Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Yannick Nézet-Séguin MOZART Die Zauberflöte

“So many people”, notes Yannick Nézet-Séguin, “when they think ‘Mozart opera’, think of The Magic Flute. Since the beginning, since its creation, this work has always reached different kinds of audiences. It’s just one greatest hit after another”. Each of his cast’s singers owns the rare blend of vocal shading, dramatic presence and psychological insight needed to bring Mozart’s magical characters to life.

The conductor himself was praised by mundoclasico.com for conducting an “excellent” concert production of The Magic Flute at Baden-Baden with his “characteristic precision, musicality, expressive power and energy”, and for treating every nuance and every tiny but meaningful and performance-enhancing detail with “attention, love and dedication”. The same review also hailed Rolando Villazon’s first foray into the baritone repertoire, noting that “his vocal and dramatic gifts lent themselves perfectly to the comic role of Pagageno”. 

Villazón conceived the idea for Deutsche Grammophon’s Mozart cycle in 2011 while performing Don Giovanni at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden with the COE and Maestro Nézet-Séguin. He developed the project in partnership with the conductor and DG, brought ROLEX on board as generous supporters, and has served as its joint artistic consultant from its inception. Four of the five recordings released so far have received Grammy nominations, with Le nozze di Figaro winning a prestigious Echo Klassik Award in 2017.

“This is my most ambitious artistic project to date”, recalls Villazón. “I’ve never fallen in love with any composer like this before!” Since launching the enterprise eight years ago with Don Giovanni, he has performed in each release, embracing everything from Ferrando in Così fan tutte to the title-role in La clemenza di Tito.

The Magic Flute was first performed at the Theater auf der Wieden, outside the ancient city walls of Vienna, in September 1791, barely two months before Mozart’s premature death. The show ran for over 100 performances within its first season and soon became a hit throughout Europe and beyond. It mixes music and spoken dialogue, humour and pathos, mystery and mankind’s search for wisdom. The opera balances earthy comedy with an exploration of the nature of individual freedom, fraternity, enlightened leadership and unconditional love, all expressed in music of simplicity and beauty. “I very much like the perspective of doing The Magic Flute now,” Nézet-Séguin reflects, “because it throws light on all the operas we’ve already recorded.”

Seong-Jin Cho / Yannick Nézet-Séguin / Chamber Orchestra Of Europe MOZART

Piano concertos, designed to please a paying audience, were part of Mozart’s daily business. Yet he lifted the genre high above anything that had gone before, so high that he effectively invented it in the form we know today. His mature piano concertos – famously difficult to bring to life in performance – stand among the supreme tests of a performer’s powers. Seong-Jin Cho has chosen one of the most demanding of the composer’s works for keyboard and orchestra, the Piano Concerto in D minor K466, to launch his first Mozart recording for Deutsche Grammophon. The Korean pianist’s latest album, which also includes the dramatic Piano Sonata in F major K332, the early Piano Sonata in B flat major K281, and the Fantasia in D minor K397, bears witness to a musical love affair that began in childhood and has deepened since he won the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw three years ago.

Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Yannick Nézet-Séguin MOZART La Clemenza di Tito

This is the fifth instalment of DG’s series of seven Mozart operas conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and initiated by Rolando Villazón, in collaboration with Festspielhaus Baden Baden and with the generous support of ROLEX For La Clemenza di Tito, Mozart’s last opera about the benevolent Emperor Titus who pardons an attempt on his own life, Rolando and Yannick – new music director of the MET – are joined by outstanding partners: A stellar cast in every role and specialist handpicked orchestra playing at their best in the stunning venue of Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. Rolando adds yet another intriguing Mozart role to his already large discography. This time it is his role debut as Tito, reinforcing again his love for Mozart: “No composer has spoken to as directly as Mozart. I feel like I have a soul mate in him.”

In addition Rolando has been named Artistic Director of the Salzburg Mozart Week Previous productions in this series are: Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Grammy Award Nomination) and Le Nozze di Figaro (Grammy Award Nomination & Echo Klassik Award).

Lisa Batiashvili / Yannick Nézet-Séguin / Chamber Orchestra of Europe VISIONS OF PROKOFIEV

Visions of Prokofiev features Prokofiev’s two violin concertos – completed in 1917 and 1935 respectively and long-since established as classics of the 20th-century repertoire – alongside three much-loved excerpts from the composer’s stage works in arrangements by Lisa’s father, Tamás Batiashvili. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Yannick Nézet-Séguin accompanies Lisa’s violin on the album.

In Soviet-era Georgia, Prokofiev was considered one of the foremost composers of the 20th century. As well as being widely performed throughout the country, his music was on the curriculum and therefore formed part of Lisa Batiashvili’s earliest musical memories. When she moved to Germany in 1991, it was Prokofiev’s music that shaped her as an artist. In her earliest days at the Hamburg Musikhochschule, Mark Lubotsky set her to work on the “First Violin Concerto”. Although Batiashvili, then twelve years old, did not immediately grasp the powerful gestures and suggestive theatricality of Prokofiev’s early work, she did familiarize herself with the concerto. As her career developed, she began programming it on significant occasions. Now a piece whose style she can fully identify with, it has more or less become her calling card.

“Although 15 or 20 years ago the ‘First Concerto’ wasn’t as popular as it is today, I played it in major competitions and made a number of debuts with it,” says Batiashvili. “It has a tenderness and dreamy detachment about it that I find hugely fascinating. Prokofiev clearly has endless ways of conveying the fragility and vulnerability of human experience. And yet everything is so close to being expressed in a genuinely Classical manner. The concerto’s closeness to ballet and the theatre is, of course, a result of Prokofiev’s gift for defining individual roles and characters with the most succinct and beautiful musical themes.”

There are palpable, if informal, connections between the two concertos and the three perennial favourites from Prokofiev’s ballets Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella and his early opera, The Love for Three Oranges, here heard in arrangements created by the violinist’s father, Tamás Batiashvili. “The first time you hear it, the ‘Second Concerto’ might seem rather more conventional and calculated than the ‘First’. But the wonderful second-movement cantilena, for example, is a close relation of the ‘Love Theme’ from Romeo and Juliet. What Prokofiev does in the ballets is directly reflected in the character of the concertos. Conversely, the best numbers from the ballets are so rounded that they work even when they’re removed from their theatrical context.”

Above all, as Batiashvili explains, Prokofiev is a composer “who truly combines East and West, and whose music therefore has a sense of timelessness.” The formal language of the German instrumental tradition, a feeling for colour nurtured by French Impressionism, and, finally, that combination of intense melodiousness and thrilling rhythmic energy typical of Russian composers since the mid-19th century all come together in Prokofiev. In 1917, the year of the October Revolution, he left Russia to seek his fortune in the U.S. and Western Europe. By 1936 he had become an international celebrity but the economic situation in the West had worsened dramatically. Overwhelmed by homesickness, he returned to the Soviet Union. There he became a prominent servant of an authoritarian system, acclaimed and reprimanded by turns. As fate would have it, he died on the same day as Stalin in March 1953.

Lisa Batiashvili, herself an emigrant, is another musician who naturally combines Eastern and Western influences. Although she still has strong ties to her native Georgia, and regularly returns to Tblisi to visit friends and relatives and give concerts for her compatriots, she regards herself as a European. Batiashvili lives in Munich with her French husband and her children who were all born in Germany. She is no longer forced to choose one country or way of life over another – her cultural influences can coexist and complement each other.

The same is true of her artistic life. Like many instrumentalists trained in the Russian tradition, Batiashvili is fundamentally a Classicist. Clear proportions, elegant lines, the beauty of restraint and as seamless and natural a development as possible are more important to her than virtuosic excess or striving after effect for its own sake. These are qualities shared by the players of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, making them the perfect partners for Batiashvili on this recording. The members of the COE, among the finest musicians in the world today, represent many different nationalities – a positive example of European pluralism. They come together every year for a limited period to work on chosen projects with leading conductors, such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Lisa Batiashvili has also played many an important concert under Nézet-Séguin’s baton and is delighted to have had the opportunity of working with him again here. “His way of making music is so natural, and at the same time so moving,” she explains, “that you feel as though you’re dealing with a force of nature. As far as I’m concerned, this orchestra, Yannick and I together make an ideal artistic team.”

Yannick Nézet-Séguin / Chamber Orchestra of Europe / RIAS Kammerchor MENDELSSOHN Symphonies 1 - 5

2017 marks the 500th anniversary of the European Reformation, started by Martin Luther in 1517. To honor this occasion, Deutsche Grammophon is releasing a new interpretation of the complete Mendelssohn symphonies, crowned by a recording of the Reformation Symphony No. 5.

The symphonies were recorded in February 2016 during a celebrated Mendelssohn festival over the course of two days at the Philharmonie de Paris - all under the baton of young, exciting conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Music Director Designate of the Metropolitan Opera New York.

This release is the first complete symphonic cycle to be recorded at the new Philharmonie de Paris, which opened in January 2015!

For this recording, Christopher Hogwood's editions of the symphonies were chosen because of their particular importance for the Reformation symphony:

Mendelssohn, the often self-critical (and self-revising!) composer, who "in the process of trying to reduce the work to a length suitable for its celebratory function, [he] cut out one entire movement preceding the Finale, a passage that expands on the flute cadenza and prepares the arrival of the chorale theme with more engaging musical drama". (Christopher Hogwood)

The original version of the work may now be listened to in its entirety!

This release underlines a strong ongoing collaboration with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe that already culminated in a successful release of the complete Schumann symphonies (March 2014) and the continuing Mozart Opera Cycle. Two instalments of the latter have been nominated for a Grammy: Le Nozze di Figaro and Die Entführung aus dem Serail. (Presto Classical)

Yannick Nézet-Séguin / Chamber Orchestra of Europe MOZART Le Nozze di Figaro

. . . [from the first chords of the "Figaro" overture, Nézet-Séguin] establishes a bold, fully crystallized concept of Mozartean sonority and the psychological implications behind it . . . [Christiane Karg as the wily servant Susanna and Sonya Yoncheva as the Countess] are just wonderful . . . [Luca Pisaroni's Figaro] makes dramatic points not with his usual word articulation but with more microphone-friendly use of tone Color . . . Even small roles are cast with stars: Anne Sofie von Otter as Marcellina and Rolando Villazón as Basilio help sustain Act 4 . . . [the 50-plus "Figaro" recordings on CD and DVD] show how the opera showcases each generation of Mozart performers . . . Nézet-Séguin's recording takes its place among these touchstones. A great musical mediator . . .

Record Review / David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer / 10. July 2016

 

Luxuriously presented and cast . . . [Nézet-Séguin's Mozart recording] oozes confidence . . . You are in his safe hands the moment Mozart's upstairs-downstairs comedy kicks off, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe buoyant, textures balanced, colours vibrant . . . the romp of a fandango that concludes Act III is a marvellous little scene-stealer . . . Sonya Yoncheva's magnificently melancholic Countess is a peach of a performance, lusciously, dreamily sung. Luca Pisaroni is an experienced Figaro and his velvety baritone is smoothly delivered . . .

Record Review / Neil Fisher, The Times (London) / 01. July 2016

 

Yannick Nézet-Séguin / Chamber Orchestra of Europe MOZART Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail

Deutsche Grammophon’s projected cycle of the mature Mozart operas, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe is central to Rolando Villazón’s efforts to reinvent himself as a Mozart tenor. Villazón and Nézet-Séguin are the two constant factors in the seven recordings, which are to be based on concert performances given each summer at Baden-Baden. The first set, of Così fan Tutte, appeared two years ago; a Don Giovanni followed last autumn, and the fourth instalment, Le Nozze di Figaro, will be recorded next week.

If the Festspielhaus at Baden-Baden, the largest opera house in Germany, seems an odd place to choose for recording Mozart, then on the evidence of this Entführung neither Nézet-Séguin nor Villazón is an obvious point of reference for such a project, either.

The impression of the whole performance is of something old-fashioned which, the odd desultory vocal ornament apart, could have been recorded 40 or 50 years ago. There’s a bouncy enthusiasm to Nézet-Séguin’s approach, with its wide, dynamic contrasts, but not a great deal of subtlety, though the COE is its usual cultivated and alert self. The inclusion of a fortepiano continuo, which can only rarely be heard behind the weight of the modern strings and wind, seems tokenistic, especially with voices placed as far forward in the recording as they are, though the acoustic is consistent, and for once the spoken dialogue seems to belong in the same acoustic as the rest of the performance, with Thomas Quasthoff taking the purely speaking role of the Pasha Selim.

Villazón is Belmonte, but neither his sound nor his style is really plausible. It’s all very generalised, and often he could be singing Verdi rather than Mozart, with coloratura that is laboured, and tone that seems alternately nasal and curdled. The sense of style that’s missing in Villazón’s singing is emphasised by the other tenor, Paul Schweinester as Pedrillo, and especially by Diana Damrau as Konstanze, but Anna Prohaska is a disappointingly anonymous Blonde, and Franz-Josef Selig a surprisingly lightweight, rather unmenacing Osmin. Alongside the best performances already in the catalogue, whether traditional (conducted by Karl Böhm, say, or Colin Davis) or historically aware (William Christie or John Eliot Gardiner), this new version doesn’t begin to compete. (The Guardian)

Nézet-Séguin / Chamber Orchestra of Europe SCHUMANN The Symphonies

Robert Schumann was a great composer. That any debate about this distinction continues, more than 150 years after his death, is inexplicable. In post-Freudian assessments of Schumann’s music, there is a predilection for focusing overmuch on the effects of the composer’s mental illness on his scores, much as critics and scholars seek to attribute every detail of Dame Iris Murdoch’s novels to forewarnings, manifestations, or ravages of Alzheimer’s, but Schumann’s music is a triumph of ingenuity over adversity. Schumann’s significance as a ‘crossroads’ composer of Teutonic Romanticism is nowhere more evident than in his four Symphonies, composed—and, in the case of the score eventually published as the Fourth Symphony in D minor, revised—over the course of a decade (1841 – 1851), when his creative powers were at their peak. Artistically, Schumann’s Symphonies are collectively like a reservoir: having dammed the inflows of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, this quartet of pivotal scores enriched the musical waters that flowed out into the music of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, and Mahler.

Though Schumann’s Symphonies retain places in the repertories of most of the world’s major orchestras, too many performances seem prompted by duty rather than desire. One of the most gratifying qualities of the performances by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Québécois conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, recorded ‘live’ by Radio France and preserved by Deutsche Grammophon in spacious, meticulously-balanced sound that adheres to the Yellow Label’s legendary standards of excellence, is the audible zeal with which the Symphonies are played. The true madness to which Schumann’s Symphonies fall victim is that of misapprehension and neglect, and it is encouraging to find a young orchestra and one of today’s finest young conductors bringing to these masterworks tonal and interpretive warmth indicative of legitimate appreciation and affection. A smaller ensemble than many orchestras that have recorded Schumann’s Symphonies, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe produces lean textures that heighten the clarity with which Schumann’s orchestration is revealed to the listener without lessening the impact of the boldest passages. In comparison with both his contemporaries and later composers whose music his Symphonies influenced, Schumann’s scoring is rarely dense, and the Orchestra’s sharply-focused playing in these performances enables both Maestro Nézet-Séguin and the listener to give full attention to the nuances of the music and the manner in which Schumann utilized sonic textures as expressive devices. ( Joseph Newsome)

Maria João Pires / Claudio Abbado / Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Wiener Philharmoniker MOZART Piano Concertos Nos. 14 - 17 - 21

The combination of Abbado and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe has to be my dream ticket for modern-instrument Mozart. The qualities are irresistible: cultured, characterful woodwind playing (so important in Mozart piano concertos), an expert string section which carries no passengers, and an alertness of response to a conductor who, with years of experience in this repertoire, nevertheless shows no sign of going stale. Maria João Pires is an excellent partner in all this: her stylistic approach is similar, in that she also favours a light touch, but there is no danger of over-preciousness. The expressive Andante in K453 – one of the first of Mozart’s slow movements to make a major feature of the woodwind section – is done especially well, as is the bustling Haydnesque finale; indeed, the orchestra’s articulation of the Presto coda is quite breathtaking. The C major Concerto, K467, is, of course, among Mozart’s best-known works in any form. Abbado and Pires take the work at face value: clipped and martial in the first movement, perfectly poised in the central Andante, and fast but clean in the good-natured finale. Both works were recorded in the Teatro Comunale in Ferrara, though only K453 was recorded live. But there is no perceptible difference in sound; indeed the production values throughout are well up to DG’s high standards. (BBC Music Magazine)