Premiered in 1919 in Zurich by the leaders of string sections of the Tonhalle Orchestra with Frank Martin himself at the piano, it displays a wide variety of influences, all forming part of a 29-year-old musician’s search for his own artistic voice. At the same time, the Quintet’s style is thoroughly individual, notably in its choice of rich harmonies. Providing a marked contrast to Frank Martin’s filigree, pared-down early style, César Franck’s profuse, monumental Piano Quintet in F Minor (1879) is typical of the Franco-Belgian composer’s late output. All of Franck’s characteristics seem to blend together in this work which he wrote at the age of 57: Wagnerian chromatic harmonies, dramatic developments similar to those we know from his symphonic poems and oratorios, and a polyphonic musical thinking “in organ registers”

The Linos Piano Trio’s In Search of Lost Dances recording centres on the time of greatest change in Ravel’s life, juxtaposing his seminal Piano Trio, written weeks before the outbreak of the First World War, with Le Tombeau de Couperin, written between 1914 and 1917—each of its six movements dedicated to a friend lost to the war. The most important news on here is that LINOS PIANO TRIO is playing on period instruments music by Maurice Ravel – who died in 1937!! which means a grand piano from the thirties of the 20th century, gut strings and a different tunebase than today.

All Mozart String Quartets complete. The Armida Quartett is seen today as one of the best quartets coping with the giant W.A. Mozart. Rave reviews from Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine. The Box has been recorded and released in close cooperation with the famous Henle publisher.

Vinyl Version – The only LIVE recording of this colossal piece of the German composer Max Reger. The Piano Concerto is a fairly special pieces: very heavy, very long, very difficult, it requires a permanent and nonstop action of the soloist

Two World Premiere Recordings are making this unusual album very attractive, not only for friends of french horn; the sounds and sound combinations are thrilling. Perfectly high caliber the artist crew: Premysl Vojta is one of the leading french horn player in Europe; Florence Millet is very much part of the contemporary music scene, giving master-classes and organising festivals; Ye Wu is Primaria in the Symphony orchestra of the WDR.

The years 1900-1914 were perhaps the most thrilling period in European music history: the cradle of what we now call musical Modernism. This was the time when the great “avant-garde schools” took shape: in Paris, Berlin, Saint Petersburg, and particularly in Vienna. Music branched out into a multitude of aesthetics, styles, and genres, as we can see in in the variety of terms that attempt to describe art in that period: Impressionism, Expressionism, Art Nouveau, Neo-Classicism, Foklorism, Late Romanticism, Symbolism, and others. Our program selection for this album focuses on two works written in Vienna in 1913 – the “summer of the century”, as author Florian Illies calls a pivotal year that put an end to the long 19th century and introduced the somber 20th century. The two works are Alban Berg’s Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano op. 5 and Egon Kornauth’s Sonata for Clarinet and Piano. 1913 was the year of several “scandalous” premieres: Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, Berg’s Altenberglieder, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and others that were less scandalous: Debussy’s Images pour Orchestre, Max Reger’s Isle of the Dead, Sibelius’s Luonnotar, de Falla’s La vida breve, and Richard Strauss‘s Festliches Präludium.

For this album, we have decided to record three works written between 1916 and 1926. In that period marked by the First World War and its aftermath, itis remarkable to note these three composers’ widely varying creative approaches and ideas. Composed during a summer stay at the French seaside resort of Capbreton, Frank Martin’s piano trio has accompanied us on our journey as an ensemble ever since we were students. Its unique melodic approach combined with complex rhythms based on Irish and Celtic folk music always remain a wonderful challenge and never cease to rekindle our enjoyment in making music together! Two of us – Gergana and Pavlin – have been familiar with the music of Pancho Vladigerov ever since early childhood. His sole piano trio, a monumental work in A Minor, captivates us with its original melodies and harmonies. Although Vladigerov finished writing it during his studies in Berlin, we also find that it has unmistakable traces of Bulgarian folklore. With joy and enthusiasm, we have incorporated it into our repertoire; now, with this recording, we are thrilled to make it known to a wider audience of interested music lovers.

Joaquin Turina’s frequently performed Second Piano Trio is a work we discovered somewhat by chance in 2011. After only one rehearsal we were already fascinated with this colorful, highly emotional composition that presents Spanish harmonies and rhythms in a thoroughly authentic way, as in the dancelike Scherzo in typical 5/8 meter. We always look forward to playing this work, renewing our acquaintance with it as with an old beloved friend, and having the opportunity to share it with the audience!

We are now in the year 2022: as chance would have it, this album’s release coincides with the 300th anniversary of the first volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Our lifestyle has changed in many ways over the past three centuries. We travel at much greater speed; we develop an increasing number of technologies and digital means of communication. Trained specialists are responsible for every area of our lives. But have we truly made progress? Excessive global travel, as we know, has an alarming impact on climate. While many areas of our life become digital, communication is made simpler but ultimately only leads to mental lethargy, social isolation, and emotional impoverishment. Specialists turn out to be one-track minds who accumulate isolated bits of knowledge – indeed, as ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus remarked, “knowing many things doesn’t teach insight.” Insight thus not only requires for us to have knowledge, but also for us to broaden our horizons. And that is exactly what is so fascinating about the Well-Tempered Clavier.

Both highly in demand on a worldwide scale as unique, exceptional chamber music performers, Antje Weithaas and Dénes Várjon each ideally combine the highest degree of enthusiasm and precision: their energetic, passionate playing is the result of intense concentration. In Vol. I of their complete recording of Beethoven’s violin sonatas, Weithaas and Várjon have chosen not to follow chronological order, but to seek out thrilling contrast and fascinating variety instead – thus making Beethoven’s rapid evolution as a composer all the more astounding.

The artists write: “Christmas in 2020 was very still, with corona lockdown and a ban on singing. After that sobering experience, we had the idea to arrange traditional Christmas carols for two cellos. We are always surprised to discover that the earliest ones move our emotions because of their purity, their sheer energy, and their touches of elevated spirituality. Sounding like the human voice, the cello’s sonority creates a space for our individual emotions. It lets us encounter these time-honored songs that are sung in the family or at church, often under difficult circumstances when humanity is under threat.

"Vincent Themba’s congenial, well-suited, inspiring accompaniments on guitar, djembe, and double bass support and enrich our arrangements. While we were preparing this album, we realized that we were actually prolonging the legacy and work of our two respective fathers, Joseph Alfred Schlichtig and Hans Heinemann. When we were young, it was they who made it possible for us all to play Christmas music at church and in our families at home. We remember them with utter gratitude.”

The missing final Four... with all the contrasts!!!�all complete now!!! "Volume I with sonatas 2, 4, and 9 was reviewed by Mr Magil (S/O 2023), who called them some of the very finest readings of these works; and we can extend these same words to Volume II" (American Record Guide March/April 2024). Antje Weithaas embarked on her journey through several creative periods of Beethoven's output in the company of one of the most versatile, sensitive pianists of our time: the Hungarian Denes Varjon.

Alexander Gadjiev writes: “This is a special album that exclusively features brief pieces taken from short anthologies or collections. For me it’s like a journey without a chronology: I just wanted to choose an interesting itinerary. All these pieces seem to evoke a “dark meditation”. Even in lively passages there is an underlying mood of brooding: it is the atmosphere of the early 20th century and the cultural milieu of Symbolism. These are brief, abstract visions of different worlds. You can sense that a single chord or series of sounds could escalate to evoke an entire universe.”

REVIEW

Even knowing what’s in store from Prokofiev’s Sarcasms doesn’t entirely prepare you for the sheer venom he unleashes at the opening, nor for the intelligence with which he moderates that attack thereafter. The set of five pieces is not just the epitome of Prokofiev’s grotesque and motoric manners; it is also underpinned by eeriness and fantasy, as Gadjiev’s own interview-note puts it and as his playing beautifully demonstrates. The coupling is pleasingly adventurous but also logical, given that the Eight Pieces by Tcherepnin fils are so thoroughly indebted to Prokofiev and that Prokofiev himself was not only taught (orchestration) by Tcherepnin père but also (exceptionally) expressed his admiration. That several of Alexander’s Eight Pieces could be interleaved with the Sarcasms and probably fool most listeners is a tribute to their craftsmanship and strength of character.

I shall certainly be returning to Nikolay Tcherepnin’s rarely heard Illustrations to Pushkin’s Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish. These may borrow extensively from Debussy but they also display a subtle sensibility all their own[.]

--Gramophone

This is Vol. II of a longterm planned series of (unknown) Liszt songs. The pianist Daniel Heide discovered some of the originals and has put the program together. Konstantin Krimmel, not even 30 years old, is one of the top singers for lieder and oratorios; only recently he joined the Munich State operas team. It was during his studies with prof. Teru Yoshihara and Tobias Truniger that he developed a special love for the concert and lied repertoire, which he quickly expanded. He has since won numerous competitions, including the 2019 German Music Competition as well as 1st prize at the International Helmut Deutsch Lied Competition, 2nd prize at the International Singing Competition ‚Das Lied‘ in Heidelberg and the Gian Battista Viotti International Music Competition. Daniel Heide certainly is one of the top partners for singers at the piano.

“The Armida Quartet endeavors to find dissonances lying like sleeping metaphors on the seabed of Mozart’s music, in order to bring them to the surface and back to life – yet without making them too obvious. In so doing, the musicians commit themselves to follow the original sources, which they are intensely studying in collaboration with expert musicological counsel. But they are also committed to their chosen name, “Armida”, which evokes a widespread opera subject stemming from Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme liberata (“Jerusalem Delivered”).In that well-known story, Armida stands for what we would call cognitive dissonance. The Christian knight from the West and the pagan beauty from the East are fascinated with one another and fall in love. Despite her infatuation, however, Armida must surely also be an evil sorceress, since she is distracting Rinaldo, the crusader, from his holy mission of war. Armida’s final submission is sealed once and for all with a battle victory and a baptism: this is obviously a Western projection we need to view with a greater deal of nuance. With its apparently irresolvable dissonance arising from contradictory feelings, the fear caused by the seductive outer appearance of beauty, and the ostensibly unappealable validity of cultural norms, the fictional Armida material is a true aesthetic and cultural litmus test... (Excerpt from the booklet notes by Hansjörg Ewert)

“Playing with other instruments is always fascinating: it’s not only great fun, but also an important experience for me as a pianist, every time. The piano is actually just a mechanical toolbox that we can operate without having to use our breath. Thanks to its mechanism, the sound is immediately produced; once the hammers have struck, it can no longer be influenced, and the note unavoidably fades away. It is thus essential for a pianist to imagine what it is like to play another instrument, and to study the sound of other instruments in depth. They can be wind or string instruments, or the human voice. Sometimes I imagine I am playing with a string quartet; at other times it can be a full orchestra. With a woodwind quintet as musical partner, I cannot help but breathe with the music: my colleagues are constantly putting that ability on display. It starts with the very first attack. If I just “played piano” as usual, we would never be together on the beat; thanks to the piano’s immediate mechanism, my note would always be there a little earlier. But if I imagine the gentle attack of a bassoon or a clarinet while listening closely, I can make an attempt not to be overly “on time” when I strike the key. I can also execute certain chords as a quick arpeggio, with the notes not quite together. Of course, such a mental image of breathing while playing can also be of great help when I am giving solo recitals: imagining wind attacks, or the upbow and downbow on the violin. The piano is an instrument designed to create illusion: the toolchest produces the most wonderful things, but to achieve them, we, as players, are required to use our imagination.....“ (from the artists)

The Quatuor pour la fin du temps counts as one of the harrowing musicals heritages of a horrible past history. Messiaen wrote it in 1941 while caught in a German concentration camp, and based the work on resources available. The work, which is more than 50 minutes in length, is a maximum condense on a harrowing musician’s thoughts, composed under psychological pressure, distress and horror, and also out of pure despair. The piece counts as one of the most difficult musical works to play; it needs an enormous amount of concentration and psychological power. “The work,” as Messiaen writes, “is directly inspired by the Revelation of St. John. Its musical language is essentially transcendental, spiritual, catholic. Certain modes, realizing a kind of tonal ubiquity in terms of harmony and melody, draw the listener into a sense of the eternity of space or time. Special rhythms, lying outside any sort of measure, contribute significantly toward the banishment of the concept of time.”

Walter Braunfels wrote his first two string quartets in 1944; they were followed after the war by the String Quintet (1946/47), the Third String Quartet (1946/47), and the new Final Movement composed for the latter (1953). All these works meet the highest standards in terms of transparent voice leading, closely knit polyphony, and boldly expanded tonal harmony. In 1933 he was dismissed from all posts, regardless of his merits, because he was half Jewish. Braunfels was restored to his post of director at Cologne Conservatory in 1945. . Braunfels was swimming against the tide: profoundly rooted in the Classical-Romantic tradition, his style was deemed inconvenient in the face of prevalent postmodern tendencies in the first years after the war.

Franz Liszt: Complete French Songs for Soprano, Vol. 3 This volume carries the header of a "Cycle imaginaire", based on textes by Victor Hugo who seems to have been the most important poet for Franz Liszt. All Lieder textes in German/French/English here: https://avi-music. De/html/lyrics/cycle_imaginaire. #html "The 3rd volume of our complete recording of Franz Liszt's art songs is exclusively devoted to vocal settings of poems in French. Liszt was one of the few Central European composers of his time who not only mastered the French language in addition to German but was also an avid reader of contemporary French poetry. Multilingualism was relatively uncommon in the mid-1800s; Liszt was a rather exceptional polyglot, just like his pupil Pauline Viardot (1821-1910), who composed art songs in each of the six languages she fluently spoke... Liszt's songs have been handed down to us in several variants and versions. Thus, in this third volume, we once more had to decide whether to select one "definitive" version or offer our listeners the enriching occasion to hear several alternatives. We decided to create an imaginary song cycle of Victor Hugo settings. Admittedly, Liszt never wrote concept-oriented song cycles like those of Schubert or Schumann, but we chose to combine all of his Hugo settings (excepting Gastibelza) in a collage-like succession... In most cases, we have chosen the songs' last versions. "... read more (Excerpt from the booket notes by Daniel Heide) Vol. 1 Liszt, Petrarca Sonettes Nos 47. 104. 123 (Andre Schuen; Daniel Heide) Vol. 2 Liszt, Der Du von dem Himmel bist (Konstantin Krimmel; Daniel Heide)

When Deutschlandfunk and Musikfest Bremen first approached me to produce a CD with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, I faced the unique challenge of choosing a programme that resonated strongly with me and had a significant historical connection. Although I am half German and half Italian, I was quickly drawn to the personal ties I have with French music. I wanted to present works by young composers that had a strong impact on the history of music and pieces that offer the audience a rich, diverse soundscape. Therefore, I chose two French composers who are personally significant to me for various reasons.

Kent Nagano and Jan Vogler, the American in Germany and the German in the United States, perpetually crossing the Atlantic and calling both continents home, embody and live this once so powerful transatlantic ideal in every respect. For they are bound by much more than a deep artistic friendship and their collaborative work. They share-even more comprehensively-a worldview and understanding of life based on the Western, humanistic canon of values that Europeans once carried across the Atlantic to their new world... "It was precisely this transatlantic idea that drove me when Jan and I developed this project a few years ago," says Kent Nagano. "Hamburg was the link to the New World not just for the people of Hamburg, but for millions of Europeans." This was to be reflected in a musical work capable of carrying this idea into the future. For good reason: for years, the continents have seemingly been drifting apart. The world-renowned conductor does not hide his concern about this development. "It was also important to me to anchor the transatlantic idea in the next generation through children's and youth choirs on both sides of the ocean, who could work together and spend time with each other." The result is the oratorio "An einem klaren Tag - On a Clear Day" for cello, choir, and orchestra. The participants in the project underscore the thematic concern: the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra, texts by the well-known German poet Ulla Hahn set to music by the young American composer Sean Shepherd, who made a name for himself in the United States at a very early age, various youth choirs from Germany and New York, along with the German star cellist Jan Vogler and Nagano as the American conductor of the Hamburg State Opera, who grew up where America is farthest from Europe-in a fishing village on the American West Coast between San Francisco and Los Angeles ... (Excerpts from booklet notes by Inge Kloepfer)

Bart�k, for me, is truly one of the most important composers, on a par with Beethoven and Mozart." In our interview about the piano works on this album, Hungarian pianist D�nes V�rjon constantly expressed deep admiration, a keen understanding of this music, and a strong affinity with the composer's personality. For this musician, bringing Bart�k closer to the audience as a person and an artist is a labour of love. "I grew up with his music. It feels like a mother tongue to me. And I'm interested in everything he wrote, from the earliest works to the late ones. It's so important to see the traditions he came from and to understand how he found his voice as a composer." V�rjon notes that Bart�k was fascinated by the simplicity and sincerity of the people who sang these songs to him. Those two traits probably corresponded with Bart�k's own personality as an artist and a human being. "When I look at photos of him, what I see is a simple, sincere man; there seems to be nothing false or hypocritical in his character. He also seems highly vulnerable. Bart�k spoke slowly, quite naturally, but not much. He never tried to put on a show to win his audience's favour. He was truly an authentic person. At the same time, he had the energy and temperament of a volcano rumbling inside him - an energy he harnessed with an astounding amount of sheer discipline. The result was a high degree of fascinating, unresolved tension. Bart�k, like Schubert, is one of the composers I find the most moving.

Dvorak: Violin Concerto & String Serenade

Written in 1799, at the same time as the First Symphony, the Septet reflects Beethoven's ambition to gain a foothold in his new Viennese environment. It is an experimental work with six contrasting movements - weighty as a symphony but also influenced by the lighter, more entertaining character of the serenade.�Unlike Beethoven, who clearly indicates his intentions, Kreutzer allows the musicians plenty of room to emerge as soloists.�Combined with Beethoven's masterpiece, the result is a sound document that uncovers a buried path of music history, once more proving that unknown works are definitely worth studying, rehearsing, and performing.

The selection on this CD is a cross-section of the composer's successive creative phases. Haydn composed keyboard music over about four decades (ca. 1755-1796). In his day, the word "Clavier" was used as a generic term for various keyboard instruments that coexisted, namely the harpsichord, the clavichord, and the fortepiano (Hammerflugel).�Although on this recording I have decided to record all works on a modern grand piano, I found it important to take into account which instruments these pieces were intended for when deciding on matters of interpretation and performance. (Schaghajegh Nosrati)

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.