Classical Music

After the three concept albums Landscapes, Intermezzo & Chiaroscuro, which among other prices were awarded with a German Record Critics' Prize and an Opus Klassik, the world-famous Schumann Quartet dedicates itself to Franz Schubert - and 2 � of his string quartets. The three brothers Mark, Erik and Ken Schumann have been playing together since their earliest childhood. In 2012, they were joined by violist Liisa Randalu, who was born in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, and grew up in Karlsruhe, Germany. Those who experience the quartet in performance often remark on the strong connection between it's members. The four musicians enjoy the way they communicate without words: how a single look suffices to convey how a particular member wants to play a particular passage. Although the individual personalities clearly manifest themselves, a common space arises in every musical work in a process of spiritual metamorphosis. The quartet's openness and curiosity may be partly the result of the formative influence exerted on it by teachers such as Eberhard Feltz, the Alban Berg Quartet, or partners such as Menahem Pressler

Classical Music

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