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Wagner: Tristan und Isolde

Stephen Gould

Opera - Released September 1, 2012 | PentaTone

Hi-Res Booklet
As the conductor for PentaTone's ambitious project to record all of Richard Wagner's music dramas, Marek Janowski has delivered a fine live concert version of Tristan und Isolde that has received critical praise for its strong cast and extraordinary sound quality. Janowski draws out some exciting playing from the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the multichannel super audio recording gives the ensemble the depth and fullness that is absolutely vital in Wagner's richly scored music. The cast is assured and vocally capable, but the star is soprano Nina Stemme, whose Isolde is vividly rendered and strong enough to carry the performance through to the Liebestod, setting standards of expressive power and stamina for the other singers to match. Considering the difficulty in finding vocalists who can handle Wagner's demanding roles, the performances by Stephen Gould as Tristan, Johan Reuter as Kurwenal, and Kwangchul Youn as King Mark are certainly better than average, and satisfying for the purposes of this concert performance. While this recording does not rank among historic Tristans for the thrills of a fully staged production, or for any legendary artists in the main roles, this is still an admirable effort that promises even greater things for the remainder of PentaTone's series.© TiVo
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Mahler: Symphony No. 3 & Lieder (Les indispensables de Diapason)

Leonard Bernstein

Symphonic Music - Released June 30, 2023 | Les Indispensables de Diapason

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Die Zauberflöte / The Magic Flute

Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra

Classical - Released March 3, 2023 | Profil

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La flûte enchantée

Herbert von Karajan

Stories and Nursery Rhymes - Released November 6, 2013 | Didier Jeunesse

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Mozart: Die Zauberflöte, K. 620

La Petite Bande

Classical - Released March 9, 2005 | Brilliant Classics

There is magic in this Die Zauberflöte -- the warmly glowing intonation of La Petite Bande, the pure Pamina of Suzie LeBlanc, the idealized Sorastro of Cornelius Hauptmann, the ardent Tamino of Christoph Genz, the robust Papageno of Stephan Genz, the lovely Papagna of Marie Kuijken, the deeply knowing conducting of Sigiswald Kuijken, even the corny thundercrashes -- but there is also one huge drawback -- the spoken dialogue. The amount of spoken dialogue included has always been a crucial issue for recordings of Die Zauberflöte -- too little and the story is all but incomprehensible, too much and listeners may grow restless waiting for the characters to stop speaking to each other in German, especially if they themselves don't speak German. For the completists and German speakers, Kuijken has included all the spoken dialogue. While this has its charms -- Genz's Papageno's fright is quite convincing -- the dialogue stops the music dead in its tracks every three to five minutes. Depending on the listener, this will either delightfully enhance or fatally detract from what is otherwise a thoroughly beguiling Die Zauberflöte. Amati's sound is deep and clear, but a little reverberant and very live.© TiVo

La flûte enchantée

Sigiswald Kuijken

Opera - Released March 9, 2005 | Brilliant Classics

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There is magic in this Die Zauberflöte -- the warmly glowing intonation of La Petite Bande, the pure Pamina of Suzie LeBlanc, the idealized Sorastro of Cornelius Hauptmann, the ardent Tamino of Christoph Genz, the robust Papageno of Stephan Genz, the lovely Papagna of Marie Kuijken, the deeply knowing conducting of Sigiswald Kuijken, even the corny thundercrashes -- but there is also one huge drawback -- the spoken dialogue. The amount of spoken dialogue included has always been a crucial issue for recordings of Die Zauberflöte -- too little and the story is all but incomprehensible, too much and listeners may grow restless waiting for the characters to stop speaking to each other in German, especially if they themselves don't speak German. For the completists and German speakers, Kuijken has included all the spoken dialogue. While this has its charms -- Genz's Papageno's fright is quite convincing -- the dialogue stops the music dead in its tracks every three to five minutes. Depending on the listener, this will either delightfully enhance or fatally detract from what is otherwise a thoroughly beguiling Die Zauberflöte. Amati's sound is deep and clear, but a little reverberant and very live.© TiVo
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Firepower

Judas Priest

Metal - Released March 9, 2018 | Columbia

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Der ferne Klang... Orchestral Works & Songs by Franz Schreker

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Classical - Released March 17, 2023 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Hi-Res Booklet
In the early '20s, Franz Schreker was one of the best-known composers in the world. His music was suppressed by the Nazis because he was Jewish, and due to the High Modernism of the postwar period, a second totalitarianism, his reputation did not recover. This was a shame, for Schreker was anything but a conservative, and it is good to see that he is finally getting his due. What he needed at this point was a high-profile recording with top soloists, and that is exactly what he gets here from Christoph Eschenbach and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, with soprano Chen Reiss and baritone Matthias Goerne. Deutsche Grammophon's PR text refers to "Schreker's sumptuous, hyper-Romantic music," but this is not quite right. Schreker could sometimes be that, as in the Romantische Suite that closes the album, but Straussian late Romanticism was only one of his influences. In terms of using tone color as a structural element, Schreker was in every way a contemporary of Schoenberg (his close friend) and Webern. Eschenbach's generous selection of orchestral songs here provides a good way to appreciate this quality; sample Die Dunkelheit sinkt schwer wie Blei from the Fünf Gesänge, with its mysterious strumming-like sounds. The text of that song is from a German translation of the Thousand and One Nights anthology, and Reiss sounds great in the Zwei lyrische Gesänge to texts (in German) by, of all people, Walt Whitman. Schreker could be neoclassic (in the economical Kleine Suite); he could be Impressionist-tinged; he mastered a full Expressionist idiom in the opera that gives the album its title, represented here by a substantial instrumental excerpt. This double-album release conveys the breadth of Schreker's musical language, but he is never blankly eclectic. A wonderful album that will help to rewrite the 20th century canon.© James Manheim /TiVo
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MTV Unplugged

Max Raabe

Pop - Released November 22, 2019 | We Love Music

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Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen (Live)

Bayreuther Festspielorchester

Opera - Released January 11, 2009 | Opus Arte

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Wagner : Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90

Wolfgang Sawallisch

Full Operas - Released May 18, 2018 | Orfeo

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason
An enemy of fashion and glitz who shunned cocktails and society dinners, Wolfgang Sawallisch was a humble, retiring man whose life was wholly dedicated to music and music alone. Behind what might seem like a well-worn cliché of the "honest man", he was surely one of the greatest artists of his generation. An exceptional pianist, he would sometimes accompany his friend Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau through memorable nights dedicated to Schubert's great cycles. A conductor, he knew the whole repertoire by heart, not only working with an orchestra but also taking to the piano with all the singers. He was a Kapellmeister in the most elevated sense of the term. Between 1971 and 1992 he made his hometown’s Munich Opera (Bayerische Staatsoper) one of the greatest stages in the world, offering performances of an utterly exceptional standard. The gradual seizure of power by producers would put an end to a collaboration which had produced so many unforgettable nights. Sawallisch went on to enjoy a kind of Indian summer as a conductor in his final years, at the head of the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he encountered huge success. First and foremost a performer of Wagner, Wolfgang Sawallisch first made his mark on Bayreuth in his youth, when, in 1962, he conducted landmark performances. The archives of the festival are full of recordings which are slowly being released, whose almost-identical distributions on different dates have sown confusion. Sawallisch conducted Tristan and Isolde with the legendary couple Birgit Nilsson/Wolfgang Windgassen several times, for the festivals in 1957, 1958 and 1959, well before the sensational version conducted by Karl Böhm. This new release covers the night of 26 July 1958 (so it is not a cover of the version released by MYTO of the show on 21 August of the same year). The doomed lovers are given an exceptional treatment under the electrifying baton of a young Sawallisch. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Bach Motets

Solomon's Knot

Classical - Released June 16, 2023 | Prospero Classical

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Echo: Schubert, Loewe, Schumann & Wolf

Georg Nigl

Classical - Released May 5, 2023 | Alpha Classics

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama
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Bach: St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244 by Otto Klemperer

Otto Klemperer

Classical - Released March 4, 2023 | Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording

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The Unreleased Masters

Jessye Norman

Classical - Released March 24, 2023 | Decca Music Group Ltd.

Jessye Norman was always protective of her art and the sound image she projected, no different with these unreleased recordings. However, with the approval of her loved ones, they’re now being released post-mortem.This new release (which is available in a lavish, physical limited edition) features three of Jessye’s recordings done between 1988 and 1998, when she was at the height of her career. There are substantial excerpts from her extraordinary performance of Tristan und Isolde recorded with Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, featuring tenors Thomas Moser (Tristan) and Ian Bostridge (the young sailor) and soprano Hanna Schwarz (Brangäne).The rest of the programme consists of live recordings conducted by James Levine and Seiji Ozawa. With the former, Jessye Norman sings Strauss's Four Last Songs and Wagner's Wesendonck-Lieder in a recording that favours orchestral richness to the detriment of the voice. This may explain why the American singer chose never to release this recording, even though her hedonistic interpretation of Strauss's farewell to life is still striking. The album ends with a recital complete with orchestra, tailor-made for the diva in 1994 in Boston. It features two cantatas: Berenice che fai by Haydn and Phaedra, written by Benjamin Britten for Janet Baker. Nestled between the two, you’ll find a stunning rendition of Berlioz's The Death of Cleopatra. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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R. Strauss: Die Frau ohne Schatten, Op. 65, TrV 234 (Live)

Evelyn Herlitzius

Opera - Released April 3, 2020 | Orfeo

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Richard Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten, Op. 65 (1911), has been called the last Romantic opera, and it pushes singers to their limits. It requires powerhouse Wagner-Strauss specialists, especially in the lead female roles of the Empress and the Nurse, and it receives them here in Camilla Nylund and Evelyn Herlitzius, respectively. They make an impressive pair, with Herlitizius' slashing soprano a vivid counterpoint to Nylund's soaring one, but ultimately, Die Frau ohne Schatten is a conductor's opera. It failed at first, with its complex snarl of orchestral parts, and it requires a leader who can control all of the layers of sound. Those at this live 2019 production from the Vienna State Opera spoke in awe of conductor Christian Thielemann's cool, minimal gestures, seemingly at odds with the oversized fairy-tale story, but essential to communicating it musically. Strands of orchestral texture spring into focus and then link up with what is coming next, nor does he let the vocally virtuosic cast take star turns; they work as an ensemble. Orfeo's live sound has a minimum of interference with the listener's enjoyment. Whatever one thinks of Thielemann, this is a major notch in his baton. © TiVo
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Bach : St Matthew Passion (Matthäus-Passion)

René Jacobs

Masses, Passions, Requiems - Released October 7, 2013 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Choc de Classica - Choc Classica de l'année
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Der perfekte Moment… wird heut verpennt

Max Raabe

Pop - Released October 27, 2017 | We Love Music

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J.S. Bach: Organ Works, Vol. 5

Masaaki Suzuki

Classical - Released March 1, 2024 | BIS

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Masaaki Suzuki's Bach organ recordings, something of a labor of love after the completion of his magisterial cantata cycle, have been well-received; this one landed on classical best-seller charts in early 2024. It is the second of a pair recorded on a 1737 organ at the Stiftskirche St. Georg in Grauhof, Lower Saxony, Germany. The builder was Christoph Treutmann, one of the greats of the age, and if it is not an organ Bach played, it is certainly one he would have regarded as state-of-the-art. Both this release and its predecessor, Vol. 4 in Suzuki's series, feature intricate chorale settings from the Orgelbüchlein, played on this organ and tied to the liturgical year; this volume features chorales for Easter (and the album was released just in time for that holiday) along with other settings and a few framing preludes and fugues. Suzuki on the organ is recognizably the same musician who led the Bach Collegium Japan on his famed cantata recordings; he is lofty, precise, and warm. The Treutmann organ is ideal for both the repertory and the performer; in many registrations it has an edgy, rather acid sound that clarifies Bach's complex polyphony beautifully. Also, sample the double setting of "Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier," with its contrasting textures. The BIS label's well-known engineering expertise is applied profitably to this small German church on a recording that one suspects Bach would have greatly admired.© James Manheim /TiVo