Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica, Vida Miknevičiūtė – Songs of Fate (2024) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica, Vida Miknevičiūtė – Songs of Fate (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 57:29 minutes | 954 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM New Series

“Gidon Kremer has perhaps never before revealed himself as intimately and as existentially focused as on this recording”, observes Wolfgang Sandner in his liner note accompanying the Latvian violinist’s album Songs of Fate. Together with his Kremerata Baltica chamber ensemble and soprano Vida Mikneviciute, Kremer approaches scores by Baltic composers Raminta Serksnyte, Giedrius Kuprevicius, Jekabs Jancevskis and the Polish-Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg. In a performer’s note, Kremer explains how, reflecting on the different threads that create the fabric of this programme, “I realise – to my own surprise – that in many ways, this project revolves around the notion of ‘Jewishness’.”

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Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica – New Seasons (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica – New Seasons (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:17:43 minutes | 2,51 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Gidon Kremer returns to the Yellow label after more than a decade with the brand new reference recording of Philip Glass’ Second Violin Concerto – “The American Seasons”, hs first solo concerto album in many years.The first Glass Violin Concerto, performed by Kremer and released by DG in 1993, has achieved cult status and shipped close to 90k units (in Germany alone over 25k copies) – and has become a staple of DG’s contemporary music catalogue.

Now, this extraordinary follow-up Concerto is at the heart of the repertoire of the Kremerata Baltica. Performed for the first time in San José, Costa Rica with Gidon Kremer as soloist in August 2013, it will be toured later in the year – info to follow shortly.

The album is completed by works of Arvo Pärt and Giya Kancheli – two composers both closely associated with Gidon Kremer, and who are both set to celebrate milestone 80th birthdays this year. Gidon has also added the short piece by the well-known Japanese film composer Shigeru Umebayashi as a tribute to his Japanese friends.

Four highly regarded visual artists and film maker have created four different films for each of the American Seasons that are projected to screens during concert performances.

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Mario Brunello, Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica – Searching for Ludwig (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Mario Brunello, Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica – Searching for Ludwig (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:27:43 minutes | 855 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

Gidon Kremer and Mario Brunello pay tribute to Beethoven by presenting two of his most famous quartets in a version for string orchestra played by Kremerata Baltica. The ensemble’s founder Gidon Kremer directs Op.131 from the violin, while Mario Brunello conducts Op.135 and adds two contemporary pieces, one by Léo Ferré, “the revolutionary, anarchic, inspired singer-songwriter and great lover of Beethoven”: Muss es sein? Es muss sein! ; Kremerata Baltica performs this hymn to “free music” in a version arranged by Valter Sivilotti for cello, strings and percussion with Leo Ferré’s original voice.

Note sconte means “hidden notes” in Venetian dialect. Franco Rossi, the legendary cellist of the Quartetto italiano, always invited his students, including Mario Brunello, to look for and give importance to the “note sconte” in the scores of string quartets. He asked Giovanni Sollima to write a piece in memory of Franco Rossi, of his great passion for Beethoven and his note sconte’.

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Kremerata Baltica & Gidon Kremer – Mieczysław Weinberg (Live In Lockenhaus & Neuhardenberg / 2012 & 2013) (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Kremerata Baltica & Gidon Kremer – Mieczysław Weinberg (Live In Lockenhaus & Neuhardenberg / 2012 & 2013) (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:41:24 minutes | 1,59 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM

The music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg is finally beginning to get the hearing it has long deserved. Weinberg’s lifetime spanned the 20th century: born 1919 in Warsaw, he died 1996 in Moscow, in semi-obscurity. Along the way, his allies and supporters had included Dmitri Shostakovich, who considered him one of the great composers of the age.

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Kremerata Baltica & Gidon Kremer – Mieczysław Weinberg: Chamber Symphonies, Piano Quintet (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Kremerata Baltica & Gidon Kremer – Mieczysław Weinberg: Chamber Symphonies, Piano Quintet (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:39:12 minutes | 1,98 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM New Series

This double album, recorded in Vienna and in Riga in June 2015, includes all four of the chamber symphonies written in the last decade of Polish-born Soviet composer Mieczysław Weinberg’s life, plus a beautiful new arrangement – by Gidon Kremer and Kremerata percussionist Andrey Pushkarev – of the early Piano Quintet of 1944, heard here in a premiere recording. It is a recording which underlines the importance and originality of Weinberg’s music. For Gidon Kremer, “Weinberg has become a source of unlimited inspiration. No other composer has entered my own and Kremerata Baltica’s repertoire and program concepts with such intensity.” Weinberg’s chamber symphonies are Kremer says, “the most personal reflections of a great composer on his own life and his generation, like a diary of the most dramatic period of the 20th century.” This new recording – the second Kremerata Baltica album dedicated to Weinberg – is, Kremer feels, “the most valuable landmark in the orchestra’s discography since its birth.”

It is released in time for a major tour celebrating both Kremerata Baltica’s 20th anniversary and leader Gidon Kremer’s 70th birthday. The booklet includes liner notes by Weinberg biographer David Fanning, as well as a personal recollection of the composer by Alexander Raskatov.

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Gidon Kremer, Daniil Trifonov, Giedré Dirvanauskaité – “Preghiera” (Rachmaninov : Piano Trios) (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Gidon Kremer, Daniil Trifonov, Giedré Dirvanauskaité – “Preghiera” (Rachmaninov : Piano Trios) (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:04 minutes | 1,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

A “dream team” trio of interpreters for these deeply emotional masterpieces of Russian Romanticism. Gidon Kremer is celebrating his 70th birthday on (February 27th, 2017) with a special chamber music program together with outstanding young pianist Daniil Trifonov and renowned cellist Giedre Dirvanauskaite, both of whom he personally chose for this recording.

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Gidon Kremer, Nicolas Altstaedt – Sofia Gubaidulina: Canticle of the Sun (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Gidon Kremer, Nicolas Altstaedt – Sofia Gubaidulina: Canticle of the Sun (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:09:18 minutes | 600 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM New Series

Two major works by Sofia Gubaidulina comprise this album: “The Lyre of Orpheus” (composed in 2006), for violin, percussion and string orchestra, and “The Canticle of the Sun” (1997, rev. 1998), for violoncello, chamber choir, percussion and celesta. Both pieces were recorded at the Lockenhaus Festival in, respectively, 2006 and 2010.

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Gidon Kremer, London Symphony Orchestra & Claudio Abbado- Vivaldi: Four Seasons (1981/2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Gidon Kremer, London Symphony Orchestra & Claudio Abbado- Vivaldi: Four Seasons (1981/2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 38:35 minutes | 687 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Of all the world-renowned violinists born in the decade after World War II—an exclusive club that includes Pinchas Zukerman, Pierre Amoyal, and Kyung Wha Chung—Gidon Kremer has taken the least- expected path to lasting fame. Today he is best known as a passionate champion and performer of modern music, the founder of an iconoclastic chamber orchestra in his native Latvia, and a public critic of the glitzy marketing of classical music.

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Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica – New Seasons (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica – New Seasons (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:17:43 minutes | 2,51 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Gidon Kremer returns to the Yellow label after more than a decade with the brand new reference recording of Philip Glass Second Violin Concerto The American Seasons. The album also features works of Arvo Pärt and Giya Kancheli two composers both closely associated with Gidon Kremer, and who are both set to celebrate milestone 80th birthdays this year. Gidon has added the short piece by the well-known Japanese film composer Shigeru Umebayashi as a tribute to his Japanese friends.

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Gidon Kremer, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra & Leonard Bernstein – Bernstein: Serenade, Fancy Free (Live) (1979/2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Gidon Kremer, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra & Leonard Bernstein – Bernstein: Serenade, Fancy Free (Live) (1979/2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:25 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Among the world’s leading violinists, Gidon Kremer has perhaps pursued the most unconventional career. He was born on 27 February 1947 in Riga, Latvia, and began studying at the age of four with his father and grandfather, both distinguished string players. At the age of seven, he enrolled as a student at Riga Music School where he made rapid progress, and at sixteen he was awarded the First Prize of the Latvian Republic. Two years later he began his studies with David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory. Gidon Kremer went on to win a series of prestigious awards, including prizes in the 1967 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels and 1969 Montreal International Music Competition and first prize in both the 1969 Paganini and 1970 Tchaikovsky International Competitions.

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Gidon Kremer, Giedre Dirvanauskaite, Yulianna Avdeeva – Weinberg: Chamber Music (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Gidon Kremer, Giedre Dirvanauskaite, Yulianna Avdeeva – Weinberg: Chamber Music (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:47 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Following the success of the Weinberg Symphonies 2 & 21 with conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, Deutsche Grammophon now features chamber music by Mieczysław Weinberg under the direction of Gidon Kremer.

Included among others are his “Three Pieces for Violin and Piano”, which Weinberg completed in the winter of 1934/35 when he was only 15 years old and had not yet received any compositional training.

What connects Weinberg’s works is not only their compositional perfection, but above all their constant commitment to beauty. It is a confession that in Weinberg’s music is above all pain and suffering.

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Gidon Kremer – Weinberg: Violin Concerto, Op. 67 & Sonata for 2 Violins, Op. 69 (Live) (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Gidon Kremer – Weinberg: Violin Concerto, Op. 67 & Sonata for 2 Violins, Op. 69 (Live) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 51:02 minutes | 521 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Accentus Music

With 22 symphonies, 17 string quartets, 9 concertos, and 7 operas, the composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg left behind an extensive oeuvre. Musically, one can hear the composer’s close friendship with Dmitri Shostakovich, although Weinberg’s music is more lyrical and romantic in nature. Nevertheless, the composer was long forgotten and his music has only been rediscovered in the last ten years. Gidon Kremer has dedicated himself to the rediscovery and cultivation of Weinberg’s music. In February 2020, he performed Weinberg’s Violin Concerto op. 67 with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under the musical direction of Daniele Gatti as part of a series of concerts in honor of the composer’s 100th birthday at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. Weinberg completed the concerto in 1959, the culmination of one of his most creative and successful phases of the 1950s. The work captivates with its large symphonic structure and its four movements, which are rather atypical for a concerto. Also in 1959, Weinberg composed the Sonata for Two Violins op. 69, which Kremer recorded with the Latvian violinist Madara Petersone, concert master of the Kremerata Baltica.

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Gidon Kremer – Beethoven & Chopin: Piano Trios (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Gidon Kremer – Beethoven & Chopin: Piano Trios (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:22 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Accentus Music

Given that a concerto is usually a sure attention-grabber, it’s been notable how thin on the ground new recordings of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto for violin, cello and piano have been during this big birthday year of his; at least in comparison to the flurry of new Violin Concertos that have appeared. Confirmation, perhaps, that for many it’s a rather problematic work, despite its big-boned drama, sense of fun, and indeed the theoretical attraction of uniting not one but three A-lister soloists. But now here are Gidon Kremer, Giedre Dirvanauskaite and Georgijs Osokins with Carl Reinecke 1867 piano trio arrangement of it, recorded in the warmly supportive acoustic of the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music Concert Hall in Katowice.

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Gidon Kremer – Weinberg: Sonatas for Violin Solo (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Gidon Kremer - Weinberg: Sonatas for Violin Solo (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Gidon Kremer – Weinberg: Sonatas for Violin Solo (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:27 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM New Series

Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer’s repertoire is so very wide and varied, and his collaborations so very generous, creative and non-standard – not least thanks to his championing of contemporary Russian and Eastern European composers – that there will have been any number of attention-grabbing programmes up his sleeve that would have done the job of marking his 75th birthday in the recording studio.
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Gidon Kremer, Oleg Maisenberg & Elena Kremer – Gidon Kremer in Prague [Schubert, Franck, Ravel, Bartók, Schnittke] (2015/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Gidon Kremer, Oleg Maisenberg & Elena Kremer – Gidon Kremer in Prague [Schubert, Franck, Ravel, Bartók, Schnittke] (2015/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:50 minutes | 1,36 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Praga Digitals

These pieces are remembrances of some Gidon Kremer’s passings in Prague, during Soviet time… Kremer was then at the dawn of his career, one among the most brilliant for a violinist in our time! As an ‘ambassador’ of the Soviet Ministry for Culture in the ‘brother countries’, he owed to his mentor, David Oistrakh, a sort of freedom, demonstrated here in this recording. His absolutely perfect touch and his freedom of expression were the delight of his patrons in the welcoming communist countries… The short piece by Alfred Schnittke, then still hand written only, was an example of his wish to play scores out of the ‘classics’ from Bach to Stravinsky and to help other musicians through chamber music sessions. This record allows to hear the faked G.B. Guadagnini inherited from his grandfather.

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