Following his short notice debut with Bruckner’s 5th on 6th of April, the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra invited Remy Ballot to conduct an Italian tour with Bruckner’s 4th and Mozart’s K488 in Bergamo and Brescia on 26th and 27th of April

Remy Ballot will step in for Dan Ettinger to conduct a performance of Bruckner’s 5th with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra on Saturday, 6th of April:

The Austrian National Library, host of the greatest Bruckner collection worldwide and gravitational centre of the international Bruckner research, has chosen Remy Ballot‘s live recordings of the Bruckner Quintet and the symphonies from the St Florianer Brucknertage as sound samples for their jubilee exhibition, titled: ‘Anton Bruckner. The Pious Revolutionary. The exhibition was opened on 20th March 2024, and is open to the public from 21st of March 2024 until 26th January 2025:

Leading French Classical Magazine Resmusica published a glowing review of Rémy Ballot‘s Bruckner cycle recorded live at St Florian Abbey. Jean-Claude Houlot writes: ‘

‘While Christian Thielemann’s complete works with the Vienna Philharmonic stand out for their orchestral splendour, the one offered by the Viennese publisher, conducted by the French conductor, is characterised by its approach to Bruckner. Rémy Ballot takes a more in-depth look at the work, choosing from a variety of versions, and has certainly produced the most personal and interesting of the many recordings of this bicentenary.’

You can read the entire review in French here:

Martin Blaumeiser’s detailed and insightful review of the World Premiere of Hans Winterberg’s 4th piano concerto by leading Winterberg expert Jonathan Powell and the Beethoven Philharmonie Baden, conducted by Thomas Rösner (in German):

‘The British pianist Jonathan Powell – who completed his doctorate as a musicologist on the succession of Scriabin and is currently publishing all of Winterberg’s piano concertos as well as his complete solo piano works – is one of the most fascinating piano virtuosos in the world, is not only in the eyes of this reviewer, but also a late-comer, admittedly with an unusual wealth of experience and almost superhuman pianistic abilities.

‘The most fascinating thing here is Hans Winterberg’s completely independent orchestration and the extremely skilful, constant regression from dramatic events back into calm waters, with almost tonal echoes at the end.

‘ Thomas Rösner and his empathetic Beethoven Philharmonic Orchestra bring out the details of this demanding piece in a very vivid and tonally differentiated way – an excellent performance! The audience receives the “new” piece very attentively and positively, apparently only surprised by its brevity.

In time for the World Premiere of Hans Winterberg‘s 4th piano concerto in Baden with Jonathan Powell and the Beethoven Philharmonie Baden conducted by Thomas Rösner, Austrian Radio OE1 broadcast an interview with Thomas Rösner and Peter Puskás about Hans Winterberg’s oeuvre and it’s relevance (in German):

Jonathan Powell’s breathtaking overview of the development of Czech piano music from Suk to Hans Winterberg, including some Viennese references to Schönberg and Kornauth. As a kind of ‘prelude’ to the forthcoming world premiere of the 4th Piano Concerto with Thomas Rösner and the Beethoven Philharmonic Orchestra on 21 February in Baden. The concert was recorded live at the Great Radio Hall in Vienna on 21.11 2023 and will be online for 7 days:

Having released recordings of Weinberg and Laks for the CPO Label, the Interlude Magazine in Hong Kong published a big article with interviews with conductors Agnieszka Duczmal and her daughter Anna Duczmal-Mroz, mother and daughter holding a BBC Music Magazine Award and a Taki-Alsop Fellowship between them:

2024 being an important jubilee for two of our most important composers of orchestral repertoire, Strauss and Bruckner, Remy Ballot is marking this year with concerts at the respective most authentic venues related to each composer: Having released his Bruckner Cycle recorded live at the Bruckner Tage St Florian with the end of 2023, Remy Ballot will conduct the 9th symphony to mark Bruckner’s 200th anniversary at the St Florianer Brucknertage.

To mark the 75th anniversary of Strauss’s death, Remy Ballot has been named Conductor in Residence at the Richard Strauss Tage in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where Strauss lived for nearly 40 years and wrote a substantial part of his oeuvre. For this jubilee edition of the festival, Remy Ballot will conduct two symphony concerts, also with Gunther Groissbock as soloist.

Jean Pierre Tribot interviews Remy Ballot about his Bruckner Cycle for the Belgian Crescendo Magazine:

Remy Ballot was awarded the ‘Record of the Year’ Award of the prestigious American Bruckner Society for his live recording of the First Symphony (Vienna Edition) as part of his Bruckner Cycle at the St Florianer Brucknertage for Gramola.

The Jury consists of leading Bruckner Experts who also contribute to the Bruckner Edition published by the Musikwissenschaftliche Verlag in Vienna, so it’s not just any ‘best of’ list.

Previous winners include Jakub Hrusa, Christian Thielemann, Manfred Honeck and Herbert Blomstedt, or also the complete Bruckner Box by Deutsche Grammophon, which has of course multiple conductors. The list of historic recordings features Bernard Haitink, Eugen Jochum and Hans Rosbaud.

The Pizzicato magazine has covered each single of the Bruckner symphonies Remy Ballot recorded live at the St Florianer Brucknertage for Gramole. You can find each review on a dedicated Pizzicato page to mark the release of the box:

Veteran Vienna critic Wilhelm Sinkovicz dedicates an article in ‘Die Presse’ to the Bruckner Cycles out in time for the Bruckner year, in this instance Christian Thielmann with Vienna Philharmonic on SONY, Remy Ballot live from the Brucknertage St Florian on Gramola and Andris Nelsons with the Gewandhaus Orchestra on DG. A newcomer among the likes of Thieleman and Nelsons, Ballot’s Bruckner is in Sinkovicz’s assessment ‘exciting’ and ‘focussed on the cathedral sound and the legendary organ stops of Bruckner’s instrumentation’

Having recorded Hans Winterberg‘s first piano concerto with Johannes Kalitze and the Berlin Rundfunksinfonieorchester for Capriccio Recorids, Jonathan Powell continues his invaluable contribution to the re-discovery of Winterberg’s works:

In charge of Boosey & Hawkes’s critical edition of all of Winterberg’s piano works, Jonathan Powell is performing next the world premiere of Winterberg’s 4 piano sonata in a recital dedicated to present Winterberg in the context of Czech and Viennese traditions.

Maureen Buja interviewed Remy Ballot for the current edition of Hong Kong’s Interlude Magazine, to cover the release of Remy Ballot’s Bruckner Cycle, recorded live over ten years at St Florian Abbey:

This is the revolutionary Bruckner and Bruckner the modernist. Reaction against this work was so strong that Bruckner completely removed it from his repertoire. Now that we understand him better, we understand the work better.

‘Although Bruckner is a model of the late-Romantic as formed in Austria and Germany, in these recordings, Ballot makes him an immortal classic. This isn’t the Bruckner you might be familiar with from earlier recordings, but Bruckner with length, where sound and silence each have their place, and where the acoustics of place are used to bring out the inherent beauty of Bruckner’s lines.’

Dr Ingobert Waltenberger’s detailed and enthusiastic review of Remy Ballot’s penultimate addition to his award-winning Brukner cycle from St Florian:

‘What a “devil violinist”, what an orchestral and chamber musician, what a conductor! I’m speaking of Frenchman Rémy Ballot.’…’breathtaking’…’a milestone’:

You can read the full review here in German:

OUT ON 17th NOVEMBER 2023

Anton Bruckner and Sankt Florian, an incomparable and authentic relationship: In the monastery of Sankt Florian, Bruckner’s home and resting place, not a single stone has changed since Bruckner’s time. Conductor in Residence Rémy Ballot and the Altomonte Orchestra of St. Florian, as well as in two cases the Upper Austrian Youth Symphony Orchestra, have been using the annual gathering at the St. Florian Brucknertage festival for more than ten years now to devote themselves intensively to a selected Bruckner symphony and to present it to the audience in one or two celebrated concerts. From the live recordings this 10-part cycle was created and in 2023 completed with the recording of the “Nullified Symphony WAB 100” and is now being released as an exclusive complete edition. In the entire history of Bruckner’s reception, this is the only cycle to have been performed live in its entirety by a single conductor – Rémy Ballot – exclusively in Sankt Florian. The acoustics of the St. Florian Abbey Basilica are problematic due to their reverberation time of up to ten seconds, and are only suitable for a few works, as there is a danger of “harmonic mush” if the tempo is too fast and the harmonic changes too rapid as a result. Far from this trap, on the contrary, music is made in alliance with the acoustics in the present recordings. The architectural and acoustic conditions of the basilica require a consciously specific articulation and dynamic shaping. The Altomonte Orchestra, made up of local musicians reinforced by members of the most important Austrian orchestras, is traditionally deeply familiar with these, as well as is the Upper Austrian Youth Symphony Orchestra, which has been performing Symphonies VI and VIII for this edition.

Wilfried Schäper reviews Remy Ballots latest addition to his Bruckner cylce recorded live at the Brucknertage St Florian for one of Germany’s leading classical stations, Bremen Zwei:

‘Mecca for Bruckner-fans’

‘exemplary interpretations’

‘This Bruckner sounds powerful like a huge church organ, but also extremely differentiated and finely structured in the quiet passages. A completely authentic Bruckner with ideal performers at an ideal recording venue.’

Florian Norbert Schuck’s detailled and equally enthusiastic reviews from the Brucknertage St Florian 2023, namely all of Remy Ballots concerts and CD releases as conductor and chamber musician:

The latest release in the award winning Bruckner cycle, the First Symphony, recorded in 2022

A rehearsal and concert report on the ‘Annulled’ symphony, in a first performance of David Chapman’s new critical edition

And last but not least also a concert of the Ballot Quintet

The reviews are here in German original, but Google or Chrome can provide reasonable translations:

Back in April, we did a bit of traveling with Anna Duczmal-Mróz between Warsaw and London:

within a few days, Anna conducted two memorial concerts on the occasion of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising at the Polin Museum, collected the BBC Music Magazine orchestral awards together with Agnieszka Duczmal, and finally conducted the Organ Symphony together with Anna Lapwood and the London Mozart Players at Fairfield Halls.

BBC Radio 4 made a documentary about Anna conducting the St Saens, available for another 30 days: