great compositions/performances: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Symphony No.1 in C minor Op.11, Claudio Abbado

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Symphony No.1 in C minor Op.11, Claudio Abbado

HarpsichordA6

Published on Feb 12, 2015

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Symphony No.1 in C minor Op.11

1. Allegro di molto
2. Andante
3. Menuetto: Allegro molto
4. Allegro con fuoco

The London Symphony Orchestra
Claudio Abbado Conductor

historic musical bits: Abbado conducts Prokofiev – Symphony No. 1 in D major ‘Classical’, Op. 25

Abbado conducts Prokofiev – Symphony No. 1 in D major ‘Classical’, Op. 25

ClassicalRecords

Uploaded on Nov 24, 2010

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

Symphony No. 1 ‘Classical’, Op. 25
I. Allegro 0:02
II. Larghetto 3:50
III. Gavotte: Non troppo allegro 8:09
IV. Finale: Molto vivace 9:40

Written in 1917.

Claudio Abbado, conductor
London Symphony Orchestra

Released in 1971.

ClassicalRecords is a Youtube channel where I upload some excellent performances from the LPs in my collection. I’m uploading these LPs because they are either not available on CD, out of print on CD, or just difficult to find.

Historic musical bits: Bedřich Smetana : “Die Moldau” / Karajan / Vienna Philharmonic

 Bedřich Smetana : “Die Moldau” / Karajan / Vienna Philharmonic

Michel R.

Uploaded on Sep 19, 2010

Bedřich Smetana “Die Moldau” conducted by Herbert von Karajan (with the Vienna Philharmonic) (1985)

• Music

  • “Smetana: The Moldau (From Má Vlast)” by Herbert von Karajan (AmazonMP3)

great compositions/performances: Claudio Abbado “Overture “The Fair Melusina” Mendelssohn

Claudio Abbado “Overture “The Fair Melusina” Mendelssohn

Addiobelpassato

Published on Jan 26, 2014

Overture “Zum Märchen von der schönen Melusine“,
op 32 by Felix Mendelssohn
London Symphony Orchestra
Claudio Abbado, conductor

• Music

  • “”Mendelssohn: Overture “”The Fair Melusine””, MWV P12, Op.32 – Allegro con moto”” by Claudio Abbado and London Symphony Orchestra (AmazonMP3)

Schubert Symphony No 8 B minor Unfinished Unvollendete Claudio Abbado ,great compositions/performances

Schubert Symphony No 8 B minor, D.759 (Unfinished) Unvollendete Claudio Abbado

La Casa di Davide

 

Published on Oct 31, 2013

Franz Schubert Symphony No. 8 in B minor commonly known as the “Unfinished Symphony” (German: Unvollendete), D.759
***Claudio Abbado conductor in Ferrara 1989
1.   Allegro moderato in B minor
2.  Andante con moto in E major 14:56
***Karl Leister solo clarinet 17:17
*****************************************************************************

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Franz Schubert‘s Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D.759 (sometimes renumbered as Symphony No. 7,^[1] in accordance with the revised Deutsch catalogue and the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe^[2]), commonly known as the “Unfinished Symphony” (German: Unvollendete), is a work that Schubert started in 1822 but left with only two movements—though Schubert lived for another six years. A scherzo, nearly completed in piano score but with only two pages orchestrated, also survives.

Many have theorized that Schubert may have sketched a finale that instead became the big B minor entr’acte from his incidental music to Rosamunde, but all evidence for this is circumstantial.^[3] One possible reason for Schubert’s leaving the symphony incomplete is the predominance of the same meter (triple meter). The first movement is in 3/4, the second in 3/8 and the third (an incomplete scherzo) also in 3/4. Three consecutive movements in basically the same meter rarely occur in symphonies, sonatas or chamber works of the most important Viennese composers.

 

Schubert, Symphony No. 8, third movement, first page, facsimile, 1885, in J. R. von Herbeck’s biography

Schubert’s eighth symphony is sometimes called the first Romantic symphony due to its emphasis on expressive melody, vivid harmony and creative combinations of orchestral tone color despite the architecturally imposing Classical structures of its two completed movements highlighted by the dramatically climactic development section of the first movement based solely on its quietly sinister opening theme.

To this day, musicologists still disagree as to why Schubert failed to complete the symphony. Some have speculated that he stopped work in the middle of the scherzo in the fall of 1822 because he associated it with his initial outbreak of syphilis—or that he was distracted by the inspiration for his Wanderer Fantasy for solo piano, which occupied his time and energy immediately afterward. It could have been a combination of both factors.

Early history

In 1823, the Graz Music Society gave Schubert an honorary diploma. He felt obliged to dedicate a symphony to them in return, and sent his friend Anselm Hüttenbrenner, a leading member of the Society, an orchestral score he had written in 1822 consisting of the two completed movements of the Unfinished plus at least the first two pages of the start of a scherzo. This much is known.

What may never be known, is how much of the symphony Schubert actually wrote, and how much of what he did write he gave to Hüttenbrenner. The following exists:

• The first two movements, complete in full score
• The first two pages of a scherzo in full score

The rest of the scherzo (except for the missing second strain of the trio) exists in a separate manuscript in short score (not sent to Hüttenbrenner, but found among Schubert’s copious manuscripts after his death and carefully preserved by his devoted schoolteacher brother Ferdinand), but nothing of any fourth movement.^[4] A fourth movement finale in the home key (B minor) would have been the norm for any symphony written at that time, but there is no direct evidence that Schubert ever started work on it. It has, however, been surmised that the most extended Entr’acte from Rosamunde (also in B minor, in the same style of the first movement and with the same instrumentation as the symphony) was indeed that fourth movement, which Schubert recycled by inserting it into his Rosamunde incidental music composed in early 1823 just after the Wanderer Fantasy.

The Schubert scholar Brian Newbould, who harmonized, orchestrated and conjecturally completed the piano sketch of the scherzo, believed this to be true; but not all scholars agree. Pages appear to have been torn out after the beginning of the scherzo in the full score sent to Hüttenbrenner, in any event.

That Hüttenbrenner neither had the work performed, nor even let the society know he had the manuscript is curious and has spawned various theories. Was he given an incomplete score by Schubert and was waiting for the rest before saying anything? If so, he waited in vain throughout the six remaining years of Schubert’s life. After Schubert’s premature death in 1828 (of typhus as a complication of syphilis), why didn’t Hüttenbrenner then make the existence of the manuscript known? Do the torn pages suggest he had somehow damaged the piece and managed to lose, or even inadvertently destroy, the last two movements?^[5] Was guilt therefore the reason he kept silent about the work’s existence for 37 years after Schubert died? Could personality factors like introvertedness or jealousy have been at play here?

Old age and approaching death seem to have influenced Hüttenbrenner to reveal the work to an important and gracious visitor at long last (in 1865, when he was 76 and had only three more years to live). This was the conductor Johann von Herbeck, who premiered the extant two movements on 17 December 1865 in Vienna, adding the brilliantly busy but expressively lightweight perpetual-motion last movement of Schubert’s 3rd Symphony in D major, as an inadequate finale, expressively quite incompatible with the monumental first two movements of the Unfinished.^{[original research?]} The performance was nevertheless received with great enthusiasm by the audience.^[6] The score of those two movements was not published before 1867.

The Unfinished Symphony has been called No. 7 (recently, for example, in the New Schubert Edition) instead of No. 8 as it usually is, since the other work sometimes referred to as Schubert’s 7th (in E major, completed by Felix Weingartner) was also left incomplete but in a different way, with at least fragments of all four of its movements in Schubert’s hand.

The completed portion

The two complete, and completely orchestrated movements, which are all of the symphony as it is performed in the concert repertoire, are:

First movement: Allegro moderato in B minor

It opens in sonata form, softly in the strings, followed by a theme shared by the solo oboe and clarinet. A typically laconic Schubertian transition consists of just four measures for the two horns, effectively modulating to the submediant key of G major (mm. 38-41). The second subject begins with a celebrated lyrical melody in that key, stated first by the celli and then by the violins (sometimes drolly sung to Sigmund Spaeth‘s words as “This is … the sym – phoneee … that Schubert wrote but never fin-ished”) to a gentle syncopated accompaniment. This is interrupted by a dramatic closing group alternating heavy tutti sforzandi interspersed with pauses and developmental variants of the G major melody, ending the exposition.

An important moment in the first movement occurs in measure 109 (and repeats in the recapitulation in measure 327). In these measures, Schubert holds a tonic ‘B’ pedal in the second bassoon and first horn under the dominant F♯ chord, that evokes the end of the development in Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. Unfortunately, a well-meaning but inexperienced editor removed this dissonance by altering the second bassoon and first horn part. Conductors must check these parts carefully to make sure that the ‘B’ pedal is intact.^[7]

Unusual for sonata form, the development section begins with a quiet restatement of the opening theme in the subdominant (E minor) (a tonality usually reserved for near the end of a sonata form movement somewhere in the recap or coda) and rises to a prolonged climax in the same key, starting with a dramatic variant of the first theme in the full orchestra with prominent trombones. The expected relative (D) major of the tonic (B) minor first appears only at the end of that climax, and then again for the second subject of the recap (in place of the expected tonic B major)—instead of much earlier, in the second subject of the exposition, as customary. The flutes and oboes then resume their melodic role at the end of that dramatic outburst, transitioning to the recapitulation.

The recapitulation consists mostly of orthodox sonata-form restatement of the themes, except that Schubert restates the melodious second theme in the mediant D major instead of the usual B major (parallel to the tonic B minor). The dramatic closing section, however, does end in B major, and leads to a coda in the tonic B minor. This recalls the opening theme for still another, final, dramatic reworking to pave the way for the emphatic concluding chords.

Second movement: Andante con moto in E major

The second movement alternates two contrasting themes in sonatina form (sonata form without development, with a quietly dramatic, elegiac, extended coda that could be characterized as a concluding development section). The lyrical first is introduced by the horns, low strings, brass, and high strings playing in counterpoint. The plaintive second, in minor, after four simple unharmonized notes in transition spelling out the tonic chord of the relative C-sharp minor quietly by the first violins, begins in the solo clarinet in C-sharp minor and continues in the solo oboe in C-sharp major in an example of the major-minor juxtapositions that are a hallmark of Schubert’s harmonic language.

A dramatic closing theme in the full orchestra returns to C-sharp minor, but ends in D-flat major (the enharmonic equivalent of C-sharp major). A short transition back to the tonic E major ushers in the recapitulation—notable for how it restates the second theme in the subdominant A minor (instead of the expected tonic parallel E minor) begun by the oboe and continued by the clarinet (vice versa to their roles in the exposition). The coda starts with a new theme that is simply an extension of the two-bar E major cadential figure that opens the movement. This gives way to the laconic triadic first-violin transition motto, which leads to a restatement of the first theme by the woodwinds in distant A-flat major followed by the motto again leading back to the tonic E major for a final extended transformation of the first theme, leading in term to a final extended version of the opening cadential figure that reappears to close.

Third and fourth movements

The fragment of the scherzo intended as the third movement returns to the tonic B minor, with a G major trio. The first thirty measures are preserved in full score, but the entire rest of the scherzo proper (both strains) only in short score. Only the first strain of the trio exists, and that as a mere unadorned, unharmonized single melodic line. The second strain is entirely absent.

After Hüttenbrenner’s release of the two completed movements of the Unfinished to Herbeck, some music historians and scholars took much trouble to “prove” the composition complete even in the truncated two-movement form, and indeed that abbreviated structure alone has captivated the listening public to consider it as one of Schubert’s most cherished compositions. The fact that classical tradition was unlikely to accept that a symphony could end in a different key from the one it began in (with the B minor first movement and the E major finale by default incomplete), and the even more undeniable fact that Schubert had begun a third movement in B minor (of which the score he gave to Hüttenbrenner included precisely 30 bars of fully orchestrated scherzo and 112 succeeding bars in short score), stands against the view that the two completed movements are self-sufficient and can legitimately stand alone by themselves.^[8]

Reception

Reviewing the premiere of the symphony in 1865, the music critic Eduard Hanslick wrote:

When, after a few introductory bars, clarinet and oboe sound una voce a sweet melody on top of the quiet murmuring of the strings, any child knows the composer and a half-suppressed exclamation “Schubert” runs hummingly through the hall. He has hardly entered, but it is as if you knew his steps, his very way of opening the door… The whole movement is a sweet stream of melodies, in spite of its vigor and geniality so crystal-clear that you can see every pebble on the bottom. And everywhere the same warmth, the same golden sunshine that makes buds grow! The Andante unfolds itself broadly and [even] more majestically [than the opening Allegro]. Sounds of lament or anger rarely enter this song full of intimate, quiet happiness, clouds of a musical thunderstorm reflecting musical effect rather than dangerous passion… The sonorous beauty of both movements is enchanting. With a few horn passages, an occasional brief clarinet or oboe solo on the simplest, most natural basis of orchestration, Schubert achieves sound effects which no refinement of Wagner‘s instrumentation ever attains. (translated from the original German)

He ended by stressing that the symphony is among Schubert’s most beautiful instrumental works.^[6]

Claudio Abbado Conductor: “Haydn Variations” Brahms, great compositions/performances

Claudio Abbado “Haydn Variations” Brahms

Ulrich Dünnebach

Variations on a Theme of Joseph Haydn, op 56a
by Johannes Brahms
Staatskapelle Dresden
Claudio Abbado, conductor

 

Alexander Glazunov Symphony No 5 in B flat major, Op 55, great compositions/performances

Alexander Glazunov Symphony No 5 in B flat major, Op 55

jvdesuit1

Published on Apr 29, 2014/2,628 views

(Gennadij Rozhdestvenskij, conductor – USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony

The symphony has four movements:
– 00:00 Moderato maestoso – Allegro
– 12:19 Scherzo. Moderato
– 17:46 Andante
– 28:29 Allegro maestoso
*********************************************************************

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, Op. 55 (also known as The Heroic^{[citation needed]}), was written by Alexander Glazunov from April to October 1895. Although in this symphony Glazunov returned to his conventional four-movement layout (his Fourth Symphony had only three) he frequently utilizes thematic transformation. Glazunov described it as “silenced sounds” and “an architectural poem”.^{[citation needed]}

Instrumentation

The symphony calls for a romantic orchestra of the following instruments:

3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 3 clarinets in B flat (3rd doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, bells, harp, strings

Overview

Glazunov dedicated his Fifth to Sergei Taneyev, a Russian composer, pianist, and teacher, and it was first performed at the Second Russian Concert at the Hall of the Nobility in St. Petersburg on 17 November 1896; the premiere was conducted by the composer himself. A Leipzig newspaper called the symphony “very profound” and “sparkling” and reported that the scherzo had to be reprised on opening night to the delight of the audience.

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Carl Maria von Weber, Konzertstück f-moll für Klavier und Orchester, Op.79. Alfred Brendel & London Symphony Orchestra: great compositions/performances

Carl Maria von Weber, Konzertstück f-moll für Klavier und Orchester, Op.79. Alfred Brendel & LSO

  Czarmuzyki Ewa Chamiec

Carl Maria von Weber Konzertstück f-moll für Klavier und Orchester, Op. 79 – Alfred Brendel, London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado — https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

Alan Hovhaness – Appalachian Symphony: make music part of your life series

FROM:  100yearoldWhiskey’s You Tube channel:

Alan Hovhaness – Appalachian Symphony

ALAN HOVHANESS – Symphony No. 60 (“To the Appalachian Mountains“)

In this 2005 recording, Gerard Schwarz conducts the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. Naxos is the official owner of this recording.

First Movement (0:00)
Photo #1: Sunrise at Canim Lake, by werner22brigitte
http://pixabay.com/en/sunrise-canim-l…
Photo #2: Sea of Fog, by MartinStr
http://pixabay.com/en/hochlantsch-mou…
Photo #3: Sunrise, by Silvicultrix
http://pixabay.com/en/sunrise-morgenr…
Photo #4: Ring, by MartinStr
http://pixabay.com/en/sunrise-mountai…
Photo #5: Sea of Clouds, by DeltaWorks
http://pixabay.com/en/sea-of-clouds-a…
Photo #6: Morning Sun, by kcssm
http://pixabay.com/en/dawn-sunrise-su…

Second Movement (10:42)
Photo #1: Glacier National Park, by dbmcnicol
http://pixabay.com/en/montana-glacier…
Photo #2: Great Salt Lake, by werner22brigitte
http://pixabay.com/en/great-salt-lake…
Photo #3: Nosedive, by Aperture
http://pixabay.com/en/fly-heli-mounta…
Photo #4: New Zealand, by Simon
http://pixabay.com/en/new-zealand-mou…

Third Movement (20:15)
Photo #1: Canton of Uri, by wernj
http://pixabay.com/en/sea-of-fog-wint…
Photo #2: Carinthia Winter, by KleeKarl
http://pixabay.com/en/austria-carinth…

Fourth Movement (23:29)
Photo #1: Säntis, by nitli
http://pixabay.com/en/s%C3%A4ntis-sno…
Photo #2: Clouds, by titigraf
http://pixabay.com/en/sky-clouds-moun…
Photo #3: Mountain Goats, by Steppinstars
http://pixabay.com/en/mountain-goats-…
Photo #4: Chipmunk, by LoggaWiggler
http://pixabay.com/en/chipmunk-cute-n…
Photo #5: Kamloops, by Werner 22brigitte
http://pixabay.com/en/rollig-hills-mo…
Photo #6: Paragliding, by Simon
http://pixabay.com/en/mountains-parag…
Photo #7: Hot Air Balloon, by LoggaWiggler
http://pixabay.com/en/balloon-hot-air…
———————————
If you’re interested in buying the CD/MP3, it is available at ArkivMusic:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/N…

And at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Symphony-60-A-H…

The CD/MP3 also includes Hovhaness’s Guitar Concerto No. 1 and Khrimian Hairig.

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Carl Maria von Weber, Konzertstück f-moll für Klavier und Orchester, Op.79. Alfred Brendel & LSO (make music part of your life series)

Carl Maria von Weber Konzertstück f-moll für Klavier und Orchester, Op. 79 – Alfred Brendel, London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado — https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

make music part of your life series: Gioacchino Rossini – Silken Ladder Overture

[youtube.com/watch?v=fswuE-IBU7E]

Gioacchino Rossini – Silken Ladder Overture

In this 1978 recording, Claudio Abbado conducts the London Symphony Orchestra. RCA is the official owner of this recording.

Photo: http://pixabay.com/en/marian-column-p…

This recording is no longer available on CD, but you can find alternate recordings of this specific overture on ArkivMusic:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/D…

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Modest Mussorgsky – Saint John’s Night on the Bare Mountain (Original score) / Abbado – LSO

The original Mussorgsky score (1867) and not the Rimsky Korsakov one (1886).

From wikipedia:
Night on Bald Mountain is a composition by Modest Mussorgsky that exists in, at least, two versions—a seldom performed 1867 version or a later (1886) and very popular “fantasy for orchestra” arranged by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, A Night on the Bare Mountain (Ночь на лысой горе, Noch’ na lysoy gorye), based on the vocal score of the “Dream Vision of the Peasant Lad” (1880) from The Fair at Sorochyntsi with some revisions, most notably the omission of the choir.[citation needed] There is also a version orchestrated by twentieth-century conductor Leopold Stokowski; this is the version used in the now-classic 1940 Walt Disney animated film Fantasia.

Inspired by Russian literary works and legend, Mussorgsky made a witches’ sabbath the theme of the original tone poem, completed on 23 June 1867 (St. John’s Eve). St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain and Rimsky-Korsakov’s “musical picture” Sadko (also composed in 1867) share the distinction of being the first tone poems by Russian composers.

As with so much of Mussorgsky’s music, the work had a tortuous compositional history and was arranged after his death in 1881 by his friend and fellow member of The Mighty Handful Rimsky-Korsakov. It was never performed in any form during Mussorgsky’s lifetime.[2] The Rimsky-Korsakov edition premiered in 1886, and has become a concert favorite.

Setting:
Russian legend tells of a witches’ sabbath taking place on St. John’s Night (June 23–24) on the Lysa Hora (Bald Mountain), near Kiev.

Program:
The following program is taken from the score: Сбор ведьм, их толки и сплетни (Assembly of the witches, their chatter and gossip) Поезд Сатаны (Cortège of Satan) Чёрная служба, Messe noire (Black service, Black mass) Шабаш (Sabbath)

More details and a variation to this program may be found in a letter written by the composer to Vladimir Nikolsky: “So far as my memory doesn’t deceive me, the witches used to gather on this mountain, gossip, play tricks and await their chief — Satan. On his arrival they, i.e. the witches, formed a circle round the throne on which he sat, in the form of a kid, and sang his praise. When Satan was worked up into a sufficient passion by the witches’ praises, he gave the command for the sabbath, in which he chose for himself the witches who caught his fancy. –So this is what I’ve done. At the head of my score I’ve put its content: 1. Assembly of the witches, their talk and gossip; 2. Satan’s journey; 3. Obscene praises of Satan; and 4. Sabbath… The form and character of the composition are both Russian and original”.

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Make Music Part of Your Life Series: Max Bruch – Cancona für Violoncello und Orchester op. 55

Max Bruch (1838-1920) – Cancona für Violoncello und Orchester B-Dur op. 55

Julius Berger – Violoncello
Nationales Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Polen
Antoni Wit – Dirigent

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Great Compositions/Performances: Beethoven – Symphony No 2 in D major, Op 36 – Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Christian Thielemann, conductor

[youtube.com/watch?v=JNsIe5AeEwI]

Beethoven – Symphony No 2 in D major, Op 36

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Christian Thielemann, conductor

This symphony consists of four movements:

1. Adagio molto, 3/4 – Allegro con brio, 4/4
2. Larghetto, 3/8 in A major
3. Scherzo: Allegro, 3/4
4. Allegro molto, 2/2

A typical performance runs 33 to 36 minutes.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Portrait of Beethoven in 1803, a year after the premiere of his Second Symphony.

The Symphony No. 2 in D major (Op. 36) is a symphony in four movements written by Ludwig van Beethoven between 1801 and 1802. The work is dedicated to Karl Alois, Prince Lichnowsky.

 

Background

 

Beethoven’s Second Symphony was mostly written during Beethoven’s stay at Heiligenstadt in 1802, at which time his deafness was becoming more apparent and he began to realize that it might be incurable. The work was premiered in the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on 5 April 1803, and was conducted by the composer. During that same concert, the Third Piano Concerto and the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives were also debuted.^[1] It is one of the last works of Beethoven’s so-called “early period”.

 

Beethoven wrote the Second Symphony without a standard minuet; instead, a scherzo took its place, giving the composition even greater scope and energy. The scherzo and the finale are filled with vulgar Beethovenian musical jokes, which shocked the sensibilities of many contemporary critics. One Viennese critic for the Zeitung fuer die elegante Welt (Newspaper for the Elegant World) famously wrote of the Symphony that it was “a hideously writhing, wounded dragon that refuses to die, but writhing in its last agonies and, in the fourth movement, bleeding to death.”^[2]

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Beethoven “12 Contredances”

12 Contredances for small Orchestra WoO 14 
by Ludwig van Beethoven
Chamber Orchestra Berlin
Helmut Koch, conductor
1970

 

Fabulous Performers: Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsody No.6, Martha Argerich 1966

A turbulent interpretation of one of Liszt’s many rhapsodies. Interesting to note her getting carried away in the final (and maniacal!) octaves nearing the end. Looks like even Martha can get the better of Martha…

Filmed in Munich, 1966.

 

Fabulous Composers/Compositions: Maurice Ravel – Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie

Maurice Ravel – Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie:

“Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie”, written in 1898 but unpublished, is a work for orchestra by the french composer Maurice Ravel, intended as the overture for an opera of the same name. It was first performed at a concert of the Société Nationale on 27 May 1899, conducted by the composer.

Conductor: Claudio Abbado & London Symphony Orchestra.

 

J. Brahms – Rhapsody Op.79 No.1 in B Minor: Agitato – Martha Argerich

Johannes Brahms
Rhapsody Op.79 No.1 in B Minor: Agitato
Martha Argerich: piano
(From her debut recital!)

 

Maurice Ravel – Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie

“Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie”, written in 1898 but unpublished, is a work for orchestra by the french composer Maurice Ravel, intended as the overture for an opera of the same name. It was first performed at a concert of the Société Nationale on 27 May 1899, conducted by the composer.

Conductor: Claudio Abbado & London Symphony Orchestra.

 

Johann Strauss II: Emperor Waltz Op 437

Kaiser-Walzer op.437 (Emperor Waltz). Author: Johann Strauss II (1825-1899).
Conductor: Claudio Abbado & Wiener Philharmoniker
Picture: Schloss Schoenbrunn, Vienna

W. A. Mozart – Symphony No. 35 in D major, K. 385 “Haffner” (Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Abbado)

Symphony No. 35 in D major, K. 385 “Haffner”
I. Allegro con spirito
II. Andante
III. Menuetto
IV. Presto

Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Claudio Abbado, conductor

Recorded at Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern, 2011

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 Symphony No. 35 in D major, K. 385, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1782 and is also called the Haffner Symphony. It was commissioned by the Haffners, a prominentSalzburg family, for the occasion of Sigmund Haffner’s ennoblement. The Haffner Symphony should not be confused with the eight-movement Haffner Serenade, another piece Mozart wrote on commission from the same family in 1776.  More…

Alfred Brendel, Claudio Abbado – Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.3 / Bruckner: Symphony No.7 (2005) (great sound)

Alfred Brendel, piano 
Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Claudio Abbado, conductor

0h01’00” – 0h36’35”
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Piano Concerto No.3 in C minor, Op. 37
01:03 I. Allegro con brio
17:58 II. Largo
27:25 III. Rondo. Allegro

0h39’45” – 1h40’55”
ANTON BRUCKNER
Symphony No. 7 in E major
39:49 I. Allegro moderato
58:53 II. Adagio
1:19:32 III. Scherzo. Sehr schnell
1:28:56 IV. Finale. Bewegt, doch nicht schnell 

Recorded live in Lucerne at the Concert Hall of the Culture and Concention Centre, on 10-12 August 2005

The famed Concert Hall of Lucerne hosted its first public performance with the opening of the 1998 Lucerne International Music Festival. Situated on the picturesque Vierwaldstättersee shore, the facility is also known by the acronym of its German name, KKL (Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern). It also contains a flexible performance and banquet space, the Lucerne Hall, as well as museum and exhibition space, meeting rooms, restaurants, and a rehearsal hall.

 Artec provided Design and Planning services covering Auditorium Acoustics Design and Background Noise and Vibration Control consulting for Culture and Congress Centre. The Architect for the facility was Jean Nouvel of Paris.