The award-winning duo ensemble formed by Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt are returning to the masterworks of European chamber music with this new album that includes Ludwig van Beethoven’s three violin sonatas from Op. 30.

The expressive and intimate chamber music recordings by the star duo have gathered numerous awards and their previous album also received an ECHO Klassik award in 2017. Beethoven wrote his three Violin Sonatas Op. 30 in 1801 and 1802. They are relatively early works but already pointing towards the direction of Beethoven’s revolutionary 3rd Symphony, Eroica, which was completed in 1803. Although the influence of Haydn is still visible, in these sonatas Beethoven created movements in all the sonatas that are completely untypical and that had never existed before in this way. No wonder that these delightful works belong to the artists’ favorite works by the great composer.

REVIEWS:

Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt make a formidable team: technically right at the top of their game (Tetzlaff’s bow control is phenomenal), and yet at the same time always managing to convey the notion of taking risks.

-- BBC Music Magazine

This is chamber-playing at its most humane; impossible to hear without feeling a renewed love and admiration for music and performers alike.

-- Gramophone

Complete recording of all 24 of Haydn's German songs. World premiere recording. Performed by experts in 18th century performance practice, including the art of ornamenting Haydn's vocal music. Accompaniments are performed on replicas of Haydn's fortepiano from around 1790. Booklet essay by distinguished Haydn scholar, Professor James Webster from Cornell University. A note on performance by forte pianist Tom Beghin is also included, along with English translations of all the song texts.

One of the 20th c. greatest interpreters of the works of his contemporary Richard Strauss, W.A. Mozart, and the Austro-German masterworks more generally, the conductor Karl Böhm (1894-1981 was nearly halfway through his long Vienna Philharmonic association when this now historic 1956 Mono recording of Mozart's Requiem, KV626 was realized. The quartet of soloists - Teresa Stich-Randall, Ira Malaniuk, Waldemar Kmentt and Kurt Böhme - among the greatest Mozartian singers of the era, plus the sterling bonus 1957 Beethoven Choral Fantasy, op. 80, insure this disc's import.

In a program packed full of great drama and theatricality, Harry Christophers and the Handel and Haydn Society present a new live recording devoted to the master of the symphony. This disc showcases Haydn's Symphony No. 7 "Le midi" which is amongst the most striking of his early symphonies and one of the very first the composer wrote as Kapellmeister to Prince Paul Anton Esterházy. It is set alongside the much later Paris Symphony No. 83 "La poule", named as such because of it's famous clucking dotted note motif. Completing the program is the Violin Concerto in C major performed by HH's fiery and expressive Concertmaster, Aisslinn Nosky. Handel and Haydn Society is America's oldest continuously operating arts organization. It's Bicentennial celebration began with the 2014-2015 Season and continues into the 2015-2016 Season. Harry Christophers has been Artistic Director since 2008.

Glenn Gould maintained a very peculiar relationship, a sort of love and hate, with Beethoven's music, which he performed out of any traditional scheme or system. This CD presents two live Gould rarities, the first one being the Piano Concerto No.5 in E-flat, op. 73 "Emperor", recorded live in Buffalo, NY on 6 November 1960 with the conductor Josef Krips. The second live recording on this CD, taking place only two weeks earlier, concerns Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.2 in B-flat, op. 19, conducted by Paul Paray, in an original and personal performance by both these artists. This very significant addition to the discography of Glenn Gould furthers the image of this eclectic, fascinating and singular artist.

The emotion-laden text of the Stabat mater has been an inspiration to many composers from the Renaissance onwards and has been set to music in every possible style. Luigi Boccherini, a virtuoso cellist and unquestioned master of chamber music, composed his own setting with a great respect for the text’s character. The quintet that accompanies the solo soprano has the same qualities of balance and homogeneity common to the best chamber works of the end of the Classical period, whilst the blend between voices and instruments is perfect. Boccherini’s profound respect for the text enables him to identify the exact musical character of each and every verse. Born in Belgium, Sophie Karthäuser completed her studies with Noelle Barker at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She is one of the world’s finest interpreters of Mozart and has been called a born “Mozartian,” and brings that same clarity of interpretation and flair to the work presented on this release.

The PROSPERO label presents here Nikolaus Harnoncourt's legendary Zurich farewell concert of November 2011. After 36 years of opera and concert activities at Lake Zurich, the maestro bid farewell to his orchestra and his audience with Mozart's Wind Serenade K. 361 and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. The conductor originally intended to work on the Gran Partita at the performance venue, the Zurich Tonhalle. However, as he was already in poor health, the meticulous rehearsals typical of the maestro were moved to his home in St. Georgen in Upper Austria. The musicians of the Philharmonia Zurich (formerly the Zurich Opera House Orchestra), who were able to experience how the interpretation was fine-tuned there, still talk today with shining eyes about this intensive and immensely enriching collaboration. So it is not surprising that the orchestra gave literally 'everything' at the farewell concert for one of the most important of his guild, in order to give it's conductor a worthy musical farewell. Swiss radio raved at the time about a "breathtaking moment of the concert year 2011". One critic even spoke of the "craziest performance of Beethoven's Fifth ever heard in the Tonhalle Zurich". This concert event is now available in a sonically carefully restored 'splendid edition'. As a hardcover book with 44-page booklet, including many illustrations and never-before-published visual material. As a special musical bonus, the edition contains a rehearsal recording of Beethoven's Fateful Symphony.

The Quartetto Italiano is regarded as one of the finest string quartets of the twentieth century. They were formed officially in 1945. By the early 1950s, they had achieved a measure of international celebrity, and by the 1960s the ensemble had developed a world-class reputation. Here we have some rare BBC live performances from 1965 given in the Royal Festival Hall. They are recorded in excellent stereo and issued for the very first time.

Mozart wrote only one actual sonata for two pianos. Mozart By Arrangement is the first instalment of six sparkling new Mozart two-piano sonatas. Violinist and conductor Andrew Manze once observed that the frequent concerto-like writing in Mozart's op. 2 (1781) sonatas for violin and piano might make them effective piano duets. The Australian composer Stephen Yates has taken him up on the idea, adding these delightful new works to the two-piano repertoire.

REVIEW:

These transcriptions by British composer Stephen Yates were inspired by none other than one of the world’s foremost interpreters of the original works, violinist Andrew Manze, who suggested that the violin music could effectively be reimagined as piano music. I was dubious of the concept in practice, owing to my supreme respect—wonderment, really—of Mozart’s intuitive sense of instrumental timbre and dramatic intent. Clearly, Manze has better intuition on this matter than do I (no surprise!), because this is a completely charming production. Here is yet another enchanting and novel release from Toccata Classics, an indispensable label for all true piano lovers.

-- Fanfare

Pianist Min-Jung Kym makes her recording debut on Signum Records, leading the Philharmonia Orchestra under conductor Clemens Schuldt in performances of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, and joined by Zsolt-Tihamer Visontay for Mendelssohn's Double Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra in D Minor. Steinway Artist Min-Jung Kym has acquired an internationally recognized reputation performing with some of the world's leading orchestras and musicians, and has enjoyed collaborations including with (amongst others) Barry Wordsworth, Alison Balsom, the Haffner Ensemble, Pierre Amoyal, Leon Bosch, Joy Farrall, Andrew Haveron, Sergey Levitin, Adrian Brendel, Thomas Carroll, Mats Lidstrom and the soprano Susan Bickley. Min-Jung was the 'pianist of choice' for the masterclasses of the legendary violinist Ruggiero Ricci. "Min-Jung is an exceptionally talented pianist, with a wonderfully controlled and even technique, combined with a highly sensitive approach to the music." (Ruggiero Ricci)

This release features Vol. 3 of Tartini's works for violin and harpsichord, adding another significant piece to Dynamic's releases by the baroque composer. The works are performed here by the duo Crtomir Šiškovic (violin) and Luca Ferrini (harpsichord), who were also featured also in Dynamic's Vol.1 and Vol. 2. Both musicians are highly praised specialists for this kind of repertoire. Born in Trieste, Crtomir Šiškovic studied at "Glasbena Matica" and graduated from the G. Tartini" Conservatory of Trieste. He enjoys performing in various chamber groups as well as performing as a soloist with prestigious orchestras. Luca Ferrini studied at the conservatories Tartini in Trieste, and Tomadini in Udine, obtaining full marks for both piano and harpsichord. He is a renowned concert pianist, performing all over Europe as a soloist and member of chamber ensembles.

Classical Music

Sor: Studies in a Form of a Suite

Towards the end of his life, short of money and heavily in debt, Mozart had the opportunity to visit King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia – a famous patron of the arts and a keen and above-average musician. Mozart performed for the King and left with some cash and a commission for a set of six string quartets, of which these are the only three he completed. They are ground-breaking in the way in which Mozart utilised the voicing of the instruments. King Friedrich was a viola da gamba player turned cellist, and these works feature extensive melodies for the cello, usually in a high register, thus emancipating the cello from the bass line and introducing a more evenly blended texture. Firmly established as one of the leading quartets of their generation, the Doric String Quartet enjoys a worldwide reputation and has performed at festivals and concert halls around the globe. Exclusive Chandos artists, the Quartet has drawn widespread critical acclaim for its recordings and won a number of prestigious awards.

REVIEW:

Their collective tone is both sweet and sinewy, with vibrato used for expressive effect rather than as a default setting. Contrapuntal textures are ideally lucid.

– Gramophone (Editor's Choice, Sept. 2021)

With the three piano trios Op. 1 Ludwig van Beethoven took a genre still largely associated with entertaining salon music, and raised it up to rival the string quartet. The works are innovative in form as well as in content – especially so in the case of the Trio No. 3 in C minor, Beethoven’s trademark key. It is therefore fitting that the Sitkovetsky Trio has chosen this work to open their cycle of the composer’s piano trios. That the C minor trio was pioneering is illustrated by the fact that Haydn, who at the time was Beethoven’s teacher, advised against its publication. He feared that it would not ‘be understood so quickly and easily’ – but the world as Haydn knew it was clearly changing and the trios became a commercial success as well as harbingers of a new musical aesthetic. Some twenty years later, in 1813 when E. T.A. Hoffmann reviewed the two Op. 70 trios, the new era was firmly established, and to Hoffmann the works confirmed ‘how Beethoven carries the Romantic spirit of music deep within his soul’. Between the two complete trios recorded here, the Sitkovetskys include Beethoven’s last contribution to the piano trio genre, the little Allegretto in B flat major, WoO 39. It was composed in June 1812 for Maximiliane Brentano, the ten-year-old daughter of Franz and Antonie Brentano – or, as it says on the title page of the autograph manuscript, ‘for my little friend Maxe Brentano, to encourage her piano playing’.

Emil Gilels was born in Odessa on October 19, 1916. At five, he began to take lessons from Yakov Tkach. Gilels development was astonishingly rapid and by twelve, he had mastered Chopin's etudes. He gave his first public performance in 1929. The following year he was accepted to the Odessa Conservatory in the class of Berta Reingbald. Under her tutelage, Gilels blossomed. When Arthur Rubinstein came to Odessa in the early 1930s, he predicted that young Emil would one day eclipse them all. Gilels entered the first "All Union Competition" (1933), which he won unanimously. He then toured the Soviet Union and was acclaimed as the standard-bearer of a "new" Soviet pianism. In 1935 he moved to Moscow and entered the class of the legendary pianist and pedagogue Heinrich Neuhaus. At the start of 1936, Gilels performed Beethoven's third piano concerto with Otto Klemperer. Two years later, he took part in the "International Brussels Competition." The jury, numbering such luminaries as Leopold Stokowski, Otto Klemperer, Walter Gieseking, Emil von Sauer, Carlo Zecchi, Robert Casadesus and Samuil Feinberg, awarded him first prize. It was planned that he set forth on a long tour, including of the United States, but these were scotched by the Second World War. Throughout the war, Gilels performed all over the country. Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto was a staple of his repertoire. When the war ended, he toured Europe and in 1955, became the first Soviet musician to tour the United States. Until his death in 1985, Emil Gilels continued to perform and record widely. He is universally acclaimed as one of the greatest pianists of all time. We are honored to present here live performances of two of his sterling concerto performances.

Classical Music

This album of Mozart Sonatas is presented by pianist Diana Boyle. This two-disc set contains eight of the beloved composer’s piano sonatas, perfected by Boyle at her secluded hilltop home in Portugal. These works were recorded in England in 2014.

Born in Hamburg in 1786, the son of a military bandsman, Friedrich Kuhlau showed early musical promise and took lessons with a student of CPE Bach. When Napoleon’s troops invaded Hamburg in 1810, the 24-year-old Kuhlau fled with his family to Copenhagen, and there he made his name as a pianist and composer to the royal court. Taking Danish citizenship in 1813, he worked in the vanguard of the country’s fast-moving cultural scene, enjoying huge success as a composer of operas and incidental music. Kuhlau was himself a flautist of modest accomplishment, but the popularity of salon culture in Denmark increased the demand for flute and piano music - which were both fashionable at the time - to such an extent that Kuhlau complained, in a letter to his publisher in 1829, about having too many commissions. While a flautist of modest accomplishment himself, Kuhlau wrote with unfailing craft, sympathy and imagination for the instrument and before their publication he submitted his new works for approval from the principal flautist of the Court Chapel’s orchestra. The seven trios recorded here display a surprising variety of texture and mood. Even the trio of Op.13 works from 1815 ranges from the Baroque manners of No.3’s Adagio to a much grander scale of expression in the slow introduction which opens the curtain on No.1 and on the set as a whole. There is a dashing, Mendelssohnian quality to both the melodies and the sunny disposition of the Op.86 set from 1827 which itself is set aside for a more intense, Beethovenian argument in the grand trio Op.90. In 2015 three Asian flautists founded the Flute East Trio at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin.

CZERNY: Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 and 3 / Funeral March, Op. 146

MOZART (rev. STRAUSS, R.): Idomeneo (Complete)

Also available on Blu-ray

Mozart’s Singspiel Die Zauberflöte seamlessly alternates seriousness and jollity, and combines philosophical ideas with a fairytale world of wondrous animals and magical musical instruments. Fusing music, technology and stagecraft, this exciting production gives Die Zauberflöte a refreshing treatment both thrilling and simple. Following overwhelming stage success, McBurney’s unique production received five-star reviews in the Dutch press: ‘a feast for the eyes and ears’ (Het Parool) and ‘Delicious!’ (Trouw) ‘‘...inventively staged...’’ (Daily Telegraph)
Running time: 156 minutes
Subtitles: English/German/French/Dutch/Japanese/Korean
Picture Format: 16:9, NTSC
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 Region: All Region

Demofoonte dates from the early ‘Milan years’ of Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787), long before the radical ‘reform operas’ for which he is most famous and his break with opera seria and the librettos of Pietro Metastasio. Gluck arrived in the northern Italian city in 1737 and was mentored there by composer Giovanni Battista Sammartini. Though Sammartini primarily composed symphonies and music for the church, Milan boasted a vibrant opera scene, and Gluck soon formed an association with one of the city's up-and-coming opera houses, the Teatro Regio Ducal. His first opera, Artaserse, on a libretto by Metastasio, premiered there on 26 December 1741 and opened the Milanese Carnival of 1742. Gluck went on to compose an opera for each of the next four Carnivals at Milan, Demofoonte being the second of these and his third opera overall, premiering on 6 January 1743. In celebration of Gluck’s 300th birthday, the early music scholar and harpsichordist Alan Curtis (1934–2015), founder of Il Complesso Barocco and leader of the period music ensemble for nearly four decades, prepared Demofoonte for performance. All of the arias had been preserved, but nearly all of the secco recitatives were lost. Curtis composed new recitatives in Gluck's style, using Gluck’s earliest fully extant opera, Ipermestra, written less than two years after Demofoonte, as a model. This modern revival was given its first performance on 23 November 2014 in Vienna and was recorded with the same excellent cast of singers the week before, in Northern Italy.

Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his 10 Violin Sonatas between 1797 and 1812. The Sonatas 1 to 9 were written between 1797 and 1803 before almost ten years passed until his opus 96. The composer premiered all his early piano works himself, which might be why he called them "Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violin." In the spirit of W. A. Mozart's redefinition of the genre, who elevated the violin from its previously only accompanying role, and in spite of today's common designation as "violin sonatas," both instrumental parts in Beethoven's sonatas are on an equal musical footing. In 2020 - the anniversary year surrounding Beethoven's 250th birthday - the Korean violinist Clara-Jumi Kang and her partner on the piano, Sunwook Kim, took on this special cycle of chamber music works. Kang first worked on one of Beethoven's sonatas, the Fifth, at the tender age of eight and can already look back on an extremely successful international career. With Sunwook Kim, she has an exceptionally experienced Beethoven interpreter at her side, whose recordings of the piano sonatas, among others, have received high accolades around the globe. Together they have developed an inspiring and very personal reading of Beethoven's sonatas, of which this complete recording bears impressive witness.

These are to true masterpieces, even by the standards of Mozart and Beethoven. Based in Switzerland, the Fiacorda Ensemble is comprised of some of the very finest string, woodwind and brass players in Switzerland.

The present release is the second album on Avi with the Dutch/French/German group Flex Ensemble. The release features a new arrangement of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, “Eroica,” for piano quartet, completed by the composer’s pupil and friend Ferdinand Ries. Additionally, Canadian/German composer Gordon Williamson wrote two pieces reflecting the Eroica. Both embrace the Beethoven arrangement, and are receiving here their world premiere recording. “When we first found out about an arrangement for piano quartet of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, we were of course very curious! It seemed exciting and perhaps a bit crazy to play an entire symphony with just the four of us, but in fact, in the days before recordings, it was very common to hear and play transcriptions. It was a way to get to know the latest symphonic works, even if you lived nowhere near a big town or city. But even though the idea of transcribing symphonies wasn’t new, for us it offered a totally different and fresh perspective on a very familiar piece of music.” (Martha Bijlsma)

The piano music of the Czech-born composer Antoine Reicha (1770–1836) – friend of Haydn and Beethoven, teacher of Berlioz, Liszt and Franck – has only recently begun to be discovered. He was an important influence on composers of the next generation but until the last few years his piano works remained almost completely unknown. Encompassing Baroque practices as well as looking forward to the twentieth century, they are full of harmonic and other surprises that show this liveliest of musical minds at work. In this fourth volume of his survey of Reicha’s piano music Henrik Löwenmark sandwiches a number of quixotic miniatures between two grand but idiosyncratic sonatas.

Through the centuries composers have brought colour and panache to bear in their depictions of animals in music. For some, such as Sibelius, animals become the central focus in their tone poems, whilst for others a symphonic unity is sought, as Beethoven showed in his ‘Pastoral’ Symphony. Poetic imagery, through song, offers another avenue. The rich variety of the animal kingdom—from bees to birds, from fleas to fish (and much else)—offers memorable opportunities for sonic richness.

Classical Music

Ludwig van Beethoven stands as a giant in music history for his great symphonies, piano sonatas and string quartets, and the challenges of deafness later in life. This programme shows the younger Beethoven's facility as a creator of light and entertaining chamber works as enjoyable to perform as they are to hear. Taking their cues from Mozart, the 'Duos' build on sonata form and dance movements, the slightly later 'Serenade' taking the shape of a genial 18th-century divertimento. Flutist Kazunori Seo was born in Japan in 1974. He began studying music at age 6 with his parents before going on to study in Paris. He was the recipient of the Premier Prix in flute in 1998 and the Premier Prix in chamber music in 1999. His previous recordings for Naxos include the flute music of Leopold Hofmann, Karl and Franz Doppler, Ignaz Moscheles, and Carl Czemy.