Posts tagged as "wiener-staatsopernchor"

Mozart: Requiem; Masonic Music

April 28, 2016

Kertész’ orchestral Mozart has been well documented on Eloquence with many releases appearing on CD for the first time. Now, restored to the catalogue, is his dramatic, muscular reading of the ‘Requiem’. Stretching to 79 minutes, the disc is filled out with selections from the composer’s Masonic Music, with the ‘Maurerische Trauermusik’ bearing an uncanny resemblance […]

Haydn: Die Schöpfung; Little Organ Mass

April 20, 2016

The Creation is Haydn’s masterpiece, based on a lifetime of experience and reflecting the happy confidence of the eighteenth century. Although there are moments that presage the nineteenth century, it has none of the agonising of the Romantic period. Three years from the end of the eighteenth century it is a summation and celebration of […]

Richard Strauss Heroines

April 19, 2016

It is often said that Richard Strauss had a lifelong love affair with the soprano voice, and it is certainly true that many of his finest operatic roles were written with that voice in mind. In addition, the quality of his writing for sopranos regularly shows their instruments off to maximum advantage. Sopranos have genuine […]

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 8, 14, 21, 23, 24; Choral Fantasy

April 18, 2016

Born in 1912 in Dresden and taught there both by Hans Schneider and in the famous class of Robert Teichmüller, around the age of 30 Hans Richter-Haaser moved to Detmold. At first he took over the artistic direction of the city orchestra. But by 1947 he had already been entrusted with a piano masterclass. This must […]

Hans Knappertsbusch conducts Wagner

March 15, 2016

‘It’s Wagner’s opera: let’s present him and not ourselves!’ This remark by Hans Knappertsbusch to Hans Hotter as the singer was about go on stage as Gurnemanz at Bayreuth in 1964, was characteristic of the conductor’s attitude. Singers’ egos, directors’ concepts and designers’ flights of fancy had no place in the Knappertsbusch vision of Wagner’s […]

Hilde Gueden sings Operetta

March 5, 2016

Several countries have their light operas: the British their Gilbert and Sullivan, the Spanish their zarzuelas, the French their operettes. All of these display quite tight-knit styles but the operetta tradition of Austria and specifically Vienna, is more diffuse, reflecting the differing styles of folk music found in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. The world of […]