“The two concertos are distinguished by their classical musical language rich in ideas and their colorful instrumentation. Eberl’s music radiates with a lightness similar to that of Mozart, which is why the later confusion about the authorship of their works comes as no surprise. The piano part has a glistening and brilliant sound, while the orchestra forms a richly instrumented accompaniment. The melodic invention and harmonic structure are of timeless beauty.” This is what klassik.com wrote of the Vol. 1 featuring the piano concertos of Anton Eberl. Vol. 2 with his Concerto for Two Pianos op. 45, a work highly esteemed by his contemporaries, has a stylistic design adhering to the ideals of Viennese classicism and stands out for its multifaceted instrumentation. Eberl too seemed to have had a high opinion of this work. Whenever it was possible, he performed it during his concert tours throughout Germany, for example, in Berlin with Giacomo Meyerbeer, who was not even fifteen years old at the time. The release also includes the two Sonatas for Piano Four Hands op. 7, works proving to be very demanding in their piano parts as well as in their compositional structure.

There was no composer whose works were more frequently passed off as Mozart's than Eberl. Even more surprising is the documented fact that there was no protest from Mozart against the use of his name on Eberl's compositions. Eberl, a friend and (probably) a student of the great man, did mind but was too timid to take action until after Mozart had died. Finally, he published a notice in a widely read German newspaper claiming ownership of a number of his compositions attributed to Mozart. Despite this, his works still continued to be published under Mozart's name. This in itself is a telling indication as to the contemporary opinion of the quality of Eberl's works, but critical reviews of his day also spoke of works published under his own name reaching the heights of Haydn's, Mozart's and the young Beethoven's. -- Seven world premieres are presented in this collection of Eberl's solo piano output by forte-pianist John Khouri, whose previous recordings of Clementi, Hummel, Cramer, and others on Music & Arts have been acclaimed for authenticity and artistic excellence.

The German-born, Anglicized composer, instrument builder, and publisher J.B. Cramer was an outstanding representative of the London Piano School. In the late 18th-century and 1s half of the 19th, two schools of piano playing came to prominence. One is the so-called Viennese school and the other the school of Field (so described by Friedrich Wieck). This school might more accurately be called the school of piano playing based in London which was founded by J.C. Bach and Muzio Clementi. These and succeeding pianists admired the English grand pianoforte and used it whenever possible. Now badly neglected, Cramer wrote keyboard sonatas of outstanding merit, the best of which are resurrected in this collection. Curiously, for the last 31 years of his life, Cramer stopped composing in this genre. Why? One reason is that the sonata as a form had become unfashionable in England during this period, most pianists writing for the more popular market. Another reason Cramer's whole output declined after 1830 may be that he felt completely out of sympathy with the new pianos, with the new style of composition and with the new pianists. Although he knew many of the new pianistic stars, he found little sympathy for their music and playing styles. He was firmly committed to the pre-1835 Broadwood grand, with its leather hammers, triple stringing and wooden frame. The new school of piano playing alienated him and in turn he became a relic of the past, respected to his face but privately scorned. Out of sync with the prevailing musical climate, there as no demand for his serious works and he simply stopped producing them. These last sonatas then, represent a final flowering of his compositional talent coinciding with the final phase of the early Broadwood grand piano. The performer's previous fortepiano recordings of works by Beethoven, Weber, Clementi and Dussek have been favourably reviewed in Gramophone, Fanfare, Musica, and other trade journals.

The start of an exciting series on Brilliant Classics: the Complete Keyboard Sonatas by Kozeluch. Leopold Kozeluch was in his time a highly regarded, even famous composer, on a par with C.P.E. Bach and even Mozart. His keyboard sonatas, although relatively modest in length, share the same qualities with those of his illustrious contemporaries: strong focus on melody and melodious figuration, vivid and brilliant accompinaments and a genuine expression of feeling, both happy and dramatic. His 50 keyboard sonatas are a true treasure trove of hidden pianistic gems.

In 1819 the Viennese music publisher and composer Anton Diabelli sent a short waltz to a long list of composers. These included Schubert, Hummel, a very young Franz Liszt and, as the most prominent composer of the time, naturally Beethoven. Diabelli was proposing to compile an anthology of variations on his own waltz, one from each composer. Beethoven responded in a characteristic manner: first there was nothing, and then there was nothing … and then, in 1823, there was an entire, and monumental, set of no less than thirty-three variations. There are several possible reasons for this, one being that Beethoven felt that it was below his dignity to take part in a project of this nature. What is certain, however, is that he must have found Diabelli’s theme intriguing material to work with – and against: Beethoven often seems to poke fun at the waltz, starting already in the first variation by turning it into a pompous march. But like all truly great variation works the Diabelli Variations take in the high as well as the low, jokes as well as drama – or serenity, as in Variation 24, a Fughetta, clearly inspired by the Aria in Bach’s Goldberg Variations. As the last large-scale piano work by Beethoven, the Diabelli Variations form a fitting close to Ronald Brautigam’s traversal of the complete solo piano music. Described in International Record Review as ‘a Beethoven player whose musical discernment is a constant source of wonderment’, Brautigam has through the course of this series performed works composed between 1783 and 1825, using four different fortepianos. On the present release we hear a copy of a 4-stringed fortepiano by Conrad Graf from 1822 – similar to Beethoven’s own last instrument, which Graf supplied him with in 1826, a year before the composer’s death.

With this fourth album - which features one of the best loved of all of Beethoven's works, the 'Moonlight Sonata' - Ronald Brautigam reaches the year 1800. Ronald Brautigam's ongoing cycle on the fortepiano of Beethoven's piano music has been an ear-opening experience for many a listener, as testified by the glowing reviews. The first volume (BIS-SACD-1362) raised the expectations of the critic in Fanfare for 'a Beethoven piano-sonata cycle that challenges the very notion of playing this music on modern instruments, a stylistic paradigm shift'. The reviewer on website klassik.com called Volume 2 (BIS-CD-1363) 'absolutely extraordinary' and stated that 'if this high artistic level is maintained, this Beethoven cycle is set to become an interpretative milestone. Only a select few are able to arrive at such a perfect mix of youthful fire and technical mastery.' And the recently released third instalment, (BIS-SACD-1472) has fulfilled the promise of the previous discs: 'Beethoven the revolutionary comes closer than ever in Brautigam's fiery interpretations', wrote The Times (UK) and the critic on the website MusicWeb International stated that 'these are once more thoroughly exciting, utterly musical performances that make you hear this music afresh.'

Ludwig van Beethoven’s first printed work was a set of variations, published in 1783 when he was only twelve years old and his final keyboard composition was the massive set of thirty-three variations on a theme by Anton Diabelli, composed almost four decades later. Not counting the several movements in variation form included in the sonatas, his twenty-one sets of piano variations thus trace a line of development in his production, parallel to those formed by the 32 piano sonatas or the 16 string quartets. On this the 14th volume in his acclaimed traversal of Beethoven's keyboard music, Ronald Brautigam performs five sets, composed between 1802 and 1809. In three of these Beethoven uses themes of his own, including the Ruins of Athens Variations, Op.76, nick-named after the play for which Beethoven later wrote incidental music, reusing the martial theme in a 'Turkish march'. The two remaining sets both use English themes Beethoven’s choice of God save the King and Rule Britannia may well reflect his often expressed respect for that country – as well as his interest in the English market for sheet music. As the final part of the programme, Brautigam includes a selection of smaller pieces, most of them of an earlier date than the preceding variations. Some of these are probably student pieces, in particular the Preludes Op.39 and WoO 55 and the Fugue in C major, fruits of the counterpoint exercises Beethoven was assigned by his first teacher, Christian Gottlob Neefe, and by Johann Albrechtsberger. Six dances close a disc that offers many opportunities to glimpse another Beethoven than the composer we all believe we know.

Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata has today become part of the cello repertoire but it was originally written for the arpeggione, a form of bowed guitar invented by the Viennese maker Johann Georg Staufer in 1823. With a unique ethereal sound, this instrument reveals the true beauty of Schubert’s initial conception. The Piano Trio No. 2 was performed at the Vienna Musikverein on the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death – its extremes of urgent drama and sublime bittersweet lyricism are characteristic of Schubert’s artistic surge during his final year.

Franz Xaver Gebel was born in Furstenau near Breslau in 1787 and received his musical education in Vienna, as did many of his Silesian peers. His list of teachers included Abbe Vogler and Johann Georg Albrechtsberger. In Vienna, Gebel was engaged at first as the director of music at the Theater in Leopoldstadt and published some compositions including the Great Sonata for pianoforte and violoncello. After working as a director of music in Vienna, Pest, Hermannstadt, and Lemberg, he ended up in Moscow in 1817, where he spent the rest of his life and gave private lessons for piano and compositions. Subscribers to Gebel’s evenings of chamber music had purchased tickets to what was probably the first public chamber concerts in Moscow, where they heard sophisticated pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven as well as quartets and quintets by Gebel himself. Almost 20 years after Gebel’s death, the String Quintet No. 8 and the Double Quintet Op. 28 were published at the Julius Schuberth publishing house in Leipzig. This release is a world premiere recording of the String Quintet No. 8 and the Cello Sonata.