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01. September 2010
’ Ultra-virtuosic Vocal Architecture ’ The prestigious German Record Critics’ Annual Award (‘Jahrespreis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik’) has recently been presented to Masaaki Suzuki and Bach Collegium Japan for the team’s recording of the motets by J.S. Bach. In the citation for the award, the jury of German reviewers speaks of Bach’s ‘ultra-virtuosic vocal architecture’ in the motets, and of the ‘overwhelming result’ as Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan take on these works: ‘This recording combines musicological insight with sensual delight and strikingly perceptive readings of the texts.’ The award was presented to Masaaki Suzuki on the 22 of August at a concert in the Church of St Nicolai in Cuxhaven-Altenbruch, where members of the Bach Collegium Japan were performing as part of the 21st Musikfest Bremen.
For further information about Bach’s Motets, BIS-SACD-1841, please click here
For a video clip made during the recording of this disc, please click here
Read more about the German Record Critics' Annual Award here
30. August 2010
’Dazzling’ Released in January 2010, Freddy Kempf’s recording of Prokofiev’s Piano Concertos Nos 2 and 3 has received wide acclaim, and was selected as a Gramophone Editor’s Choice in the magazine’s May issue. While noting ’BIS's impressively translucent sound engineering’, the Gramophone reviewers described the performance by Kempf and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra as ‘a thoughtful reading ... and one in which the orchestra under the excellent Andrew Litton play a full part’, going on to call it ‘finely honed, suitably mercurial and certain to impress ... a dazzling successor to the pianist's earlier Prokofiev recital’ (BIS-CD-1260, released in 2003).
The disc has now been named one of three finalists in the ‘Concerto’ category of the 2010 edition of the prestigious Gramophone Awards. The winners will be revealed on 1st of October at a ceremony held in London.
For further information about Freddy Kempf, please click here
For a list of other releases by the Bergen PO and Andrew Litton, please click here
15. June 2010
Wedding Bells Are Ringing As befits a royal wedding, several days of celebrations will precede the ceremony in the 13th-century Stockholm Cathedral on Saturday. In a similar way, the 1744 marriage between Crown Prince Adolf Fredrik of Sweden and Lovisa Ulrika of Prussia was celebrated at the palace of Drottningholm with a number of balls, banquets and ceremonies. Music was an all-important feature, and among the works performed was Johan Helmich Roman’s Drottningholm Music – written for the occasion, and considered a milestone in the music history of Sweden. 276 years later, a new recording packaged in a tastefully designed wrapping, forms BIS’ contribution to the Royal Wedding of Crown Princess Victoria and Mr Daniel Westling. Performed by the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra under the acclaimed baroque violinist and conductor Andrew Manze, Roman’s suite is as festive and charming as ever. This will be apparent through listening to the two movements we have elected to offer for a limited period as our wedding gift to all visitors to our website.
For more information about this title, please click here
21. May 2010
BIS goes to Rotterdam The DVD of Gergiev conducting Brahms’ German Requiem is the prelude to a four-disc collaboration between the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and BIS. To be recorded over the coming three years are works by Richard Strauss and Maurice Ravel among others, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Gergiev’s successor in Rotterdam and one of the fastest-rising stars on the international classical music scene. The first recording took place already in March this year: an all-Berlioz programme consisting of Symphonie fantastique and La mort de Cléopâtre. Soloist in the latter work is the Italian soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci, making one of her rare appearances on disc. The second album to be recorded will include Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, a recording that takes place in de Doelen concert hall in Rotterdam in June. Both discs are planned for release during the 2010/2011 season.
For more information about Valery Gergiev’s DVD of A German Requiem, click here
For more information about the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, visit the orchestra’s website www.rpho.nl
16. April 2010
A Hymn of Praise Choosing from the more than 1.500 recordings reviewed in the BBC Music Magazine in the course of 2009, a jury of eight distinguished music critics awarded its prize for technical excellence to BIS’ recording of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2, ‘Lobgesang’ (‘Hymn of Praise’) with the Bergen Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Litton (BIS-SACD-1704).
The award, which confirms BIS’ status as a leader in the field of sound recording, was presented at a ceremony in London on the 13th April by Andrew McGregor of BBC Radio 3 CD Review. Praising the musical interpretation of Mendelssohn’s ‘Symphony-Cantata’, McGregor described the recording itself as follows: ‘Turn it up a bit and you’ll feel the living room walls melt away, and you’re there in the Grieg Hall’s acoustic experiencing a realistic concert hall balance and a proper live sense of occasion.’
Present at the award ceremony were conductor Andrew Litton, label director Robert von Bahr, and Hans Kipfer and Ingo Petry, recording producer and sound engineer behind the winning disc. The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Litton have already recorded the complete Mendelssohn symphonies on BIS, while coming projects include Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Petrushka, due for release in 2011.
For more information about Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Litton on BIS, click here
For information about the 2010 BBC Music Magazine Awards, including video material from the award ceremony, visit the website of the BBC Music Magazine
29. March 2010
Going to the movies For his new film Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese has chosen to use existing music by composers such as György Ligeti, Alfred Schnittke and Krzysztof Penderecki. Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, the film features music from Ligeti's Two Etudes for Organ and Schnittke's Hymn for cello and double bass. In the case of both works it is recordings from BIS Records that are being used on the soundtrack, adding to the ominous, sinister world that Scorsese creates on the screen. The recordings in question were selected from a disc of organ music by Ligeti and Schoenberg made by Hans-Ola Ericsson, and from an album of cello works by Schnittke featuring Torleif Thedéen, supported by double-bass player Entcho Radoukanov.
For information about the BIS recordings featured in Shutter Island, click on the links below:
Organ music by Schoenberg and Ligeti, BIS-CD-509
Cello Concerto No.1 etc - Alfred Schnittke, BIS-CD-507
27. January 2010
‘A superbly articulated performance ... enriched by a magnificent orchestral accompaniment.’ At this year’s MIDEM, the international gathering of the music industry in Cannes, Ronald Brautigam accepted an award for his recording of Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto, BIS-SACD-1792. The MIDEM Classical Awards are bestowed by a jury consisting of representatives for the international music press and media, who selected Ronald Brautigam’s recording as the best concerto disc of 2009. Part of a cycle of Beethoven’s complete works for piano and orchestra, the disc also features a rarely heard early work by the composer, the Piano Concerto WoO4, for which Brautigam himself has made the reconstruction of the orchestral score. Brautigam’s partners in this project, which will be concluded in 2010 by the release of Piano Concerto No.5 and the Choral Fantasy, are the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and conductor Andrew Parrott.
For further details on Ronald Brautigam’s Beethoven recording, and his other releases on BIS, click here
27. November 2009
‘Artistic Project of 2009’ The prestigious distinction Diapason d’Or de l’Année is awarded by a jury comprising critics from the leading French magazine Diapason and broadcasters from France Musique, the public radio station devoted to music. The architect of the 3-disc Choros cycle on BIS, conductor John Neschling, received the award, which was presented to him during a ceremony transmitted live on France Musique. The 14 works that make up Heitor Villa-Lobos’ great cycle range from solo pieces for guitar and piano to large-scale orchestral frescoes, some of which also involve choir or soloists. The highly acclaimed series was recorded in collaboration with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP), which was also represented at the award ceremony in Paris. The same orchestra also plays a key role on three previously released discs of Villa-Lobos’ 9 Bachianas Brasileiras, and these two cycles, described on web site ClassicsToday.com as ‘the finest recordings of these works currently available’ have been combined in a recent box set, BIS-CD-1830/32.
For details regarding the box set of Bachianas and Choros, click here
24. November 2009
Interpreter Prize
goes to Martin Fröst A wizard on his instrument, charismatic and fearless both in established and newly-composed repertoire, he grapples with renewing the form of his concerts thus perpetually surprising his audiences.
Now, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music has awarded its Interpreter Prize to virtuoso clarinetist Martin Fröst citing: "As soloist and chamber musician, explorer and presenter of new and traditional repertoire he has the world at his feet. Constantly exploring new aspects of musical creativity, he has inspired a succession of composers to write for him works that have proved exciting and important additions to the clarinet repertoire."
The award of 100.000 Swedish Crowns will be presented on 30th November by His Majesty King Carl Gustav at a ceremonial gathering of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. The day before, on 29th November, one can hear Martin Fröst performing together with Svante Henrysson and Roland Pöntinen at the Assembly Room of the Royal Musical Academy in the recital series "Academy Sundays". The concert itself will consist exclusively of encores!
The Interpreter Prize was established in 2007 and is awarded annually to a truly innovative artist or ensemble of the highest musical calibre.
For a Martin Fröst's complete dicography on BIS, click here
23. November 2009
A great singer departs Described as 'one of the most perceptive and admired sopranos of the postwar era', Elisabeth Söderström passed away in Stockholm on November 22nd, aged 82. Her début took place at the Drottningholm Palace Theatre in 1947, and during the following three decades she was a key member of the ensemble of the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, while maintaining an international career with regular appearances at Glyndebourne and Covent Garden, at the Salzburg Festival and the Metropolitan. Besides being a superb actress, Elisabeth Söderström was also an inspired recitalist, and famously collaborated with Vladimir Ashkenazy. A highly intelligent musician, she combined great versatility with a strong sense of humour, as demonstrated by her two recordings for BIS: on 'Örhängen' ('Evergreens') she performed a programme of popular Swedish songs, and with her close friend the mezzo soprano Kerstin Meyer she devised a recital which closes with Puccini's famous duet for two cats - a role which the acclaimed interpreter of Mélisande and Jenůfa enjoyed to the full.
For details about recordings with Elisabeth Söderström on BIS, click here
16. November 2009
Twice Rewarded Choosing his ten personal favourites among the discs reviewed in Gramphone’s November issue, James Inverne, the editor of the magazine, selects two recent BIS releases. The discs in question could hardly be more different: Mahler’s monumental Ninth Symphony conducted by Alan Gilbert (BIS-SACD-1710), and ‘Stabat Mater’, a trio of Baroque vocal works with counter-tenor Daniel Taylor and soprano Emma Kirkby (BIS-SACD-1546). In his own, brief comments to his choice, Inverne characterizes Alan Gilbert’s Mahler interpretation as ‘a superb, devastating reading’. The full-length review describes the disc as probably ‘the finest recording the work has received’ on a technical level, going on to state that the achievement of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra is ‘still more extraordinary than that of the engineers.’ As for ‘Stabat Mater’, James Inverne calls it ‘an absolutely gorgeous, contemplative disc’, singling out the performance of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in the less well-known version by J.S. Bach for special praise.
Beethoven Cycle Twice Lauded The boxed set of the Vänskä/Minnesota Beethoven cycle unites the five single discs – in their original Hybrid SACD format – released between 2004 and 2008 to great acclaim. Already the first instalment was greeted as 'the modern Beethoven recording par excellence' by the reviewer in Financial Times, while his colleague in Gramophone on the occasion of the final disc wrote 'Here concludes one of the finest available Beethoven symphony cycles.'
Released in September, this ‘recycled’ cycle seems already predestined for similar critical success, at least to judge from the first reviews: the two websites ClassicsToday.com and ClassicsTodayFrance.com together named it their October ‘Disc of the Month’, the reviewer on the first site calling it ‘unquestionably one the great Beethoven cycles’ and his counterpart on the second describing it as ‘the great Beethoven cycle of the 2000s, just as Harnoncourt’s was that of the 1980s and Barenboim’s that of the 1990s.’
For details about this box (BIS-SACD-1825/26) click here
Nordic Composers’ Prize In August 2009 Robert von Bahr became the first recipient of the prestigious new Nordic Composers’ Prize. The prize will henceforth be awarded annually by the Council of Nordic Composers to “a person or an organization whose activities have benefited the musical environment in the Nordic countries and thus had a positive effect on the situation of composers in the Nordic countries”.
The citation reads:
“The Nordic Composers’ Prize for 2009 is awarded to record-producer Robert von Bahr who, with extraordinary passion and knowledge has worked untiringly to make classical music of the highest quality available to a wide public, and who has created a highly impressive catalogue on the part of his own BIS Records in which many Nordic composers have had the joy of being able to publish fine recordings of their works”.
21. January 2009
Doing it by halves In early January Sudbin and the Minnesota Orchestra successfully completed the recording of the first half of a disc planned for release in 2010. The programme will consist of Beethoven’s Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos, and it opens a complete series of the concertos, as a natural continuation of the orchestra’s highly acclaimed symphony cycle. During the January recording period Osmo Vänskä and Minnesota Orchestra also recorded Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony (the "Romantic"), in the recent critical edition by Benjamin Korstvedt which advocates the final, 1888 version of the work.
For more information about Yevgeny Sudbin, clickhere
For more information about Minnesota Orchestran, clickhere
Twice Rewarded
