Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst Unveil JOHANNES BRAHMS A GERMAN REQUIEM DVD

The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst have announced details of their latest DVD recording project: Johannes Brahms A German Requiem, featuring the Wiener Singverein, soprano Hanna Elisabeth-Müller, and baritone Simon Keenlyside, recorded live at Austria's Abbey of Saint Florian in August 2016.

A preview of the DVD is available on The Cleveland Orchestra YouTube channel and below!

The DVD is now available in the Cleveland Orchestra Store, located at Severance Hall. Starting January 20, 2017, it was made available worldwide and in the United States it is available for pre-order on Amazon.com. This DVD project is the latest in a series of live recordings by Music Director Franz Welser-Möst and the Orchestra in partnership with Clasart, which also includes a three-DVD set of the major orchestral works of Brahms (amzn.to/2hdvR02) as well as orchestral works of Anton Bruckner (amzn.to/2jcvHaF).

"The Cleveland Orchestra prides itself in being meticulous to all the detail of the music and performance," says Music Director, Franz Welser-Möst. "A recording project is an opportunity for the musicians to get it as close to perfection as you can, with the extra energy of a live recording to give the atmosphere and the spontaneity of a performance. Not just thinking about getting the notes right, but actually going for the music as much as you can. The music of Brahms is well known for his romantic and melodic writing, as well as for the rigor of his craftsmanship and composition. We have captured some of this essence in this new recording."

Brahms's A German Requiem is a work of great intensity that speaks to people of all faiths and to believers and non-believers alike. In this concert, recorded at the magnificent Baroque Abbey of Saint Florian in Austria, The Cleveland Orchestra and its music director Franz Welser-Möst pare down all traces of bombast. Together with the Wiener Singverein and soloists Hanna-Elisabeth Müller and Simon Keenlyside, they create a meditation on life and death that was hailed by the press as ''an event of the first order.''

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Product Details:
JOHANNES BRAHMS A GERMAN REQUIEM
The Cleveland Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor
Hanna Elisabeth-Muller, soprano
Simon Keenlyside, baritone
Wiener Singverein
Johannes Prinz, artistic director

Available Now at the Cleveland Orchestra Store for $30.00 (bit.ly/2hUrrK6)
Available February 24, 2017 via Amazon.com for $33.98 (currently available for pre-order, amzn.to/2hUyylT).

Recorded Live at the Stiftsbasilika St. Florian, Austria
Executive Producer: Herbert G. Kloiber
Video Director: Brian Large

Running Time: 72 minutes
Sound Formats: DTS 5.1 | DD 5.1 | PCM Stereo
Picture Format: 16:9
Subtitles: German | English | French | Korean
Region Code: 0
08027 DVD 9 | NTSC

A production of Clasart Classic © 2016 Clasart / Musical Arts Association operating The Cleveland Orchestra. All rights reserved.

With the kind support of Raiffeisen Landesbank Oberösterreich.

For more information, visit www.belvedere-edition.com or www.clasart-classic.de.

The Cleveland Orchestra held its first recording session in 1924 and is one of the most acclaimed and recorded orchestras in the world. The Orchestra's performances have been heard by millions through radio and television broadcasts, on LPs, CDs, DVDs, and via internet downloads. Franz Welser-Möst has added to an extensive and widely praised catalog of audio recordings made during the tenures of the ensemble's former music directors. He has created DVD recordings of live performances of five of Bruckner's symphonies, presented in three acoustically distinctive venues (the Abbey of St. Florian in Austria, Vienna's Musikverein, and Severance Hall). With Cleveland, he has also released a recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as well as an all-Wagner album featuring soprano Measha Brueggergosman. In addition, in recent seasons the Orchestra has recorded important new albums with longtime guest artists Pierre Boulez and Mitsuko Uchida.

As it approaches its Centennial Season in 2017-18, The Cleveland Orchestra is undergoing a renaissance. Acknowledged as among the world's best, its musicians, staff, board of directors, volunteers, and hometown are working together on a set of enhanced goals for the Orchestra's Second Century, - to develop the youngest audiences of any orchestra; to renew its focus on fully serving the communities where it performs through concerts, engagement, and music education; to continue its legendary musical excellence; to build on its tradition of community support and financial strength; and to move forward into the Orchestra's next century with a commitment to diversified programming. Under the direction of Music Director, Franz Welser-Möst, the New York Times has declared Cleveland to be the "best American orchestra" for its virtuosity, elegance of sound, variety of color, and chamber-like cohesion. The Cleveland Orchestra divides its time each year across concert seasons at home in Cleveland's Severance Hall and each summer at Blossom Music Center. Additional portions of the year are devoted to touring and to a series of innovative and intensive performance residencies. These include an annual four-week residency in Miami, a biennial residency at Vienna's Musikverein, and appearances at Switzerland's Lucerne Festival, New York's Lincoln Center Festival, and Indiana University. For more information, please visit www.clevelandorchestra.com.