Product Overview
Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt - Dvorak, Brahms: Orchestral Music (CD DOUBLE (SLIMLINE CASE)) Newly remastered, and new to CD, the dramatically charged Dvo krecordings made by Hans-Schmidt-Isserstedtfor Decca and Deutsche Grammophon, coupled with the composer's (and Brahms) folkloric dances. Eloquence pays tribute to the self-effacing art of Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt(1900-1973) combining three LPs onto a 2-CD set all recorded during his postwar reinvention as a symphonic conductor of subtle and collegial gifts who brought the best out of orchestras across Europe. In 1945 he was selected by British occupying forcesinnorthern Germany to found and lead the Hamburg Radio Symphony Orchestra (later the NDR Sinfonieorchester) as a German counterpart to the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London. The orchestra's program of repertoire classics leavened bynew music became a model for radio orchestras established across postwar Germany, and Schmidt-Isserstedtenjoyed an Indian summer as a symphonic conductor after beginning his career in operatic posts in Darmstadt, Hamburg and Berlin. Schmidt-Isserstedtand the NDRSO undertook the first postwar tour of the UK by a German orchestra in politically sensitive conditions during 1951.The Dvo ksymphony sessions duly took place at Kingsway Hall in London, during the orchestra's second tour in the spring of 1953. Supervised by John Culshaw, the sessions included the Seventh Symphony and a selection of four Slavonic Dances. The dances were first issued on a separate LP, coupled with seven Hungarian Dances of Brahms, and then the Slavonic Dances separately released on a 10-inch medium-play (MP) disc. A decade later, Schmidt-Isserstedtand the NDRSO recorded the two Serenades, for ensembles of wind and strings, which count among Dvorak's freshest inspirations. Here again, both playing and conducting were praised for their energy, their joyful spirit and sensitivity to the Czech idiom, and yet these performances have been unavailable for many years: their first international release on CD will bring the conductor's name to a new generation of music-lovers. "Schmidt-Isserstedtseems to have a way with Dvo k; his warm, broad and thoroughly idiomatic treatment plus Decca's full-bodied reproduction, make this by far the preferred version of the work." High Fidelity, January 1954 (Symphony No. 7) "The Decca recording is outstandingly well managed." The Record Guide, 1955 (Slavonic Dances) "The playing in both works is everywhere first-rate, with a delightful buoyancy to the wind playing in Op.44 a most attractiverecord, one I shall play late at night when I want to be beguiled." Gramophone, October 1965 (Serenades) Tracklistings: CD 1 ANTONIN DVO ÁK (1841 1904) 1 4 Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70 (B.141) 5 8 Four Slavonic Dances, Op. 46 (B.83) JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833 1897) 9 15 Seven Hungarian Dances Hamburg Radio Symphony Orchestra CD 2 ANTONIN DVO ÁK (1841 1904) 1 5 Serenade for Strings in E major, Op. 22 (B.52) 6 9 Serenade for Winds in D minor, Op. 44 (B.77) NDR-Sinfonieorchester Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt
