A versatile figure at home in lieder and in opera of several types, Katharina Konradi is the first major vocal star to emerge from the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan. Based in Germany, Konradi has appeared in operas by Mozart, Strauss, and Wagner. Konradi was born on June 13, 1988, in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek. Like many people in that city, formerly part of the Soviet Union, she grew up speaking Russian. At age 15, she moved to Hamburg, Germany. Although she spoke no German when she arrived, she succeeded in obtaining her Abitur (secondary school graduation) certificate at the Johannes-Brahms-Schule in Pinneberg in 2009.

Richard Strauss enjoyed early success as both conductor and composer, in the second capacity influenced by the work of Wagner. He developed the symphonic poem (or tone poem) to an unrivalled level of expressiveness and after 1900 achieved great success with a series of impressive operas, at first on a grand scale but later tending to a more Classical restraint. His relationship with the National Socialist government in Germany was at times ambiguous, a fact that protected him but led to post-war difficulties and self-imposed exile in Switzerland, from which he returned home to Bavaria only in the year of his death, 1949.

Mariss Jansons ranks among the outstanding podium personalities of our time. His orchestral work is recognized not only because of his busy touring activities but also because of television and radio broadcasts world-wide, also documented by a sizable number of recordings.

Mariss Jansons rehearses Ludwig van Beethoven´s Symphony No. 5 with the BRSO.

Mariss Jansons Jansons’s earliest memories were of his father, the conductor Arvid Jansons, conducting opera and ballet: ‘As a very small boy, three years old, I was always observing… I went to my father’s rehearsals. When I came home, I put my book on the table and started to conduct. I changed my trousers because they were for rehearsal, not for concert. I played at being artistic director, drawing up programmes for subscription seasons.’ He learned to play the violin in Riga, and in 1957 entered the Leningrad Conservatory, where he studied conducting with Rabinovich, as well as the piano and violin.

The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (German: Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, BRSO) is a German radio orchestra. Based in Munich, Germany, it is one of the city's four orchestras. The BRSO is one of two full-size symphony orchestras operated under the auspices of Bayerischer Rundfunk, or Bavarian Broadcasting (BR). Its primary concert venues are the Philharmonie of the Gasteig Cultural Centre and the Herkulessaal in the Munich Residenz.

Viktor Ullmann's one-act chamber opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis was written in the Theresienstadt camp and did not see its premiere until December 16, 1975 in Amsterdam, since the performance had been banned after its dress rehearsal in 1944. The concert performance of the version by Henning Brauel and Andreas Krause (Schott), which took place on October 10, 2021 at the Prinzregententheater in Munich, was recorded for this release. Alongside the internationally renowned Austrian Kammersänger Adrian Eröd in the title role, mainly young performers sang, accompanied by the Münchner Rundfunkorchester conducted by Patrick Hahn, who made his debut here as the orchestra's principal guest conductor.

Mariss Jansons ranks among the outstanding podium personalities of our time. His orchestral work is recognized not only because of his busy touring activities but also because of television and radio broadcasts world-wide, also documented by a sizable number of recordings.

"Increasingly, Shostakovich's music is captivating people all over the world and appealing to their deepest emotions. Almost like no other, it bears witness to a traumatic political epoch while remaining a timeless expression of existential human feeling and experience. For me personally", said conductor Mariss Jansons, who died two years ago, "Shostakovich is one of the most serious and sincere composers of them all".

Wolfgang Rihm is one of the most important contemporary composers of our time. The musician, professor of composition and author from Karlsruhe, Germany is a larger-than-life personality, and the contemporary music scene is impossible to imagine without him. His knowledge of music is all-encompassing, as is his mastery of the arts, literature and philosophy - all of which serve as sources of inspiration for his composing. With more than 400 compositions, he has created a universe that cannot easily be defined. Rihm has written New Music - the titles of his compositions have come to symbolize the musical history of recent decades. Other works by him refer to music history – they include, for example, oratorios inspired by Bach, orchestral works based on Brahms, or chamber music inspired by Schumann.

Wolfgang Rihm is one of the most important contemporary composers of our time. The musician, professor of composition and author from Karlsruhe, Germany is a larger-than-life personality, and the contemporary music scene is impossible to imagine without him. His knowledge of music is all-encompassing, as is his mastery of the arts, literature and philosophy - all of which serve as sources of inspiration for his composing. With more than 400 compositions, he has created a universe that cannot easily be defined. Rihm has written New Music - the titles of his compositions have come to symbolize the musical history of recent decades. Other works by him refer to music history – they include, for example, oratorios inspired by Bach, orchestral works based on Brahms, or chamber music inspired by Schumann.

All the works of the Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks on this CD are written for string orchestra: the three connected compositions 'Musica serena' (2015, dedicated to the Finnish conductor Juhga Kangas), 'Musica dolorosa' (1983) and 'Musica appassionata' (2002), and also Vasks' Concerto No 2 for Violoncello and Strings, also known as 'Klātbūtne' ('Presence', 2011/12). Vasks' three instrumental pieces here are light-hearted, tragic (dealing with the death of his sister as well as the political situation in Latvia at the time), and passionate, providing an overview of the diversity of his work across a timespan of almost three decades.

Two great symphonic organ concertos can be heard on the new album from BR-KLASSIK: the famous Organ Symphony by Camille Saint-Saëns and the lesser-known but highly impressive Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani by Francis Poulenc. The Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks is conducted by Mariss Jansons, and the organ soloist is the excellent Latvian musician Iveta Apkalna, one of the most renowned concert organists of our time.

It was as an obedient pupil of his father, the celebrated horn player Franz Strauss, that Richard Strauss began his musical career – entirely in the spirit of the classics and early Romantics, with proven forms and traditional genres. Strauss senior loathed Richard Wagner’s monstrous music dramas as well as the achievements of the “New German School” around Franz Liszt, with its avant-garde tone poems and extra-musical programmes. As Richard grew up, he shared his father’s views unquestioningly – but then found a mentor in Hans von Bülow, who, of all people, had once worked together very closely with Wagner. In 1885, Bülow engaged the 21-year-old Strauss as conductor of the Meiningen Court Orchestra. Its concert master, the radical Wagnerian Alexander Ritter, took the young man under his wing and acquainted him with the blessings of “progressive music” – with the result that Richard Strauss soon began composing symphonic poems himself.

The two eldest children of the music-loving banker Abraham Mendelssohn and his wife Lea were highly musical: Fanny, born in late 1805, and her brother Felix, who was three and a half years her junior. The lucky children enjoyed a carefree youth, in which music played a central role. While Felix became a famous composer and conductor, Fanny, according to the dictates of the time, had to subordinate her own composing talents to a role as wife and mother.