This box set documents Andris Nelson's work with two world-class orchestras. After Claudio Abbado's death, he led the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in 2014-15, the "greatest challenge" - as he himself called it - of his career until then. In the recording of his first concert with the orchestra, Nelsons explores the musical landscape of the German Romantic composer Johannes Brahms through his Second Symphony and Second Serenade. A year later, he impresses with a fiery and powerful interpretation of Mahler's Fifth Symphony and excerpts from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" with Matthias Goerne. For his inaugural concert as the new Gewandhauskapellmeister, Andris Nelsons chose three pieces with great symbolic power: the "Scottish" Symphony by his probably most important predecessor in office, Felix Mendelssohn, Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, played by Baiba Skride, and a commissioned work by the Leipzigbased composer Steffen Schleiermacher. A recording of Dvořák's Ninth Symphony "From the New World" and arias with Kristine Opolais demonstrates the instantly close relationship between the Gewandhaus Orchestra and their chief conductor.
Works:
•Berg: Violin Concerto 'To the Memory of an Angel' (1935)
•Brahms: Alto Rhapsody, Op. 53
•Brahms: Serenade No. 2 in A Major, Op. 16
•Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73
•Dvořák: Gypsy Melodies, Op. 55 (B104): No. 4 Když mne stará matka (Songs My Mother Taught Me)
•Dvořák: Mesícku na nebi hlubokém 'Song to the Moon' (from Rusalka)
•Dvořák: Oh, it‘s useless (from Rusalka)
•Dvořák: Othello Overture, Op. 93
•Dvořák: Polonaise (from the opera Rusalka)
•Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 'From the New World'
•Mahler: Das irdische Leben (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
•Mahler: Der Tambourg'sell (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
•Mahler: Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
•Mahler: Revelge (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
•Mahler: Rheinlegendchen (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
•Mahler: Symphony No. 5
•Mahler: Urlicht (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
•Mahler: Wo die schönen Trompetenblasen (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
•Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 'Scottish'
•Smetana: How do I fl? (from Dalibor)