With this double CD She Composed - Music by Women Composers, an artistically compelling and culturally significant project comes to life - one that combines musical quality, pedagogical vision, and editorial care in an exemplary way. The album presents piano works by women composers from several centuries and diverse cultural backgrounds, thoughtfully arranged in ascending levels of difficulty: from short, characterful miniatures to large-scale works of considerable technical and expressive demands. At the heart of the project lies it's carefully designed pedagogical concept. The selected works accompany pianists from early stages of learning to an advanced, concert-ready level. The result is a musical pathway that makes both technical development and growing expressive depth audible.
The renowned chamber choir Ensemble Horizons presents it's debut album with GENUIN - an "unheard-of" production in every sense of the word. Many of the featured works are the first recordings of neglected masterpieces by women composers from the 19th through 21st centuries. From the enchanting early Romantic settings of Tubingen's own Josephine Lang to works by Clara Schumann, Luise Adolpha Le Beaus, Ethel Smyth, and contemporary a cappella pieces by Iris Szeghy, Cecilia McDowall, and Galina Grigorjeva - this moving and pristinely performed choral music expands the repertoire in a way that truly makes one sit up and listen!
After a 'spellbinding' album for Alpha devoted to her American roots (Alpha1071), pianist Claire Huangci now celebrates female composers, acknowledging: 'The realities these women faced are difficult to imagine for any modern woman in the field.' Clara Wieck (who became Schumann after her marriage to Robert in 1840) was a mother of eight and the main breadwinner, constantly on tour. Fanny Hensel composed largely in private. Often publishing under her brother's name. Amy Beach's career was practically silenced during her marriage; only upon her husband's death did she return to the stage. Florence Price faced both racial and gender discrimination and later raised two children alone. Across the centuries, the voices of these women reach us thanks to musicians like Claire: 'In their music, we don't just hear history. We hear transformation. Heroines is my way of listening back-and adding my voice to theirs.'
Catalina Bertucci, Georg Poplutz, and Tatjana Dravenau don't just say it "between the flowers" on their new GENUIN album - they gather lieder from the 19th and 20th centuries that revolve around the theme of flowers and trees. Music and poetry speak directly and clearly of the associations between the language of love and the plant world - associations that were clear and unmistakable to people of the Romantic era, but which must be decoded anew for us today. These three remarkable artists uncover that hidden language in the most beautiful and sensuous way: through dreamlike interpretations of lieder from Schubert to Schonthal, Loewe to Faltis, and Kralik to Schumann.
The Schuppanzigh Quartet is one of the successful ensembles that has engaged with historical performance practice internationally for years. The power derived from the musical writings of past eras gives the ensemble a distinctive and distinctive sound language. The successful blend of newly discovered works and the masterful interpretation of Viennese classics and early Romantics are part of the ensemble's fundamental focus.
This CD is a celebration of female composers in classical music. For too long their work has been undervalued and overlooked, and unrightly so. Their work, if not dismissed, has often been attributed to male composers. We invite you to a journey across three centuries of extraordinary piano music. See for yourself, why we chose to borrow the title of "Femmes de legende": invisible heroines, whose works deserve to become deeply embedded into our repertoire. "Frauen als Muse" alludes to our ambition for this project to become an inspiration and empower future generations of musicians.
