Matthias Goerne, The Synergy Vocals, BBC Symphony Orchestra & Josep Pons - Berio: Sinfonia & Berio/Mahler: Frühe Lieder (2016)

"Since it was first performed in 1969, Luciano Berio's Sinfonia has become a classic, certainly the most widely known of all his works and arguably the most successful concert piece by a composer of his generation." The Guardian

This release is dedicated to the pioneer of Italian modernism Luciano Berio. His 5-movement 'Sinfonia', is undoubtedly his most well-known work, written for the New York Philharmonic and dedicated to Leonard Bernstein. It has become one of the key works and principle musical manifestations of the 1960s bringing together collage technique and modernism.

A few years later, Berio went on to orchestrate a number of songs on texts from 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn', which Mahler had scored for piano and voice, as if they had been written at the time of the later 'Kindertotenlieder'. A symphonic backcloth tailor-made for the great baritone voice of Matthias Goerne [whose 'Knaben Wunderhorn' songs are already available on DVD, with Andris Nelsons, from Lucerne]. His warm, dark voice allows him to capture the sombre and tragic atmosphere of this music like no one else.