570764bk Schubert US 18/9/09 11:02 Page 8 Morten Schuldt-Jensen A graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Morten Schuldt- SCHUBERT Jensen holds a Master’s degree in musicology from the University of Copenhagen. Post-graduate courses include study with, among others, Sergiù Celibidache and Eric Ericson. He forged an early career in successful performances with internationally acclaimed Danish choirs and orchestras, culminating in his appointment as Representative Mass in C major • Mass in G major Conductor for Denmark (Nordic-Baltic Choral Festival). He is also a regular guest conductor for various distinguished German orchestras and choirs including the RIAS-Kammerchor, Berlin; the MDR Deutsche Messe Rundfunk-Chor, Leipzig; the NDR-Chor, Hamburg; the Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin; the Gewandhausorchester, Leipzig and the Helsingborgs Symfoniorkester. He has also worked frequently with the Immortal Bach Ensemble • Leipziger Kammerorchester Danish National Radio Choir and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Copenhagen. As a chorus master he has worked with conductors Morten Schuldt-Jensen including Sir Simon Rattle, Herbert Blomstedt, Philippe Herreweghe, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Lothar Zagrosek and many others. From 1999 to 2006 he was director of choirs at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, where he founded the Gewandhaus Chamber Choir in 2001, an ensemble known now as the Immortal Bach Ensemble. In 2000 he was appointed principal conductor and artistic director of the Leipzig Chamber Orchestra. Wide ranging and unusual repertoire, accurate sense of style and a broad variety of interpretation characterise his work with both ensembles, documented in a number or recordings and broadcasts. In his home country of Denmark he founded and conducts the chamber choir Sokkelund Sangkor, with which he has won several international awards. He also founded the Tivoli Concert Choir. Teaching remains an important part of Morten Schuldt-Jensen’s work and in 1992 he was appointed associate professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. From 2001 to 2006 he lectured at the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Leipzig and in 2006 he was appointed to the professorship of choral and orchestral conducting at the Staatliche Musikhochschule in Freiburg/Breisgau. Morten Schuldt-Jensen has conducted at some of the best known European music venues and festivals, including the Gewandhaus and Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Philharmonie Berlin, the Reingau Musik Festival, Schleswig-Holstein-Festival, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommernand, MDR-Musiksommer, and the Mendelssohn-Festtage in Leipzig. His work also takes him abroad with performances at the Seoul International Music Festival, Korea; the Kioi Hall, Tokyo and extensive touring throughout Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan and Scandinavia. 8.570764 8 570764bk Schubert US 18/9/09 11:02 Page 2 Franz Schubert (1797–1828) Immortal Bach Ensemble Masses in C and G major • Deutsche Messe The Immortal Bach Ensemble has its roots in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig. In 2001 Morten Schuldt-Jensen, MASS NO. 4 IN C MAJOR, D. 452, Op. 48 18:50 Credo the former director of the Gewandhaus choirs, formed the $ Credo in unum Deum (Chorus) 3:20 GewandhausKammerchor, its members having been Kyrie recruited from the top professional concert and choral 1 Kyrie eleison (Soloists and Chorus) 2:17 Sanctus singers of Germany, The Netherlands, Southern % Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus (Chorus) 0:40 Scandinavia and Switzerland. With this handpicked Gloria ^ Osanna in excelsis (Chorus) 0:35 ensemble Schuldt-Jensen works on projects with a very 2 Gloria in excelsis Deo (Soloists and Chorus) 3:49 wide-ranging repertoire, from oratorios to twentieth- Benedictus century a cappella music, for which the choir has been Credo & Benedictus qui venit 3:22 acclaimed by audiences and the press alike. In addition to 3 Credo in unum Deum (Soloists and Chorus) 1:24 (Soprano, Tenor and Bass) frequent performances in Leipzig and figuring in high 4 Et incarnatus est (Soloists and Chorus) 1:24 * Osanna in excelsis (Chorus) 0:38 profile venues such as Schleswig-Holstein and Rheingau, 5 Et resurrexit (Chorus) 1:51 the choir has produced several highly praised recordings, Agnus Dei with an acclaimed version of Mozart’s Requiem for Naxos (8.557728). Since May 2006 the Sanctus ( Agnus Dei (Soprano, Bass and Chorus) 4:16 GewandhausKammerchor has been renamed the Immortal Bach Ensemble. The title ‘Immortal Bach’ is taken from 6 Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus (Chorus) 0:38 a work of the Norwegian composer Knut Nystedt, who arranged a Bach chorale in different tempi and sequences, 7 Osanna in excelsis (Soloists and Chorus) 0:44 Claudia Reinhard, Soprano and with it demonstrates the artistic credo of the choir. The Immortal Bach Ensemble aims to combine old and new Rüdiger Ballhorn, Tenor and with top quality performances seeks to explore new ideas and perspectives captivating for both singers and Benedictus Markus Flaig, Bass audience. 8 Benedictus qui venit (Soprano and Chorus) 3:00 Agnus Dei Leipzig Chamber Orchestra 9 Agnus Dei (Soloists and Chorus) 1:46 DEUTSCHE MESSE, D. 872 24:01 The Leipzig Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1971 by 0 Dona nobis pacem (Soloists and Chorus) 1:57 members of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra who were, ) 1. Zum Eingang: Mäßig 3:34 in addition to playing larger-scale symphonic and operatic Claudia Reinard, Soprano ¡ 2. Zum Gloria: Mit Majestät 2:23 repertory, striving for the experience of performance Christine Wehler, Alto ™ 3. Zum Evangelium und Credo: 3:48 practice on a more individual level. Morten Schuldt-Jensen, Raimund Mlnarschik, Tenor Nicht zu langsam artistic director since 2000, has formed a very flexible Tobias Berndt, Bass £ 4. Zum Offertorium: Sehr langsam 2:10 ensemble with a very personal style that suits the present ¢ 5. Zum Sanctus: Sehr langsam 2:46 time. With him the orchestra has toured Denmark, Spain, ∞ 6. Nach der Wandlung: Sehr langsam 2:22 Korea, and Japan, appeared at the Rheingau and Schleswig- § 7. Zum Agnus Dei: Mäßig 3:06 Holstein Music Festivals, and made a number of recordings. MASS NO. 2 IN G MAJOR, D. 167 18:44 ¶ 8. Schlußgesang: Nicht zu langsam 1:48 Orchestra and conductor seek to perform compositions on • 9. Das Gebet des Herrn: Mäßig 2:04 modern instruments with extra care to articulation, phrasing, Kyrie and tone-colours, combining the technical possibilities of ! Kyrie eleison (Soprano and Chorus) 3:08 modern instruments with the latest insights into performance practice from baroque music to the present. Gloria @ Gloria in excelsis Deo (Chorus) 1:12 # Domine Deus (Chorus) 1:33 8.570764 2 7 8.570764 570764bk Schubert US 18/9/09 11:02 Page 6 Rüdiger Ballhorn Franz Schubert (1797–1828) The tenor Rüdiger Ballhorn was born in 1973 in Homberg/Efze and had his early musical training in the Windsbach Masses in C and G major • Deutsche Messe Boys’ Choir from 1981 to 1985. His training as a soloist began in 1993 under Horst R. Laubenthal, with whom he studied at the Würzburg Musikhochschule, followed by master-courses with James Wagner in Lübeck. His first Franz Schubert was born in Vienna in 1797, the son of a continued until near the end of 1820, after which opera engagement was in 1999 when he sang Monostatos at the Theater Würzburg. In 2002 he sang in Don Giovanni schoolmaster, and spent the greater part of his short life Schubert spent some months living alone, now able to at the Aix-en-Provence Festival under Daniel Harding in Peter Brook’s production, and in Verdi’s Falstaff at the in the city. His parents had settled in Vienna, his father afford the necessary rent. Paris Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. His career has brought appearances as the Evangelist in Bach’s Passions and in moving there from Moravia in 1783 to join his By this period of his life it seemed that Schubert was oratorios by Handel and Haydn, and works by Mozart, music which holds a central position in his career. Since 2002 schoolmaster brother at a school in the suburb of on the verge of solid success as a composer and he has sung first tenor in the Ensemble Six and in 2003 was the tenor soloist in Charpentier’s Te Deum at the Leipzig Leopoldstadt and marrying in 1785 a woman who had musician. He lodged once again with the Schobers in Bach Festival. her origins in Silesia and was to bear him fourteen 1822 and 1823 and it was at this time that his health children. Franz Schubert was the twelfth of these and the began to deteriorate, through a venereal infection that Tobias Berndt fourth to survive infancy. He began to learn the piano at was then incurable. This illness overshadowed the The baritone Tobias Berndt, a native of Berlin, received his initial training in music during the ten years that he was the age of five, with the help of his brother Ignaz, twelve remaining years of his life and was the cause of his early a member of the Kreuzchor in Dresden. As a treble he sang the rôle of the first boy in Mozart’s The Magic Flute at years his senior, and three years later started to learn the death. The following years brought intermittent returns the Semperoper in Dresden and at the Comic Opera in Berlin. He studied voice under Hermann Christian Polster at violin, while serving as a chorister at Liechtental church. to his father’s house, since 1818 in the suburb of Rossau, the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Leipzig. He also attended master-classes led From there he applied, on the recommendation of and the continuation of social life that often centred on by Rudolf Piernay, Theo Adam, Wolfram Rieger, Júlia Várady, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. A recipient of a Antonio Salieri, to join the Imperial Chapel, into which his own musical accomplishments and of his intense Mauersberger Fellowship, the Artland Music Prize, and a fellowship from the Hans and Eugenia Jütting Foundation, he was accepted in October 1808, as a chorister now activity as a composer.