Udo Wachtveitl, Wiebke Puls – Barbara Strozzi: Lauscht, ihr Liebenden! (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Udo Wachtveitl, Wiebke Puls – Barbara Strozzi: Lauscht, ihr Liebenden! (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:20:05 minutes | 726 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik

A young female singer in 17th-century Venice: she is virtuoso, attractive and extremely charming, and the gentlemen of her select audience are at her feet. They call her the “”Singing Venus””. But Barbara Strozzi wants more: she regularly publishes her compositions – more than any woman before her. The new BR-KLASSIK audio biography tells her story. Until the 20th century, female composers had a hard time in a male-dominated art. And in historiography for even longer: it was not until 1978 that a female American musicologist published the first specialist article on Barbara Strozzi. Today, it is generally accepted that she is one of the most important voices in the history of vocal chamber music. She is featured on a growing number of CDs, concert programmes and websites. However, although research has begun, a lively account of her life and work, accessible to a wider audience, has been lacking. This audio biography brings together all the key documents and research that represent her – and also vividly introduces us to the unique cultural space in which the composer lived. The exuberance of Carnival, the development of the fledgling art of opera, and Venice – the “”città galante””- are all linked to the phenomenon of “”Barbara Strozzi”” and her art. Listeners unfamiliar with this music are invited to rediscover lost treasures – and to get to know one of the great women of music history. Wiebke Puls, an actress at the Münchner Kammerspiele and a singer herself, lends her voice to Barbara Strozzi.

(more…)

Read more

Udo Wachtveitl – Johann Sebastian Bach: Die Geheimnisse der Harmonie – eine Hörbiografie (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Udo Wachtveitl – Johann Sebastian Bach: Die Geheimnisse der Harmonie – eine Hörbiografie (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 04:23:01 minutes | 2,63 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik

What do we actually know about Johann Sebastian Bach? Rather little, one must admit. Nevertheless, the few documents provide a fragmentary but very vivid picture of life. The new BR-KLASSIK audio biography shows Bach against the background of a distant time that is rather foreign to us, which is brought to life in many voices together with his music. Udo Wachtveitl tells the unique life and work of the Thomaskantor and most important composer of classical music. Albrecht Schuch gives Bach his voice.

(more…)

Read more

Udo Wachtveitl, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mariss Jansons – R. Schumann: Die innere Stimme (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Udo Wachtveitl, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mariss Jansons – R. Schumann: Die innere Stimme (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 04:34:15 minutes | 2,37 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik

There are many biographies of Robert Schumann, but none that gives a real voice to his music – and the life and the music of this great Romantic composer were connected in a particularly subtle way. This new release in the successful series of BR-KLASSIK audio biographies contains approximately 150 excerpts from Schumann’s works; carefully interwoven into his life story, they give voice to his inner world. The mysterious “inner voice” that Schumann noted down in the score of his Humoreske op. 20 thus becomes the motto of this audio biography. “Unknown songs I had never heard flowed through my heart – songs that sounded to me like ghostly voices.” It was this passage from ETA Hoffmann’s Kreisleriana that inspired Schumann to write his own Kreisleriana op 16. In February 1854, the composer himself heard such voices – and this marked the start of a journey that would culminate in the mental asylum. Schumann’s “inner voice” thus represents not only his romantic sensitivity but also his fragile and volatile psyche. Of course, this ten-part audio biography also devotes a lot of room to the relationship between Robert and Clara – probably the greatest “romantic novel” of music history. Nothing is exaggerated, however; it is all based on the original sources, which are dramatic and touching enough in themselves. Outstanding actors including Udo Wachtveitl (narrator), Matthias Brandt (Schumann) and Brigitte Hobmeier (Clara) contribute, alongside further narrators, to all the fascinating sounds and colours of this audio biography. Performers such as John Eliot Gardiner, Eric Le Sage and Christian Gerhaher guarantee the highest quality in the musical excerpts, which also feature several rarities. The audio biography is rounded off by a new live recording of the “Spring Symphony” with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, conducted by Mariss Jansons.

(more…)

Read more

Udo Wachtveitl – Tchaikovsky: Der Wille zum Glück (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Udo Wachtveitl - Tchaikovsky: Der Wille zum Glück (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download

Udo Wachtveitl – Tchaikovsky: Der Wille zum Glück (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 04:26:22 minutes | 2,53 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BR Klassik

“The will to happiness” determined the life and work of the great Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, even though it did not always enable him to reach his goal. Jorg Handstein’s audio biography takes this motto and fills it with the moving story of Tchaikovsky’s life, his survival and, of course, his impressive music. In nine chapters, on the first three of the four albums in this release, Tchaikovsky’s life can be vividly experienced, and his most famous and most important compositions heard, all closely interwoven with the highly exciting events of his life. Further along in the release, the Pathetique Symphony can be heard in a complete recording by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Mariss Jansons (recorded live in June 2013), together with the first ever album recording of the a capella song “The Nightingale,” performed by the Chor and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen in a live recording from January 2016.
(more…)

Read more

Udo Wachtveitl – Schostakowitsch: Doppeltes Spiel -playing a double game (CD 1 – 3 in German) (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Udo Wachtveitl - Schostakowitsch: Doppeltes Spiel -playing a double game (CD 1 - 3 in German) (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz] Download

Udo Wachtveitl – Schostakowitsch: Doppeltes Spiel -playing a double game (CD 1 – 3 in German) (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 04:50:25 minutes | 2,68 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BR-Klassik

For the first time, the successful series of BR-KLASSIK audio biographies is devoting itself to a 20th-century composer: Dmitri Shostakovich. His symphonies are still highlights in the concert hall, and his fate has inspired great novels. But what do we really know about his life? He liked to play his cards close to his chest – and had good reason to do so… Dmitri Shostakovich himself claimed that his life was “rather grey and colorless”. In reality, it was the most exciting composer’s life of the 20th century. Revolution and civil war, Stalin’s murderous terror, then the Second World War, the “thaw” under Khrushchev and finally Brezhnev’s brutalist socialism: the whole tragic history of the Soviet Union runs like a thread through his work. As a functionary who seemed to be loyal to the party line, he played along – but his music spoke against the regime and in favor of its victims and of the freedom of art. “This is a game that can end badly,” Stalin threatened, probably in person. Shostakovich was thus obliged to fight his own fears as well. He was playing a double game – and knew it was dangerous. This audio biography draws on many sources, some of them still little-known in Germany. The result is a comprehensive, colorful and detailed picture of the composer’s life, and contains several surprises – also with regard to his private life, which should not pale behind the historical panorama. Like every great composer, Shostakovich had his crises and affairs, his great sufferings and small joys.
(more…)

Read more
%d bloggers like this: