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.

Mendelssohn' magnificent oratorio Elijah brings to life the tumultuous times and personal drama of the Biblical prophet in a sweeping series of recitatives, arias and choruses in which the composer' Romantic genius drew deeply from the wellsprings of Bach.

MENDELSSOHN: Piano Trios Nos. 1 and 2

Our tour of Italy starts in the countryside near Orvieto, moves to the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, then to Montalcino and it's ancient abbey. We see the Tuscan landscape around Montepulciano, glimpse Siena, and finally see something of the historic building.

MENDELSSOHN: Flute Concerto in D Minor / Flute Sonatas

Lena Neudauer attracted international attention when at the age of fifteen she not only spectacularly won the Leopold Mozart Competition in Augsburg but also was awarded practically all the special prizes. And Matthias Kirschnereit has long enjoyed international renown, even though he eschews the glamorous world of stardom. We have now brought together these two most highly talented musicians for a recording of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's Concerto for Violin, Piano, and String Orchestra, a work with a tradition extending from Bach and Baroque music by way of Mozart and Haydn to early romanticism. In the second early work heard on this album, the Violin Concerto in D minor, the legacy of classicism and that of Bach's highly regarded son Carl Philipp Emanuel, are clearly audible. For Mendelssohn's teacher Zelter and contemporary audiences the musical aesthetic of the late eighteenth century continued to dictate taste. Both of these early concertos attest to an authentic boy genius and an acclaimed public favorite!

Mendelssohn, Felix / Mendelssohn-Hensel, Fanny: Choral Music

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde - Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Nig

SYMPHONIES NOS. 3 & 4

Classical Music

VIOLIN CONCERTOS

Classical Music

Felix Mendelssohn composed his three String Quartets op. 44 dedicated to Sweden’s crown prince and later king Oscar I during the years from 1837 to 1838. In 1840 Mendelssohn, who was regarded as an absolute perfectionist, revised these “Trois Grands Quatuors,” which he judged to be »some hundred times better« than all of his previous works. Vol. 3 presents the first two quartets from op. 44. The first, the last of the series to be composed, belongs to the genre of the “quatuor brilliant” – a type in which it is the first violin that shines. Already the introductory “Allegro vivace” is like a concerto movement by reason of the fact that the first violin is mostly accompanied by the three other instruments, often even with orchestral tremolos and timpani imitations in the violoncello. The second quartet, the first to be composed in this series of three, conveys an elegiac and passionate tone and displays expressive passages together with powerful accents.

Classical Music