all astronauts.” Karlheinz Stockhausen “…this film is a marvellous portrait of the working relationship between a great composer and committed musicians.” BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2008 **** “When word went round the contemporary music community that Stockhausen was sending the Arditti Quartet up in helicopters there were some who said he was touched by genius. Others reckoned he was just touched. A decade on, how does Stockhausen's Helicopter Quartet really stand up? Frank Scheffer's gripping documentary follows Stockhausen and the Ardittis as they prepare for the premiere, and his film ends with the complete performance. Stockhausen is on hand throughout to explain himself. If the concept of sending each member of a string quartet up in their own helicopter, where what they play is beamed back into the concert hall and mixed electronically with the sounds of the 'copters seems eccentric, then Stockhausen explains he is simply following the directions of his dreams.
From Gruppen – his 1957 piece for three spatially distributed orchestras – onwards he was always interested in the idea of sound flying around the heads of his listeners. And here is a supreme realisation of that fantasy.
You could argue that Stockhausen had long since lost touch with reality by the time he conceived and executed this piece. But that's missing the point: although Stockhausen's rock-star ego did lead him to produce some tedious late pieces that relied on the unquestioning faith of his groupies, the Helicopter String Quartet has a charm and fascination of its own. As Stockhausen deconstructs his material during rehearsal, singing bits to the players, it becomes clear there is real harmonic depth and melodic direction.
Shame about the carbon footprint though.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 “…the Helicopter String Quartet has a charm and fascination of its own. As Stockhausen deconstructs his material during rehearsal, singing bits to the players, it becomes clear there is real harmonic depth and melodic direction.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2008 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Rimsky-Korsakov - Sheherazade
"The Philadelphia sound – c’est moi!” Eugene Ormandy Recorded at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 30 June –
1 July 1978 / 24–26 June 1977 (Handel) “Masterful but mostly unsmiling in his old age, Ormandy gives as little away as his players. Unyielding City Hall acoustics confirm that the vibrant Philadelphia string sound was born of necessity.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2008 *** | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Corelli - Concerti Grossi
Marco Fornaciari, Kazuki Sasaki, Bettina Mussumeli (violin), Gianantonio Viero (violincello), Guy Touvron (trumpet) & Ernesto Merlini (harpsichord) I Solisti Veneti, Claudio Scimone "I tried to rediscover the life in [the 18th-century Venetian works], to demolish the wall of boredom and reconstruct the personality of the composers who worked during an era that was not in the least superficial, but rich in dramatic contrast and severe repression." Claudio Scimone Recorded at the Basilica di San Marco, Rome, 5 October 1986 “The present works from Opus 6, dating from 1711/12, are among [Corelli's] most inspired, consistently inventive, melodic and stimulating, often with very beautiful and refined writing for the solo group” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Koopman conducts Mozart and Cimarosa
Recorded live at the Mozarteum (Großer Saal), Salzburg, 2 February 2002 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Sviatoslav Richter plays Mozart & Chopin
Filmed at the Barbican Centre, London, 29 March 1989 “This concert is beyond the impertinence of praise, one of the great musical experiences of a lifetime preserved despite Richter's hostility about the concert being filmed. His Mozart is muscular and intense, his Chopin astoundingly stormy or incredibly tender.” BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2008 ***** | | | This item is currently out of stock at the UK distributor. You may order it now but please be aware that it may be six weeks or more before it can be despatched. |
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