Genia Kühmeier – Beethoven: Mass in C Major & Leonore Overture No. 3 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 58:34 minutes | 572 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
The tonal language of Beethoven’s Mass in C major, the first of his two Mass settings, is that of a personal confession, making the work very modern and forward-looking and opening up entirely new worlds of expression for the liturgical text. It is in no way to be seen as a precursor of the “Missa solemnis’ but instead as a highly independent work that set new standards for the advancement of mass compositions in the 19th century. Beethoven himself was well aware of its innovative nature, and wrote as much in a letter to his publisher: ‘I am reluctant to say anything about my Mass, or indeed about myself, but I do believe that I have treated the text in a manner to which it has rarely been treated.’ For people at the time, the Mass in C major, Op. 86 of 1807 provided unprecedented access to the Christian faith in a way that is still relevant today.
Read more![Magdalena Kožená, Jonas Kaufmann, Genia Kühmeier, Kostas Smoriginas, Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle - Bizet: Carmen (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/06/0825646328802_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Magdalena Kožená, Jonas Kaufmann, Genia Kühmeier, Kostas Smoriginas, Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle – Bizet: Carmen (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 02:29:40 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Carmen was premiered at the (second) Salle Favart, the home of Paris’ Opéra-Comique – then as now in the Place Boieldieu – on 3 March 1875. Georges Bizet, its composer, died of a heart attack exactly three months later, on 3 June, aged 36. In his short life he had written, in whole or in part, more than a dozen works for the lyric stage, ranging from one-act operettas to five-act grand operas: and had contemplated at least a dozen more. He was exceptionally well connected in the tight-knit and faintly incestuous musical world of mid-19th-century Paris, and almost universally well-liked. Over 4,000 mourners attended his funeral in the Église de la Sainte-Trinité – the location of Rossini’s in 1868 and Berlioz’s the year after – including his former mentor Charles Gounod, so emotionally overwrought that he was unable to finish the eulogy at the subsequent interment at Père Lachaise. That night – 5 June – Carmen was given its 33rd performance at the Salle Favart; and this time the press that had greeted the work’s premiere with almost unanimous hostility was suddenly to be found bemoaning the loss of one of French music’s greatest talents.
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