Gurrelieder

Hybrid/SACD - playable on all compct disc players

2008 Grammy Award nomination for Best Choral Performnace

"There are a number of very fine recordings of this extraordinary work, but this newcomer, celebrating the great Michael Gielen's 80th birthday, is, in my view, the finest of the lot. Everything has the feel of absolute 'rightness', and the SWR engineers have enshrined the live performances with sound that is stunningly realistic."
(Recording of the Year Dominion Post 2007)

This recording of the Gurrelieder is being released in celebration of Michel Gielen's 80th birthday (July 20, 2007) and is - also - an homage to a great musician and human being. Gielen has this summing up at the end of his memoirs, "Unbedingt Musik" (roughly, "By All Means, Music"): "I have always thought - and still do - that the function of art and music is to present people with the conflicts of their times and their innermost being in a paradigmatic manner - and that this is the only truth of art. Especially because Schoenberg did just this in such an overwhelming way, he is for me the greatest composer of the twentieth century. In my old age I have realized that there is something else that is no less important: music shows us, above all else, the utopian moments we yearn for!"

Michael Gielen's recordings for Hänssler Classic have been eagerly sought after by collectors around the world. His unique, disciplined approaches to the full spectrum of repertoire, from Beethoven to Boulez are among the finest ever committed to disc. Gielen's understanding of the idioms of he 20th century are in full evidence on the present SACD recording of Schoenberg's mammoth Gurrelieder!