In celebration of the 75th anniversary of the greatest media event in classical music, Sony Classical released in 2015 a complete edition of all the works ever played at the Wiener Philharmoniker’s New Year’s Concerts. Performed in the “Golden Hall” of the Musikverein between 1941 and 2015, the iconic live performances were issued for the first time in a single box set of 23 CDs. Now, in 2020, this edition will be available as a 26-CD extended version, with all the new repertoire from the last five years compiled on three additional CDs.

As DG celebrates its 125th birthday this year, the label is bringing to light some great recordings from the past for the very first time, having unearthed some hidden treasures in the archives. The second release in the “Lost Tapes” series is a digital-only release of Wolf’s Mörike- and Goethe-Lieder with soloist Thomas Quasthoff and Christian Thielemann conducting the Münchner Philharmoniker. The album comes out on 24 November but you can pre-order it now and have a first listen to Der Rattenfänger.

All of Wagner’s operas require a sure hand in the pit: no run-of-the-mill répétiteur will do. But two works, in particular, depend on the conductor as much as anyone on stage for success in performance Tristan and Parsifal. By choosing these two for the first complete Wagner dramas he’s committed to disc, Thielemann is letting us know just how important Wagner’s music is to him and how seriously he wants to be taken as a Wagner interpreter. With this new Parsifal, the conductor demonstrates that he’s a Wagnerian with a point of view, and a master of the composer’s huge musicodramatic structures.

Maurizio Pollini's 2011 concert recording of Johannes Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor is an important document because it not only captures his return to playing with the esteemed Staatskapelle Dresden (his first performance with the group since 1986), and his first collaboration with conductor Christian Thielemann, but it presents the very work the pianist played at his Staatskapelle debut in 1976. All of this background is helpful to know, to understand the significance Deutsche Grammophon attaches to this release, even at the risk of offering a CD that runs just over 45 minutes, without any filler for added value.

Christian Thielemann's groundbreaking Bruckner cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic continues with Bruckner's Fifth in Edition Nowak. Sony Classical releases the Symphony No. 5 in B flat major WAB 105 (in the 1878 version from Edition Nowak), the fifth part of the complete recording of all Bruckner symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Christian Thielemann, the orchestra's first Bruckner cycle under a single conductor. "The claim that this orchestra is basically the only true original-sound ensemble for Anton Bruckner's music should remain undisputed," enthuses Die Presse. The Vienna Philharmonic gave the first performance of four of Bruckner's nine symphonies. Since the premiere of the Second Symphony in 1873, they have maintained a special relationship with the music of the Austrian composer.

Artists and audiences alike felt a deep sense of loss when the pandemic put a sudden end to live performances last year. The ability to enjoy digital concerts online was some consolation, but as nothing can quite match the magic of direct contact between performer and audience, the few live concerts that were able to go ahead during this period were particularly meaningful. Set for release on 3 December, Live from Salzburg documents two such remarkable events, featuring mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča’s appearances at the Salzburg Festival in the summers of 2020 and 2021 with the Wiener Philharmoniker and Christian Thielemann.

In the autumn of 1872 Anton Bruckner – court organist, university professor and a late developer as a composer – had the opportunity to present his Second Symphony to the Vienna Philharmonic. But its conductor Otto Dessoff, who only a few years later was to conduct the world première of Brahms’s First Symphony and who had arranged a run-through of several new works, including Bruckner’s Second, dismissed the symphony as “impossible” and even as pure “nonsense”, a view contested by a number of other members of the orchestra who raised their voices in its defence. And indeed the Vienna Philharmonic did finally perform the symphony at a public concert a year later to mark the official ending of the Vienna World Fair on 26 October 1873 – without Dessoff. Bruckner himself con- ducted the performance, which was financed by a noble patron – at the previous year’s ill-starred rehearsal he had only been allowed to indicate the tempi. “First rejection” he had noted in his diary at that time, as if it was already obvious to him that this was not to be his last such rejection.

In cooperation with the Bayreuth Festival and BR-Klassik, we announce the release of Bayreuth 2020: Wagner at Wahnfried. This album features Siegfried Idyll, performed by the Festival’s Music Director Christian Thielemann and members of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, and the Wesendonck Lieder, with Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund as soloist.

Artists and audiences alike felt a deep sense of loss when the pandemic put a sudden end to live performances last year. The ability to enjoy digital concerts online was some consolation, but as nothing can quite match the magic of direct contact between performer and audience, the few live concerts that were able to go ahead during this period were particularly meaningful. Set for release on 3 December, Live from Salzburg documents two such remarkable events, featuring mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča’s appearances at the Salzburg Festival in the summers of 2020 and 2021 with the Wiener Philharmoniker and Christian Thielemann.

Sony Classical releases the third installment of Christian Thielemann’s complete cycle of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic – the orchestra’s first Bruckner cycle under a single conductor. “The claim that this orchestra is essentially the only genuine original sound ensemble for the music of Anton Bruckner should remain beyond dispute” raves Die Presse. The Vienna Philharmonic premiered four of Anton Bruckner’s nine symphonies, including No. 4 in 1881 and has enjoyed a unique relationship with the Austrian composer’s music since 1873. The Fourth was the first of Bruckner’s symphonies that Thielemann conducted.

Schoenberg's Pelleas & Melisande is just Opus 5 in Schoenberg's catalog, but it comes right on the cusp of the young composer's transition to serialism. Based on Maurice Maeterlinck's stage play, it's an exuberant, youthful work that won the 29-year-old composer the recognition he had yet to receive. The work shows some influences of Richard Strauss, who had befriended Schoenberg in 1901 in Berlin. Mahler is also present. Still, for all that, this work is sui generis, a stand-alone masterpiece. It's followed by Wagner's Siegfried-Idyll, a tone poem based on the birth of his son, Siegfried. Both works are moody tone poems and maestro Christian Thielemann lovingly captures their spirit. Boulez might give Schoenberg more drama, but Thielemann sculpts both works with rounder edges and softer textures.