Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

One of Germany's most prominent pianists, Alexander Krichel from Hamburg, has brought together a couple of heavyweights for his first album with Berlin Classics. He combines the "Pictures at an Exhibition" by Modest Mussorgsky, a central work of the piano literature, with a rarely heard gem by the Romanian composer George Enescu. Enescu's Second Piano Suite enhances the formal language of the Baroque with Romantic and Impressionist timbres, and entrances the listener with a rich palette of tone colors. To round off the program, Alexander Krichel plays another work by a composer from Russia's "mighty handful", the Nocturne from the Petite Suite by Alexander Borodin. There's no denying it: born in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg, Krichel feels himself strongly drawn to the Russian repertoire. He studied with two of the greatest Russian pianists of modern times. "I've long had Modest Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition' in my repertoire, but now, this piano suite is exactly right with it's strong sense of dedication," says Krichel. "It would be hard to find another piano cycle that has such variety and places such comprehensive demands. Mussorgsky captures a whole cosmos in his 'Pictures'. That links him with George Enescu, who in writing his Second Suite actually composed a tribute as well. ECHO Klassik prizewinner Alexander Krichel also made his presence felt on the music scene with unusual activities during the long Corona lockdown. In May 2020, he initiated the first drive-in concert, which was broadcast by WDR. Soon after that, his audience was following him on a video diary from a Hong Kong hotel suite, in which he had to observe a 14-day period of quarantine before a concert. All the greater, then, the relief felt by Alexander Krichel that like other artists, he can again communicate live with his audience.

Classical Music

The title "Bach Organ Landscapes" heralds a new complete recording of Bach's organ works, to be released over the next few years. The project is planned round ten historic organ builders who played a part in the life of Johann Sebastian Bach. No other instrument merges space with sound so strongly as the organ. The more closely we study the history of music, moreover, the more we appreciate the key role of regional developments: certain organ builders and composers created instruments and composed organ works that in their totality form "organ landscapes". And so we had to travel to the world of those organists. Bach's musical contribution to organ literature cannot be overestimated. It is a resounding testimony to his roots in an equally resounding landscape, which he himself shaped through his work as an organ expert and with organ builders. With two double albums from Ansbach and Waltershausen, J�rg Halubek invites you to join him on this journey. In Waltershausen, Bach's visionary composition "Dritter Theil der Clavier �bung" is combined with Tobias Heinrich Gottfried Trost's Providence in organ building. Johann Christoph Wiegleb went one step further in Ansbach, whose organ from 1738 is made to sound in countless different colors by the Leipzig choral arrangements. J�rg Halubek studied church music, organ and harpsichord in Stuttgart and Freiburg with Jon Laukvik and Robert Hill. At the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, he specialized in period performance practice with Jesper Christensen and Andrea Marcon. He won first prize in the 2014 International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig in the Organ category.

Classical Music

Many thousands of miracles beckon, Peter Schreier promises already in the opening title of this unusual collection. There arises tense expectation. And already afterwards, a little Chopin piece, with which many a moderately talented piano student enraptured his relatives, is arranged and provided with the text by Ernst Marischka. In the 1930s it was a centerpiece from the musician's melodrama with the resonant name "Farewell Waltz". And what one can do with Chopin's etude, how one can ennoble this kitsch with a great voice, that Schreier shows and for that one absolutely needs tenor self-confidence. At the latest with "Granada" one sways gently along and is simply happy about this entertaining aberration of taste. The Gro�es Rundfunkorchester Berlin under Robert Hanell swings the castanets and otherwise beguiles with a canvas-wide sound in which one can let oneself drift. It doesn't always have to be Bayreuth! You can also sing beautifully at the sight of the Sierra Nevada. And who else takes those high notes so wonderfully? Schreier recorded this colorful bag not just at the end of his career, but right in the middle of it. Two years after his hit "Peter Schreier sings Christmas carols", the most successful classical music recording of the GDR, the singer again tries his hand at popular material, obviously mixing together his favorites from the not-so-serious repertoire. Operetta, melodious adaptations of well-known melodies, opera highlights, simply put: Romantic shreds of languor, which one gladly falls for in this interpretation, in order to perhaps bashfully wash out one's ears with simple baroque afterwards.

Classical Music

Peter Damm, who is one of the 20th century’s leading horn players, has built up an impressive discography in the course of the last three decades. These naturally focus upon his instrument: the horn. The present Edition brings together many of his recordings for the Eterna label. It illustrates the history of horn music through a large and varied repertoire such as is only rarely to be encountered. From chamber music to the great horn concertos, from the music of the 17th century to twentieth-century works, the spectrum is immense. Peter Damm was born in Meiningen (Thuringia) in 1937. After learning the horn at the College of Music in Weimar he began his artistic career in 1957 as solo hornist with the Gera municipal orchestra. In 1959, Damm was appointed solo horn with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, which at that time was making numerous Gramophone recordings. Damm’s first solo recording was in 1961 with the Gewandhaus horn quartet, playing Robert Schumann’s Konzertstück op. 86 for four horns under the baton of Franz Konwitschny; he first appeared on a chamber-music recording in 1964. In 1969 Damm was appointed solo hornist with the Staatskapelle Dresden. His cantabile style of playing placed Damm firmly in the Dresden tradition and became the hallmark of the Dresden wind section for almost forty years. During those years in Dresden Peter Damm was involved in more than 100 studio recordings with the Sächsische Staatskapelle. Famous international conductors such as Herbert von Karajan, Herbert Blomstedt, Bernard Haitink and Giuseppe Sinopoli were fascinated by Damm’s horn playing at first hearing. Peter Damm would always champion new music and the rediscovery of forgotten works from all eras in his work as a soloist on record releases. This applied in particular to the works of the Dresden court composers. Peter Damm celebrates his 80th Birthday on July 27th, 2017.

Virtuoso repertoire, brilliantly arranged: Dominik Wagner releases his Bottesini album "Revolution of Bass" on Berlin Classics. The debut-album presents, the solo Double Bass Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor as well as two duets with Benjamin Schmid on violin and Jeremias Fliedl on cello. Additionally some Bonustracks featuring soprano and piano. The musicians will be accompanied by the W�rttemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn under Emmanuel Tjeknavorian - a great wish of Dominik Wagner, who played the first concert together with Tjeknavorian ten years ago and has been close friends with him ever since.

Jürnjakob Timm was for many decades Principal Solo Cellist with the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig and is today a member of the Gewandhaus Quartet. The cellist has performed as soloist with orchestras in Germany, other European countries, Japan, South America and the USA. In the course of numerous concert tours with the Gewandhaus Orchestra he played cello concertos of the Classical, Romantic and modern eras under the baton of Kurt Masur. The present recording was the first orchestra recording by Jürnjakob Timm for the classical Eterna label. Together with Kurt Masur, the Gewandhaus Orchestra’s director for many years, he recorded two standard works for cello and orchestra in the Paul Gerhardt Church in Leipzig in 1983: Schumann’s Cello Concerto in A minor and Tchaikovsky’s famous Rococo Variations. December 2015 was marked by the death of the long-serving Principal Conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra and artist of world renown Kurt Masur. “He won over his critics in the course of his long life as a personality distinguished by his bearing, which surpassed music, and as a conductor whose ever more finely nuanced pragmatism of interpretation made the language of the orchestra intelligible, comprehensible, tangible. He was thus a maestro with the human touch, who could move people profoundly.” (Ralf Dombrowski, Der Spiegel)