Great piano composers did not confine themselves to writing piano sonatas. Many of them wrote dances, too: minuets, sarabandes, gavottes and particularly waltzes. The tradition of great composers writing and arranging dances starts with Bach and Rameau, encompasses Mozart, Schubert, Brahms and Tchaikovsky and ends with Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, whose Waltz No. 2 is regularly played on German classical radio stations. The only problem was that these dances were too easy for the virtuoso pianists, which is why some of these artists turned unassuming minuets waltzes and polkas into glittering virtuosic pieces which could be played only by professional pianists. One of the greatest pianists of all time was also a great arranger of music, Leopold Godowsky. This American virtuoso of Polish extraction arranged hundreds of pieces by other composers, especially works by Chopin and the waltz king Johann Strauss, and turned them into sparkling studies and encores, that test the technique and stamina of even the most accomplished player. The Viennese pianist and Beethoven pupil Carl Czerny, for generations the specter of all piano students and today remembered for his etudes, is also the composer of a charming arrangement of Franz Schubert’s bittersweet mourning waltz. Catherine Gordeladze, a native of Tiflis, Georgia, today lives and works out of Frankfurt, Germany. Ms. Gordeladze studied the piano in her native Georgia, Frankfurt and Weimar and is the winner of prestigious prizes and competitions. She has been playing with renowned orchestras in major concert venues all over the world. The artist gives piano recitals in many countries and is also much sought after as a chamber music partner. In her award-winning albums, which have been praised by critics and the public alike, the pianist concentrates on challenging virtuoso pieces apart from the mainstream repertoire.

This selection of works by Gottschalk, Barber, Wild and Gershwin give vivid insights into the diversity of American music written during a period spanning almost two centuries, a diversity shaped by a uniquely American musical idiom. The young Georgian-German pianist Catherine Gordeladze’s has established herself as one of the most remarkable and versatile musicians of her generation. “…phenomenal technique, perfect memory, distinctive creativity.” - Frankfurter Rundschau

Les deux Violes (Georg Noeldeke & Rahel Klein, viola da gamba) present their new album on the ANTES EDITION label. Georg Noeldeke was born in Neuenburg in 1964. His first music lessons were with Prof. Rolf Schweizer at the Evangelical Singin School Pforzheim. He studied double bass and musical composition at the music academies in Trossingen and Mannheim. Since 2000 he has worked as a freelance artist with a focus on early music and historical string instruments. Rahel Klein was born in Calw in 1992 and grew up in a family of musicians. She began playing cello at the age of six, and was drawn eventually to the music of the Baroque era. Rahel Klein works as a freelance musician in various projects. She teaches at the music schools in Calw and Trossingen.

Anyone standing on top of the walls of Jerusalem gazing across the old city will notice a massive spire made from white stone and covered with a pyramidal roof made from whitish slate. This spire belongs to the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, a Neo-Romanesque structure situated in the middle of the old city. The church today, is a major magnet for tourists and the center of a vibrant congregation. Playing this famous Schuke organ from this great church is the organist Gunther Martin Goettsche. Goettsche plays Buxtehude, Bach and Mendelssohn beautifully leaving no doubt why he is not only a great composer in his own right but one of the most celebrate organists of his time.

It was African-Americans with little or no formal music training that mostly drove America’s ragtime revolution. During Ragtime’s height, (c.1890-1920), thousands of pieces were written, most notably by Scott Joplin (1868-1917) and Joseph F. Lamb (1887-1960). German pianist Marcus Schwarz specializes in Ragtime-era music and in the rediscovery and revival of long-neglected composers. Included in this recital are works by three talented Ragtime-era female composers, including two by the melodically gifted and chromatically inclined May Frances Aufderheide (1888-1972).

Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, composed for piano but best known via Maurice Ravel’s orchestrated edition, is here arranged for organ and trumpet. + Three encore tracks, two from Mussorgsky and one appropriately enough from Ravel (the poignant Pavane), complete this affair. + Joachim Enders has proven his versatility as an organist, harpsichordist and pianist in many solo recitals and chamber concerts. + Manfred Bockschweiger is first trumpet with the State Theatre in Darmstadt.

Lullaby, as a song sung along with the cradle motion to calm and lull the babies to sleep, associates music and words with comfort and security and creates strong emotional closeness. Many well known composers have devoted their artistry to create simple but marvellous lullabies.