A city as a soundscape: On their new GENUIN album, violinist Eva Wetzel and pianist Antonio Di Dedda invite listeners to embark on a musical journey of discovery through Hamburg. Spanning composers from Johannes Brahms to Sofia Gubaidulina and Alfred Schnittke, the program blends the familiar with the rarely heard, revealing a multifaceted panorama of Hamburg's musical life from the 19th century to the present day. Guided by a keen sense of connection and context, they craft a musical city tour whose colorful and nuanced interpretation brings the many facets of this rich musical landscape into vivid relief.

Spanning a century of musical thought, this compelling recital explores a rich dialogue between tradition and innovation and revealing how composers reimagine the past to create new artistic worlds. In music deeply rooted in the national identities of Bulgaria and Italy, the sequence begins with a work reminiscent of a 19th century tone poem, travels through 'New Music' of the late 20th century, and contemporary avantgarde works.

Alfred Schnittke's oeuvre carries an unmistakable personal signature that integrates widely differing stylistic worlds. The profoundly compelling works heard in this programme display an extraordinary level of expression and colour. From the haunting sonorities of the prepared piano in his First Concerto Grosso to the playful theatricality of Moz-Art (after the fragment K. 416d), this album brings together all of Schnittke's works for two violins, both with and without orchestra.

The tradition of composing a funeral mass dates back to the times of the late Middle Ages, but it was brought to artistic perfection by later composers. Alfred Schnittke initially wore the intention of writing a small instrumental Requiem, which was to be one of the parts of the Piano Quintet. Eventually, however, he rejected this idea and created a fourteen-part Requiem. The work is expressive and full of dramatic contrasts. The instrumental parts of electric guitars of a set of drums surprisingly refer to the composer’s polistylist interests. Composed in the same stream, the three religious songs refer to Orthodox church music, introducing a mood of contemplative reflection and prayer reverie.

The Trio Lirico has programmed three composers who lived and worked on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain until 1989: for Franziska Pietsch and Sophia Reuter this is music which - paraphrasing Goethe - they "search with their souls". "As children, we both lived in East Berlin and were close friends already", Franziska Pietsch explains about her violist colleague. "We therefore share personal history, a similar style of playing and a similar non-verbal way of communicating about this music. We just feel it." This personal form of perception, into which the Bremen cellist Johannes Krebs blends empathetically, is not irrelevant for this music which becomes accessible not just via the text but also to a high degree via the cultural and political environment in which it was written. Of course Krzysztof Penderecki (b.1933), following the political liberalization of Polish music from 1956, had the opportunity to tie in with avant-garde developments in the West and to create his very own and unique modernism. On the other hand, his generational colleague Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998) and the older Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996) had, until the end of the Soviet Union, to assert their music in the face of massive harassment from the authorities which, in Weinberg's case, went as far as being arrested for anti-Semitic reasons. Born in Warsaw, Weinberg, who fled to the Soviet Union during the Second World War, kept in close contact with his friend and mentor Dmitri Shostakovich. Nonetheless, Weinberg's music is entirely unique, and his string trio of 1950 strikes a balance between popular tunes and references to Yiddish music. Alfred Schnittke, who found it hard gaining acceptance on account of his (Volga) German and Jewish heritage, composed his trio in 1985 for the birthday of his illustrious colleague Alban Berg - and, shortly after completing the work, suffered a life-threatening stroke, retrospectively lending this work a tragic note. The most recent work recorded here is by Poland's most eminent living composer, Krzysztof Penderecki: in 1991 he wrote his string trio as a great improvisation for three performers with a strict and wild fugue.

111 musicians celebrating a large-scale symphony sounds like a performance of a work by Mahler, Strauss or early Schönberg. In fact, the composer of this symphony, Alfred Schnittke, had precisely these (and other) composers in mind back in 1981. Whereas he initially mirrored styles from these and otrher composers, he soon was borrowing concepts from “trivial music” folklore, jazz, tango, etc… was He himself described his compositional technique as “polystylistic; which was more than just a technique but an aesthetic program: a serious effort to break through the vicious circle of self-satisfied and self-sufficient avant-garde music. His Third Symphony testifies to all this searching, this “inbetweenness”. The four-movement work, written on commission to inaugurate the new Leipzig Gewandhaus, confronted not only a multi-layered historical past but a weakened current state of affairs while remaining highly respectful of the achievements of the past and present. Vladimir Jurowski leads the Berlin Radio-Symphony Orchestra in this recording of a great and intricate work.

SCHNITTKE Violin Sonatas: Nos. 1–3. Violin Sonata (1955) • Carolyn Huebl (vn); Mark Wait (pn) • NAXOS 8.570978 (69:20)


The four violin sonatas by Alfred Schnittke (1934–98) could be seen as representing four distinct periods in his life and career. The newly discovered Violin Sonata (1955) was a student work, so it did not receive a place in his official catalog. It anticipates none of Schnittke’s later experimental or dramatically extravagant devices, consisting of a largely romantic first movement featuring an adept and impulsive, if generic, development of his material, and a folk-like second-movement theme subjected to three distinct variations. The so-called First Sonata (1963) is a large leap forward in risk-taking and character, the first movement beginning with a 12-tone theme presented in concisely lyrical and eloquent fashion, followed by a gnomish dance; a reserved, hymnlike movement with Messiaenic piano accompaniment; and a lilting, quasi-fugal finale. The Sonata No. 2 (1968), subtitled “Quasi una Sonata,” was one of his breakthrough works—a single, extended, intuitively designed movement that plays with the conventional relationship between the two instruments, breaks apart and juxtaposes material of varying stylistic demeanor and mood, and employs advanced techniques, especially in the violin. By the time of his Sonata No. 3 (1994), Schnittke had suffered several near-death illnesses and many of his works of this period, such as this one, display a deeply contemplative melancholy and passionate outbursts suggesting a metaphysical struggle. There are moments here, especially in the stark, sparse passages of the final two movements, reminiscent of Shostakovich’s late-in-life violin and viola sonatas.


This being the only currently available collection of all four sonatas on a single disc, it is fortunate that violinist Carolyn Huebl and pianist Mark Wait make such a convincing argument for each of these distinctive works. They handle the variety and contrasts of Schnittke’s polystylistic perspective with sensitivity and security, and adapt their impressive tonal resources to every demand the composer makes. It’s a shame that Gidon Kremer, such a strong advocate for Schnittke’s violin concertos, has not (yet?) turned his attention to the sonatas, although he has recorded the orchestral version of the Sonata No. 2 that Schnittke made in 1987. (There is also an orchestral version of the Sonata No. 1, dating from 1968.) For the historically minded, Mark Lubotsky, who premiered the three numbered sonatas, recorded the First and Second for Ondine with pianist Ralf Gothóni, and, on another Ondine disc, documented the Third with the added bonus of the composer’s wife, Irina Schnittke, on piano. The Joanna Kurkowicz/Sergey Schepkin duo has received praise in these pages for their Bridge recording of the first two as well. But if you’re in the market for an engaging and inexpensive introduction to this music, you need look no further.


FANFARE: Art Lange

With her new album Mozartiana, award-winning violinist Clarissa Bevilacqua presents a fascinating musical tribute and, at the same time, opens up new perspectives on a timeless genius. Clarissa Bevilacqua, who studied at the renowned Mozarteum Salzburg and won both first prize and the audience prize at the Mozart International Competition 2020, combines past and present in a captivating musical dialogue on Mozartiana. In addition to masterpieces such as F. X. Mozart's Sonata for Violin and Piano, Beethoven's 12 Variations on "Le nozze di Figaro", and Schnittke's Moz-Art for ensemble, the album features contemporary compositions written especially for this album by Felix Willeitner, Sophia Jani, Jorge Bosso, and Giovanni Sollima-all of which are world premiere recordings. As founder and artistic director of DYNAMIKfest Salzburg, Bevilacqua once again demonstrates her passionate commitment to combining classical and modern music. Mozartiana is not only a tribute to Mozart-it is a living commitment to artistic curiosity, diversity, and musical dialogue across the centuries.

The Sofia Vocal Ensemble invites you to step into paradise, courtesy of ten of the most beautiful choral works written by composers of our time. For nearly 25 years, Bengt Ollén has fashioned his chamber choir Sofia Vocal Ensemble into one of the finest and most distinctive ensembles of it's kind in Sweden and the world. Here, the choir presents a selection of it's favourite works of the last half century - music that has inspired and shaped it's sound. We hear works by Swedish, Estonian, Russian, Scottish and Welsh composers, separated by contrasting traditions but united by striking beauty. These masterpieces include Alfred Schnittke's hopeful Three Sacred Hymns, James MacMillan's keening Miserere, Arvo Pärt's meditative Nunc Dimittis, Karin Rehnqvist's shimmering Jag lyfter mina hander, Paul Mealor's consoling Beatitudes and Sven David Sandström's radiant In Paradisum. The works are more than personal favourites. They are each, in different ways, highly suited to Sofia Vocal Ensemble's warm, lyrical sound (and in some instances tailored to it) - a meeting of Swedish choral discipline with Ollén's longstanding work to widen the group's dynamic and expressive range. The sound is embracing and alluring, rooted in finesse of blend and perfection of diction.