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Playing with a fine synthesis of perfectly interlocking elements that can only be forged through years of collaboration, Italy's Ensemble l'Ornamento's second release engages with two of the great masters of the Baroque era, Antonio Vivaldi and George Frideric Handel. Spotlighting concertos and duos along with the distinctive transcriptions of Handel arias, l'Ornamento's credo to make a recording that "... raises certain expectations, which we intend to thwart in surprising and, hopefully, charming ways." is vividly demonstrated in this collection

Franz Schreker (1878-1934) is one of the many late romantic German and Austrian composers who became victims of the Nazi purge on 'degenerate art'. Schreker came in for abuse mostly because of some Jewish roots in his family and a penchant for lurid subject matter in his most famous operas. Musically, his operas are no more radical than Strauss' Elektra. But whereas Strauss retreated into a sort of polite neo-classicism tinged with Wagner in his later years, Schreker stayed a basically late-romantic expressionist and this expressionist aspect doomed his music. Der Ferne Klang debuted in 1912 in Frankfurt and launched Schreker into the top rank of composers of his time. The same year he was appointed to the faculty of the Vienna Academy of Music in the areas of counterpoint, harmony, and composition. The plot involves an artist who abandons his fiancé to go in search of 'the distant sound' which will allow him to produce the perfect work of art. As the opera progresses, the main character, Fritz, leads a life of gradually increasing desolation and eventually dies. On his death bed he finally hears "Der ferne Klang". The score is in fine expressionist mode, though basically tonal. Schreker was one of the most brilliant orchestrators of the early 20th century. The present recording arises out of highly acclaimed live performances of the opera given in the Augsburg Opera House (Germany) in spring 2010.

Classical Music

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Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

The fourth volume of the complete recording of Franz Schmidt's organ works brings together two groups of works that were written in close succession and had a direct stylistic influence on one another - Prelude and Fugue in E flat major and the Toccata in C, which were completed during the summer (July and August) of 1924, and the Fugue in F and Prelude in C, which were written over Easter and in July 1927. Martin Schmeding has made a large number of recordings for broadcast and CD, so for example the complete organ works of Franz Schmidt, Johannes Brahms and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, first recordings on a period instrument of works for pedal piano by Robert Schumann. In 2009 he was awarded the Prize of German Record Critics, and in 2010 he was named "Echo Classic Instrumentalist of the Year".

Who would have thought that more than 30 harp concertos were written during 'The age of Enlightenment and Romanticism'? The most well known harp concertos today from that period are those by Mozart (for flute and harp) and Boieldieu. People tend to think that these were the only concertos written for the harp at the time. On the contrary, these were many, as well as a vast amount of repertoire for the harp, (allof which are now in libraries), waiting to be discovered. Masumi Nagasawa is one of the few harpists to perform on the modern Grand Harp, the singleaction harp (18th-19th century historical harp), the Irish harp and the kugo or Japanese ancient harp. Toshiba EMI Japan, Etcetera and Channel Classics have released CDs by her.

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Matthias Racz, together with the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester (Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra) and their director Johannes Klumpp, presents works for bassoon and orchestra, like the Concerto for bassoon by Jean Francaix, who wanted to write a piece with serious music, but without gravity. He developed a highly distinctive approach based on his knowledge and mastery of past musical styles that secured his stature as a preeminent and highly individual composer.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Classical Music

The Vogtland Philharmonic, conducted by the music director Stefan Fraas, present their second album with next highlights from famous Hollywood film scores from the recent years, as well as popular classics of the genre film music. Appropriate for Hollywood film music it is presented in spectacular surround sound.

The linguistically mixed title Festas Suramericanas (Portuguese-Spanish) already suggests that this recording by Andreas Woyke with piano music by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Alberto Ginastera takes us into the realms of Brazil and Argentina. The release combines eruptive wildness and fragile tenderness of this strongly folklore-influenced music to untamed joy of life! The German pianist, Andreas Woyke, had an education shaped by various international influences - the Argentine pianist Aldo Antognazzi taught him in Siegen. In Cologne and Vienna he studies with the Russian pianists Pavel Gililov and Rudolf Kehrer. That time he won a number of international prizes: 1st prize at Brahms-Competition Hamburg, 1st prize at Austro Mechana in Vienna and 2nd prize and recital prize at UNISA Transnet competition in Pretoria. Andreas Woyke currently works as a freelance concert pianist living in Graz and teaches piano and chamber music at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst (university for music and the performing arts) there. Between 2001 and 2010 he had been a regular guest teacher at the “Musik zentral” music festival in the Steiermark region of Austria, where, as well as giving conventional master classes, he managed an improvisation course specializing in jazz improvisation. 

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REVIEWS:

Virtuosity is the main characteristic of this Villa-Lobos and Ginastera program, played with a peerless verve by Andreas Woyke.

© 2018 Pizzicato

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If Andreas Woyke does well in the wild and naive Ciclo brasileiro by the Brazilian Villa-Lobos, he shows his limits in the terrifying Rudepoêma (dedicated to Rubinstein, who never recorded it), a deluge of notes quite hollow under his fingers. Nelson Freire knew how to convince us otherwise! Very nice sound recording

© 2019 Diapason