Luogo e data di registrazione		Semperoper, Dresden (Germania): - 6 aprile 1997 (Mahler) - 10/11 gennaio 2001 (Strauss)
	Registrazione: live / studio		live recording
	MDR Editor		Hermann Backes (Mahler), Eberhard Jenke (Strauss)
	Artistic recording:		Günter Neubert (Mahler). Helga Taschke (Strauss)
	Technical recording:		Eberhard Bretschneider (Mahler & Strauss)
	Prima Edizione LP		-
	Prima Edizione CD		PROFIL - Edition Günter Hänssler | PH07004 | LC 13287 | 2 CDs - 64' 12" & 56' 16" | (p) 1997 & 2001 by MDR Kultur | (c) 2007 by Profil Medien GmbH | DDD
	Note		Edition Staatskapelle Dresden - Vol. 17

Giuseppe Sinopoli and the Staatskapelle Dresden with Mahler and Strauss The sudden death of Giuseppe Sinopoli on April 20, 2001, during a performance of Aida in Berlin's Deutsche Oper, hit us with the elemental force of an incomprehensible event. The increasing distance in time from those tragic events has done nothing to diminish the sense of loss for all those of us - the musicians of the Dresden Staatskapelle and his staff - who were particularly close to him. We still retain a vivid sense of his absolute devotion to the music, his precise and yet deeply considered approach to the scores and his passion in interpreting them, the intensity he brought to the execution of his high office, the excellence of his continuing artistic duties, the total inner and outer identification with "his" orchestra - in Dresden and in the wider world. We cannot forget the intellectual energy that could draw on the deep wells of an all-round education, or the impulses, concepts and projects that he initiated with a tireless determination to succeed with them while winning support from others and leading them further down the path he had set.We recall his sheer lust for life,which communicated itself to all around him, and we recollect his acute and intense observation of the situation, into which he was able to draw others too. We remember his deep need for mutual understanding and trust and for human warmth in his dealings with people and - more broadly - in the orchestral sound.That is why we miss him; many of us regarded him as a friend and confidant without in the slightest losing our respect and reverence for him. The recordings of the music we made in concert keep alive the sense of this exceptional teamwork, which - a rare occurrence in the music profession - grew more intense and more stable the longer it lasted, more highly charged with its own aura and less vulnerable to the passage of time. The concert programme manager to the Staatskapelle, Eberhard Steindorf, in conversation with Sinopoli When Giuseppe Sinopoli assumed the position of Principal Conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle in 1992, he was considered one of the world's leading conductors; already Music Director of the Philharmonia Orchestra London, he had conducted almost all the great orchestras of the world and enjoyed international success in leading opera houses and concert halls across Europe, North America and Japan, as well as for his many commercial recordings. And yet, as he confessed, he was still searching: not for ever more perfection but for the human touch - in music and in music-making. His encounter with the Staatskapelle in September 1987 had given him an orientation which he followed consistently from then on. In a 1998 interview, he said to me: "I see my first recording with the Staatskapelle, Bruckner's 4th Symphony, as a musical and interpersonal milestone in my life. The artistic and human aspect of our work together thus far is the reason why I came to Dresden. Here I encountered a way of playing in which music had been preserved as a treasure island widely thought to have been lost without trace, in which human players reflected upon what existed, in which one sensed that music is actually humanity`s last hope... This intense relationship with the existential is something I never found until I came to Dresden. And when I look back now, I notice that my awareness of it is stronger than ever. We make music, we love our work; that deep association with the music (elsewhere Sinopoli once spoke of the "ethical style of the orchestra", E. S.) has remained, and it is that, I believe, that underpins our common cause. It explains why after so many years we are still growing closer to one another, as artists and as human beings, and will continue to grow together." In 1998, the orchestra`s 450th anniversary year, Sinopoli reminded his musicians of a particular aspect of their artistic work, as if bequeathing them a legacy: "The Staatskapelle does not in the first place have a tradition of dominant power and dazzling virtuosity (although it certainly possesses such qualities); instead, it has a tradition of heartfelt human expression. As long as it succeeds in preserving this tradition, it will uphold its own character and have a reason togo on making music." We spoke to Sinopoli after that first studio production about his new plans for recordings and for concerts in Dresden. In the autumn of 1989, in the last days of the old GDR, there were talks about a formal association; after two programmes in the spring of 1990 featuring Schubert and Bruckner, Schumann and Strauss, the orchestra appointed the conductor as its director, and announced its appointment publicly during the Bayreuth Festival that year. Press questions about how the engagement of this top conductor from the West could be financed in the east of Germany elicited the unexpected reply that we were in agreement about working together in the future but had not even talked about the fee. "With an orchestra," said Sinopoli with his customary precision and sincerity, "that is capable of expressing feelings in a manner which moved me personally and made me aware of how it approached music", money was no object. When he took up his post, a solution was found that had a direct relationship to the social needs of his orchestra and called upon guest conductors and soloists to show the same degree of solidarity with musicians whose social status was far lower than that of their colleagues in west German orchestras. Sinopoli was fully committed to his work in Dresden. He conducted some 140 symphony concerts in his home concert hall, gave more than 210 concerts with the Staatskapelle in Europe, North America and the Far East, stood in the orchestra pit of the Semperoper for performances of Parsifal, Elektra, Salome and a new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten and conducted the Staatskapelle in live and studio recordings of seventy or more works ranging from overture to symphony, from song cycle to opera and oratorio. The high expectations placed in him following the expansion of his activities in 2003 as General Music Director of the Sachsische Staatsoper of Dresden were left unfulfilled by his sudden death. Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler occupied central positions in Giuseppe Sinopoli`s repertoire. Strauss had given him his first acquaintance with the Staatskapelle, after he had subjected himself to radical household economies as a student in Vienna in order to acquire the Karl Böhm recording of Elektra; he soon came to the conclusion "that Strauss was only to be heard as they had done it". From the start he included Strauss in his programmes in Dresden, where he could build on a performing tradition lasting over a century. This is his explanation of what he valued in this and where he linked to it: "In the works of Richard Strauss, the orchestra proves that its strengths lie not in its fortissimo but in the lightness with which it makes music, in the transparency that produces almost an art nouveau sound, recalling the painting of Gustav Klimt." It was easy enough, he said, to play Elektra loudly; any orchestra could do that. "But this scintillating lightness of the Clytemnestra monologue is something - though I love the Viennese dearly - which I have only encountered in Dresden, or the warm, blossoming sound upon recognition of Orestes - that shows the true power, the unique sound of this orchestra." He also referred to the songfulness of the Dresden orchestra's playing, shaped by centuries of close association between instrumental and vocal art in the history of the "State Chapel" ensemble: "I see in this another reason why this orchestra was Richard Strauss's great love. Strauss was the only composer in the past 100 years who could offer true songfulness, an exceptional cantabilità. And in Dresden he experienced a wonderful union of this songfulness with the lightness of orchestral sound that I spoke of earlier - this was and is unique." Gustav Mahler enjoys no performing tradition with the Staatskapelle comparable to that of Strauss. His scores have always had a harder road to acceptance by musicians - and not in Dresden alone - than the undoubtedly more accessible works of his colleague, who continued living and working in their midst. Nevertheless, the "RoyaI Court Orchestra” was one of the few ensembles at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century that was willing to take on the hotly contested works of Mahler. Ernst von Schuch, a friend of the composer, programmed the First, Second (twice), Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies in Dresden between 1897 and 1907. (A letter from Mahler, director of the Vienna Hofoper, to his Dresden colleague Schuch reads in part: "Many thanks, dear friend, for your generous interest in my work and for your active and so very successful advocacy of my humble self as for all that is new.") The plans of Fritz Busch constantly encompassed Mahler, until his works were outlawed in the "thousand-year Reich". After the Second World War, Joseph Keilberth and KurtSanderling enriched the Mahler tradition; in the 1970s and 1980s he was regularly, but by no means systematically, performed. Giuseppe Sinopoli first tackled Mahler in his fourth season as chief conductor - deliberately so late, because in this specific case, one that was very dear to his heart, he wished to be quite sure of the artistic resources and loyal support of his orchestra. From the qualities described above which he considered so typical of the Strauss performing practice of his orchestra, he foresaw positive benefits for his readings of Mahler. He began in 1996 with Das Lied von der Erde, following with other songs for orchestra and with the Third, Ninth, Fourth, Fifth and (only a few months before his death) the Sixth Symphony; the Second, which he had programmed for May 2001, was played in memory of him. Both the works themselves - Mahler's last symphony and Strauss`s tone poem - and the performances of them, transferred to this CD from live recordings, have direct biographical links to Giuseppe Sinopoli. His April 1997 reading of Gustav Mahler's Ninth was without doubt overshadowed by the death of his father the previous year. Sinopoli was on an extended tour of North America with the Staatskapelle, well aware that his father was so sick that he might hear the worst any day. His concert programmes included works like Ein Heldenleben, the "Alpine" Symphony and Bruckner's Fourth Symphony, alongside works like the Metamorphosen, the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, the Adagio from Mahler's Tenth Symphony and Tchaikovsky's Sixth - a situation that was as musically challenging as it was humanly demanding. On the evening of the last concert, in Mexico City, came the news that his father's condition was highly critical. When Sinopoli arrived home, his father was no longer alive - he had come a few hours too late.We talked about death many times, and his close acquaintance with the end of life arose above all from his comprehensive knowledge of the Egyptian rites of the dead, with which he was thoroughly familiar from his archaeological studies. It was palpable: for him and for those around him, the phenomenon had evidently till now had no relevance; he simply did not let it touch him. All the more elemental, then, was the force with which it now struck him, plunging him into a deep inner crisis and a long-drawnout personal engagement with the "last things". It was inevitable: a performance of the Mahler symphony concerning the "departure from the world, from life" at that time must be strongly influenced by these experiences. He had noted in 1995: "Music is always the expression of a human condition. It says something human, testifies to the involvement of a composer in the world around him. And it is such messages that I will deliver - musical food for thought, that triggers a process of change in the listener. What makes a good interpretation for me is not everything being right - intonation, ensemble playing, articulation - but when it says something to me, when it makes me think. And I would give everything for that, even if it costs me physically..." The performance of "Death and Transfiguration" early in January 2001 seemed to inaugurate the final phase of Giuseppe Sinopoli`s life; there is reason to believe that he entered it consciously and with a certain degree of premonition. The recording of this tone poem, which he often played with the Staatskapelle - both at home and on tour - seems in its very nature to offer a clear and compelling sign of this. In February 2001 he conducted Verdi's Requiem in the Semperoper on the day commemorating the bombing of Dresden, and on his initiative the entire proceeds from the resultant CD were contributed by all its participants to the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche. After the performance we went to the Frauenkirche building site and, lighting a candle and pointing to it, he very quietly and sincerely referred to this symbol of a fulfilling life: while it sheds light and warmth, he said, it is consumed. In his last concert with the Staatskapelle on April 8 and 9, 2001, he played Schumann's First Symphony. While rehearsing the second movement he told his musicians he would like them, if he should die and they were still associated with one another, to play him this Larghetto. (They did so.) Finally the last two days in Berlin: on April 19, till two the next morning, he listened to his final Dresden studio recording, Strauss`s Ariadne auf Naxos. He had promised opera director Götz Friedrich the performance of Aida in the Deutsche Oper on April 20, 2001, as a gesture of reconciliation after a deep-seated conflict. He honoured his promise even after the death of Friedrich in December 2000, conducting the performance in his memory. Referring to the choice of opera, he wrote on a slip inserted in the programme: "Maybe it was fate that directed us to that wonderful passage that closes the opera: 'O terra addio, addio oh valle di pianti, sogno di gaudio che in dolor svani' (oh world farewell, farewell, o vale of tears, dream ofjoy that expires in pain)." And his last words on this sheet were to be his own epitaph: "When Götz accompanies me to the rostrum today, it will be as if he is repeating with clear, persuasive voice the words given by Sophocles to Oedipus, who before he leaves the stage tells the folk of Colonus: '... You and this city ... may fate be kind to you, and in your prosperity remember me always with joy when I am dead.'" - When I took my leave of Giuseppe Sinopoli at the end of the interval, his last words were: "They are playing wonderfully - but I am already looking forward to Aida with my Dresden people..." A few minutes later he was gone from this life. Eberhard Steindorf (Concert programme manager to the Staatskapelle for many years and personal assistant to Giuseppe Sinopoli) Mahler's Ninth Symphony The first sketches for Gustav Mahler's Ninth, his last completed symphony, date from 1908. The work, which deals with death, may have been inspired by the death of his little daughter Maria Anna in 1907. Mahler orchestrated the score in the summer of 1909 in Toblach, in the South Tyrol, starting in June. In October, he took the new symphony with him to New York, where he conducted at the Met and was artistic director of the Philharmonic Society, and the fair copy he prepared while in America was complete in April 1910. The premiere was in 1912, more than a year after Mahler's death, and was given by Bruno Walter in Vienna. Strauss`s Tod und Verklärung Richard Strauss composed the tone poem "Death and Transfiguration" in 1888/89, between the fiery "Don Juan" and the merry "Till Eulenspiegel". The premiere was given by the composer in Eisenach in June 1890. The Dresden Hofkapelle played the piece for the first time in 1897 under Ernst von Schuch; since then it has been in the permanent repertoire of the orchestra. Strauss himself provided a detailed programme for the work in 1894 in a letter to Friedrich von Hausegger: "It was six years ago that I first had the idea of describing the last hour of a man who had sought the highest goals, of an artist in other words, in a tone poem. The sick man lies asleep in bed, his breathing heavy and irregular; friendly dreams conjure up a smile on the face of the wearz sufferer; his sleep grows lighter, he awakens; grievous pains begin to torment him again, the fever shakes his limbs - when the attack is over and the pain subsides, he thinks of his past life: his childhood passes before him, his youth with its endeavours, its passions and then, as his pain returns, he sees the fruit of his life's journey, the idea, the ideal which he has sought to realize, to represent artistically, but which he couid not complete, because it was not to be completed by a human being. The hour of death approaches, the soul leaves the body, to find in eternal space, completed in glorious form, that which he could not complete here below." Years later he observed, rejecting all speculation about personal experience as the source of his composition: "‘Tod und Verklärung' is a pure fantasy - no experience lies behind it (I was sick two years later): a chance thought like any other, probably after all the musical need to write a piece, after ‘Macbeth’ (begins and ends in C minor), ‘Don Juan’ (begins in E major and ends in E minor), which begins in C minor and ends in C major! Qui le sait?" At the same time, this somewhat dismissive account is placed in perspective by the knowledge that Strauss was pursuing philosophical studies at the time he wrote "Death and Transfiguration" about Kant`s treatise on the Swedish natural scientist and theosophist Swedenborg, prompting the observation: "Swedenborg claimed he could look into heaven and had seen it as a transfigured earth, where we continue and complete the work we have done hre below. I believe this." On August 15, 1972, as part of the Salzburg Festival, Karl Böhm, opera and general music director in Dresden from 1934 to 1943, conducted a Staatskapelle concert comprising Mozart's Symphony K201 and Mahler's Kindertotenlieder together with Tod und Verklärung. In the middle of a rehearsal of Strauss's tone poem, the conductor suddenly broke off and told the musicians (as one of them noted at the time): "Strauss suffered from tuberculosis in his youth. The Pschorrs - the wealthy brewers - made it possible for him to spend a year in Egypt, and then he came back and climbed a mountain and said: 'If I can climb this mountain, I am healthy,` and so he was. And it was under the impact of his illness that he wrote this piece. What his son told me is extremely interesting: that he - maybe, if you are interested in this, but you are linked with Strauss after all - 24 hours before his death he awoke from a period of agony and said to Bubi (as he was called, Strauss`s son): ‘Everything I wrote in "Death and Transfiguration" is true. The memories of youth - I have been through all that - the gate that opens - the trumpets - and then the ascent into eternity.' Well, just imagine that! Then he actually added: ‘If I should ever return to this world, I have come to the conclusion I would do nothing different.' See, if you can say that at 85, not long before your death, that really is the culmination of your life. There is no more to be said. That's all true, what I have just told you - not a made-up fairy tale. Believe me..." And the rehearsal continued. Eberhard Steindorf (Translation: Janet and Michael Berridge)