Carlo Maria Giulini, Wiener Philharmoniker – Bruckner: Symphonie No.9 (1989) [Japan 2019]
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 68:37 minutes | Front, Scans NOT included | 1,83 GB
or DSD64 2.0 Stereo (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Front, Scans NOT included | 1,66 GB
or FLAC Stereo (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Front, Scans NOT included | 1,44 GB
The Viena Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini performing Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor. The reissue of classical music masterpieces by Esoteric has attracted a lot of attention, both for its uncompromising commitment to recreating the original master sound. This series marks the first hybrid SACD release of historical recording selections. These new audio versions feature Esoteric’s proprietary re-mastering process to achieve the highest level of sound quality.
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Carlo Maria Giulini, George Szell – Lucerne Festival Historic Performances Vol. VIII – Annie Fischer plays Schumann – Leon Fleisher plays Beethoven (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:00:26 minutes | 383 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Audite Musikproduktion
The eighth disc in the series Lucerne Festival Historic Performances is dedicated to two piano icons: in 1960 and 1962, with two years between them, Hungarian-born Annie Fischer and the American Leon Fleisher made their debuts at Lucerne Festival. Released here for the first time in their entirety, these live recordings document them at the peak of their art.
Sviatoslav Richter called her a “brilliant musician”, accrediting her with “great breath and true depth”. András Schiff acknowledged: “I have never heard more poetic playing in my life.” Annie Fischer, born in Budapest in 1914, gave public performances even as a child, winning the International Liszt Competition in 1930 and after that, except during the war, touring worldwide. Nonetheless, she tends to be rated as an insider’s tip, not least because she left behind only a handful of studio recordings. That makes live recordings such as this, released for the first time, all the more precious: at her only performance in Lucerne in summer 1960, Annie Fischer realised a sensitive, chamber-like and exceptionally poetic reading of the Schumann Piano Concerto with which she “garnered unusually fervent success”, according to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. She found congenial musical partners in Carlo Maria Giulini and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Leon Fleisher made his Lucerne debut in 1962 at the age of 34: on the peak of his rapid career which had – as had been the case with Annie Fischer – catapulted him into musical life while he was still a child. However, only a few months after his Lucerne performance – released for the first time in its entirety – he developed focal dystonia, making the use of his right hand impossible. During the following decades, Fleisher became a specialist of the left-handed repertoire until, in his old age, he was once again able to play with both hands, thanks to new medical treatments. In Lucerne, he presented himself with one of his party pieces – Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto, which he played with an elegant and transparent tone. The Swiss Festival Orchestra was conducted by George Szell, with whom he had made a studio recording of the concerto one year previously – an interesting comparison. The second half of this concert, Brahms’ First Symphony, is already available in this series of Lucerne Festival Historic Performances and has been awarded the Diapason d’Or as well as a nomination for the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA).
The 32-page booklet in three languages provides extensive background information on Annie Fischer and Leon Fleisher, and also features photos from the festival archives of all artists involved, published here for the very first time.
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Los Angeles Philharmonic & Carlo Maria Giulini – Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E Flat, Op. 55 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 57:24 minutes | 1,04 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Carlo Maria Giulini (1914-2005) was music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1978-1984, beginning upon the departure of Zubin Mehta (mus. dir. 1962-1978) to be the New York Philharmonic’s music director. This recording of the Beethoven “Eroica” Symphony was Giulini’s very first Los Angeles Philharmonic recording (November, 1978) and was released shortly after on LP.
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Los Angeles Philharmonic & Carlo Maria Giulini – Beethoven: Symphony No.6 in F, Op. 68 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 44:07 minutes | 753 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Carlo Maria Giulini (1914-2005) was music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1978-1984, beginning upon the departure of Zubin Mehta (mus. dir. 1962-1978) to be the New York Philharmonic’s music director.
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Claudio Arrau, Philharmonia Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini – Brahms: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:42:19 minutes | 3,89 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Two generous, aristocratic musicians, both of Latin origin, join forces for these magnificent performances of Brahms’ piano concertos. Claudio Arrau spent a substantial period in Berlin, and through his teacher Martin Krause had a line to Franz Liszt, while Carlo Maria Giulini’s relationship with Austro-German music was deepened by his years as a viola player in Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, performing under such conductors as Wilhelm Furtwängler, Otto Klemperer and Bruno Walter.
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Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Carlo Maria Giulini – Schubert: Symphony No.4 in C minor, D.417 / Symphony No.8 in B minor, D.759 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 59:49 minutes | 1,10 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Except that the playing is nowhere near at the same level as the conducting and the recording is nowhere near at the same level as the playing, this disc of early recordings of the great Italian conductor Carlo Maria Giulini would be a success. And despite the orchestras’ extremely limited capacities, Giulini’s charismatic personality, intrinsic sense of drama, and sheer strength of will achieve much: his 1954 Schubert B minor Symphony is almost entirely convincing and his 1956 Brahms E minor nearly totally persuasive. But the Milan Radio Symphony’s scratchy strings and breathless winds do compromise the radiant lyricism of Giulini’s Schubert and the Rome Radio Symphony’s braying horns and keening flutes do wound the heroism of Giulini’s Brahms, and not even the conductor’s faith in the music and in his musicians can overcome the orchestras’ “every man for himself” approach to ensemble. And if the Italian radio playing wasn’t enough of an impairment, the live Italian radio sound is painfully antique with brief but agonizing bursts of static to remind the listener of its broadcast origins. (AMG)
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Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Carlo Maria Giulini – Mahler: Symphony No.9 in D (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:28:29 minutes | 3,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Recently deceased conductor Carlo Maria Giulini had a long and distinguished career and many regard his years at the helm of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as among his most inspired. The work receive appropriately expansive readings with Giulini taking great care in drawing out the orchestral sonorous and chromatic potential. Giulini’s judicious moderate tempos particularly in the Mahler, are especially well suited to the composers spiritual grand plan. Deutsche Grammophon’s sound is remarkably good with exceptional presence and detail.
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Carlo Maria Giulini, Chicago Symphony Orchestra – Mahler: Symphony No.1 (1971) [Japan 2016]
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 57:09 minutes | Basic Scans included | 2,3 GB
or DSD64 2.0 Stereo (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Basic Scans included | 2,26 GB
or FLAC Stereo (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Basic Scans included | 1,19 GB
Carlo Maria Giulini conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a Grammy winning performance of Gustav Mahler’s four-movement Symphony No. 1 in D. If you want a Mahler First above all for beauty of tone and phrasing and precision of ensemble, then this is a plain first choice. In addition Giulini’s qualities suit this work. For all the orchestral sophistication, he has a transparent honesty which accords well with Mahler in ‘Wayfaring Lad’ mood. Nor does he use the Chicago orchestra’s virtuosity to whip up excitement in fast tempo.
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Krystian Zimerman, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini – Chopin: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (1978/2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:30 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Chopin’s two piano concertos have long been admired more as pianistic vehicles than as integrated works for piano and orchestra. But in his revelatory new recording, Krystian Zimerman suggests otherwise: The opening orchestral tuttis have so much more light, shade, orchestral color, and detail, you wonder if they’ve been rewritten. Every gesture, every instrumental solo is so specifically characterized that by the time the piano makes a dramatic entrance, the pieces have become operas without words. One may wonder if Chopin intended that. In fact, he knew bel canto opera in his native Poland, but the more positive proof is that the music has so much more to say when treated this way. Some will find the performances disturbing: The interpretations are so much more about content than form, and there’s so much tempo and rhythmic flexibility, that the music sometimes seems unmoored and adrift. But upon repeated listening, the sense of fantasy is so beguiling that you wonder if you could ever go back to more conventional performances. –David Patrick Stearns
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Carlo Maria Giulini – Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2 “Little Russian” – Mussorgsky: A Night on the Bare Mountain (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 41:58 minutes | 853 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Carlo Maria Giulini was born in Barletta, Southern Italy in May 1914 with what appears to have been an instinctive love of music. As the town band rehearsed he could be seen peering through the ironwork of the balcony of his parents’ home, immovable and intent. The itinerant fiddlers who roamed the countryside during the lean years of the First World War also caught his ear. In 1919, the family moved to the South Tyrol, where the five-year-old Carlo asked his parents for “one of those things the street musicians play”. Signor Giulini acquired a three-quarter size violin, setting in train a process which would take his son from private lessons with a kindly nun to violin studies with Remy Principe at Rome’s Academy of St Cecilia at the age of 16.
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Philharmonia Orchestra, Philharmonia Chorus & Carlo Maria Giulini – Verdi: Four Sacred Pieces (Quattro Pezzi Sacri) (Remastered) (1963/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 41:12 minutes | 1,44 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Legendary Italian conductor Carlo Maria Giulini leads the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus in this stunning performance of Verdi’s late and contemplatvie work, “Four Sacred Peaces”.
The “Quattro pezzi sacri” are choral works by Giuseppe Verdi. Written separately during the last decades of the composer’s life and with different origins and purposes, they were nevertheless published together in 1898 by Casa Ricordi.
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Piero Cappuccilli, Ileana Cotrubas, Plácido Domingo, Elena Obraztsova, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Kurt Moll, Hanna Schwarz, Wiener Staatsopernchor, Wiener Philharmoniker, Carlo Maria Giulini – Verdi: Rigoletto (1980/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:59:46 minutes | 1,96 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
“This is not one of the most famous recordings of Verdi’s warhorse, but in my opinion it is the best. The great Italian conductor Carlo Maria Giulini stays away from the melodramatic caricature of opera that this can easily turn into, and brings out the dark, brooding colors of the drama and of the music. He combines lyricism with the greatest dramatic power, at speeds which feel exactly right, even though they are slower than most. And not only does he have a superb individual view of the piece, he is a sensitive accompanist, too, giving the excellent Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra its full dominance without drowning out the singers. And what singers! The velvety, golden voice of Piero Cappuccilli, used with unfailing intelligence and musicality; the warm, gorgeous voice of Plácido Domingo; and perhaps most stunning of all, the bewitching lyric soprano of Ileana Cotrubas, the best Gilda I have ever heard. These singers may not hit the stratospheric unwritten high notes on the Bonynge recording with Pavarotti, Milnes and Sutherland, but they do offer consistently refined, thoughtful and beautiful singing. Cotrubas’ radiant singing alone is worth the modest price of this set. The great Bulgarian bass Nicolai Ghiaurov makes a riveting, dark-toned Sparafucile; Elena Obraztsova sings Maddalena perfectly well, though not on the level of her colleagues. Kurt Moll is cast luxuriously as Monterone. At mid-price, with full libretto and translation and with excellent work from the VPO and chorus, this is a Rigoletto that must be in all Verdi collections.”
Read more![Itzhak Perlman, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini - Brahms: Violin Concerto (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/10/0825646073818_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Itzhak Perlman, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini – Brahms: Violin Concerto (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 43:11 minutes | 804 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Brahms’s Opus 77 exemplifies the violin concerto of the Romantic era, just as Beethoven’s Opus 61 does that of the Classical age. As imposing as it is virtuosic, more than almost any other work in the genre, it leaves the soloist with nowhere to hide. For generations, it has been a work that any violinist aspiring to join the very select club of great masters of the instrument has had to conquer.
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Carlo Maria Giulini, Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra – Mozart: Don Giovanni (1959/2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:42:00 minutes | 1,75 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Pristine Classical
lt seems incredible now that Carlo Maria Giulini was the third choice of conductor for this famed recording. First choice was Beecham, and when that fell through, Walter Legge, the producer, engaged Klemperer, who, though weakened by illnesses and accidents, began working on the recording, only to withdraw after three days because of pericarditis. Legge sent an SOS to the then relatively unknown Giulini, who responded positively, though, as the booklet tells us, with some trepidation. The rest is indeed history, as the whole ensemble proceeded to work like a dream, and produce what in this case is without question one of the supreme recordings of the twentieth century, and will surely never be surpassed on disc.
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Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Wiener Symphoniker, Carlo Maria Giulini – Beethoven: Piano Concertos 1, 3 & 5 (Japan 2017)
SACD Rip | 2x SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 153:11 min | Front Cover + | 6,17 GB
or FLAC Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Front Cover + | 2,99 GB
Deutsche Grammophon/Tower Records Japan # PROC-2070~1
Considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century, the Italian classical pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli with Vienna Symphony Orchestra (Wiener Symphoniker), conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, performs Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concertos Nos. 1, 3 & 5 and Piano Sonata No. 4 on this Japanese double-disc compilation. These famous performances come back to life with SACD format. Some of the recordings is the world’s first SACD premier. Features all new mastering in the home country from the original analog master.
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