Christian Gerhaher's BRSO Favourites
In celebration of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra's 75th anniversary, baritone Christian Gerhaher shares his favourite recordings of performances alongside the orchestra.
Read more…Schumann: Das Paradies und die Peri (Paradise and the Peri) op. 50, Part III: No. 21 'Jetzt sank des Abends gold'ner Schein'
With Nikolaus Harnoncourt it was always a feast: he was able to inspire us to produce completely different sounds than what we were used to. And with the BRSO he succeeded - and still succeeds - like no other orchestra: his musicians are ready and open to any style and, above all, capable of realising this incredible stylistic range at the highest level. In my opinion, this is what particularly characterises this orchestra. The flight over the Middle East described in this aria evokes a peace that can only be perceived from above, only from a bird's eye view: it cannot be found on the ground, in reality - a tragedy that can perhaps be experienced particularly directly in the peculiar beauty and strangeness of this incomparable aria.
Schumann: Szenen aus Goethes Faust (Scenes from Goethe's Faust) WoO 3, Part III: 7. Fausts Verklärung 'Hier ist die Aussicht frei'
Harnoncourt once said that on the occasion of Schumann's death, only one person was particularly happy - Wagner - because his only competitor in the development of an earth-shatteringly innovative declamation had thus been eliminated. Harnoncourt also mentioned a passage in a letter from Schumann to Liszt in which he wrote how he had discovered and realised a completely new kind of sonority in this central piece of ‘Faust's Transfiguration’, which Liszt premiered. I couldn't find the passage in the letter, but if you listen to this orchestral treatment, it may well have existed. Daniel Harding, my friend and indeed most admired conductor, is perhaps the only one after Harnoncourt who can present Schumann at this level today, and even more so. My collaboration with him is one of my favourite and most fulfilling.
Beethoven: 25 Scottish Songs op. 108: 13. Come Fill, Fill, My Good Fellow!
This song is so full of vigour and joie de vivre. In this live recording from the Prinzregententheater in Munich, we encouraged the audience to sing along to the chorus of this wonderful drinking song, but only Gerold Huber actually did...
Britten: War Requiem op. 66 (1961-1962): 6. Libera me
The fact that Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, a German baritone, was chosen to take part in this unique work of reconciliation, thus establishing a performance tradition that continues to this day, namely the casting of a Russian soprano, an English tenor and a German baritone, never fails to move me anew: Germany's singular culpability in the catastrophes of the 20th century didn't make the connection between peoples, as perhaps can only occur in the arts, impossible. This is evident throughout the piece, but culminates in the meeting of two soldiers, especially in the words, 'I am the enemy you killed my friend'.