News from the Naxos Music Group
September 2018
Label of the Month – OehmsClassics
Founder of
OehmsClassics
OehmsClassics, the independent German record label, was founded in 2003 by Dieter Oehms. Identifying promising young artists and helping them develop their careers was at the core of the label's philosophy when it was launched. Subsequently, leading German opera houses such as the Hamburg State Opera and Frankfurt Opera joined the label and undertook major recording projects. The label has also produced recordings for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Frankfurt Opera and the Graz Opera. Important orchestras such as the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken, the Hamburg Philharmonic, the Cologne Gürzenich Orchestra, the ORF Symphony Orchestra, the Essen Philharmonic and the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra have recorded a wide range of core classical repertoire for OehmsClassics. The label has also established a close collaboration with the Mörbisch Lake Festival in Burgenland. Among the label's roster of important conductors are Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Dimitri Kitaenko, Simone Young, Sebastian Weigle, Ivor Bolton, Markus Stenz, Bertrand de Billy and many others. House pianists include Herbert Schuch, Michael Korstick, Bernd Glemser, Michael Endres and William Youn, while string players with many recordings in the catalogue include Benjamin Schmid and Wen-Sinn Yang.
Today, OehmsClassics is one of the world’s most renowned classical CD labels that boasts a catalogue of some 800 entries; it releases about 30 CD (and even LP) recordings each year, covering the spectrum of classical music repertoire. Its principal focus during the coming years will be in the field of opera, ensuring that the successful collaboration enjoyed with opera houses in Berlin, Frankfurt, Graz and Essen is guaranteed to continue.
RECENT AND UPCOMING RELEASES
![BERG, A.: Wozzeck [Opera]](https://www.naxos.com/sharedfiles/images/cds/hires/OC974.jpg "BERG, A.: Wozzeck [Opera]")
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Segerstam on form
Sibelius on stage, Segerstam on form
To commemorate the anniversary of Jean Sibelius’ death on September 20, Naxos released a 6-CD set of Sibelius’ Incidental Music. This collection of music for the theatre continues Naxos’ marking of the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 2015. The Turku Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted by the renowned Sibelius interpreter, Leif Segerstam.
Parallel to his great sequence of symphonic masterpieces and tone poems, Jean Sibelius wrote a significant body of music for the theatre. It was with King Christian II and Kuolema that he established his fame throughout Europe whilst some of his most hauntingly beautiful writing for the stage can be found in Belshazzar’s Feast. The tragic pantomime Scaramouche is Sibelius’s only continuous dramatic score and Pelléas et Mélisande one of his most accomplished whilst the rarely performed Jedermann is recognised as a hidden masterpiece. Gramophone wrote of these performances: ‘Leif Segerstam masterminds a characteristically unhurried, atmospheric display. What an absorbing journey of discovery this series has proved to be; congratulations to everyone involved.’
MORE OF SIBELIUS: THE COMPLETE SYMPHONIES
BBC Proms 2018 – Artist Spotlights
The 8-week BBC Promenade Concerts – the world's greatest classical music festival – came to an end on September 8. We take the opportunity to highlight some of the major artists and orchestras appearing at this year's event, who have recorded either for Naxos or for one of its affiliated labels.
Marin Alsop brought the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to the festival and made its Proms debut on August 27. The concert also featured pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who has previously recorded the award-winning album of Bernstein’s Second Symphony (8.559790) for Naxos with Marin Alsop and the orchestra. Alsop was the first woman in the festival's 120-year history to conduct the Last Night of the Proms in 2013. The concert in 2013 was selected by BBC Magazine as one of the six most memorable Last Nights of the Proms.
Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto, who has recorded extensively for Ondine, performed in two exciting programmes: The Brandenburg Concertos Project (August 5) and the world premiere of a new violin concerto written especially for him by the award-winning young British composer Philip Venables (August 17).
Orfeo’s star violinist Baiba Skride made a return to the Proms to perform Bernstein's Serenade after Plato's Symposium with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons on September 1. You can also hear Baiba Skride on her latest release (C932182A) that features concertos by American composers Bernstein, Korngold and Rózsa.
Andrés Orozco‐Estrada, who has several albums on Oehms, made his Proms debut conducting Verdi’s Requiem with the London Philharmonic Orchestra on August 30.
The Minnesota Orchestra made a return to the Proms on August 6 with a concert of 20th-century American classics, including Bernstein’s exhilarating Candide overture and Ives’ lyrical Second Symphony. The orchestra has made a number of recordings for Vox.
has reaped a bumper crop of awards!
Naxos Music Group has reaped a bumper crop of awards!
The Naxos Music Group is pleased to announce that a number of recordings from Naxos and its affiliated labels have been awarded prestigious prizes.
OPUS KLASSIK, Germany’s most prestigious awards body in the field of recorded classical music, has announced details of this year’s winners. Naxos and its distributed labels have again received awards for five outstanding recordings. Organised by the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI), the annual awards were previously known as ECHO KLASSIK. The awards ceremony will take place on 14 October in the Konzerthaus Berlin.
The Naxos label received two awards: Marin Alsop’s recording of Bernstein’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 (8.559790) with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was named Best Symphonic Recording (20th century); and Boris Giltburg’s performance of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto (8.573629) with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Carlos Miguel Prieto received the Best Solo Performance (20th century) award.
![BRAUNFELS, W.: Ulenspiegel [Opera] (EntArteOpera, 2014) (NTSC)](https://www.naxos.com/SharedFiles/images/cds/others/C9006.gif "BRAUNFELS, W.: Ulenspiegel [Opera] (EntArteOpera, 2014) (NTSC)")
The Capriccio label distinguished itself with three citations: Cornelius Meister was named Conductor of the Year for his recordings of the complete Martinů symphonies (C5320); the award for Best Concert Recording (20th century) went to a programme of music by George Antheil (C5309) featuring the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, conductor Karl-Heinz Steffens and piano soloist Frank Dupree; and the label’s release of Braunfels’ opera Ulenspiegel (C9006) was named Best World Premiere recording.
This year's Gramophone Classical Music Awards gala took place on September 13 in London. Ondine’s recording of Bartók's First and Second Violin Concertos (ODE1317-2) with Christian Tetzlaff, Hannu Lintu and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra won the Concerto award.
Another Naxos recording of Liszt’s 12 Grandes Études (8.573709) performed by Wenbin Jin has recently received a certificate of merit from the 40th Franz Liszt International Grand Prix du Disque. The award ceremony will be held on October 24 at the Chamber Hall of the Old Music Academy in Budapest.
Congratulations to all the artists involved in these wonderful recordings!
Naxos Online Library products
New landing page for Naxos Online Library products
In an effort to provide better insight and awareness of our products, a new landing page for Naxos Online Library (NOL) products is now available! We invite you to browse through the site and discover what our various services offer; find tutorial videos for the resources to which you subscribe; and stay up-to-date with news and updates for all things NOL!
Naxos Online Libraries are collections of "studied music", presented as streaming subscription services that are available to institutions and individuals. Complete with educational resources, administrator features, free MARC records, and mobile applications, NOL is quickly becoming the go-to music resource for colleges, public libraries, professional music organisations, and many more. Subscribe to whichever collections you want and pay only for the number of users that you need, based on audience size. With no track limits or time limits, users can listen, watch and read all day long. While music is our forte, we also offer audiobook streaming and online sheet music.
OUR LIBRARIES
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Visit www.naxosonlinelibraries.com to find out more.
The Romanoffs
Naxos is excited to be a part of the new The Romanoffs trailer. The show airs in October 2018 on Amazon Prime Video. From the creator of Mad Men, The Romanoffs is a contemporary anthology series set around the globe featuring eight separate stories about people who believe themselves to be descendants of the Russian royal family. The series stars Aaron Eckhart, Diane Lane, Isabelle Huppert, Christina Hendricks, John Slattery, Amanda Peet, Jack Huston, Kathryn Hahn, Noah Wyle, Paul Reiser, Andrew Rannells and more.
Check out the following trailer featuring Prokofiev’s Montagues and Capulets from Romeo and Juliet:
Need to license some music for a project and don’t know where to start? Visit Naxos Licensing to find out how!
The SWR Recordings
Hans Rosbaud – The SWR Recordings
The SWR Hans Rosbaud series contains recordings that Hans Rosbaud made for the SWR (Southwest German Radio). He was the chief conductor of the SWR Orchestra from 1948 until his death in 1962. He transformed the orchestra, later renamed as the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg, into a leading European ensemble. His interests lay in both contemporary music and the classical and romantic symphonic repertoire.
This series from the SWR Classic label presents largely unpublished recordings by Rosbaud of classical and romantic repertoire, re-mastered from the original SWR tapes.
THE SWR HANS ROSBAUD SERIES
“Everything Rosbaud does sounds so right.”
– Gramophone on SWR19036CD and SWR19040CD
A new box set of Hans Rosbaud’s SWR recordings that features works by Mozart with renowned soloists such as Friedrich Gulda, Robert Casadesus, Monique Haas and Dennis Brain.
a contemporary tale of love,
intrigue and betrayal
Handel’s Agrippina - a contemporary tale of love, intrigue and betrayal
We are excited to introduce a modern production of George Frideric Handel’s Agrippina staged in 2016 at the Theater an der Wien by the noted opera director Robert Carsen. The performance was conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock and features a strong cast that includes the renowned lyric soprano Danielle de Niese, as well as the much in-demand mezzo-soprano Patricia Bardon in her critically acclaimed performance.
![HANDEL, G.F.: Agrippina [Opera] (Theater an der Wien, 2016) (NTSC)](images/2.110579-80.png "HANDEL, G.F.: Agrippina [Opera] (Theater an der Wien, 2016) (NTSC)")
This modern production of Handel’s early masterpiece Agrippina is staged in 2016 at the Theater an der Wien by the successful opera director Robert Carsen, renowned for the award-winning staging of Dialogues des Carmélites at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock, the founder and artistic director of Balthasar Neumann Ensemble and Choir, which was included in Gramophone’s list of the world’s ‘20 Greatest Choirs’ (2011).
The cast features ‘one of the most sought-after singers on the planet’ (BBC Radio 3) – the stunning lyric soprano Danielle de Niese as Poppea, as well as the much in-demand Irish mezzo-soprano Patricia Bardon in her critically acclaimed performance of the title role, and the Special Prize winner of the 2012 Innsbruck International Baroque Singing Competition, countertenor Jake Arditti, as Nerone. With luxury styling and costumes by Gideon Davey, this Theater an der Wien production is ripe for the digital-savvy, social media age.
Also available in Blu-ray (NBD0078V)
More full-length videos? NaxosVideoLibrary.com brings you an extensive streaming video library of classical music performances, opera, ballet, live concerts and documentaries. Watch the world's greatest opera houses, ballet companies, orchestras and artists perform on demand! NaxosVideoLibrary.com offers over 2,800 full-length videos, accessible anytime, anywhere.
virtuosic Études après Paganini
Elisa Tomellini plays the virtuosic Études après Paganini
The young and talented pianist Elisa Tomellini loves both physical and musical challenges, and is no stranger to literally scaling high mountain peaks. No wonder then that she is the first woman to perform the original version of the Études après Paganini (S.140), that Robert Schumann considered “...the most difficult work ever written for the piano, as is the original for the violin. Certainly only a few pianists will be able to tackle them, perhaps no more than four of five in the world”.
Pianists almost always play the simplified version, written by Liszt himself in 1852, but the latest Dynamic CD Paganini Études and other virtuoso piano works contains Liszt's original 1838 version, inspired by the Caprices for violin, that aimed to achieve on the piano an extreme virtuosity that was unprecedented in the instrument’s literature.
MORE DYNAMIC RECORDINGS FEATURING PAGANINI-INSPIRED WORKS
One artist.
Yaniv D’Or’s Exaltation – the sound of worship
A follow-up to Latino Ladino (8.573566), which focuses on music of the Sephardic diaspora after the 1492 expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain, the programme for Exaltation is drawn from Medieval and Baroque Europe, Turkey and the Near East, and includes beautiful examples of the Sephardic and Sufi traditions. This essentially joyful album, which combines instruments from different cultures and ages to include distinctive timbres such as the didgeridoo, ney flute, flamenco guitar and more, topped by Yaniv d’Or’s haunting countertenor voice, celebrates the spirit that binds the wandering communities, the gods they worship and the hopes they share for a harmonious co-existence.
Yaniv d’Or and Ensemble NAYA will be presenting two launch concerts at Wuppertal’s historic Town Hall and London's Wigmore Hall on October 18 and October 27 respectively, with a programme collating the traditions of three monotheistic religions from various periods and cultures. Please visit www.yanivdor.com for more details.
MORE RECORDINGS FEATURING YANIV D’OR
– Audiophile Audition ★★★★★
– Fanfare
for September
Playlists for September
September is here, and with it comes a new batch of curated classical playlists! Heading back to school? unCLASSIFIED’s Music for Studying playlist is the perfect study-buddy to help get you focused and back into the groove of the new school year. Need a little something extra to perk you up as you hit the books? Fire up your kettle, take out your French press and turn up the Coffee & Classical playlist to keep your brain firing on all cylinders for optimum learning! Looking to get educated on classical music? Discover classical essentials with the Introduction to Classical Music, a fantastic overview of the most beautiful and iconic works in classical music history. Finally, listen to some of the most enticing piano music by Latin American composers! The son-inflected music of Cuban composers radiates vivid colours, blending habanera and jazz influences, and features world première works for solo piano by Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin and Mexican Manuel Ponce. Add these playlists to your library today and enjoy them any time!
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the Month
Benjamin Schmid
Artist of the Month – Benjamin Schmid, violin
Benjamin Schmid, a native of Vienna, has won a number of awards including the 1992 Carl Flesch Competition in London, where he also won the Mozart, Beethoven and audience prizes. Since then he has been a guest soloist in the world’s most renowned concert halls with such prestigious orchestras as the Vienna Philharmonic, the London Philharmonia Orchestra, the St Petersburg Philharmonic, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, Houston Symphony and the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. His qualities as a soloist and his improvisatory abilities in jazz make him a violinist with a unique profile, whose repertoire comprises both well-known works and concertos by Wolf Ferrari, Gulda, Korngold, Muthspiel, Weill, Weinberg and Reger.
A number of his 50-plus CDs have won the German Record Critics' Award (the only violinist to do so in both categories of classical andjazz), the ECHO Klassik, the Gramophone Editor’s Choice and the Strad Selection. Together with his numerous concert video recordings and TV artist portraits, his achievements document an impressive and multi-faceted 30-year concert career.
On September 13, Benjamin Schmid celebrated his 50th birthday with a gala concert at the Great Hall of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation. He joined forces with Lars Anders Tomter, Clemens Hagen, Ariane Haering, Wolfgang Mutspiel and Florian Eggner, presenting an impressive programme that included works from solo to orchestral by Biber, Schnittke, Mendelssohn and Berger, as well as jazz improvisations.
BENJAMIN SCHMID’S RECORDINGS ON OEHMSCLASSICS
(Recordings available in both DVD and Blu-ray formats)
50th Birthday Special
This 20-CD box celebrates the long-standing partnership of Benjamin Schmid with OehmsClassics, including all his CD recordings for the first time. This compilation also includes two previously unreleased recordings:
My Favourite Paganini and Bach:Reflected.
For more recordings featuring Benjamin Schmid, please visit http://www.oehmsclassics.de.
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