Explore the vast range of titles available.

Carlos Kleiber, the eccentric and reclusive conductor was a fabled perfectionist who was known as much for the rarity of his appearances as for the brilliance of his interpretations. Georg Wubbolt’s film sheds light on the relationships with his family, including his father and mother, traces the development of Kleiber’s career and covers the ‘mythologizing’ that started during the lifetime of the maestro.

Alban Berg and His World is a collection of essays and source material that repositions Berg as the pivotal figure of Viennese musical modernism. His allegiance to the austere rigor of Arnold Schoenberg's musical revolution was balanced by a lifelong devotion to the warm sensuousness of Viennese musical tradition and a love of lyric utterance, the emotional intensity of opera, and the expressive nuance of late-Romantic tonal practice.

Erich Kleiber conducted the world premiere of Berg's Wozzeck in 1925, so the release of his 1953 Cologne Radio performance of the concert Fragments is of immeasurable importance, historically as well as artistically.

THIS WAS fantasy casting. Vienna, in the Fifties, had an unmatchable Mozart ensemble, with Hilde Gueden (Countess), Lisa Della Casa (Susanna) and Alfred Poell (Count Almaviva) on staff at the state opera company.

HHHHH HANG on to your hats. Here is the Berlin Phil as recorded in the 1930s. Not quite the sumptuous, luxury liner that it is today, but, even then, a seriously decked-out musical cruiser.

He got what he wanted out of an orchestra by means of intense selfpreparation, rather than intensive rehearsal. While he demanded more time than most, he scorned the likes of Sergiu Celibidache who required 15 sessions to prepare a Bruckner symphony and once lampooned the mystic Celi in a letter to Der Spiegel, submitted pseudonymously. Kleiber, after rehearsal, would leave polite notes on players' desks: \"This bit I think could be a bit more forceful and audible. Many thanks and kind regards, C Kleiber.\" [Carlos Kleiber] was, therefore, famous not so much for conducting, as for not conducting. He liked to say that he worked only when his deepfreeze was empty and he did not have to work much to fill it. Aware of his scarcity value, Kleiber stuck out for record fees - a million dollars, reputedly, for his last trip to Japan. He cancelled more than he conducted and was quickly bored. At his last London appearance, a 1986 Verdi Otello at Covent Garden, he seemed to me to be marking time. The phrasing was exquisite but the Moor's jealous rage was never musically aroused. Some who knew Kleiber thought he no longer liked music, maybe hated it. Among the posthumous flowerings is the icon of Carlos Kleiber as a perfectionist who could not allow himself to conduct a work in which he might transgress a composer's sacred intentions. The source of this theory is Harvey Sachs, a biographer of Toscanini and Solti, who recalled in the New York Times meeting a distressed Kleiber during rehearsals for a 1978 Tristan and Isolde at La Scala.

Maestro myths aside, has there ever been a time when we've enjoyed such a wealth of reisssues and \"first-ever\" releases featuring great conductors of the past? Collectors with an ear for comparative interpretation are having a ball, but before mentioning the best of the oldest, first a modern maestro who shares with his finest predecessors an ability to plumb musical depths while keeping a keen eye on musical line. Toscanini managed it, so did the legendary Hans Rosbaud, and so does Rosbaud's most gifted successor as head of the South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Michael Gielen. Hanssler's five-disc \"Gielen Edition\" (93.080) gathers together a number of distinguished recordings, not least a bracing and intelligent Schubert Ninth that Gielen and his orchestra gave at the Royal Festival Hall in the spring of 1996. Beethoven is represented by a powerful Eighth Symphony, a pristine Third Piano Concerto (with Stefan Litwin) and a version of the Grosse Fuge showered with different varieties of attack and articulation, as novel as it's fascinating.

En primer lugar, es de destacar el sentido que [Erich Kleiber] le daba a los ensayos: \"Se necesitan 15 ensayos [de una cierta obra ya conocida por la orquesta] para corregir las malas costumbres adquiridas por los intérpretes\". Los ensayos eran, según Carpentier, el \"reflejo de su amor por la perfección y que nada dejaba al azar\". Si en la ejecución algo fallaba, Kleiber decía: \"Si un accidente se produce, no miren al compañero, que bastante tiene con lamentar lo sucedido, Mírenme a mí, que para eso estoy\".

De regreso en la Argentina, [Savastano] integrará el elenco de \"Così fan tutte\", la ópera de Mozart prevista para estrenar en el Teatro Colón. La Beca In Memoriam [Erich Kleiber] es una iniciativa privada con el objeto de promover a jóvenes talentos argentinos en el área de la ópera y la música clásica, para realizar proyectos concretos que contribuyan a desarrollar las relaciones entre la Argentina y los países germanos en el ámbito musical.

[Erich Kleiber] liked [Edgar Evans], and he sang in the Ring at Rome with him, then in Beethoven's Choral Symphony at Covent Garden, a performance to help launch a pension fund for the artists. He also sang Calaf in Turandot under Sir John Barbirolli. Then, in a single week, he undertook Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), Don Jose (Carmen), Max in Der Freischutz and Peter Grimes. At this time he also sang Captain Vere in Britten's Billy Budd and Dmitri in Boris Godunov, showing off his gifts for characterisation. He eventually had to rest for 20 weeks because of the strain on his voice. In truth, he was singing roles that were too heavy for his basically lyric tenor. On returning, he was content to sing comprimario (supporting) roles.