In celebration of the 75th anniversary of the greatest media event in classical music, Sony Classical released in 2015 a complete edition of all the works ever played at the Wiener Philharmoniker’s New Year’s Concerts. Performed in the “Golden Hall” of the Musikverein between 1941 and 2015, the iconic live performances were issued for the first time in a single box set of 23 CDs. Now, in 2020, this edition will be available as a 26-CD extended version, with all the new repertoire from the last five years compiled on three additional CDs.

La Traviata, Giuseppe Verdi very personal opera, was premiered in 1853 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. The first night was a fiasco, but after a few revisions the opera set out to conquer the world. La Traviata offers no scope for grandiose crowd scenes or historical pomp. In keeping with the intimate nature of the action, Verdi’s music reflects the inner feelings of the protagonists. The heroine, whose emotional state is determined by external circumstances, is in the centre of the story of emotional upheavals. Jürgen Flimm haunting staging stays close to Verdi’s intent. He focuses on the protagonists, showing their shakiness, emotions, despair, love, sacrifice and tragedy rather than concentrating on the abysses of the Parisian demi-monde. Eva Mei and Piotr Beczala are a perfectly matched couple. Her soft and flexible soprano and his lyrical tenor, marked by excellent diction, work very well together, joined by the “golden” voice of outstanding Thomas Hampson.

The Cleveland Orchestra will release a new audio recording of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor on Friday, December 1, 2023. Led by Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, the recording will be available worldwide for digital streaming and download in spatial audio on all major platforms. Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 was recorded live at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, the home of The Cleveland Orchestra, during two community appreciation concerts in the fall of 2021.

Written in the final year of his life, Schubert’s Mass No. 6 in E-flat major is often regarded as the composer’s own requiem. In this recording, The Cleveland Orchestra is joined by soprano Joélle Harvey, mezzo-soprano Daryl Freedman, tenors Julian Prégardien and Martin Mitterrutzner, bass-baritone Dashon Burton, and The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus.

Franz Schmidt is currently on his way to be recognized as one of the most important representatives of the post-Mahlerian, post-romantic symphonic tradition. Indeed, there is something about Schmidt's symphonies - the fourth in particular - that suggests a certain post-apocalyptic feeling, not in terms of any feeling of tragedy in particular but because it feels as if Schmidt are writing the somewhat sobering afterwords to the works of Bruckner and Mahler at the very end of the romantic era (the symphony dates from 1933).

Due to its disastrous Viennese premiere in 1954, Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Symphony in F sharp was quickly dropped from the repertoire. Yet this late masterpiece, along with Korngold's opera Die tote Stadt, found receptive audiences in the 1970s and has become one of his best-known works. The old criticisms against Korngold's traditional tonality, his conservative formal bent, and his professional Hollywood polish no longer matter; nor should his occasionally spicy dissonances, angular melodies, and ambitious orchestration prove an obstacle to appreciation. Korngold's dense and dramatic symphony may be regarded either as a late development of Mahlerian post-Romanticism or as an offshoot of tonal Modernism, as practiced by Shostakovich and Prokofiev.

On Igor Levit’s double album “Tristan” the pianist explores nocturnal themes of love and death, fear, ecstasy, loneliness & redemption in the music of Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Gustav Mahler & Hans Werner Henze. It includes Levit’s first concerto recording with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under Franz Welser-Möst with the album’s central work Henze’s “Tristan” for piano, electronic tapes and orchestra.

The third album on The Cleveland Orchestra’s label follows the ‘old-new’ pairing of their previous release, showcasing recordings of Prokofiev and Schnittke that cover both pre- and post-pandemic music making.

It was hard to muster much enthusiasm for Welser-Möst’s soft-grained, untheatrical approach to Mozart’s score and his careful avoidance of appoggiaturas, though it has to be admitted that the clarinet and basset-horn obbligatos — their players not credited in the program — sounded ravishing. Welser-Möst’s beat could certainly have been fueled by some extra zest, his syncopations by stronger incisiveness. Little was made of the explosive clashes of contrasting keys, Welser-Möst’s opera gentile dallyings replacing Mozart’s needed opera seria gravitas.

This production of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro caused a sensation when it first came out, stunning critics and audiences alike with its perfect balance of joyous humor, improvisatory brilliance, and always subtle music-making.

Here is a natural and effective coupling of spiritual-minimalist pieces from the Baltic and the Balkans; and how good it is to see this music at last on a major label with a top-flight international orchestra.
The benefits are clear in Kancheli’s Third Symphony, with its extreme contrasts of solo vocal keening and tutti Stravinskian outbursts. Here the spaciousness of EMI’s recording, made in Watford Town Hall, and the refinement of the LPO’s playing are clear gains over the rival Georgian performance (which comes with the added drawback of having been transferred a whole tone too high by the original Melodiya team). The mesmeric folk-derived lament which punctuates the structure was sung on the earlier recording by Rustavi choir-member Gamlet Gonashvili, for whose unearthly tenor Kancheli conceived it.

This stylish and beautifully sung and acted 2006 performance of Don Giovanni from the Zurich Opera House should be of strong interest to anyone who loves the opera. The production, directed by Sven-Eric Bechtolf with costumes by Marianne Glittenberg and particularly striking sets by Rolf Glittenberg, is visually and dramatically dazzling. The timeframe is contemporary, but the clever trompe l'oeil set suggests the infinitely receding stage depth that flourished in 18th century scenic design. Don Giovanni's palace is a cosmopolitan playboy's penthouse, and the costumes clearly define the social standing of the characters in modern terms.

With this opera, Verdi composed a true music drama. For this great early opera, he demanded from his librettist Francesco Maria Piave a text that would have “extravagance, originality brevity and sublimity.” Thomas Hampson made a triumphant début in the title role of Verdi’s Macbeth in this Zurich Opera production, with Paoletta Marrocu as his beautiful, power-hungry wife. In David Pountney’s hard-edged, post-modern production duality of man and woman is constantly brought into question. His Macbeth is not just a story about the usurpation of a crown with supernatural intervention, it resonates with symbolic references to the battle of the sexes and throws into sharp relief the link between power and gender. A strong supporting cast draws a top quality performance from the Zurich Opera Orchestra.

Hot on the heels of the Gramophone Award-winning account of Schmidt’s Fourth Symphony (1/96) Franz Welser-Most has turned his attention to another undervalued late-romantic Austrian masterpiece. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find this disc on the nomination lists for next year’s Awards.

The most comprehensive edition devoted to Gioachino Rossini marking his 150th anniversary.
Born in 1792, Rossini was the most popular opera composer of his time. Although he retired from the Opera scene in 1829, he continued to compose in other genres, including sacred music, piano and chamber works. He did gather his late works under the ironic title Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age), which veils a true collection of masterworks.