"In this music, border crossings become audible to me: from baroque to contemporary music, from music to religion, from the secular to the divine. That is why it is also about life and death, resurrection, enlightenment and remembrance - as in Bach's Chaconne in memory of his first wife Maria Barbara Bach". With these words, pianist Alexandra Sostmann describes her album Grenzgänge on PROSPERO, co-produced with Bayerischer Rundfunk, which cleverly combines music by Bach, Pachelbel and Frescobaldi with works by Ligeti and Pärt to create a fascinating musical journey from the beginnings of music for keyboard instruments to the composers of our day.
The pianist Alexandra Sostmann is not only known for her polished Bach playing, but also for her concert and CD programmes that trace developments and cross-connections in music history. In her latest CD recording, she remains true to this approach as she spans the period from the Baroque to the present day, seeking to shed light on the concept of music as a medium between immanence and transcendence that can be found in almost every culture. It is above all the transformations and transitions reflected in the music that fascinate the pianist. But silence also plays an important role - as an integral part of music and as a cipher for that which cannot be expressed in words.
The instrument 'flute' is closely associated with the Prussian king Frederick the Great and his residence Sanssouci, as the Prussian king was a passionate flutist and numerous works were composed for him. For the recorder player Isaac Makhdoomi, it is a special challenge to transfer these works, which were actually composed for a transverse flute, to his instrument. The idea behind this was to bring new aspects and facets to the works originally composed for the transverse flute, which he actually succeeds in doing brilliantly.
New Worlds - Antonin Dvorak: Symphony No. 9; Avner Dorman: F
Prospero Classical
CD
$21.99Apr 04, 2025
The Gottingen Symphony Orchestra under Nicholas Milton combines Dvorak's well-known symphony From the New World with the orchestral work Frozen in Time by Avner Dorman. This unusual combination results in an exciting musical journey that challenges the performers to present a broad spectrum of styles and techniques, thus opening up a "new world".
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3; Rhapsody on a Theme by P
Prospero Classical
CD
$20.99Apr 22, 2022
A former master student of Rudolf Buchbinder, Irina Georgieva performs regularly in Switzerland, Italy, France, England, Morocco, the Balkans, and recently in South America. Whether Stefan Lano, Michal Nesterowicz, Pablo Gonzàlez or Sascha Goetzel - the list of conductors Irina Georgieva has worked with is impressive. Just as impressive is her repertoire, which comprises classical music from the Baroque to the present. She loves the virtuoso piano music of the late 19th and 20th century, which is characterized by an expressive tonal language, special moods, and differentiated timbres. For her debut with Prospero Classical, she has chosen her favorite composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff. Together with the Basel Symphony Orchestra, she interprets two of his best-known works. The Third Piano Concerto in D minor as well as the incredibly virtuosic "Paganini Variations".
Posterity likes to play with labels that are supposed to characterize lesser-known composers: "The Catholic Bach" (Zelenka), "The Spanish Mozart" (Arriaga) - and "The English Rachmaninoff" with which the English pianist and composer York Bowen (1884-1961) was labeled. Nuron Mukumi presents his 24 Preludes op.102 here on PROSPERO. Indeed, one is immediately fascinated by this music, which is anything but a Rachmaninoff copy, but rather cultivates a style all of it's own. And one wonders: how could this music be so easily forgotten?
Schumann & Strauss: Matters of the Heart - A Journey through a Woman´s Love & Life / Brady, Delaney
Prospero Classical
CD
$21.99Apr 01, 2022
Singer Sarah Brady on the genesis of the album: "We grasped the idea of an album entitled "Matters of the Heart" in the spring of 2020, at the time of the first lockdown during the Covid 19 pandemic. Stephen made the suggestion to put together a concert program for future performances. Women's Love and Life had been on my mind earlier, as I had wanted to work on this cycle since college. So it was soon clear that we both wanted to rehearse these Schumann songs. But what should we add? Stephen initially thought of a combination of several composers in the sense of a crossover album - including songs by the Beatles, for example! We came up with several program ideas and ultimately thought songs by Richard Strauss were best suited to expand on the emotional themes of the Schumann songs."
Hummel, Romberg, Rossini, & Schubert: 1824 - Works for Cello / Dangel, Biesemans, Polin, Preyer, Schmidt
Prospero Classical
CD
$20.99Mar 04, 2022
This album focusses on the year 1824 and brings it to life through the marvelous music of four composers who gave the cello a special role in their compositions, and by the text which tells the story of the year 1824 based on original sources from journals, newspapers, letters, recollections, historic objects and works of art. The text is a loose collection of well-known, newly discovered, strange and everyday happenings, anecdotes, moods and opinions which throw light on a year in which much else happens, not least of all the first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
FORTUNA DESPERATA was the most popular Italian song of the fifteenth century century and one of the most popular works of the entire Renaissance. The Mirabile Consort has recorded old and contemporary variations of this song for recorder ensemble
When baritone Milan Siljanov decided to record his first song album, the composers to be immortalised on it were immediately clear to him. Even in his early youth, he had the desire to become a pianist, even though he realised early on that his talents lay in other musical areas. But it was during this time that he first came into contact with Schubert's piano works, in particular the Impromptu No. 4 in A flat major - a piano piece that still fascinates him to this day. The singer also finds the melancholy and pathos of the music in many of Schubert's songs. It quickly became clear that Schubert would be a focal point of the album, complemented by two weighty cycles by Johannes Brahms and Frank Martin
The TriOlogie String Trio presents an extremely interesting compilation of music for string trio on it's debut album "A Tres Voces". Reger's first string trio is juxtaposed with three works composed by women. Among other things, it becomes clear that the less popular trio formation is in no way inferior to the string quartet in terms of artistry and timbre.
