Pi-hsien Chen was born in Taiwan and grew up in Germany where she still lives. Among contemporary pianists she is one of the few who are really selfless: for more than half a century she serves the good cause with full devotion, and without prejudices - Bach, the masters of the Viennese Classical School, the romantic heritage, or modern and contemporary music. She has become the latter's prophetic pronounciator with her authoritative interpretations of the piano works by Stockhausen and Boulez, as well as Cage and beyond. But Schubert is - as the new edition of his 'grandes sonates' proves - her 'heart music'. This bold enterprise on three albums presents those sonatas (D 568, 845, 850, 894) together that demonstrate groundbreaking progressiveness and were explicitly intended as 'grandes sonates' and published under that title. Chen underlines Schubert's emancipation from Beethoven as well as his dialogue with the titan in a manner that is discreet and sharp at the same time and herewith leads the listener into Schubert's innermost tonal language that transcends everything and articulates it's own world of real music of the future. To reveal this process until it's climax, Mrs. Chen adds two of the three 'legacy works' that Schubert wrote a few weeks before he died: the sonatas in C minor (D 958) and in A (D 959) with their utmost dialectic tension who built the peak of the iceberg 'future'.... Chen leaves us without this most popular last sonata in B-flat (D 960) that conceals the abysses in enchanting beauty. She leaves us amidst the process, looking openly toward the unknown. In this interpretation Schubert's mediating function between yesterday and tomorrow becomes unmistakable in it's tragedy and greatness.

On this release, recorded in 1978 and 2007, Paul Badura-Skoda and Jorg Demus present works by Schubert for piano four hands. The artists comment: “There are no such things as the two of us - two studious, open-minded young Viennese musicians who want to serve their darling Schubert with all their Four Hands in what is probably the most beautiful chamber music hall in the world, which Brahms loved so much that it later was named Brahms Hall, in the venerable house of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde - among the founding members were Beethoven and Schubert - on the most Viennese of all pianos, the Bösendorfer with its singing, downright Schubertian treble. Both of us had just escaped physically and spiritually sound from the turmoil of war; one thought of creating a new world of the beautiful and the good, both of us at least in music. We had a unique generation of great masters to look up to: Wilhelm Backhaus, probably the greatest of all Bösendorf players, Walter Gieseking, Edwin Fischer - we were even granted to study together in Lucerne in 1948; Paul remained connected to him throughout his life. Above all, the wonderful violin sound of the Vienna Philharmonic delighted us, and in Furtwängler the brilliant overall conception: Have you heard "His" Unfinished, or the Great C major symphony? Schubert's songs delighted us with the wonderful voices of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Irmgard Seefried, and soon also by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Joseph Krips had just presented the opera with a Mozart style that was fully natural. The whole world seemed to breathe a sigh of relief (it was before the darn Iron Curtain) and Vienna was once again the capital of music. And so we played the piano with our Four Hands, above all Mozart and Schubert, as faithfully as possible to the scores of Schubert, but we were happy to incorporate temperament, feeling and inspiration into our ten fingers.”

Classical Music

Paul Badura-Skoda, piano, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, violin and Boris Pergamenschikow, violoncello are among the most important musicians of the second half of the 20th century. A testimony to their rare collaboration can be found in this hitherto unpublished recording, which presents the three exceptional artists with the piano trios by Franz Schubert. The Trio No. 1 in B-flat major, op. 99, D 898 is a studio recording from the Grand Hall of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation in Vienna from 1984, the second trio in E-flat major, op. 100, D 929 was made during the Salzburg Festival in 1981 as a concert recording. These recordings provide a stunning experiencing of the superb individual class as well as chamber musical abilities of three of the greatest musicians of musical history.

Classical Music

His love for the works of Schubert led Ammiel Bushakevitz to the Art Song. He received mentorship in this field from notable singers including the late Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Thomas Quasthoff, Elly Ameling, Thomas Hampson, Matthias Goerne, Teresa Berganza and Brigitte Fassbaender. Born in Jerusalem, Israel and raised in South Africa, Ammiel Bushakevitz developed a special affinity for the music of Franz Schubert from an early age. He is a laureate of the International Franz Schubert Competition Dortmund and is a recipient of the International Schubert Institute Award in Vienna. Ammiel Bushkavitz performs regularly at notable venues across Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. Festival appearances include the festivals of Salzburg, Lucerne and Bayreuth, the Festival d'automne a Paris, the Festival Pontino di Latina in Italy, the Jerusalem Schubertiade, the Vancouver Chamber Music Series and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.

The recital discs of Christian Gerhaher are all excellent – and the latest addition is a collection of Schubert songs worthy falling in love with. Abendbilder (“Evensongs” or more literally: “Evening Images”) is a collection of the nocturnal explorations in song with his accompanist Gerold Huber who shines with his often delicate, always appropriate and delightful contribution.

There is a rarefied quality about Gerhaher’s Lied-interpretations… an aching beauty, sincerity, and correctness that permeates every song. His tone is finer, more sensitive than most – but never stylized. Natural, but not in a nonchalant way. What you hear on record goes well with the impression he makes in person. Friendly but somewhat impenetrable, courteous but distant, very humble but with the slightly intimidating aura of confident authority. There is purpose to what he does and how he does it – but while these are intellectual readings, they are never rarified or pedantic as not to charm the Lieder-lover without reservation.

-- Jens F. Laurson, WETA

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

SYMPHONY NO. 9

Graceful phrasing and vernal freshness characterise this promising recital

Lovers of song in the know are watching, and listening to, Elizabeth Watts. This lovely album should let others in on the secret (OK, she has won a couple of major prizes so it’s already not that much of a secret). The voice is silvery and fresh. And with such a young voice these Lieder are imbued with a sense of first love, first loss. Roger Vignoles as ever is among the most perceptive of accompanists.

-- Gramophone [2/2009]



SCHUBERT Lieder • Elizabeth Watts (sop); Roger Vignoles (pn) • RCA 732932 (71:23 Text and Translation)


An den Mond. Suleika I. Im Abendrot. Sei mir gegrüsst. Die Forelle. Heimliches Lieben. Der Sänger am Felsen. Thekla: ein Geisterstimme. An die Sonne. Aus Diego Manzanares. Nacht und Träume. Frühlingsglaube. Die Blumensprache. Nähe des Geliebten. An die Nachtigall. Liane. Des Mädchens Klage. Nachtviolen. Marie. Lambertine. Die Männer sind méchant


Here is a new release—though not her debut album—from English soprano Elizabeth Watts, who is a member of the BBC Radio 3’s “New Generation Artists” program. And what an absolutely ravishing recording it is.


Watts displayed an early interest in and talent for singing as a chorister at Norwich Cathedral, but initially pursued a more pragmatic course of study in archaeology at Sheffield University. In 2002, however, she won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music Britten International Opera School, where she studied with Lillian Watson and won several prizes, chief among which were the Kathleen Ferrier Prize in 2006 and the MIDEM Outstanding Young Artist Award in 2007. She has since been active on the British opera stage in roles that have included Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro and Papagena in The Magic Flute.


Watts’s voice, at this stage of her career, strikes me as being an ideal instrument for Schubert’s songs, calling to mind the intensely focused clarity and laser-like delivery of Elly Ameling in her four-disc Schubert collection with pianists Dalton Baldwin and Rudolf Jensen on Philips. Watts’s voice, though, has a bit more heft to it, not having quite the soubrette-like quality that makes Ameling’s voice so perfectly suited to the German Lied and French mélodie repertoire, but less so to the heavier operatic dramatic soprano roles. Watts, I think, as her voice develops and becomes weightier still, will be able to widen her own repertoire to include some of the heavier Italian opera roles of Verdi and perhaps even Puccini. It’s exciting to hear another great operatic stage soprano in the making.


Her Schubert recital is a well-chosen mix of the familiar— An den Mond, Im Abendrot , and Die Forelle —and less frequently heard songs such as Aus “Diego Manzanares, Lambertine , and Die Männer sind méchant . You can hear these songs, of course, in Graham Johnson’s comprehensive Schubert collection, assuming you have acquired every one of them. Aus Diego Manzanares , to a poem by Franz Xaver von Schlechta, appears in Volume 17 sung by Lucia Popp; Lambertine , to a poem by Josef Ludwig Stoll, is sung by Arleen Auger in Volume 9; and Die Männer sind méchant , to a poem by Johann Gabriel Seidl, appears in Volume 13, sung by Marie McLaughlin. In each case, however, comparing them side by side with Watts, I preferred Watts, both for the crystalline purity of her voice and for her highly musical phrasing and sensitive shading of the words.


Roger Vignoles has perhaps not lived and breathed Schubert quite to the extent that Graham Johnson has, nor made his mark almost exclusively as a partner in song; but Vignoles’s wider-ranging reach into chamber music and 20th-century repertoire informs his Schubert with a hindsight that can at times impart a feeling to these songs that transcends their time and place.


As densely packed with Schubert Lieder recitals as the current catalog is, it calls to mind Carl Sagan’s “billions and billions of stars.” So any new addition would have to shine brightly indeed to warrant special notice; and this, one, in my opinion, does. Very strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

R E V I E W S:

"Taut, intense, and beautifully shaped, the playing conveys the music’s drama, haunting lyricism, and bold originality. Hearing it, one is led to think that Leonard Bernstein committed a major omission when he said that “alone” among all composers, Beethoven had “a direct line to God.” The eerie tremolos of No. 15 here are stunningly otherworldly; the continuity and building tension of the second-movement variations in No. 14, compelling; the bold brashness of the opening of the “Quartettsatz,” intrusively arresting. And throughout all the performances, care with balances produces a welcome clarity of voicing that underscores Schubert’s harmonic daring."

FANFARE: Mortimer H. Frank

Lovely playing, as nearly always from these artists... The Quartettsatz was written four years before the A minor Quartet. There's certainly no lack of shivers and shudders here: indeed, you get the impression that the players were deliberately saving up all their disquiet for the key of C minor. The recording quality is very natural throughout.

-- Gramophone [2/1973, reviewing the original LP release of Quartets 12 and 14]

Hans Graf will become the fifteenth Music Director of the Houston Symphony, beginning with opening night of the 200l-2002 season. He debuted with the Houston Symphony in March 2000 conducting Emanuel Ax in Adams‘ Century Rolls, with Schubert‘s The Great also on the program. A week later, he led the orchestra and Houston Symphony Chorus in an expanded weekend series of Orft‘s Carmina Burana. He made an appearance as a guest conductor with two subscription programs in May 2000. The Austrian-born Graf is in his sixth season as Music Director of Canada‘s Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and his third season with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine in France. Believing “there is something to learn from musicians and orchestras everyday,“ Graf guest conducts all over the globe. In the United States, he frequently makes appearances in Boston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Dallas, Indianapolis and Cincinnati. He has conducted Mostly Mozart at the Lincoln Center, the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Tanglewood and the Cleveland Orchestra in Blossom Center. Internationally, Graf often conducts in the major concert halls of Scandinavia, France, Italy, England, Japan and Australia. He has appeared with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, as well as the St. Petersburg and Israel Philharmonics. He has been part of major European festivals including Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Savonlinna (Finland‘s Opera Festival), Bregenz, Vienna and Salzburg (for thirteen successive seasons). An opera proponent for its “wonderful musical power and sense of human expression,“ Graf first conducted the Vienna State Opera in 1981 and has since appeared at major opera houses in Berlin, Munich, Paris and Rome. His extensive opera repertory includes several premieres.

While offering little suggestion of the symphonic mastery he would attain less than a decade later, the First Symphony, influenced by Mozart's last symphonies and completed in October 1813, is a remarkable achievement. Schubert composed his Third Symphony over a period of about two months, completing the work in July 1815. The Third Symphony is generally characterized by an increased rhythmic intensity, at times bordering on obsession. We may well think of Schubert primarily as a wonderful melodist, but driving, sometimes overpowering rhythm is just as strong a feature of many of his greatest works. The question of why Schubert left this B minor symphony unfinished has continued to exercise scholars. The most convincing explanation is that he simply found himself unable to continue on the same exalted level and resigned himself to leaving the symphony as it was- two movements of breathtaking quality and imagination. There is no evidence that he ever wished, in his remaining six years, to return to the work, or that he regarded it as "unfinished." Beethoven's influence on the historic development of the symphony was staggering. His own examples, widening the expressive range of the genre, opened up a new world. Against this background, Schubert conceived a work of much greater poetry, drama and profundity than he had attempted in his previous symphonies. Over-familiarity may well have blunted our appreciation of this symphony, which is strikingly original from almost every aspect. Apart from the concentrated, expressive quality, there is also an enhanced sense of tone color, with much richer sonorities, and a new spaciousness.

There are not many so-called 'standard' songs on this CD but the observant reader may already have noticed that it presents several Schiller texts in alternative settings, ranging from very early (Des M�dchens Klage D6 is Schubert's first song - bar one) to very near the end of the composer's life. It is instructive to compare and see the quite different approach to the same text at different times. Listening to Schubert songs is always life-enhancing and even if not all of them are masterpieces there are constantly interesting turns of phrase or just a beautiful melody that is a pleasure to listen to, especially when sung so well as Lothar Odinius does here. This disc is from beginning to end Schubert singing on the highest possible level.

In their lively and robust performance of Schubert's E-flat Piano Trio the Vienna Piano Trio employs a rich, full sonority that belies the presence of "only" three instruments. This impression is aided, I suspect, by the warmly reverberant acoustic captured with remarkable fidelity by MDG's vivid recording. Throughout the performance the players effuse a marked vitality that carries the music along with seeming effortlessness. The first movement and scherzando boast infectious rhythmic energy and joyful spirits, while the lyrical Andante strides along confidently with some beautifully rendered solo passages.


But it's the Finale that takes center stage in this work, even more so in this recording as it includes the original uncut version as a bonus. Schubert made substantial excisions in this movement, shortening its length by more than five minutes. The original version's greatly expanded development features a few more rounds of the "tickling" motif (with its rapid repeated notes) that gains in importance as it now wanders through some fascinating harmonic modulations. It's a challenging bit of business to maintain those repeated notes with evenness and accuracy, and the Vienna players pull it off impressively while making the most of the music's motivic drama.


However, Schubert's shorter finale should not be discounted as it gains in clarity and balance. But such is the quality of Vienna Trio's rendition that you really don't mind hearing it play through this marvelous music twice. Enthusiastically recommended.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Both on the concert platform and in the recording studio, pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar is a completist. Following complete cycles of piano sonatas by Beethoven and Mozart, he presents 12 Great Piano Sonatas by Franz Schubert – the composer’s 11 finished sonatas and the seminal fragment D840. Pienaar relishes in these revelatory works, their extraordinarily detailed possibilities of characterisation, their call for immense energy and abandon, and navigating the vast dreamscapes that unfold in the course of this six-hour musical journey. “dazzling precision and clarity ... he communicates an individual and convincing vision for each piece, enough for every one of them to give delight. Brilliant.” (Gramophone, Editor’s Choice on The Long 17th Century) “dizzying virtuosity ... fresh, spontaneous, original readings that shed new light on the keyboard player’s Bible” (BBC Music Magazine on J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier)

 

REVIEW:

 

These readings for me capture the spirit of Schubert’s piano style. It is only when you set Pienaar next to the established greats that he lacks something in presence and imagination, but only by a small degree. His playing is at once natural and sympathetic, and blessedly free of artifice. It is also necessary to qualify my generalization that Pienaar’s approach is lively and alert. He recognizes the greater ambition and amplitude of the opus posthumous sonatas and changes his approach accordingly.

 

– Fanfare

Franz Schubert can be considered the first true composer as we understand the concept today: a musician who creates primarily in response to an inner calling, exclusively serving the beauty of the music, which is sufficient in itself. Pianist Mathieu Gaudet, for the third volume of his Complete Sonatas and Major Works for Piano series, chose to record Schubert’s wonderful Sonata No. 7 in E-flat Major, D. 568 (1817) and Sonata No. 15 in A Minor, D. 845 (1825). About the Volume II, WholeNote magazine wrote “Our world will need more Schubert like this.” Indeed.

For about 150 years it was believed that Schubert composed his Ninth Symphony in 1828, not long before his death but, musical scholarship being a continuous process, this theory was later disproved. It was discovered late in the 20th century that in fact he composed most of this work three years earlier and revised it in 1826 and 1827. Following a period of poor health, 1825 was a better year for Schubert, while his finances were also improved. Schubert never heard a single performance of many of his works, including this great symphony. When it was rehearsed in 1827 at the Gesellschaftder Musikfreunde in Vienna, the string-players complained that passages in which a rhythmic figure is obsessively repeated, especially in the finale, were unplayable. In May 1824 Schubert attended the first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Beethoven revolutionized symphonic form, expanding its expressive range enormously, his Ninth Symphony in particular being conceived on a much grander scale than any previous symphony. Schubert was just one of many composers influenced by Beethoven’s achievements. Many scholars have suggested the various ways in which Schubert was influenced by Beethoven, but the most extraordinary aspect of Schubert's mature music is its complete individuality. The compositional techniques, the handling of tonality and structure, and the orchestral sound of these two contemporaries have very little in common. Schubert’s own profound originality is all the more striking for its emergence at a time when Beethoven's impact on the development of the symphony was so revolutionary and far-reaching.

With "Lass irre Hunde heulen", German singer/songwriter Gisbert zu Knyphausen and pianist Kai Schumacher have dedicated an entire album to one of the greatest composers of the 19th century, Franz Schubert. With a catalogue of over 600 works, Schubert is considered the master of the romantic art song; 10 selected tracks form the well-chosen cross-section through all his creative phases, arranged in a modern way and interpreted in an extraordinary style. A band line-up of drums, bass and guitars forms the sonic foundation, which is enriched by strings and winds and rounded off by Gisbert's smooth vocals. The two musical and biographical universes of the two "songwriters" merge without any residue, while at the same time Gisbert zu Knyphausen gives Schubert's well-known songs his very unique touch.

For this new album, Philippe Sly and the Chimera Project revisit Schubert's ultimate masterpiece, Winterreise, and offer a captivating version of the story of a wanderer who embarks on a journey through a winter landscape. From Schubert's score, only the vocal part remains intact and bass-baritone Philippe Sly's reading of it is touching and impressive. The piano part is replaced by the Chimera Project, an ensemble that comprises of trombone, violin, accordion, clarinet and a hurdy-gurdy. This delightful instrumentation brings this great work into musical territories that are both familiar and foreign. The result is an exceptional album. French-Canadian bass-baritone Philippe Sly is already gaining international notoriety for his "beautiful, blooming tone and magnetic stage presence" (San Francisco Chronicle). Mr. Sly is the first prize winner of the prestigious Concours Musical International de Montr�al and a grand prize winner Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions singing the varied repertoire of Mozart, Bach, Handel, Stravinsky and Wagner. Recently, he was awarded Concert of the Year in Romantic, Post-Romantic and Impressionist Music at the 16th annual ceremony of the Prix Opus in Qu�bec.

Classical Music

Elena Margolina's Schubert interpretations are characterized by sensitive playing, which enables the pianist to make audible the shades that are so immensely important in these works. The pieces are poignant in the truest sense of the word and take hold of the listener. Pianist Elena Margolina enjoyed a highly distinguished musical education, graduating with a piano concert diploma from the St. Petersburg State Conservatory and, summa cum laude, from the University of Music in Detmold in 1996. Elena Margolina has won prizes at renowned piano and chamber music competitions, including First Prize at the Fifth International Schubert Piano Competition in Dortmund in 1995. She has taught at the University of Music, Media and Drama in Hanover and at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart and offers master classes world-wide, including in Germany, Italy, South Korea, Canada, China, Albania, Russia, the Ukraine, Israel, and the United Kingdom. In 2014 Elena Margolina joined the faculty of the University of Music in Detmold as professor of piano.

Christoph Eschenbach reunites with Paris-based Thymos Quartetin Schubert’s triumphant chamber work, the “Trout” Quintet, a recording that celebrates the 80th birthday of the great pianist / conductor. From babbling brook and leaping fish, this present-day Schubertiade relocates to a 19thcentury Viennese salon, with a selection of the composer’s waltzes in unique chamber music arrangements and concludes with selected Ländler, performed by pianist Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, ranging in mood from iridescent to intimate. “vivid and high-powered ... an ensemble of exceptional musical imagination and skill” (Washington Post) “a magnificent album ... a rare example of expressiveness and distinction” (Le Monde, on Dvo?ák’sLove Songs, Cypresses, Piano Quintet in A major, AV2234)

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REVIEWS:

In this delightful recording, the limelight is shared between Christoph Eschenbach’s crystalline piano playing and the creamy string sound, underpinned by the rumbling, bouncing bass. The tempo is elastic, yielding. And there’s no rigid ensemble, either; the mood is convivial, like conversing friends who occasionally interrupt each other. Eschenbach’s solo moments have memorable rhetorical swagger.

– BBC Music Magazine

Eschenbach and the Thymos Quartet had me smiling from the very first bars of Schubert’s Trout Quintet. It’s a performance teeming with delightful incident right the way through, in fact, yet such consistent attention to detail never precludes expansive phrasing or inhibits burbling rhythmic vivacity.

– Gramophone

Schubert: Symphony in C Major, 'The Great'

A few years after the success of her album crossing Baroque music with folk, Love I Obey, the Franco-American singer Rosemary Standley visits Schubert, this time with the complicity of the Ensemble Contraste: “We all have a few notes of Schubert buried deep inside us,” say the artists, who have got together around his music and brought it to an original sound texture, the result of their varied influences- classical, pop, jazz, folk. They have picked some of the best-known lieder and universally loved instrumental pieces, incorporating in them rhythms from other countries and instruments unusual in this repertory: the jazz trumpet of Airelle Besson, the guitar of Kevin Seddiki, the percussion of Jean-Luc Di Fraja join forces with the viola of Arnaud Thorette, the piano, cello and double bass of Ensemble Contraste- not forgetting the exceptional participation of the soprano Sandrine Piau, who joins Rosemary Standley for several duets. The arrangements are by Johan Fariot.