As of now you can download many audite titles and tracks as mp3-files from the internet.

As of now audite offers many titles and tracks for downloading on the major music platforms. audite is one of the first independent classic labels, which are open to this new option. Here you can find a complete list of all audite titles on the internet. audite is already present on most specific music platforms, very soon also on iTunes which is one of the biggest on the market.

You can learn more about music download and our perpsectives on it at the music fair Popkomm in Berlin (19. – 21. September): label owner Ludger Böckenhoff will discuss chances and risks of this new market with Gregor Willmes (FonoForum) and other leading people from the label and music download scene.

audite-artist Hisako Kawamura is the winner of the First Prize of this year’s Clara Haskil Competition.

The Piano Competition was founded in 1963 in order to honour the renowned Swiss pianist, of Rumanian origin Clara Haskil (born 1895 in Bucarest, deceased 1960 in Brussels). The Competition takes place every two years in Vevey where Clara Haskil lived from 1942 until her death.The competition is a meeting place for young pianists from all over the world.The First Prize at this competition is one of the most prestigious international awards for pianists today. (More information about the competition here.)

This year’s winner Hisako Kawamura was born in Japan in 1981 and is living in Germany since 1986. At the age of five she began to play the piano, her first teacher being Kyoko Sawano-Krall in Düsseldorf. From 1993 on she continued her piano studies with Malgorzata Bator-Schreiber and from 1998 on she continued her studies in the class of Vladimir Krainev at the Music Academy Hannover.
Hisako Kawamura is in demand for solo recitals as well as for appearances with orchestra which lead her through Germany but also to Poland, Spain, Cyprus, Czechia and Japan.
Besides other numerous awards she is winner of the First Prize at the 2002 Casagrande Piano Competition in Terni/ Italy, the Third Prize at the Geza Anda Competition in Zürich in 2003 and the Second Prize at the ARD Competition in Munich in 2006.
We congratulate Hisako Kawamura on the First Prize at the Clara Haskil Competition!

Issued at audite:
Klavierwerke von R. Schumann & F. Schubert, aud. 92512

We would like to remind you of our complete print catalogue 2008. Here you find all recent audite-productions including all new releases until May 2008.

Again the catalogue includes a CD: This year it is our Legendary Recording of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 and Schumann's Piano Concerto with Ferenc Fricsay and Alfred Cortot.

You can order the catalogue with CD here. For a catalogue without CD please write to info@audite.de.

The HAMBACHERMusikFEST was founded in 1997 under the artistic direction of the Mandelring Quartet. The happy combination of the highest musical standards with the delightful local colour of the surrounding Palatinate countryside has created an attractive event which furthermore fascinates through its own personal character. From May 21st to 25th 2008, during the week of Corpus Christi, the Mandelring Quartet has once again invited distinguished artists from Germany and abroad to perform in a varied festival programme of chamber music ranging from the classical age to our own day.

The Mandelring Quartet, based in Neustadt on Germany’s wine route, has won prestigious music competitions such as the ARD-Wettbewerb in Munich, the Evian International String Quartet Competition and the Premio Paolo Borciani in Italy. Today it is one of the world’s leading quartets. Its busy world-wide concert schedule and the numerous accolades awarded to its CD productions testify to its outstanding international reputation. In addition to presenting the core chamber music repertoire the Mandelring Quartet is also committed to works by unknown composers which promise rewarding discoveries. This is reflected both in the quartet’s discography and in the programmes of the HAMBACHERMusikFEST.

The Mandelring Quartet’s distinctive artistic imprint is once again evident in the 12th HAMBACHERMusikFEST. In addition to the classic works, lovers of chamber music will be able to hear masterpieces which seldom appear in the concert hall because of their unusual combinations of instruments. Eight concerts are scheduled in which the focus will be on works for larger combinations, including Schubert’s Octet, Martinů’s Nonet and Françaix’s “Dixtuor”. There will also be a children’s concert to introduce the youngest listeners to classical music.

This year the Euphorion Quintet from Weimar – a wind quintet made up of five internationally acclaimed musicians - will contribute to the variety and wealth of music on offer. Further distinguished soloists like the French pianist Claire Désert, Gustav Rivinius (cello), Christian Geldsetzer (double-bass) and Thomas Müller-Pering (guitar) will support the Mandelring Quartet and Euphorion Quintet.

The choice of name indicates the close involvement of the HAMBACHERMusikFEST with the famous Hambach Castle, which has been regarded as the ”cradle of German democracy” ever since the Hambach Festival of 1832. Accordingly, since the foundation of the festival the castle has been the main venue for the festival’s events. This year extensive renovation projects have necessitated the displacement of three concerts to other venues. Thus the 12th HAMBACHERMusikFEST will perform in Neustadt’s Saalbau for the first time.

The high standard of the musical offerings and the immediate vicinity of the artists are captivating. Added delights are Hambach’s idyllically relaxing location on the edge of the Palatinate forest, the stylish setting of the baroque church and the charm of the vineyards. The big regular audience shows that festival guests like to revisit.

More information about the festival at tel. +49/6321/92043 or www.hambachermusikfest.de.

Our production „L. v. Beethoven: Sinfonien Nr. 2, 3 & 7“ with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Karl Böhm won a Supersonic!

The Supersonic is awarded by the music magazine “Pizzicato” and we are very happy about this distinguished award!

Read the review here.

Herbert von Karajan would have turned 100 this year. His centennial is being celebrated everywhere in concerts, documentaries, and editions. To mark this occasion audite, too, has decided to release several choice recordings in a Karajan Edition. Vol. I already appeared in May, Vol. II and Vol. III will follow in October.

Karajan’s first recording of the Verdi Requiem (Vol. I) was made during the difficult years in which he was rebuilding his career. It reverberates with echoes of war and the uncertainties of the post-war period. The expressive power and spontaneity of this interpretation reveals a conductor in full command of his audience and musicians alike. This live recording, dating from the 1948 Salzburg Festival, was made with outstanding singers of the time: a very young Hilde Zadek, recently retained for the Vienna State Opera; Margarete Klose, a mezzo-soprano equally favored by Furtwängler; Helge Rosvaenge, the most sought-after tenor of his day; and a magnificent Boris Christoff. The orchestra is the Vienna Philharmonic.

Vol. II (to be released in October 2008) presents Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 (with Wilhelm Kempff) and Symphony No. 41 (The “Jupiter”). This studio recording arose in connection with three concerts held between 21 and 23 June 1956 to celebrate the Mozart bicentennial. It shows Karajan as a Mozart interpreter of great stature and originality. Not only did he unearth a great wealth of orchestral timbres in Mozart’s scores, he also unveiled the structure of the music within these colors. Far removed from rhetoric and virtuosity, Karajan’s Mozart unveils a magic all its own without once becoming sentimental. Even today this Mozart performance, with its stylistic balance between flowing sound and attentive instrumental dialogue, lays claims to more than historical interest.

Vol. III (to be released in October 2008) contains Beethoven’s Third and Ninth Symphonies. These recordings bear witness to Karajan’s early work with the orchestra as a guest conductor and as Wilhelm Furtwängler’s successor, highlighting his quest for depth of sound and breadth of line. Ever since he first encountered the Berlin Philharmonic in spring 1938, Karajan wanted nothing more than to become its principal conductor. But as long as Furtwängler was alive his path to the head of this orchestra was blocked. On 8 September 1953 Karajan made his first guest appearance with the orchestra in eleven years, performing the Eroica and Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra at the Titania Palace in Berlin-Steglitz. The live recording of Beethoven's Third of this concert is found in Vol. III.

With Furtwängler’s death on 30 November 1954, Karajan’s path became free at last. He prevailed against his competitors and became the new principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. There ensued an arduous period of restructuring the orchestra, its timbral alignment, and its musical philosophy. The live recording of the Ninth, made in the auditorium of the Berlin Musikhochschule on 25 April 1957 to celebrate the orchestra’s 75th anniversary, shows Karajan as its new principal conductor. He succeeded in retaining four singers whose individuality and quality placed them far above any previous recording: Gottlob Frick (bass), Ernst Haefliger (tenor), Marga Höffgen (contralto), and Elisabeth Grümmer (soprano).

All our releases have been included in the official "KARAJAN 2008" Jubilee Portal and awarded its official logo, which serves as a seal of quality for all authorized products of the registered trademark Herbert von Karajanf®. The Karajan logo is granted exclusively by the Eliette and Herbert von Karajan Institute, the executors of Karajan’s artistic and musical estate. It also alerts Karajan fans to special releases and events marking the Karajan Centennial celebrations.

April 23rd 2008 will see the 150th anniversary of the birthday of the forgotten British compser Dame Ethel Smyth. audite celebrates the anniversary with a special offer of the production of her "Mass in D" valid throughout the whole year.

Ethel Smyth was born in 1858 daughter of a British general major. Being a child of the Victorian age she received a strict education at home and at a boarding school against which she revolted again and again. Against her fathers wish she managed to study music in Leipzig - strength of will and persistence were here strongest characteristics.

In Leipzig she is disappointed with the ancient curriculum at the conservatoire but fascinated by the city, the concerts, the meetings with Brahms, Grieg and Clara Schumann. Heinrich von Herzogenberg gave her private lessons and also Tschaikowsky later on. She composed chamber- and pianomusic, a serenade for orchestra was her first success in England. In 1893 it was surpassed by the premiere of the Mass that remained her only religious work. Then she devoted herself to the opera. The most successful opera "The Wreckers", composed after a sinister Cornish legend was conducted by Bruno Walter, Arthur Nickisch and Sir Thomas Beecham.

"When I was young, engrosses as we all were in the story of the Oxford Movement, I had been very High Church, and later when belief passed, this aspect of Anglicanism had never lost its grip on my imagination ... In order to round off the story of this phase of intense belief – belief in the strictest sense of the word – I ought to say that during this and the ensuing year I was composing a Mass ... Into that work I tried to put all there was in my heart but no sooner was it finished than, strange to say, orthodox belief fell away from me, never to return ... Who shall fathom the Divine Plan? Only this will I say, that at no period of my life have I had the feeling of being saner, wiser, nearer truth. Never has this phase, as compared to others that were to succeed it, seemed overwrought, unnatural, or hysterical; it was simply a religious experience that in my case could not be an abiding one."

In the summer of 1891 she searched all over England for a conductor who was daring enough to conduct the big choir composition of a quite unknown composer. She had the feeling as if she was standing up against a wall. The highly respected composers of that time and guardians of tradition, Perry, Standford and Sullivan, whom she knew personally, did not make any allowances to help her.
She found support in a totally "unmusical" source: the French empress Eugenie, widow of Napoleon III, living in exile in England. She supported Ethel Smyth by financing the publication of the Mass at the Novello Press and by giving her the chance to introduce herself to Queen Victoria including the possibility to present a part of the Mass before her court.
She was seated in front of a gigantic grand piano and performed the "Benedictus" and Sanctus as "... in the manner of composer that meant singing the chorus as well as the solo parts, and trumpeting forth orchestral effects as best you can, a noisy proceeding ... emboldened by the sonority of the place, I did the "Gloria" the most tempestuous and ... best number of all. At a certain drum effect a foot came into play, and I fancy that as regards volume of sound at least, the presence of a real chorus and orchestra was scarcely missed."

One and a half year later, in January 1893 the premiere was held with about 1,000 performers in the enormous Royal Albert Hall in front of an audience of 12,000 people. It was received with enthusiasm. The "Gloria" was also performed as festive finale at the end of the Mass being the composer's utmost wish. Fuller-Maitland, a critic at Times wrote:

"This work definitely places the composer among the most eminent composers of her time, and easily at the head of all those of her own sex. The most striking thing about it is the entire absence of the qualities that are usually associated with feminine productions; throughout it is virile, masterly in construction and workmanship, and particularly remarkable for the excellence and rich colour of the orchestration"

In spite of this the work vanished from sight to reappear again 30 years later.

"In the middle twenties, I bethought me, I forget in what connection, of the Mass, which had never achieved a second performance, which none but greybeards had heard, and the existence of which I had practically forgotten. A couple of limp and dusty piano scores were found on an upper shelf, and after agitated further searchings the full score turned up in my loft. In spite of the judgement of the Faculty the work had evidently been appreciated by the mice, and on sitting down to examine it I shared their opinion, and decided that it really deserved a better fate than thirty-one years of suspended animation. But when I consulted the publishers as to the possibility of a revival, the reply was, 'Much as we regret to say so, we fear your Mass is dead'.
This verdict stung me into activity, and to cut a long story short, in 1924 Adrian Boult produced it brilliantly in Birmingham and the following week in London. This time the press was excellent."

Writing to a friend about the performance Ethel Smyth noted critically:
"On the whole satisfactory, but you know how hard I am to please ... Audience warm (for stodgy Birmingham). Chorus fine. Boult first rate. Orchestra putrid ... All the trombones were played by policeman."

The greatest pleasure Ethel Smyth had was in a letter from George Bernhard Shaw, who had been to the premiere of the Mass 30 years earlier and had a very detailed witty and altogether positive critic which had been published in "The World".

"Dear Dame Ethel, – Thank you for bullying me into going to hear that Mass.
The originality and beauty of the voice parts are as striking today as they were 30 years ago, and the rest will stand up in the biggest company. Magnificent!
You are totally and diametrically wrong in imagining that you have suffered from a prejudice against feminine music. On the contrary you have been almost extinguished by the dread of masculine music. It was your music that cured me for ever of the old delusion that women could not do men's work in art and other things. (That was years ago, when I knew nothing about you, and heard an overture – "The Wreckers" or something – in which you kicked a big orchestra all round the platform.) But for you I might not have been able to tackle St Joan, who has floored every previous way playwright. Your music is more masculine than Handel's.
Your dear big brother, G. Bernard Shaw."

For this re-performance in 1924 she revised the composition. The changes refer to a small improvement in the choir- and orchestralparts and a reduction of the metronome beat most considerably in the fast movements. The changes are surely due to the remembrance of the premiere with its gigantic number of performers. Here our recording again approaches the original intention of the composer.

Helmut Wolf

audite was actually nominated twice in the critics’ ranking list in the “Neue Musikzeitung (NMZ)” for 2007 – in the categories repertoire politics and complete editions.

Once a year the music critics of the NMZ publish a ranking list of new releases from the previous year. The list with recommendations for 2007 was published in February 2008.

In this “Ranking List of the NMZ-Critics” the music journalist Hanspeter Krellmann nominated audite even in two categories: In the category repertoire politics he recommends “… audite with its artist-series featuring Ferenc Fricsay, Géza Anda and Karl Böhm,” in the category complete edition he recommends the „Ferenc-Fricsay-Edition at audite”.

We are very happy about this recognition and feel confirmed to continue our efforts to search the radio archives for legendary interpretations of famous artists. Passed productions with Rafael Kubelik, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Karl Böhm, Ferenc Fricsay and Géza Anda already revealed undiscovered treasures. These editions will be continued but we will also release new editions e.g. featuring a maestro from Salzburg and Berlin who celebrates an anniversary this year…

Our production 92560 "Christ lag in Todesbanden" with Johannes Strobl at the Great Organ of the Abbey Church in Muri was included in the Quarterly Critics' Choice ("Bestenliste") of the German Record Critics’ Award (“Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik”).

The lists recommend new releases which merit special attention for the quality of interpretation and for their value to the repertoire. These lists provide a candid picture of new releases which, in the jury's opinion, are of outstanding importance when judged on purely artistic and audiophile grounds.

The Abbey Church in Muri is also the setting of the production "J. V. Rathgeber: Messe von Muri & Concertos". Further productions will follow.

• Quarterly Critics' Choice of the German Record Critics’ Award

Also in Canada we welcome a new distributor. “S.R.I.” is the name of our new partner.

S.R.I is closing a gap in our North American distribution network. We are looking forward to the co-operation with another committed distributor!