Testament to the versatility and musical command that Teodor Currentzis and his unique orchestra and choir possess, this new album brings together two diverse masterworks from two titans of Russian music. Although they have been acquainted for a long time prior, this recording represents the first musical collaboration between Teodor Currentzis and the exceptional violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. The instant artistic rapport (an “artistic wedding” of sorts) between these two maverick musicians can be heard in this dynamic new recording of Tchaikovsky’s Violin concerto - one of the most popular works in the violin repertory. Currentzis’ authentic approach to the folk influences in Stravinsky’s music (as revealed in Le Sacre du Printemps) is again very present in his interpretation of Les Noces. This work for percussion, pianists, chorus, and vocal soloists - originally composed as ballet music - is probably one of Stravinsky’s most rarely recorded works. The work is based on a Russian peasant wedding, which the cover artwork references. Exceptional to this new recording is that the MusicAeterna choir members are all native-Russian speakers who bring another level of understanding and authenticity to the work. After her prominent participation in the “Rameau – The Sound of Light” recording, Nadine Koutcher – freshly crowned “2015 Cardiff Singer of the Year” - returns to sing the leading soprano solo part in Les Noces.

TEODOR CURRENTZIS & MUSICAETERNA RELEASE BEETHOVEN SYMPHONY 7 RECORDING AS FOLLOW UP TO THEIR ACCLAIMED BEETHOVEN SYMPHONY 5 RECORDING AND SEMINAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE COMPOSER’S 250thANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS.
Their recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 is the long-awaited sister-recording to Teodor Currentzis’ and musicAeterna’s Beethoven Symphony No. 5 album. Recorded at the Vienna Konzerthaus in August 2018, both albums are the Russia-based musicians’ seminal contribution to the composer’s 250th anniversary celebrations.
The recording promises to be as significant as their Beethoven 5, released in April 2020, which the German Newspaper Die Welt heralded as “The Fifth for the 21st century”, and the UK newspaper The Times defined as “one of those incendiary accounts that blows away the crust of familiarity to suggest anew the revolutionary force built into this master score.”
For Currentzis, the Seventh has ‘the greatest form ever achieved in a symphony’. He compares its structural perfection to that of the Athenian classic, the zenith of Classical architecture in which every proportion and every refinement of scale is placed in the service of a spiritual beauty honouring the city’s protector, the goddess Athena.
The recording of Symphony No. 7 will be released on CD and digital formats on April 9, 2021. The recording has been made possible by VTB Bank’s support.

Without dispute, Teodor Currentzis is today’s hottest & most sought after conductor—alongside his orchestra & choir MusicAeterna – “Move over, Simon Rattle: Teodor Currentzis is the maestro everyone’s talking about”, “The Greek-Russian conductor who has taken the classical music world by storm” (The Times). This is Currentzis’s first ever recording of Mahler. Mahler’s symphonies feature heavily in their tour programme – but this is the first time Currentzis has gone into the studio with this composer. His last recording of major symphony repertoire (Tchaikovsky Symphony no. 6) won Japanese Recording Academy’s highest accolade Gold Award, received 5-star reviews from The Times, NRC Handelsblad, a Diapason d’or award and was named in many top albums for 2017 including 'Best Classical Recording' in Spiegel Online and appeared on the New York Times 'Best Classical Music Recordings' for 2017.

Entitled the “Pathétique”, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony has always been an important work in Teodor Currentzis’s conducting career, since being deeply affected as a teenager by a recording conducted by Evgeny Mravinsky. Later on, Currentzis would study with Mravinsky’s former classmate Ilya Musin, who was renowned for his authoritative interpretation of Russian repertoire and his legacy of gifted protégés.
Currentzis holds strong views on the symphony and sees universal meaning in Tchaikovsky’s intent. As he explains:
“There are people who, after experiencing a fall, after surviving defeat, find some kind of special place, a special sanctuary. Their place amid the confusion of this world. If they fall repeatedly, then this refuge gradually becomes more and more familiar: it regales them with the sensuality that is lacking in the world above. The first time one is stabbed with a knife, it hurts; the second time, it is borne more easily; the third time, in order that one may survive, it becomes a piece of art. There are no aesthetics when it comes to open wounds.
What I want to bring to this music is not the strong emotionality or the big sound or the excellent form. The thing that I want to bring is the ‘flower of the wound’, the perfection of 110 musicians gathering to have a ceremony for the wounds we endure, not to merely play a concert. It is completely different. Not taking it in objectively as a kind of performance of this music, but as something else. To talk about our wounds and our experiences. So this is very important.”

It's difficult to know where to begin enumerating the qualities that make this astonishing performance of Dido and Aeneas unique. The most obvious is geographical: the recording was made at the Opera Theatre of Novosibirsk, Siberia. The chorus is the New Siberian Singers and the early music ensemble Musica Aeterna, is based in Novosibirsk, and most of the secondary parts are taken by Russian singers. Otherwise, the cast is international; Simone Kermes (Dido) is German, Deborah York (Belinda) is British, and Dimitris Tiliakos (Aeneas) and conductor Teodor Currentzis are Greek, although Currentzis has been based in Russia since 1994 and has been at the Novosibirsk Opera since 2004. The performance itself challenges much of the conventional wisdom about the opera; it is so daringly idiosyncratic that if it didn't work brilliantly, it might be dismissed as an eccentric exercise in interpretive hubris. To begin with, the performance practice sounds more Continental than English in its execution of dotted rhythms, instrumentation, style of ornamentation, and extreme tempo choices. Currentzis treats the score with a latitude not usually brought to Purcell, as a framework open to, and even requiring, extensive elaboration from the performers. For instance, he supplements Purcell's string and continuo orchestra with theorbo, guitar, lute, viola da gamba, and percussion; he repeats some movements and even adds instrumental interludes based on the existing vocal material. Currentzis' tempos tend to be extreme -- the fast are very fast and the slow are very slow -- but his choices never seem capricious or arbitrary; they make musical and dramatic sense, and heighten the emotional impact of the opera in a way that sounds natural and spontaneous. His use of dynamics is likewise out of the ordinary. Dido's monologue at the opening of the opera and her lament at the end are sung in a grief-stricken pianissimo. It's a marvel that Kermes can sing with such purity, control, intensity, and expressiveness at a level that rarely rises above a whisper. Even her final "Remember me," which most sopranos take as an opportunity to cut loose, is rendered as the hushed last request of a woman who is close to death. Kermes brings a striking power to the moments that call for it, however, as in her contemptuous dismissal of Aeneas. As Belinda, York sings with a clear, bright tone and infectious energy. Aeneas is not a role that offers much of an opportunity to shine, but Tiliakos makes the most of it. The New Siberian Singers and Musica Aeterna, both of which Currentzis founded, respond to his demands with performances of stunning virtuosity and intensity. This outside-the-box performance should be of interest to any fan of Dido and Aeneas, and might make converts of listeners who think of Baroque opera as quaint and stuffy.

Alpha is now reissuing three recordings from its back catalogue, the first discs of the conductor Teodor Currentzis. An opportunity to discover or rediscover three very different styles, and three facets of the talent of ‘the enfant terrible of classical music’, as Le Figaro called him, for whom ‘music is intended to transport into the waking world the sentiments we feel when we dream’. With their invitation to travel through different periods and territories, these reissues may be appreciated both separately and as a triptych revealing the artistic approach of Teodor Currentzis and his ensemble MusicAeterna, from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (here served by an exceptional cast of singers) to Shostakovich’s Symphony no.14 (conducted like a dance of death) by way of Mozart’s Requiem, the Salzburg composer’s last work, here given an invigorating reinterpretation.

Alpha is now reissuing three recordings from its back catalogue, the first discs of the conductor Teodor Currentzis. An opportunity to discover or rediscover three very different styles, and three facets of the talent of ‘the enfant terrible of classical music’, as Le Figaro called him, for whom ‘music is intended to transport into the waking world the sentiments we feel when we dream’. With their invitation to travel through different periods and territories, these reissues may be appreciated both separately and as a triptych revealing the artistic approach of Teodor Currentzis and his ensemble MusicAeterna, from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (here served by an exceptional cast of singers) to Shostakovich’s Symphony no.14 (conducted like a dance of death) by way of Mozart’s Requiem, the Salzburg composer’s last work, here given an invigorating reinterpretation.