Ian Watson and Susanna Ogata's acclaimed series on Coro Connections continues with the fourth album in their exploration of Beethoven's Sonatas for Fortepiano and Violin. The Opus 12 Sonatas that are explored on this final volume are among the most Mozartian of the sonatas. They are, however, filled with Beethoven's inimitable voice, from the assertive Sonata No. 1, in the violin's most brilliant and sonorous key of D major, to the pianistically brilliant No. 3 in E flat with it's cascades of triplets and sextuplets. Unmistakably Beethoven! Susanna Ogata has been praised for her "totally convincing, spontaneous and free-flowing playing" (The Berkshire Review) and is a tenured member of the Handel and Haydn Society where she was appointed Assistant Concertmaster of the orchestra in 2014. Ian Watson has been described by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as "a conductor of formidable ability," and by The Times in London as a keyboard performer with "virtuosic panache and brilliantly articulated playing" and "a world-class soloist." He was appointed Associate Conductor of Boston's Handel and Haydn Society in 2016.

Following the success of the Mozart Mass in C minor last year, CORO is delighted to announce the release of its second recording with Harry Christophers and the Handel and Haydn Society. Celebrated soloists Elizabeth Watts, Phyllis Pancella, Andrew Kennedy and Eric Owens joined Harry and the Society to record Mozart's Requiem live at Boston's Symphony Hall earlier this year. Mozart's final moments are reflected through this masterpiece of drama, intensity and depth. The mysterious circumstances surrounding the Requiem's commission (delivered by a 'messenger in black' who refused to reveal the identity of the person who had sent him), and the fact it was left incomplete by a dying Mozart, have ensured a continued fascination with the work. Completed by Mozart's colleague Süssmayr in 1792, the Requiem is one of Mozart's most popular and enduring works and one of the most enigmatic pieces of music ever composed. The CD will also feature Mozart's Ave verum corpus and the first recording on period instruments of his concert aria Per questa bella mano for bass voice and solo double bass obligato--a piece famous for its fiendishly difficult double bass part, performed superbly on this recording by Robert Nairn. Harry Christophers was appointed Artistic Director of Boston's internationally acclaimed Handel and Haydn Society in 2008. Founded in 1815, the Society is the oldest continuously performing arts organization in the U.S. and has given the American premieres of major works by Handel, Bach and Haydn, has won a Grammy Award, and will celebrate its Bicentennial in 2015. "Onstage, Christophers has what it takes to inspire the Society's fine musicians." The Wall Street Journal "...a commanding and compelling reading of an important if often overlooked monument in Mozart's musical development." Gramophone on COR16084: Mass in C minor

The 6 Trios by J S. Bach, as originally described in the surviving manuscript bears the name of neither the arranger of Bach’s pieces nor the composer of the slow introductions. Despite that, it has long been supposed that it was the work of W. A. Mozart. As far as we can trace, it was Wilhelm Rust, the editor of the volume 9 of the Bach-Gesellschaft edition, who in 1860 first made this connection. A more recent scholarship has identified many details that help us understand the complex backgrounds of these textual deviations found in the surviving manuscripts originated from Vienna in 1770-1800. Each Trio consists of a slow introduction and a fugue. While it retains Bach’s original prelude-fugue design, the keyboard prelude was replaced with something more suitable for string ensemble. In a sense, the arrangement has a close affiliation with the Baroque Sonata da chiesa (i.e. the first two movements of the four-movement set "slow-fast-slow-fast"), the genre, which represents the repertoire of the past, appears to have been much appreciated among the connoisseurs of music in the late eighteenth-century Vienna. The slow introduction typically begins in the tonic and closes in the dominant, so that the main piece, the fugue, can begin in a well-prepared mood. Similarly it makes use of the melodic material that hints the ensuing announcement of the fugue subject. Thus the introduction unfolds in such a manner so that when the fugue subject appears ceremoniously, one feels that at last a show has begun

When Ignaz Pleyel concluded his work on the last of his twelve “Prussian Quartets,” he had already garnered a great deal of experience as a composer of string quartets. His unmistakable musical voice had brought him countless admirers – including, not least, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who enthusiastically wrote of the Quartets op. 1 in a letter to his father. The dedicatory preface suggests that Pleyel had composed all of its pieces in Italy. He described them as “musically profound,” thereby indicating that Haydn’s Quartets op. 20 may have been their immediate model. The fugue movements in the Quartets Benton 328 and 330 are fascinating. Although Pleyel claimed that he had written them in the Italian style, Mozart was not fooled here: in their refined elegance he recognized the unique signature of Pleyel’s teacher Joseph Haydn. Nevertheless, the pupil had succeeded in writing a brilliant series of quartets in keeping with his own ideas and combining the clarity of the Italian style with the wealth of technical imagination characterizing the Viennese style.

A large measure of Mozart's increasing fascination with the clarinet from the later 1780s was due to his interaction with one of the cutting-edge virtuosi of the day, Anton Stadler, for whom both of the works on this CD were composed as well as the Clarinet Concerto, K. 662. Both works are played here by Australian virtuoso, Owen Watkins on reproductions of period clarinets, including a basset instrument, with extended lower range, for the Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581. Jaap Schröder, an expert in the violin repertoire of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, founded the Skálholt Quartet and lead the Quartetto Esterhazy and Smithson String Quartet, performing and recording classical quartet repertoire for the first time on period instruments. Oboist Owen Watkins has performed and recorded with many premier ensembles in the USA, Europe and Australia, including Boston Baroque, the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Camerata, Washington Bach Consort, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Pinchgut Opera and Orchestra of the Antipodes, Orchestra 1788 and the Cambini Quintet. A faculty member of the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute for twenty-five years, Penelope Crawford is internationally acclaimed as one of America's master performers on historical keyboard instruments. From 1975 to 1990, she was harpsichordist and fortepianist with the Ars Musica Baroque Orchestra, one of the first period instrument ensembles in North America.

The flowering of the German Lied tradition may be most closely associated with Schubert, but in fact the genre has much deeper roots than that. Already in the 18th century, composers such as C.P.E. Bach were forming a musical language that would set the stage for its extensive development 100 years later. At this point, they made a distinction between the 'Lied', 'Ode' and 'Hymne'; Bach strongly preferred the Lied (or song), which was composed in verses, and required an accompaniment, unlike the ode. Indeed, Bach's keyboard accompaniments were so wonderfully florid that they could be performed without the singer – as 'Handstücke', as he marked in the score. This new recording includes versions of each Lied for fortepiano solo alone alongside the standard version with the soprano, giving the listener a unique chance to experience Bach's Lieder in two different but equally authentic ways. Soprano Mariví Blasco has performed at prestigious venues across Spain, in roles as varied as Mozart (Despina in Così fan tutte at the Teatro Arenal) and Poulenc (in Dialogues des Carmélites at the Teatro Real). This is her first collaboration with renowned keyboardist Yago Mahúgo, already a prominent recording artist with Brilliant Classics, whose CDs have previously garnered high praise. A specialist in historical performance practice, Mahúgo performs on a fortepiano by Keith Hill, modelled after Anton Walter (1796).

Classical Music

SOMM Recordings announces the launch of a major six-volume series of Franz Xaver Scharwenka’s transcriptions of Beethoven Symphonies featuring the label debut of the Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman Piano Duo. Formed in 2010, the Duo began their in-concert exploration of Scharwenka’s four-hand Beethoven transcriptions in 2015 and now bring that experience to disc for the first time. Volume 1 includes the premiere recording of Scharwenka’s piano duet transcription of Symphony No.3, the ever-popular Eroica, and Debussy’s two-piano arrangement of Robert Schumann’s Six Studies in Canonic Form. As Robert Matthew-Walker’s booklet notes reveal, Scharwenka had a direct line to Beethoven, having been taught by Franz Kullak, who was tutored by Carl Czerny whose own teacher, in turn, had been Beethoven himself. A composer of no mean stature in his own right, Scharwenka’s transcriptions were once widely admired, making masterpiece symphonies available to every home with a piano. Possessing, says Matthew-Walker, “significant qualities which are often overlooked today”, his Eroica transcription receives ardent, eloquently persuasive championing by Schoeman and Uys. Scharwenka wasn’t alone in exploiting new developments in piano technology. Robert Schumann’s Six Studies in Canonic Form made use of the then novel ‘pedal-piano’ (a standard piano with an additional bass pedal-board) even as he was looking back stylistically towards his idol, Bach. Debussy’s arrangement for two pianos adroitly accommodates Schumann’s original to “rescue this fine music from the obscurity of the pedal-piano repertoire.” Born in Cape Town and a Royal Academy of Music Associate, Tessa Uys has an impressive reputation as a concert and broadcasting performer, appearing at major venues throughout the world. Her multi-prize-winning South African compatriot Ben Schoeman also has a busy international profile and is currently a senior lecturer in piano and musicology at the University of Pretoria.

The birth of the classical guitar

This recording focuses on concertante works for two flutes and orchestra by Italian contemporaries of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. There is documentary evidence for Mozart and Cambini having met in Paris. Common to all three works are high-spirited introductory Allegros and brilliantly scored, virtuosic Rondos. The wonderful Largo in Cimarosa’s Concerto is particularly attractive: a true 'Dance of the blessed spirits for two flutes'. Flutists Domique Hunziker and Anne Utagawa have been working together for many years. They founded the group ‘les joueurs de flute’ in 1985. The ensemble features a line-up of eight outstanding performers from Switzerland, Germany, and Japan. For this release, Hunziker and Utagawa are joined by the Orchestre de Chambre Paul Kuentz.

Internationally established musicians Hanna Shybayeva (piano), Utrecht String Quartet and Luis Cabrera (double bass) present on this album the rarely performed and even more rarely recorded chamber music transcriptions of Beethoven's piano concertos Nos. 3 and 4 by Vinzenz Lachner. Hanna Shybayeva started her international career at the age of eleven as a "child prodigy." She recorded for several labels, bringing out repertoire by Ravel, Prokofiev, Chopin, Takemitsu, Shostakovich, and the complete Etudes-Tableaux of Rachmaninov. Since 2008 she has been a member of the New European Ensemble, one of the most innovative, vibrant, and versatile ensembles for New Music. Since 2013 she has been a professor at the International Anton Rubinstein Music Academy in Dusseldorf and at Conservatorio Giacomo Puccini La Spezia.

In the course of the eight recordings released by Alpha, the Orchester Wiener Akademie, conducted by Martin Haselböck, has accomplished it's objective of recording the complete Beethoven symphonies on period instruments, in the very venues where they were premiered, scrupulously respecting the orchestral forces of 200 years ago. The symphonies take us back to nineteenth-century Vienna for a tour of the Lobkowitz, Hofburg and Niederosterreich palaces, as well as the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Theater in der Josefstadt.

About these quartets, which were written in their time for lovers and which today are a challenge even for the best musicians, one could put the words with which Mozart summed up the essence of his concerts in his letter of 28 December 1782: "They are very brilliant, pleasant in the ears, of course, without falling into emptiness, here and there even connoisseurs can receive satisfaction alone, but in such a way that those who do not know must be satisfied with them, without knowing why.'' In short: the most beautiful chamber music "for connoisseurs and lovers", played by the wonderful musicians Karel Valter (transverse flute), Pablo Valetti (violin), Peter Biely (viola) and Petr Skalka (cello).

To this day, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 is one of the most popular pieces of classical music in the world. But what is it about this global hit? The film charts the success of the symphony around the globe and encounters passionate amateur musicians and musical personalities. Watch as Greek conductor Teodor Currentzis works on Beethoven’s Ninth with his ensemble, MusicAeterna. Follow Chinese composer and Oscar winner Tan Dun as he creates a new composition inspired by the great Beethoven symphony. Experience the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as they play the Ninth. Visit a favela in Brazil, where Beethovens’s music helps people get off the streets. Be amazed as a choir of 10,000 in Japan sings the final chorus of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with great enthusiasm. Learn how Paul Whittaker helps make Beethoven accessible for deaf people. And find out how British DJ Gabriel Prokofiev performs a symphonic remix of Beethoven’s Ninth.

Haydn, J.: Symphony No. 45 / Mozart, W.A.: Serenade No. 9 /

Here is the third and last instalment in the ‘Live at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées’ series of Mozart operas conducted by Jérémie Rhorer. After Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail and La clemenza di Tito comes Don Giovanni, recorded in 2016. On the occasion of the performances (directed by Stéphane Braunschweig) during which Radio France recorded the present discs, Le Figaro wrote: ‘Jérémie Rhorer expertly conducted his orchestra “Le Cercle de l’Harmonie”. On the stage, Jean-Sébastien Bou sang and acted the title role impeccably. He was seconded by his valet Leporello, superbly played by the Canadian Robert Gleadow. A thrilling production both musically and intellectually.’ The cast is completed by the ardent Myrtò Papatanasiu in the role of Donna Anna, the lovely voice of Julie Boulianne as Donna Elvira and the elegant timbre of Julien Behr as Don Ottavio, not forgetting the magnificent Commendatore of Steven Humes and the lively Zerlina and Masetto of Anna Grevelius and Marc Scoffoni.

I hope that Anton Kuerti's 2003 remakes of Beethoven's last three sonatas will spur him on to re-record the other 29, for these new versions are infinitely superior to his 1974/75 recordings. The pianist remains thoroughly devoted to microscopic detail and grand clarification, but his compulsive drive and raspy surface style have considerably mellowed, while his soft playing has gained body and luminescence. To sample Kuerti's newly found serenity and flow in this music, listen to his spacious parsing of Op. 109's rhapsodic introductory movement and to his patiently unfolding trills in that sonata's third movement variations and in Op. 111's Arietta, and notice how he builds Op. 110's long-lined Adagio ma non troppo from the bottom up. His rubatos in the latter sonata's Fugue no longer seem artificially tacked on but rather are organically integrated into the music's visionary path. His basic measured tempos for Op. 111, once static and fussy, now emerge as all of one piece. It goes without saying that these works are amply served via recordings from Schnabel to Serkin and Kempff to Kempf, with Hungerford, Goode, Pollini, and Richter for good measure. To this august roster we easily can add the veteran Kuerti. [4/6/2004] --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Muzio Clementi’s legacy to pianists lies not only in his teaching studies and in his exploration of new levels of virtuosity, but in compositions that were widely admired by contemporaries such as Beethoven. This album explores a variety of pieces, a number of which focus on variations. ‘The Black Joke’ was a popular English tune garnished by Clementi with 21 successive variations. Musical Characteristics captures the styles of leading figures of the time, including Mozart, Haydn and Koželuch, while the Variations on ‘Batti, batti’ is a virtuoso transcription. Nicholas Rimmer plays on an original fortepiano made in Clementi’s own workshop around 1806. A pianist with a keen interest in chamber music, Lied, as well as in historical keyboard instruments, Nicholas Rimmer has appeared in many major concert venues in Germany and the UK, among others. His collaborative partnerships have resulted in acclaimed recordings of Brahms and Wolfgang Rihm; the latter (8.572730) received a Diapason d’Or, a Pizzicato Supersonic Award and an International Record Review ‘Outstanding’ Award.

As a master student of Arnold Schönberg, Walter Goehr was particularly fond of New Music, but as a conductor he devoted himself to compositions from previous centuries. The present recording of a concert from 1955 with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which he recorded with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, documents that he did this very successfully. Goehr was born in Berlin, but, being a Jewish man, he was forced to seek employment outside of Germany after working for Berlin Radio in 1932. He was invited to become music director for the Gramophone Company, and thus moved to London. It was during this time he conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the premiere recording of Bizet’s Symphony in C. He was in high demand as a guest conductor for orchestras all across Europe, including the ensemble heard in this historic recording.

With the recordings on this album, the Armida Quartet has reached the halfway mark in a project that seeks to intimately explore an entire mountain range: Mozart’s complete works for string quartet, to which they devote intense scrutiny within the framework of a recital series that pairs them with contemporary works specifically commissioned for the occasion. This requires our musicians to pay a particularly attentive ear: history remains unscathed, but the members of the Armida Quartet want to call ingrained listening habits into question. By implication, they explore Mozart’s works as if the composer was looking over their shoulder. In collaboration with Henle music publishers and musicologist Wolf-Dieter Seiffert, they have embarked on a “workshop exploration” of Mozart’s string quartets in the original manuscript. The occasional discovery of certain hitherto overlooked details leads them to interpret certain passages in exciting new ways. All the while, they gain increasing familiarity and assurance as they delve ever more deeply into the master’s musical language. The sources also confirm something that Mozart alluded to in his dedication of the six “Haydn” Quartets to his revered colleague: the fact that the work of composing can be painstaking, at times laborious.

Yes, there was another Cleopatra! She was married to Tigranes the Great, King of Armenia, and together they created an Armenia that reached from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. The resplendent and regal voice of soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian is perfectly suited to the role of Cleopatra. Bayrakdarian shines in arias from three rarely heard operas about King Tigranes and his queen. Bayrakdarian’s multi-hued voice relates the passion, drama, and fervor of the love story of Tigranes and Cleopatra. Bayrakdarian sparkles in five arias from Il Tigrane by Baroque master Johann Adolph Hasse, famous in his day as one of the foremost composers of opera. Arias by Vivaldi and Gluck add further excitement to the album. Vivaldi, known primarily for his instrumental music, stands out as an opera composer, while Gluck, in an early opera, already shows his mastery of the form. Bayrakdarian is supported by the Grammy-nominated team of Constantine Orbelian— “the singer’s dream collaborator” (Opera News) —and his marvelous Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra.

Tamsin Waley-Cohen and Huw Watkins return with the start of a Beethoven Violin Sonata Cycle – here recording the 1st, 5th and 8th sonatas. Gramophone Magazine said “The heart gives a little leap at the prospect of...a duo as engaging and intelligent as Tamsin Waley-Cohen and Huw Watkins.” This cycle is sure to be one of the highlights of Signum’s year, as well as of Beethoven 250. Beethoven’s twelve violin sonatas add up to a comprehensive exploration of the possibilities and potential of writing for the two instruments on equal terms – possibilities that he was ideally placed to understand. The three sonatas on this recording are waypoints on a journey, crafted by a composer who was both violinist and pianist, and who never ceased exploring the practical possibilities of the instruments for which he wrote.

REVIEW:

Their complementary personalities meet most harmoniously in the Spring Sonata’s Adagio, where Watkins draws an appealing, fortepiano-like resonance from the piano and Waley-Cohen’s phrasing taps the music’s pastoral roots. Each of the three sonatas inhabits its own costume, made to measure.

–Gramophone (Editor's Choice, August 2020)

Classical Music

One of the leading composers of the Classical and early Romantic eras, Johann Baptist Vaňhal played a vital role in the development of Viennese music between 1750 and 1780. He composed prolifically in many genres, including a large number of quartets, symphonies, sacred works, vocal and instrumental works, including around 150 piano sonatas and sonatinas. Vaňhal was at his most inspirational and improvisational in his keyboard Capriccios composed in the 1780s, which are some of the most creative examples of the Viennese Classical style, not least in their almost symphonic force.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

The 32 Piano Sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven are often referred to as the ‘New Testament’ of the keyboard literature, following on the ‘Old Testament’ of J.S. Bach's 48 preludes and fugues in the Well-Tempered Clavier. Composed over a period of almost three decades, from 1795 to 1822, the sonatas constitute a fascinating panorama of an artistic career which underwent numerous changes – not to say upheavals – but nevertheless remained remarkably consistent. Ever since the first recording of the entire cycle, by Artur Schnabel in the 1930s, a number of the world's leading pianists have given us their performances of this monumental collection on disc. One of the latest cycles is that of Ronald Brautigam, released on single discs between 2004 and 2010. Performed on the fortepiano, as part of a series of Beethoven's complete solo keyboard works, Brautigam's recordings have been described as ‘riveting’, ‘compelling’ and ‘revolutionary’. The eight discs with the 32 sonatas are now being released as a boxed set, along with a ninth disc containing the early, unnumbered sonatas. Contributing factors to the ‘refreshing directness’ that reviewers have experienced in these performances are the widely praised recorded sound and the carefully selected instruments, built by Paul McNulty after originals from 1788-1819 by the foremost Viennese makers of fortepianos. For this boxed set, the original SACD format has been retained – along with the possibility of listening to the performances in surround – thus offering the opportunity of sharing the experience of one reviewer: ‘One has almost the impression of being a contemporary of Beethoven’s: one of the first, infinitely startled – not to say shocked – witnesses to this music’ (Süddeutsche Zeitung).

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REVIEW:

Much of the playing here is sensational. Notice the pronounced rhetorical emphasis yet intensely focused dotted rhythms in the Pathétique’s introduction, or the revelatory continuity from one variation to the next in Op 14 No 2’s uncommonly quick central movement. Those who think that even Brautigam’s sturdy fortepiano cannot approximate an orchestra should check out Op 22’s first movement, where the full-bodied octaves and brilliantly judged ‘Rossini’ crescendo just before the recapitulation make a pulverising impact.

And what about the Moonlight finale’s controlled fury and slashing momentum that remain musical to the core, or how those Op 10 No 1 and 2 finales rock and roll while retaining maximum linear clarity? Few others rightly feel Op 10 No 3’s Minuet as one beat to a bar and effectively spin out the left-hand counterlines. Among the heroic middle-period works, perhaps Brautigam’s Waldstein and Appassionata make a cogent case for period instruments in regard to textural differentiation between registers, shorter pedal resonances, and being able to truly perceive rather than merely infer each pitch within low-lying chords and runs, abetted by Brautigam’s subtle yet expressively powerful tempo modifications and telling accents.

Brautigam’s late sonatas are never less than masterful.

– Gramophone

With this disc, Miklós Spányi completes C.P.E. Bach's set of ‘Zweyte Fortsetzung’ Sonatas, in itself a continuation of two previous sets (Wq 50 and 51). The composer himself clearly regarded the 18 sonatas of these sets as a major achievement. All of them are substantial works but the three included here might be considered the most diverse and original of the entire series. Bach assembled the Wq 52 set for publication in 1763 but Sonata No.4 had in fact been composed twenty years earlier, while No.5 and No.6 are of a later date. Together the three works exhibit Bach’s inexhaustible technique of varying melodies and textures, but they also display new structures and harmonic adventures. Following them on this disc are two of C.P.E. Bach's last compositions in the sonata genre, composed after he had left his post at the court of Frederick the Great in Berlin to take up that of Director of Music in Hamburg. Although Bach at this time more and more often performed on the fortepiano, he still favoured the clavichord, and as late as 1786, when the Sonata in C minor, Wq 65/49 was completed, he specified the use of the clavichord vibrato known as Bebung in the manuscript score. Throughout this series, Miklós Spányi has often opted for a clavichord – a copy of a rather late eighteenth-century instrument, built in the Silbermann tradition reaching back to some fifty years earlier. This choice has endeared him to many clavichord lovers, including the reviewer in BBC Music Magazine who about an earlier volume wrote: 'Spányi's ultra-sensitive touch adds magic on this delicate instrument. Gentle tonal subtlety provides rich rewards.'

At the end of April 1791, Wolfgang Amadé Mozart applied for the position of second Kapellmeister at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, hoping to inherit the position from Leopold Hofmann, the incumbent Kapellmeister, the City Council of Vienna accepted Mozart’s petition in a strongly worded decree as a basis for the text in the vocal passages of his Sieben Klangräume Accompanying the Unfinished Fragments of Mozart’s Requiem KV 626. All of the parts of the Requiem composed by Mozart himself exist in a complete four-part vocal score with organ bass - only the first movement is fully orchestrated - and contain virtually all of the key musical aspects: theme, harmony, melody, dynamics and modulation. According to Haas, “Mozart sketched out the main musical voices for the whole piece, producing almost a skeleton to the work” – in other words, fragments of sound. This was the approach used by Haas for his Klangräume (Sound Spaces): “ In between these fragments of sound, I was able to add a different sound world - one in the style of the early 21st century.” Haas responds powerfully to the nature of the fragments. Haas regarded the Requiem fragment as “sacrosanct”. The only aspect that Haas adopted from Mozart was his orchestration: mixed choir, mostly with four voices, but also extended to include as many as 16 voices for the spoken passages, but no vocal soloists. Haas does not use any musical material written by Mozart. He only uses the key signature of D minor on which he builds a series of harmonics for his composition. However, Haas responds powerfully to the nature of the fragments. The choir does not sing any of the words from the Requiem. Haas used the letter from the City Council of Vienna answering Mozart’s petition for the Position of assistant to the Kapellmeister at St. Stephen’s Cathedral. “Although Mozart is offered the position, he is granted it with such administrative brutality, which shows a total lack of understanding of everything related to art.” Haas uses the orchestral instruments to echo and foretell the moods in Mozart’s fragments, adding intricate tonal contrasts to the polyphonic richness of Mozart’s music. He adopts completely different compositional methods to establish connections to Mozart’s composition.

Brilliant young Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Martinez has been taking the classical world by storm ever since her student days at Julliard. She has won consistent acclaim at top domestic and international venues for her brilliant technique, aesthetic sensitivity, interpretive acumen, and emotional impact. Here, in her first recording for Delos, she offers a wide-ranging program of classics by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and Szymanowski. She also pays homage to acclaimed contemporary composers Mason Bates and Dan Visconti whose title selection, Amplified Soul, was written for her and is heard here in its world premiere recording. Piano fans who want to keep up with the brightest new talents in the field owe it to themselves to get to know this phenomenal keyboard virtuoso.

In 1791, in a suburb of Vienna, Mozart created his Singspiel Die Zauberflöte. The libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, who also directed it in his theatre, wanted to reach out to the popular audience in German. Thanks to the dramatic and dreamlike qualities of the work, and Mozart's brilliant music, it exceeded one hundred performances in one year and it's success became universal. But in order to win over all audiences, it's trump card was to speak to the audience in their own language - and not in Italian like the court opera. This is what this production offers, in an entirely French version, staged by Cécile Roussat and Julien Lubek and conducted by Hervé Niquet with a sparkling team: Mozart's work suddenly takes on the tone of the Opéra-Comique à la française. And thus, to go it even more strength, we have now the Magic Flute in French!

A High Point in the CPE Bach Anniversary Year: Frieder Bernius and the Kammerchor Stuttgart are marking the composer’s 300th anniversary with a recording of the oratorio "Die Israeliten in der Wüste" (The Israelites in the Wilderness). In 1768, right at the beginning of his long period as musical director of the Hamburg principal churches, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach composed this masterpiece. The new, sensitive musical language he used delighted contemporaries and colleagues alike. This recording contributes a fitting concluding note to the anniversary year.