Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks & Howard Arman – Angelus ad Pastores – Weihnachtsgeschichte (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

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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Symphonieorchester und Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Howard Arman & Mariss Jansons – Bruckner: Mass No. 3 in F Minor, WAB 28 (Nowak Edition) [Live] (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Symphonieorchester und Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Howard Arman & Mariss Jansons – Bruckner: Mass No. 3 in F Minor, WAB 28 (Nowak Edition) [Live] (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 58:45 minutes | 565 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik

Mariss Jansons is the principal conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir, and his joint projects with the chorus, headed by Howard Arman, are invariably highlights of the concert season. Now, for the first time in his Munich era, Maestro Jansons will conduct a Bruckner Mass, and since he is a great Bruckner conductor his choice fell on Mass No. 3 in F minor. Laid out on a symphonic scale, this monumental creation offers the Bavarian Radio Choir and the quartet of young solo vocalists ingratiating tasks ranging from lyrical cantilena to mighty jubilation. Not by accident, the use of a solo violin and the introverted inflection recall Bruckner’s model, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis. In the first half of the concert listeners can again welcome the soprano Diana Damrau, last heard with the Bavarian RSO in their “Klassik am Odeonsplatz” series. This time the Strauss specialist will treat listeners to the other-worldly beauty of the Four Last Songs, a work perfectly in tune with the crepuscule mood of Bruckner’s mysticism. Three settings of poems by Hesse lead to the Eichendorff setting “Im Abendrot” (At Sunset), which ends with the question “Is this perhaps Death?” – a question left unanswered, but lightened by a tranquil postlude from the orchestra.

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Munich Radio Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Chorus & Howard Arman – Mendelssohn: Elijah, Op. 70, MWV A 25 (Excerpts) (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Munich Radio Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Chorus & Howard Arman – Mendelssohn: Elijah, Op. 70, MWV A 25 (Excerpts) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:08 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik

Established in 1952, the Munich Radio Orchestra has developed into a body engaged in a wide spectrum of musical activity. There have been gala concerts and opera concert performances in particular, under the direction of Marcello Viotti, as well as a Paradisi Gloria series devoted to the sacred music of the 20th century, concerts for children and young people, and theme evenings.

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Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin & Howard Arman – Mozart: Messe in C-Moll, K. 427 [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

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) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

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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Howard Arman – More Christmas Surprises (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Howard Arman – More Christmas Surprises (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:51 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sony Classical

Auch in diesem Jahr gibt es wieder eine echte Weihnachtsüberraschung: bekannte und stimmungsvolle Weihnachts-Songs, in neuen Arrangements für Chor und großes Orchester – vom Dirigenten Howard Arman. Nach dem Erfolg der ersten CD aus dieser Serie “Christmas Surprises” (2017), die von der Presse hochgelobt wurde: die CD überrascht als nostalgisch puderbezuckerte Liederreise durch das globale Weihnachtswunderland wirklich – durch die Auswahl sowie durch die Abfolge und die schönen, subtilen Orchestrierungen (Die Welt). Howard Arman arrangierte nun erneut Klassiker der Weihnachtszeit und entdeckenswerte Weihnachtslieder in noch nie dagewesener Weise, aufgenommen mit dem Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, dem Münchner Rundfunkorchester und fabelhaften Solisten wie Pavol Breslik. Von Klassikern wie “Stille Nacht” über traditionelle Weihnachtslieder aus Polen, Spanien, Dänemark sowie eine spanische Version von Rudolph the Red nose reindeer, zu amerikanischen Christmas-Hits wie “Have yourself a litte merry christmas” ist für jeden Geschmack etwas dabei. Außerdem zuhören sind zwei Eigenkompositionen des Dirigenten: Canzona und Happy Lisztmas.

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Bavarian Chor, Radio Symphony Orchestra, Howard Arman – Der Wilde Sound Der 20er (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Bavarian Chor, Radio Symphony Orchestra, Howard Arman - Der Wilde Sound Der 20er (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download

Bavarian Chor, Radio Symphony Orchestra, Howard Arman – Der Wilde Sound Der 20er (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:09:01 minutes | 647 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BR-Klassik

The BR-KLASSIK album features recent studio recordings from April 2021 (Toch, Weill) and March 2022 (Krenek) as well as a live recording from the Munich Philharmonie in the Gasteig from March 2017 (Bartók). The album is released as part of the programme focus on “100 Years of Radio”, which shows how formative the sound of this century was: in 1923, amidst social upheaval, the age of radio began. The music composed for the new medium reflects the time between modernity and tradition, revolution and republic, jazz and dance music.

29 October 1923 – a date steeped in history. In the midst of a year of political and economic crisis, the age of public radio in Germany was heralded with the first broadcast of the “Berliner Funkstunde” in the attic of an office building on Potsdamer Platz. – Radio offered completely new possibilities for the production and reception of music.
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Bavarian Chor, Radio Symphony Orchestra, Howard Arman – André Caplet: Le miroir de Jesus (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Bavarian Chor, Radio Symphony Orchestra, Howard Arman - André Caplet:  Le miroir de Jesus (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download

Bavarian Chor, Radio Symphony Orchestra, Howard Arman – André Caplet: Le miroir de Jesus (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:00:32 minutes | 596 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BR-Klassik

Le miroir de Jésus (The Mirror of Jesus) for mezzo-soprano, women’s choir, strings and harp – the last major work composed by the French composer André Caplet in the spring and summer of 1923, based on fifteen poems by the French writer Henri Ghéon – was subtitled “Mystères du rosaire” (Mysteries of the Rosary). The mystical work, whose form and genre defy the usual categorisations, revolves around the most important stations in the life of Jesus, told from the perspective of the Virgin Mary and mirrored, as it were, in her gaze. Each of the three parts consists of an extended instrumental prelude and five episodes: The first begins with the Annunciation, recounts the Visitation of Mary, the birth of Christ and his time in the Temple of Jerusalem. The second part turns to the mysteries of pain: the scourging of Jesus, the crown of thorns, the way of the cross and the agony and finally his death. The last reflects on the “Glorious Mysteries”: Jesus’ Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost and finally Assumption and Coronation. A mezzo-soprano takes the perspective of Mary. Occasionally the voice changes to recitation or even recitative, but the singing always serves the text, guarantees its comprehensibility and at the same time interprets the words through musical means. Later, the choir introduces the respective title of the poem and also emerges at a few, but all the more significant points: at the end of the first rosary, it reinforces the message of Ghéon’s text with a Latin biblical quotation and later with praises such as “Sanctus” and “Alleluia”. In “Le miroir de Jésus”, Caplet found a musical form for the mysteries of the ancient Passion story that brings past and present into a peaceful synthesis.
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Christina Landshamer, Justus Zeyen, Bavarian Radio Chorus, Howard Arman – Schubertiade (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Christina Landshamer, Justus Zeyen, Bavarian Radio Chorus, Howard Arman - Schubertiade (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Christina Landshamer, Justus Zeyen, Bavarian Radio Chorus, Howard Arman – Schubertiade (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:38 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BR-Klassik

Schubert sits at the piano in a bourgeois salon in Vienna, surrounded by around 30 ladies and gentlemen applauding him. The painting by Julius Schmidt dating from 1897 captures one of those convivial musical gatherings known even during the composer’s lifetime as Schubertiades. The term was probably coined by Schubert’s friend Franz von Schober, and the first of these gatherings took place in January 1821 in Schober’s Vienna apartment. From then on, until the composer’s death in 1828, the Schubertiades were held on a regular basis with different hosts from Schubert’s circle, and always proceeded in a similar manner: Schubert played either piano solos or accompanied a singer, and usually presented new works; the guests read poetry and fiction to each other and exchanged ideas; a snack was then served, and this was frequently followed by an evening of dancing or even joint gymnastic exercises. The ritual also included Schubert going out on the town with his inner circle at the end of the evening.
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Howard Arman, Julius Drake, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks – Dvořák: Stabat Mater, Op. 58, B. 71 (1876) [Live] (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

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) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

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 & Howard Arman – Edward Elgar: Partsongs – From the Bavarian Highlands (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

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.

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Howard Arman – Rossini: Stabat Mater (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Howard Arman – Rossini: Stabat Mater (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz  | Time – 54:27 minutes | 532 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Booklet, Front Cover | © Sony Classical

Rossini’s Stabat Mater has had some birth difficulties: the work had been commissioned by a Spanish aristocrat in 1832 but the following year, the composer had only finished half, and a sickness prevented him from pursuing. Still wishing to satisfy his sponsor—and his wallet, probably—, Rossini asked his friend and colleague Giovanni Tadolini to compose for him the remaining numbers, and in 1833 was resounding in Spain the world creation of the Stabat Mater by Rossini, who didn’t hesitate to sign the complete partition without mentioning Tadolini’s name. Such a prankster! In 1841, the work was bought out by a Parisian publisher who wasn’t aware of the deception, Rossini was even more offended that he kept all rights for himself, and after many money exactions that don’t necessarily give a good image of him, Rossini completed the partition himself, and it was given in its complete and 100% Rossini form in 1842. The public and the critics were divided: some observers, somewhat Germanic, thought that this religious music sounded a lot like an opera. This new recording of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir, with a nice array of Italian-like soloists, will delight the enthusiasts.

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