Schubert / Heled / Israel Sinfonietta / Roda - Simca Heled Live 2 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

While offering little suggestion of the symphonic mastery he would attain less than a decade later, the First Symphony, influenced by Mozart's last symphonies and completed in October 1813, is a remarkable achievement. Schubert composed his Third Symphony over a period of about two months, completing the work in July 1815. The Third Symphony is generally characterized by an increased rhythmic intensity, at times bordering on obsession. We may well think of Schubert primarily as a wonderful melodist, but driving, sometimes overpowering rhythm is just as strong a feature of many of his greatest works. The question of why Schubert left this B minor symphony unfinished has continued to exercise scholars. The most convincing explanation is that he simply found himself unable to continue on the same exalted level and resigned himself to leaving the symphony as it was- two movements of breathtaking quality and imagination. There is no evidence that he ever wished, in his remaining six years, to return to the work, or that he regarded it as Inchunfinished.Inch Beethoven's influence on the historic development of the symphony was staggering. His own examples, widening the expressive range of the genre, opened up a new world. Against this background, Schubert conceived a work of much greater poetry, drama and profundity than he had attempted in his previous symphonies. Over-familiarity may well have blunted our appreciation of this symphony, which is strikingly original from almost every aspect. Apart from the concentrated, expressive quality, there is also an enhanced sense of tone color, with much richer sonorities, and a new spaciousness.

Schubert's Winterreise was present for both of us very early in our lives. Daniel keeps telling me how he sat at the piano with his grandfather and played Der LeiermannInch. We were fascinated by this work, which seemed to know so much about what we felt and whose story was somehow our story. The negation of the physical in song singing and the wish of the guards of the genre to use only the voice for expression were always suspicious to me and I wanted to find out what expressive possibilities Schubert's songs reveal once you dare to give up the that has been in use since the 1950s. It was clear to us that we would not only find approval, but we were willing to take this risk. [...] And in the end we arrived back at the beginning - with the music of Schubert and the poems of Wilhelm Müller. For despite all our search for a new , we always wanted to be faithful to the text. And that's why we rehearsed for many hours during this time, listened to our concert recordings, argued and struggled for every note, every bar and every word. We discovered how wild, expressive, desperate but also hopeful, melancholic and quiet Schubert's winter journey is. And over the years an interpretation matured which we have now recorded on this album with sound engineer Franz Schaden near Vienna. It is not our last word on the winter journey, only a snapshot.Inch (Johannes Held)

This unusual compilation features a diverse array of songs from the incomparable mother/daughter team of Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli. Highlights include InchOver the Rainbow,Inch InchYou Made Me Love You,Inch InchThe Trolley Song,Inch InchCabaretInch and InchIt Was a Good Time.Inch the album also boasts a Judy & Liza duet of InchDon't Rain on My ParadeInch from their acclaimed 1964 London Palladium performance.