After a period as a court composer at Detmold, Brahms returned to the city of his birth, Hamburg, in January 1860. Here, in relative tranquillity, he explored the then rare piano quartet repertoire. The Piano Quartet No. 2 received a very sympathetic hearing in Vienna, Clara Schumann even preferring it to its immediate predecessor, the Piano Quartet, Op. 25 (Naxos 8572798). Its lyricism is heightened by a romantically beautiful Adagio. Mahler's vibrant Piano Quartet in A minor dates from 1876, the end of his first year at the Vienna Conservatory, where the only completed movement was first performed.

Recording such a world-spanning œuvre as Gustav Mahler's ten symphonies is truly a Herculean task. After 15 years of intensive musical work, Gabriel Feltz is the only German conductor of his generation to present such an impressive complete recording. Two orchestras, the Stuttgart Philharmonic and the Dortmund Philharmonic, are featured in this highly acclaimed album cycle. It reveals once again Feltz's flair for focusing on the essentials of Mahler's music in these exuberant works. The German magazine Fono Forum praised him for "recordings conceived with a cool head," and the Stuttgarter Nachrichten exulted over "a production of unleashed sonic contrasts." In September 2021, the project will come to a brilliant conclusion with the release of the overwhelming 9th Symphony and the original two-movement fragment of the 10th Symphony.

Greetings from Italy where music is everywhere! Celebrating 20 years of an illustrious international career with their 14th recording and first on AVIE, the multiple award-winning Quartetto di Cremona sends Italian Postcards, assembling evocations of the Mediterranean country by four non-natives. Mozart penned his first string quartet during his first Italian journey to the town of Lodi. Hugo Wolf’s Italian Serenade takes its inspiration from poetry and ancient Italian melodies. Extending the quartet repertoire, the Cremona commissioned British-French-Israeli composer Nimrod Borenstein, whose Cieli d’Italia was inspired by the colors of the Italian skies. The album’s idyllic conclusion is Tchaikovsky’s string sextet, “Souvenir de Florence,” in which the Cremona is joined by violist Ori Kam (Jerusalem Quartet) and cellist Eckart Runge (Artemis Quartet).



REVIEW:

The Quartetto di Cremona have an uncanny knack for sounding like more than just four players, their sound rich, vibrant, and resplendent. These are as sunny, Italianate performances as one could want.

– Classicsl Candor (John J Puccio)

Both on the concert platform and in the recording studio, pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar is a completist. Following complete cycles of piano sonatas by Beethoven and Mozart, he presents 12 Great Piano Sonatas by Franz Schubert – the composer’s 11 finished sonatas and the seminal fragment D840. Pienaar relishes in these revelatory works, their extraordinarily detailed possibilities of characterisation, their call for immense energy and abandon, and navigating the vast dreamscapes that unfold in the course of this six-hour musical journey. “dazzling precision and clarity ... he communicates an individual and convincing vision for each piece, enough for every one of them to give delight. Brilliant.” (Gramophone, Editor’s Choice on The Long 17th Century) “dizzying virtuosity ... fresh, spontaneous, original readings that shed new light on the keyboard player’s Bible” (BBC Music Magazine on J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier)

REVIEW:

These readings for me capture the spirit of Schubert’s piano style. It is only when you set Pienaar next to the established greats that he lacks something in presence and imagination, but only by a small degree. His playing is at once natural and sympathetic, and blessedly free of artifice. It is also necessary to qualify my generalization that Pienaar’s approach is lively and alert. He recognizes the greater ambition and amplitude of the opus posthumous sonatas and changes his approach accordingly.

– Fanfare