CLASSICAL MUSIC - DREAMPATHS OF MUSIC: FROM THE RHINE TO THE NILE

At the time of this recording, the Italian maestro Giuseppe Sinopoli, who died in 2001, was chief conductor of the internationally acclaimed Dresden Staatskapelle, one of Europe’s oldest orchestras, which celebrated its 450^th anniversary in 1998. Made to mark this occasion, Dreampaths of Music features performances of Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 (Rhenish), the prelude to Wagner’s Parsifal and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

For Sinopoli, these pieces formed a rite of passage, a journey in music to inspire thoughts on the meaning of existence. Encompassing Western and Eastern cultures, it begins in Germany with the Schumann. Moving on to Parsifal, German culture is permeated by a mysticism and a spirituality which come from the East. With the Beethoven it arrives in Egypt to discover an ancient, Eastern culture of monumental proportions. Sinopoli described the first movement of Beethoven’s Seventh as a “blazing high noon in Abu Simbel”.

Pat Gavin, who has won countless awards for his innovative electronic graphics, worked with Barrie Gavin to add a striking visual element to this extraordinary cultural journey, one linked by images of rivers and water, from the Rhine Valley to the Nile.

The music performances featured in the programme were specially shot in studio with Giuseppe Sinopoli conducting the Dresden Staatskapelle.