Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks - Musica Viva - Saunders 35 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Wolfgang Rihm is one of the most important contemporary composers of our time. The musician, professor of composition and author from Karlsruhe, Germany is a larger-than-life personality, and the contemporary music scene is impossible to imagine without him. His knowledge of music is all-encompassing, as is his mastery of the arts, literature and philosophy - all of which serve as sources of inspiration for his composing. With more than 400 compositions, he has created a universe that cannot easily be defined. Rihm has written New Music - the titles of his compositions have come to symbolize the musical history of recent decades. Other works by him refer to music history - they include, for example, oratorios inspired by Bach, orchestral works based on Brahms, or chamber music inspired by Schumann. With this and a further one of instrumental and vocal chamber music, BR-KLASSIK and musica viva are celebrating the 70th birthday of this influential composer. The album features the large-scale symphonic work Jagden und Formen (2008), which received it's world premiere in November 2001 in Basel by the Ensemble Modern. Of the original version, which was created between 1995 and 2001, Rihm composed a new version between 2007 and 2008 that was staged for the first time with a choreography by Sasha Waltz at the Schauspiel Frankfurt, again with the Ensemble Modern playing. - Rihm's orchestral work is so instantly gripping in it's urgency and relentlessly motor-like power that it already ranks as a modern classic. In it's 2008 state, the Inchwork in progressInch that grew over the years reached it's final form. What begins as a courtship dance between two violins soon escalates into breathless music that is irresistibly captivating virtuosic, intoxicating and overflowing with ideas, without ever losing it's tension and urgency.

The Munich concert year of 2005 began at the end of January with two highlights the two performances of Bruckner's Third Symphony with Mariss Jansons conducting the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in the Philharmonie i'm Gasteig. The live recording makes it possible to experience one of the landmarks of the Late Romantic symphonic repertoire, conducted by an outstanding Bruckner connoisseur. Bruckner completed the score of the opening movement, the Adagio and the Scherzo of his nascent Third Symphony between February and July 1873, and sketched out it's finale on August 31, 1873 in Marienbad, Bohemia. The composer then travelled to Bayreuth, and presented Richard Wagner with his Second Symphony and the already completed manuscripts for the Third. Bruckner asked Wagner to select the symphony he preferred, intending to dedicate it to him - but since both men drank quite a bit of beer during their thorough perusal of the manuscripts, Bruckner was later unable to remember which work Wagner had ultimately chosen, and this had to be clarified in writing. The Third Symphony was completed on December 31, 1873. This first version of Bruckner's Third Symphony became famous because it contained quotations from Wagner's opera InchTristan und IsoldeInch and his tetralogy InchDer Ring des NibelungenInch. These quotations were, however, incorporated into blocks that were separated by general rests, so could be later removed without interfering with the substance of the symphony. In 1877, Bruckner fundamentally revised the work, shortened it and eliminated the Wagner quotations. Then, in 1888, he worked out a third and final version, which forms the basis of the present interpretation.

Kyrill Kondraschin and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks what had been planned as a happy relationship between the significant representative of the Russian conducting school and the first class Munich ensemble ended tragically with the sudden death of the conductor before he could assume the position of Chief Conductor of the orchestra. All the more significant is thus this sound document. The live recording made at concerts in Munich's Herkulessaal comprises an exciting program that juxtaposes two late romantic works from different symphonic cultures Rimsky Korsakov's InchRussian EasterInch Overture and César Franck's only symphony, in D minor.