Interactive Website Allows Users to Stream Mahler Recordings and Explore Deutsche Grammophon Catalog at No Cost

By -

Deutsche Grammophon & Decca Honor the 100th Anniversary of Mahler’s Death

Yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler. Today, Mahler’s works are performed and recorded frequently and enjoy an esteemed place in any orchestra’s standard repertoire. In 2010 Deutsche Grammophon & Decca celebrated the 150th anniversary of Mahler’s birth with the Mahler150.com website, and the site continues to honor Mahler this year. In addition, DG will release a rare archival recording of the composer’s Das Lied von der Erde featuring Fritz Wunderlich and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in a performance led by Josef Krips.

The Mahler 150 website, www.mahler150.com, is devoted to the composer and his music and offers full-track streaming of the complete Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Mahler catalogs featuring some 180 symphony recordings. Additionally, the comprehensive out-of-print section of over 60 albums includes important recordings that have become virtually unobtainable and legendary performances that are being made available for the first time digitally via the DG Web Shop. Simply select a symphony at the top of the site and then enjoy listening to a wide variety of recordings, both historic and recent. Listeners can compile their favorite playlist of Mahler recordings or simply sample DG and Decca’s library of great recordings.

As part of last year’s celebrations, DG & Decca asked listeners to vote for their favorite performances of the nine symphonies and unfinished 10th. The votes were tallied and the results were then turned into a box set, Mahler: The People’s Edition. Fully programmed by the general public, this unique box set allowed fans to make their voices heard as part of the Mahler celebration.

Deutsche Grammophon pays special honor to the 100th anniversary of Mahler’s death with a rare recording of Das Lied von der Erde. This live recording, taken from a sold-out concert during the Vienna Festival at the Musikverein on June 14, 1964, features Josef Krips leading the Wiener Symphoniker with soloists Fritz Wunderlich and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Released for the first time on CD, this recording comes from a unique source in the Krips family archive: a copy of the original ORF (Austrian Radio) tape which is no longer to be found. Saved from the vaults and lovingly restored by the expert engineers at the Emil Berliner Studios in Berlin, it is a marvel of singing from two great soloists and a great conductor who were all closely associated with this work. The album will be available May 24, 2011.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In &quo
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

The Art of String Quartets by Brian Ferneyhough

By -
Image
When an artist sets paint to canvas, there are brush strokes used for different effects. Sometimes those strokes are subtle, imperceptible; they produce works of art like the Mona Lisa . Other times the very obvious nature of the stroke is the art, as in works by Van Gogh. With some composers of music, the notes on the page are their craft. How those notes translate into an aural experience is what defines some composers as great artists. Brian Ferneyhough has a masterful command of the techniques of putting notes on the page. These techniques are sometimes so subtle, even though written in black and white, they escape detection. Some of what he attempts with his music is just that, to escape detection, to bury the framework, diverting the ear away from the structure, so only the music is heard . The subtlety is so fine it is almost imperceptible. Even though he studied at several institutions, he is considered self-taught, studying scores from Boule
Read more