It took almost 100 years for Charles Koechlin's First Symphony to get a proper recording and over a year for Ariane Matiakh to prepare the material. After her highly praised recording of Koechlin's Seven Stars Symphony (C5449), this is a much-appreciated further foray into the largely unexplored symphonic world of this fascinating composer, a French Chameleon of sorts, who felt comfortable anywhere between Bachian counterpoint and the heights of French impressionism. The earlier Au loin, Poeme symphonique and 3 Melodies (orchestrated posthumously) round out the scintillating picture.

This release further explores the rarely performed or recorded concert music of Miklos Rozsa (of Ben Hur fame), coupling his Rhapsody for Cello in which the young composer truly found his style, his Notturno Ungherese ("a nostalgic night piece, harking back to the memories of my childhood in Hungary"), and the late Sinfonia concertante for violin and cello, a fiendishly difficult violin-cello double concerto that is among Rozsa's finest, least film-music-like concert works - and one of his most underrated. Gregor Piatigorsky and Jascha Heifetz, who instigated it's composition, never ended up playing it, but Harriet Krijgh and Nikita Boriso-Glebsky certainly do.

Christmas Carols Around The World

Emil von Sauer and Conrad Ansorge had the privilege of studying under the legendary Franz Liszt. Liszt himself never claimed to be a teacher but rather an advisor. But anyway, for both of them, these lessons with the world-famous composer and pianist influenced and increased their style and extraordinary capabilities. With this recording Capriccio presents two outstanding and unjustly forgotten piano concertos which shows the deep understanding of musical forms and structures and versatility of the Pupils of Franz Liszt.

CAPPELLA COLONIENSIS (1954-2004)

Schubert, F.: String Quartet No. 14, "Death and the Maiden"

Spohr, L.: Nonet, Op. 31 / Beethoven, L. Van: Septet, Op. 20

Christian Sinding might be thought of as a Grade-B composer. That’s not a dismissal, merely an assessment to adjust the expectations. He’s not the symphonic Grieg we’ve been missing, nor a Nordic Brahms that’s been overlooked. He’s an – essentially German – symphonist of the second rank who wrote very pleasing works that we will sadly not hear in the concert halls, but which can enliven our musical diet on record if we need to take a break from the usual suspects. To unfold their inherent fervour, his compositions are dependent on sensitive and enthusiastic interpretations, but that’s exactly what they get from the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra under Karl Heinz Steffens, for whom Sinding has become a composer close to his heart.

ORGELWERKE

Berg, A.: Violin Concerto / Passacaglia / Lulu Suite

Hartmann, K.A.: Concerto Funebre / Symphonies Nos. 2 and 4

Alfred Schnittke as a composer of film music - that is a fact well known to anyone who has ever been concerned with Alfred Schnittke. However, only very few people are familiar with his actual work in the film music genre, something all the more surprising since on the one hand he wrote more than 60 film scores between 1961-84, and on the other hand, his poly-stylistic techniques found a nearly perfect equivalent in film. Since Alfred Schnittke suffered from the artistic regimentations like many contemporary composers in the USSR, and his works could often only be performed under difficult circumstances, his work for the film to a large extent contributed to his livelihood. Credited with opening new insights into the world of film music, Frank Strobel, here leading the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, is strongly committed to the works of Mr. Schnittke (1934-98), being the authorized editor of the composer’s work, some of which he helped Schnittke notate during his final years.

Founded in November 1918 by Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) and a few of his confidants, the Association for Private Musical Performances constituted perhaps the most progressive and most intensive opportunity for a select Viennese musical circle to familiarize themselves with contemporary and the latest works of the international composers’ scene in the immediate aftermath of the First World War and hence at the time of a dearth of a cultural spirit of optimism and innovation. Schoenberg had a close personal tie with many of the composers performed at the association concerts, as in the case of Zemlinsky. The association became a nursery for the entire modern music from Richard Strauss and Debussy to Webern, as far as the instrumentation of the works allowed. This release explores some of the chamber music works that came out of that association, including pieces by Bruckner, Mahler, Webern, and Schoenberg himself, among others.

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REVIEW:

The Linos Ensemble offer fastidiously prepared performances of fascinating repertoire in unusual arrangements. The quality of the music-making on offer transcends the historical importance of many of these reductions. Given the fact that these discs have been laid down over a twelve year period, recording standards are consistently excellent. Indeed it is a delight to be able to hear the sound of the harmonium so perfectly integrated into the texture in so many of these arrangements.

– MusicWeb International

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 already 10th release of Capriccio's Braunfels Edition focus on one of his most popular Opera works. What makes Jeanne D'Arc such an uncommonly effective music drama is not just the often sumptuous, post-romantic musical language but Braunfels' own libretto. The main storyline of Joan of Arc is known well enough: Vision, liberation of Orleans, coronation of the Dauphin, arrest, trial, and burning at the stake. Braunfels somehow managed to put together a libretto from the original French and Latin 15th-century trial documents of Joan of Arc, a smidgen of by George Bernard Shaw (Saint Joan), and his own additions, that makes this story and it's characters - in so many ways so far removed from a modern audience's sensibilities and reality - relatable to listeners today.

Rachmaninov, S.: Variations On A Theme of Corelli / Morceaux