Schedule

Das Rheingold is the prologue to Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. This rendition (2003) features the Staatsoper Stuttgart under the baton of conductor Lothar Zagrosek. Tonight’s soloists are Wolfgang Probst, Motti Kastón, Bernhard Schneider, Robert Künzli, Esa Ruuttunen, Eberhard Francesco Lorenz and Roland Bracht. With beautiful orchestration and an unerring sense of the dramatic, the first opera explains how the Rhinedaughters lost the Ring and how it fell into the hands of Alberich the Nibelung; Wotan, king of the gods; and Fafner the giant. Each time it changes hands, the Ring confers upon the bearer a curse and this pattern is set to continue until it is restored to its rightful owners, the daughters of the Rhine.

This performance was recorded during Mozart Week on January 27, 2006 in Salzburg, Austria, at the Großes Festspielhaus (Large Festival House) in celebration of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 250th birthday. Under conductor Riccardo Muti, it features Thomas Hampson (baritone), Mitsuko Uchida (piano), Gidon Kremer (violin), Yuri Bashmet (viola), Wiener Singverein, and Wiener Philharmoniker. Pieces include Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, Sinfonia concertante in E-flat major, K. 364, arias and scenes from Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro, The Magic Flute and Symphony No. 35 in D major, K. 385 ("Haffner").

Throughout the centuries, the Italian city of Naples has proved to have a remarkably favorable climate for artistic innovation. The presence of the royal or vice royal courts, the practice of music in churches, fraternities, and charitable institutions, financial support from well-to-do citizens, and the popularity of song and dance in public life made for an extraordinarily diverse musical landscape.

The Berliner Philharmoniker, Daniel Barenboim and Claudio Abbado star at the Europakonzert 1994 in Meiningen, Germany, performing Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 and Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. Popularly known as the Emperor Concerto and composed in Vienna between 1809 and 1811, Piano Concerto No. 5 is Beethoven’s last completed piano concerto and often performed by star pianists such as Daniel Barenboim. A few decades later in 1877, Brahms completed his Second Symphony, which is often compared to Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony given its cheerful and pastoral character.

Tenor Jihoon Son (South Korea, 1990) performs ‘Di rigori armato il seno’ from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier; ‘Languir per una bella’ from Gioachino Rossini’s L'italiana in Algeri; and ‘Salut! Demeure chaste et pure’ from Charles Gounod’s Faust, during the first round of the Voice Edition of the Concours musical international de Montréal 2022 (CMIM). This performance was recorded at the Bourgie Hall of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Can we get into Beethoven’s creative mind, especially in the last phase of his life, when he was coping with severe hearing loss? Tom Beghin’s new recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Opus 109, 110, and 111 is an artistic exploration of how Beethoven’s musicking was shaped by the work environment he created with the help of colleagues and friends. Not only does pianist Tom Beghin perform Beethoven’s trilogy of pianistic masterpieces on a magnificent new replica of Beethoven’s Broadwood piano, he uses a reconstruction of the Gehörmaschine that was mounted on the composer’s piano so he could continue to create music as his hearing declined. ‘You do hear better when you bring your head under this machine, don’t you?’ André Stein asked Beethoven. Two centuries later, we too can bring our heads under the machine and wonder: Do we hear Beethoven differently? Beghin draws us inside the hearing machine, where we feel as well as hear the essence of Beethoven’s rambunctious and irresistibly poetic musical vibrations. Inside the Hearing Machine invites us into the multisensory playground of a deaf composer for whom the machine was more than a hearing aid and who interacted with his instrument through much more than sound.

From the Rammenau Castle, the Gewandhaus-Quartett presents Mozart's String Quartet No. 21 in D major, K. 575. Nicknamed The Violet, this piece was composed in 1789 and is the first of the Prussian Quartets, a series of plays written for Friedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and amateur cellist, in a style similar to Joseph Haydn's quartets. Founded in 1808, the Gewandhaus-Quartett is the oldest quartet in the world, continuously performing for more than 200 years. It is currently composed of Frank Michael Erben (first violin), Conrad Suske (second violin), Volker Metz (viola), Jürnjakob Timm (cello), and Steffen Adelmann (double bass).

Sir Simon Rattle conducts the Berliner Philharmonic during the 2008 edition of the Europakonzert, held in the renowned hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. The first edition of the Europakonzert was in 1991, and since then, the founding of the Berlin Philharmonic on May 1st in 1882 is annually celebrated with a concert in a European city of cultural significance. The orchestra opens with an outstanding performance of Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements.

Chinese pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei performs J. S. Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) at the Leipzig Bach Festival. This June 2014 concert was recorded at St. Thomas Church, where Bach spent most time of his career as 'Thomaskantor', the musical director of the Thomanerchor church choir. The Goldberg Variations consist of one aria and a set of 30 variations. The work was first published in 1741 and was named after harpsichordist Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. In contrast to melodic variations on a theme, the Goldberg Variations do not follow the melody, but rather use the aria's bass line and chord progression. Every third variation in the series of 30 is a canon that follows an ascending pattern. The Goldberg Variations are among Bach's most celebrated works, which gained an even larger audience thanks to Glenn Gould's legendary recordings of the work in 1955 and 1981.

Soprano Karoline Podolak (Poland, 1993) performs ‘Je suis Titania’ from Ambroise Thomas’s Mignon; ‘Pieśń Roksany’ from Karol Szymanowski’s Król Roger; and ‘Ombre légère’ from Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Le pardon de Ploërmel, during the first round of the Voice Edition of the Concours musical international de Montréal 2022 (CMIM). This performance was recorded at the Bourgie Hall of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Watch the series ‘Discovering Masterpieces’, your audio-visual concert guide to the great masterpieces of classical music. The series brings you 20 half-hour documentaries on 20 classical masterpieces: acclaimed experts, famous soloists and outstanding conductors take you on a journey back to the time and place of composition. In today’s documentary, Ludwig van Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No. 5’ is discussed. The piece has the character of an appeal from the very start, when the four-note “fate” motif casts a spell on listeners. The German musicologist Armin Koch analyses the work, while the German Beethoven expert Wulf Konold illustrates the ingenious variations of the “fate” motif on piano, and also explains other features of this magnificent work.

Acclaimed classical music talent scout Antonio Mormone (1930-2017) lives on as the name-giver of the Premio Internazionale Antonio Mormone (PIAM), awarded to the winner of the Italian music competition of the same name. The first edition of this competition, which was held in various venues in Milan from 2019 to 2021, was dedicated to the piano. As part of this competition, Ying Li (China, 1997) performs Claude Debussy’s Images, book I; Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 1; and Franz Liszt’s Paraphrase from Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’. This performance was recorded at Teatro EDI Barrio’s in Milan, in February 2020.

Bruckner's Fifth Symphony has been called the "Medieval" because of its multi-layered, Baroque, contrapuntal tonal textures and the "Catholic" because of its solemn majesty. These designations are uniquely fitting to the work, Bruckner himself called it his "Fantastic," especially when it is performed at the Monastery of St. Florian, as on this recording. It is not without reason that Bruckner also called the Fifth his "contrapuntal masterpiece." Indeed, the incredible prominence of the finale arises from an almost fanatical contrapuntal interplay that bundles together the structures of the entire symphony into one homogeneous form and leads them together into a grandiose double fugue that is unique even for Bruckner. Franz Welser-Möst, Music Director of both The Cleveland Orchestra and the Zurich Opera, brought his U.S. ensemble to St. Florian in September 2006 for performances at the Linz Brucknerfest. Bruckner wrote the Fifth in 1875/76, but the work was not premiered until 1894, after it had undergone many revisions by the composer.

The Rina Sala Gallo International Piano Competition takes place every two years in the Italian city of Monza. Founded in 1947 by Monza-born pianist Rina Sala Gallo and Brescia-born pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, the competition is one of Monza’s most prestigious cultural events today. This broadcast featuring the three finalists’ best performances from the competition’s 26th edition, were recorded at the Villa Reale di Monza in October 2022. First, Young Sun Choi (South Korea, 1991) performs Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 106. After, Seunghyuk Na (South Korea, 1997) plays ‘Oiseaux tristes’ and ‘Alborada del gracioso’ from Maurice Ravel’s five-movement suite Miroirs. Next, Ivan Bašić (Serbia, 1996) performs Franz Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1. Lastly, Choi returns for a performance of Claude Debussy’s Images (Book I).