Nikolaus Harnoncourt Wiener Philharmoniker Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor

Joseph Haydn Dorothea Röschmann Die Jahreszeiten Michael Schade Florian Boesch Nikolaus Harnoncourt Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor Wiener Philharmoniker

Joseph Haydn “Jubilation!” (Kronen Zeitung) in the Great Festival Hall in Salzburg Die Jahreszeiten for Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Seasons with Nikolaus Harnoncourt (The Seasons) conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. The conductor tunes his “Wiener” to peak performance and shows as few others can how “to coax the Orchestra Wiener Philharmoniker tenderest expressive pianissimo shiver from the violins and violas into Conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt the almost inaudible”, enthuses the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Chorus Konzertvereinigung The Seasons, a late work of Haydn’s and the last oratorio he wrote, is Wiener Staatsopernchor a work that well expresses Haydn’s musical wit. Imitatively and self- Chorus Master Ernst Raffelsberger mockingly “Papa Haydn” presents spring, summer, autumn and winter in four sections. A ploughman whistles the well known theme from Soprano Dorothea Röschmann Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony, another passage depicts a hunting Tenor Michael Schade scene with positively brutal musical effects: a shot bird plummets from Bass Florian Boesch heaven with a percussion-enhanced fortissimo chord. The musical manifesto addressed to nature and the countryfolk, represented by Produced by ORF the three soloists, breaks ground with its hitherto unexplored subject- Video Director Michael Beyer matter as it heralds the dawning Romantic era in music, thus occupying a special place in Haydn’s oeuvre. Length: approx. 150' Nikolaus Harnoncourt brings out the simplicity of the work, “creating Shot in HDTV 1080/50i one sonic miracle after another” (Drehpunktkultur). The autumn hunting Cat. no. A04050008 scenes are suitably jolly, the summer thunder ominously threatening. He is ably supported by Dorothea Röschmann as Hanne, admirable DOCUMENTARY with her “soprano free of sharpness” (Salzburger Volkszeitung) and Nikolaus Harnoncourt rehearsing “superbe déclamation lyrique” (Diapason), Michael Schade as an Joseph Haydn’s “The Seasons” expressive Lukas who puts “so much mellowness, so much warmth, so much colour” (Drehpuktkultur) into the realization of his part and finally Video Director Eric Schulz Florian Boesch as Simon, who “... uses his songful baritone voice, his Length: 25' legato finesse, his mere breaths of piano to fling out a great narrative Cat. no. A04550019 arch” (Salzburger Volkszeitung). Enhanced by the well-rehearsed choir of the Vienna State Opera, the performance proves a “stroke of luck, A co-production of ORF, ZDF for 3sat and UNITEL when the grandezza of this music is brought home to one like this, in cooperation with Wiener Philharmoniker, without airs and graces!”, concludes the Salzburger Nachrichten. Salzburg Festival and CLASSICA

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