Beethoven wrote his Piano Concerto No. 3 around 1800, at a time in which the ambitious composer had created his first important works in Vienna, such as the “Pathétique” Sonata and the “Moonlight” Sonata – personal works full of power and passion, with which he distanced himself from his mentor and model, Haydn. This performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under the direction of its principal conductor Mariss Jansons stars the distinguished pianist Mitsuko Uchida, who is known the world over for her outstanding interpretations of the piano works of Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven, as well as of 20th-century masters such as Schoenberg, Berg, Webern and Boulez.

Mozarts Requiem may have been written under strange circumstances in the final months of the composers life, but the work itself it is timeless. Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus give a powerful and poignant performance of Mozarts masterpiece with an impressive group of solo singers, in a concert recorded live in Munich in May 2017.

For the sake of both vocal and family well-being, Anne Sofie von Otter has always followed the wise course of self-rationing in opera. This disc, an entirely personal selection of arias from the Viennese Classical period, means all the more to her including, as it does, arias sung by dramatic and passionate women 'most of whom', she admits in the accompanying notes, 'I have never performed on stage and, alas, probably never will'.

In honor of CPE Bach's 300th birthday, hänssler CLASSIC will be releasing an exciting series of recordings dedicated to the music of this well known but hitherto neglected Bach son during the first 3 months of 2014. At the beginning there are the so-called “Hamburg” symphonies Wq 182, interpreted with great sensitivity and bite, when necessary, by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra under the renowned conductor and former violist of the Berlin Philharmonic, Wolfram Christ. Maestro Christ sees these works as expressive pieces, open to multiple interpretations that invite the listener to experience them as almost Romantic in their gesture and content. Deciding on a fortepiano continuo instrument is not only a historically informed decision, but contributes to a perfectly balanced overall sound.

François Devienne (31 January 1759 – 5 September 1803) was a French composer and professor for flute at the Paris Conservatory. Devienne was born in Joinville, Haute-Marne, as the youngest of fourteen children of a saddlemaker. After receiving his first musical training as a choirboy in his hometown, he was playing in various Parisian ensembles as soloist and orchestra player.

Just before his death in 1828 at the age of just 31, Franz Schubert was at work on his 10th Symphony in D major D936a, and had signed up for counterpoint lessons with Simon Sechter, who later taught the young Anton Bruckner. The 10th was destined to become yet another unfinished Schubert work, and his 6th unfinished symphony, but the extensive sketches are fascinating and show Schubert clearly moving into new sound worlds that aniticipate Mahler in the central slow movement. Berio’s ingenious work ‘Renderings’ brings Schubert’s extensive sketches alive by creating a new work around and within the framework of the unfinished symphony.

This is surely a Winterreise too far. The finest interpreters – including, among tenors, Peter Schreier, Ian Bostridge and Christoph Prégardien – make the wanderer’s inner and outer journey through the snowbound landscape a cathartic experience. Hans Jörg Mammel, whose career has been largely in early music, musters a generalised sensitivity but never grips or haunts the imagination.

Valery Afanassiev on “WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART” Today we are too fond of clear-cut solutions and exhaustive explanations. Writers and film directors are supposed to shed light even on those nooks and crannies which should remain dark for the sake of perspective. And readers as well as cinema goers should remain in the dark about this and that for the sake of the same perspective, the same space, the same labyrinth. Alas, there are no more dark ladies either in sonnets or in novels. We have forgotten the aroma of unanswerable questions. And yet every masterpiece is an unanswerable question. And so is every artist of genius. In Pushkin's short tragedy Mozart and Salieri there are many unanswerable questions. Actually it ends with such a question: 'Is an evil deed compatible with genius?' (Gesualdo, who was unquestionably a composer of genius, killed his wife. But does this murder answer the question?)

Launching their complete cycle of Beethoven’s string quartets, the Cuarteto Casals present this first installment featuring initial examples of the genre from each of the three key periods in the composer’s career: his formative years, the socalled ‘heroic’ middle period and that of his artistic maturity. The ingenious juxtaposition reveals how his superhuman struggle for perfection informed a musical language of breathtaking originality in tandem with a depth of expression without precedent in this genre, of which Beethoven is the uncontested master.

This is the second fine Don Giovanni we have had within the past year. Like Gardiner (Archiv), Mackerras includes every note Mozart wrote for both the original Prague version and the Viennese revival. Moreover, it is easier than ever for listeners to ‘programme in’ their preferred version: all Prague die-hards have to do is to bypass Don Ottavio’s ‘Dalla sua pace’ in Act I – a beautiful aria, in all conscience, though it holds up the dramatic action at a crucial stage. By coaxing a modern orchestra into a real awareness of period style, Mackerras seems to have the best of both worlds: the playing has admirable liveliness and intensity, and there are none of the intonation problems that so often plague actual period instruments. Mackerras does use natural trumpets, and their rasping sound lends real bite, not least to the overture’s chilling opening chords. In his introductory essay Mackerras argues that Mozart’s Andantes in ‘cut-time’ (ie two beats to the bar) are often taken too slowly.

The calling card here is the use of an Amsterdam edition of Haydn's Op. 33 string quartets that reverses the order of some of the inner movements. It's never made clear why this edition should get priority over the dozens of others that circulated around Europe, with and without Haydn's consent, but so be it; there are some tempo novelties here that shed some light on how Haydn's music was received, at least in some quarters. There the good news ends.

As recommendable an album as anyone could wish, Carlos Kleiber's performances with the Vienna Philharmonic of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, and the Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, are classics that should always be within reach, and this disc should be passed along to friends as the single best pairing of these two pieces. Other performances of these symphonies are absolutely essential to know, and recordings by many great conductors and orchestras certainly compete with this Deutsche Grammophon album for listeners' affections.

This is a quite extraordinary achievement. Not the least of its merits is that it leaves you loving the music as never before. The orchestra gives splendid support and the sound is warm and ingratiating.

— Gramophone Magazine

With opera arias of Hasse, he has become the shooting star amongst countertenors; Valer Sabadus appeared in Mozart roles for the Styriarte in December 2013.
The Salzburg master wrote for some of the greatest castrati of his time: Rauzzini, Consoli, Bedini. The young interpreter must therefore sing up into the heights of the soprano range; he succeeds in this wonderfully, as he also does in the exploration of profound feelings. His mentor Michael Hofstetter is on the podium, adding the orchestra‘s pulsing Mozartian vitality to this flawlessly beautiful singing.

Does the name Sigiswald Kuijken mean anything to you? How about his brother Wieland Kuijken? How about the name of the string quartet they founded together with François Fernandez and Marleen Theirs in 1986, the Kuijken Quartet? No? It's not surprising. Although the players are among the finest Dutch period instrument musicians, with the Kuijken brothers having been frequent partners with harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt, the Kuijken Quartet has made only a few recordings for the Japanese Denon label, all of which got poor circulation outside of Japan and Europe and most of which have long since gone out of print.