Munich, 13 March 2009. UNITEL CLASSICA and the Munich Philharmonic under its General Music Director Christian Thielemann will record all nine symphonies by Anton Bruckner for television, DVD and new media. The Bruckner cycle, of which the Fourth and Seventh Symphonies have already been recorded, is part of an exclusive partnership for audiovisual recordings concluded between UNITEL CLASSICA and the orchestra. The works will be produced in High Definition (HD) and Dolby Surround sound quality over the coming years in agreement with the orchestra's concert plans.
The Munich Philharmonic has been cultivating a Bruckner tradition specific to Munich without interruption since the year it was founded. Its reputation as one of the ensembles that can best reproduce the "dark" sound intended by Bruckner is proven anew today by Christian Thielemann. Among the Bruckner conductors of his generation, he is certainly the most qualified, and can build upon the legacy of Sergiu Celibidache. It is not by chance that for his feverishly applauded inaugural concert on 29 October 2004, Thielemann chose Anton Bruckner's Fifth Symphony, the very work with which Celibidache had opened the newly constructed Philharmonie im Gasteig, the home of the Munich Philharmonic.
UNITEL CLASSICA, the Munich Philharmonic and Christian Thielemann have been working together regularly since 2005, most recently on the recording of Richard Strauss' opera "Der Rosenkavalier" with Renée Fleming, Sophie Koch and Diana Damrau in January 2009 in Baden-Baden. "Der Rosenkavalier" will be given its cinematic premiere in Munich, and broadcast on 3sat at 8:15 pm on 30 May 2009. Further joint productions include the first Vatican Concert in honor of Pope Benedict XVI from 2005, Hans Pfitzner's "Three Preludes for 'Palestrina'" as well as Brahms' "Ein deutsches Requiem" with Christine Schäfer and Christian Gerhaher. "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" from the Vienna State Opera under Christian Thielemann, who has been recording exclusively for UNITEL since 2006, will also be released on DVD in late fall.
UNITEL CLASSICA, part of Jan Mojto's corporate group since 2004, is, with 1,100 titles in its portfolio, one of the world's leading producers and distributors of classical music for audiovisual media (TV, DVD, cinema, etc.). True to its motto "Music to Watch," UNITEL CLASSICA produces operas, concerts, ballets and documentaries with the greatest international artists and in the highest technical quality. Among its current productions are "Roméo et Juliette," "Otello" and "Don Giovanni" from the 2008 Salzburg Festival; a Mendelssohn project with Anne-Sophie Mutter; and the "Ring des Nibelungen" in the production of La Fura dels Baus from the Valencia Opera.
LASSICA is the classical music channel which can be seen on Pay TV in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and Japan.
