Classical Music

Classical Music

Water Damage turned into luck The Rhine is where Richard Wagner's cycle of operas "Der Ring des Nibelungen" begins and ends - and it was beside the Rhine in 1851 that the composer first dreamed of this equally visionary and monumental work. Even if Wagner's plans for a festival would ultimately be realized in an entirely different part of Germany, the performance of a "Ring on the Rhine" will always remain something very special. And where better to make this happen than at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein? Two cities, two orchestras, two casts of singers - with the Rhine opera's fantastic ensemble of singers and it's two outstanding orchestras, the Duisburger Philharmoniker and the D�sseldorfer Symphoniker, at their two venues in Duisburg und D�sseldorf, the essential conditions were in place. The "Ring on the Rhine" staged by Dietrich W. Hilsdorf and under my own musical direction gradually began to take shape from June 2017 onwards. The successful conclusion of this two year musical and scenic collaboration was planned for the end of the 2018/19 season with the performance of a complete "Ring" cycle at each of the two venues. However, a few weeks before the premiere of "G�tterd�mmerung", a defective sprinkler system flooded Theater Duisburg. The damage this caused made completing the staged "Ring" cycle in Duisburg (for the time being) impossible..." (From the Editorial of Axel Kober)

Classical Music

Classical Music

Claude Debussy was ten years old when he was subjected to regular schooling for the first time in his life - when he entered the Paris Conservatoire. He had never attended primary school; instead, his mother had taught him reading, writing and arithmetic as best she could. At the piano, meanwhile, he had revealed his talent as a child prodigy, and his fat was sealed. The conservatory professors soon found, however, that this pupil was different, strong-willed, impetuous, and rebellious. His somewhat conservative piano teacher Antoine Francois Marmontel, for one, could make no headway whatsoever with the young savage. After initial successes, disenchantment followed in 1880. Debussy was only awarded a ''diploma'' in piano accompaniment: this was the conservatory jury's way of granting the would-be virtuoso a mere consolation prize. The child prodigy had failed. It is all the more curious to learn, therefore, that Marmontel was teh one who directed Debussy's attention to a lucrative opportunity: Nadezhda von Meck, the eccentric widow of a rich Baltic German railroad owner, was a patron of the arts with a particular penchant fo rmusic, and she was looking for a pianist to accompany her on her annual summer trips through Europe. The resulting piano trio si so spirited and full of vigor that the shadows in which it emerged are simply not noticable: instead, it testifies to Ravel's overflowing creative drive. Here, his style is fine-honed to the extreme, pointed and succinct, almost Constructivist. Innovative rhythms and metric structures are the Trio's most striking feature.

Original compositions for viola as a solo instrument were quite rare before 1775. There are several reasons for this, and they go back a long way. In ensembles, the viola, as the middle part, usually played a subordinate role. In court and municipal orchestras, the posts of violists were generally poorly filled in terms of both quality and of quantity. The first author to highlight the viola’s pivotal role in harmony and voice-leading was Johann Mattheson, who pointed out in 1713 that everything would sound dissonant without the viola.The fact that solo viola parts were generally entrusted to skillful violinists eventually led to the emergence of works written specifically for viola. With this recording exclusively featuring world premieres (with the exception of Flackton) of original compositions for viola, we are thus able to provide a multi-faceted glimpse of late 18th-century repertoire for viola and keyboard- works that are mostly forgotten today.

Classical Music

Classical Music

In a series of 3 albums, the Beethoven Trio Bonn explores the confrontation between one of Beethoven's standard works for piano trio with a further "house music" arrangement of one of his orchestral works. More than providing an interesting pairing, the Beethoven Trio Bonn was keen on interpreting an original work for piano trio alongside an arrangement of an orchestral work "downsized" to piano trio format. This new concept delivers surprising, unforeseen results. Composers and publishers in Beethoven's day sought to indulge the pleasures of the middle class: dozens of arrangements and transcriptions of orchestral works were in wide circulation for domestic use. Haydn, Mozart and many others had always tried to provide access to the wonders of symphonic music for those members of the population who could not gain entrance to the grand concerts of the upper classes. Up to the 1930s, music publishers continued to commission composers to arrange and transcribe symphonies and other orchestral works, in order to make them readily available as chamber music; no composer found the task too lowly, since such work was a good source of steady income. When we hear Beethoven's Triple Concerto performed by a piano trio, as on this album, we are full of admiration for these three musicians who play all the additional orchestra notes apart from their own virtuoso solo parts. The piano has the toughest job of them all! Still, the resulting blend is thoroughly satisfying. Beethoven's Triple Concerto, arranged for piano trio by German composer Friedrich Eduard Wilsing (1909-1893), sounds entirely convincing; it still sports the same rhythmic drive as Beethoven's original work - particularly thanks to BTB's refreshing, energetic playing in an interpretation they have thought out with care.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music