Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin

Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin – Herz: Orchestral Works (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:21:45 minutes | 787 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Capriccio

Maria Herz, née Bing, was born in Cologne in 1878. By the 1920s, she had become recognised as a dynamic element of the contemporary music scene. New music’s ‘chief theoretician’, Theodor W. Adorno, became interested in her works and their style, which was rooted in late Romanticism and aimed at Modernism by way of Expressionism, New Objectivity and Neo-Baroque, all the while retaining its playful, charming air. She was close to a veritable Who’s Who of contemporary musicians, including the Budapest String Quartet, Gregor Piatigorsky, Emanuel Feuermann, Hermann Abendroth, Otto Klemperer and Hans Rosbaud. During her lifetime only five songs (1910) and a transcription of Bach’s Chaconne for string quartet (1927) were published, but the manuscripts of her 30 orchestral works, solo concertos, chamber music works and art songs have survived. The Nazis seized her family’s assets and forced Maria Herz to emigrate, first to England and then, after the war, to the United States, where she lived with her children. She died in New York in 1950.

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Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin – Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 00:32:40 minutes | 1,00 GB | Genre: Classical, Musique symphonique, Symphonies
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | ©

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Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin – Nikodijevic: Absolutio / Abgesang / Da ispravitsja – gebetsraum mit nachtwache (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 59:46 minutes | 583 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Wergo

Marko Nikodijevic presents himself on this portrait with three large orchestral works interpreted by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB) and the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt. The pieces look back to the past in different ways: sometimes they tie up with musical or cultural traditions, sometimes with personal memories. Like most of the composer’s works “ABSOLUTIO“ unfolds from a simple but strict formal principle, in this case a three-note chord. Later, a spiral-like, whirling construction of ever-increasing gravitational pull arises, with the remote outlines of a ‘sonata form’.”abgesang”, in turn, has very personal references to the composer’s past.

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Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin – Smetana: Triumphal Symphony & Overture and Dances from The Bartered Bride (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:03:35 minutes | 670 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Naxos

Being honest, with the exception of Má Vlast – and really just the Moldau – and the opening of The Bartered Bride, the works of Smetana are just not really known, at least not on this side of the Vltava. Of course, everyone knows that he was the founding father of Czech national music, who broke ground later ploughed by Dvořák, Suk, Martinů and Janáček, but his grandfatherly role seems to have won him more honour than it did audiences for his music. In his own time, the very idea of the Czech nation was quite fluid; in 1854, when Smetana wrote his Festive Symphony Op. 6, he worked in various references… including the imperial anthem of the Habsburg monarchy! It’s a theme from Haydn, but all the same, the allusion might have ruffled a few nationalist feathers… And it’s still ruffling them today! And for that reason, this symphony – the only work by Smetana in this format – has remained largely ignored. So we should welcome this new release. The programme is rounded off with a chance to enjoy re-discovering the vivid overture of The Bartered Bride of 1866, as well as three typical dances which were added to the score three years later: a polka, a furiant and a general dance, all very famous pieces today, and with good reason.

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