supplemented by vocal soloists and top musicians from other Berlin orchestras, under the label "RIAS-Choir and Chamber Orchestra". This constituted the second of his important periods of orchestra development and the beginning of his breakthrough to international fame as a conductor, which was mostly built on his ambitious J.S. Bach concert cycle from March 1947 to December 1952. From this period dates the legendary Archiv production featuring baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Hermann Töttcher playing oboe and oboe da caccia in Bach's cantatas Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, BWV 56 and Ich habe genug, BWV 82. But the worsening of the post-war political situation in Germany in the early 1950s, particularly in Berlin where circulating between the various sectors became increasingly difficult, also created financial problems for radio broadcasting. When it became clear at the end of 1952 that the RIAS could not go on subsidizing all its orchestras, Ristenpart accepted an offer to create a new chamber orchestra for the Saar radio, with which he was also to produce LPs for Les Discophiles français (an unusual arrangement linked to the fact that the "autonomous" Saar region was still under French administration at the time). Ristenpart began working in the Summer of 1953 as conductor of the Saar Chamber Orchestra, which, out of an initial 16, included 10 young musicians who had come along with him from Berlin. Among them were the Hendel Quartet, whose leader, Georg Friedrich Hendel, became the orchestra's first violin soloist. The ensuing collaboration with top French instrumental soloists was especially fruitful, leading to many tours, recordings and partnerships with soloists such as flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal and the members of his wind ensemble Le Quintette à vent Français. Some 170 LP-records featuring Ristenpart and his Saar Chamber Orchestra have been marketed under license by various record companies all over the world. These include two complete sets of the Brandenburg concertos, the Orchestral Suites and The Art of Fugue, several albums of Bach vocal cantatas, many Telemann, Vivaldi, many Mozart and Haydn works, but also award-winning records of Britten, Roussel and Hindemith pieces. In December 1967, Ristenpart suffered a heart attack while on tour in Portugal with the chamber orchestra of the Gulbenkian Foundation and died in a Lisbon hospital on Christmas Eve. The Chamber Orchestra of the Saar was unable to survive long the dimming of its guiding light. After four years under the baton of