Zemlinsky: A Florentine Tragedy & 6 Maeterlinck Songs London Philharmonic Orchestra & Vladimir Jurowski

• 1 Overture 04:45
• 2 So langsam, Weib? (Simone, Bianca) 02:11
• 3 Ich heisse Guido Bardi (Guido, Simone) 02:44
• 4 Wo ist mein Bundel? (Simone) 01:55
• 5 Wackrer Simone, genug, ich bitte Euch. (Guido, Simone) 03:08
• 6 Bianca sag, stunde nicht dies kostbar edle Kleid dem Prinzen Guido gut? (Simone, Bianca, Guido) 03:30
• 7 Wie, wenn ich die weisse Bianca forderte? (Guido, Simone, Bianca) 03:21
• 8 Was gibt es Neues, mein Prinz? (Simone, Guido, Bianca) 05:16
• 9 Wie er gleich einem schalen Kramer spricht! (Bianca, Guido, Simone) 03:32
• 10 Genug! (Simone, Guido) 05:26
• 11 Was meint der Fleck hier auf dem Tuch? (Simone, Guido) 02:28
• 12 Holdsel'ge Bianca, der schale Kramer lang weilt mich (Guido, Bianca) 06:12
• 13 Simone, jetzt muss ich nach Hause gehn! (Guido, Simone) 02:00
• 14 Ei, welch ein Schwert! (Simone, Guido) 02:19
• 15 Bianca, hol mein Schwert! (Simone, Bianca) 02:07
• 16 Narr, nimm mir vom Hals deine Wurgefinger! (Guido, Simone) 01:15
• 17 Und jetzt zu dir! (Simone, Bianca) 02:17
• 18 No. 1. Die drei Schwestern: Sehr massig bewegt (Moderato) 04:02
• 19 No. 2. Die Madchen mit den verbundenen Augen: Langsam 02:51
• 20 No. 3. Lied der Jungfrau: Langsam - sehr weich und leise 02:14
• 21 No. 4. Als ihr Geliebter schied: Sehr ruhig, nicht schleppend 01:59
• 22 No. 5. Und kehrt er einst heim: Sehr massig bewegt 03:11
• 23 No. 6. Sie kam zum Schloss gegangen: Sehr ruhig fliessend 05:18
• Total Runtime 01:14:01

Info for Zemlinsky: A Florentine Tragedy & 6 Maeterlinck Songs

Entranced and inspired by Oscar Wilde’s dark, death-ridden play, Alexander Zemlinsky conjured up his most colourful orchestral canvas in the one-act opera A Florentine Tragedy. Set in 16th-century Florence, the opera tells of jealousy, betrayal and ultimately murder. Conductor Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra provide a rich and lavish backdrop for this gripping tale of passion and revenge, which is followed by Zemlinsky’s haunting, sensuous Six Maeterlinck Songs.

Like Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, the opera opens with an orchestral depiction of the passion between Bianca and her lover Guido. Their dreamy afterglow glitters like a painting by Zemlinsky’s Viennese contemporary Gustav Klimt – a richly erotic dreamscape, which also suggests the wonderful fabrics, silks and tapestries traded by Bianca’s husband Simone.

Mezzo-soprano Petra Lang is the soloist in the rarely performed Six Maeterlinck Songs. One of the most sought-after performers in the Austro-German song repertoire, Lang captures perfectly the dark foreboding and eerie, dreamlike quality of the songs.

Both works reference Zemlinsky’s unrequited love for Alma Schindler, who eventually chose the international star conductor Mahler as her husband. Zemlinsky never got over this, and when Alma saw A Florentine Tragedy she was furious at what she saw as the depiction of herself, Mahler and her affair with Walter Gropius.

„The orchestral playing was faultless, the singing superb. By the end, there was a sense of audience complicity in something monstrous. A very fine achievement.“ (The Guardian)

„A blistering performance from the London Philharmonic under Vladimir Jurowski – decadent in all senses of the word, this one-act depiction of a love-triangle with a twist is powerful, intoxicating stuff and packs a real punch ... The performance is terrific – the LPO draw out all of the score’s terrible beauty, and Jurowski’s pacing really turns the dramatic screw.“ (Presto News)

Petra Lang, mezzo soprano
Heike Wessels, mezzo soprano (Bianca)
Sergey Skorokhodov, tenor (Guido Bardi)
Albert Dohmen, baritone (Simone)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Pieter Schoeman, leader
Vladimir Jurowski, conductor

Recorded live at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, London, on 22 September 2010 (Six Maeterlinck Songs) and 26 September 2012 (A Florentine Tragedy)
Engineered by Andrew Lang, K&A Productions
Produced by Andrew Walton, K&A Productions

Vladimir Jurowski
One of today’s most sought-after conductors, acclaimed worldwide for his incisive musicianship and adventurous artistic commitment, Vladimir Jurowski was born in Moscow in 1972, and completed the first part of his musical studies at the Music College of the Moscow Conservatory. In 1990 he relocated with his family to Germany, continuing his studies at the Musikhochschule of Dresden and Berlin, studying conducting with Rolf Reuter and vocal coaching with Semion Skigin. In 1995 he made his international debut at the Wexford Festival conducting Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night, and the same year saw his debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with Nabucco.

Vladimir Jurowski was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2003, becoming the orchestra's Principal Conductor in September 2007. He also holds the titles of Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Artistic Director of the Russian State Academic Symphony Orchestra. He has also held the positions of First Kapellmeister of the Komische Oper Berlin (1997-2001), Principal Guest Conductor of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna (2000-2003), Principal Guest Conductor of the Russian National Orchestra (2005-2009) and Music Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera (2001-2013).

Vladimir Jurowski has appeared on the podium with many of the world's leading orchestras in both Europe and North America, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, and the Staatskapelle Dresden.

Highlights of the 2014/15 season and beyond include his return visits to the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw and Philadelphia Orchestras; tours with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and an unique project with the London Sinfonietta in Moscow to celebrate the Anglo-Russian Year of Cultural Exchange.

Jurowski made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera New York in 1999 with Rigoletto, and has since returned for Jenufa, The Queen of Spades and Hansel und Gretel. He has conducted Parsifal and Wozzeck at the Welsh National Opera, War and Peace at the Opera National de Paris, Eugene Onegin at Teatro alla Scala Milan, Ruslan and Ludmila at the Bolshoi Theatre, and Iolanta and Der Teufel von Loudon at the Dresden Semperoper, as well as Die Zauberflöte, La Cenerentola, Otello, Macbeth, Falstaff, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, Don Giovanni, The Rake’s Progress, The Cunning Little Vixen, Ariadne auf Naxos and Peter Eötvös’ Love and Other Demons at Glyndebourne Opera. In 2013 he returns to the Metropolitan Opera for Die Frau ohne Schatten, and future engagements include Moses und Aron at the Komische Oper Berlin and The Fiery Angel at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich.

Jurowski’s discography includes the first ever recording of the cantata Exile by Giya Kancheli for ECM, Meyerbeer’s L’etoile du Nord for Marco Polo, Massenet’s Werther for BMG, and a series of records for PentaTone with the Russian National Orchestra, including Tchaikovsky's Orchestral Suite No. 3 and Stravinsky's Divertimento from Le baiser de la fée, Shostakovich Symphonies No 1 & 6, Prokofiev Symphony No 5, and Tchaikovsky’s Hamlet Incidental Music. The London Philharmonic Orchestra has released a wide selection of his live recordings on their LPO Live label, including the complete symphonies of Brahms, Mahler Symphony No. 2, Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, Tchaikovsky’s Symphonies 1, 4, 5, 6 and Manfred, and works by Turnage, Holst, Britten, Shostakovich, Honegger and Haydn. Most recent releases have included Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy, and an album of orchestral works by the Orchestra's Composer in Residence, Julian Anderson. His tenure as Music Director at Glyndebourne has been documented in CD releases of La Cenerentola, Tristan und Isolde and Prokofiev’s Betrothal in a Monastery, and DVD releases of his performances of Ariadne auf Naxos, La Cenerentola, Gianni Schicchi, Die Fledermaus, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, Don Giovanni, and Rachmaninov’s The Miserly Knight, and other DVD releases include Hansel und Gretel from the Metropolitan Opera New York, his first concert as London Philharmonic Orchestra’s principal conductor featuring works by Wagner, Berg and Mahler, and DVDs with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Beethoven symphonies 4 and 7) and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (Strauss and Ravel), all released by Medici Arts.

Petra Lang
After completing violin studies she studied singing with Gertie Charlent at the Akademie für Tonkunst in Darmstadt and at the Peter Cornelius Conservatory in Mainz, where she attended the Opera School with Harro Dicks at the same time. After completing her studies in 1989 she immediately auditioned for a master class with Ingrid Bjoner with whom she studied until 2006. She was involved in masterclasses with Brigitte Fassbaender, Hans Hotter, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Peter Schreier and also studied her Wagner roles with Astrid Varnay. She works now with Angelo Loforese. In 1989, Petra Lang joined the Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. In 1990, she moved to the Theater Basel, sang in 1991 at the Städtischen Bühnen Nuremberg and 1992-1995 at Theater Dortmund. Here she could develop numerous roles of the lyric mezzo-soprano repertoire. In addition, she was engaged as Tamiri in Mozart's "Il Re Pastore" at De Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam, as Virtu in Monteverdi's "L'Incoronazione di Poppea" at the Salzburg Festival, as Fenena in Verdi's "Nabucco" at the Bregenz Festival and as Flora in "La Traviata" at the Zurich Festival. In 1994/95 season, she turned to the work of Richard Wagner, and sang her first Waltraute (“Götterdammerung”) and Fricka (“Das Rheingold”, “Die Walküre”) in the Dortmund Ring cycle. Under the opera direction of Brigitte Fassbaender at the Staatstheater Braunschweig from 1995-1997 she added to her repertoire Brangäne (“Tristan und Isolde”), Judith (“Duke Bluebeard's Castle”), Marie (“Wozzeck”) and Eboli (“Don Carlos”). Then Petra Lang decided to become freelance and since then sings on the world’s greatest stages: Royal Opera House London (Brangäne, Waltraute, Kundry, Ortrud, Ariadne, Judith, Foreign Princess), De Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam (Brangäne, Cassandre, Venus, Kundry), Bavarian State Opera Munich (Brangäne, Venus, Sieglinde, Kundry), Deutsche Oper Berlin (Waltraute, Brangäne, Venus, Sieglinde, Cassandre, Ortrud), Hamburg State Opera (Waltraute, Kundry), Staatstheater Stuttgart (Adriano), Opera Cologne (Sieglinde), Nationaltheater Mannheim (Cassandre, Ariadne, Kundry), Vienna State Opera (Fricka, Waltraute, Brangäne, Kundry, Ortrud), De Vlaamse Opera Antwerp (Brangäne), Grand Théâtre de Genève (Amneris, Kundry, Judith, Ortrud), Zurich Opera House (Sieglinde), Teatro San Carlo, Naples (Sieglinde), Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome (Venus), Teatro La Fenice Venice (Sieglinde), La Scala Milan (Venus), Oviedo (Brangäne), Teatro de la Maestranza Seville (Sieglinde), Budapest (Ortrud), Opera Nationala Bucharest (Ortrud), Tokyo (Kundry), Teatro Municipal di Santiago de Chile (Brangäne), San Diego Opera (Venus), Baltimore Opera (Venus), Lyric Opera of Chicago (Brangäne), San Francisco Opera (Venus, Ortrud).

She sang her first Brünnhilde in concerts in 2012/13: "Die Walküre" and "Götterdämmerung" in Berlin and Bucurest with RSO-Berlin under Marek Janowski and in Bamberg and Luzern with the Bamberger Symphoniker under Jonathan Nott, "Siegfried" with Stuttgarter Philharmoniker under Gabriel Feltz. At the Opéra National de Paris she sang Brünnhilde in Günter Krämers production of "Götterdämmerung" under Philippe Jordan. She appeared in Dieter Dorns Ring-Cycle in Geneva and sang Brünnhilde in Siegfried under Adam Fischer in Budapest.

At the Bayreuth Festival Petra Lang has sung Brangäne in "Tristan und Isolde" (2005/2006), and as Ortrud in “Lohengrin” by Hans Neuenfels in 2011. In addition to her successes on the opera stage, she is an internationally sought-after concert singer who is known mainly for her sensitive interpretation of the works of Gustav Mahler. On the concert podium Petra Lang also sings Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder, Berlioz’s Les nuits d 'été, Berg's Seven Early songs and the Wozzeck Fragments, Schoenberg's Songs Op.8 and the Wood Dove in Gurrelieder, Zemlinsky’s Maeterlinck songs, Sibelius, Duparc, Lalo, Strauss orchestral songs, in Beethoven's 9th Symphony and the Missa Solemnis.She performs worldwide with all the major orchestras under the direction, amongst others, of Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, Christian Badea, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, M. W. Chung, Andrew Davis, Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnányi, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Adam Fischer, Ivan Fischer, Bernard Haitink, Marek Janowski, Armin Jordan, Philippe Jordan, Zubin Mehta, Ingo Metzmacher, Riccardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Leif Segerstam, Simon Rattle, Donald Runnicles, Peter Schneider, Jeffrey Tate, Christian Thielemann, Silvio Varviso, Simone Young.

Also Petra Lang has a successful career as a Lieder singer. She sings a comprehensive repertoire of Lieder from Franz Schubert to Anton Webern, and works with the pianists Adrian Baianu, Malcolm Martineau, Carmen Piazzini, Maurizio Pollini, Wolfram Rieger, Charles Spencer, and Einar Steen-Noekleberg. Their song recitals have been performed at, amongst others, Wigmore Hall (London), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Schubertiade (Feldkirch), Semper Opera House (Dresden), La Scala (Milan), Carnegie-Weill Hall (New York), Salle Pleyel (Paris) and at the Edinburgh Festival.

Petra Lang is in addition a singing advisor. During and after her violin studies she worked from 1983 to 1989 as teacher of violin, viola, early musical education and musical training at the Gross-Gerau Music School, and at the Municipal Music School in Rüsselsheim, Germany. With this in-depth educational experience, it is Petra Lang’s concern to give young colleagues professional suggestions and advice for singing in larger rooms. This way of singing she drew up with the pianist and vocal coach Adrian Baianu, it is based on old Italian vocal techniques and has been transferred to the German vocal repertoire. She gave master classes for the Mahler Society of London (2006), at the Cologne Musikhochschule (2007), in Münster (2007), and together with Adrian Baianu in Münster (2008) , London (2009, 2012) and at the Bayreuth Festival 2013.

London Philharmonic Orchestra
Recognised today as one of the finest orchestras on the international stage, the London Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1932 by Sir Thomas Beecham. Since then, its principal conductors have included Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt and Kurt Masur. In 2007 Vladimir Jurowski became the orchestra’s principal conductor and in 2008 Yannick Nézet-Séguin was appointed principal guest conductor.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra has been performing at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall since it opened in 1951 becoming resident orchestra in 1992. It also has flourishing residencies in Brighton and Eastbourne and performs regularly around the UK. Each summer it plays for Glyndebourne Festival Opera where it has been resident symphony orchestra for 50 years. The orchestra also regularly tours abroad: highlights of the 2013–14 season include visits to the USA, Romania, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Belgium, France and Spain.

In summer 2012 the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed as part of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the River Thames and was also chosen to record all the world’s national anthems for the London 2012 Olympics. The orchestra broadcasts regularly on television and radio and has recorded soundtracks for numerous blockbuster films including The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It has made many distinguished recordings over the last eight decades and in 2005 began releasing live, studio and archive recordings on its own CD label.

Booklet for Zemlinsky: A Florentine Tragedy & 6 Maeterlinck Songs