Leonard Bernstein - Sinfonien 7+8 [2 DVDs] - Universal/Music/DVD

"Leonard Bernstein - Mahler: Sinfonien 7+8"

"Interpreteurs"
Edda Moser, Judith Blegen, Gerti Zeumer - Sopran
Ingrid Mayr, Agnes Baltsa - Contralto
Kenneth Riegel - Tenor
Hermann Prey - Beritone
José vam Dam - Bass

Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor
Chorus Master: Walter Hagen-Groll

Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde
Chorus Master: Helmuth Froschauer

Wiener Sängerknaben
Chorus Master: Uwe Theimer

Wiener Philharmoniker
Conductor: Leonard Bernstein

"Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8"
Leonard Bernstein, whose performances of the Seventh were instrumental in pushing the work towards mainstream status, conducts it here with white-hot communicative power. When he prepared the huge "Symphony of a Thousand" with the Vienna Philharmonic for the 1975 Salzburg Festival there had been only one previous Austrian performance. This DVD encompasses the exultancy of the opening movement, while in the second movement, Mahler's setting of the final scene from Goethe's "Faust", Bernstein drives the music to the final redemptive blaze of glory.