Schubert: Piano Trio No. 2 - Violin Sonata, Op. 137, No. 2

A beautifully programmed collection anchored by the strength of Ragna Schirmer's piano. Clara and Robert Schumann borrow from each other's compositions in the early years of their great love affair in two sets of playfully intimate variations. Twenty years later, the theme is woven anew into two more sets of variations: a revisiting on the theme by Clara Schumann and one by her friend Johannes Brahms. Performing on an original Blu�thner grand piano of 1856, Ragna Schirmer's long association with the music of both Clara and Robert deepens the sense of rediscovery of these rarely recorded works for the listener.

Tea for Two

A gorgeous release of early Baroque songs with soprano Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli's expressiveness at the fore and the Pera Ensemble. "Momenti d'Amore"; (Moments of Love) presents the varying facets of women through the music of the 17th and 18th centuries. The interplay of Lombardi's meltingly amber toned coloratura with the ensemble's beautifully executed tones makes this an enchanting collection inspiring further discovery.

NUITS D'ETE

The Most Beautiful Violin Concertos

Sebastian Knauer’s varied repertoire, impressive virtuosity, and imaginative programming have had him dazzling audiences for almost three decades. This new release presents a memorable programme of core repertoire, including selections from Bach’s Piano Concertos, mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27, Schubert’s Impromptus in B flat major and F minor, and more. “… there is much to enjoy in Knauer’s sparkling performances, truthfully recorded and naturally balanced.” (Gramophone)

With their Gassenhauer program the two gifted Viennese musicians- clarinetist Vera Karner and bassist Dominik Wagner- won over the judges of the Fanny Mendelssohn Bursary jury. There are few works for their unusual trio of clarinet, bass, and piano, which is why the two musicians, both only twenty years old, have not only arranged existing compositions for their setup, but have commissioned works for the formation themselves. Taking a cue from Beethoven, they have called this debut album “Gassenhaur.” Just as Beethoven, all of the composers featured on the album arranged well-known tunes into their works. Vera Karner has given concerts as a soloist with a number of ensembles including the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Varna State Opera and the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Stara Zagora State Opera. She is involved on a private level in helping people who are sick and have mobility issues, and she supports the “Live Music Now” project founded by Lord Yehudi Menuhin, which holds concerts free of charge in social facilities. Dominik Wagner was born in Vienna in 1997. He began musical training at the age of 5, first on the cello, and from 2008 playing the double bass. He has given concerts at venues such as the Musikverein in Vienna, the Lviv Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus in Vienna and at Munich’s Gasteig.

It has been said that German pianist Matthias Kirschnereit is able to find the loveliest possible approach to the music that he performs, always seeking out its depth of feeling. This album portrays the musician at his very best- performing the Romantic songs for which he is most famous. Kirschnereit feels a personal connection to the composers featured on this release. “The composers I have brought together here, united by their phenomenal mastery of the tools of their trade and the originality of their genius, have each written coded human messages into their music, which are always to be found because they are so true and topical. And that will continue as long as human beings cherish ‘romantic’ feelings!” (Matthias Kirschnereit)

The legendary Christmas album recorded by Capella Antiqua Munich for MPS in 1970 presents early Christmas chants in various settings for choir and historical accompanying instruments. Capella Antiqua Munich was established under its director Konrad Ruhland in 1963, bringing together a choir and instrumental ensemble to pioneer in the field of historical performance practice. The ensemble was one of the first to be dedicated to this purist artistic concept. In terms of sound quality, MPS Records was the ideal recording partner. Many of Capella Antiqua Munich’s recordings with MPS became benchmark recordings. Most notably, the choir’s recording of Gregorian chorales is considered legendary to this day. The Christmas album by the whole ensemble — choir and orchestra — is less well known, but by no means less evocative. There is great diversity of expression, with a variety of musical forces following one another in succession: a cappella choir, tenor, soprano, vielle and trombone produce an evocative musical journey through historical Christmas chants, including In natali domini (At the Birth of our Lord), Christum wir sollen loben schon (We Should Praise Christ Highly) and En natus est Emmanuel (Lo! Emmanuel is Born).

Bach: Weihnachtsoratorium (Live aus der Dresdner Frauenkirch

As a child, Sebastian Knauer was present at seminal performances of the St Matthew Passion and the “Christmas Oratorio” in St Michael’s Church in Hamburg. And even at that early age, he enjoyed playing Bach on the piano. But his childhood enthusiasm was tempered with respect for the works of the great Thomaskantor. “I noticed at once: It is a huge challenge – not only in terms of keyboard technique, but mentally too,” he recalls. “In my student days and during the first few years of my career as a pianist I was constantly working on his music, but rarely played it in public concerts. Particularly when it came to the piano concertos, I never really felt myself to be ready, because I was searching all the time for my own picture of the music.” Sebastian Knauer deliberately gave himself time, engaging himself intensively with Bach’s musical cosmos until he was prepared to take his discoveries before an audience. The conductor’s artistic credo, that what matters for historical performance practice is not the sort of instrument you play, but the way and the style in which you play it, is one that Sebastian Knauer fully subscribes to. That is no less true of “Bach & Sons 2”, on which the pianist has once more explored the musical legacy of the Bach dynasty. It is this mixture of exceptional curiosity with the aspiration to enrich the established repertoire with unusual pieces that so typifies Sebastian Knauer – elsewhere and on this recording. Alongside the two Concertos BWV 1055 and 1056 there are real rarities on this release, such as the Concerto by C.P.E. Bach. The compositions selected by Sebastian Knauer are of great interest not only as repertoire but because they give an absorbing account of how the piano-concerto genre evolved. That is relevant to the works of C.P.E. Bach, an intermediary between the classic Baroque of his father and the dawning age of Viennese Classicism.

The album entitled Message from G that was released in 1979 on the MPS label embodies more than any other the visionary creativity of the composer and pianist Friedrich Gulda. On the album, he traces the paths of the great masters- Bach, Mozart and Debussy, whose work he plays- works which then provide him with the most diverse of inspirations for his own compositions, long before classical music opened up to other influences. “My aim in remastering “Message from G” was not to change anything in the recordings of the three concerts of 1978; not to adapt them to today’s listening habits or to modify them; on the contrary, the aim was to capture that special beauty of musicality and tone and to achieve a sound as close to the original recordings as possible. To that end, the master tape was comprehensively reworked: on the one hand by careful selection and the finest calibration of the tape equipment and the subsequent signal chain, and on the other hand by making very sensitive adjustments to the frequency range and the amplitude level. The theoretical basis for this was, among other things, an original vinyl disc that I used frequently for comparison purposes. We worked exclusively with analogue technology to produce the re-release…” (Producer’s comment, Christoph Stickel, July 2015)

Without a doubt one of the greatest tenors of the twentieth century, Peter Schreier enjoyed a thriving career career, which lasted more than four decades and during which he was most widely known for his Mozart tenor roles and his interpretation of Schubert and Schumann leider. Performing in all of the world’s finest opera houses- the New York Met, La Scala, Vienna, and Paris- he became the world’s Mozart tenor of choice. He also appeared for many years at the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festivals. “Mozart was always my primary field of activity, the core of my opera repertoire… My Tamino was something of a showpiece, a key element of my professional career, and remained so right up to my last performance… It gives me the greatest of pleasure to know that this early recording from the Eterna days is available again, on vinyl and as a CD release.” (Peter Schreier)

DEBUSSY:POEMES-LIEDER