After the successful album release “Slavonic Souls” (Capriccio C5039) the Vienna State Opera Singer Zoryana Kushpler, accompanied on the piano by her partner and twin sister Olena, offer a rich recital of famous Spanish songs by the likes of Granados, de Falla, Mompou, Rodrigo and Montsalvage, including some choice rarities by these composers. Born in Lvov, Ukraine, Ms. Kushpler made her debut at the Wiener Staatsoper in 2007 as Adelaide in Richard Strauss’s Arabella. She has also been heard there in the operas of Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Puccini, Offenbach and Johann Strauss.

Henning Mankell (1868-1930), whose grandson and namesake has become one of Swedens most successful authors of crime novels, was himself a modest person, not very interested in a public career. Mankell earned his livelihood as a private teacher of piano and music theory in Stockholm, as a music critic and as a member of the board of the Academy of Music. If Mankells life was a tranquil one, his compositions were all the more colourful, at least those from the last two decades of his life. His works were given labels such as Impressionism or Futurism by the critics of the age. He was probably interested in French Impressionism, but he did not identify with it. Many of Mankells works, and especially the bolder ones, remained unpublished for a long time, but were still occasionally performed by musicians who recognized their value. Gösta Nystroem (1890-1966) had an obvious talent both for pictorial art and music. He had a lifelong fascination for the sea and loved to be among fishermen, sometimes even taking part in their work at sea. Two composers had a special influence on him in Paris: Stravinsky and Honegger. For a few years, Nystroem used dissonance extensively, influenced by the style of The Rite of spring. Nystroem followed Vincent dIndys historically oriented teaching, which was of great importance to him, but his most inspiring teacher in Paris was the Russian music theorist Leonid Sabaneyev, with whom he worked for several years. The composer later declared himself to be both a great lover of absolutely pure music and an incurable romantic, a description that is relevant for this recording and also for his instrumental music in general.

‘I am an EU singer’, Hermann Prey always said about himself. However, by that he did not mean so much his citizenship of a European Union country as the fact that he felt at home in the fields of ‘E’ and ‘U’, i.e. in ‘serious’ and entertainment music alike. For Prey, this distinction never existed, but only the issue of the quality of music, and he found this not only in opera and Lied, but also in operetta, the musical and the well-made hit. For forty-six years Prey convinced audiences; this five-disc collection reveals his fascinatingly wide-ranging repertoire and interpretative skill.

Claude Debussy’s music, as his String Quartet (1910) illustrates, reveals characteristics justifying the Impressionist painter comparison, creating landscapes of sound that can draw the listener into the middle of the picture. Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet (1903) had to be and was compared with Debussy’s. His musical diction – based on Debussy’s – prepared the way for French Modernism. Briton Thomas Adès (b. 1971) is capable of fusing traditional elements from music history, including existing composition references, with modern sound production into an individual, appealing style.

With the talent of young pianist Cassandra Wyss, this Wilhelm Stenhammar and Jean Sibelius compilation emerges as a gateway into the world of Nordic musical gems. With her artistic courage to be stubborn – to be understood in the spirit of Hermann Hesse – namely to select precisely those works that suit her as a pianist, Ms. Wyss enables the careful listener to take a new and very personal view of the rich repertoire of Scandinavian music. “... she plays with a smile. Charm is a critical element of this music, and Wyss conveys that winningly“ - Fanfare on Stenhammar CD (C5117)

Beside the famous master of Baroque Music – Johann Sebastian Bach – this 2CD set, Baroque Christmas Rarities includes nearly unknown but no less atmospheric treasures of baroque Christmas music by Bach’s talented sons, Telemann, Buxtehude, and others. Most of them were commissioned works for the feast and includes very different styles: from festive cantatas, moody motets to chamber musically solo songs. A “must” for all lovers of Baroque Music as well for listeners that would like to find some extraordinary music for the upcoming feast.

REVIEW:

Seasonal motets and cantatas by Christian Geist, Pal Esterhazy, Buxtehude, and Giuseppe Maria Po del Finale, with a tranch of contributions from Bach family members. Thoroughly engaging.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Whoever watches the Samba Schools parading in Rio de Janeiro nowadays may not perceive the Samba’s musical richness both as a musical and literary genre. The Samba is, however, in its origins a very sophisticated musical form from a poetic, instrumental and harmonic viewpoint. A typical expression of urban popular culture, its origins go back to the most popular styles among Rio de Janeiro’s inhabitants, once the country’s capital city. The classically trained Brazilian singer Cristiane Roncaglio is also an enthusiast of Brazilian music, Bossa Nova as well as Música Popular Brasileira.

Johanna Doderer studied composition in Graz with Beat Furrer (composition), later in Vienna with Klaus Peter Sattler (film and media composition) and with Erich Urbanner (composition). Her current work ranges broadly from chamber music to orchestral work and six operas. “Doderer cares about content, not cheap effect. She is able to prove convincingly in her very densely written score that even today you can still create intense music by using sound models deriving from the late romantic period…combined in an ideal way with forms of ‘minimal music’...“ (Die Presse)

"A choice Robert Schumann song recital featuring baritone Paul Armin Edelmann and pianist Charles Spencer.
Mr. Edelmann maintains an international operatic and recital stage presence, winning critical acclaim worldwide.
Charles Spencer, a much sought-after accompanist, is Professor of Lied Interpretation for singers and pianists at the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt.
""Paul Armin Edelmann is the perfect song-poet...a wonderfully balanced and seamless voice... - FonoForum"

Anne Schwanewilms ranks among the greatest Strauss and Wagner interpreters today, but for her new album she deliberately chose songs by Schumann and Wolf. In Anne’s words, “The tranquility that can emerge with Schumann and Wolf is incredibly intense and fascinating for me.”

This release features Austrian baritone Wolfgang Holzmair, who studies as the Vienne Academy of Music and Dramatic Art with Hilde Rossel-Majdan and Erik Werba. Holzmair performs at venues and festivals around the world, as well as with other renowned artists such as pianist Imogen Cooper.