TRACKLISTING

1. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Overture to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream op. 21 (Originalfassung von 1826)
Allegro di molto

2. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
"Lobgesang“ - Eine Symphonie-Kantate nach Worten der Heiligen Schrift B-Dur op. 52
(Uraufführungsfassung von 1840)

1) Con moto maestoso - Allegro vivace
2) Allegretto un poco agitato
3) Adagio religioso
4) Chor: Con moto - Allegro molto

ARTISTS
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Gewandhaus Choir
Chorus of the Leipzig Opera
Anne Schwanewilms soprano
Petra-Maria Schnitzer soprano
Peter Seiffert tenor
Riccardo Chailly

RECORDING INFORMATION

Riccardo Chailly's first concert as Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

LIVE RECORDING of the innaugural concert from the Gewandhaus capturing the full atmosphere of a unique musical occaision

A feast of Mendelssohn from the orchestra he founded

Includes the traditional performance of Mendelssohn's Second Symphony Lobgesang with its celebratory choral last movement, in a new edition

Outstanding vocal soloists including Anne Schwanewilms and Peter Seiffert The ever-popular overture A Midsummer Night's Dream - also in a new edition

About the Gewandhaus:
The Gewandhaus Orchestra can look with pride today at a history of over 250 years. Back then, Leipzig merchants founded and financed a concert society, which has meanwhile made music history and brought forth one of the world’s best-known and most renowned orchestras. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Arthur Nikisch, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Franz Konwitschny and Kurt Masur were all Gewandhauskapellmeisters. They left their imprint on a unique musical culture, which today’s Gewandhauskapellmeister Herbert Blomstedt has carried forward into the new millennium.

Nobody could have predicted the success story of the Gewandhaus when, in March of 1743, sixteen Leipzig merchants gathered to found a concert society, which under the name »Grand Concert« financed 16 musicians from then on.

After a good three decades in the »Three Swans Inn« in the Leipzig Brühl, increasing audience interest made it urgently necessary to find a new home: in 1781 the orchestra moved into a 500-seat hall with superb acoustics in the gathering place of the cloth traders, the »Gewandhaus« (»Garment House«), to which the orchestra and its Leipzig headquarters owe their name to this day.

When this concert hall was no longer able to accommodate the many people eager to attend performances, a second Gewandhaus, newly constructed in classicistic style, was dedicated in December of 1884. A large hall for 1,500 listeners and a chamber music hall reminiscent of the old Gewandhaus with 500 seats offered the musicians a home base in keeping with their quality and their meanwhile international rank.

During a bombing raid in February of 1944, the concert building was badly damaged, and the arduously preserved ruin was finally dynamited in March of 1968. For a good three decades, concerts were given in a temporary congress hall near the Leipzig Zoo. In no small measure thanks to the untiring efforts of the Gewandhauskapellmeister at the time, Kurt Masur, the orchestra was finally able to move into a modern performance venue, ideally suited to all its musical, acoustical and technical requirements: the third Gewandhaus on Augustusplatz.

To this day, the majestic Schuke organ in the great hall bears an inscription with a quote from the younger Seneca, one which has been the motto of the Gewandhaus since 1781: »Res severa verum gaudium« (»True pleasure is serious business«.)

All together, this hall, with its over 1,900 seats arranged in amphitheatre form, Mendelssohn Hall with 500 seats and the light-flooded Gewandhaus foyer form a unique architectural ensemble, aesthetically enriched by statues and busts of musicians, regularly changing painting exhibitions and, first and foremost, by the monumental, four-story high ceiling painting: »Song of Life« by Leipzig artist, Sighard Gille.

Today, over 600 events take place every year at the Gewandhaus. Of these, the »Grand Concerts« by the Gewandhaus Orchestra form the heart of activities along with concerts by the Gewandhaus Chorus and Children’s Chorus, the concerts of the numerous chamber music ensembles, first and foremost the traditionrich Gewandhaus Quartet, the Gewandhaus Wind Quintet and the Gewandhaus Octet, and, last but not least, the organ concerts and the popular Saturday afternoon one-hour organ recitals, of which all have a firm place in the performance schedule.