Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Franziska Pietsch and Detlev Eisinger make their audite debut with the three sonatas for violin and piano by the great 19th c. Romanticist Edvard Grieg, who himself rated these three sonatas as amongst his best works. Violinist Franziska Pietsch gave her debut at the Komische Oper Berlin aged eleven, after which she regularly performed as a soloist in the GDR until leaving East Germany in 1986, enabling her to pursue a career in the West. Pianist Detlev Eisinger gave his first piano recital at age thirteen, his busy international career now almost three decades long.

Leopold I was not only a ruler, but also a well-regarded composer during his day. His presence helped bring the Viennese court into the catalyst of European culture. The pieces chosen for this release serve as a testament to his musical talent. The works are enchanting settings that Leopold composed after the death of his first two wives, along with his music for the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Directed by James Strobl, the Capella Murensis and Les Cornets Noirs have been critically praised for their previous recordings of Renaissance and Early Baroque music.

He switched effortlessly between different musical spheres: the Swiss conductor Armin Jordan, who died in 2006, was a master of French repertoire as well as the musical tradition of Central Europe, combining both traditions in his very own musical thumbprint. Jordan's performances are characterised by a soft, supple and richly colourful orchestral sound, flexibility and warmth. Released here for the first time are live recordings of his two only performances at LUCERNE FESTIVAL, given in 1988 and 1994 conducting the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, which experienced a golden era under Jordan's leadership between 1985 and 1997. This album comprises Armin Jordan's "specials", such as Debussy's Pr�lude � l'apr�s-midi d'un faune or the Six �pigraphes antiques in orchestrations by Ansermet. In Chausson's Po�me de l'amour et de la mer we meet Jordan the opera conductor, treasuring the fantastic Felicity Lott: here, the emotional component of the performance appears more intense than in the studio recording of 2001. In the second suite from Roussel's ballet Bacchus et Ariane Jordan also creates a thrilling sense of drama. He never had the opportunity to record this rarely performed piece in the studio: this live recording from Lucerne therefore fills a gap in his discography. The 28-page booklet in three languages contains a portrait of the conductor by Peter Hagmann and features photos from the festival archive, published here for the first time.

Marc Coppey and the Zagreb Soloists bring us this enchanting album of cello concertos by Haydn and CPE Bach. Coppey calls the works "precise, commanding, free." The Haydn cello concertos represent some of the highest ranked classical repertoire. They stand in a somewhat privileged existence, since his classical cohorts, Mozart and Beethoven, did not leave us any cello concertos. The CPE Bach concerto gives us a beautiful example of what cello concertos looked like between the Baroque and Classical periods, and is an excellent addition to this album Marc Coppey is a French cellist who won the Bach Competition Leipzig at only age 18. He is thought of as one of today's leading cellists.

Martin Neu brings works from the Golden Age of Iberian organ music by Correa de Arauxo, Coelho and Xaraba, three of the most important musicians of the era, to life in their Spanish homeland at the organ of San Hipólito in Córdoba. The sound of the organ unfolds transparently within the church interior; noble, warm prinicipals and flute stops as well as a variety of characteristic reed stops lend great sonic dignity to the instrument. Together with the antiphonal choral sound of the ensemble officium, the recording reveals the multi-facetted elegance of this musical epoch. The prize-winning ensemble officium are twelve professional singers from Heidelberg, Germany who came together in 1999 to perform vocal music from the period before 1660, from the Middle Ages to the early Baroque, including the Renaissance art of the madrigal. Their founder and director Wilfried Rombach is renowned in professional circles in particular for his achievements in the field of scared medieval and renaissance music.

The latest release of the PianoDuo Takahashi|Lehmann presents transcriptions of pre-existing works as well as new compositions permeated by musical quotations and allusions to the works of other composers. Drawing on musical history, existing works are approached in diverse ways, from using almost original material through to dissolving of the classical understanding of time and tradition. The PianoDuo Takahashi|Lehmann once again illuminate the multi-faceted cosmos of piano music for four hands at one or two pianos. With their familiar insightful and virtuoso piano technique, the two players manage to combine scholarly programming with passionate expressiveness.

A young duo introduces itself. The interpretations of Cheng² Duo are steeped in a rare balance of an unfiltered, youthful joy of playing and enthusiasm on the one hand, and mature, profound and advanced interpretations on the other, always demonstrating technical perfection: they command attention from the first note. Bryan and Silvie Cheng are brother and sister; he is a cellist, she a pianist, and together they are the Cheng² Duo (pronounced Cheng Squared Duo), now presenting their debut album. These two Canadian artists are children of Chinese immigrants: she was born in Tokyo, he in Ottawa; today, he lives in Berlin, she in New York - cosmopolitans, therefore, with a diverse cultural background. Both are young, barely or around twenty years of age: audite's youngest artists to date, which also reflects the label's strong commitment to its performers. This first disc makes the panorama of French chamber music written between the 1860s and the 1910s come alive in all its diversity: from multiple-movement works whose composers mainly drew on Beethoven and the German romantic composers, through to character pieces which formed part of the repertoire performed in sophisticated salons. Principal trends, some of which were devoted to one another by way of trenchant polemics, are represented by works of César Franck, Camille Saint-Saëns and his student Gabriel Fauré, as well as Claude Debussy. The performers have not only proved an instant success as Cheng² Duo - stepping in at short notice at Carnegie Hall and impressing both the audience and the promoter to the extent that they were immediately re-invited - but have also won renowned awards as soloists, each in their own right.

The Quartetto di Cremona have completed another stage in their adventurous journey through the cosmos of Beethoven's String Quartets, visiting the Quartet in G major from the Op. 18 set and the last of the Op. 59 Quartets. The performance culture and market for the string quartet in the late eighteenth century was markedly different to that of later times: the young Beethoven wrote his Quartets Op. 18 for amateurs. The G major Quartet, the second in the collection, was one such work that could bemastered by talented aristocrats and bourgeois connoisseurs - which is not tosay that its complexities or musical challenges are in any way diminished. With the so-called "Razumovsky" Quartets,the string quartet reached adulthood. And one only needs to compare the technical and intellectual demands of Op. 59 to contemporary works (such as the quartets of the young Franz Schubert) in order to recognise that Beethoven no longer composed for able amateurs, but for highly professional specialists.This becomes particularly obvious in the finale, an extended and extremely virtuosic fugue. The Quartetto di Cremona have combined these two works from Beethoven's early and middle periods for the seventh volume in their Complete Beethoven String Quartets recording series. Both works end with an "earworm" - one in the classical spirit and one in the form of a rapid fugue - finale furioso!

This is the fourth installment of the Swiss Piano Trio's recording of the complete piano trios includes two major works, not counted among his seven numbered trios, whose violin parts can also be played by the clarinet. The finale of the "Gassenhauer" Trio, which was composed in 1797, draws on a popular Singspiel melody by the composer Josef Weigl whose cheerful naivete is very well-suited to the character of the (B-flat) clarinet; the dimensions and ambitious scope of the work, however, make it a truly "classical" piano trio. Sometimes referred to as the "eighth" trio, the Piano Trio in E-flat major, Op. 38 for violin or clarinet, cello, and piano, which Beethoven published in 1807 under the title "Grand Trio," is an arrangement of the Septet, Op. 20 written in 1799-1800. Beethoven presented the Septet in April 1800, along with the First Symphony, at an Academy in Vienna, where it met with enthusiastic acclaim. Beethoven brilliantly solved the problem of scoring the piece for piano trio while preserving its sound character, without sacrificing the principle of "obligato accompaniment," the independence of each voice irrespective of its function. Finally, the Trio Movement in E-flat major dates back to the composer's younger years; he wrote the piece in 1790 for the members of the so-called Zehrgarten club, before later setting out for Vienna in 1792.

This debut audite album by the virtuoso PianoDuo Takahashi|Lehmann, focusing on three orchestral and ensemble masterpieces, explores the multifaceted cosmos of piano duet transcriptions. Each arranged for piano duet by their own composers, these Beethoven, Schumann and Schönberg transcriptions come alive thanks to the suspense between the piano's own sound and the suggestion of colors which do not form part of the instrument's spectrum. Founded in Berlin in 2009, the duo has performed in many European countries, South Korea and Japan.