The TACET label, famous for ist visionary, high-quality repertoire policy, uses new technology to search for new ways of using the auditorium for musical experiences. Andreas Spreer, owner and manager of the label Tonmeister of this recording, places the listener right in the middle of the musicians: opposite the viola, with the violins at front left and right and the two cellos behind his or her shoulders. This configuration is most definitely unusual and takes some getting used to; but what three-dimensionalness it gives to Schubert’s wonderful – and wonderfully played – String Quintet! The themes become tangible thanks to the masterful interpretation, the structure of the work is intuitively understandable, and the attribute “acoustically transparent” should really be redefined after this recording. (Kulturspiegel)"(…) Ever wondered what it was like to play in a chamber group such as this? Well, choose your instrument and sit close to that speaker. You’ll get a pretty good idea." (Audiophile Audition)

Today, the Mass in E Flat is increasingly acknowledged as an individual masterpiece; powerful and disquieting, more monumental than the fifth, but likewise seeking to reconcile liturgical grandeur with Schubert's own subjective romantic feeling, while still influenced by Haydn, Beethoven, and Bach. Richard Hickox has long wanted to record this powerful work. The recording follows the successful concert at the 2007 BBC Proms. The same stellar cast is brought together, including Susan Gritton, James Gilchrist and Mark Padmore, accompanied by Collegium Musicum 90. The Guardian commented on the Proms performance: 'it was graciously sung and conducted...' The Daily Telegraph wrote: 'Wednesday night brought Schubert's wonderful and rarely-performed late E flat Mass, performed by some fine soloists and the 'early music' orchestra and choir Collegium Musicum 90, conducted by Richard Hickox. It's close to being Schubert's last piece, and has an amazing harmonic daring mingled with a minatory severity - a very potent mix'. The recording is dedicated to the memory of Francesca McManus, the manager of CM90 who sadly died at the end of November. Also available: Hummel Mass in D major CHAN0681; Mass in E flat, CHAN0712; Mass in D minor CHAN0724

Peter Mattei has won great acclaim as a singer with unusual dramatic gifts, appearing on the world’s leading stages in complex operatic roles such as Don Giovanni, Billy Budd and Eugene Onegin. On the present release he takes on a no less complex character in the Lieder canon: the traveller in Schubert’s Winterreise. In this cycle, Schubert returned to the poet Wilhelm Müller, whose poems he had set some years earlier, in his other great song cycle, Die schöne Müllerin. Müller’s texts revolve around a young man who after being rejected leaves his village and heads into the desolate, snowy countryside. In the course of the cycle he experiences loss and an aching loneliness interrupted by fleeting glimpses of hope, but ultimately the landscape through which he is moving is colored by alienation and despair. Müller died at thirty-two years old in 1827, the very year in which Winterreise was composed – and Schubert himself died the following year, still making revisions to the last of the songs while on his deathbed. When Schubert invited his closest friends to a gathering in order to listen to the cycle he called the songs ‘gruesome’, and according to one witness the audience was shocked by their sombre mood. In this recording, Mattei brings all his interpretive skills to bear. He is supported by the piano of Lars David Nilsson, which reinforces the different moods and characters of the twenty-four songs and often assumes the role of a narrator, alongside the singer.

The present recording features both one of the longest and one of the shortest quartets in the string quartet repertoire. There is no denying that Schubert´s last string quartet is great in every sense of the word, but Beethoven´s “Quartetto Serioso”, although minor in size, is by no means dwarfed by it when it comes to sheer artistic quality; both quartets are indeed major works and a staple on the diet of any string quartet of merit. Even so, the concept of minor and major immediately springs to mind when contemplating putting these two completely different masterpieces on the same album. Duration apart, there is the obvious question of tonality: one work in F minor, the other in G major, which is simple enough and by itself justifies the album title. But things get more complicated the moment we subject the two works to a closer scrutiny. Oslo String Quartet is widely recognized as one of the most versatile string quartets of our day. Since it was founded in 1991 it has established a reputation as an ensemble that unites high artistic standards with a degree of playfulness and an absolute integrity. The quartet’s concerts and recordings have consistently received acclaim, both by the public and by critics. A strong attachment to the music of Beethoven has resulted in several performances of his complete string quartets, for example in the quartet’s festival “The Beethoven Code” in 2006. Their programmes range from the classic string quartet repertoire to the works of contemporary composers, but also include music in other genres, and their unique versions of, for example, Peer Gynt and Tosca break with what is normally expected of a string quartet.

This new double-album by pianist Lars Vogt, violinist Christian Tetzlaff and cellist Tanja Tetzlaff includes some of Franz Schubert's greatest works of chamber music, including his Piano Trios and the Arpeggione Sonata in breath-taking interpretations. Pianist Lars Vogt tragically passed away on September 5, 2022 due to a serious illness before this album of Schubert’s chamber music was released. This album stands as a testament of his outstanding chamber musicianship together with his long-time chamber music partners Christian Tetzlaff and Tanja Tetzlaff. “If not much time remains, then it’s a worthy farewell. - - Incomprehensible. Such expression. Such fragility, such love.”

REVIEWS:

These are studio recordings made in separate sessions in 2021. Everything one could want in Schubert’s Piano Trios is present: rhythmic buoyancy, beautiful phrasing, united ensemble playing that still leaves room for individual voices, and inner joy in the music-making. There’s also the ineffable feeling of sympathy among three friends who feel free to be themselves without departing from the wholeness of a performance.

-- Fanfare

These 2020–2021 recordings containing the complete extant works for piano trio of Franz Schubert and featuring the well-known trio of cellist Tanja Tetzlaff, pianist Lars Vogt, and Tanja’s brother, violinist Christian Tetzlaff, are being released at this time partly in memory of Vogt’s untimely passing in September of last year. The recollections of both Tetzlaffs and their dignified expressions of sorrow for the loss of a longtime friend and collaborator who will certainly be very difficult to replace as the piano voice of the trio are most eloquent and moving.

In two well-filled CDs we are given all the music Schubert is known to have written for piano, violin and cello, including Piano Trios No. 1 in B-flat, D898 (Op. 99) and No. 2 in E-flat Major, D929 (Op. 100), the indescribably lovely Notturno in E-flat, D897, which was originally intended as the slow movement of Trio No. 1; a “Rondo brillant” in B Minor. D895; and a fine arrangement for cello and piano of the “Arpeggione” Sonata in A Minor, D821. The last-named gave new viability to a richly textured work originally written for a hybrid instrument that was soon considered strictly from Vaudeville and vanished from the musical scene.

All these works receive a stamp of excellence for the artistry Vogt and the Tetzlaffs apply here.

-- Audio Video Club of Atlanta (Phil Muse)

Ronald Brautigam performs some of Franz Schubert’s most profound and beloved works: the eight Impromptus. Schubert’s name has become closely associated with this genre, often characterized by a lyrical melody and a free-flowing structure, with a sense of spontaneity. With it, Schubert seems to have found an ideal setting for the expression of his genius. The Impromptus, D 899, are reminiscent of a four-movement sonata. The first begins theatrically, before giving way to a funeral march of sorts, in which the melody is harmonised, amplified and constantly renewed. In the second, everything appears light and fluid. In the third, Schubert offers us one of his most inspired songs with one of his most beautiful melodies. The fourth takes us back to the waterworks of a fairy-tale park. The Impromptus, D 935, were published after Schubert’s death. The first is a great rhapsodic poem in which expression reaches into the deepest recesses of the Schubertian soul. The second demonstrates how Schubert manages to rise high with simple material. The third impromptu is a series of variations on ‘Rosamunde’, one of the composer’s most famous themes. The fourth is a lightning-fast scherzando – a free and whimsical piece that ideally concludes this disc.

The Hungarian violinist Johanna Martzy was born in Temesvár, then in Hungary, today in Romania, on October 26, 1924, and was hailed as a wunderkind. At the age of seven, she became the last pupil to be taken under the wing of the great violin teacher Jenö Hubay, who had enabled artists like Joseph Szigeti and Sándor Végh to fly high. Ferenc Gabriel continued the girl's training after Hubay's death, helping her to win first prize at the Hubay Competition when she was seventeen. She took up studies at the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy in Budapest the following year and made her orchestral debut with the Tchaikovsky Concerto under the baton of Willem Mengelberg a year later. When Nazi Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, Johanna Martzy and her husband Béla Szillery fled via Austria and France to Switzerland. There she won the Concours International d'Exécution Musicale in Geneva in 1947, and her international career gradually gained momentum. She began making gramophone records in 1950; Ferenc Fricsay's recording of the Dvorák concerto for Deutsche Grammophon of 1953 is notable for its rousing intensity and still enjoys benchmark status. In 1954 and 1955 EMI's legendary record producer Walter Legge made the recording of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin presented here.

In spite of a successful concert comeback in the 1960s, she was no longer in the top flight. It seems symbolical that it was in Budapest that she discovered she had hepatitis in 1969. Johanna Martzy steadily grew weaker and died in Switzerland on August 13, 1979, a year after the death of her husband. The present recordings remain a rare attestation of the brilliance of Johanna Martzy's playing, and it ensures her everlasting fame, at least among connoisseurs.

REVIEW:

The Hungarian violinist Johanna Martzy, who died in Zurich in 1979 at the age of only 54, experienced a short, steep international career at the beginning of the 1950s. She has remained an icon for insiders to this day and is considered the last great representative of the Hungarian violin school.

Profil has now refreshed the majority of their EMI recordings plus two Yellow Label concertos produced in 1952 and 1953 by Mozart (KV 218) under Jochum and the legendary Dvořák concerto under Fricsay and packed them into a 6-CD box set. The EMI bundle includes the two concertos by Brahms (1954) and Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1955) recorded with Paul Kletzki, which are still among the most expressive interpretations of the entire discography, as well as Schubert's (almost) complete works for violin and piano, and then also her legendary Abbey Road recordings of Bach's solo sonatas and partitas.

Martzy embodies the romantic Bach conception of the time, which aims for intensity, expressiveness, and flowing legato, and an aesthetic that wants to overwhelm the listener with beauty and dramatic stringency. At the same time, on her full-bodied, almost viola-like sonorous Bergonzi violin from 1733, she ignites such an inner fervor and draws such arcs of suspense that one cannot evade her infinitely spun, plastic lines. Every single tone is suggestively shaped and part of the flowing universe: drama and logic in one. And with the changing keys it also changes the respective basic color of its tone, i.e. from the darkened sonority of the D minor partita to the radiantly bright E major of the third partita. You can feel the objective and subjective power of this music at every moment: they are monologues of harrowing beauty.

Her interpretations of the concertos by Mozart, Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Brahms and Dvořák, glowing with intensity, shine as flawlessly clean, full-bodied and sonorous and at the same time as inwardly lively, as passionately urgent and lyrically shaped - she practices a kind of musical perfection that everyone Leaving virtuosity behind, proclaimed as a means to penetrate to the true inner, to the glowing human message, to enchant and shake us with pure, flowing heart energy. It's no wonder that Johanna Martzy enjoys iconic status in professional circles and that the few original LPs that have survived are sold at top prices.

-- Rondo (Germany, Attila Csampai)

The Catalan cellist Pablo Casals (1876-1973) was first to bring to wider notice the works that open this set, J.S. Bach's solo cello suites. Thereafter we hear his celebrated partnership with Horszowski in Beethoven and the groundbreaking piano trio formed with Thibaud and Cortot in Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn. From the symphonic repertoire come the concertos by Dvořák (with George Szell) and Elgar (Adrian Boult). Finally, an enchanting disc of encores and - with Casals's own street-band or cobla - seven examples of the sardana, the national dance of the great artist's beloved homeland.

Today one of the most highly respected string quartets, the Belcea were established in 1994 at the Royal College of Music in London and studied with the Chilingirian, the Amadeus, and later the Alban Berg quartets. Today one of the most highly respected string quartets, the Belcea were established in 1994 at the Royal College of Music in London and studied with the Chilingirian, the Amadeus, and later the Alban Berg quartets. They recorded for EMI Classics across nearly a decade, between 2000 and 2009, bringing about tremendous versions of quartets by Schubert, Britten, Bartók, and Mozart, to name a few.

"The Belcea Quartet throw every fibre of their beings into the most vivid projection of the masterpieces they undertake." - The Independent "These recordings form a crucial part of our life as a quartet and we hope that over the ensuing years they haven't lost their freshness and sense of adventure." - Krzysztof Chorzelski, violist of the Belcea Quartet