Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

What made her decide to be an oboist, Celine Moinet is often asked. It had to be woodwind. Not brass, not a string instrument, not the piano. "I began with the recorder in the usual way. Until I switched to the oboe when I was seven, I didn't know the instrument at all." Her parents did not influence her in any way. "Even today I find that the oboe is hardly known. Maybe that's because it is very complex," says the French artist. When Johann Sebastian Bach was alive, the instrument was much in favor at princely courts and in church music. The sacred and secular repertoire that has been preserved in many places across Europe, not least in the central German region of Saxony and Thuringia, proves that beyond doubt. "Bach's cantatas were where it began for me. They are a rich, challenging source of music for oboists, ultimately the essence of his oeuvre. You can see the oboe as a narrator in his works." On her new album, Celine Moinet links cantata movements with concertos that pose a special challenge of their own: "technically virtuosic, with simply unending passages of elaboration, giving you scarcely a chance to breathe." She is thinking of pieces like the D minor Concerto BWV 1059 reconstructed from surviving fragments. It places formidable technical and physical demands upon oboists. Bach takes more time than most other composers, of that Celine Moinet is convinced. Celine was just a girl when she first heard the Marcello concerto, with it's famous second movement in the arrangement by Bach. It was a long held wish of hers to play the concerto herself. "I connect strong childhood memories with it." It is her fourth album and the first that the solo oboist of the Dresden Staatskapelle has recorded with orchestra.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

One of the most exceptional female artists of the 19th century celebrates her 200th birthday in 2019. The acknowledged Clara Schumann expert Ragna Schirmer has devoted a special act of homage to her artistic predecessor, taking two original concert programmes selected from Clara's decades of concert performance and recording them to provide insight into the life and work of this very special woman. In 1847, Clara and her husband Robert Schumann gave a matinee concert in the Berlin salon of Fanny Hensel. The programme featured two songs and the premiere performances of the piano quartet by Robert and the piano trio by Clara Schumann. 25 years later, on a tour of England, she played a solo piano recital (an unusual practice at that time) featuring all the works that meant most to her: her husband's "Scenes from Childhood" and works by Beethoven, Scarlatti, Chopin, Brahms and Mendelssohn, a programme that delighted her audience. She was announced as "Madame Schumann". From over 1300 printed programmes, collected and preserved by the celebrated pianist over the course of her performing career, Ragna Schirmer opted for just these two. "The number of great works she studied and performed in the course of her life is quite amazing," says Ragna Schirmer. "Another thing that fascinated me was the form, sequence and planning of her concerts. She played alongside the most important musicians of her time and most of her concerts reveal themselves to be varied compilations of different music genres." Ragna Schirmer has long been recognized for her intimate engagement with the life of Clara Schumann. In April 2019, she will receive the Robert Schumann Prize of the City of Zwickau. "I have all her diaries at home, I have all her letters at home, I have all the biographies ever written, her children's reminiscences... I find it incredibly exciting to be involved with this life and I regard her as an essential role model."

Classical Music

At the tender age of nine, Felix Klieser dreamed of being able to play Mozart's horn concertos. Today, 18 years later, that dream has finally come true and Felix Klieser now performs on the world's foremost concert stages, playing the very works which are part of any horn player's core repertoire. Yet he took his time before recording all four of Mozart's horn concertos: only after releasing three successful albums and winning an ECHO Klassik award and the Leonard Bernstein Award did he go to Salzburg, in September 2018, to record them with the famous Camerata Salzburg ensemble. Now, the results of that labor are presented on this stunning release.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Here, Matthias Kirschnereit releases his new album "Concertant" on Berlin Classics. On this album he dedicates himself to Schumann's world-famous Piano Concerto, but also to the less well-known but no less impressive Concert Pieces for piano and orchestra. He is supported by the Konzerthausorchester Berlin under Jan Willem de Vriend. "Robert Schumann is one of my favorite composers! And there are no end of works by him that are relatively unknown, even in the music fraternity," says Matthias Kirschnereit with eyes that light up. For many years now, he has been rated one of Germany's most successful pianists. His previous album, "Frei aber einsam" featuring recordings of works by Brahms, was recently acclaimed by critics and music-lovers alike. He has been successfully associated over many years with his musical partners heard on the Concertant album. Matthias Kirschnereit and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin under Jan Willem de Vriend have produced an album full of calm virtuosity, authentic insights and an ardent passion for Robert Schumann on the present release.

Viennese rising star Emmanuel Tjeknavorian presents his first orchestral album, featuring an unusual and yet highly personal programme. First there is his signature piece, Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, which brought him not one but two prizes at the 2015 Sibelius Competition, and which has been his debut on international concert stages ever since. Then there is the Violin Concerto by his father, Loris Tjeknavorian which he gives its world premiere on this recording. As Emmanuel Tjeknavorian sees it, both of these violin concertos on this album share a strong relationship with their composers’ origins. “Just as Sibelius always expressed his Nordic roots in his music, so my father’s proximity to the Armenian and Persian cultures is clearly recognizable in his compositions.” Critics and audiences alike rave about the young violinist’s brilliant technique as well as saluting the astounding artistic maturity demonstrated by this young man from Vienna, praising his skill in combining “a plucky approach and sweetness of tone.” The present album is a combination of the live recording from the artist’s Frankfurt debut of the Sibelius work in March 2019 and a studio production of the Tjeknavorian concerto.

The opportunity to celebrate, in 2020, the 250th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven alongside the 30th anniversary of German reunification is akin to a gift for a label that has been instrumental in preserving the recording heritage of the GDR, offering as it does the opportunity for a retrospective view and assessment of the past. This series with 10 new editions from the archive of ETERNA recordings includes audio productions from the early days of the label as well as later productions from the late 80s. Partly remastered from the original tapes and provided with the original covers, these historic-legendary recordings shine in new glamour. The present volume presents the Violin Concerto performed by Karl Suske and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig.