Whether melting away like a singing gondolier on the Grand Canal or tumbling about like a Eulenspiegel, whether clucking melancholically in the depths like a brooding hen or bouncing acrobatically across the high wire: after the clarinet had outgrown it's infant shoes, it was soon "on everyone's lips" thanks to it's rapidly expanding possibilities-praised by enthusiastic advocates like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, technically advanced by new virtuosos, and entrusted with the most varied tasks by experiment-loving composers. In the front ranks of these pioneers stood Carl Stamitz, one of the first second-generation Mannheimers, who wrote nearly a dozen concertante works tailored to the instrument's slender body, thereby leaving the guild of clarinetists a precious little catechism that can now be heard complete on recording for the first time.
A household word when speaking of repertoire, legendary flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal devoted just as much effort to establishing the masterpieces in their rightful place as to unearthing countless works from the baroque, classical and romantic eras. As far as concertos are concerned, cornerstones by Bach, Mozart and Vivaldi thus gained worldwide fame, and it went the same way for Ibert, Jolivet and Nielsen. Unfailing lyric sense, purity of style, magnificent tone, grace of phrasing, fabulous virtuosity, tremendous commitment... Critics, colleagues and the public were all running out of superlatives. Immediately valued as references, his recordings still fascinate and often leave the listener exhilarated. This 12 CD set tries the challenge of surrounding these marvels with some of the most dazzling rediscoveries, offering famous and less famous music, but equally glorious interpretations.
Stamitz: Four Symphonies / Willens, Orchester der Kölner Akademie
CPO
CD
$18.99Oct 01, 2021
During his lifetime Carl Stamitz, the firstborn son of Johann Stamitz, the famous founder of the Mannheim School, became a violin and viola virtuoso and successful composer. In our Carl Stamitz Edition we are now releasing four more symphonies that were regarded as a practically ideal embodiment of sensibility because his “heart full of feeling left its imprint on his music.” Stamitz’s desire to discover and explore new paths in the composition of symphonies took him to the programmatic pastoral symphony “Le jour variable” (La promenade royale) designed in Versailles in the fall of 1772. What Stamitz presents to the ears in the way of previously “unheard-of” music would completely outshine even the programmatic pieces produced at the end of the nineteenth century. Many experts, including Hugo Riemann, were very much aware of the fact that this program symphony is a particularly interesting and remarkable composition.
Hamburger Ratsmusik: an ensemble with a 500-year-old history. This contrast prompts a creative dialogue between tradition and the present day, about Early Music and vivid interpretation. The origins of Hamburg‘s “municipal music” go back to the 16th century. Under the motto “in praise of God and for the pleasure, delight and edification of Hamburg”, the city created an elite ensemble of eight city musicians, which was to be the equal of the princely court ensembles (Hofkapellen) to be found elsewhere. The Ratsmusik attained early excellence in the 17th and 18th centuries under such eminent musicians as William Brade, Johann Schop, Georg Philipp Telemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Revived in 1991 by gambist Simone Eckert, the ensemble now performs in Germany, many European countries, the USA and China. More than 30 albums (largely with world premiere recordings of Early Music) and recordings for all German public radio stations and Austrian broadcaster ORF document its rediscoveries of music from the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. The ensemble received the Echo Klassik award in 2006 and 2010, and was awarded the 2016 RITTER Prize by the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation in Hamburg. The musicians will be responding to renewed invitations to China in 2021. Hamburger Ratsmusik is the Ensemble in Residence in the Komponisten-Quartier museum complex in Hamburg.
