A rehearsal under the Austrian conductor Karl Böhm (1894-1981) was a prospect that prompted distinctly mixed feelings among orchestral musicians in Vienna, Berlin, Bayreuth and New York. He was an uncompromising, expert orchestral trainer and an…

When Korean composer Unsuk Chin’s opera was first performed by the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, it caused a sensation among music critics worldwide. Based on Lewis Carroll’s famous and fascinatingly enigmatic novel Alice in Wonderland, it is a…

Martha Argerich has long been hailed as one of the greatest and most uniquely imaginative pianists. She is most admired for the pure joy of her music-making and her individual approach to each work, each situation and each audience. A wild child and…

Who would have thought it? An American orchestra performing in North Korea! Hundreds of millions watched this historic New York Philharmonic concert on television in February 2008 and for a few hours the cold war hostilities seemed to be forgotten…

Richard Strauss (1864–1949) has, of course, always been a very special favourite at the Dresden Opera because many of his works were premiered there, most famously his Rosenkavalier in 1911. As if the world knew that this was to be the last important…

"It would be hard to find anything greater, more significant or more moving anywhere in musical life today: total harmony of mind and heart, poetry and outcry, fear and consolation, knowing and feeling," declared the Berne paper 'Der Bund' after this…

A “triumph of remembrance,” wrote Die Welt following this stirring concert given by the Berliner Philharmoniker under Seiji Ozawa and with Anne-Sophie Mutter as soloist. It left its audience hovering between hushed reverence and deafening exultation…

With this wonderful production, Mozart’s “Munich” opera returns to the place where it was first performed in 1781, the lovingly restored Cuvilliés Theatre, a veritable jewel of Rococo architecture. In Dieter Dorn’s production, the characters are real…

A true celebration, ushering in the New Year with one of the finest orchestras and greatest conductors in the world. The 2007 Gala from Berlin features the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle in Alexander Borodin’s Second Symphony, a richly…

The re-release in Blu-ray Disc will be available from May 2013. “Together with conductor Claudio Abbado, the cream of young European musicians who make up this outstanding orchestra infused the symphony with a luminosity that glowed with an inner…