Classical Music

Classical Music

“Das lyrische Intermezzo” (The lyrical intermezzo) is an exciting mixture of Heine 's biting ironic lyrics, recited by Cornelius Obonya, and Schumann' s transfigured songs of poetry. The combination of poems and music makes the recording a fascinating experience: it is an adventure to get involved in the completely new story that results! Cornelius Obonya, who here performs the recitation, enrolled at the Max Reinhardt Seminar to study acting at age 17, but left after one year to train with cabaret artist Gerhard Bronner. Since 1989, he has played in multiple theater productions. He is regularly seen in film and TV productions, as well as work as a voice actor. Baritone Klemens Sander is a winner of the Richard Tauber Prize, the International Schumann Competition Sqickau and the International Vocal Competition’s Hertogenbosch. He has made himself a name as a sought-after performer of contemporary opera literature. Pianist Uta Sander studied concert piano, lied accompaniment and instrumental education at the Mozarteum University Salzburg with Karl-Heinz Kammerling, Hartmut Holl, and Rolf Plagge. She then completed a master’s degree in Arts Management at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

The three works selected for this recording by pianist Caspar Frantz – Davidsbündlertänze, op. 6, his first great piano cycle; Nachtstücke, op. 23, and Gesänge der Frühe, op. 123 –are quite dissimilar in some ways and yet closely related in others. • Typical of the arch-Romantics, all have as their inspiration a literary source, and all three differently represent Schumann’s early creative burst and his somewhat ill-considered latterly decline. +Mr. Frantz is an internationally recognized concert and recording artist, with two acclaimed previous recordings for the Ars Produktion label.

The theme of this new release is childhood memories. The works by George Enescu that are presented here contrast one another, as the first two were written very early in his career while the last shows his more mature compositional style. Performing these works are violinist Stefan Tarara and pianist Lora Vakova-Tarara.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Together with the string quartet, the Sonata for Violin and Piano has been one of the standard works of classical chamber music since the 18th century. The violinist Elisa van Beek and her piano accompanist Giorgos Karagiannis show the development of the violin sonata with contributions by Mozart, Brahms and Bartók. Elisa van Beek was born into a musical family in Germany. At the age of six she received her first piano lesson with Birgit Helber at the Music School in Trossingen. She also took lessons from her father and won first prize at the regional Jugend Musiziert music competition. At the age of eleven she discovered her passion for the violin while taking lessons with Rudolf Rampf and later with Riza Yildiz at the Diapason Music Academy in Karlsruhe. She went on to study at the Folkwang University of the Arts and the State Academy of Music in Trossingen. She is currently engaged as a permanent substitute at the State Theatre in Hanover, Germany.

This 20-song Schubert recital disc includes 'Erlkonig', ' Der Tod und das Madchen' 'Die Forelle' and 'An die Musik' among others. Bass-Baritone Clemens Morgenthaler's repertoire is wide and varied, Baroque to Contemporary, and his concert tours have taken him across Europe to perform. Clemens Morgenthaler...(impressed by his) vocal abilities and clear declamation of the text. - Frankische Nachrichten Pianist Bernhard Renzikowski's accompanist career stretches back more than 20 years.

The three fine, substantial 20th c. works, and the brief 21st c. piece reflective of the program’s mission, all composed for violin and piano duo, offers an instrument-specific look into the musical world of the 1920s. • With the exception of Jacques-Alphonse De Zeegant (b. 1955), all the composers represented here – Bloch, Ravel and Enescu – were born during the final third of the 19th c. • The idea behind the selections on this new Ars Produktion recording presented by Stefan Tarara and Lora Vakova-Tarara is to make audible a cross-section of the many tone colors, contrasts and emotions of the era.

One of the most delightful combinations in chamber music is the musical interplay between a keyboard instrument and a melody instrument, where the percussive nature of the keyboard is juxtaposed with the permanent tonal presence of a wind or string instrument. This record features works for piano solo and violin, as well as arrangements of original works for piano and orchestra. The characteristics of orchestration are reversed in so far as an existing score for piano or orchestra is adapted for the piano and the violin. Naturally, most of the melodic material was ported to the violin and offers plenty of opportunities for bravura displays by the soloist Aleksey Semenenko, particularly if the arrangement was made by a violin virtuoso. Aleksey Semenenko, born in 1988 in Odessa, Ukraine, began his violin studies at the age of six at the Stolyarsky School. He made his concert debut the following year, performing Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in A Minor together with the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra. He completed his concert diploma with Zakhar Bron at the University of Music in Cologne and is currently enrolled in the chamber music class of Harald Schoneweg. He has been praised for his “stunning technique and intonation, verve, wit, and beautiful phrasing,” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), as well as consistently demonstrating “an unparalleled level of refined musicianship and stage presence” (The Strad).

Classical Music

The Bach recordings on this double album with Boris Bloch were made over a period of fifteen years. They document the pianist's engagement with the timelessness of this music. "My engagement with Bach grants me the happiest moments on the piano today and leads me on a road where there are no walls and no final destinations." (Boris Bloch) Born in Odessa, the pianist and conductor Boris Bloch has long been regarded as one of the most important interpreters of classical and romantic piano music. After studying at Moscow's Tchaikovsky Conservatory under the world-renowned pianist and pedagogue Dmitri Bashkirov he soon built up a large and ever expanding repertoire extending from Scarlatti and Bach, the Viennese Classicists, Chopin and Liszt and covering the German and Russian Romantics to the most important composers of the 20th century. Bloch's detailed knowledge of the piano literature of the last three centuries, his familiarity with the entire history of music and it's protagonists along with his stupendous pianism and above all things his strong artistic personality form the basis for the much vaunted depth of expression, the abundance of color, the amazing stylistic originality and the incomparable "singing tone" of his playing, manifesting themselves equally in the careful composition of his recitals.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.