EUROPAKONZERT 2013
Live from the Spanish Hall at the Prague Castle
BERLINER PHILHARMONIKER·SIR SIMON RATTLE
MAGDALENA KOZENÁ
Live from the Spanish Hall at the Prague Castle, 1 May 2013, directed by Henning Kasten
Sir Simon Rattle appears courtesy of Warner Classics.
Magdalena Kozená appears courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon.
Executive Producer: Jan Bremme, Bernd Hellthaler
Tracklsit:
Opening 0:24
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis 17:37
Antonín Dvorák
Biblical Songs,Op.99
Darkness and thunder clouds 3:13
Hear,oh hear my prayer 3:33
Oh, the Lord is my shepherd 2:32
Songs of gladness 3:11
By the shore of the river Babylon 3:03
Oh,Lord have mercy 3:06
My eyes will I to the hills lift up 2:06
Sing unto the Lord of a joyful song 4:18
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No.6 in Fmajor,Op.68„Pastoral”
I.Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande 13:35
Allegro ma non troppo
lI.Szene am Bach 13:01
Andante molto mosso
III.Lustiges Zusammensein der Landleute 5:42
Allegro
IV.Gewitter,Sturm 3:56
Allegro
V.Hirtengesang.Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm 12:39
Allegretto
Credits 2:02
Read moreLes Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski, Magdalena Kožená, Erin Morley, Anna Bonitatibus, Alois Mühlbacher, Elizabeth DeShong, Valerio Contaldo – Handel: Alcina (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:11:36 minutes | 3,48 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PENTATONE
Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre return to Handel with a complete recording of his opera Alcina. The title role is interpreted by Magdalena Kožená, who reunites with Les Musiciens and maestro Minkowski after a series of acclaimed baroque recordings. She is joined by an excellent casts of soloists, consisting of Erin Morley (Morgana), Anna Bonitatibus (Ruggiero), Elzabeth DeShong (Bradamante), Alois Mühlbacher (Oberto), Valerio Contaldo (Oronte) and Alex Rosen (Melisso). This studio recording transports the listener to Alcina’s enchanted island, and shows Handel at the peak of his power: the score is dramatic, lush and colourful as well as introspective and profound where the story requires it.
Read moreMagdalena Kožená – Folk Songs (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 52:59 minutes | 863 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
Magdalena Kožená’s fourth Pentatone album Folk Songs brings together folk-inspired song cycles from across the globe. Ranging from Berio’s Folk Songs to sets by Bartók, Ravel and Montsalvatge, this collection provides a kaleidoscope of twentieth-century orchestral song composition. Kožená performs them together with the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. Folk Songs is star mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená’s fourth album as part of her exclusive collaboration with Pentatone, after having presented the baroque cantatas recital album Il giardino dei sospiri and the songs in chamber-musical setting project Soirée in 2019, as well as Nostalgia together with Yefim Bronfman in 2021. Sir Simon Rattle conducts the world’s greatest orchestras and, since 2019 has returned annually to conduct the Czech Philharmonic. He made his recording debut as pianist on Pentatone alongside Magdalena Kožená on Soirée (2019). In 2022-23 Rattle and Magdalena Kožená were the Czech Philharmonic Artists in Residence. The Czech Philharmonic is one of the world’s orchestral gems, recognised for its rich tradition with the Czech masters as well as European repertoire. Since 2022, the orchestra has released Mahler’s Fourth, Fifth, Second and First Symphony on Pentatone as part of a complete Mahler cycle to appear on the label.
Read moreMagdalena Kožená & Yefim Bronfman – Nostalgia: Brahms, Mussorgsky & Bartók (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:06 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
On her third PENTATONE album Nostalgia, Magdalena Kozen’a presents Bart’ok’s Village Scenes, Mussorgsky’s The Nursery and a selection of Brahms songs, together with acclaimed pianist Yefim Bronfman. Sung in Slovak, Russian and German, these songs on love, longing and innocence show three master composers transforming folk traditions into their unique musical styles. Kozen’a demonstrates her vocal mastery once more, and this recording with Bronfman is the result of a two-decades-spanning congenial artistic partnership. Nostalgia is star mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozen’a’s third album as part of her exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, after having presented the baroque cantatas recital album Il giardino dei sospiri and the songs in chamber-musical setting project Soir’ee in 2019. Yefim Bronfman, whose commanding technique, power and exceptional lyrical gifts are consistently acknowledged by the press and audiences alike, makes his PENTATONE debut.
Read moreMagdalena Kožená – Soirée (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:24 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
This is an album fit to satisfy the most refined and demanding gourmets. Magdalena Kožená and friends, including husband Sir Simon Rattle on the piano, have carefully concocted a programme of choice melodies for voice and various instrumental ensembles. Ranging from rarities (Chanson perpétuelle by Ernest Chausson opens the album) to curiosities (Arias by Dvořák, the wonderful Two Songs, Op.91 by Brahms with a bewitching solo viola played by Yulia Deyneka), the record takes in a series of treats (childish rhymes, Říkadla, by Leoš Janáček) and also affords us the precious Chansons madécasses by Ravel, an unusually lascivious and sensual denunciation of slavery and colonialism, and the very rare Three Songs from William Shakespeare, written in 1953 by a Stravinsky who had been converted to hardcore serialism by his friend Robert Craft. The excellent English soloists accompanying Magdalena Kožená show a little humour by ending this Soirée at the first rays of morning, with a transcription of Morgen by Richard Strauss for mezzo-soprano, violin and piano. English humour, for sure. – François Hudry
Read moreMagdalena Kožená – Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (Live) (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:04:11 minutes | 621 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BR-Klassik
Conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, this performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) was recorded at concerts in Munich’s Herkulessaal on January 25 and 26, 2018, and features Magdalena Kožená and Stuart Skelton. The work is subtitled ‘A symphony for tenor, alto (or baritone) voice and orchestra’. It examines the border between two different genres: the Lied, in its extended form as a song cycle, and the symphony. The entire work is spanned by a taut arc, culminating – in accordance with the principle of intensification – in a huge final movement lasting as long as all the others together, and entitled Der Abschied (The Farewell). Here, Mahler is continuing the genre of the ‘Finale Symphony’, and the brightening of C minor to C major is even reminiscent of his usual apotheoses. In this symphony, as in his others, Mahler wanted to ‘create a world using all existing technical means’.
Read moreMagdalena Kozená – Il giardino dei sospiri (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:25:25 minutes | 1,50 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
On her first album under the label PentaTone, Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená returns to her first baroque loves, collaborating with her fellow countryman Václav Luks and his excellent Prague ensemble. Both a harpsichordist and a horn player, Václav Luks studied at Basel Schola Cantorum before founding the choir Collegium Vocale 1704 in 2005, made up of ninety Czech singers and musicians.
Read moreMagdalena Kozená, Christian Schmitt – Prayer: Voice & Organ (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:24:39 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
The new recording from Magdalena Kožená features deeply-felt interpretations of sacred songs from the Baroque to the 20th Century.
In a rare recording collaboration, she is joined by virtuoso Christian Schmitt, in music for voice and organ from the sacred traditions of Germany, Austria, France and England, as well as her native Czechoslovakia.
Of course, the album includes music by J.S. Bach – a composer with whom Magdalena Kožená has long been associated – with sacred aspects of German song represented by Hugo Wolf and Schubert.
The French tradition is heard in the music of Bizet, Ravel and the great Parisian organist Maurice Duruflé.
Read moreMagdalena Kožená, Jonas Kaufmann, Genia Kühmeier, Kostas Smoriginas, Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle – Bizet: Carmen (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 02:29:40 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Carmen was premiered at the (second) Salle Favart, the home of Paris’ Opéra-Comique – then as now in the Place Boieldieu – on 3 March 1875. Georges Bizet, its composer, died of a heart attack exactly three months later, on 3 June, aged 36. In his short life he had written, in whole or in part, more than a dozen works for the lyric stage, ranging from one-act operettas to five-act grand operas: and had contemplated at least a dozen more. He was exceptionally well connected in the tight-knit and faintly incestuous musical world of mid-19th-century Paris, and almost universally well-liked. Over 4,000 mourners attended his funeral in the Église de la Sainte-Trinité – the location of Rossini’s in 1868 and Berlioz’s the year after – including his former mentor Charles Gounod, so emotionally overwrought that he was unable to finish the eulogy at the subsequent interment at Père Lachaise. That night – 5 June – Carmen was given its 33rd performance at the Salle Favart; and this time the press that had greeted the work’s premiere with almost unanimous hostility was suddenly to be found bemoaning the loss of one of French music’s greatest talents.
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