CapriccioNR

"I simply cannot stop enthusing about Weinberg’s The Passenger. I’ve heard it three times now, studied the score, and every time I understand more of the beauty and greatness of this music. It is a work of consummate form and style and its subject extremely relevant." (Dmitri Shostakovich) In 1960, Lisa – formerly a guard at Auschwitz and now the wife of a West German diplomat – is on an ocean liner bound to Brazil. She thinks she recognises in another passenger a woman named Martha, a Polish prisoner under her direct jurisdiction. Through a series of flashbacks across two acts, eight scenes and one epilogue, the audience witnesses the final reckoning between two women as they attempt to escape their pasts. The Passenger premiered in 2010 at the Bregenz Festival. With this new production by Oper Graz composer Mieczysław Weinberg’s powerful Holocaust drama continues to gain international recognition.© Capriccio

Anton Bruckner burst out of the confines of the cathedral using that most secular of musical forms, the symphony. The creator of some of the 19th century’s greatest orchestral music, Bruckner cut a singular figure among his contemporaries. This new complete Bruckner Symphonies edition from Capriccio reassesses these enduringly enigmatic and complex works. Presented by the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and featuring all 19 available versions, the cycle is scheduled for completion in 2024, Bruckner’s 200th birthday. The second release, of Symphony No. 8 (1890 version) is performed by Bruckner Orchestra Linz conducted by Markus Poschner. © Capriccio

Franziska Lee has made a name for herself as an exceptional pianist capable of eliciting an orchestral palette of colours from the piano. Following her debut recording featuring an exclusively 20th-century French programme, Lee has devoted her second recording to British composers of the same period. Together they tell a story of their time, from Britten’s exuberant Holiday Diary, a joyful interlude between the wars, to Tippett’s escapist Piano Sonata No. 1, written on the eve of the Second World War. With effortless virtuosity and musical insight Franziska Lee shines a light on a lesser-known corner of the piano repertoire. © Capriccio

Alfred Schnittke’s film music encapsulates almost everything that characterises the Russian composer’s compositional style. A self-described polystylist, he began writing for film in the 1960s, penning 66 film scores between 1962 and 1984 for Soviet film companies. His method of drawing on the past was rejected by the avant-garde but embraced by filmgoers and – after he invited the film music expert Frank Strobel to condense his film scores into suites – concertgoers too. Volume five in this series of Schnittke’s film music presents music from the films Tagessterne ("The Stars of the day"), Der Liebling des Publikums ("The Favorite") and Vater Sergius ("Father Sergius"), recorded with Strobel and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. © Capriccio

"I find myself increasingly occupied with matters of the human soul, its sublimation and spiritual abyss. Certainly my opera The Ocean Betrayed betrays this preoccupation. This music has been to Hades and back, with Monteverdi and myself" (Hans-Werner Henze). Henze originated this storyline by following his fascination that he had of the work of the enfant terrible of post-war Japanese literature, Yukio Mishima (1925-1970), whose novel Gogo no Eiko forms the basis of the opera. This novel, like almost all of the author's creations, sketches a suffocating scenario of hopelessness in which the struggle for normality is doomed to failure. Henzes free-tonal score ties in with musically-dramatic principles of composition following the tradition of Richard Strauss. In symphonic interludes, the luxurious orchestra gives the eponymous hero a voice: the angry “betrayed sea”. © Capriccio

Mathis der Maler is the central composition of Paul Hindemith’s output for music theater. The reception began with its successful premiere of a symphony of three orchestral parts from the opera, in March of 1934 in Berlin. That was still before the composer was attacked in the National-Socialist press which prompted a defense of Furtwängler’s in a newspaper article titled “The Hindemith Case”. The opera wasn’t premiered until May 1938, in Zurich, where the Hindemith’s had emigrated to, before moving on to the United States. Much as Mathis, who found his political engagement in the Peasant’s War and his calling to paint solely for the glory of God to collide with the expectation to positions himself on religious matters during the Reformation, Hindemith found himself torn between his refusal to propagate for the Nazis, his urge to follow his inner voice, and the demand that he position himself against the regime. These highly acclaimed performances from 2012 at Theater an der Wien with Opera Star Roland Koch in the title role is finally now available here. -------- Mathis, Hofmaler des Erzbischofs: Wolfgang Koch Albrecht von Brandenburg, Kardinal und Erzbischof von Mainz: Kurt Streit Lorenz von Pommersfelden, Domdechant: Martin Snell Wolfgang Capito, Rat des Kardinals: Charles Reid Riedinger, Ein reicher Mainzer Bürger: Franz Grundheber Ursula, seine Tochter: Manuela Uhl Hans Schwalb, ein Bauernführer: Raymond Very Regina, seine Tochter: Katerina Tretyakova Sylvester von Schaumburg, Offizier: Oliver Ringelhahn Truchsess von Waldburg, Heeresbefehlshaber: Ben Connor Gräfin Helfenstein: Magdalena Anna Hofmann Der Pfeifer des Grafen: Andrew Owens Slowakischer Philharmonischer Chor Wiener Symphoniker Bertrand de Billy, conductor

Start of the most comprehensive Bruckner Symphonies Edition including all available 19 versions. Bruckner burst out of the confines of the cathedral using that most secular of musical forms: the symphony. It is with reflexive reoccurrence in music history that supposed performance traditions burn themselves into a score as if they were a given… and the more so, the further we get from the work’s creation. So many clichés and truths about his person and his work are at last being questioned or, if they aren’t yet, are overdue some scrutiny. It is an essential aspect of this edition to read and understand the text fresh and anew. Whence does Bruckner’s music come and whereunto does it point? With the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Capriccio could engage two of the best Austrian orchestras for this in total 19 versions counting cycle. With about 1065 minutes of music this complete symphonic edition will be finished in 2024, when we will celebrate Bruckner’s 200th Birthday. © Capriccio

One of the modules in the exhibition MusicaFemina – Women Made Music, presented in 2018 in Vienna, featured 100 female composers who have characterised female composition of music from the time of Sappho to the present day. When the exhibition was open for two months and viewed by 56,000 visitors, the poet, filmmaker and composer Sophie Reyer had the idea, inspired by her ancestresses, of composing 100 poetic texts to complement the series of 100 short biographies. She offered the 100 poetic passages as texts or audio portraits to contemporary composers for composition, with the poet eagerly creating postscripts for those particularly forgotten, those whom the female composers particularly wished to be remembered. The compositional work about the ancestresses was a voyage of discovery: into the history of the female composers; into one’s own history. This poetic-musicological project represents an impressive, profound snapshot of female composing, a poetic encyclopaedia, a first-time and unparalleled bridging of the chasm between historic and contemporary composing. it is an opportunity to take a look at the history of music and clear the path for further opportunities. © Capriccio

Ernst von Dohnányi was one of the most versatile and influential musicians of his time but his works are now seldom played. A gap which Capriccio want to fill now with this already fifth recording of his late romantical, sensual music, deeply rooted in the Austro-German classical tradition. An appetizer is the overture of the one-act opera Tanta Simona, which has plenty of that Italian flair to show for that runs through the opera’s plot. After its premiere in 1910, the Suite in F-sharp minor, Op. 19 became one of the most performed Dohnányi’s works, whereas the American Rhapsody, Op. 47, which is full of quotations with american folk melodies, was his last orchestral work, first performed in 1954 at Ohio University. Finally his 8 years younger colleague Leó Weiner shows us in his early composition, the Serenade in F minor (1906) apart from the influence of the German and Austrian romantics, typical Hungarian colors and rhythms. © Capriccio

"…our life is like jazz improvisation, it should always be spontaneous, always in the moment, and always free". (Nikolai Kapustin) Drawing parallels to another famous composer of symphonic jazz, Kapustin is occasionally considered a "Russian in Gershwin’s clothing". Most of his compositions are influenced by jazz and expertly combine jazz elements with those of the tradition from Bach to Prokofiev and Stravinsky. The aesthetic diversity with which classical garb and the stylistic devices of jazz are amalgamated in Kapustin’s output could be taken as the byword for all three compositions included on this recording. Only late – perhaps too late for Kapustin – did his catalogue of works reach greater international recognition. People who knew him, describe him as a man who never desired the limelight. Apparently, he was happiest when he was able to compose work after work in his apartment, far away from the public eye. © Capriccio

The present fifth volume of the Pancho Vladigerov Edition turns to an aspect of the composer’s genre that many other composers have never or hardly touched: orchestral songs. It is perfectly plausible that Vladigerov found himself exposed to this genre during his formative years in Berlin and Vienna, having enjoyed its heydays in those years he spent in those cities (Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Hans Pfitzner, Joseph Marx and others). Notably, Vladigerov always worked off poems by Bulgarian writers, not only when dealing with Bulgarian folk songs. Like many other 20th century composers from a host of different countries and ethnicities, Vladigerov delved deeply into the folk songs and folk dances of his homeland. These are songs and dances – some are still popular today, others nearly forgotten – that various ethnic groups in the country have developed over centuries. In these arrangements, the composing side of Vladigerov finds the perfect synthesis with his pronouncedly Bulgarian side. © Capriccio

When Zemlinsky died in 1942, there was no telling if or when posthumous recognition of his work would take place. Typical though his reception was for the 20th century – pockmarked by two world wars and Nazi rule, it remains remarkable just how differently Zemlinsky, born on October 14th, 1871, has been judged throughout the last 150 years. He had his works premiered at the Vienna Court Opera by Mahler. He commanded the utmost respect of his pupil and brother-inlaw Arnold Schoenberg. He was celebrated as the director of Prague’s New German Theatre. And yet, still in his lifetime, his work succumbed to political and stylistic changes; he had been persecuted and was forgotten. We’ve sort of come full circle: Zemlinsky is once again considered a great composer whose works don’t have to shy away from comparison with those of his famous contemporaries and whose music gets performed at least occasionally. With this special "Anniversary Edition" Capriccio revere the huge spectrum of his outstanding musically compositions. © Capriccio

When the German troops occupied Austria in 1938, Zemlinsky fled with his wife Louise via Prague to New York, with the short score of Canduales in his luggage. Zemlinsky attached great hopes of producing the piece at the MET but on account of the somewhat delicate bed scene in the second act they dismissed the production. Building a new existence once more remained denied to Zemlinsky. Only half a year after his arrival he suffered a stroke from which he was never fully to recover. For Zemlinsky’s 150th Birthday Anniversary, Capriccio presents a new remastered edition of this legendary first recording from 1996. © Capriccio --- James O'Neal, tenore (König Kandaules) Monte Pederson, bass-baritone (Gyges) Nina Warren, soprano (Nyssia) Klaus Häger, bass (Phedros) Peter Galliard, tenore (Syphax) Mariusz Kwiecień, baritone (Nicomedes) Kurt Gysen, bass (Pharnaces) Simon Yang, bass (Philebos) Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg Gerd Albrecht, conductor

“Slightly the audience remember that I’m – as a descendant of writing tonal music – still alive and continue composing” (Walter Braunfels, 1946). Walter Braunfels is a composer whose music died twice: once when the Nazis declared his music “degenerate art”. Then again when post-war Germany had little use for the various schools of tonal music; when the arbiters of taste considered any form of romantic music – almost the whole pre-war aesthetic – to be tainted. This 9th release of Capriccio’s Braunfels Edition shows us also an open-minded composer who experimented with Jazz elements in his Divertimento for Radio-Orchestra in 1929. © Capriccio

Nowadays Charles Villiers Stanford’s fame is largely based on his teaching activities in London while his reputation as a "great composer" has waned considerably. The list of his students reads like a veritable Who’s-Who of British music of the 19th and 20th century. Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arthur Bliss, Frank Bridge and several more were taught by Stanford. His œuvre covered a wide variety of sacred and secular music and his works carry within them elements of Irish folklore and mysticism. His many chamber works have a definite air of Brahms about them… never by way of direct quote or paraphrase, but by making Brahms’ style his own. © Capriccio

The positive response to Capriccio’s first recording of his Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet has enabled this series to be continued now with three works representative of Labor's oeuvre from the early 1890s. In Vienna, Labor was part of Johannes Brahms’s close circle of friends. Brahms particularly valued his composer colleagues who went their own way without copying him. Labor’s music is very skillfully composed, always sensuous, and first and foremost melodious; it does not require a too complete concentration on itself. A total of around eighty compositions have survived. Among them are practically no occasional works, which is connected to the fact that he was blind: for him composition was a luxury, insofar as he had to rely on the help of a scribe who had to commit the work to paper. © Capriccio

In Bulgaria, both folk and art music evince an ancient tradition that strikes awe even in some of the great music nations today. The way Pancho Vladigerov incorporated these folk-music themes into his concert pieces shows not only his affinity for them but also suggests that he felt something of a calling to promulgate and champion the folk-traditions of his central European homeland. The most-performed work of Pancho Vladigerov’s is undoubtedly his Bulgarian Rhapsody, Op.16 “Vardar” from 1922. The most outstanding must be his Seven Symphonic Bulgarian Dances, Op. 23 (1931), with which he might have wanted to create a counterpart to Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances, or Grieg’s Norwegian Dances or similar such popular aural nationalistic postcards. © Capriccio

The composers and educators Eugen Werner Velte and Wolfgang Rihm as well as alumni whose music is presented here demonstrate the characteristics of a school. The main function of an institution such as the University of Music Karlsruhe is first and foremost as a site for studies and second, a place for individual composition and pedagogic work. The Karlsruhe School is in no way a forced stylistic unit stubbornly passed along simultaneously as a solidified traditional framework. For 50 years, the University of Music Karlsruhe has radiated as a living, recreative phenomenon of this artistic freedom, extending far into a shared future. In the music of alumni taught by Wolfgang Rihm, ideals of musical freedom and openness continue to resound in concrete form. Jörg Widmann, Rebecca Saunders and Markus Hechtle, among others, contribute to the further development of the unique Karlsruhe School at their professional homes. © Capriccio

In the 1920s and 1930s, there was a multi-faceted musical scene in culturally flourishing Czechoslovakia. When we take a look at the works by Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, Hans Krása, Viktor Ullmann or Erwin Schulhoff, we can perceive a stylistically very similar course, conceivable against the given background as a ‘Prague School’ (as a counter-movement to the ‘Viennese School’). In Schulhoff’s early works, the features are a late Romantic approach influenced by Reger that later developed with an emphasis on rhythm in the direction of Expressionism and Neo-Classicism, also including jazz elements. The starting point is the Don Juan’ story, but the underlying idea in Beneš’ and Schulhoff’s work is not to present the colourful seducer, but the fate of a man driven by his desires and needs who cannot even remotely find happiness and peace in constancy. In his opera, Schulhoff brilliantly manages to find a different dramaturgical approach, on the one hand, and at the same time to pay a kind of alienated homage to Mozart’s work, on the other. © Capriccio