Almost every music lover has probably heard Erich Höbarth play at least once: active as Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s concertmaster, as first violinist of the Quatuor Mosaïques, and in many other positions of musical life, heard in numerous recordings and television broadcasts, he is an almost omnipresent figure. Höbarth unites historical performance practice with the self-assured poise of an individual artistic personality. The Viennese violinist has found here a congenial partner in the young Aapo Häkkinen from Helsinki, who, exactly like Höbarth, can already boast extensive experience as an ensemble director.

Violin and Harpsichord – these are namely the instruments that Bach himself played as ensemble director and as soloist, and that he brings together in the present sonatas as if at a chamber music summit meeting. Already in the eighteenth century, the six-sonata cycle BWV 1014–1019 numbered among his best works. Höbarth and Häkkinen captivate with wonderful ensemble playing. Aapo Häkkinen plays a – today rarely found – 16’ harpsichord, that is to say, with an additional, lower sounding register. It has been reported that Bach likewise had a 16’ instrument at his disposal in Köthen, where he composed the sonatas. - Aeolus Music

After having already released the solo harpsichord concertos, which received several awards, Aapo Häkkinen and the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra go on with the concertos for two harpsichords, together with renowned French harpsichord player Pierre Hantaï. The sonata for two harpsichords by the oldest Bach son Wilhelm Friedemann is a welcome addition. The French harpsichordist, Pierre Hantaï, became passionately attached to the music of Bach around the age of ten. Thanks to the influence of Gustav Leonhardt, he began to study the harpsichord, alone at first, then guided by the American teacher Arthur Haas. He gave his first concerts at an early age, alone or with his brothers Marc and Jérôme. He then spent two years studying in Amsterdam with Gustav Leonhardt, who subsequently invited him to perform under his direction. In 1983 Hantaï scored his first major triumph through taking first prize at the International Bach-Handel Competition of Bruges in Belgium; since then, Hantaï has collected an impressive number of honors and awards.

The Flanders Recorder Quartet is going to finish its career in 2018. While this news has spread quickly among the recorder aficionados and created a huge interest in their final world tour, this famous ensemble again released a unique record. This release is an anthology of five hundred years of music history in a nutshell, combining the intimate sonority of old masterpieces with a touch of jazz by contemporary composers. But in contrast to previous recordings, the quartet has chosen from the substantial pile of five-voice music that music literature has been spoiled with and invited a revered colleague to join its ranks: Saskia Coolen. This is not only a masterful overview of music history, but a fitting overview of an impressive and influential career.

The present release features works for trumpet and organ, played by Adam Rixer and Maurice Clement. Adam Rixer, born in Budapest in 1975, comes from a family of musicians. He began to play the trumpet at the age of ten; at 18, he took up trumpet studies under György Geiger in his home town, at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. During those years, he twice won the national trumpet competition in Debrecen (Hungary) and took second prize at the international trumpet competition in Pilisvörösvár (Hungary). Since 1999, Adam Rixer has been first solo trumpeter in the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg. After his initial musical education at the Luxembourg and Brussels conservatoires with Alain Wirth, Jean Ferrard and Benoît Mernier respectively, Maurice Clement consolidated his organ studies with Jean Boyer at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon. This encounter was decisive and profoundly influenced his career as a musician. Maurice Clement displays his love of classical and improvised music in his activity as a concert musician and in his educational approach. In his many workshops and training courses he insists on stirring the musical imagination between creation and interpretation while stressing presence and immediacy. Parallel to his capacity as Professor of Organ at the Conservatoire de Musique du Nord in Luxembourg he leads this institution’s improvisation classes.

Traditional music from Ireland, England and Scotland touches our hearts in a way that is very special and somehow magical. On this album, "Spirit and Pleasure" shows excerpts from the musical world of the 17th & 18th century in Ireland, Scotland and England: old pieces that were only passed down orally, new music in the traditional style, composers who are assigned to the "courtly-bourgeois" music, discovered the charm of these melodies, provided them with basso continuo and variations and published them among others in London, the musical center of England. The album title "Good taste" is derived from the "Treatise of Good Taste in the Art of Music" by Francesco Geminiani.

The Marian pilgrimage site of Kevelaer near the Dutch border is famous for its large neo-Gothic basilica and its organ, built in 1907, which is one of the largest church organs in Germany. Felix Weingartner set Heinrich Heine's ballad Die Wallfahrt nach Kevlaar for voice and orchestra, but in this recording of sacred songs for baritone and organ, the instrument effortlessly replaces an entire orchestra. In this version, the work is now a premiere recording, moreover at the authentic place of action. The program by René Perler and Romano Giefer is completed by sacred songs by Kropfreiter (also in a premiere recording), Rheinberger and Cornelius.

The cathedral organist Daniel Beckmann from Mainz has assembled original organ works by Schumann and works for the pedal piano, which the composer worked intensively on in Dresden in 1845. The instrument used was built in 1836 by Bernhard Dreymann for St. Ignaziuskirche in Mainz and represents very well the upheaval in German organ building away from the baroque tradition and towards the romanticism. Daniel Beckmann was appointed as the principal organist at the age of 29 at Mainz Cathedral by Cardinal Lehmann in 2010. In this capacity he is responsible for the liturgical and non- liturgical organ music in the cathedral. Prof. Beckmann initiated the Internationaler Orgelsommer, an international organ festival and the monthly Orgelmatin�e. Currently, his focus is on the major renovation of the cathedral organs. In 2014, Daniel Beckmann started teaching an international organ class at the Mainz School of Music, an integral part of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. An active concert activity has led him to well-known organ and music festivals in Germany and abroad. Daniel Beckmann has been awarded several prestigious prizes: the 1st prize at the International Organ Competition of Saint-Maurice (Switzerland/2009), a scholarship of the "Deutscher Musikwettbewerb" (Berlin/2005), the membership of the 50th National Selection of Young Artists of the "Deutscher Musikrat", the Kulturpreis des Kreises Olpe 2011 (cultural award of his home county Olpe) and the nomination as first "Mainzer Stadtmusiker" (2016).

Léon Berben can be considered a master of his trade on the harpsichord and organ. Furthermore, his extensive knowledge of music history and historical performance practice make him one of the leading figures of his generation in the "early music" scene. His repertoire includes keyboard works from 1550 to 1790 and he also co-authored the encyclopedia "Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.” Intensive study of sources and constant research work give the art of interpretation of Léon Berben a special status. His solo recordings on historical organs and harpsichords have been highly praised by the specialist press and have received several awards, including the "Diapason d'Or", the "Choc" of "Le Monde de la Musique" and the quarterly “Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik.” On his latest recording he plays the complete organ works by Matthias Weckmann.

REVIEW:

The perfect marriage of instrument and music – Weckmann belongs to the pre-Bach north German school and his colourful music is brought thrillingly to life here on two 17th-century German organs.

– BBC Music Magazine

Throughout his life, Johann Sebastian Bach arranged and parodied his own and other composers' works. This openness to the practice of transcription, which has been demonstrated in so many ways, encourages the composer to venture into new instrumentations even in modern times. This is what the baroque violinist Annegret Siedel and the organist Ute Gremmel-Geuchen practice here with great joy in experimentation. Particularly exciting are, for example, the famous Toccata and Fugue BWV 565 in the presumed original version for violin solo as well as organ arrangements of some individual movements of the choral motet Jesu, meine Freude BWV 227. Of course, both also play together, for example in the Trio Sonata in E minor BWV 528.

Completion of an internationally acclaimed series: Aapo Häkkinen and the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra conclude the cycle of Bach's harpsichord concertos with the concertos for 3 and 4 harpsichords. Here, too, Häkkinen surprises in terms of instrumentation: The harpsichords represent different schools of instrument building (German, Flemish, French and Italian), resulting in a remarkably differentiated sound. With Miklós Spányi, Cristiano Holtz, and Anna-Maaria Oramo, Häkkinen is supported by experienced companions. This keyboard festival is rounded off with the monumental Duetto by the eccentric Bach pupil Johann Gottfried Müthel, presented by specialists Miklós Spányi and Aapo Häkkinen on two historic clavichords.

Soprano Theresa Nelles and cathedral organist Winfried Bönig invite us to an atmospheric Christmas Eve in Cologne Cathedral and present a varied programme of Romantic works from various countries: music for the feast that goes straight to the heart. The great acoustics of Cologne Cathedral have been deliberately captured on this audiophile SACD. Born in Cologne, Theresa Nelles has had close ties with Cologne Cathedral since childhood, not only emotionally but also musically. During her 10 years of choir membership in the girls' choir at Cologne Cathedral, she already received her first solo tasks, was also the singer of a jazz band of the so called Cathedral-music for a long time and, after her High school graduation, studied singing at the Cologne Academy of Music with Prof. Mechthild Georg and in Rome at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia. Engagements take the singer to festivals at home and abroad, such as the Festival Internazionale di Musica e Arte Sacra in Italy, Switzerland, South Tyrol, Russia, the International Handel Festival in Göttingen, the Beethoven Festival Bonn, the Brühl Castle Concerts, to opera houses such as Krefeld/ Mönchengladbach, Koblenz, Gelsenkirchen, the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, the Cologne and Essen Philharmonics and, last but not least, regularly to large churches, always particularly fond of the local cathedral.

Hieronymus Praetorius stands at the beginning of the North German organ school and is an important representative of the German-Venetian school, not least with his vocal works. His organ music is particularly interesting and appealing because it has not yet undergone the development of the "Amsterdam-Hamburg Sweelinck School" and therefore many performance-practical aspects are not yet clearly outlined. This raises a number of performance-practical questions, not least concerning the choice of registrations, to which Léon Berben would like to provide an answer with this recording. The choice of the two historic organs from Langwarden (1650) and Lemgo (1613) - two instruments ideally suited for 16th century music, of which there are hardly any recordings so far - complete the impression of an absolutely sound new recording.

The tenebrae are among the prayers of the hours of Holy Week in the Catholic Church. Since the 15th century, settings of Jeremiah's lamentations have been an integral part of church services, which, especially in France, were among the musical highlights of this otherwise rather "musicless" period. Lully's father-in-law, Michel Lambert (1610-1696), was court Kapellmeister in Versailles from 1670. His Lecons de tenebres are characterized by a subtle setting of texts, which use sparse but all the more delicately applied ornamentation. Soprano Monique Zanetti and the ensemble Les Temps Presents present us here the Lecons for the Wednesday of Holy Week.

A famous historical quote provided the idea for this program: Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray, the outstanding French baroque viola da gamba virtuosos, were like “angel” and “devil” for their contemporaries – antithetical figures who produced greatly different sounds on their instruments. Soloist Rainer Zipperling (Ricercar Consort, among others) juxtaposes the amicable suites by Marais with Forqueray’s Fifth Suite, which beseeches the listener with dark sounds and always goes to the limits of the instrument. The pieces seem even more mysterious when one takes into account Rainer Zipperling’s comments in the booklet text about the authorship of Forqueray’s suites: Are they in fact works by his talented son, whom he even had imprisoned out of jealousy? A particularly welcome “bonus” and an enrichment of the viola da gamba canon is Rainer Zipperling’s arrangement of the well-known rondeau “La Forqueray” by the late- baroque French harpsichord virtuoso Jacques Duphly. Ghislaine Wauters on the second viola da gamba and Pieter-Jan Belder on a French harpsichord are his tried-and-true partners on this recording.

Harpsichord friends had to wait a long time for this fourth album and the conclusion of the complete harpsichord works of Louis Couperin (a fifth organ volume is still in preparation). On the fantastic original “Velen” Ruckers harpsichord, recorded in a church on the Lower Rhine, Bob van Aspern shows with his inimitably flexible and colorful playing why this repertoire is so loved by connoisseurs. The musical proximity to Johann Jacob Froberger and the Parisian colleagues is not only to be heard, but also described and elucidated by Bob van Aspern in the as always comprehensive booklet – even several works by Parisian “guest composers” are included as in the previous volumes.