Wagner: Träume (No. 5 from Wesendonck-Lieder)

Two romantic works in the best sense of the term occupy centre stage on this new recording. Han Pfitzner did not always hit the right note in his cultural/political comments and Siegfried Wagner never completely succeeded in emerging from the shadow of his father Richard, but it is frequently overlooked that both composers nevertheless produced excellent music. The celebrated Slovakian violinist, Juraj Cizmarovic, performs these two concertos with absolute mastery, augmented by the beautiful Träume from Richard Wagner’s Wesendonck lieder.

In June 2013 the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under the expert direction of Thomas Dausgaard are joined by one of today's foremost Wagner singers. Named 'Singer of the Year' by Opernwelt magazine in 2012, Nina Stemme has been the Isolde of choice at Glyndebourne, Bayreuth and Covent Garden.

For this new release Nina performs the five Wesendonck-Lieder, of which two in particular, Im Treibhaus and Träume, were referred to by Wagner as 'studies' for Tristan and Isolde. Wagner himself prepared a version for violin and orchestra of Träume, and the ensemble includes this setting featuring principal violinist, Katarina Andreasson, as soloist.

The Wesendonck-Lieder are framed by two versions of the overture to Der fliegende Holländer, the rarely heard 1841 original version and the composer's final creation from 1860, with its new ending inspired by Tristan, composed three years earlier.

For this new recording on Capriccio mother and son unite. For more than fifteen years Renate Behle has been one of the world’s most outstanding interpreters of dramatic roles. With her “warm, sumptuous, full voice” whose “sound is etched in one’s memory” (Financial Times), she has thrilled audiences and critics alike on nearly every major opera stage in the world. Here she performs a recital of works by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Beethoven and Brahms amongst others, with her son Daniel, a tenor in great demand on the major opera and concert stages of the world.

This year, we celebrate the thirty-year conducting career of Neeme Järvi with Chandos Records, as well as the conductor’s own seventy-fifth birthday.

We mark the occasion with this two-disc set of highlights, featuring a varied selection of concert hall rarities and core classics, along with some popular showpieces and examples of Järvi’s championing of Estonian and American music.

In the course of his conducting career, Järvi has amassed a distinguished discography of more than 440 recordings, well over 150 of them for Chandos.

Järvi has a rare ability to galvanise an orchestra into giving an interpretation of exceptional vigour and drive. Gramophone said of his recently concluded Halvorsen series (from which La Mélancolie and Bojarernes Indtogsmarsch are taken): ‘Järvi finds in the music a drama and pathos that might come as a revelation even to the composer.’

Also on this disc is the ‘Jester’s Dance’ from Tchaikovsky’s The Snow Maiden, a personal favourite of the conductor’s, and one that Järvi often performs as an encore at his many concerts around the world.

Pia Heise - a rare talent nurtured by world leading accompanist, Roger Vignoles, has her first CD released featuring a beautiful selection of music which has a theme of the night running through it.

Wagner composed an arrangement of Gluck’s Iphigenie in Aulis, adding a new ending of his own and ATMA offers the first-ever recording of Wagner’s original, discovered in Zürich in the late 1990s. Two more gems are included; Siegfried-Idyll in its original version for chamber orchestra and Richard Strauss’ Oboe Concertos completes the CD.

On her latest recording, violinist Anne Akiko Meyers takes us on a musical journey that begins in a hushed gentle dreamscape and ends with languorous longing. She traverses the seasons, as expressed in a gorgeous selection of pieces which evoke everything from cherry blossoms, to endless blue skies to starry winter nights.

One of the world’s premiere concert violinists, Anne Akiko Meyers has been celebrated throughout her nearly three-decade career for her exceptional musicianship, charismatic presence and creative diversity. On this new release, Meyers is joined by long-time collaborator Reiko Uchida on piano and the young harpist of the Paris Opera, Emmanuel Ceysson.