Franz Schubert: Overtures & Orchestral Works

All previously released recordings of Franz Schubert’s symphonies and orchestral works with the Basel Chamber Orchestra under Swiss oboist, composer and conductor Heinz Holliger received glowing reviews. Audio awarded 5 stars each for music and sound: “A tremendous force unfolds with the first chords. The finale is ravishing!”, 5 stars were also awarded in FONO FORUM, “lucky Schubert – and lucky us … one of the finest recordings!” was the verdict of Gramophone, “a CD recorded with wonderful sound” in rbb Kultur, and “this cycle soars to become something great” (5 stars) in Stereo.

With this sixth album, Heinz Holliger and the Basel Chamber Orchestra conclude the Schubert cycle with particularly interesting repertoire of his orchestral works. Namely the Overture in D major, D. 12 as well as the Symphony in D major, D936a. The overture has both tender and great dramatic orchestral moments. Heinz Holliger says of it, “There the doors open to a whole musical world, to the most magnificent thing there is in the history of music at all.”

As a world premiere recording, the surviving fragments of the Symphony in D major appear in an expanding arrangement by Swiss composer Roland Moser and are an experiment between orchestral and chamber music. The album is complemented by the Grand Duo Sonata in C major, D. 812, originally a piano sonata, now arranged for nine instruments.