5 Years of Hänssler Profil — The Fine Art of Music

Time has flown by. It is five years since Günter Hänssler launched his new label PROFIL on the CD market. In those five years, an impressive repertoire has been assembled. The Profil catalogue includes such world-famous artists as the conductors Sir Colin Davis, Herbert Blomstedt, Sir Roger Norrington, Bernard Haitink and Semyon Bychkov, the Klenke Quartet and the Artos Trio, to name but a few. The repertoire has been enriched by series that are multiple international award winners, such as the Günter Wand Edition and the Edition Staatskapelle Dresden, the latest instalment of which is out this autumn with a special highlight to enhance it.

Volume 30 of the Edition Staatskapelle Dresden appeared at the start of October. Fritz Busch — Complete Dresden Recordings from 1923 to 1932 (PH 07032) includes a DVD with extensive and absorbing documentation and slide shows illustrating the work of the great conductor in Dresden, his expulsion from the city in which he had set musical standards for ten years and the belated act of restitution in 1999: the conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli, who died two years later in 2001, gave an emotional address asking forgiveness of the maestro for the terrible events of March 1933 and posthumously "restored" him to "his" opera house. Then there are fascinating articles on the technical history, facts and figures on the Staatskapelle's earliest recordings, the legendary Verdi premieres and much more. The "Tannhäuser Overture" is a sensational audio and video document, created in 1932 in the old Dresden Opera House and released in full for the first time on DVD within this boxed set.

The Fritz Busch box is undoubtedly the most lavishly presented release that Profil has placed on the market in the five years of its existence. The golden box holds three CDs bearing all the commercial recordings of the Staatskapelle Dresden under the direction of Fritz Busch: recordings that are so rare that they had to be painstakingly gathered for this edition from collectors and private archives all over the world, among them the famous Yale University in the USA, the Singapore-based German conductor Volker Hartung and a variety of private collectors in Germany.
The accompanying booklet runs to 192 pages and offers many previously unpublished pictures from the State Library of Saxony, the archives of the Semperoper in Dresden and the Brüder Busch-Gesellschaft in the Max Reger Institute in Karlsruhe, and many private individuals.
The German Broadcasting Archive in Frankfurt provided the only surviving live transmission of one concert by the Staatskapelle Dresden. For the first time, fully digitally restored, the 1931 broadcast of Brahms's Second Symphony from the Berlin Philharmonie can be heard in its entirety.
"The Fritz Busch box has engaged the attention of its project team for more than two years," reports Dr Steffen Lieberwirth, head of music at MDR Figaro, who has shaped the character of the entire edition and in the case of Fritz Busch had quite a few sleepless nights as its responsible Executive Producer.

Let us not forget all our other exciting new releases in the Edition Staatskapelle Dresden. Vol. 26 , Order No. PH 07043, is a CD of works by Paul Hindemith and Ernst Toch. Both recordings date from the early postwar years, 1948 and 1949. Hindemith's song cycle "Die junge Magd" for alto, flute, clarinet, 2 violins, viola and cello and Ernst Toch's song cycle "Die chinesische Flöte" are enjoying their first commercial release. Soloists Ruth Lange and Elfride Trötschel, both members of the Dresden Opera ensemble at the time, present a moving and sometimes spine-tingling account of these two contemporary works. The CD includes two bonus tracks: interviews (in German) with Ruth Lange and Elfride Trötschel.
It's not all historic recordings however, even if we at PROFIL have always given them a prominent place in our repertoire. We have exciting news about new recordings as well:

Recent MDR concert recordings include Bruckner's 8th Symphony and Mozart's "Prague" Symphony with the Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Bernard Haitink in 2002: recordings made under the most dramatic circumstances, given that these were the first concerts to be recorded after the "flood of the century" that overwhelmed Dresden in 2002. Major technical problems meant that there was no chance to record two complete concerts, as usual, just a single concert as it was broadcast. The heightened tension of those days manifested itself that evening in a brilliant musical performance from the Dresden orchestra. Volume 24 of the Edition Staatskapelle Dresden is available under Order No. PH 07057.
Quintets for wind instruments are consummately interpreted by Quintett Chantily, winners of the ARD Prize and already among the leaders in their genre on the chamber-music scene. Order No. PH 09002 presents the Chantily Quintet in wind quintets by Mozart and Beethoven. Another highly intriguing chamber-music recital is to be heard on PH 08034: Bach's "La fantasia della raggione" played by the Quadro Hypothesis ensemble. A third gem of chamber music is PH 09005 "David's Song", a musical tribute by the internationally celebrated cellist David Geringas to his old friend the composer Anatolijus Senderovas. The CD comprises the Sonata for Cello and Percussion (1972), Cantus 1 for Cello and Piano (1993), Songs of Shulamith for Cello and Accordion, Cantus II for Cello solo (1993) and David's Song for Cello and String Quartet (2006) - a thrilling release outside the mainstream of chamber music.
In conclusion, then, two more exceptional historical releases: Order No. PH 08035 presents a complete recording of Gluck's opera "Alceste" with the legendary Kirsten Flagstad in the title role. The Italian-language recording was made in London in 1956.  A Stuttgart concert performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" was captured for posterity one year earlier, in 1955, and the tenor part was sung by the young Fritz Wunderlich, still on the threshold of his international career. This hitherto unreleased recording will surely be required listening for all fans of Fritz Wunderlich, and it is appearing in good time for Christmas 2008 under Order No. PH 08028.

To mark its fifth birthday, PROFIL has completely redesigned its internet presence to provide even more convenience and clarity than before. Suggestions and criticism, which were a great help to us in designing these pages, will continue to be entirely welcome via our contact address. They will keep us "moving forward" in the next five years and ensure we live up to our motto: PROFIL — THE FINE ART OF MUSIC!