Author: steve_p

Recorded live at the Palau de les Arts “Reina Sofia”,
Valencia, this new video of Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold
is based on the staging of La Fura dels Baus, with Carlus Padrissa, stage
director, and featuring an international cast conducted by Zubin Mehta.

Premiered on 15 April 2008, The Minotaur is Harrison Birtwistle’s latest opera, and it stands well with the composer’s other stage work.

For many, the fine recordings of Richard Strauss’s tone poem Don Juan by the late Karl Bˆhm seem to have emerged full-spring from the baton of Karl Bˆhm and the playing of the various orchestras he led.

Pascal Dusapin (b. 1955) is an engaging composer, and his recent works includes a chamber opera entitled Faustus, the Last Night, a unique setting of the legend and a fine contribution to modern opera.

The legacy of the late conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli includes a number of fine recordings of Mahler’s music, and among them is his Deutsche Grammophon recording of the composer’s Fourth Symphony with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the soprano Edita Gruberova.

Among the important recent cycles of Mahler’s symphonies is the one underway by Valery Gergiev with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Following from the fine collaboration between Stephan Genz and Roger Vignoles on an ambitious collection of various sets of Mahler’s Lieder (Hyperion CD 67392), which includes some of the composer’s early settings of poetry from the anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the present recording contains thirteen later settings from that source.

Gustav Mahler was not alone in setting verses from Hans Bethge’s collection of Chinese-inspired poetry entitled Die chinesische Flˆte, as he did in his symphonic song cycle Das Lied von der Erde.

In the Euroarts series Discovering Masterpieces of Classical Music: Documentary & Performance, the volume devoted to BÈla BartÛk’s Concerto for Orchestra stands out as a particularly accessible and well-executed release.

The legacy of Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) includes some notable compositions, and among them is his unique setting of the Faust story.