In John Dowland’s both intimate and expressive songs it’s all about ‘speaking harmony’. This is what vocalist David Munderloh and lutenist Julian Behr, in their merging of voice with lute, attempt to impart as they search for the composer’s essence in this album of select songs from this Renaissance master, interspersed with a handful of instrumental lute solos. Currently residing in Basel, Switzerland, American tenor and former Chanticleer member David Munderloh's repertoire includes music of several musical eras, from medieval to 19th c. lieder as well as modern contemporary.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

• The debut CD of violinist Liv Migdal, who began her artistic studies at age eleven and since then has compiled an impressive list of scholarship and competition awards. Her concert activities have taken her to many countries in Europe, to Israel and Asia. She is here accompanied on piano by her father, Marian Migdal, who himself has had a long and distinguished career as a performer, recording artist and professor since his competition successes of the early 1970's.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Classical Music

The Zurich Ensemble is known for their unusual instrument combination- clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. Following their first recording of works specifically arranged for this instrumentation, this programme features composers of three generations, each touching on an aspect of existence. Fabian Muller’s composition “Am Anfang ( In The Beginning) is a musical painting of creation myths and legends. Volker David Kirchner’s “Exil” deals with the thought of individual isolation as well as external emigration. Also included on this release is an arrangement of Messiaen’s “Quatuor pour la fin du Temps.” Although the piece was written under dire circumstances, the ensemble chooses to view this piece through the lens of salvation and hope.

It was Leticia Gomez-Tagle's dream to record two major works of the piano repertoire which she has performed in concert for many years: Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and Ravel's "Gaspard de la nuit". In order to balance the two dramatic works, two transcriptions of Schubert songs by Franz Liszt were inserted between them.

In his works for cello and piano Mendelssohn created a catchy music of high artistic quality, which certainly belongs to the best that was written at that time. Friedrich Kleinhapl and Andreas Woyke, as a well-rehearsed duo, deliver a fully convincing recording.

“For me, it is important when I compose songs, not first and foremost to make music, but above all to give expression to the poet’s innermost intentions. To let the poem reveal itself and to intensify it, that was my task. If this task is tackled, then the music is also successful. Not otherwise, no matter how celestially beautiful it may be.” At the time Edvard Grieg wrote these words in a letter to his biographer Henry Finck in 1903, he was at the height of his success and enjoyed the reputation as the greatest living composer in his native country of Norway. His popularity remains undiminished. Lyric soprano Siri Karoline Thornhill studied in her hometown of Stavanger, Norway and did her masters degree at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. She gathered further important impulses in master-classes with Anna Reynolds and Elly Ameling, and has worked with well-known conductors such as Ivan Fischer, Ton Kooopman, Daniel Reuss, and more. Her extensive discography includes recordings of Bach cantatas with La Petite Bande and Sigiswald Kuijken as well as all solo cantatas for soprano with Kolner Kammerorchester and Helmut Muller-Bruhl.

Laura Schmid, born in Stuttgart in 1989, began her recorder studies in Carsten Eckert's youth class at the Trossingen University of Music in 2007. In 2009 she continued to study with Carsten Eckert as part of her undergraduate course at Bern University of the Arts (HKB), graduating with distinction in this as well as in her postgraduate education degree at HKB with Michael Form. She also successfully completed the Master's degree in Specialized Music Performance (soloist diploma) in 2016, earning the distinction "Excellent". The programme selected for her production 'Il Postiglione' contains some particularly precious pearls of chamber music for recorder. These are original works and arrangements, in keeping with the musical use of the late Baroque period. All three composers on this release for ARS PRODUKTION were closely associated with the musical life at the Saxon court in Dresden.

Providing a platform for young artists has always been important to the label Ars produktion, next to helping them lay the groundwork for a music career. The young flutist Sofia de Salis, who enjoyed tuition among the most distinguished teachers and has already won numerous competitions, will certainly continue to achieve great success in the future.