P. I. Tchaikovsky & Friedrich Gulda: Cello Concertos – Jakob Spahn

Siemens AG and the Orchestra Academy of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester are linked by a partnership spanning many years. The intensive fostering of young talent, be it in science, research, art, culture, business or technology, is Siemens’ credo. This recording offered the Orchestra Academy of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and its young scholarship holders the opportunity to record a CD under exceptional production conditions. Intensive collaboration between the Orchestra Academy and the Siemens Arts Program, its artistic director Stephan Frucht, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester solo cellist Jakob Spahn, and the Immersive Audio Network IAN, has here given rise to a completely new aural experience, lending the symphonically arranged cello works of Tchaikovsky and Gulda a transparency redolent of chamber music. The 3D Immersive Sound recording was produced at Siemens AG’s corporate headquarters and in the Bruno-Walter-Saal of the Bayerische Staatsoper. Immersive Sound, Dolby Atmos: 3D Immersive Audio is the latest generation of sound reproduction with horizontal and vertical localization. The result is an aural experience akin to reality. Three-dimensional aural experiences make possible undreamt-of transparency in the reception of media: the listener is at the heart of the musical events, experiencing the spatial quality of the sounds up close. The arrangement for solo cello and string trio was the work of David Geringas.

Reviews

Fanfare January/February 2020

[Gulda] From his playing in the first movement, it’s obvious that Spahn is not only a first-rate performer but is also perfectly in tune with the composer’s crackpot aesthetic: snarling and gutsy in the rocklike music, gently ironic in the Ländler send-up….Spahn delivers one of the freshest Rococo Variations in living memory: not simply because of the actual playing, but also because it utilizes a new arrangement for cello and wind quintet.