Warner Classics Editio... - Wolfgang Sawallisch - Audio CD (Arrives in 50 days)

“A man steeped in music, who knew every note of every score he conducted … who was a supportive accompanist as well as an informed interpreter and who understood how to train, develop and lead an orchestra,” was how the New York Times characterised Wolfgang Sawallisch after his death in 2013. America’s National Public Radio cited his “glowing and incisive interpretations of the staple German Romantic repertoire, particularly music by Wagner, Strauss and Bruckner.” Those are just three of the composers to feature in this 65CD box: Wolfgang Sawallisch: The Warner Classics Edition – Complete Symphonic, Lieder and Choral Recordings. Among the others are Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Pfitzner and Hindemith.

Expressive of Sawallisch’s distinction are the orchestras he conducts in these recordings, made between 1954 and 1997: among others, the Berliner Philharmoniker (he first appeared with the orchestra in 1953, aged just 29), Staatskapelle Dresden, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra and The Philadelphia Orchestra (of which he was Music Director from 1993 to 2003). The collection also provides evidence of his superb skills as a collaborative pianist.

Soloists include the pianists Emanuel Ax, Annie Fischer and Stephen Kovacevich, string players Frank Peter Zimmermann and Heinrich Schiff, horn player Dennis Brain, and singers Barbara Hendricks, Lucia Popp, Margaret Price, Brigitte Fassbaender, Peter Schreier, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Thomas Hampson.

This collection will be followed by a box saluting Sawallisch’s achievement in opera, not least in his native Munich.

Label: Plg | Origin: Holland