The American Symphony Orchestra has announced the latest collection of online-only live recordings to join its catalogue, which quite recently passed the milestone of more than a quarter of a million streams and downloads sold. The latest batch, now on general release, consists of recordings from the 2014 Bard Music Festival with its focus on "Schubert and his World".
All conducted by the ASO's music director Leon Botstein, they include rarely-heard works by Schubert himself, such as his opera Die Verschrorenen ("The Conspirators" - loosely based on the Greek comedy Lysistrata), and a connected piece, Suppe's opera Franz Schubert (a great hit in its time, telling the story of the writing of Die schone Mullerin). Some of these works have only received a handful of recordings, if any at all. Reviewing the Bard performance of Die Verschworenen, the New York Times wrote, "impressive...a vibrant concert performance of ...Schubert's lightweight yet beguiling one-act singspiel."Writing recently for Gramophone, Maestro Botstein commented on the new opportunities afforded by the digital revolution and his ASO live performances that, "We now truly have a store of guides to the repertoire and of performances caught as they actually happen...it's a huge and important role and it's very exciting."Videos