Bruno Maderna's Requiem was long considered lost and was indeed only premiered in the Teatro la Fenice in Venice in November 2009 - about 36 years after his death. In 1943, Maderna was called up for military service and fought as a partisan against Italy's erstwhile allies, the Germans. He was taken prisoner by the SS, who interrogated him in Dachau and released him shortly afterwards. 'At that moment, it was the only possibility to write a requiem and then to die', Maderna said later. The Requiem suggests an intensive study of the models in the genre, e.g. those by Giuseppe Verdi and Hector Berlioz. At the same time, as a 'War Requiem' the work is a pacifist manifesto.

When one thinks of the compositions of Franz Schmidt, his organ pieces and his oratorio The Book with Seven Seals automatically come to mind. This recording, however, explores some of Schmidt’s lesser-known works. A notable addition to this album is the Fantasia for piano and orchestra in B flat major, in which the listener can hear material from his future successful opera Notre Dame. The work was considered lost for some time, with the work’s premiere coming a century after its composition. This is the piece’s world premiere recording. Performing on the Fantasia is pianist Jasminka Stancul. Stancul performs worldwide with orchestras and as a soloist, and has been a professor at the Music University Ljubljana since October 2013.

Joseph Haydn’s orchestral work The Seven Last Words of Our Savior On the Cross was commissioned in 1783 for the Good Friday service at Oratorio de la Santa Cueva. There are seven main meditative sections, which are all slow movements labeled “sonatas, that are framed by an introduction and an “Earthquake” conclusion, for a total of nine movements. The present release is from a live performance at the Vienna Konzerthaus, on March 15, 1992. Sandor Vegh conducts the Camerata Academica des Mozarteums Salzburg for this performance. This release is part of the Capriccio Encore series, which is a series of re-releases of the most famous recordings from Capriccio’s back catalogue, fully re-mastered and competitively priced. The legendary recordings of artists such as Sandor Végh, Ton Koopman, Sir Neville Marriner and the Vienna Boys’ Choir also contain repertoire highlights that have a particularly special appeal, from the baroque to the present day.

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Walter Braunfels is a composer whose music died twice: Once when the Nazis declared his music “degenerate art”. Then again when post-war Germany had little use for the various schools of tonal music; when the arbiters of taste considered any form of romantic music – almost the whole pre-war aesthetic – to be tainted. This sixth release of Capriccio’s Braunfels Edition shows again his large range of colorful music and focus this time on his works for piano and orchestra from three different periods of his life: his first complete orchestral work, the Witches Sabbath, op. 8 (1906), the Concert piece for piano and orchestra op. 64 (1946) and one of his last compositions the Hebridian Dances op. 70 (1950/51). Tatjana Blome is the featured pianist on this release.

Pietro Mascagni’s single work for the early days of cinema was composed in the winter of 1914-15, and premiered by him in 1917. The idea behind Rapsodia Satanica and the film’s director Nino Oxilia was to create a “Poema cine-musicale”, a synthesis of the arts with music, poetry and finally cinematography. The plot is something like a female version of “Faust”, based on poetry by Fausto Maria Martini (1886-1931). The work is oriented toward Richard Wagner’s musical language. The French-German TV channel Arte restored this treasure of early cinema in 2006 and recorded the complete film music score, now available also on CD. Luciano Visconti’s Il Gattopardo (The Leopard, 1963), based on the Lampedusa novel, is one of his most striking films, as is its Nino Rota-supplied score. Frank Strobel helms the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz in the CD presentation of these scores.

With great likelihood these twelve duos for violin and cello composed in 1734 are the earliest works with this instrumentation in which the violin and cello parts enjoy equal rights. The fact that Andrea Zani is largely forgotten today is probably due to the circumstances that saw the bulk of his music tucked away and preserved in handwritten form in different monastery and palace libraries throughout Europe and thus, rarely recorded. With these duos, featuring the fine playing of Lena Neudauer, violin and Martin Rummel, cello we can experience this nascent and minimal form of chamber music that Zani authored and hope more of his compositions will be brought to light along with the recent release of his cello concertos (Capriccio CD C5145).

Amongst the composers of the second generation of Modernism in Italy, Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-75) was undoubtedly the most successful and famous. Following the success of his Partita per orchestra (1930-32), his music became increasingly more chromatic and, fascinated by Webern and Berg, he discovered the twelve tone technique, but deliberately retained strongly diatonic links and lyrical naturalness. With this second “Modern Times” CD, Karl-Heinz Steffens and the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz take care of the still not very famous orchestral pieces of this composer.

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After the ban the Nazi rabble-rousers had imposed on him, it took a long time for Schreker’s oeuvre to be rediscovered, excavated from the archives, subjected to a re-appraisal and acknowledged as an indispensable element in one of the most fascinating periods of musical history. Although being taken for granted may bear the risk of renewed negligence, Franz Schreker’s status should no longer be challenged today. This makes it possible, apart from dealing with all of his main works also to consider what he himself perhaps did not deem his most ground-breaking works, ones permitting interesting insight into a musician’s workshop and displaying cross-references to his other works like you can hear on this recording. Valda Wilson is the featured soloist on this release. Initially trained at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the soprano went on to win Opera Foundation Australia’s scholarship to the National Opera Studio London. She is one of the most versatile, exciting and musically curious sopranos of her generation, and is currently singing at the Saarlaendisches Staatstheater in several productions.

With the biography of Viktor Ullmann, a prominent individual fate in musical history stands out drastically from the anonymity of the millions of victims the Nazi regime exacted in the course of its attempted obliteration of individual minorities and particularly the mass extermination of the Jewish population in its sphere of influence. It can be only roughly surmised what striking musical movement was thus practically completely destroyed and was hence unable to continue its thrilling development into the second half of the 20th century. It was during these consistently difficult periodes that the Piano Concerto and Piano Sonata No. 7 have been composed, which demonstrates how clearly Ullmann was able to separate external circumstances and his musical imagination.

Capriccio presents the debut album of up and coming Dutch cellist Harriet Krijgh. Among others, she received a first prize and the audience award at the Dutch Prinses Christina Concours, a first prize with excellence at the Austrian national competition Prima la Musica, a first prize and the Nicole Janigro Prize at the international Antonio Janigro Cello Competition in Croatia, as well as a first prize at the Fidelio competition in Vienna. As soloist artist Harriet is a member of the Live Music Now Foundation, which was established by Yehudi Menuhin.

Jochen Kowalski writes: “It’s time to take a moment and be grateful: It’s been 40 years that the Capriccio label has produced records – through and despite all the upheavals and vast market shifts in the recording industry over the last decades. As the young label started out in 1982, still producing LPs and tapes, it was the first digital Beethoven Symphony cycle with the Dresden Philharmonic and Herbert Kegel that first turned heads. Today, Capriccio’s catalog includes well over 1,000 titles with a repertoire that stretches all the way from the renaissance to contemporary composers, is chock-full of re-discoveries and world premieres, and is performed by a steadily growing roster of internationally renowned artists. Time to celebrate? Why, absolutely. But also time to reflect on the fact that in these times, in the middle of the digital revolution as we find ourselves, it’s hardly a given anymore to be able to continuously produce and publish classical records. Therefore this is also the time to thank our artists, our team, which operates in the background all over the world, and all our supportive accomplices and abettors who have contributed so much to the continuity and success of this label. Happy Birthday to all of us!”

Classical Music

Classical Music