The 13 Barcarolles of Fauré, composed over the course of almost four decades (1882-1921), are highly representative of his piano oeuvre and are considered his most characteristic works. They reflect his separation from the romantic idiom of Chopin and Mendelssohn, in particular, and his progress towards an independent musical language in which he achieved a successful harmonious reconciliation between tradition and the modernism that was emerging at the time. Michael Endres recorded these pieces for OehmsClassics at WDR in Cologne in May 2017. The German pianist performs worldwide as a soloist and chamber music partner. He gained a Master’s degree at the Juilliard School in New York under Jacob Lateiner and studied with Peter Feuchtwanger in London. He has won several prestigious prizes at festivals and competitions, and his discography consists of 29 albums which have also been awarded.
Bach’s Cantata 131 may have been his first ever, composed at Mühlhausen in 1707 or 1708. We can hear in it the youthful composer remaining true to his German roots, but stretching his wings, experimenting with an episodic, through-composed structure, and succeeding brilliantly. The experiment, however, was short-lived. By the time Bach moved to Weimar in 1714, he was settling on a new format, which he would refine and perfect in later years: a succession of individual movements, usually including an elaborate choral number, a group of solo pieces, and an unadorned setting of the relevant chorale. A heightened awareness of international trends surfaced in French overtures and Italianate recitatives and da capo arias. Cantata 182 was Bach’s first for Weimar.
Both of these early cantatas on this disc are likely candidates for chamber-sized performances, but they are sung here by a chorus of about 50 singers. Thomas Gropper’s temperate direction serves the music well. The choral singing is nicely burnished and admirably precise. The first chorus of No. 182 seemed to lose a bit of its forward momentum, but order is quickly restored and the cantata (and the disc) ends well. The soloists are similarly effective. One can get a vague sense of meandering in the bass aria of BWV 182, but the overall impression is positive. The featured (but unnamed) wind soloists—the oboe in No. 131 and the recorder in No. 182—are especially fine, more reasons to give the disc your consideration. In all, an excellent 131; a good 182.
Felix Mendelssohn's Lieder ohne Worte (Songs Without Words), comprising 8 volumes and 48 individual works, are delightful solo piano miniatures that, although not so intended by the composer in most instances, have come to embody certain descriptive characteristics of people, places or things with the help of publisher's attaching names to some after-the-fact. Michael Endres award-winning (Diapason d'or; Choc du Musique) discography is an extensive one, amounting to 30 albums; for OehmsClassics he has recorded works of Schumann, Schubert, Weber, Ravel and Gershwin, among others.
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27 & Vocalise
Oehms Classics
CD
$14.99May 12, 2015
The catastrophic failure of the St. Petersburg world premiere of his First Symphony on 15 March 1897 plunged Sergei Rachmaninoff into a profound depression. It was only the intervention of renowned psychiatrist Nikolai Dahl that liberated the composer from his creative crisis. In 1906 Rachmaninoff began work on his Second Symphony. As part of its ongoing Rachmaninoff cycle with the Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne and Dmitrij Kitajenko, OehmsClassics presents the Symphony No. 2 and the ever-popular Vocalise, sung by countertenor Valer Sabadus.
The Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra dedicates itself here to a “forgotten master”. In drastic, enigmatic images of the Apocalypse of St. John, Louis Spohr’s oratorio The Last Judgement deals with the fundamental questions of humanity: justice, responsibility and redemption. Shortly after its world premiere, one could say that this work was an international success. Since the Spohr Year of 2009 it has returned to concert stages all over the world, including in Salzburg on 6 June 2013. OehmsClassics presents a live recording here of this concert from the Mozarteum.
The term "South German" in keyboard music refers geographically to the southern part of the German-speaking region, also containing parts of Austria and Switzerland – and even eastern European regions of Poland, Bohemia and Transylvania. The composers featured on this six-album release include Kerll, Muffat, Pachelbel, and Hassler, as well as selections from the Buxheimer Orgelbuch. Joseph Kelemen has been an active church musician in the South German region since 1986. He is passionately dedicated to historical performance practice and is considered in the specialist world as the authority for German organ music of the 17th century and the organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach. He studied at the Franz Liszt Music University, and then emigrated to Switzerland where he studied at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basle. He now resides in Germany. His previous releases have won him several awards, including the French Diapason d’or.
For a modern recorder player, historical performance practice is certainly both principle as well as a native musical language. But if one wants to perform the works of J.S. Bach, the repertoire is very slim. Stefan Temmingh’s love of Bach pushed him to take on this challenge and concern himself with performance practice in the baroque. In an extensive booklet text, he argues that the harpsichord literature in the baroque era was transcribed for other instruments quasi as a “lingua franca”. Reorchestrated versions of Bach’s Concerto for Four Harpsichords (itself an arrangement of Vivaldi compositions), for example, can be found from the 18th century, usually for one or two melody instruments with continuo.
Above all, this practice predominated in France, e.g. in connection with works by Couperin and Dieupart, which were certainly some of the sources of inspiration for Bach’s French Suites. Stefan Temmingh continues the long tradition of arranging such pieces for a melody instrument. Domen Marincic on the viola da gamba and Axel Wolf on the lute provide the ideal support for the basic sound of the recorder. Although this combination of instruments emphasizes another aspect of the composition, the fundamental idea behind the music does not change.
Karel Mark Chichon was Principal Conductor of the German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Saarbrucken Kaiserslautern from 2011 to 2017; the programmes he presented during his seasons there were celebrated by the public and lauded by the critics in equal measure. One magnificent result of this period is the present recording with works by Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and de Falla. All are ballets whose rhythms made an enormously modern, almost revolutionary effect at the time; the dancers had quite a lot to learn about how to coordinate their movements to this music. For more than ten years now, the German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra has been an integral part of the German orchestral music scene which is like no other in the world. The orchestra was created following the merger of the Saarbrucken Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Radio Orchestra Kaiserslautern. As one of the ARD radio symphony orchestras, it performs at the orchestra’s resident locations in Saarbrucken and Kaiserslautern as well as participating in the Saarlandischer Rundfunk and the Sudwestrundfunk cultural programmes or giving concerts on the SR/SWR an dARTE television channels.
Pianist Sophie-Mayuko Vetter presents the world premiere recording of a reconstruction of around 70 pages of sketches for Beethoven’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 6 in D major (fragment) by Nicholas Cook and Hermann Dechant. Another special feature of this release is that the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 0 in E flat major, WoO 4 is heard in period style, performed on a fortepiano made by the London piano manufacturer John Broadwood in 1806. The expressive and harmonically rich vocabulary of the Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 19 clearly demonstrates the young Beethoven’s development as an autonomous Viennese classicist. Sophie-Mayuko Vetter has been praised as an artist of extraordinary expressivity and versatility by press and colleagues alike. Her previous recording on OehmsClassics received an ICMA nomination and was awarded a Supersonic rating by Pizzicato: ‘Deeply felt performances of two Mozart concertos, where Sophie-Mayuko Vetter’s playing can be compared with that of Clara Haskil, Geza Anda or the young Barenboim.’
Stravinsky: Symphony in E-Flat Major and Suites Nos. 1 & 2
Oehms Classics
CD
$19.99Apr 06, 2018
Dmitri Kitayenko has been Music Advisor of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra since the 2011/12 season. And if there is something with which Maestro Kitayenko has a special affinity, it is the Russian repertoire. It was not surprising, therefore, that he decided on Stravinsky for the first recording of this cooperation between the Orchestra and the Oehms Classics label. This recording includes Stravinsky's very first work, the Symphony in E-flat major, as well as the rarely performed Suites 1 &2 orchestrated by Stravinsky during the years 1921 and 1925. These works for chamber orchestra, however, were originally composed from 1914 to 1920 during the composer's years of exile in Switzerland. The Zagreb Philharmonic is an orchestra boasting a 147-year-old tradition of distinguished performing in Zagreb and Croatia. It has been a promoter of the art of music across Croatia as well as the country's cultural ambassacdor in the world. As one of the trademarks of the city it operates in, the music institution that boasts a long and notable tradition embodies the image of Zagreb as a Central European urban center of music, art, and culture.
The China Horn Ensemble was first conceived in Beijing in 2015 by Yi Man, horn professor at the Central Conservatory of Music, with the aim of developing and popularizing horn music in China. This idea soon attracted much attention and support from outstanding Chinese horn players all over the world. Finally, the China Horn Ensemble was officially founded in the fall 2015 in Beijing and has since become one of the nation's top chamber ensembles. The group has also enjoyed an international reputation since its founding.
Leopold Mozart has only survived throughout history in fragments. The large supply of secular instrumental music on which he prided himself in 1757, has been irrevocably lost. Leopold's son, Wolfgang dismantled and auctioned off his things as to continue caring for his own family at the time. In the recording presented here, a listener can gain an overall impression of the composer's oeuvre. Reinhard Goebel leads the Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie in discovering these forgotten masterpieces.
Reimann: L'Invisible / Runnicles, Deutsches Opera Berlin
Oehms Classics
CD
$25.99Jun 29, 2018
For L’Invisible, like his other two most recent operas Bernarda Alba’s House and Medea, Aribert Reimann has turned to a text of world literature, adapting it himself as his own librettist. With it, he returns to his “home” opera house the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Four of his stage works were commissioned by that opera house and the world premiere of his new, ninth opera was also given there. It was staged by Vasily Barkhatov, one of the most interesting Russian directors of his generation, who made his debut at the opera house on Bismarckstraße after having worked at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre and the Mariinski Theater in St. Petersburg. The premiere was conducted by the Principal Conductor himself, Donald Runnicles.
Berg: Wozzeck / Weigle, Frankfurt Opera and Museum
Oehms Classics
CD
$25.99Aug 24, 2018
Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, which premiered at Lindenoper/ Berlin in 1925, is regarded as one of the key music compositions of the 20th century and an essential work in any connoisseur’s collection. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck, which was left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's play on May 5, 1914, and knew at once that he wanted to base an opera on it. From the fragments of unordered scenes left by Büchner, Berg selected fifteen to form a compact structure of three acts with five scenes each. He adapted the libretto himself. On this release, the Frankfurt Opera, under the baton of Sebastian Weigle, delivers a razor-sharp and exciting interpretation. With Audun Iversen and Claudia Mahnke in the main roles the recording shows an ideal cast.
WILLAERT Huc me sidereo. Dilexi quoniam exaudiet. Audite insulae. Haec est domus Domini. Verbum supernum prodiens. Confitebor tibi Domine. Te Deum Patrem ingenitum. Beati pauperes spiritu. Sustinuimus pacem. Praeter rerum seriem. Alma Redemptoris Mater. Mittit ad Virginem. Benedicta es coelorum Regina. Salve Sancta parens. Inviolata integra et casta. Sub tuum praesidium. O admirabile commercium. Aspice Domine. Peccata mea. Domine quid multiplicati sunt. Pater peccavi. Miserere nostri Deus omnium. Avertatur obsecro. Omnia quae fecisti. Recordare Domine. Victimae paschali laudes. Veni Sancte Spiritus • Singer Pur • OEHMS 835 (3 CDs: 225:35 Text and Translation)
When Adrian Willaert (c.1490-1562) arrived in Venice in 1527, he was the first Flemish musician to be appointed maestro di cappella of St. Mark’s basilica, and the last of a long and distinguished line of Franco-Flemish musicians to dominate the Italian musical scene in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Although his position gave him the opportunity, not to say the duty, of supplying music for Mass and Vespers for his celebrated choir, his output does not appear on records as frequently as the music of his successors, most notably Monteverdi. Only a fraction of his 150 motets are available, and I have only three of his eight Masses in my collection. (His madrigals are better represented.) The Musica Nova, from which these motets come, was published by Gardano in 1559 at the behest of Alfonso d’Este, soon to be duke of Ferrara, who acquired the manuscript from the singer Polissena Pecorina. It contained 25 madrigals and 27 motets, works dating back through his career but kept apart from other music already published earlier. With the madrigals issued earlier (Fanfare 33:4), Singer Pur has now recorded the entire publication. In the previous review, I indicated that I had not found any of the madrigals on records (no reader has written to offer any information on this).
Most of these motets have two parts; some have three, and O admirabile commercium has seven parts. The motets are set out here in order of themes, not the order of the published book, where the motets are grouped in ascending order of settings for four, five, six, and seven voices. The first disc is generally in praise of the Blessed Trinity, the second is entirely Marian in devotion, and the third is penitential, concluding with the sequences of Easter and Pentecost. Except for the last two pieces, it is remarkable that three very full discs can be equally divided along three distinct themes. The texts are from the Psalms and other scriptural and liturgical sources. Considering that the composition of these motets may have extended over a period of some years, the polyphonic style is notably uniform.
One motet that is special for its breadth is O admirabile commercium, the seven-part motet that takes its text from the seven antiphons for Lauds and Vespers of January 1. (While this is the feast of the Circumcision, it is structured as a Marian feast, and since 1970 has been known as the feast of Mary, the Mother of God.) This motet for five voices runs almost half an hour. The liturgical texts draw on biblical allusions, as in Rubum quem viderat, the third section, which takes the account of the burning bush unburnt from Exodus as a parallel to Mary’s giving birth while her virginity remained intact. Singer Pur’s execution is uniformly exquisite, with four male singers added to the six members of the ensemble (five former choirboys at Regensburg cathedral plus a soprano). Along with the Cinquecento disc (34: 2), these two sets of Musica Nova may be regarded as the preeminent observance of the composer’s 450th anniversary. With this recorded evidence, Willaert demonstrably occupies a place leading up to the glories of the High Renaissance that the next generation of composers achieved. Be sure to hear this impressive set.
With a terrific cast including Maria Bengtsson and Katharina Magiera, and under the baton of Sebastian Weigle, OehmsClassics and Opera Frankfurt bring back to live a nearly forgotten jewel of comic opera in the 19th century. After the premiere at the Viennese Karntnertortheater in 1847, Friedrich von Flotow's Martha or The fair at Richmond became for nearly half a century one of the most popular operas in Europe. Full of charming melodies and with a plot as hilarious as racy, the story of bored Lady Harriet Durham and her friend Nancy, who disguised themselves as Martha and Julia and travel to the servant's fair of Richmond, where they actually not only find a job, but also true love, is an enchanting example for the 1850's civic opera and also Friedrich von Flotow's wonderful light hearted music. After "Der Graf von Luxemburg" OehmsClassics is happy to continue the collaboration with Opera Frankfurt with this remarkable recording.
Barber, Korngold: Violin Concertos / Alexander Gilman
Oehms Classics
CD
$14.99Feb 28, 2012
BARBER Violin Concerto. KORNGOLD Violin Concerto. WAXMAN Carmen Fantasy & • Alexander Gilman (vn); Perry So, cond; Cape Town PO • OEHMS 799 (68: 09)
& WILLIAMS Schindler’s List: Theme
Except for John Williams’s theme from Schindler’s List, the compositions on violinist Alexander Gilman’s program with Perry So conducting the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra all suffered a certain amount of neglect after their first performances and recordings. Isaac Stern (and Louis Kaufman and Robert Gerle) brought Samuel Barber’s concerto to the attention of listeners, and now it has just about entered the repertoire, and students adopt it for competitions. Alexander Gilman produces a glowing tone from his Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin, but the engineers don’t set him so far forward as Columbia’s did Isaac Stern; if Gilman plays with less ruddy energy, he more than compensates for it in subtlety and refinement. His generally more relaxed approach doesn’t prevent him or the orchestra from soaring in the climactic moments. Oehms’s engineers have set him just a bit forward, with just enough of the spotlight focused on him to lend him soloistic prominence. He and So take their time in the slow movement without giving even a hint of immobility; in the middle section, his tone grows temporarily as glutinous as Mischa Elman’s. And at last, alchemist Gilman transmutes even the finale’s most mechanical perpetual-motion elements into musical gold.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s concerto (like Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s) has also come a long way from the days in which Jascha Heifetz’s recording might have intimidated other violinists from trying their hands in the work (even if Irving Kolodin’s dictum “more corn than gold” hadn’t already done so) but also for years represented the only entry into the catalog. In the last decade, especially, many violinists have taken it up, many of them, notably perhaps Nikolaj Znaider (RCA 710336, Fanfare 32:6) taking the first movement at a much slower tempo than Heifetz’s. But while playing the movement more slowly for musical reasons may be defensible, Gilman seems also to struggle in its quicksilver technical passagework, though he soars in its rhapsodic lyrical moments (at least he attacks the double-stops about halfway through the movement with a sort of abrasive gusto). Still, at almost 10 minutes, the first movement sounds very slow, creating despair that the expected climaxes will never arrive. Heifetz took 7:47 in his 1953 studio recording and 7:46—always consistent, that Heifetz—in a 1947 live performance; but Anne-Sophie Mutter took 8:40; Philippe Quint, 8:48; James Ehnes, 8:57; Gil Shaham, 9:03; and Znaider, as mentioned, 9:19, and finally, Gilman, at 9:44, an obvious pattern. The slow movement also seems to stall in this way, although the lush sonorities that So draws from the orchestra gives listeners something to enjoy in the waiting room; Gilman’s corresponding timbral lushness extends from the top to the bottom of his violin’s range, and together violin and orchestra collaborate in a richly atmospheric reading of the movement. The tranquil conclusion, despite its near immobility, provides an effective lull before the boisterous intrusion of the finale’s theme. But Gilman balances percussive aspects with Heifetz’s penetrating clarity in the upper registers during the finale’s lyrical interludes, and fashions a climax of cinematic sweep.
Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy, now, according to some, preferred to Sarasate’s similar work by Russian violinists, also has cinematic connections—and again to Heifetz, with whom negotiations for playing the violin solos in Humoresque broke down (Stern finally being engaged). Nevertheless, Heifetz played and programmed the work from the beginning. Gilman’s reading sounds at the same time a bit warmer and perhaps a bit cheekier, and even a bit more seductive. The program concludes with a rather lugubrious reading of the theme from John Williams’s score to Schindler’s List.
Those seeking these particular works on CD should find Gilman’s readings more than satisfactory even if Heifetz still reigns supreme in Korngold, with either Heifetz or Leonid Kogan occupying similar positions in Waxman’s chestnut—at least for sheer brilliance. Warmly recommended.
OehmsClassics presents volume 10 of the complete Beethoven sonata cycle. In 1976, Michael Korstick traveled to the United States to study at Julliard. He became known as “Dr. Beethoven” and ever since, experts have agreed that Michael Korstick is one of the most important German pianists of our time. The first volume of this series won the “Discovery of the Year” award given by German record critic, Joachim Emperor. Volumes 2 and 4 won this award as well as the MIDEM classical award.
