BRILLIANT START TO THE YEAR AT MIDEM

The new business year got off to a flying start again at MIDEM in Cannes. From January 24 to 27, 2010, the eyes of the international music industry were focused on France, and once again PROFIL drew the attention of the music biz with an exciting programme of new releases. Label head Günter Hänssler was well satisfied: "Our range has never before been so varied and wide-ranging as this year. Our catalogue has grown both in musical colour and in cultural status."

EDITION STAATSKAPELLE DRESDEN HAS A SISTER: THE "SEMPEROPER EDITION".

"A packed Route 11 tram rattles out of the ruined city, across the Elbe and up to Bühlau. Many of its windows are still boarded up. The outside running-boards are occupied by musicians of the Staatskapelle among other passengers. That is obvious from the instruments they are carrying. The hour-long journey takes them to the terminus, a former health spa. Here, in the "culture barn", opera is once again being performed, since July 1945. Opera! "In the ravaged city, culture's heart starts beating again. "What did the constant power cuts matter? The show went on, even in the dark! Hard to imagine, but it worked. And to fight the winter's bitter cold, each patron had to bring a briquette as well as a ticket for the performance - to heat the hall of Dresden's Provisional Theatre.
"Vol. 1 of the Semperoper Edition opens our eyes and ears to the nascent musical life of those early postwar years in the Soviet zone of occupation ..." Steffen Lieberwirth

This announcement will make all opera fans, and all lovers of the Dresden opera house in particular, pay eager attention. Like the Staatskapelle Dresden for over four years now, the vocal ensemble of the Semperoper too will how have its own series tracing its history through the 20th century. The announcement was sufficient to prompt Germany's Minister of Culture Bernd Neumann to make a personal visit to the PROFIL stand to learn all about this new project.


Anual visit at Profil: Bernd Neumann, Günter Hänssler

Volume 1 of the "SEMPEROPER EDITION" was delivered to the trade in good time for the 25th anniversary of the reopening of the Dresden Semperoper, destroyed in the bombing raid of February 13, 1945. Once again, this venture has only been made possible by an illustrious roll-call of project partners, notably Mittteldeutscher Rundfunk and its chief producer Steffen Lieberwirth, responsible as before for content and layout: "In addition to our continuing partners familiar from the Edition Staatskapelle Dresden, the Deutsches Rundfunk Archiv (DRA) in Frankfurt and Potsdam, our special thanks are of course due to the Historical Archive of the Semperoper and to the Saxonian State and University Library (SLUB) in Dresden with their unique collection of materials. Our partners now include the DEFA Foundation in Berlin. Foundation director Helmut Morsbach was so impressed by the project that he gave us access to unique DEFA film stock from the immediate postwar period after the destruction of the city and the opera house, and many of those images are to be seen — some for the very first time —on the accompanying bonus DVD."

Elegantly finished in the red and gold livery of the Semperoper, the box bears the title "God, what darkness here ..." A new beginning. Dresden opera scenes in the first radio recordings after 1945. The 240-page German/English booklet is in full colour throughout on account of its unique historical content. Volume 1 comprises three audio CDs and a DVD with numerous spectacular first releases of such singers as Bernd Aldenhoff, Christel Goltz, Gottlob Frick, Hans Hopf, Elfride Trötschel, Arno Schellenberg, Kurt Böhme and legendary conductors such as Joseph Keilberth, Rudolf Kempe and Kurt Striegler. (Order No: PH 10007)


"No other opera house in the world can offer such comprehensive documentation," boasted theatre director Prof. Gerd Uecker at the first public presentation of the box in the circular foyer of the Semperoper on February 7, 2010. "Never before have the tradition and musical history of an arts institution been so comprehensively presented in the form of two series running in parallel." Volume 2 of the "Semperoper Edition" is in preparation. It will focus on the reopening of the opera in 1948 in the Dresden Schauspielhaus. All available scenes, with parts long thought lost, of the gala performance of "Fidelio" under Joseph Keilberth have been brought together in a fascinating musical compilation.

Audio Review: Prof. Uecker

Vote in the 2010 BBC Music Magazine Awards Wagner's Lohengrin with Semyon Bychkov and the WDR Symphony Orchestra of Cologne has been nominated in the Opera category. Please click headline to register your vote. This recording deserves your vote! Many thanks!!

PROFIL LAUNCHES COOPERATION WITH WDR RUNDFUNKORCHESTER KÖLN

Now that the WDR Symphony Orchestra is regularly featured in the PROFIL catalogue, it is the turn of the second ensemble of West German Broadcasting (WDR) to be featured in high-quality recordings. In contrast to the Symphony Orchestra, the WDR Radio Orchestra tends to represent the brighter, lighter side of the musical repertoire, but it can offer some high-calibre complete opera recordings too. This joint venture is launched with the release of a premiere recording — the complete version of Alexander Dargomïzhsky's opera "Rusalka" in the original Russian and under the musical direction of Michail Jurowski (PH 09024).

Also planned for 2010 is the release of all three Berlin operettas by Paul Abraham, whose death 50 years ago prompts a worthy commemoration of a composer driven into exile by the Nazis. With his three operettas "Viktoria and ihr Husar", "Blume von Hawaii" and "Ball im Savoy", Paul Abraham revolutionised the operetta genre. In the 1950s, his scores were re-arranged, distorted and hacked about sometimes almost beyond recognition. The WDR recordings, on the other hand, are based on authentic reconstructions of the score and the composer's own autograph manuscripts. In these productions, all the crazy jazz and satirically frivolous humour of these Weimar Republic operettas springs to life again. The release of these three works is planned for the autumn.

INTERNATIONAL AWARDS FOR EXCEPTIONAL PROFIL RELEASES

Two Supersonic awards from Pizzicato magazine are also to be found on PROFIL's roll of honour for the last quarter. The pianist Wilhelm Backhaus died in 1969, and "Wilhelm Backhaus in New York" is a previously unissued recording from his estate, which PROFIL has for the first time given a high-quality release (PH 10006). The other Supersonic award goes to David Geringas for his recording of Mendelssohn's works for piano and cello (PH 08003).



Recordings like these provide further proof of the superlative level of PROFIL recordings.

Bernard Haitink's recording of Bruckner's Eighth Symphony with the Staatskapelle Dresden (PH 07057) earned PROFIL no less than three international awards:
Prize of the Year from the French magazine Diapason
Prize of the Year from the French magazine CLASSICA
Prize of the Year from Swedish Radio 2009

WOLFGANG SAWALLISCH, CARL ORFF and MARTHA MÖDL

Again and again, it is the painstakingly remastered historic recordings in the PROFIL catalogue that win acclaim. This time it is a legendary recording of Carl Orff's "Antigonae" with Martha Mödl and Kurt Böhme, from the estate of the world-famous soprano, that can be expected to win international plaudits. No less a conductor than Wolfgang Sawallisch was on the rostrum for this performance. (PH 09066)



This exceptional conductor also directed a performance of Joseph Haydn's "The Seasons". A BR recording with the Symphony Orchestra and Choir of Bavarian Radio shows Sawallisch exercising his unique artistry to bring out new and unexpected musical aspects of Haydn's oratorio. (PH 07020)

PROFIL IN HIGH PROFILE

It is those off-the-beaten-track recordings that really capture the attention of the music-lover . They certainly include the following releases:

Russian Songs (Zaderatsky, Lourié, Shostakovich) Jascha Nemtsov, piano, Verena Rein, soprano (PH 10005)

Titz Quartette, Vol. 3 Hoffmeister Quartett (PH10030)

Beethoven: Sonatas and Variations Wen-Sinn Yang, Cello & Werner Bärtschi, Piano (PH10004)

Aus dem telos Katalog:

Beethoven: Grand Sonata for the Hammer Clavier Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli Michael Leslie, piano