Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123 Audi Jugendchorakademie, Le Cercle de lHarmonie & Jérémie Rhorer

• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827): Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123:
• 1 Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123: I. Kyrie 08:45
• 2 Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123: II. Gloria: No. 1, Gloria 04:28
• 3 Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123: II. Gloria: No. 2, Qui tollis 05:15
• 4 Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123: II. Gloria: No. 3, Quoniam 05:52
• 5 Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123: III. Credo: No. 1, Credo 03:23
• 6 Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123: III. Credo: No. 2, Et incarnatus est 04:52
• 7 Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123: III. Credo: No. 3, Et resurrexit 09:12
• 8 Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123: IV. Sanctus: No. 1, Sanctus 03:40
• 9 Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123: IV. Sanctus: No. 2, Preludium - Benedictus 11:55
• 10 Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123: V. Agnus Dei: No. 1, Agnus dei 06:16
• 11 Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123: V. Agnus Dei: No. 2, Dona nobis pacem 07:56
• Total Runtime 01:11:34

Info for Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123

Jérémie Rhorer and Le Cercle de l'Harmonie launch a new collaboration with Alpha Classics, with several projects planned, following the Mozart operas released on the label in 2016 and 2017. Here they tackle a monument of the sacred repertoire that is fascinating for its rich, complex, even ‘mysterious’ conception. Rhorer tells us that his interpretation pays close attention to the question of tempi, which have often become progressively slower and heavier since the post-Romantic period: the tempi have ‘a direct bearing on the vocal comfort of the singers, since breath control is one of the great difficulties of this work’, he says. For this recording, he has called in a quartet of top-flight soloists along with the Audi Jugendchorakademie, a remarkable German youth choir founded in 2007. In conjunction with his period-instrument orchestra, soon to celebrate its twentieth anniversary, they offer a passionate vision of Beethoven’s masterpiece.

Chen Reiss, soprano
Varduhi Abrahamyan, mezzo-soprano
Daniel Behle, tenor
Tareq Nazmi, bass
Audi Youth Choir Academy
Le Cercle De L’Harmonie
Jeremie Rhorer, conductor

Chen Reiss
has established a strongly acclaimed career enchanting audiences with ‘one of the most perfect Strauss voices one could wish for’ (Classical Source). Recent highlights include the title role in Cavalli’s La Calisto at Teatro alla Scala, Ginevra (Ariodante) at the Royal Opera House, and Liu (Turandot) with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. She gave performances of Mahler’s Second and Fourth Symphonies with the Munich Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Daniele Gatti, and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Lahav Shani. She debuted with the Berlin Radio Symphony under Vladimir Jurowski, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Antonio Pappano, the Berlin Philharmonic under Semyon Bychkovand the Filarmonica della Scala. Highlights of this season include concerts with the Israel Philharmonic, the SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich and Munich Philharmonic, as well as her debut with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington DC. Recent CD releases include Mahler’s Fourth Symphony (Pentatone), orchestral lieder and scenas by Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn, and a recording of Beethoven arias with the Academy of Ancient Music. Forthcoming releases include Schreker’s Vom ewigen Leben for Deutsche Grammophon with Christoph Eschenbach and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. Accompanied by the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle, she sang the soundtrack to Tom Tykwer’s film Perfume: the Story of a Murderer.

Varduhi Abrahamyan
was born into an Armenian family of musicians and studied in Yerevan. She began her professional career at the Opéra de Paris, where she has since appeared in a different repertoire almost every season, including the roles of Carmen in the opera of the same name, Isabella ("L'italiana in Algeri"), Preziosilla ("La forza del destino"), Ulrica ("Un ballo in maschera"), Paulina ("Pique Dame"), Olga ("Eugene Onegin"), Bersi ("Andrea Chénier"), Mme. Quickly ("Falstaff"), Ottone ("L'incoronazione di Poppea"), Lydia Chukovskaya (in the world premiere of Bruno Mantovani's "Akhmatova"), Cornelia ("Giulio Cesare") and Maddalena ("Rigoletto").

Her career soon took her to the most prestigious international stages, with a broad repertoire ranging from Monteverdi to Wagner.

The 2022/23 season began with Verdi's Requiem at the Festival Verdi in Parma, followed by her house debut at the Royal Opera House as Bradamante in "Alcina", a role she also sang at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo like Rossini's Stabat Mater, as well as appearances at the Teatro di San Carlo as Fricka in "Die Walküre". The season ended with "Adelaide di Borgogna" at the Rossini Opera Festival.

Highlights of recent seasons include her house debut at the Metropolitan Opera in "Rigoletto" and "Eugene Onegin", "Don Carlo" at the Opera Las Palmas and the Opéra de Marseille, "L'Italiana in Algeri" and "Norma" at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, "Lucrezia Borgia" at the Donizetti Opera Festival. She has sung Carmen at the Opéra de Paris, Teatro Massimo di Palermo, Hong Kong Opera, Zurich Opera House, Bolshoi Theatre, Hamburg State Opera, Opera de Oviedo, Atlanta Opera, Bavarian State Opera and Teatro Regio di Torino.

Further highlights were "Alcina" at the Theatre dès Champs Élysées, at the Zurich Opera and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo with Cecilia Bartoli, "Benvenuto Cellini" at the Opera di Roma, "Samson et Dalila" at the Palau de les Arts di Valencia, where she made her debut in "Nabucco" and "Norma" alongside Mariella Devia. She also sang in "Semiramide" and "La donna del lago" at the Rossini Opera Festival, at the Opéra de Marseille and at the Theater an der Wien, "Eugene Onegin" and "Ariodante" at the Canadian Opera Company and at the Grand Theatre de Genève, "Rinaldo" at the Theatre dès Champs-Élysées, Nerestano ("Zaïra" by Bellini) at the Festival di Montpellier and for Radio France and Pauline ("Pique Dame") at the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse.

In concert she sang Verdi's Requiem with Myung-Whun Chung at the Festival de Saint-Denis and on tour with the MusicAeterna Ensemble in Moscow, Paris, Cologne, Hamburg, Vienna and Athens, Rossini's Stabat Mater with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia and the Philarmonie de Paris under the direction of Jesús López Cobos, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater in Martigny and Lugano with Cecilia Bartoli and Dvořák's Stabat Mater at the Festival de Saint-Denis with the Orchestre Philarmonique de Radio France.

Varduhi Abrahamyan opened the 2023/24 season with "Maometto II" at the Teatro di San Carlo and as Eboli ("Don Carlo") at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, she also sang in "L'Olimpiade" at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées and "Carmen" at the Gran Teatre del Liceu and Oper Frankfurt. Her further plans include Verdi's Requiem with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra as well as concerts in Vienna and Paris.

Daniel Behle
was honoured with the OPUS Klassik Singer of the Year in 2020 for his aria album "MoZart". In 2024, he received the Honour Award of the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

His wide-ranging repertoire extends from baroque masterpieces to compositions of the 20th and 21st centuries, and he is equally successful in concert, lieder, and opera.

Daniel Behle is also increasingly making a name for himself as a composer: his compositions and arrangements for tenor and piano trio have been widely acclaimed. In 2023, his first operetta ‘Hopfen und Malz’ (hop and malt) was performed at three opera houses in Germany. Currently, he is working on his second operetta, ‘Der Schmetterling’ (The Butterfly). Exciting engagements await the tenor in the 2024/25 season: a tour with Bruckner's ‘Te Deum’ with the SWR Symphonieorchester under the direction of Pablo Heras-Casado and Mahler's ‘Lied von der Erde’ with the Wiener Philharmoniker and Franz Welser-Möst, as well as a new production of ‘Idomeneo’ at the Dutch National Opera under the direction of Laurence Cummings. Further engagements will take him to the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Konzerthaus Blaibach and Klangvokal Dortmund, among others.

Important engagements in recent seasons have included his lieder recital debut at the Musikverein Wien, concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Kirill Petrenko, at the Salzburg Festival with the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg and Adam Fischer, with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester and Michael Sanderling, with Le Cercle de l'Harmonie and Jérémie Rhorer, and the Sinfonieorchester Basel and Delyana Lazarova. He is a welcome guest at important European opera houses such as the Wiener Staatsoper, La Scala di Milano, Dutch National Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Bayerische Staatsoper, Semperoper Dresden, as well as at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival, the Salzburger Festspiele, and the Bayreuth Festival.

Daniel Behle regularly performs with renowned orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, Staatskapelle Dresden, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Orchestra dell' Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Wiener Symphoniker, SWR Sinfonieorchester, and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. He works with eminent conductors such as Marc Albrecht, Bertrand de Billy, Ivor Bolton, Semyon Bychkov, Adam Fischer, Pablo Heras-Casado, Marek Janowski, Philippe Jordan, Vladimir Jurowski, Fabio Luisi, Andrew Manze, Cornelius Meister, Ingo Metzmacher, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jérémie Rhorer, Christian Thielemann, Lorenzo Viotti, and Franz Welser-Möst. Lieder recitals have taken him to venues including Wigmore Hall London, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and KKL Lucerne.

His discography includes several award-winning solo albums. His second Strauss album ‘Un-Erhört’ (Prospero Classical) with Oliver Schnyder at the piano, ‘Heimat’ with German Hornsound (Prospero), and the Beethoven album ‘Gegenliebe’ with Jan Schultsz on the fortepiano (Pan Classics) have recently attracted particular attention.

Tareq Nazmi
studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich with Edith Wiens and Christian Gerhaher and privately with Hartmut Elbert. He began his career in the Munich Opera Studio and later became a member of the ensemble of the Bavarian State Opera.

His expressive portrayals of roles have made him a sought-after performer on the opera stage. Thus, Tareq Nazmi can also be experienced at this year's Salzburg Summer Festival, for the first time with Italian repertoire as Banco in Verdi's Macbeth (directed by Krzystof Warlikowski), before making another guest appearance at the Salzach in season 2023/24: as Alvise in La Gioconda at the Easter Festival under the musical direction of Antonio Pappano. Following an invitation of Franz Welser-Möst, he will be heard in Cleveland as Sarastro in Mozart's Zauberflöte and later at the Munich Opera Festival as Ferrando in Verdi's Il Trovatore and as Gurnemanz in Wagner's Parsifal in his hometown.

In concert, he will perform Beethoven's 9th Symphony under the baton of Manfred Honeck at the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Missa solemnis under Herbert Blomstedt in Stockholm, with the Munich Philharmonic under Philippe Herreweghe, and with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski, among others. At the Orchestre de Paris, he will take on the bass part in Mahler's 8th Symphony for the first time conducted by Daniel Harding.

Among the outstanding engagements of the past seasons is his Sarastro at the 2022 Salzburg Festival, following his international breakthrough in the role of the Heerrufer in 2021. Furthermore, his debut as Gurnemanz in Wagner's Parsifal at the Grand Théâtre de Genève as well as his debut at the Vienna State Opera as König Heinrich in Wagner's Lohengrin. His repertoire also includes numerous roles in the bass literature such as Filippo II in Verdi's Don Carlo, Zaccaria (Nabucco), Hunding (Die Walküre), König Marke (Tristan und Isolde) is in planning. He was the ensemble bass in Verdi's Messa da Requiem with the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra under John Eliot Gardiner, on tour under the musical direction of Teodor Currentzis and with the Berlin Philharmonic under Daniel Barenboim, and in Beethoven's Missa solemnis in Munich under Kirill Petrenko.

In demand as a concert soloist, Tareq Nazmi has mastered a broad repertoire that includes works from Bach to Beethoven, from Haydn to Brahms, and from Mozart to Dvořák. He has worked with renowned orchestras such as the Orchestre de Paris under the baton of Daniel Harding, the Orquestra Gulbenkian under Alain Altinoglu, the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Jukka-Pekka Saraste, the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck, and the Balthasar Neumann Choir and Ensemble under Thomas Hengelbrock.

As a lied singer, Tareq Nazmi was most recently heard together with Gerold Huber at the Schubertiade Hohenems, in Munich, Cologne and at London's Wigmore Hall. In spring 2023 he performed Schubert's Winterreise in Tokyo.

Booklet for Beethoven: Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123