![Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Peter Dijkstra - Pärt: Te Deum (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/10/22/4035719005110_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Peter Dijkstra – Pärt: Te Deum (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:07:08 minutes | 644 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
BR-KLASSIK and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Peter Dijkstra are regular winners of prestigious awards – two such being the Strauss-Wagner-Mahler recording, which won the Diapason d’or, and the Concerto for Choir by Alfred Schnittke, which won the ECHO Klassik.
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Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks & Ivan Repušić – Giuseppe Verdi: I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 02:05:21 minutes | 1,20 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
Ivan Repušić made his debut as principal conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra in September 2017 with Giuseppe Verdi’s “Luisa Miller”. It was followed by “I due Foscari” in October 2018 and “Attila” in October 2019 (the complete recordings have already been released by BR-KLASSIK on CD 900323, 900328 and 900330). His successful cycle of early masterpieces by the Italian opera composer continues with the recent concert performance on April 23, 2023 of Verdi’s stage work “I Lombardi” – also at the Prinzregententheater in Munich. Authentic fluidity and vocal splendour are provided here once again by outstanding performers and the Bavarian Radio Chorus. The Munich Radio Orchestra plays under the direction of Ivan Repuŝić. – This highlight of Munich’s musical life from the early part of this year has now been released by BR-KLASSIK as a double CD.
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Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks & Howard Arman – Angelus ad Pastores – Weihnachtsgeschichte (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 42:24 minutes | 399 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
In the Revelation of James, an apocryphal gospel that was not included in the Bible, events and details surrounding the birth of Christ are reported that do not appear in the better-known versions of the Christmas story from the gospels of Matthew and Luke. In particular, it portrays very real people, full of emotions and conflicting feelings. Mary, not Jesus, is the focus of the narrative. The Christmas story is presented by James in a vivid, dramatic and almost theatrical manner. Howard Arman’s Christmas Story follows the tradition of works such as Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, where newly-composed settings of the Gospel alternate with chorales. Here, Gregorian and polyphonic chorales as well as several motets from the 17th century are woven into Arman’s composition and form a second narrative level. They frame the episodes of the Christmas story and can also be understood as musical reactions to the narrated events. This new BR-KLASSIK CD is complemented by the chorales from Peter Maxwell Davies’s Christmas cantata O magnum mysterium.
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Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks & Laurent Campellonne – Jules Massenet: Ariane (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:43:13 minutes | 1,60 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Bru Zane
‘It would be difficult to find a simpler and more poignant subject’, Massenet remarked during the composition of Ariane, a vast score in five acts premiered at the Paris Opera in October 1906. The libretto by Catulle Mendes is part ancient drama, part symbolist poem, and sets Phaedra and Ariadne, two sisters in love with Theseus, in violent conflict with each other. This epic work does not shrink from relating the combat against the Minotaur, from showing a ship tossed by the raging billows, nor even from transporting the audience to the Underworld where Persephone reigns. Despite its flamboyant orchestration, its grandiose scenography and its triumphant premiere, Ariane remains one of the few Massenet operas never recorded until now. The young Egyptian soprano Amina Edris takes the title role with ardour and passion, surrounded by a cast well versed in the specificities of the French style. The Bavarian Radio Chorus provides dedicated support in the epic scenes, under the baton of Laurent Campellone, a great champion of Massenet.
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Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin & Howard Arman – Mozart: Messe in C-Moll, K. 427
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:03:40 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
Written in 1782, Mozart’s Mass in C minor – although incomplete – ranks as one of the outstanding Mass settings in European music history. The very recent reconstruction/completion of the Mass by Clemens Kemme in the spring of 2018 confines itself to the original sources, avoiding any arbitrary additions. The work was recorded in this critically acclaimed version for the Bayerischer Rundfunk during the summer of 2018, and conducted by Howard Arman. This album is thus the first recording of the definitive version of this new and intelligently edited reconstruction of Mozart’s Mass in C minor. An introduction to the work is also included, enabling this masterpiece to be approached from new perspectives. In Vienna in the summer of 1782, Mozart started writing a new Mass despite having apparently received no commission to do so. On August 4, 1782 he married Constanze Mozart, and from his correspondence it appears that he had made himself a promise to “have a newly-composed mass performed in Salzburg if he brought her there as his wife.” The work may have been performed on October 26, 1783 in St. Peter’s Church in Salzburg, with Constanze as the soprano soloist; concrete evidence of such a performance is however lacking. Nevertheless, the Mass can probably be seen as a kind of votive offering for Constanze. The fact that the work was not completed may be due to the church music reforms implemented by the Emperor Joseph II, who preferred sacred music to be performed on a smaller scale. In 1785, Mozart eventually reworked the “Kyrie” and “Gloria” from the mass for his cantata Davide penitente.
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Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin & Howard Arman – Mozart: Requiem in D Minor, K. 626 – Neukomm: Libera me, Domine (Live) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 52:08 minutes | 552 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
Mozart’s unfinished last composition, the Requiem in D minor from 1791, is one of the most famous compositions of the Latin Mass for the Dead. The version on this CD, submitted by Howard Arman for the Bavarian Radio Chorus, is based on Mozart’s sources and the additions by Franz Xaver S”ussmayr. CD 2 of this release offers an introduction to the work by Markus Vanhoefer (in German) from the series BR-KLASSIK WISSEN – Wege zur Musik.
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Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Il Giardino Armonico & Giovanni Antonini – Haydn: Die Schöpfung (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:40:15 minutes | 1000 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Giovanni Antonini has been recording the complete symphonies of Joseph Haydn with the Alpha label for more than five years. Now the series is enriched by another monument by the Austrian composer: Die Schöpfung (The Creation), recorded in 2019 with the Bavarian Radio Chorus and his own orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico. This great oratorio was inspired by those of Handel, which Haydn heard performed by very large forces during his visits to England. The Creation, composed between September 1796 and April 1798, demanded such a colossal effort of him that he even fell ill just after its first performance; but the work enjoyed immense success. The marriage between the Bavarian chorus, so familiar with this masterpiece, and the period-instrument musicians of Il Giardino Armonico works perfectly, with a vocal trio composed of leading soloists: Anna Lucia Richter, Maximilian Schmitt and Florian Boesch.
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Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mariss Jansons – Dvořák: Stabat mater für Soli, Chor und Orchester, Op. 58, B. 71 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:17:55 minutes | 749 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
Dvorák’s haunting „Stabat Mater“ for solo voices, chorus and orchestra is not only the most famous work of church music by the Bohemian composer – it is also one of the most impressive ever settings of the medieval hymn in which Mary, the mother of Jesus, gives vivid expression to the pain she feels at the sight of her crucified son. The terrible misfortunes that befell the composer in his private life during the creation of this work may have been a reason for this. It is the continuous expression of deep piety, above all, that gives this music its special dignity. It was precisely this intensity that was conveyed by the concert on March 26, 2015 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz, where the four renowned soloists were in fine voice, and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks once again delivered the ‘crystal clear sound’ and ‘incredible three-dimensionality’ for which it is highly praised time and again. And the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, conducted by Mariss Jansons, performed Dvorák’s deeply moving music authentically, in keeping with the composer’s intentions: sensitively felt, yet with a resonant, magnificent sound.
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Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Münchner Rundfunkorchester & Ivan Repušić – Arvo Pärt: Choral & Orchestral Works (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 59:22 minutes | 602 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
Time flows and stands still in this contemplative music that sounds old and new and yet neither old nor new, naive art and higher mathematics, a child’s game, a glass bead game, like first steps and last words – all rolled into one. The compositions that Arvo P”art has been writing for almost half a century defy any labelling or ideology. In his anachronistic art, the Estonian composer – who emigrated from the Soviet Union with his family in 1980 and found a refuge in (West) Berlin – chose the path of renunciation, reduction, and voluntary poverty. The most famous testimony to this musical conversion is undoubtedly Fratres (“Brothers”), which was written in 1977 but has appeared in all kinds of different instrumentations and versions over the years. In its ascetic austerity and almost liturgical solemnity, Fratres is reminiscent of a communal prayer or a spiritual act.
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Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Concerto Köln & Peter Dijkstra – Bach: Mass in B Minor (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:17:35 minutes | 733 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
The Mass in B minor, one of the greatest musical legacies of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), was written from 1724 until two years before his death, and was not premiered until 1835. In addition to the Bavarian Radio Chorus, this live recording features renowned soloists and Concerto Köln, an ensemble celebrated for its historical performance practice and a longtime partner of the Chorus.
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Howard Arman, Julius Drake, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks – Dvořák: Stabat Mater, Op. 58, B. 71 (1876) [Live] (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 58:51 minutes | 565 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
The “Stabat mater” by the Bohemian composer Antonin Dvořák, well-known in its later orchestralversion, was initially composed with piano accompaniment. This rarely-heard original version has now been recorded for this new album from BR-KLASSIK, featuring the excellent Bavarian Radio Chorus under the direction of Howard Arman, and accompanied by Julius Drake on the piano. The young Dvořák was a well-studied and experienced church musician. Having graduated from the organ school in Prague, he spent three pious years as an organist in the city’s St. Adalbert’s Church. The search for a “truly sacred music” preoccupied him from the very start. The contemporary Caecilian Movement for church music reform led him, like many of his colleagues, to re-examine the Palestrina style, which represented a return to the more modest, less ostentatious and yet at the same time contrapuntally ingenious church music of a previous epoch. He duly composed a ”Stabat mater” without orchestral splendour and with a simple piano accompaniment. Shortly before Dvořák wrote down this first version of his ”Stabat mater” between February 19 and May 7, 1876, a heavy blow had struck the young family. On December 19, 1875, his daughter Josefa died two days after she was born. (It was only in August 1877 that the composer returned to the”Stabat Mater” again, orchestrated the work, and completed it on November 13. The premiere of that later version took place on December 23, 1880 in Prague). – Dvořák did not set all the verses of the hymn to music, and chose an ensemble of four soloists, a choir and a piano. This original version from the spring of 1876, with its seven-movement structure, is not a fragment, draft or piano reduction but an independent and self-contained work in its own right. In the autumn of 1877, when he composed the missing four verses and scored his ”Stabat mater” for a large orchestra, he effectively created a new and different work.
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Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks & Howard Arman – Arvo Pärt: Miserere (Live) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:11:52 minutes | 720 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, born in 1935, has succeeded in bringing sacred music back to a broader audience, and away from the confines of the church service, more than almost any other contemporary composer. The meditative character of his works, and his return to the simplest and most basic musical forms, convey moments of intense spirituality. Before his emigration from the Soviet Union, Pärt had already invented what he termed the “tintinnabuli” style of composition. He produced an early and important example of this expressive style in 1977 with his Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, scored for string orchestra and bell. It is also a key feature of the choral and instrumental works presented by BR-Klassik on this new album: five works for choir as well as two for instrumental ensemble, covering all of the composer’s creative epochs between 1986 and 2019.
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Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks – Gounod: Le Tribut de Zamora (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:21:03 minutes | 1,51 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Bru Zane
After Polyeucte (1878), Gounod tackled the operatic genre for the last time in 1881 with what is probably his most ambitious work, Le Tribut de Zamora. The action takes place in ninth-century Spain – from Act Two onwards, on ‘a picturesque site on the banks of the Guadalquivir before Córdoba’. Here Gounod – finally noted more for his neoclassical pastiches (Le Médecin malgré lui and Cinq-Mars) and his ardent Romanticism (Faust and Roméo et Juliette) – was given an opportunity to display his talents as an orchestrator and colourist in an exotic setting. He produced an epic in the tradition of French grand opéra, with numerous ensembles and showpiece airs. Despite an unequivocal success on its first run, despite the stirring national anthem ‘Debout! Enfants de l’Ibérie’, Le Tribut de Zamora sank into oblivion within a few short years. We can now appreciate in this opera precisely what certain detractors complained of at the time: the fact that we meet here once again the irresistible lyricism of Faust and Roméo et Juliette.
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Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks & Howard Arman – Edward Elgar: Partsongs – From the Bavarian Highlands (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:05:35 minutes | 644 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
The Bavarian Radio Chorus conducted by Howard Arman sings Edward Elgar’s song cycle “From the Bavarian Highlands” in the first version for piano accompaniment on this CD from BR-KLASSIK in a live recording of a oncert on October 26, 2019 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz.
The remaining partsongs by Edward Elgar heard on this CD were recorded in the BR studio between July and September 2020.
Read more![Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Concerto Köln, Peter Dijkstra - J.S. Bach: St John Passion, BWV 245 (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/08/22/TLPIc01.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Concerto Köln, Peter Dijkstra – J.S. Bach: St John Passion, BWV 245 (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:57:15 minutes | 1,76 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BR Klassik
The definitive version of the ‘St John Passion’ by Johann Sebastian Bach, as performed every year in concert halls and churches around the world, does not exist – or, at least, cannot be found in Bach’s own performance materials. Over the last few decades, Bach researchers have removed much of the magic from a work we all believed was familiar, in several respects. It is neither an oratorio for soloists, choir and orchestra nor a self-contained work with a fnal manuscript version. The Cantor of St Thomas did embark on such a version in 1739. 15 years after the frst performance he started making a meticulous fair copy of the score and coupled it with a thorough revision – but he suddenly broke off this new copy towards the end of the frst part, just before the chorale Wer hat dich so geschlagen (no. 11). It was only years later that he had a copyist complete it, but Bach never transferred the new versions of movements one to ten into his performance material.
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