When Georges Prêtre celebrated his 80th birthday in August 2004, Peter Voß, who was the SWR director at the time, paid a tribute to his “personal style”, his “esprit” and “profundity”. Prêtre worked with the RSO Stuttgart for many years, and in 1996 he was appointed its new chief conductor. Together, they celebrated the orchestra’s 50th anniversary with a major tour, and Prêtre was subsequently appointed honorary conductor. His preference, as this edition testifies, was primarily for music of the Romantic and late Romantic periods. It is therefore not surprising that Prêtre immersed himself in works such as Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and Antonín Dvořákʼs Symphony No. 9, From the New World with other orchestras in his early years, and worked on them again during his time in Stuttgart. He also made occasional forays into classical music, for example with Beethovenʼs Third Symphony. In 2004, Prêtre conducted the RSO Stuttgart for the last time, performing Respighiʼs Roman tone poems, among other works. These and many other recordings from their time together will be brought together in a box set in August 2024. The 3rd movement of Dvořák's symphony ‘From the New World’ is exclusively available digitally in advance.