Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This Brahms lieder recital by the Dresden-born baritone Martin Hensel is highlighted by the finely wrought nine song “Lieder und Gesänge”, op. 32 and the somber Four Last Songs, op, 121, along with several assorted songs at the conclusion. Brahms set Georg Daumer’s words, one of two featured poets in the op. 32, to music more often than any other. The Swiss-born Pianist Hedayet Djeddikar is Mr. Hensel’s able and award-winning accompanist on this recording.

Classical Music

To celebrate his thirtieth performing jubilee in April 2016, Ingolf Turban has recorded the violin sonatas of Johannes Brahms. This artist is proud to offer his listeners something special to stand out from the not inconsiderable competition in this field: Each sonata receives its own instrument in order to develop, in each case, the special tone for the particular voice with which Brahms, as the lover, speaks to his secret beloved- with different “voices”, as it were, all from the same mouth. Ingolf Turban has performed as a soloist in the Philharmonic Orchestras of Berlin and Munich, the Kennedy Center in Washington, New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, Zurich’s Tonhalle, and La Scala in Milan. He became known worldwide after recording Paganini’s violin concertos in the television documentary “Paganini’s Secret.” (2006)

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The four symphonies of Johannes Brahms give emphasis to his significance as a composer more than any other works he wrote. He struggled for a long time before producing his first symphonic work – with Beethoven’s larger-than-life example before his eyes, the “giant”, whom he could hear marching behind him, as he once quipped. It took Brahms twenty years to complete his first symphony in 1876 – at the age of 43 – and another eight for the three further symphonies. All four of these historic works are presented on this release from Jukka-Pekka Saraste and the WDR Sinfonieorchester. In the more than sixty years of its existence, the WDR Symphony Orchestra of Cologna has established itself as one of the most important European radio orchestras. Stylistic versatility is the special trademark of the WDR Symphony Orchestra. Jukka-Pekka Saraste became principal conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 2010/2011 season. The orchestra and conductor can already look back at many years of working successfully together.

Crowning the very summit of the piano concerto literature are the two examples by Brahms, posing as stern a test of technique, temperament and poetic feeling to the interpreter now as they did when they were composed over a century and a half ago. The urgent, impulsive drama of the First, which propelled Brahms into international standing as a performer as well as a composer, was answered more than 20 years later by the more spaciously conceived Second, often more light-hearted in character yet making even more strenuous demands upon it's performers as a fully symphonic concerto. Those demands are met here by the Italian pianist Vincenzo Maltempo (b.1985), whose recordings of Romantic piano music have won critical superlatives. Of his debut on the label with the notoriously exacting music of Alkan, PianoNews considered Maltempo to be "one of the greatest contemporary interpreters of this composer... no other pianist as Maltempo has managed to dominate in a so well thought-out and orchestral way the enormous difficulties." According to Andrew Clements in The Guardian, the album is "Exhilarating, demonic, a real revelation." Four further albums of Alkan's music followed for the label, as well as the Hungarian Rhapsodies by Liszt and the 12 Etudes d'ex�cution transcendante Op.11 of Lyapunov. As Maltempo's first concerto recording, this album is sure to be welcomed by not only his many followers but also all those listeners with their ear to the ground for modern virtuoso pianists. Here he is partnered by the Italian-based Mitteleuropa Orchestra under it's principal conductor, Marco Guidarini, who is an experienced opera conductor across Europe and the US. This album presents the live registration of both the Brahms piano concertos, as played by Vincenzo Maltempo on two consecutive nights with the Mitteleuropa Orchestra, conducted by Marco Guidarini.

Rikke Sandberg is recognized as one of the most prominent pianists in Danish musical culture and, since her debut recital in 2002, has been an elite part of the Danish music scene. She is constantly present and totally absorbed in the music and her competence and talent are without bounds- she is as comfortable playing music composed several hundred years ago as she is playing music written yesterday. When she is not sitting at the piano she works on her own Nordic Chamber Music Festival where she is the artistic leader. Or she is nurturing the next generation in her role as teacher at the Royal Danish Music Academy, as a frequent member of the jury and jury chairman of the Steinway Music Festival. She is often the orchestral pianist for concerts with The Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the Malmo Symphony Orchestra. Rikke Sandberg has been awarded many prizes. These include the Jacob Gade Prize, the Victor Schioler and Sonning Prize and the Society of Danish Music Critics Award.