Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Ronald Brautigam has recorded more than 60 albums for BIS, including the complete solo keyboard music by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven on the fortepiano. But his first releases on the label, in the mid-1990s, were Mendelssohn’s concertante works for piano and orchestra, on modern piano. When he now returns to these scores, it is on a copy of a Pleyel grand piano from 1830 – the year before Mendelssohn composed his Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor. And the orchestra supporting him is the period band Die Kölner Akademie under Michael Alexander Willens, the same team that he has already collaborated with for an acclaimed 11-album survey of Mozart’s keyboard concertos. The historically informed accompaniments and the clarity of the solo instrument contribute to performances of a great charm and freshness, shedding a new light on these works. Composed between 1831 and 1838, they were all written primarily for Mendelssohn’s own use as a touring concert pianist, but soon entered the repertoire of many other pianists – especially the G minor concerto, which was extremely popular in the composer’s own time.

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REVIEWS:

Brautigam uses a copy of a Pleyel piano of 1831 – just a year before the First Concerto was composed – and he skates over its keys with dazzling ease, negotiating the cascades of notes with admirable fluency. He’s well supported by Michael Alexander Willens and the Cologne Academy.

– BBC Music Magazine

Brautigam launches his disc with the rondo brilliant and for once the exuberant muscularity of the soloist’s opening phrases don’t sound unwieldy. The relative lightness of the McNulty instrument ensures that even when Brautigam really plays out, there’s no fear of him overwhelming the orchestra.

– Gramophone

Classical Music

If the String Symphonies, collected on the accompanying release SACD1738, are the works by the young Mendelssohn on his way to becoming a fully-fledged composer, the concertos give a more all-round picture of the composer. Beginning in 1822, when he composed the Concerto in D minor for Violin and the Concerto in A minor for Piano, Mendelssohn kept returning to the concertante format throughout his life, until the great E minor Violin Concerto, written three years before his death, in 1844. Between these works can be found the two rarely heard Concertos for Two Pianos - youthful, but surprisingly mature works - as well as his two piano concertos Opp 25 and 40, and three concert pieces for piano and orchestra. Soloist in these is Ronald Brautigam, who will be well-known for his acclaimed surveys of the solo piano music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Isabelle van Keulen takes on the works involving solo violin, and was at the time of the original release described as a 'winning soloist with a soft tone like the finest-spun silk - plus strength to match, when required' (Gramophone). Swedish pianists Roland Pöntinen and Love Derwinger partner each other in the concertos for two pianos, virtuosic works first performed by Felix and his sister Fanny. The accompaniments throughout are provided by Amsterdam Sinfonietta, under Lev Markiz, and were characterized as 'both polished and warmly supportive' (Gramophone).

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Classical Music

Classical Music

In his works for cello and piano Mendelssohn created a catchy music of high artistic quality, which certainly belongs to the best that was written at that time. Friedrich Kleinhapl and Andreas Woyke, as a well-rehearsed duo, deliver a fully convincing recording.