Mezzo-soprano Maria Laschinger (Basel, *1977) and pianist Olivia Zaugg (Bern, *1995) create their own creative-feminine space with the Blickwechsel format. Blickwechsel directs our attention, our awareness and our clairvoyance to great works by female composers who have so far received too little attention. In this album hange ich, zwischen Zeiten, the duo focuses on the compositions of the young composer Francesca Gaza, who lives in Basel, alongside songs by the English composers and women's rights activists Rebecca Clarke and Ethel Smyth, which have rarely been performed and recorded to date. The commissioned composition hange ich, zwischen Zeiten by Francesca Gaza with poems by Maria Laschinger was created in a lively exchange between the three musicians and was premiered at the Jazzcampus Basel in April 2022. Francesca Gaza, rich in broad musical influences and compositional virtuosity, has added another composition of artistic and social relevance to the duo's programme. The composer is particularly interested in exploring, combining and breaking up the roles of the piano and the voice.

Niccolò Paganini, born on 27 October 1782 in Genoa and died on 27 May 1840 in Nice, was possibly the most virtuoso violinist in music history, but certainly the most popular and most celebrated of his time. In his day, the musician was surrounded by an aura of the demonic and was not unlike some pop stars of our time in terms of the "hype" surrounding his person and the circumstances of his appearance.

This live recording with orchestra is a rarity, as recordings of this work have only been available in the version with piano accompaniment since the turn of the century.

Unter dem Titel Wagneriana präsentiert diese Aufnahme das Schaffen Richard Wagners in neuem klanglichen und musikalischem Gewand. Das Spektrum reicht von Bearbeitungen der Originale bis hin zur Neuvertonung eines verschollenen Liedes. Diese besondere Produktion ist nicht zuletzt eine Hommage an die Josef Matthias Hauer-Musikschule Wiener Neustadt anlässlich ihres 150-jährigen Bestehens. Der Titel Wagneriana deutet darauf hin, dass keine der auf der CD enthaltenen Kompositionen in der Originalfassung von Wagner erklingt. Der Grad der Bearbeitung und Überarbeitung von Wagners Vorlagen variiert jedoch. Die Bandbreite reicht von Arrangements, die das Original lediglich in anderem Klang präsentieren, über Ergänzungen im Stil Wagners, Paraphrasen bis hin zu Collagen und der gänzlichen Neuvertonung eines verschollenen Liedes unter Verwendung von Wagnerschen Motiven.

The two pianists, Julius Zeman and Shun Oi, have made an exquisite and historic contribution to the Bruckner Year 2024 – celebrating the 200th birthday of the great symphonist by recording Anton Bruckner's Seventh Symphony in a version for two pianos. Some music lovers may ask in surprise, "For two pianos, not for piano four hands?" However, anyone who, like me, has heard the version for two pianos in a performance – on two Bösendorfer concert grand pianos, performed by the two pianists on this recording – will not find the answer difficult. The volume of sound that a symphony by Anton Bruckner unfolds in its orchestral form has a magnificent, even overwhelming effect, and something of this sonic power must also be conveyed by the piano version if it is not to do without a constitutive feature of this music. I was convinced by the live impression of the performance on two pianos: it truly sounded like "Bruckner," and I could only place the deep and moving impression of this performance alongside the best orchestral performances.

— Dr. Thomas Leibnitz

REVIEW:

Bruckner’s symphonies don’t easily lend themselves to piano reductions. The problem largely lies within the composer’s long stretches of string tremolos. If one literally replicates these effects on the piano, they sound like the worst clichés of silent movie accompaniments and grow instantly tedious. However, in their world premier recording of Hermann Behn’s two-piano Seventh Symphony arrangement, Julius Zeman and Shin Oi successfully circumvent the problem by subjecting the tremolos to altered dynamics, speeds and articulations. This ensures more textural variety, and makes it easier for the pianists to focus on the contrapuntal foreground. Their tempo fluctuations in the first movement have an organic ebb and flow, allowing for assiduous transitions and for themes to take full shape.

Shifts in color and balance beautifully demarcate the Adagio’s harmonic twists and turns. It’s all too easy for even the best pianists to get bogged down while approaching the big C Major climax, yet Zeman and Oi avoid this by minimizing accented downbeats with their eyes and ears on the long lines. They bring more cogent horizontal interplay to the Scherzo than in many orchestral performances, abetted by a moderate basic tempo. And the pianists bring impressive timbral character to the Finale’s themes; note, for instance, the mellifluously voiced chorale against the warmth of the detaché bass lines in octaves. The sonics are a tad dry for music that calls out for a more resonant ambience, but that matters little in light of the pianists’ excellent ensemble values and intelligent music making. Naturally one shouldn’t be without a recording of the orchestral original, but if you want to hear Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony on two pianos, look no further.

— ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

"Keywords," the title of this two-part concept album, cleverly plays with the English word "key," which carries a dual meaning, referring to both the piano key and the key itself. With one exception, the album features pivotal words from piano music of the 20th and 21st centuries, curated in a highly personal selection, including some premier recordings. The intention is to delve into a fundamental question of musical interpretation and composition: "how to address people with music." This doesn't imply the notion of making music verbally communicate. Instead, the pieces themselves are "speaking" works – piano compositions containing explicit or hidden messages, referencing poetry, incorporating language, words, or syllables, engaging in dialogues, resembling diary entries, or narrating entire stories. Moreover, the piano itself takes on various "voices" – whispering, stuttering, calling, hesitating.

— Lotte Thaler

The violin, the violoncello and the piano are blessed with an immense wealth of concertante works from all eras. Originally a cellist, and married to a marvellous cellist, it was only natural that many concertante works for strings were also written over the years.
However, writing for unusual instrumentations and instruments always seems to have had an appeal for me. Concertante works for vibraphone, saxophone and even snare drum ("Clatterclank" - homage to Jean Tinguely) bear witness to this. There are instruments which, despite their great potential in terms of expressiveness and tonal possibilities, have not been able to establish themselves in the classical concert repertoire. It is particularly surprising that, despite the great and worldwide popularity of the pan flute, there are hardly any concertante works for this instrument in a classical context.
The heckelphone, on the other hand, is still little known. With just over a hundred instruments in existence worldwide, it has its place above all in the great opera houses, where it shines with wonderful solos in operas by Richard Strauss, but also in his Alpine Symphony. In the 20th century it was used in the orchestra by Hans Werner Henze. Apart from a unique piece of chamber music by Paul Hindemith, a trio for viola, heckelphone and piano, the literature is quickly exhausted.

When Fanny Hensel, nee Mendelssohn Bartholdy, the wife of the Prussian court painter Wilhelm Hensel, died unexpectedly on 14 May 1847 at the age of 41 as a result of a stroke, the music writer and poet Ludwig Rellstab coined the beautiful phrase that she "also shared the sisterhood of talent with her famous brother".

This assertion has only recently been recognised in its full significance. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's eldest sister, granddaughter of the philosopher and Lessing's friend Moses Mendelssohn, niece of the scandal-ridden Dorothea Schlegel, was not only a musical prodigy, an outstanding pianist and conductor, her brother's closest confidante and advisor and a brilliant writer of letters, but also "the most important female composer of the 19th century" (Franz Krautwurst). Jahrhunderts" (Franz Krautwurst in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Supplement, article Fanny Hensel, 1979).

The present CD offers mostly first recordings of some piano compositions, primarily works that were published by the composer herself, and thus helps to gain a more differentiated picture of the creative abilities of this unusual woman.

"Keywords", the title of this two-part concept album, uses the English word "key" ambiguously: it stands for both the piano key and the key. With one exception, the album contains key words from piano music of the 20th and 21st centuries, in a very personal selection with some first recordings. They aim to explore a fundamental question of musical interpretation and composition, "how to address people with music." This does not mean the idea of somehow making music speak. Rather, they are themselves "speaking" works, i.e. piano music that contains explicit or hidden messages, refers to poems, incorporates language, words or syllables, conducts dialogues and dialogues, can be read as a diary or tells entire stories. And it is also the piano itself that appears in "voices" - whispering, stuttering, calling, hesitating. Lotte Thaler

What happens when three different musical personalities with different backgrounds but a common home in Georgia join forces and decide to form a trio? This can lead to an unconventional journey, as in the case of Ketevan Sepashvili, Temo Kharshiladze and Sandro Sidamonidze. They met in Vienna in 2019 and realised that it was only logical to embark on a musical path together. Flute, cello and piano are not a particularly common combination on the concert scene and in the repertoire, which is why arrangements of works originally created for other instruments are often on the desks of Trio Revolution. During their first concert project together, in which they performed Mendelssohn's D minor Trio, Ketevan, Temo and Sandro experienced the fascination of collective energy. The charisma of this encounter was immense, which led to an engagement for another concert - this time at a sold-out concert at the Vienna Musikverein! For this CD, the Trio-Revolution decided to explore original works especially for flute, cello and piano - music through which the three native Georgians, now living in Austria and the USA, will take you on an exciting and unconventional journey.

With their new CD "Hymne à l'amour"; the Duo Minerva once again shows how exciting and multifaceted classical music can sound. Their arrangements; woven with great artistry; their virtuosity and their exceptionally emotional style of music-making breathe fresh life into often-heard works. With a great deal of playfulness; the well-rehearsed duo moves between the most diverse genres and combines classical masterpieces with contemporary avant-garde; folk music and a pinch of the as yet unheard on the subject of love - entirely in Duo Minerva style.

Eight sonorous pieces that rise above themselves. Stylistics serve to be thought further. Doors are torn open, new horizons open up. Interaction. Communication. Fusion. Between the percussionist Kai Strobel, the pianist Katharina Treutler and the Argentinian bandoneon player and composer Omar Massa, something like this is created seemingly without friction. In other words, the best starting conditions for an adventure that light-footedly escapes pigeonholing - regardless of whether it is called tango nuevo, chamber music or jazz. Interpretations of famous pieces by the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla meet new commissioned works tailored to this ensemble. The common denominator is clearly defined: To create something new for the present …

Few composers are as well known and at the same time as infamous as Carl Czerny. This is mainly due to a few collections of etudes, which were used almost excessively by some piano teachers, at least in the past, to train finger technique. The actual exercises and etudes make up only a tenth of his oeuvre, which comprises over 2000 works, of which 861 are available in print. With these numbers, it must still be taken into account that each opus can consist of up to 50 individual pieces. The largest part of his oeuvre, almost half, must be counted as arrangements.

The "Quatuors Concertants" op. 230 and op. 816 also belong to this genre, although the main titles do not indicate this and the instrumentation for four pianos with eight hands places them above the usual arrangements. The two titles "1er Quatuor Concertant op. 230" and "2me Quatuor Concertant op. 816" indicate that these pieces were intended for the concert hall. The "Quatuor Concertant op. 230" was performed on 4 April 1830 for the benefit of the victims of a Danube flood in the k.k. great Redouten-Saal in Vienna, together with the Semiramis Overture by G. Rossini, which Czerny had arranged for eight pianos with 32 hands (see CD "Up to 8 pianos"). The attractiveness of this concert was further enhanced by the fact that only aristocratic pianists, and especially female pianists, performed.

“What a whimsical and diverse play between the poles of "nature" and "art" unfolds here! Rich in color and immensely playful, the Ensemble Sonorità knows how to plumb the space between these poles with the artfully assembled tones and sounds. But is it still "nature" when baroque composers appropriate birdsong for their works? Is it borrowed or not already actually domesticated or even enhanced nature when we read about "to hit the nature"? English as well as French and Italian works integrate on this album the proximity to nature or are inspired by it. It is not only for the pleasure of a "Bird Fancyer" at that time, it is also for the pleasure of a listener of today.” (Conrad Steinmann)

It is difficult to imagine a more touching sound than the gentle voice of a cello accompanied by the sweet tones of a Spanish guitar. In fact, for Nicole Peña Comas and Damien Lancelle, these two instruments sound so amorous together that they require an entire album to express all facets of love: passion, tenderness and lust, the burning desire of new lovers and affection for friends and family. Masterpieces by Tchaikovsky, Liszt or Robert Schumann as well as undiscovered treasures by August Nölck or Amy Beach have been selected and arranged for cello and guitar because they all set love to music.

Akira Ifukube writes: “The folk song! I have been living in it since my childhood. A folk song contains the whole person: his body, his soul, his environment, everything around him. Whoever grows up with national music grows into a complete person. A folk song has a spirit because it contains a real human being, whose culture was endowed by God and not acquired from outside. With this emotional and absolutely honest statement, Leoš Janácek summed up his lifelong fascination with folk songs during a stay in London in 1926. For Leoš Janácek (1854-1928), folklore was undoubtedly one of the essential sources of his work as a composer. Moravian Dances, Lachian Dances, and Suite for Orchestra, Op. 3, are heard on this release.

"Akira Ifukube (1914-2006) was one of the greatest composers on the contemporary music scene in his native country. At the same time, he provided Western listeners with an insight into Japanese musical culture. Although he became famous for his film music - he composed the scores of more than 250 films, of which the Godzilla series is particularly well known - his heart belonged to the world of classical music. His Japanese Suite, composed in 1933, is heard here. Ifukube wrote it after listening to recordings of Spanish music played by American pianist George Copeland (1882-1971). The original piano version of the suite is dedicated to Copeland. The first movement was performed by Alexander Tcherepnin in 1936; the entire piano suite was first performed at the Venice Festival of Contemporary Music in 1938. The orchestral version of the piano suite was written decades later and premiered in 1991."

Sontraud Speidel studied with Irene Slavin and Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen in Karlsruhe, with Branka Musulin in Frankfurt, with Stefan Askenase in Brussels and Géza Anda in Lucerne. She has been honored several times in national and international competitions. At the age of 16 she was awarded the 1st Prize of the Federal Republic of Germany, with the 1st Prize at the Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Washington, USA, with the Jackson Prize of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for Interpretation of New Music and with Ettore-Pozzoli Prize, Italy. Recitals, concerts with orchestra, appearances at festivals, chamber concerts as well as radio recordings and masterclasses took her all over Europe, the USA, Canada, Israel, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Brazil and Morocco. On her new release she presents a program of works by Fanny Hensel.

Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss were united by their deep relationship to literature and especially to poetry as a source of inspiration for it's musical interpretation and transcendence into a sphere of expression that reflected their own feelings about life. Nevertheless, both composers worked on their texts in very different ways. While Mahler adjusted the texts through a multitude of interventions - omissions, rearrangements, and even his own additions - according to need and expressive demand, Strauss stuck strictly to the poems. On this release Alois Muhlbacher performs an exciting program combining the lieder of both of these composers. He is joined by pianist Franz Farnberger.

In his musical travelogue from 1773, the English musician and musicologist Charles Burney described Bohemia as the "conservatory of Europe". The country, now part of the Czech Republic, was then part of the Austrian Empire and from here came many outstanding composers who, if they did not stay in the country, worked not only in Vienna and other Austrian cultural centers, but also at the courts of all Europe and in the German, Italian and French metropolises. The word "Bohemian" encompasses the Czech and German language areas of the Czech lands. No wonder that Czech and Bohemian music has fascinated many musicians and musicologists for three centuries.

Of the six works recorded here by J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach and G.F. Telemann (father, son and godfather), only two of them were specifically composed for the oboe, namely the g-minor sonata by C.P.E. Bach and the a-minor sonata by Telemann. However, as Emma Black proves on this new release, each of these works translates beautifully to the oboe. Australian born Emma Black is the principal oboist with the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble (Thomas Hengelbrock) and principal and soloist with the Wiener Akademie (Vienna) and Le Concert de la Loge (Paris). With all of these orchestras she has performed in all the major European festivals and can be heard in numerous album and radio recordings.

The oboe quartet W.B. 60 No.1 by Bach's youngest son, Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782), is no longer baroque at all, despite the musical education he received from his father and older brother Wilhelm Friedemann. His music thrives on sparkling melodies and an accompaniment bursting with ideas, which gives each instrument in his quartet compositions a high degree of independence and charming solos. Mozart's oboe quartet also reflects the new, virtuoso possibilities of the elegant and sensitive classical oboe and combines them with the lyrical sound of the strings. The fact that we know little music by Johann Baptist Wanhal (1739-1813) today does not do justice to the extensive oeuvre of this composer, who was successful during his lifetime. Born in Bohemia and died in Vienna, Wanhal was one of the most progressive musical personalities of his time. The last piece on this recording, Mozart's Adagio K. 580a in a version for cor anglais and strings, exists only as a fragment and shares thematic material with K. 618, Ave Verum Corpus, which was written in 1791, six months before Mozart's death, and which is thought to anticipate elements of the Requiem.

The pianist Violina Petrychenko is a tireless and convincing ambassador of Ukrainian music. Through her initiative, numerous works from her homeland have been made known to a wider international public. Together with the Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Volodymyr Syvokhip, she presents piano concertos by her compatriots Vasyl Barvinsky (1888-1963) and Viktor Kosenko (1896-1938): Each of them is an important milestone in Ukrainian music history, but unfortunately they have received little attention in the West.

Nordic Treasures with Katharina Sames and Mari Inoue curates landmarks of the "Nordic" - musical "snapshots" with individual influencing factors that are excitingly linked by a network of common roots. Apparent opposites interweave to form organic sound languages and merge into a colorful mosaic.

Since his student days, the German-Taiwanese pianist Marcel Mok has hardly studied any other work as frequently and intensively as Bach's Goldberg Variations BWV 988. It was therefore only logical not only to conclude his studies with this variation cycle, but also to make his recording debut with it. The result of this exploration absolutely proves him right!

For her album Planet Earth, pianist Lisa Maria Schachtschneider has selected mainly romantic to late impressionist piano works and transcriptions from the four elements of fire, earth, water and air. Last but not least, as an artist she wants to promote a more conscious and sustainable approach to our environment and our resources.

The fourth volume of the complete recording of all 18 piano sonatas by W. A. Mozart - Mozart, the Traveling Whirlwind - includes the sonata movements in G minor, KV 15p, and Siciliano in D minor, KV 15u, from the London sketchbook of the 8-year-old Mozart; the sonata movement in B-flat major, KV 400/372; and Sonatas Nos. 7, 8, and 9. Michael Wessel combines the insights of historically informed performance practice with the rich, colorful tone of the modern B�sendorfer concert grand piano in a refreshing way: a lively, contrasting mixture of speaking and singing characters.