When the ORFEO label was established in Munich forty years ago, surely no one with the music scene back then would have predicted that the record company would develop into a firmly established player on the classical music market. One of the label’s main priorities in the early years was vocal music, with opera rarities top of the list and since the mid 1980s the re-use of historic tape recordings. Big names featured on the label’s own productions, while ORFEO also developed into a talent factory by discovering and nurturing young artist. This “ORFEO 40th Anniversary” 2-album sampler well reflects these two sides of the label by combining highlight tracks of historical recordings with today’s global stars.

When Capriccio started out in 1982, still producing LPs and tapes, it was the first digital Beethoven Symphony cycle with the Dresden Philharmonic and Herbert Kegel that first turned heads. Several other key projects were pivotal to the label quickly establishing a reputation as a source of quality music and performances. Foremost among them, never out of the catalogue and still loved today, are the recordings with Sandor Végh. Then, in the mid-nineties those of Sir Neville Marriner’s, who, after long being synonymous with the Philips label, recorded widely for Capriccio, both with his Academy Of St Martin in the Fields and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. Contemporaries of Mozart’s that have emerged on Capriccio include Joseph Martin Kraus, François-Joseph Gossec, and Jan Ladislav Dussek. They are performed by early music and classical period Capriccio-favorites such as Concerto Köln or the CPE Bach Chamber Orchestra. This box set features the label’s most important ensembles, orchestras, and conductors, from the classical period to the 20th century, when, in 2005, Capriccio released the first complete Shostakovich Cycle with the Gürzenich Orchestra and Dmitrji Kitajenko.

The powerful and amazingly varied music of Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff, whose art was suppressed by the Nazi regime and who died in captivity in 1942, is given stirring performances by brilliant young players from the Colburn School, Los Angeles’ elite conservatory. James Conlon, world-renowned conductor and LA Opera music director, leads the RVC Ensemble in Schulhoff’s Piano Concerto, Op. 43, with Dominic Cheli as soloist. Four other pieces — all strong and unique —complete the album’s offerings, which span the years between 1923 and 1937. Cheli and violinist Adam Millstein are particularly outstanding contributors.

While Schulhoff’s music has been gradually emerging from near-total obscurity in recent years, Shapeshifter is especially notable as the first album-length example of his works being taken up by American musicians of classical’s ascendant “next generation.” We at Delos hope the album sparks increased interest in Schulhoff among younger players and their audiences. The project is intimately connected to the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices, which encourages greater awareness and more frequent performances of music by composers whose careers and lives were disrupted or ended during the years of the Nazi regime in Europe. The Recovered Voices initiative was established at the Colburn School in 2013.

REVIEWS:

The Piano Concerto is a unified work with integrity and a strict formal structure. In each of the three movements, it explores romanticism with a touch of impressionism, and nods to modernism and jazz. The latter is particularly prominent in the Allegro alla jazz finale, where Schulhoff calls for an 18-piece percussion section that includes cog rattle, cowbell, sleigh bells, castanets, tambourine and siren. Foxtrot and Romany music lead towards a riotous conclusion, but not before a magical sostenuto section.

The Five Pieces for string quartet, dedicated to Darius Milhaud, can be construed as a “dance suite” which nods towards the Baroque models. A work of this vitality ought to be in the standard repertoire of all string quartet ensembles.

In the Suite for piano left hand, the listener is left marveling at the technical brilliance of the soloist being able to play this music with his left hand alone. At nearly 19 minutes, it is too long for an encore, but it does deserve its place in the recital room.

In the period when Schulhoff wrote the Violin Sonata No. 2, he was often influenced by jazz. Yet, it is Bartók and Berg that are the obvious models here. Adam Millstein and Dominic Cheli’s performance points up the virtuosity and brilliance of the piece.

The final number is Susi. This short “cocktail bar” piano piece is a sheer delight. It would seem to be a transcription of a song. Written when Schulhoff was exploring Socialist Realism and implementing the diktats of Marxist ideology, it is surely decadent. But one must recall that he was also earning money as “one half of a piano duo”. Susi is full of nostalgia and, possibly, regret.

I have noted the superb performances of all this music. The outstanding liner notes include biographical information, analysis, and details of the performers. The recording reflects the vibrancy of this repertoire.

This disc makes a great introduction to the achievement of an unjustifiably less well-known composer, although in recent years his music has been making a comeback on the recording scene. This release is worth the price for the stunning performance of the Concerto alone. Everything else is a wonderful bonus. I need to hear more of Erwin Schulhoff’s music.

-- MusicWeb International

This album offers mainly chamber music, but with the concerto for piano and small orchestra also a work in larger instrumentation. The album, performed by instrumentalists and thus also soloists of the Colburn School, not only demonstrates Schulhoff’s versatility, but above all his variability in the use of means, such as jazz and other influences, as well as his humor, for example when he forces the waltz into a limping march beat and at the same time still mixes the waltz of high society with a Ländler. Illuminating is also the versatility of styles and characters in the 5 Pieces for string quartet, which shows the alert mind of this composer. These works, especially from the period after his return to Prague in 1923, also provide an opportunity to perceive the energy of this idiosyncratic musical voice.

The young artists specialize in the music of ostracized musicians of the last century. The coordinating hand is James Conlon, tireless despite his numerous activities, who also successfully conducted the concert.

In addition to the above-mentioned aspects, it is noticeable in all performances that the musicians wonderfully succeed in extracting the vibrant energy from the music and transforming it into rousing sounds. Each piece sounds like a freshly created work.

-- Pizzicato

In 1938, at the Reichsmusiktage in Düsseldorf, the Nazi regime opened an exhibition around music with the theme: 'Entartete Musik'. They collected examples of what they considered degenerate music. Gustav Mahler, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Mischa Spoliansky; these were just a few names on the long list of depraved composers. On this album, this music and more.

Experience a captivating juxtaposition of four distinct and mesmerizing compositions spanning a mere decade on the GENUIN CD recorded by violinist Friederike Starkloff and pianist Endri Nini. The duo has compiled works from 1913 to 1923 by Erwin Schulhoff, Claude Debussy, George Antheil, and Leoš Janácek — echoes of an era characterized by tumultuous innovation and pioneering spirit where artists across all genres laid the foundations for modernity. Starkloff, who embarked on her career as the youngest first concertmaster of a German radio orchestra, and Nini, esteemed internationally as a chamber musician, breathe life into these extraordinary, kaleidoscopic compositions with unparalleled intensity and technical mastery.

The Schumann Quartet dedicates its latest studio production "1923" to that year in which new musical paths were sought, found, or questioned, and at the same time, the birth of radio heralded a new age for composers and the dissemination of their works. The CD program combines selected quartet music by Paul Hindemith, Alban Berg, Erwin Schulhoff, and Leoš Janácek.

On her first album for solo violin, internationally acclaimed and renowned Latvian violinist Baiba Skride interprets selected sonatas by Erwin Schulhoff, Paul Hindemith, Philipp Jarnach and Eduard Erdmann. Although Johann Sebastian Bach’s sonatas and partitas for violin solo are regarded as the measure of every violinist’s technical skill and maturity, compositions for unaccompanied violin became increasingly rare in subsequent epochs (the classical and the romantic era). It wasn’t until the turn of the 20th century that Max Reger made a conspicuous contribution in this field with altogether eleven sonatas. His example was an impetus that very plausibly inspired his contemporaries and successors to come up with the four contributions to this genre from the 1920s on this album.

REVIEW:

Skride starts with Schulhoff in the very resonant acoustic of the Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin. Daniel Hope on Nimbus and Antonín Novák on Praga have approached this sonata on their own terms, too, but I like Skride’s way with it, notably the serious and darkly-voiced slow movement at its heart. She plays the Hindemith with considerable purity of expression, enjoying the droll pizzicato episodes of the third movement and the charming Mozart variations that form the finale.

Jarnach’s 1922 sonata makes for a marvelously balanced work. The opening movement, which Skride dispatches with fluidity and expressive freedom, is followed by the urgency of the Prestissimo which she subtly allows to slow before picking up the intensity of the earlier material. The finale has abrasive dialogues but clear lines—a tribute to her refinement. For many years Erdmann’s sonata had the reputation of being a doughty and unapproachable work. It was composed for the Flesch student, Alma Moodie, who never made a recording. It’s a highly abstract work, and freely tonal, but Skride plays it with the kind of appeal she’d bring to much more popular repertoire and so rides over any concerns about its unapproachability. In truth Brunnert dealt with those concerns too, but Skride has a way with its slow, uneasy elements and its quietly, wintry finale that are most impressive too.

All four works were composed between 1921 (the Erdmann) and 1927 (Schulhoff) and offer contrasting and complementary evidence of solo violin works in this period. Each has its own character and imperatives, well drawn on by Baiba Skride in this well-programmed disc.

-- MusicWeb International

With sparkling articulation reminiscent of the remarkable Alicia de Larrocha, pianist Pola Baytelman probes deeply to the heart of whatever music she plays. Keeping the composer’s intent foremost, she plays with effortless technique, listening always. The press has called her playing “formidable” and having “a diaphanous touch.” Baytelman is an active recitalist with a broad repertory that covers from the 18th to the 21st century. She has toured extensively in China, Europe, Hong Kong, South America, and across the United States.

Pola Baytelman is Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at Skidmore College, in Saratoga Springs,N.Y. where she was chosen to present the Moseley Lecture-Recital in 2006, the highest honor Skidmore faculty confers on a colleague. Her latest compact disc, “From Chile to Cuba,” was released by Albany Records in 2009. Baytelman’s recording of Robert Schumann’s Humoreske (2002 Centaur) was listed by American Record Guide as one of the top three performances of the classic work.

Beethoven und Schulhoff in Dialogue
Schuch:"Indeed, it’s quite exciting to look at what was going on exactly 100 years ago – perhaps because 1923 doesn’t seem all that distant to us.
Certain events and circumstances seem to mirror one another a century apart. From a musical point of view, Erwin Schulhoff’s piano concerto is a truly interesting work that has not attained the recognition it deserves…
In terms of style, the piano concerto, composed between 11 June and 10 July 1923, is one of those works where Schulhoff radically deals with the dance types of jazz, which had crossed the Atlantic at the end of the First World War and spread out from Paris until taking all of Europe by storm…
No other pair of composers could be more different – on paper – than these two.
Schulhoff always took a decisive stance against traditionalism. Indeed, he may have been something of an iconoclast, but he was also a talented and well-trained pianist – a pianist who wanted to earn success in that very role. Of course, Schulhoff studied the Beethoven concertos, performed them, and ultimately also took the opportunity (like many other composers before him) to put his stamp on these works by writing his own cadenzas…
…It was also in Berlin – in February 1923, to be exact – that Schulhoff conceived and worked out the cadenzas for the first four Beethoven piano concertos…" (Excerpts from the booklets notes)

Valentine Michaud was the first ever saxophone soloist to perform with the Vienna Philharmonic. She and her regular collaborator, pianist Akvilé Silekaité, comprise the award-winning AKMI Duo. They debut on AVIE with Beyond the Wall, an album of contrasting 20th century sonatas linked by history and geography. Edison Denisov’s Soviet serialism, tinged with forbidden jazz influences, took a cue from the American modernism of William Albright. Austro-Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff embraced avant garde and jazz idioms, leading the Nazis to brand his music “degenerate”; he perished in the Wülzburg prison camp in 1942. Paul Hindemith fell in and out of favour with the Nazis, leading him to immigrate to Switzerland and later America. His popular Saxophone Sonata is by turns lyric and dramatic, imbued with irony and humour.