Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Sacred Choral Works. Complete Recording

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The Kammerchor Stuttgart is regarded as one of the best ensembles of its kind. Over its fifty-year existence, Frieder Bernius has developed the choir into an exceptional ensemble acclaimed by audiences and press alike. This has led to invitations for the choir to perform at all the important European festivals. In Germany the chamber choir performs at festivals and in concert halls in repertoire ranging from the 17th to the 21st century. Frieder Bernius and his ensemble have received numerous accolades for their contribution to new music. The Kammerchor Stuttgart has made over 80 CDs and LPs, numerous of which have been awarded international recording prizes (including the Edison award, Diapason d’or, Gramophone Choice, Classical Internet Award, International Classical Music Award, and German Record Critics’ Award prizes). The International Federation for Choral Music has invited the ensemble to sing at the 1st, 4th and 10th World Symposia on Choral Music in Vienna, Sydney and Seoul. Regular tours of North America and Asia since 1988 and a South America tour reflect the Kammerchor Stuttgart’s international reputation. Since 1984 the top ensemble has also been invited to Israel biennially. Personal details

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Mitglieder der Bamberger Symphoniker Personal details

The Ensemble Stuttgart (Ensemble '76) was founded by Wolfgang Rösch in 1976 and is made up of solo players, musicians from Stuttgart orchestras and music students. Its repertoire comprises pieces for chamber orchestra, including the Bach Brandenburg Concertos as well as symphonies by Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, and chamber music, including the sextets of Brahms and Tchaikovsky and the Mendelssohn Octet. In addition it plays contemporary pieces, some of which were written for this ensemble. The Ensemble Stuttgart gives concerts in Germany, France, Italy and Belgium, and has been involved in many CD and radio productions. Personal details

Founded in 1945, the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester is the oldest and most renowned ensemble of its kind and for over 65 years it has occupied an outstanding position in international orchestra culture. Michael Hofstetter has been the conductor of this ensemble since September 2006. The orchestra had already earned its excellent reputation under its founder and long-time director, Karl Münchinger. Through a completely new and exemplary style of interpretation of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester became a pathfinder in the field of historical performance practice. Dennis Russell Davies, its principal conductor, from 1995 to 2006, expanded the repertoire of the orchestral, especially with works from 20th century. In 2008 the orchestra was awarded the European Chamber Music Award by the European Foundation for Culture. Personal details

The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen is one of the world's leading orchestras, captivating audiences everywhere with its unique style of music-making. The Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi has been the orchestra's Artistic Director since 2004.


One of the many highlights of the collaboration with Paavo Järvi has been their Beethoven Project, on which conductor and orchestra concentrated for six years. Their Beethoven interpretations have been acclaimed worldwide by audiences and critics alike as benchmark performances. Following the Beethoven Project The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Paavo Järvi focused on Robert Schumann's symphonic works with equal success.
The latest project of the orchestra and its conductor is the German composer Johannes Brahms. The first CD (Sony/RCA) of the project – Symphony No. 2, Tragic Ouverture and the Academic Festi-val Ouverture – was released in autumn 2017 and received the Opus Klassik in October 2018. The second CD, including Symphony No. 1 and the Haydn-Variations, followed in autumn 2018. With the third and fourth Symphony, released in March 2019, the symphony cycle has come to completion.
Highlight of the project was the internationally acclaimed performance of ›A German Requiem‹ on the 10th of April 2018 at Bremen Cathedral, 150 years after the first performance. The recording has now been released on DVD and Blu-ray by C-Major. In October 2019, ›The Brahms Code‹ – an excit-ing TV/DVD documentary about the Brahms Project produced by Deutsche Welle/Unitel – was re-leased and is the current German Record Critics' Award winner in the category music film (listed 1/20).


The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen has been honoured with countless prizes such as Echo, Opus and Diapason d'Or for its recordings and the unique education project with the Gesamtschule Bremen-Ost in Osterholz-Tenever, the Zukunftslabor. For years, the orchestra has cultivated close musical friendships with international soloists such as Christian Tetzlaff, Maria João Pires, Janine Jansen, Igor Levit, Hilary Hahn and Martin Grubinger.


The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen is permanent guest orchestra at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and Festival Orchestra of Kissinger Sommer. Personal details

The Klassische Philharmonie Stuttgart is comprised of musicians from leading German symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles who have been performing with Frieder Bernius over a long period. Although the orchestra uses modern instruments, the conductor and his players are particularly interested in stylistic distinctions. For performances of large-scale choral works, the Klassische Philharmonie Stuttgart is the orchestral pendant to the Kammerchor Stuttgart. The orchestra has participated in a variety of events, including the Rheingau Music Festival, Stuttgart European Musikfest, Baden-Württemberg International Festival, Wratislavia Cantans Festival in Wroc³aw (Poland), the Kassel Music Festival, the Philharmonic Society of Brussels and the Herbstliche Musiktage Bad Urach. The idea of creating an orchestral partner of equal quality to the Kammerchor Stuttgart has been vindicated not least by their joint recording of Johannes Brahms’ A German Requiem. The French periodical Répertoire has confirmed Frieder Bernius’s vision of the work as a “discographic knockout.” Personal details

Frieder Bernius’s work has earned great worldwide recognition. He is in demand internationally as a conductor and as a teacher. His principal artistic collaborators are the ensembles he founded himself, the Kammerchor Stuttgart, the Barockorchester Stuttgart, the Hofkapelle Stuttgart and the Klassische Philharmonie Stuttgart. As a guest conductor, he has collaborated repeatedly with, for example, the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester and the Streicherakademie Bozen. Great stylistic versatility is Frieder Bernius’s hallmark. Whether he conducts vocal works by Monteverdi, Bach, Händel, Mozart, Beethoven, Fauré and Ligeti, stage music by Mendelssohn or symphonies by Haydn, Burgmüller and Schubert, his work always aims for a sound that is at once unmistakably personal and at the same time oriented towards the original period sound ideal. He devotes himself equally to the rediscovery of 18th century operas and to first performances of contemporary compositions. He is particularly interested in the musical history of southwestern Germany. Carus-Verlag has awarded Frieder Bernius a Golden CD for his complete recording of the sacred music of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. The award was presented to him during the German Choir Festival in Stuttgart 2016. The sale of over 250,000 recordings, which has been acclaimed with a number of awards, has made a not insignificant contribution to what today is the obvious presence of Mendelssohn's complete œuvre in the concert repertoire. Personal details