About the State Orchestra

The State Orchestra Stuttgart
© Matthias Baus
About
With its over 400-year long history Wuerttemberg’s Staatsorchester Stuttgart is one of the oldest and most traditional orchestras in Germany. Every season it can be listened to and enjoyed in over 230 ballet and opera performances as well as in symphony and chamber concerts at Stuttgart’s Liederhalle. Furthermore, the orchestra has intensified its presence in the field of vocal-instrumental chamber music as part of a series of Lied concerts in collaboration with the Intl. Hugo-Wolf-Akademie.

With the so-called pillow concerts for young visitors aged 3 to 6 as well as the mentoring program for the Landesjugendorchester Baden-Württemberg, the musicians show their commitment towards a young audience and the musical next generation.   

Over the past decades star conductors like Carlos Kleiber, Vaclav Neumann, Silvio Varviso, Janos Kulka, Dennis Russell Davies, García Navarro, Gabriele Ferro, Lothar Zagrosek and Manfred Honeck have influenced the orchestra as Musical Directors and Kapellmeister and are thus amongst the well-known line-up of conductors who lead the Staatsorchester through the first half of the 20th century.
In addition, the Orchestra has always maintained good and intensive relationships with important guest conductors, i.e. Richard Strauss, Ernest Ansermet, Karl Böhm, John Barbirolli and Georg Solti. The list of famous names ranges from Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms to Claudio Arrau and David Oistrach right up to Keith Jarrett, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Gidon Kremer and the Arditti Quartet. With the beginning of the 2018/19 season, Cornelius Meister took over as General Music Director.

Early on already, the Staatsorchester transposed the findings of historic performance practice into its operatic productions. The stylistic brilliance of the Staatsorchester is not least expressed in a long list of key performances of contemporary music, including Luigi Nono’s Al gran sole carico d’amore and Helmut Lachenmann’s Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern. In 2002 the Staatsorchester was voted ’Orchestra of the Year’ by the magazine Opernwelt. This ’innovative tradition’ reaches right back into the 19th century: In addition to the German premiere of Verdi’s Falstaff in Stuttgart it was one of the first orchestras in Germany to stage its own production of the entire Ring cycle – Der Ring des Nibelungen. The tradition carried on with the premiere of Ariadne auf Naxos under Richard Strauss in 1912, the premieres of Paul Hindemith’s one-act pieces in 1921 and the German premiere of Hindemith’s opera Mathis der Maler. Premieres of past decades include works by Carl Orff, Krzysztof Penderecki, Philipp Glass, Hans Zender, Rolf Riehm, Wolfgang Rihm, Adriana Hölszky, Gérard Pesson and Hans Thomalla.
The State Orchestra on CD & DVD
Recordings with the State Orchestra Stuttgart on the market:

Ludwig van Beethoven Sinfonie Nr. 3, Béla Bartók Tanzsuite (D: Lothar Zagrosek) ALTUS
Johannes Brahms Schicksalslied / Rhapsodie / Sinfonie Nr. 2 (D: Gabriele Ferro) HERA
Hector Berlioz / Giacomo Meyerbeer / Fromental Halévy / Georges Bizet u.a. Banda Française (D: Marc Soustrot) ANIMATO
Luigi Cherubini Requiem c-moll (D: Gabriele Ferro) ANIMATO
Luigi Cherubini / Vincenzo Bellini / Gioacchino Rossini Banda (D: Gabriele Ferro) ANIMATO
Manuel de Falla Der Dreispitz(García Navarro) CAPRICCIO
Christoph Willibald Gluck Alceste (DVD, D: Constantinos Carydis)
Karl Amadeus Hartmann Simplicius Simplicissimus (D: Kwamé Ryan) ARTHAUS
Georg Friedrich Händel Alcina (DVD, D: Alan Hacker) ARTHAUS
Georg Friedrich Händel Teseo (D: Konrad Junghänel) CARUS
Leoš Janáček Schicksal (D: Hans Schwieger) HAFG
Helmut Lachenmann Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern (D: Lothar Zagrosek) KAIROS
Helmut Lachenmann Schwankungen am Rand (D: Lothar Zagrosek) COL LEGNO
Gustav Mahler Sinfonie Nr. 2 (D: Lothar Zagrosek) ALTUS
Luigi Nono Intolleranza 1960(D: Bernhard Kontarsky) TELDEC
Carl Orff Antigone (D: Ferdinand Leitner) LINE
Arvo Pärt arbos (D: Dennis Russel Davies) ECM
Joseph Rheinberger Der arme Heinrich (D: Johannes Knecht) CARUS
Othmar Schoeck Penthesilea (D: Ferdinand Leitner) WALLHALL
Arnold Schönberg Moses und Aron (D: Roland Kluttig) NAXOS
Giovanni Sgambati Messa da Requiem (D: Ulrich Walddörfer) CARUS
Xaver Paul Thoma Violinenkonzert (D: Michael Gielen) ANTES
Piotr Tschaikowskij Musik zu John Crankos Eugen Onegin (D: James Tuggle) ANIMATO
Giuseppe Verdi Banda – Orchesterstücke für Blasorchester (D: Gabriele Ferro) ANIMATO
Richard Wagner Der Ring des Nibelungen (DVD, D: Lothar Zagrosek) MEDICI ARTS
Carl Maria von Weber Euryanthe (D: Ferdinand Leitner) WALLHALL
Bernd Alois Zimmermann Die Soldaten (DVD, D: Bernhard Kontarsky) ARTHAUS
Große Opernchöre (D: Peter Schrottner) PROFIL