BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard – Bartok: The Wooden Prince (Final Version) (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:14:32 minutes | 2,36 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Onyx Classics
‘From a musical point of view, but especially with regard to the stageworthiness of the work, these cuts represent an absolute improvement’ Bartok wrote to his publisher when he had finished his definitive revision of his Wooden Prince – cutting out much of the music relating to specific stage action, but also generally tightening the symphonic structure, making its large-scale mirror form appear clearer. Normally performed and recorded in its non-revised full-length version, it has been a joy now to follow Bartok’s inspired last wish revision of this mystic, vital, otherworldly, and grotesque fantasy music. (Thomas Dausgaard)
This album is the third in Thomas Dausgaard’s survey of Bartok’s orchestral works, and as before, he has recorded a version of a major work seldom heard. The rare and final version of the Wooden Prince is coupled with the masterful Divertimento and the Romanian Folk Dances.
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Thomas Dausgaard, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra – Bartok: Orchestral Works, Vol. 1 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:35 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Onyx Classics
Always keeping one eye on educating tomorrow’s audiences, Danish orchestral conductor Thomas Dausgaard accords great importance to the role that music can play in the lives of young people. That is why he has collaborated with young people’s orchestras like the Baccarelli Institute in Brazil, the Toronto Youth Symphony and the Australian Youth Orchestra. This unique conductor is a real free radical in the often-hidebound world of classical music. His curiosity goes far beyond the borders of music. He is fascinated in particular by the ways of life of faraway peoples: he has visited head-hunting tribes in Borneo, worked on a Chinese farm, and lived with villagers on a remote South Pacific island.
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Seattle Symphony & Thomas Dausgaard – Carl Nielsen: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 (Live) (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:05 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Seattle Symphony Media
Thomas Dausgaard and the Seattle Symphony bring you electric and superbly played performances of Nielsen’s early symphonies. Dausgaard has championed the music of his countryman throughout his career, and this album features the Danish composer’s ecstatic First Symphony and the strong-willed Second Symphony. The live concert recordings capture the vitality and energy shared by the orchestra and their new Music Director, all in the spectacular acoustics of Benaroya Hall.
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Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard – Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathétique’ (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:21 minutes | 969 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
These two works from either end of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s career are linked by their tragic endings – the Sixth Symphony with its concluding Adagio lamentoso descending into the deep and gloomy catacombs of a low string sound, and the ‘Fantasy Overture’ Romeo and Juliet closing with a funeral march. Both of them much-loved staples in the concert halls of the world, they appear here in ‘Opening Doors’ – the series conceived by Thomas Dausgaard and his Swedish Chamber Orchestra in order to provide the opportunity of hearing large-scale Romantic symphonic works in a new way, with the clarity that a chamber orchestra can offer. Begun in 2006, the Opening Doors project includes a full cycle of Schumann’s symphonies (‘the most perceptive Schumann cycle in over three decades’, International Record Review), Dvořák’s ‘New World Symphony’ (‘yet another orchestral gem’, klassik.com), and Symphony No. 2 by Bruckner (‘perfectly paced and balanced – and the small orchestra is all to the good in making Bruckner’s stark originality clear’, BBC Music Magazine). These are now joined by Tchaikovsky’s last symphony – completed only a couple of months before the composer’s death in 1893 – a work which to many is the archetype of a true Romantic symphony.
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Swedish Chamber Orchestra & Thomas Dausgaard – Brahms: Orchestral Works (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:50 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
“Begun in 2012 with the release of Symphony No. 1, Thomas Dausgaard’s four-disc traversal of the symphonies of Johannes Brahms is here brought to a close with the composer’s final work in the genre. The E minor Symphony is sometimes described as Brahms’ ‘elegiac symphony’, and has been called ‘one of the greatest orchestral works since Beethoven’. Typical for the composer is the striking degree of motivic relationships throughout the work. This includes the finale in which Brahms demonstrates his full mastery in a towering Passacaglia consisting of 30 variations and a coda. The smallish forces of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra contribute to a transparency and clarity which bring out the finer details of Brahms’ compositional web. As on previous instalments, the symphony is coupled with other works by Brahms. Included on the present disc is another late work, Tragic Overture, which concludes the programme. These two ‘serious’ works frame some of the most rousing and ebullient music Brahms ever wrote, namely his Hungarian Dances. Composed for piano four-hands, the 21 dances became immensely popular, and Brahms arranged three of them for orchestra himself. Having made his own orchestrations of the remaining 18 dances, Thomas Dausgaard has recorded the full set for his Brahms cycle, with the final nine dances included here.”
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Swedish Chamber Orchestra & Thomas Dausgaard – The Brandenburg Project (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:26:24 minutes | 3,77 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Along with Vivaldi’s Seasons or Beethoven’s Fifth, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos belong to those works that are so well-known that we risk taking them for granted. In order to (re-)discover the special qualities that can inspire us today, in 2001 Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra decided to contact six contemporary composers, asking each of them to compose a companion piece to one of the concertos. Seventeen years later, in 2018, it was time to present the result, with a performance at the BBC Proms of all the works – new and old.
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Swedish Chamber Orchestra & Thomas Dausgaard – Mendelssohn: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:26 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Having begun their collaboration in 1997, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and its conductor laureate Thomas Dausgaard have developed an unusually tight partnership. Nowhere is this demonstrated more clearly than in their cycles of the symphonies of Schumann, Schubert and, most recently, Brahms – performances which have been characterized by reviewers as variously ‘fresh’, ‘vivid’, ‘transparent’ and ‘invigorating’.
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Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard – Schubert: Symphonies Nos 1 & 2 (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:39 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © eClassical
On the final disc of a complete cycle, Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra offer us their readings of Franz Schubert’s first two symphonies. Written between 1813 and 1815, by a composer still in his teens, both works exemplify the influences of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven on the young man – something which was long regarded as a weakness: until well into the twentieth century (with just a few exceptions) their existence was of interest primarily to archivists. They nevertheless contain abundant proof of Schubert’s melodic genius – for instance in the Andante of Symphony No.1 – and other trademarks of the composer are already in evidence: his beloved ‘Wanderer’ rhythm in the finale of the Second Symphony, and throughout his confident and individual handling of form and harmony. The previous three discs in the cycle have met with critical acclaim and distinctions, with many reviewers welcoming the fresh approach towards the undisputed masterpieces (the ‘Unfinished’ and the ‘Great C major’) as well as to the less familiar earlier works. The present disc include two fillers, of which one is the rarely heard Funeral March from the unfinished opera Adrast from 1819-20, Schubert’s second attempt in the genre. Far better known is the closing work, the well-loved ‘Rosamunde Overture’. Composed around the same time as Adrast, it was actually part of the music to the melodrama Die Zauberharfe, but has later become associated with the incidental music to Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern, which Schubert would write some three years later.
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Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard – Schubert: Symphonies Nos 1 & 2 (2014)
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 76:35 minutes | Digital Booklet | 3,52 GB
On the final disc of a complete cycle, Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra offer us their readings of Franz Schubert’s first two symphonies. Written between 1813 and 1815, by a composer still in his teens, both works exemplify the influences of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven on the young man – something which was long regarded as a weakness: until well into the twentieth century (with just a few exceptions) their existence was of interest primarily to archivists. They nevertheless contain abundant proof of Schubert’s melodic genius – for instance in the Andante of Symphony No.1 – and other trademarks of the composer are already in evidence: his beloved ‘Wanderer’ rhythm in the finale of the Second Symphony, and throughout his confident and individual handling of form and harmony. The previous three discs in the cycle have met with critical acclaim and distinctions, with many reviewers welcoming the fresh approach towards the undisputed masterpieces (the ‘Unfinished’ and the ‘Great C major’) as well as to the less familiar earlier works. The present disc include two fillers, of which one is the rarely heard Funeral March from the unfinished opera Adrast from 1819-20, Schubert’s second attempt in the genre. Far better known is the closing work, the well-loved ‘Rosamunde Overture’. Composed around the same time as Adrast, it was actually part of the music to the melodrama Die Zauberharfe, but has later become associated with the incidental music to Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern, which Schubert would write some three years later.
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Thomas Dausgaard, Swedish Chamber Orchestra – Schumann – Symphonies Nos 3 & 4 (2008)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:16:30 minutes | 684 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
For some years, Thomas Dausgaard and his Swedish Chamber Orchestra have been developing their project ‘Opening Doors’, performing symphonies and other orchestral works from the Romantic era with the smaller-than-usual forces of a modern-day chamber orchestra. It has been possible to sample the results of this approach in various music centres around the world during the team’s extensive tours, as well as on disc. The present disc is the fourth of their Opening Doors recordings and at the same time the closing disc of a ‘series within a series’ – a triptych featuring Schumann’s complete symphonies. Previous instalments have been praised for the freshness of the interpretations. ‘A brilliant recording, which overturns common and oft-repeated judgements regarding Schumann the symphonist’ was the reaction of the reviewer on German website Klassik Heute, while the review of the second disc in International Record Review included the following prediction: ‘If the final disc maintains such excellence, this could well be the Schumann cycle to have.’
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Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Örebro, Thomas Dausgaard – Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:06 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS Records
Following a series of acclaimed recordings of 19th-century music including complete cycles of the symphonies by Schubert and Schumann, Thomas Dausgaard and his Swedish Chamber Orchestra turn to Felix Mendelssohn. The team’s latest offering unites three of the composer’s four celebrated concert overtures, written between 1826 and 1835 and setting new standards for this emerging genre: Mendelssohn’s overtures are also tone poems, combining a Classical conception with Romantic expressivity. The earliest of the three – A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Mendelssohn composed at the age of seventeen, and his sister Fanny later remarked how Shakespeare’s play had been a constant presence at their home, and ‘how at various ages we had read all the different roles, from Peaseblossom to Hermia and Helena…’ The overture immediately became one of Mendelssohn’s signature pieces, and seventeen years later he returned to it, composing additional incidental music for a stage production of the play. Written for soloists, women’s choir and orchestra, the complete Midsummer Night score is included here. The disc opens with the last of the four overtures to be composed, however: The Fair Melusine, which Mendelssohn wrote after having heard an opera based on the old French tale of the water spirit Mélusine and her sad fate. Actively disliking the opera, Mendelssohn was provoked into his own musical setting of the subject matter in the form of a concert overture. Water – and its depiction in music – also plays an important role in The Hebrides, the closing work on the present recording. Inspired by the poems by Ossian – which captured the imagination of an entire generation at the beginning of the Romantic era – Mendelssohn visited Scotland and the Hebrides in 1829, and already during this trip he sent a postcard to his family, with the overture’s famous opening written down in a four-part setting.
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Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra & Thomas Dausgaard – Bruckner – Symphony No. 4 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:12 minutes | 1001 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
After acclaimed recordings of the Third (‘Dausgaard… makes the music sound vital and even revolutionary’, Fanfare) and Sixth (‘This persuasively played work could be no better served’, MusicWeb International), Thomas Dausgaard and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra now present Anton Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, ‘Romantic’ in its second version (1878-1880), the one with which this work has become widely known.
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Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard – Langgaard: The Symphonies (2009)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 06:59:44 minutes | 8,17 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Dacapo Records
With his symphonies the Danish composer Rued Langgaard offered 16 vastly different versions of what a symphony can be. His captivating, complex genius made room for all conceivable idioms and a wealth of styles ranging from the grandiosely Late Romantic to the purest Absurdism. This box is the first collected recording of Langgaard’s 16 symphonies based on the critical edition of the scores; recordings which demonstrate, with spectacular sound quality, Langgaards masterly grasp of the orchestra and his ecstatic view of art: “Mr. Dausgaard’s keen advocacy elicits polished, persuasive accounts that live up to Langgaard’s motto: ‘Long Live Beauty'”, wrote The New York Times.
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Swedish Chamber Orchestra & Thomas Dausgaard – Schumann: The Symphonies & Overtures (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 03:50:00 minutes | 2,00 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
He takes Schumann’s Allegro molto vivace marking to heart and drives the first movement at a stimulatingly brisk pace. He also makes the most of the score’s dynamic markings, resulting in some pretty explosive contrasts–especially when the timpani loudly strikes or rolls. However, his one bad idea–going for an “authentic” period-style sound–proves fatal. Yes, the increased ensemble clarity and rhythmic acuity is striking, but employing, or simulating the sound of gut strings seriously undercuts the music’s power. The orchestral timbre is overly bright, as if someone had turned the treble way up. This brightness only gets worse in tutti passages, where it becomes strident.
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Christian Poltéra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Thomas Dausgaard – Dvořák & Martinů: Cello Concertos (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:18 minutes | 1,04 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Since 2007, cellist Christian Poltéra has recorded a number of acclaimed discs for BIS, of less often heard concertos by composers such as Othmar Schoeck, Frank Martin and Samuel Barber, as well as contemporary classics including Henri Dutilleux’s ‘Toute un monde lointain…’. Across the world, reviewers have been bowled over by Poltéra’s effortless technique, but even more so by his communicative skills and beautiful sound, typically using adjectives such as ‘glowing’, ‘lyrical’, ‘ripe’ and ‘singing’. These are of course qualities that will enhance any repertoire, and here, on his latest disc, Poltéra has occasion to apply them to one of the truly great Romantic concertos. Dvořák once famously expressed as his opinion that the cello was unsuitable as a solo instrument, going on to compose what was to become one of the most beautiful, as well as popular, concertos in the repertoire. Although the solo part is demanding, the work is by no means a bravura showpiece. Instead, the orchestra and soloist form an integral whole, something which is admirably brought out in the interaction between Poltéra and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Thomas Dausgaard. When he composed his First Cello Concerto, in 1930, Dvořák’s compatriot Bohuslav Martinů also wanted to create a work involving dialogue between soloist and orchestra. Inspired by the concerto grosso form of the baroque era, he wrote a first version for cello and chamber orchestra, which he revisited in 1939, expanding it for large orchestra. In 1955 he returned to the concerto once again to create a third and final version, which has become one of his most popular works.
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