Staatsorchester Stuttgart Meister - Der Prinz Von Homburg - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Resonating powerfully with Hans Werner Henze's pacifist perspective, Der Prinz von Homburg is based on a play by Heinrich von Kleist that opposes authority, celebrating a dreamer rather than a classical hero, and individualist freedom rather than militarist nationalism. Ingeborg Bachmann's libretto heightens this message, and Henze's chamber-music setting is at once powerful and unpredictable. This visually stunning production stretches from intimate transparency to dramatic heights, in a critically acclaimed staging by the award-winning director Stephan Kimmig.

Stéphane Denève, triple winner of the Diapason d'Or of the Year, produced many outstanding recordings as chief conductor of the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart from 2011 until 2016 when the orchestra merged with it's sister orchestra from Baden-Baden and Freiburg to form the SWR Symphony Orchestra. They are now reissued as a five album boxed set including the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, Ravel's longest work, written for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, and the operas L'Heure espagnole and L'Enfant et les sortileges. Although the two operas cannot be strictly considered orchestral works, they are essential to understanding the œuvre of a composer who had a great predilection for fantasy worlds and the exotic. As a student Ravel composed the Ouverture de Shéhérazade and, several years leter, three poems for voice and orchestra on the same topic - both works form part of this set. Throughout his entire career, from Une barque sur l'ocean to Ma mère L'Oye Ravel created magical soundscapes in a highly original manner and with great stylistic freedom. A big inspiration for him was American operetta but also jazz and fairy tales. The formal structure of his works has the clarity of crystal and the elegance of mathematics. The SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart and the cast of young singers selected by Denève give thrilling interpretations.

Teethe re-emerges with Magic Of The Sale, a soft but steelyfull-length album where the Texas band's four distinctsongwriters, singers, and artists ask a series of interlockedquestions about what it means to build a life in a time of sharedcollapse. The result is a sad and beautiful self-built world ofSouthern slowcore, where four people turn toward one anotherand drift forward, together. Magic Of The Sale follows Teethe's2020 self-titled debut, a loose and warm 12-track collage ofexquisite existential blues and twilit harmonies from which fewearly cassette runs turned into several sold-out vinyl editions,unlikely name-drops from mega-stars, and several tours acrossthe United States and Europe. Magic Of The Sale representsTeethe's natural next step a second album, a record tag, aslew of guest collaborators (Xandy Chelmis of Wednesdayand MJ Lenderman, Charlie Martin of Hovvdy and severalother veteran musicians) who represent their Texas roots andnew friends they've made in recent years. Still, Teethe tookspecial care to preserve the part of the process that madetheir debut so special, now with expanded toolkits. On MagicOf The Sale, they've boosted their gear and home studios anddug into the craft of composition and production. Eliding anoutsider producer or engineer, the band's Boone Patrello spentfour arduous months mixing the record-taking the patchworkof tracks from each member and their collaborators andfunneling several visions into one complete picture. From along-overlooked pocket of Texas' musical wealth, Teethereturns with a deeply layered and collaborative work thatmakes the weight of the world feel a little lighter to lug.