ÍøÆغÚÁÏ

Bass Walter Berry grew, by measured and steady advancement, into one of the leading artists of his time. Beginning at the Vienna Staatsoper at the early age of 21, he progressed through the major Mozart baritone and bass roles to such weightier challenges as Beethoven's Pizarro and Wagner's Kurwenal, Telramund, and even Wotan. He was able to transmute the sunny, rounded, very Viennese sound of his wide-ranging instrument into something more potent, more incisive for his Wagner roles and he became one of the most celebrated Wozzecks of his day. His musicianship and sturdy voice made him a welcome guest at many of the world's leading opera venues and he was regarded as an affecting recitalist as well.

Originally intending to pursue a career in engineering, Berry switched to vocal study and trained with Hermann Gallos at the Vienna Musical Academy. He made his debut as a soloist in Honegger's Jeanne-d'Arc and soon thereafter joined the Staatsoper. As early as 1953, he was singing Masetto at Salzburg, the first of an outstanding gallery of Mozart characterizations. At the festival, he also participated in the premieres of Gottfried von Einem's Prozess (1953), Rolf Leibermann's Penelope (1954), and Werner Egk's Irische Legende (1954).

America heard Berry for the first time when he presented his genial Mozart Figaro at Chicago's Lyric Opera in 1957. Three years later, he returned to Chicago as part of a more stellar cast (Schwarzkopf, Streich, his then-wife Christa Ludwig, and Eberhard Wächter) to offer a Figaro unchallenged by any other than Cesare Siepi's. Berry subsequently sang Leporello, Don Alfonso, Fernando (Fidelio), and Baron Ochs in Chicago.

On October 2, 1966, Berry made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in a production of Strauss' Die Frau Ohne Schatten conducted by Karl Böhm. Together with James King's Emperor, Leonie Rysanek's Empress and Christa Ludwig's Dyer's Wife, Berry's Barak was hailed as a magnificent accomplishment and an immense popular success. A live recording with that same quartet of principals, captured in Salzburg in 1974, reveals each singer performing at such a pitch of vocal and interpretive splendor as to have made the collaboration legendary. Although his marriage to Ludwig had ended in 1971, Berry was still the partner of choice for the mezzo-soprano's intense and soaring Dyer's Wife. Berry made his Covent Garden debut as Barak in 1976 and sang the role in San Francisco that same year.

Berry's increasingly powerful voice tended toward the lower end of bass-baritone spectrum and his Baron Ochs managed the bottommost notes with authority. His recording with Bernstein is both substantially sung and interpreted with Viennese lightness. Berry had accumulated an extensive discography by the time of his death, remaining in good voice until the very end of his life (he participated in a Renée Fleming Strauss recital shortly before his death). His hearty and endearing Papageno was recorded twice. His Pizarro in the 1961 Klemperer recording of Fidelio, despite the conductor's slow pacing, served notice that his was an art destined for more than Mozart. His singing of the bass arias in Klemperer's recording of Bach's St. Matthew Passion is fluent and deeply felt, notwithstanding, once again, some glacial tempi.

Though never quite viewed as a star personality, Berry crafted his own unique spot among the great singers who reigned in the twentieth century's second half.

Of the three major orchestras based in Munich, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is probably the most prominent and arguably the finest. It has been the most heavily recorded of the three and one of the most often-recorded ensembles in the world, its recordings appearing on a variety of major and minor labels over the years. Moreover, all of its music directors have been internationally acclaimed as among the leading conductors of their time.

The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra was established in 1949, and from that time to the present, has functioned under the financial and organizational auspices of the Bavarian Radio of Munich. Eugen Jochum was appointed the ensemble's first music director, and he immediately proceeded to build the orchestra into one of Germany's finest. Its initial recordings were made under his baton in 1950. The orchestra's reputation in concert developed even more quickly under Jochum. Several critically acclaimed tours of Europe throughout the '50s, reaching from Austria to Great Britain, established its prominence early on. Igor Stravinsky led the ensemble in performances of his own works in 1951, and four years later, Paul Hindemith conducted a program featuring his music. Other prominent artists and conductors also appeared in the '50s, including the orchestra's next music director, Rafael Kubelik, who succeeded Jochum in 1961. Kubelik's notable recordings with Bavarian Radio Symphony include several of the Mahler symphonies and Schoenberg's Gurrelieder. Kubelik was a conservative in matters of repertory, largely focusing on Classical and Romantic works. He also made a number of successful concert tours of Europe and North America with the Bavarian Radio Symphony in both the 1960s and '70s.

The Bavarian Radio Symphony continued to attract major artists and guest conductors, including Carlo Maria Giulini, Bernard Haitink, Zubin Mehta, and Leonard Bernstein, who made regular appearances with the ensemble beginning in 1976. Kubelik resigned in September 1979, and Kiril Kondrashin, a recent defector from the Soviet Union and one of the world's most respected conductors, was chosen to become his successor. He was never officially named music director, though he functioned in that capacity, and when he suddenly died of a heart attack in 1981, the orchestra was left without a director until 1983, when Sir Colin Davis took the podium. During his tenure, many successful tours were undertaken, including ones to Japan in 1984 and to the United States in 1986. Davis' critically acclaimed recordings with the Bavarian Radio Symphony include releases of the Mendelssohn symphonies and Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio. Lorin Maazel succeeded him in 1993 and continued the tradition of conducting and recording many choral and vocal works. The orchestra's releases under Maazel's direction include compelling performances of several Mahler works with Waltraud Meier.

Maazel's tenure with the orchestra ended in 2002, and he was succeeded the following year by Mariss Jansons. In 2006, Jansons and Bavarian Radio Symphony won a Grammy for Best Orchestral Performance for its recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13 on the EMI Classics label. Since 2009, the orchestra has also recorded under its own BR Klassik label, where it released recordings of Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 as well as Schumann's Symphony No. 1 with Schubert's Symphony No. 3 in 2019. Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony enjoyed a fruitful collaboration, greatly expanding the orchestra's recordings while earning major prizes. Jansons' term as chief conductor ended with his death on December 1, 2019, shortly after leading his final concert with the group in early November. Sir Simon Rattle was named the orchestra's next chief conductor in 2021, with his term set to begin with the 2023-2024 season.

The orchestra, which has regularly broadcast concerts over Bavarian Radio throughout its existence, consists of 115 members and performs in the Philharmonie Munich am Gasteig and the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz. Sometimes known outside Germany as the Munich Symphony, in addition to the full orchestra, several smaller ensembles, including the Koeckert-Quartet, the Bach Collegium Munich, and the Munich Brass Ensemble, have been established by members of the larger group. The popularity and critical acclaim given these smaller ensembles reflects the high standard of musicianship present within the full orchestra. ~ Robert Cummings & Keith Finke

German conductor Eugen Jochum is considered by many to have been the foremost Bruckner conductor of the mid- to late twentieth century; he producing many outstanding recordings of Bruckner's symphonies (as well as worthy interpretations of a great many other composers). He also left to posterity a number of written articles on the interpretation of that composer.

Musical studies began in early childhood (both of Eugen's brothers, Otto Jochum and Georg Ludwig Jochum, went on to become successful musicians in their own right), and Jochum attended the Augsburg Conservatory until he was 20 years of age. He enrolled in the Munich Academy of Music as a composition student of Hermann von Waltershausen, but soon diverted his energies to conducting (working with Siegmund von Hausegger). He worked as a rehearsal assistant at the Munich National Theater, and, after a successful Munich debut in 1926, was invited to join the conducting staff at the Kiel opera. In 1926, having developed a sizable operatic repertory, he moved to Mannheim (1929-1930) and then to Duisburg (1930-1932). Although relatively young, he was asked to serve as music director for Berlin Radio in 1932, and while in that city built an association with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra which would led to many guest conductor appearances in the following decades.

Jochum became music director of the Hamburg opera (and, along with that title, principal conductor of the Hamburg Philharmonic) in 1934, remaining at that post until 1949 -- effectively avoiding Nazi interference with his musical activities. During the 1930s, Jochum continued to champion a number of contemporary composers who had been officially banned by the Nazi party (such as Hindemith and Bartók), though his great love remained the late Romantic repertory.

After forming the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1949, Jochum spent the 1950s developing that organization (in conjunction with his new role as music director for Bavarian radio) and building his stature as a guest conductor around Europe; his Bayreuth debut was in 1953, and he took partial charge of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam from 1961-1964. He conducted the Bamburg Symphony orchestra from 1969 to 1973, and was appointed conductor laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra for the 1978-1979 season. From 1950 on Jochum served as the president of the German chapter of the International Bruckner Society.

Jochum's conducting was marked by a fluent, lyric approach (which nevertheless proved capable of drawing tempestuous results from his players when necessary). Above all else he valued a rich, warm sound perfectly suited to the music of Bruckner and Wagner, though recordings show a wealth of insight into the music of other German masters, notably Beethoven, Bach, and Haydn. Jochum died in 1987, after a decade of semi-retirement.