Norman Lebrecht suggests that the Berlin Phil's decision to bypass the record industry by establishing their own label is the reason. Not so, says Gramophone.

Thielemann and the Vienna Phil don't quite manage to scale the heights

Dim the lights and grab your bowl of popcorn for John Williams with the Wiener Philharmoniker.

It’s back to Vienna again for Kaufmann’s latest operetta-fest.

Andris Nelsons’ new Viennese Beethoven box blows hot and cold.

Fine neglected orchestral fare, but is it a masterpiece?

The principal clarinettist of the Vienna Philharmonic, and father to a clarinet dynasty, has died unexpectedly at age 62. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

When the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day concerts were first televised, I always enjoyed scanning the audience to see those elderly, distinguished, granite-jawed males, often with sabre-scarred cheeks, and their perma-tanned wives dripping with dubiously acquired bling. Nowadays, they’ve all gone to that great Vahalla in the sky, to be replaced more wholesomely by the likes of Angela Merkel and Dame Julie Andrews. I was interested to read recently that the world’s most predictable (and expensive) concert, with all its schmaltz and leaden, contrived humour, was originally a Nazi propaganda/morale boosting exercise, held on New Year’s Eve! This year’s effort was conducted by the 35-year-old Gustavo Dudamel (aka “The Dude”), the event’s youngest maestro ever. What fascinates me is just how much music the Strauss family composed: one of the pieces by Johann Strauss II this time was opus 436! They seem to have no trouble programming a concert of virtually unknown gems year after year. For me, this year’s hits were Waldteufel’s The Skaters’ Waltz, whose trumpet tune in the opening bars, the otherwise excellent liner notes bizarrely inform us, may have been inspired by the horn calls introducing Bruckner’s Third Symphony. Another gem, alone worth the price of…

When Gustav Mahler composed his great orchestral song cycle Das Lied von der Erde in 1909, he almost certainly knew he hadn’t long to live. Avoiding the dreaded ‘curse of the ninth’, he labelled it “Eine Symphonie für eine Tenor und eine Alt (oder Bariton) Stimme und Orchester”, thus sanctioning the use of two male voices, rather than the traditional male female coupling most commonly deployed. Rejected by the authoritative Bruno Walther as an inadequate solution, it was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau who began to popularise casting a baritone in the work, but until now no one singer has attempted the full six songs. Jonas Kaufmann Jonas Kaufmann has had some pretty scathing reviews for his Herculean attempt, most of them smacking of closed-minded, pre-determined opposition to the concept by self-styled Mahler ‘experts’. That’s a pity, as his beautifully recorded version taken from live performances at Vienna’s Musikverein has a great deal to offer, not least of which are Kaufmann’s textual insights, and the revelatory qualities of Jonathan Nott’s interrogation of Mahler’s orchestrations. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Symphony for one: Mahler’s song cycle gets the full Kaufmann treatment.

The French conductor (and close associate of Maria Callas), who thought of himself as Viennese, has passed away at 92.

Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Barenboim and Christoph Eschenbach back the orchestra’s campaign to house homeless refugees. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in