The works on this recording form the basis for a recital featuring readings of Constanze Mozart's letters. The album does not include the readings. ''Helas, j'ai perdu mon amant'' is the title of the project that gave rise to the recordings on this album. What lies behind the title you have chosen? Stephan Imorde: For quite some time we had already wanted to associate text and music on the concert podium in order to place music in a new context. Our idea was to view Mozart from the perspective of his wife Constanze: in our attempt to picture how she must have perceived Wolfgang's life, we embarked on an imaginary journey. Ulf Schneider: Very few letters written by Constanze have been preserved. Nevertheless, from the great number of letters her husband sent her, we can surmise that the two were emotionally very close. On the basis of those letters, music journalist Jurgen Otten has drawn up a fictitious diary. In our project we hold a musical dialogue with acress Fritzi Haberlandt: between the pieces, she reads from the diary.

“The piece is unlike no other of its kind,” Bela Bartok affirmed: “the world of ideas it contains is entirely new.” Timbre acquired an unusual, novel dimension by having the two lowest strings tuned one half-step down, to B and F#, respectively. Thus the three lower strings form a B minor chord, which Kodaly places in particular prominence at the onset of the sonata. Julian Steckel was first inspired to tackle this “everest of cello literature” for the first time at the age of fifteen. The technical challenge was certainly exciting in itself, but he was also fascinated by the music’s beauty, and by Kodaly’s special musical language- “even though at that time I didn’t yet know what was Hungarian about it, or what came from Debussy or other sources,” he remarks. Steckel proceeded to work on the sonata with several cellists including the venerable Hungarian-American legend Janos Starker. He studied the work’s historical background: “When you know where a certain music is coming from, it reinforces the sort of telepathic connection you feel with the audience, and you end up playing much more convincingly.” Janos Starker, for one, insisted that “all the beginnings, including those in the slow movements, are consonant. You should never play as if you were murmuring. In this music, none of the beautiful cantilenas ever emerge out of nothing. You must always remain entirely clear in your expression and in the way you produce the sound. The fact that the music is rhapsodic should not entice you to start playing freely all the time. Precise rhythm is of utter importance. Otherwise you would be fishing in troubled waters, and the music would become a sort of goulash soup…”

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Daniel Heide writes: "This complete recording of Franz Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets attempts to highlight the significance of his different versions of the three Sonnets 47, 109, and 123- possibly for the first time. Musicologists are baffled by the fact that Liszt wrote several versions of the same works. He even set the same texts to different music: not twice, but occasionally three or more times- an absolute exception in the history of music. This is both bewildering and rewarding: Liszt aficionados can embark on a treasure hunt through the scores. Just imagine our astonishment if Beethoven had modified his Piano Sonata Op. 13 in C Minor, Pathetique, several times in the course of his life, composing the initial movements each time in a different way while introducing new harmonic structures. That would have left us with three Pathetiques in parallel- a sensation!"

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Both works are a legacy. Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata is the only document that such an instrument existed, no longer exists today and has been replaced by a viola or cello. Shostakovich's Viola Sonata is his last work; he died a few days later. A legacy of his thoughts and musical explorations, one of his most famous works. Andreas Willwohl travels as a soloist with his viola, but is also a member of the highly acclaimed Mandelring Quartet. Daniel Heide is certainly very famous as a partner to various singers, but also as a chamber musician.

Dina Ugorskaja counts as one of the most distinctive artists of the classical piano scene. She writes of this new release: “Schubert and his “heavenly lengths” have accompanied me throughout my entire life. In this music, time occasionally seems to stand still: the state of lingering and resting seems to predominate above all others. We are overwhelmed with unbearable pain, with abysses of despair and hopelessness. How can it be that the confrontation with death – so immediately present in this music – dissolves all of a sudden into a floating, ethereal impermanence? Unexpected joy emerges, as if we were hearing the laughing of a child.”

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Charles-Valentin Alkan is fairly unknown. A contemporary of Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt and Fr�d�ric Chopin in the 19th century but mostly living in Paris and enjoying the life in the salons. From Nosrati's notes: Alkan's music is at times so unconventional and sarcastic that audiences may have experienced more irritation than enthusiasm. His style feeds on abrupt contrast; it features a great deal of counterpoint and is thus more akin to the so-called "German School" than to French salon music. Anyone who dares to explore Alkan's music more closely will be richly rewarded: these are works capable of displaying the utter extremes of the human condition: alongside one another: seriousness and humor, intellect and emotion, tradition and modernity.

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Classical Music