NAXOS Deutschland freut sich über zehn ICMA 2020-Auszeichnungen

The Dutch label Pentatone does not limit itself to a specific period or genre, but releases great recordings of music from Baroque to the 21th century. Paying special attention to the quality of the recording process, the label offers both Vinyl and Hybrid SACD with deep and spacious sound of the highest quality. Its releases are appreciated not only for the extraordinary level of the interpretations but also for their modern and elegant design.

Who is Pepe Romero? I can say he is my dear friend and colleague with whom we recently made a successful tour in Germany. But perhaps it must be asked: Who is not Pepe Romero? Pepe is not an ordinary musician. He is extraordinary, with aristocratic musical genes that would make even a monarch jealous and an artistic sensibility and curiosity that inspires everyone with whom he performs. Pepe is not an egomaniac. He is an almanac of musical knowledge and an authentic person who generously shares his soul on stage for all to enjoy.(Statement: John Axelrod)

Ian Bostridge’s third recording of Schubert’s Winterreise shows many developments in the singer’s view of this cycle. Bostridge’s voice is richer now, and in the lower range also darker, which allows more colours and a correspondingly greater expressive potential to make every important word meaningful. Supported by Thomas Adès, who fully shares his emotional view, Bostridge succeeds in creating a rare unity of the music by combining the individual songs into a single trajectory of thought. He is fully immersed in the devastating melancholy and merciless irony of Schubert’s music.

Adam Fischer and the Danish Chamber Orchestra present a very convincing, coherent and meaningful set of Beethoven’s symphonies whose main characteristic is the rhetorical diversity showing all Beethoven’s various facets. This eloquence is achieved with a consistently slender, low-vibrato music-making and a wide range of tempi, rhythm and dynamics. Exciting contrasts, powerful accents, expressive rubato let Beethoven ‘speak’ in a most persuasive way.

This 2018 Salzburg Festival production of Richard Strauss’s provocative opera Salome has many high qualities. Romeo Castellucci’s incredibly imaginative staging is characterized by its intense symbolism. With her strong and agile voice, Asmik Grigorian is a triumphantly successful interpreter of the title role, musically and dramatically. John Daszak is an excellent Herod, and the rest of the cast is of the finest Salzburg standard. Under the commanding and sympathetic baton of Franz Welser-Möst the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra provides a rapturously successful musical support.