Posts Tagged ‘BR Klassik’

Magelone-Romanzen on Disc

Monday, October 16th, 2017

By ANDREW POWELL Published: October 16, 2017 MUNICH — Sony has released a remarkable recording of Brahms’s Magelone-Romanzen, Op. 33, complete with Zwischentexte prepared by German author Martin Walser. Christian Gerhaher sings the fifteen songs and recites two of the other three poems (the 1st, 16th and 17th) from Ludwig Tieck’s 1797 narrative not set […]

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Safety First at Bayreuth

Friday, August 19th, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: August 19, 2016 BAYREUTH — Clouds over Europe’s festivals this summer are as figurative as they are literal. The trouble is not lower standards or Regietheater, or even money, but has to do with Europe itself and macabre shifts that are gradually threatening the way of life accepted since 1945. Last […]

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Bayreuth Parsifal Due Online

Sunday, July 17th, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: July 17, 2016 MUNICH — Bayerischer Rundfunk confirmed on Thursday it will video-stream the premiere of Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s new staging of Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival. — when: 9:57 a.m. EDT on July 25, 2016 — where: www.br-klassik.de/concert Laufenberg is reportedly intent on exploring the religious aspect of Wagner’s 1881 […]

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St John Passion Streams

Friday, May 27th, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: May 27, 2016 NUREMBERG — Tired of paying for digitized concert-hall privileges? Here is a sumptuously sung, gloriously gratis (for the moment*) St John Passion from this city’s Lutheran Lorenzkirche, filmed in June 2015 as part of a drawn-out Bavarian Broadcasting project to mark “500 Years of the Reformation”: — Windows— […]

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BR’s Full-Bodied Vin Herbé

Friday, March 18th, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: March 18, 2016 MUNICH — It would be a novelty to hear Le vin herbé the way composer Frank Martin conceived it. The 1940 secular chamber oratorio reportedly soars when realized in concert by twelve French-singing voices, double string trio, double bass and piano — its lean forces yet complex harmony […]

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Muti Crowns Charles X

Thursday, January 14th, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: January 14, 2016 MUNICH — Framed by an andante Kyrie and a beguiling instrumental Communion marked grave, Cherubini’s 1825 Coronation Mass for Charles X is one handsome piece of music. No, its movements are not exactly symphonic. They sound bonded to the flow of the service, so much so that unset […]

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With Viotti, MRO Looks Back

Thursday, November 19th, 2015

By ANDREW POWELL Published: November 19, 2015 MUNICH — Eleven years ago the late Marcello Viotti quit as chief conductor of the Münchner Rundfunk-Orchester because he foresaw existential cuts in its budget. Happily the MRO survived, and today thrives. Tasked with exploring rare repertory, it is artistically the livelier of BR’s two orchestras, forcibly more […]

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BRSO Adopts Speedier Website

Friday, April 17th, 2015

By ANDREW POWELL Published: April 17, 2015 MUNICH — Although no news release hailed its arrival, a revamped website was launched today for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. It is faster, navigationally flatter, and better geared to mobile platforms than the old pages, criticized here. To enable the advance, domains have been set up liberating […]

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BR Campaign Runs Out of Gas

Monday, February 10th, 2014

By ANDREW POWELL Published: February 10, 2014 MUNICH — Creative exhaustion appears to have arrived for a whimsical, multi-year promotional campaign here. Its subject: the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Its budget and goals: inscrutable. The thing would never have seen the light of day in the U.S., if only for legal reasons, and its existence […]

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BR Chor’s St Matthew Passion

Thursday, March 28th, 2013

By ANDREW POWELL Published: March 28, 2013 MUNICH — Bayerischer Rundfunk chose to film Bach’s St Matthew Passion last month in the Herkulessaal, in blue light. Drafted for the mood-enhanced venture were Karina Gauvin, Gerhild Romberger, Maximilian Schmitt and Michael Nagy, the vocal quartet; Julian Prégardien and Karl-Magnus Fredriksson as the Evangelist and Jesus; the […]

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