Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer: Overture (The Flying Dutchman Overture)

Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of Wagner in 2013, David Zinman conducts the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich performing Scenes and Orchestral Pieces from “The Flying Dutchman” and “The Ring of the Nibelung”.

David Zinman is one of the world’s finest, most respected conductors, whose passion for music, dedication to furthering careers of young musicians and as an orchestral builder makes ‘music a better world’.

This CD features famous international Wagner baritone Egils Silins who can be heard as “Dutchman” and as “Wotan”.

Zinman has extended his contract with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich until 2014, where, since 1995 as conductor and music director, he has raised the standard of the orchestra to an international level.

Zinman’s previous recordings on Sony have been received with superb critical acclaim.

In January 2006, David Zinman, received the prestigious Theodore Thomas Award, presented by the Conductors Guild in New York’s Roosevelt Hotel. The award is presented biannually to a conductor, in recognition of outstanding achievement and extraordinary service to one’s colleagues in advancing the art and science of conducting, reflecting honour on the profession.

Roger Norrington was the first conductor to rediscover the original sound of the Romantic era. His recordings of famous overtures from Schubert to Wagner showed how fresh, indeed revolutionary an orchestra sounded in the early 19th century. Thanks to his careful studies of the instruments and performing practice of the time, Norrington brings out the poetry of the music in an unprecedented way, making his readings into true milestones of interpretation.

As part of the Wagner 200th birth date celebrations, Israeli/German piano duo Yaara Tal & Andreas Groethuysen release "Goetterdaemmerung - Transcriptions for two pianists from Wagner’ most famous operas" on Sony Classical.

The best-loved and most popular works by Richard Wagner, performed by the world’s leading artists, in an accessible format at budget price.

This selection of some of Wagner’s finest orchestral excerpts opens with the ‘storm-swept ballad’ of Der fliegende Holländer, the opera which launched his epoch-defining later masterpieces. The entire span of Der Ring des Nibelungen is represented in this programme, from the luminous rainbow bridge which leads the gods to Valhalla in Das Rheingold, the urgent drama of Die Walküre, and the atmospheric repose of the Forest Murmurs in Siegfried, to the tragic depths of Siegfried’s Funeral March. This recording has been praised for its ‘radiant sensuousness’. (Gramophone) Volumes 2 and 3 in this series are available on 8572768 and 8572769.

This double-CD set brings together for the first time two of Claudio Abbado’s Wagner recordings, the first of orchestral music, the second a selection of vocal works with Bryn Terfel, the leading Wagner baritone of our day.

“Terfel brings a wide palette of tone to peer into the Dutchman's soul and express Wolfram's evening thoughts, where his legato and half-voice are admirable” (Gramophone)