ÍøÆغÚÁÏ

For many of the record-buying public, their impression of German dramatic tenor Hans Hopf was formed upon viewing the wretched photograph that was displayed on the cover of his 1960 EMI recording of Tannhäuser. Appearing bloated and dim-witted, the tenor was sorely misrepresented by a portrait that should never have been released. While his voice had by that time grown beefier and less pliant, Hopf was too serious an artist to have been exposed to such a public relations disaster. For a truer picture, physically and aurally, turn to his Walter in EMI's live recording of Bayreuth's 1951 Die Meistersinger with Schwarzkopf, Edelmann, and Karajan. Here, before the strain of too many heroic roles took their toll, his singing was strong and highly agreeable, accomplished if somewhat short of poetic. Hopf studied with bass Paul Bender in Munich before making his debut in 1936 singing Pinkerton with the Bavarian Regional Opera. Affiliations with Augsburg, Dresden, Oslo, and Berlin preceded his extended membership at the Bavarian Staatsoper beginning in 1949. In addition to his Bayreuth debut, the 1950 -- 1951 season held a first appearance at Covent Garden, where Hopf sang his German-language Radames in an otherwise English-language Aida. He was also heard as Walter, pleasing the critics and audiences more for his sturdy singing than for his subtlety. Hopf remained with the Royal Opera through the 1952 -- 1953 season, offering his Walter all three years. At Bayreuth, Hopf worked his way to Parsifal, Tannhäuser, and Siegfried by the 1960s. In 1952, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Walter. He continued to appear for five more years, eventually amassing a total of 34 performances in the Wagnerian repertory. At Salzburg in 1954, Hopf made his debut as Max in Weber's Der Freischütz. Although most of his career was spent in Europe, Hopf made two further appearances in American opera houses singing Herodes in both Chicago (1968) and San Francisco (1974) and both times with Astrid Varnay as his consort. Although the latter production caught him rather late in the day, he was still an arresting Herod, dissolute and clearly not quite stable. In Germany, Hopf had achieved a considerable reputation as Verdi's Otello.

The vocal talents of Birgit Nilsson were first recognized when she began to sing in her church choir. She studied voice with Ragnar Blennow in Bastad and later at the Royal Music Academy Stockholm with Joseph Hislop and Arne Sunnegärdh. She made her opera debut at Stockholm where her first important role was Agatha in Der Freischütz, and in 1947 she sang Lady Macbeth in Verdi's Macbeth there. Her first important international appearance came in 1951 as Elettra in Mozart's Idomeneo at the Glyndebourne Festival. In 1952, she sang Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at Florence. Her first important appearances in Wagner operas came in 1953 at Stockholm where she sang Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and Isolde for the first time. This marked the start of the most important Wagnerian career of the second half of the 20th century. The following year she made her Bayrueth debut as Elsa in Lohengrin and in the same season sang Ortlinde in Die Walküre. She later appeared there as Isolde and as Brunnhilde. It was in Munich during the 1954-1955 season that she first sang Brunnhilde in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and during the same season she sang her first Salome. In 1957, she sang the complete Ring cycle in London. At the Vienna State Opera she was heard as Elsa, Sieglinde, Elisabeth, Aida, and Sent. In 1957 she sang Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio and the following season sang her first Turandot. She was also highly regarded for her interpretations of Elektra and the Barak's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten. Her other important Italian roles were Tosca, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera and Aida. She sang at all of the major opera centers of the world including Tokyo, Paris, Buenos Aires, Chicago, San Francisco, and Hamburg. Also she sang Turandot in Moscow with the Teatro alla Scala. At the age of 62, a performance of Strauss' Elektra was videotaped at the Metropolitan Opera House and broadcast around the world.

Because of her full schedule of opera performances, Nilsson did not sing in many concerts or recitals although early in her career she did sing the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven on several occasions, including one at Bayreuth. She did give some recitals including tours of Australia and Japan as well the major music centers of Europe and North America. Her recital programs concentrated on the German and Scandinavian songs, including some rarely heard pieces by Stenhammar. She often sang "I Could Have Danced All Night" as an encore.

The voice of Birgit Nilsson was like a laser beam that cut through the orchestra, unlike the voice of Kirsten Flagstad or Jessye Norman which are like a wall of sound. It was a large voice with such brilliance that at times it gave the sensation of being sharp of the intended pitch. She was a congenial colleague except for her long-standing difficulties with Franco Corelli regarding the length of the high Cs in Puccini's Turandot and with Herbert von Karjan. Happily all of her important roles have been preserved on recordings. As long as the operas of Wagner are performed, the voice of Birgit Nilsson will be remembered, and no one has sung Puccini's Turandot with more brilliance or security. Her autobiography, Mina minnesbilder, was published in 1977 at Stockholm.

Despite having been born in Germany, bass-baritone Paul Schöffler became a favorite in Austria, both at the Vienna Staatsoper and at the Salzburg Festival. Aside from Friedrich Schorr, he was undoubtedly the finest, most complex interpreter of Hans Sachs in the recorded era. Although his voice could sound slightly dry and lacked the imperious sound for Wotan (which he did sing on occasion), it served him well through an unusually long career. His Sachs at the Metropolitan Opera in November 1964 was superbly sung, remarkable in its stamina, even though Schöffler was 67 at the time. A live recording of Strauss' Daphne made in Vienna that same year confirms the impression. The work of an aristocratic artist, Schöffler's interpretations of such roles as Scarpia, Don Giovanni, and Iago were always distinguished, even when not stylistically definitive. The years since his retirement from leading roles have not produced a remotely comparable artist.

Schöffler studied with Waldemar Stägemann in his native Dresden before traveling to Italy to work with baritone Mario Sammarco. His 1926 stage debut took place in Dresden in the role of the Herald in Lohengrin, beginning an association with that theater that continued until 1939. In 1939, Schöffler was engaged by the Vienna Staatsoper and remained there until 1970 when he was 73 years old. During his long career, he also sang in London, at Bayreuth, at the Salzburg Festival (1938 - 1965), in several Italian theaters and in America at the Metropolitan Opera, in San Francisco, and in Chicago.

Schöffler's London debut came as Donner in a 1934 Rheingold, conducted by Beecham. He was well-received by both the public and the critics, later confirming the positive first impression with his "excellent" singing of the title role in Weinberger's Schwanda, the Bagpiper. In 1936, he sang Scarpia and, with the visiting Dresden Opera, Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (sung in German as Die Hochzeit) and the title role in one performance of Don Giovanni. In the Mozart operas, he was praised for both fine singing and histrionic aptitude. He undertook such other roles in London as Jochanaan, Kurwenal, the Rheingold Wotan (described as "lightweight"), and, following WWII, Don Giovanni ("Germanic"), Don Alfonso, and Pizarro with the visiting Vienna Staatsoper company. With the Royal Opera House company, he repeated his Kurwenal and Rheingold Wotan and added Gunther and his genial Sachs.

At Salzburg, Schöffler created the title role in Gottfried von Einem's Dantons Tod in 1947, and, five years later, he premiered Jupiter in Strauss' Die Liebe der Danae.

Schöffler's first American stage appearances came well after WWII, when the singer was already in his early fifties. His Met debut was on January 26, 1950, as Jochanaan, a role he sang to the spectacular Salome of Ljuba Welitsch a few weeks later. Schöffler's performance was praised as that of a superior artist, delineating the character with intelligence and involvement. The bass-baritone faced off against Welitsch in two other productions, setting his Don Giovanni at odds with her Donna Anna and, as a "brutish "Scarpia, menacing her fiery Tosca. Over nine seasons, Schöffler sang a total of 91 performances. His 14 roles included Pizarro, Amfortas, Kurwenal, Oreste, and the Grand Inquisitor. San Francisco heard him, too briefly, in Wagner and Strauss, as did Chicago.

Although Schöffler's voice lacked a sensuous timbre, its warmth and firmness left a positive impression, while his musicianship and artistic integrity were unfailingly of the highest order.

Emil Gilels was one of the great pianists of history, renowned for his clear, steady playing as much as for his virtuoso brilliance. He was a master of a wide repertory from the time of Bach to his own compatriots and one of the first pianists to adopt a modern, more objective style of playing and interpreting music. He was also one of the first Soviet artists allowed to perform in the West following World War II. His numerous recordings made both in studio and from live recitals and on both Soviet state-sponsored and Western labels have been digitally remastered for contemporary listeners to experience his legacy.

Gilels was born in Odessa on October 19, 1916. The son of a bookkeeper in a sugar factory, Gilels grew up in a musical family: his parents were enthusiastic amateur pianists. Gilels' younger sister, Elizabeth, became a violinist. He entered the Odessa Institute of Music and Drama in 1922 to study with Yakov Tkatch and Berthe Ringold. Following a successful debut as a child prodigy in 1929, he transferred to study at the Odessa Conservatory in 1932, where Arthur Rubinstein heard him. With Rubinstein's encouragement, Gilels entered the All-Union Musicians' Competition for pianists in 1933 and captured the top prize, the first in a string of prizes he would win in international competitions in the mid-'30s. He was simultaneously studying with Heinrich Neuhaus at the Moscow Conservatory and became Neuhaus' assistant in 1938. Gilels and David Oistrakh were meant to appear at the 1939 New York World's Fair, but the outbreak of World War II in Europe prevented their travel. Throughout the war, Gilels was confined to the Soviet Union, performing for the troops and in occupied cities. After the war, he won the Stalin Prize, and over the years, he was given many other awards and honors in recognition of his contributions to morale during the war.

Gilels, Leonid Kogan -- his sister's husband -- and Mstislav Rostropovich formed a trio in 1945. Gilels and his sister gave recitals after the war, and he also performed two-piano music with Yacov Flier. In 1947, Gilels married pianist and composer Farizet Khutsyostova, whom he had met when they were both students at the Moscow Conservatory. Their daughter Elena also became a concert pianist. The year after Gilels' marriage, he made his first appearance outside the Soviet Union, a recital in Prague. This was followed by concerts in Florence, Scandinavia, and Berlin and by his first recordings. Gilels made his triumphant American debut in October 1955 with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy, becoming the first prominent Soviet musician to appear in the United States since the start of the Cold War. He went on to perform to equal acclaim in New York, where the contrast between his small physical stature and his magisterial playing prompted the New York Times to call him "the little giant." Gilels returned to North America for a Canadian tour the following year and had another successful debut in England in 1959.

Gilels was a two-time recipient of the Order of Lenin in the 1960s, as well as the Order of Commandeur Mérite Culturel et Artistique de Paris and Belgium's Order of Leopold. Throughout his performing career, Gilels continued to teach at the Moscow Conservatory, taking a few private students and teaching classes in technique. He died in Moscow on October 14, 1985. Gilels' strength was in the clarity and ease with which he played, in his brilliance, and in his "strong and unassuming musicianship," as critic Harold Schoenberg, who called him the "thinking man's pianist," put it. Indeed, Gilels' interpretations were always thought-provoking, inviting the listener the grasp the spiritual and intellectual totality of a particular composition. The list of composers he was known for playing is long, but a survey of his recordings, from youthful impulsiveness to mature mastery of subtle detail, is a well-rewarded journey. ~ TiVo Staff

One of the great cellists as well as one of the leading conductors of the 20th century, Mstislav Rostropovich's passionate and virtuosic performance style sometimes seemed to reflect the turbulent events in his life, including his exile from his native Soviet Union. In addition to his ability to project with notable fullness in all registers of his instrument, he had complete command of the styles of all the musical eras and national schools in the standard cello repertoire of the time. A strong supporter of new works, he premiered over 100 pieces as a performer, including Sergey Prokofiev's Cello Sonata in C, Op. 119 in 1950, which was composed for him. In 1959 and 1966, respectively, Dmitry Shostakovich's first and second cello concertos were written for and premiered by the esteemed cellist. In the meantime, he made his conducting debut in Gorky in 1962, and five years later, he made his Bolshoi premiere conducting Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. In 1970, Rostropovich's open letter in support of dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn led to canceled concerts and, eventually, his exile from the Soviet Union. His citizenship was revoked while abroad in 1974. That same year, he was honored with an International League of Human Rights medal. A cover story in Time magazine followed in 1977. In November of 1989, when he heard that demonstrators were gathering at the Berlin Wall, he had a friend fly him from Paris to Berlin and performed one of his signature pieces, the Sarabande from Bach's Cello Suite No.2, at Checkpoint Charlie as parts of the wall came down (his Soviet citizenship was restored a year later). His benchmark recording of the complete Bach Cello Suites followed in 1995. Rostropovich appeared at his 80th birthday celebration at the Kremlin a month before his death in April of 2007.

Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, known familiarly as Slava, was born to professional musicians in Baku in Soviet Azerbaijan on March 27, 1927. His father, Leopold, was a cellist, and his mother was an accomplished pianist. The family moved to Moscow in 1931 when Slava's father took a position as teacher at the city's Gnessin Institute. Four years old at the time, Slava had already begun studying cello with his father. He gave his first recital at the age of eight. He enrolled at the Central Music School in 1939, remaining there until 1941. Two years later, he entered the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied cello with Semyon Kozolupov and composition with Vissaryon Shebalin and Dmitry Shostakovich.

After leaving the conservatory in 1948, he secured a position as Sergey Prokofiev's music secretary. Rostropovich's presence prompted Prokofiev to rewrite his earlier Cello Concerto in E Minor, transforming it into a much more imposing work, the Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra, Op. 125. Rostropovich went on to win the International Competition for Cellists in Prague in 1950 and began to perform throughout Russia. His first appearance in the West was in Florence, Italy in 1951. Following Prokofiev's death in 1953, Rostropovich and Dmitri Kabalevsky completed his unfinished Cello Concertino in G minor, Op. 132.

He married Galina Vishnevskaya, the star soprano of the Bolshoi Opera, in 1955. The couple found themselves at odds with the authorities when Soviet President Nikolai Bulganin, who had been romantically pursuing Vishnevskaya, canceled their long-planned 1956 tour of the West. Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev soon got the edge in a political power struggle and reinstated the tour, allowing Rostropovich to debut in London at the Festival Hall in March and at Carnegie Hall in New York in April. The cellist was immediately celebrated as a great international star. Upon returning to the U.S.S.R., Rostropovich found composers clamoring to write for him, including Shostakovich, who composed both of his cello concertos for him. The first one made its Western premiere via a recording of Rostropovich with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, beginning a seminal discography of Western releases. On the same tour, English composer Benjamin Britten attended the London premiere of the concerto, initiating another musical friendship with Rostropovich that led to Britten writing five works for the cello (three solo suites, a sonata, and the Cello Symphony) as well as a song cycle for Vishnevskaya.

In 1970, Rostropovich protested the government's treatment of the writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in a letter that circulated in the West, embarrassing Soviet officials. Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya saw their scheduled concerts suddenly canceled, and the soprano was expelled from the Bolshoi roster. In 1974, the government granted their request to visit the West for two years, then revoked their Soviet citizenship. Rostropovich became invisible at home but a major star in the West. He bought the famous "Duport" Stradivarius. In July, he premiered Soviet composer Aram Khachaturian's cello concerto in Monte Carlo, with Khachaturian conducting. That September, he made his London conducting debut with the New Philharmonic Orchestra, and in March 1975, his American conducting debut took place with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C. He was appointed its music director and principal conductor in 1977, a position he held for the next 17 years.

After Rostropovich's impromptu performance at Checkpoint Charlie during the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a moment that was filmed and widely reported, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev reversed Rostropovich's expulsion. His emotional return home was documented in the film Soldiers of Music (1991). When Russian President Boris Yeltsin stood up to Soviet military power, Rostropovich stood beside him in the events that led to the collapse of Soviet power. He stepped down from his leadership of the Washington Orchestra in 1994 but continued to make appearances around the world as a cellist and as a conductor.

Regarded as the culmination of a lifetime of studying and performing the masterpieces, his 1991 recordings of Bach's six cello suites -- his first recordings of the pieces -- were released by Warner Classics and EMI Classics in 1995. That same year, he was awarded the Polar Music Prize. The Rostropovich Home Museum opened in his hometown of Baku in 2002. Though his health was declining, he attended an 80th birthday celebration at the Kremlin in March of 2007. Rostropovich died of intestinal cancer a month later. A statue of him playing the cello was unveiled in Moscow in 2012, on what would have been his 85th birthday. ~ Marcy Donelson & Joseph Stevenson

One of the 20th century's greatest violinists, Leonid Kogan was less widely known than his somewhat older contemporary David Oistrakh, but no less a first-tier artist. More concentrated in tonal focus and with a quicker vibrato than Oistrakh and others of the Russian school, Kogan was avowedly a man of his time. His espousal of the four-octave scale for exercises assured the infallibility of his technique by strengthening his fingering hand in the upper positions. Although he died at age 58, he had amassed a discography that remains as a commanding legacy. Although his were not especially musical parents, Kogan conceived a fascination for the violin by age three. At six, he began lessons with Philip Yampolsky, a pupil of Leopold Auer. When Kogan's family moved to Moscow when he was ten, he began studies with Abram Yampolsky (no relation to Philip, but another Auer disciple). Kogan progressed through the Central School of Music, then the Moscow Conservatory, where he trained from 1943 to 1948. Postgraduate studies at the conservatory occupied him from 1948 until 1951. At age 12, Kogan was heard by violinist Jacques Thibaud, who predicted a great career for him. Although his parents resisted exploiting their son as a prodigy, Kogan made his debut at 17 and performed in many Soviet venues while still a student. Wider recognition came when Kogan shared first prize at the 1947 Prague World Youth Festival. In 1951, he won first prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Oistrakh, who was a member of the jury (along with Thibaud), thereafter came to regard Kogan as a colleague, while Kogan closely observed his elder associate during the latter's evening classes for other students. After teaching at the Moscow Conservatory and playing a busy schedule of concerts in the Soviet Union over the next few years, Kogan made his first appearances in Paris and London in 1955, following those with a tour of South America in 1956 and another of the United States in 1957. Less gregarious than Oistrakh, Kogan was not as aggressively promoted abroad by the Soviet government. After being named People's Artist in 1964, Kogan received the Lenin Prize in 1965.

Erich Kleiber was among the most respected Austrian conductors for the first half of the twentieth century, noted for precise, exciting, beautifully shaped performances of the great symphonic and operatic repertory.

He had the usual school education, and was taught violin as a boy. He was taken to concerts from an early age, and heard some of the legendary figures of music, including Gustav Mahler. He entered university in Prague in 1908, studying philosophy and the history of the arts, while also entering the Prague Conservatory to study music. He won a prize in 1911 for a symphonic poem.

Even before graduating he got a typical entry-level job for a conducting career, chorus master in the German Theater of Prague (1911). He was a staff conductor at the Court Theater in Darmstadt from 1912 to 1919. He followed a typical career path: conducting in Barmen-Elberfeld, Düsseldorf, and Mannheim, where he began in 1922. He also made guest conducting appearances, conducting a sensational performance of Beethoven¹s opera, Fidelio, in Berlin in 1922. Just three days later he was appointed General Music Director of the Berlin State Opera.

During his leadership there he kept high standards and engaged many of the world¹s finest singers, undertook reforms in production, and introduced many new operas to the Berlin public. His performance of Janacek¹s Jenufa is credited with having solidified the fame of its composer outside Czechoslovakia. His premiere of Alban Berg¹s Wozzeck was a triumph following 137 rehearsals. He also presented premieres of operas by Milhaud, Schreker, and Krenek.

He toured widely as a guest conductor, debuting in New York in 1930. His son, Carlos Kleiber, who has also become a world-famous conductor, was born in the same year.

After the Nazis were appointed to power in Germany in 1933, the cultural minister, Joseph Goebbels, announced a ban on what the Party termed "Entartete" (Degenerate) Music. One of the works so labeled was Alban Berg¹s opera Lulu, even though at this point it was a work in progress, unheard and unpublished. Kleiber resigned from his post at the State Opera in public protest. Then he played his farewell concert on December 4, 1934, including a suite of music from the incomplete opera. It was a triumph, receiving the plaudits of the public.

Kleiber immediately left Germany directly from the concert, and did not return until 1951. He settled in Buenos Aires because he had been well received there on tour, and because it had afforded a welcome home to his exact contemporary, the conductor Fritz Busch, who had left Germany in 1933. He conducted regularly in the great Teatro Colón opera house there (where Busch also conducted. He was put in charge of that house¹s German repertory from 1937 to 1949. He based his career there, making important appearances in Santiago (Chile), Mexico City, Havana, and Montevideo, helping develop the local orchestras.

He debuted with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1935, and also in London conducted a legendary performance of Strauss¹s Der Rosenkavalier with Lotte Lehman in the cast in 1938. He frequently appeared in Europe outside of German territory until World War II broke out. He confined his activities during the war years to the Americas.

He was considered one of the supreme conductors of Mozart, Beethoven, and Richard Strauss, particularly in Rosenkavalier. He conducted only one production in his native Vienna in his entire life, a Rosenkavalier in 1951. His Italian debut was also delayed by was and Fascist politics: a production of Verdi¹s Les vêpres sicilliennes, starring Maria Callas. This was in the 1951 Maggio Musicale of Florence, where he also conducted the first performance of Haydn¹s Orfeo ed Euridice since the composer¹s time.

He was known for an almost fanatical effort at rehearsals to achieve complete accuracy. He avoided sentimentality, and achieved his performance concepts through deep study, never relying on so-called "performance traditions."

In 1954 he agreed to resume directorship of the Berlin State Opera, which was now in East Berlin. The appointment was announced publicly. But the Soviet-dominated East Germany government started making arbitrary, politcally based suggestions and decisions. As a result, Kleiber resigned the position on March 16, 1956, before he even took it up. He died within the year. He left a legacy of exciting recordings, including a Rosenkavalier, some Beethoven Symphonies, and Mozart¹s Le Nozze di Figaro. ~ Joseph Stevenson

The WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, or West German Radio Symphony Orchestra of Cologne, is one of Germany's leading symphony orchestras. The group plays the music of various periods but has specialized in contemporary music, a specialty made possible by the fact that the WDR network also maintains another orchestra, the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln, that performs lighter music and pops material.

The broadcast of orchestral music on the radio in Cologne dates back almost to the foundation of the Richessender Köln radio station in 1927. After World War II, Allied administrators announced the breakup of the central broadcasting of the Nazi era in favor of a system of regional broadcasters that persists today. The Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester was established to serve the new Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (Northwest German Radio), in 1947; the name was changed to WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln in the 1990s. In the beginning, the group hosted only guest conductors, but since 1964, when Christoph von Dohnányi was named principal conductor, the orchestra has reliably spawned international conducting careers. Recent principal conductors have included Hans Vonk (1991-1997), Semyon Bychkov (1997-2010), Jukka-Pekka Saraste (2010-2019), and, since 2019, Cristian Macelaru. Guest conductors have included international greats: Herbert von Karajan, Karl Böhm, and Zubin Mehta, among others. The orchestra's contemporary music specialty dates back many years and has included premieres of works by Luciano Berio, Hans Werner Henze, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. This tendency, along with the WDR's maintenance of its own electronic music studio directed for many years by Stockhausen, helped to establish Cologne as a center for contemporary music. The orchestra performs at the WDR Funkhaus Wallrafplatz and the Kölner Philharmonie.

The WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln has recorded for both German and international labels. In 1989, under frequent guest conductor Günter Wand, the orchestra released recordings of Schubert's Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944 ("The Great"), and Bruckner's Symphony No. 5 on RCA Red Seal. The orchestra has also recorded for Wergo, Audite, CPO, and many others. Although quite prolific, with more than 80 recordings to its credit as of the early 2020s, the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln has not been strongly associated with any single imprint. In 2020, the group released its first two albums on Sony Classical, Beethoven's World, and a release devoted to the violin concertos of Franz Joseph Clement, with violinist Mirijam Contzen and conductor Reinhard Goebel. ~ James Manheim