Classical Music Vinyl 148 Items

Diese Einspielung von Fritz Reiner mit dem Chicago Symphony Orchestra aus dem Jahr 1954 ist legendär. Seine Interpretation des Strauss-Werks war eine der ersten Stereoaufnahmen bei RCA, auf Band gebracht von Jack Pfeiffer. Acht Jahre später lud das Label Reiner erneut ein, "Also Sprach Zarathustra" aufzunehmen - diesmal mit verbesserter Technik. Doch die musikalische wie auch die Aufnahmequalität der 1954er Produktion bleibt unübertroffen. Und auch wenn die Aussage, das Chicago Symphony Orchestra unter der Leitung von Fritz Reiner sei das 'beste Orchester der Welt', letztendlich immer problematisch ist: diese Einspielung ist hervorragend.

Der Dirigent Reiner war den Beschreibungen nach ein Despot, der seine Musiker wahrhaft schikanierte. Mit sparsamen Gesten führte er das Chicago Symphony Orchestra durch die Partitur, doch erreicht er mit ihm eine Brillanz und Transparenz, mit der heutige Dirigenten erst einmal mithalten müssen. Das Remastering für Analogue Productions übernahm Ryan Smith.

As featured cellist on the Cirque du Solei’s Michael Jackson: The Immortal tour, Tina Guo’s unique playing style on both electric and acoustic cello was heard by over two million audience members worldwide. She has worked with some of the biggest names in music including Stevie Wonder, John Legend and Hans Zimmer, released ten albums in her own right, and is featured on multiple games and film soundtracks. Born in China to musical parents, Guo moved to the US when she was five years old. She has had a notable classical career as a soloist for various orchestras including The San Diego Symphony, alongside her more mainstream work. Game On! is her eighth studio album, originally released in 2017 and is themed around her extensive work on games soundtracks. She brings her own dynamic style to a selection of popular themes from The Legend of Zelda to Pokémon. This release brings these powerful recordings to vinyl for the first time.

180g

Jazz master Chick Corea’s unconventional vision of a classical performance shines through in his interaction with the Orchestra da Camera Della Sardegna, turning the acclaimed chamber orchestra into a large-scale jazz ensemble. His unorthodox approach adds a touch of playfulness to the Mozart & Gershwin pieces performed while upholding Corea’s obvious reverence for their music. His joyous fusion sets the tone for the musicians and the audience, creating a truly captivating and boundary- pushing experience.

The recording captures the essence of Corea’s musical vision, his appreciation for classical traditions, and his undeniable genius as a performer and improviser. It stands as a testament to his lasting influence and his eternal quest to push the boundaries of music.

Through his work as a composer and a performer, he sought to bridge the gap between genres, embracing the universality and enduring power of classical music. Corea realized this ambition fully during this live performance as was eager to release the recording as an album that would inspire jazz and classical music lovers equally.

180g

ESP Institute artist Bartellow, one third of the project Tambien and otherwise known in the Contemporary Classical sphere as Beni Brachtel, returns to the label with his second full-length release, Noosphere. While currently heading the SVS label and residency series out of Munich, Beni’s resume expands well beyond electronic music to include immersive sound installations such as The Adven- ture Of The Empty House (solo live performance across seven floors of Walter Henn’s Deckelbau building), a slew of compositions for the Bavarian State Opera (for which he doubled as conductor), and a prolific career of over twenty-five theater scores for institutions such as the Münchner Kammerspiele, Schauspiel Basel, Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, Berliner Ensemble, Schauspiel Köln, Schaus- piel Graz and with directors Ersan Mondtag, Alexander Eisenach, Jessica Glause and Tobias Staab among others.

Noosphere is a compendium excerpting from theatrical scores WUT (Elfriede Jelinek, at Schauspielhaus Köln, directed by Ersan Mondtag, 2020), Ödipus and Antigone (Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin, directed by Ersan Mondtag, 2017), Der Zauberberg (Thomas Mann, Schauspiel Graz, directed by Alexander Eisenach, 2017), Hass Tryptichon (Sybille Berg, Wiener Festwochen / Maxim Gorki Theatre, directed by Ersan Mondtag, 2019), Wonderland Ave. (Sibylle Berg, Schauspielhaus Köln, directed by Ersan Mondtag, 2018), Die Verdammten (after Visconti ́s film, Schauspielhaus Köln, directed by Ersan Mondtag, 2019) and Roi Ubu (Alfred Jarry, Theater Neumarkt, Zurich, directed by Alexander Eisenach, 2018).

The work traverses homages, infusing everything from Baroque to Impressionism, and while these types of references are certainly built into the canon of Theatre as a discipline, here we gather histor- ic layers in an even wider net. Under the self-referential thumb of Contemporary Classical music, this sort of "hindsight" approach has been largely avoided, however, in today’s all-access arena, the constant stream of historic causal-chained events has opened a delta where anything is possible. This defines Bartellow’s stance among his colleagues as well as his cultural position as a composer.

Beni considers beauty a fleeting objective in the arts, that expression is often expected to follow notions of Destructivism or the unfulfilled. Art will pore over wounds, collective angst, mourn- ing a loss of natural habitat or a fear of technological invasion, yet there is a bitter irreverence for the friction or salvation in beauty itself. Acknowledging this subjectivity — what one audience considers superficial pleasure may be deeply profound to another — he leans into musical instinct as if composing via divine conduit.

Noosphere conjures a array of suspense, ecstasy, melancholy, and dread, but in isolating the work from its theatrical component, Brachtel directs our focus toward formal qualities, clearing unim- peded space to conceive fresh narratives and examine dynamism and interconnectivity. In sympathy with often difficult theatre pieces, the passages can be dark and transgressive, but more importantly they remain relative to Brachtel’s circumstances at their time of creation. The title Noosphere speaks to the evolution of human thought and knowledge, opening a door to subjective points-of-view. For example, Nexus II On The Beach refers to both Roberto Musci’s Water Messages On Desert Sand as well as the film Bladerunner, invoking the image of an android enjoying the sunset, but whether or not this abstraction may be considered beautiful depends the listener’s cumulative life experience and perspective.

This is hybrid chamber music, augmented by electro-acoustic layers, juxtaposing various periods and successively processing their residual themes into a trans-generational rendering of “now.”

2017 pressing

180g

Philip Glass will share a new album, Philip Glass Solo, on January 26 via Orange Mountain Music. The collection is an intimate portrait of the renowned pianist at 84, as he takes a new look at some of his most enduring and beloved piano works.

toechter is an all-female trio operating from Berlin. toechter’s 2nd full-length album »Epic Wonder« sees its classically trained members blend elaborate string arrangements with ethereal indie pop and delicate rhythms. Katrine Grarup Elbo, Lisa Marie Vogel and Marie-Claire Schlameus exclusively use analogue sound sources (such as violin, viola, cello, and their voices), which were then electronically processed.

Named after the Greek god of the wind, toechters 2022 album »Zephyr« exhaled deeply with concurrently invigorating and confusing sounds. »Epic Wonder«, their second album, was created in the spring and summer of 2023. Playing with forms and contours, the music sounds like the awakening of something new. One seems to be listening to an ongoing conversation, an exchange about what music could be, where it wants to go and how it contributes to our view of life. It all rests on a simple premise:

»Every sound you hear in our universe comes from us. The string trio is the core of toechter, the starting point of all our work.«

Toronto keyboardist R. Grunwald has played on sessions for hundreds of musicians, and has served as bandleader for jazz/pop chanteuse Jill Barber and country/folk songwriter Donovan Woods for the better part of a decade. Now he's ready to step onto the public stage with his own music'alone. Oma is an evocative and deeply personal solo piano record, inspired in part by the life story of his 96-year-old grandmother, a Holocaust survivor and pianist. Drawing from Erik Satie, Nils Frahm and others, Grunwald refers to his intensely melodic compositions as 'extended minimalism.'

'After quitting piano, it was my Oma who inspired me to get back into it. She survived the 2nd world war moving from town to town, hiding from the Nazis, and the Russians in Poland. Music was the one thing that tied her young life together. This music is a tribute to her.'

Enjoy in a quiet environment.

LTD to 400 copies

Sissi Rada's humble manifestations of the miracle of life, the troubles of love, the thoughts that span through a human mind while performing simple tasks, educated by her love and natural inclination to poetry, read like small vignettes, or marginalia notes on a diary that is of constant flux.

Recorded, mixed and produced by Sissi alone, in her Athens’ home, using a spartan but powerful instrumentation of harp, a Prophet synthesizer, and first and foremost her intimate and enchanting voice, ‘ Aporia’ stands out with its simplicity and familiarity, like a page out of a diary, shared with a blush and a witty smile."