Discover Johanna Domotor's newly interpreted sound combination, in which flute and string orchestra merge musically. The flutist Johanna Domotor not only shines in dizzying passages, she also juggles virtuously between original works and arrangements, between arranged baroque music and early modern music. The album captures the diversity of 20th century music and presents three world premiere recordings of famous composers such as Shostakovich, Arnold and Stravinsky. The collaboration with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra enhances the auditory experience, as Johanna Domotor and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra also make their long-standing musical friendship audible outside the concert hall with this album.

"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

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 idea for this recording was born during the Covid pandemic in 2020, when many of us were isolated and unable to communicate with each other in person. It was difficult for musicians during this time, especially because they couldn't make music with others or give live concerts. This situation made us think about how composers, musicians and artists dealt with situations where there was no freedom and how they dealt with chaos, obstacles or persecution. In selecting the works for this album, we looked at different historical periods (which sometimes included pandemics) to understand the impact that oppression and lack of freedom had on the creative process. In the course of our extensive research, we finally became aware of the "positive" aspect of this topic: we were not so much interested in what people could not do due to restrictive situations and adverse circumstances, but above all in what they were able to achieve despite these circumstances. During our research, we came across impressive artistic personalities who have left behind music of great value.

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.

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)

With this programme, we want to show that these female composers - Josephine Lang and Ethel Smyth - can not only hold their own alongside an established and frequently performed song cycle by one of the "big names", Richard Strauss, but that their emotionality, quality and compositional accuracy are absolutely essential in the great canon of song literature, because that is where they undoubtedly belong, bringing a unique perspective and a message that is still far too little heard to this colourful genre in the most creative way. Duo Yvonne Prentki/Benedikt ter Braak

As a cellist, you inevitably come across Astor Piazzolla's Grand Tango, his only original composition for cello and piano. I was immediately enchanted. Some time later, I travelled to Caracas for concerts with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra and met the famous composer Federico Ruiz. He was immediately prepared to arrange Piazzolla's "Adios Nonino" for cello and piano for me. Each subsequent tango drew me deeper and deeper into this cosmos. From this idea of combining South American temperament with European depth and my classical conception of sound, the CD programme Pasión Tango for cello and piano was finally created. The programme was enthusiastically received in live concerts in many countries, from Europe, Japan, and China to North and South America. The next step was a logical continuation: to play tangos with the cello again, but with a classical orchestra instead of the piano, in order to explore the tonal and emotional potential of this repertoire even more deeply - the result is Pasión Tango - el Gran. Friedrich Kleinhapl

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.

"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

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.

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.

I have always been fascinated by musical settings of literature. This is the background to this project. Transcriptions of literary or musical models are also a favourite topic of discussion with my concert audiences.

Violina Petrychenko is very authentically committed to making Ukrainian music and culture better known. 'Winter Whispers / Ukrainian Piano Stories' is a musical journey to her homeland, where memories of the old traditions of Christmas caroling are preserved. Most of the pieces are recorded for the first time, which makes the release quite unique.

This CD brings together works by three outstanding composers of the 19th and 20th centuries, each of whom interprets the connection between violin and piano in a unique compositional way. The Violin Sonata Op. 18 by Richard Strauss transports you into a world of melodic beauty and harmonic unity between the two instruments. Strauss, known for his symphonic poems and operas, shows here his masterly ability to combine the virtuosity of the violin with pianistic brilliance. Clara Schumann's Three Romances for Violin and Piano Op. 22 reveal a tender and expressive connection between the instruments. A remarkable pianist and composer of the 19th century, Clara Schumann here demonstrates her masterful ability to bring the violin and piano together in an intimate union. The Myths Op. 30 by the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski unfold as fascinating musical tales from Greek mythology. Here the violin becomes the storyteller, while the piano sensitively accompanies the dramatic and expressive aspects of the myths. The two instruments blend into a mysterious and colourful overall sound. In each of these compositions it becomes clear how both instruments together unfold an extraordinary expressive power. Whether it is melodic beauty, tender expressions or dramatic narratives, these works show the timeless fascination and unique connection between violin and piano.