In celebration of Claude Debussy's Centenary in 2018, the French pianist Vincent Larderet presents a recording of three masterpieces: Images (Book I), Pr�ludes (Book II), and the world premiere recording of Andr� Caplet's transcription of the Symphonic Fragments from Le Martyre de saint S�bastien, revised and completed by Vincent Larderet. Following three highly acclaimed recordings that won 23 awards worldwide and were nominated for the prestigious ICMA Award, ARS Produktion presents an 80-minute album by a pianist whose interpretations have been compared to legends of the piano such as Michelangeli, Arrau and Zimerman and who was praised for his "astonishing range of pianistic colours" (PIANO News, Germany). Mr. Larderet is the Artistic Director of the Piano au Musee Wurth international festival in France, and in 2014 was appointed "Honorable International Artist-In-Residence" of the Hong Kong Music and Performing School.

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Regarded as a luminous, elegant and extroverted artist, Judith Jáuregui has become one of today’s most captivating young pianists. She has already recorded works by diverse composers and periods: from Debussy, Liszt and Mompou to Albéniz, Granados and Falla or Scriabin. She now joins the catalogue of ARS PRODUKTION with an album that is her first live recording to be published and a repertoire to which she feels a special connection. Born in San Sebastian, Spain, she has been linked to different cultures since her childhood: with a Basque mother and a father who is Mexican by birth and French by adoption, Judith took her first musical steps in her hometown and would finish her studies in Munich, Germany, with the Russian maestro Vadim Suchanov.

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Tatiana Chernichka writes of her new release: “The 24 Etudes of Frederic Chopin have a special place in the literature for the piano. These concert etudes are among the most difficult and most original of all works for the piano, and no pianist can resist coming to terms with at least several of them. The foundation of my journey as a pianist, as well as to my connection to the 24 etudes, was laid already before my birth. Born into a family of musicians from Novosibirsk, I represent the fifth generation of pianists. My mother, Olga Volchkova, was an outstanding pianist who studied under Heinrich Neuhaus and Yakov Zak at the Moscow Conservatory. Upon graduation, she was appointed to the faculty of the Conservatory in Novosibirsk, where she taught, lived, and became a mother. My mother was the first person in Novosibirsk to perform all 24 etudes in concert. In November 2014, I repeated this with a performance in the same concert hall, thus becoming the second person in my home town to play the etudes in concert. The recording of my [album] coincided with the 70th anniversary of my mother’s birth, and I wish to dedicate this recording to her memory.”

On this new release, Julia Rinderle presents a programme of music by Franz Schubert, the first composer in the history of music who considered composing, not performing, his first calling. Julia Rinderle, born in 1990 in Memmingen, studied in Hanover with Roland Krüger, at the Salzburg Mozarteum and in Vienna. She also attended numerous master classes (among others with Emanuel Ax and Paul Badura-Skoda). The young pianist fascinates her audience with strong stage presence and deeply felt playing. She is in high demand on concert stages across Europe and the United States. She released her debut album with works by Anselm Huttenbrenner in 2016.

Caroline Goulding presents her debut CD along with pianist Danae Dörken. Caroline Goulding, a Boston, MA native has received the Kempinsky Young Artists Fellowship, the Avery Fisher Career grant and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. She appears throughout the world, performing solo repertoire. German newspaper Die Welt describes Dörken as "a poet on the piano". Dörken is one of the most sought-after soloists of her generation, playing regularly at festivals and concert halls around the world.

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.

The first half of the 18th century can be described as the last revival of the traverso flute before it fell into a slumber, from which it awakened again decades later named as "Bohmflote" (transverse flute). In this time a variety of magnificent, virtuosic chamber music by Diabelli, Carulli or Giuliani originated. On this record the works are impressively interpreted by Ensemble Consolazione. Ensemble Consolazione has existed in the current formation since 1995, and originally played twentieth-century literature for flute and guitar on modern isntruments. The two Czech musicians discovered their common interest in early music and historical instruments, and so the duo began with the historical performance of virtuoso "duo concertanti" from the early nineteenth century already during their studies at the Prague Conservatory. Since 2002, Ensemble Consolazione has played exclusively on original instruments or copies thereof, dedicated itself intensively to research on historical interpretation techniques, and resurrected forgotten repertoire for this formation from archives and library collections.

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The 24 Preludes and the Sonata in B minor are among the most significant works by Chopin. Despite his poor health, Chopin was able to complete the Preludes during his stay on the island of Mallorca. Chopin lost his father shortly before he began to work on the B minor Sonata and once again, he was very ill. It seems almost incomprehensible that Chopin was able to write rich, dramatic works of this magnitude during periods of intense suffering. Kotaro Fukuma’s concept for this recording was a juxtaposition of two life cycles: the first cycle consists of the Preludes paired with the Berceuse, which appear to symbolize the ascent to heaven; the Contredanse marks the beginning of a new section, of a second cycle, which comes to a triumphant conclusion with the Finale of the B minor Sonata. Born in Tokyo, Kotaro Fukama took his first piano lesson at the age of five. After winning both First Prize and the Chopin Prize at the International Piano Competition in Cleveland, Kotaro Fukuma embarked on an international concert career across the globe. He has performed at major concert venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, and many others. He currently resides in Berlin. “A fabulous artist… and a prince among peers.” (The Independent)

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Unfortunately we know absolutely nothing about the life of Charles Dollé. Not even his approximate birth and death dates are known. From his six collections of instrumental works published between 1737 and 1754 we can logically infer that he was a Frenchman, a viola da gamba virtuoso, and a composer. The chronic dearth of further information about this musicians is evidently the reason why music historians have either completely passed him by or relegated him to mere footnote, in the shadow of his contemporaries Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray who are generally regarded as representing the best and technically most difficult works for viola da gamba. Petr Wagner get Dollé's music out of his undeserved shadowy existence.

The composer Julius Röntgen (1855-1932) was born in Leipzig. His father was first violinist in the Gewandhaus Orchestra, his first piano teacher was Carl Reinecke, the director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. In 1877 Röntgen went to Amsterdam, and became a piano teacher in the Conservatory there. As renowned accompanying pianist, Röntgen was working for the great violinist Carl Flesch and the cello player Pablo Casals. For a while these musicians even formed a piano trio with Röntgen. After the highly acclaimed volume one with Piano Trios (ARS 38031), the Storioni Trio presents now the Piano Trios no. 2 and 4, written in 1894 and 1898. The Storioni Trio, founded in 1995, has worked over the years with great musicians such as Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Menahem Pressler, as well as members of the Emerson Quartet and the Vermeer Quartet, and performs chamber music with artists such as Gidon Kremer, Dimitri Sitkovetsky, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Rainer Kussmaul, Nobuko Imai, Emma Johnson. The Storioni Trio regularly give concerts at all major venues in the Netherlands, such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and at the most important music centres in the world, such as the Weill Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall) or the Wigmore Hall in London.

Traugott Maximilian Eberwein (1775-1831) was a member of the exquisite circle of artists, which was called the "Weimarer Musenhof“. Goethe was also a member and they worked under the patronage of the art-loving Duchess Anna Amalia. As an extremely productive composer, Eberwein composed numerous operas, songs, and also orchestral music, which can be heard on this recording played by the Thüringisches Kammerorchester Weimar under Max Pommer. The Thuringian Chamber Orchestra, founded in 1962 by members of the Staatskapelle Weimar, is one of the world’s oldest chamber orchestras. It is located in historic Weimar, the city of poets and phillsophers, but also of great musicians such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss. The ensemble peforms regularly at concert venues across Germany and in many European countries as well as in the Far East and Mexico. The orchestra’s repertoire ranges from the 18th to the 21st century, with a focus on composers from Weimar and its surroundings. Their extensive discography includes over 250 recordings for radio broadcast, and illustrates the ensemble’s stylistic confidence and its consistently high levels of musicianship.

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.

Pianist and conductor Boris Bloch has long been regarded as one of the most important interpreters of classical and romantic piano music. Volume 5 on Ars Produktion contains live recordings of Rachmaninov's piano works.

Ignaz Joseph Pleyel (1757-1831) wrote a number of remarkable string quintets that have largely been ignored by musical scholarship owing to the fact that there were no extant scores or reprints available. As part of their efforts to produce a complete scientific edition of Pleyel’s oeuvre, the Int’l Pleyel Society has undertaken the task of setting the scores and individual parts of all 17 String Quintets (Ben 271-287) using the Sibelius software program. Pleyel’s string quintets are firmly rooted in the Viennese tradition of such composers as Hoffmeister, Krommer and Wranitzky.

Great works of chamber music by a master of melodies, performed by internationally renowned musicians - all the elements are in place for a feast of surprises on this recording. First up is a string quartet for violin, two violas and violoncello. Pleyel's String Sextet, a work that holds up well against other sextets from that time, was first recognized in the Hoffmeister edition published on 14 May 1791. Pleyel's four-movement Quintet in G minor with its surprisingly short and slow introduction could be described as "a prodigious and prescient romantic reconception." In this work, Pleyel did not comply with the dictate of fashion - instead of writing for the music market, he wrote for an audience of connoisseurs, availing himself of "the science of composition." As the musicologist and composer Vogler put it, "he can when he wants to." In all likelihood, the String Quintet has never been publicly performed and is therefore one of his (and not only his) most interesting string quintets.

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This new release has been long anticipated, and concludes Ars Produktion’s discographic documentation of one of the most outstanding German theater scene Ring productions. This production of Wagner’s Ring cycle from 1997/1999 received international enthusiasm from critics due to its amazing artistic interpretation and musical skill. This special release includes a bonus CD with an interview featuring famed opera journalist Thomas Voigt and the director of the Staatstheater Kassel, Michael Leinert.

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