Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Beethoven performing seemingly rather trivial tasks for publishers offers a lesser known perspective on the mastermind: the businessman. Like with Joseph Haydn, there exist a multitude of folk song arrangements by Beethoven from many different language areas, besides the here portrayed Scottish, Irish and Welsh songs also Spanish, Hungarian or Swedish ones. Scottish musicians Lorna Anderson, soprano and Jamie MacDougall, tenor and the Austrian TrioVanBeethoven (Verena Stourzh, Clemens Zeilinger, Franz Ortner) take on an exploration to the treasures of Celtic melodies. Beethoven's personal touch in these songs is not only perceivable in the pre- and postludes, but is present in all of the instrumentation - a fact that motivated the initiator George Thomson several times to request even more simple instrumental parts as accompaniment, which Beethoven rejected in his very own way: "Unfortunately, I am not able to fulfill your request. I am not accustomed to retouching my compositions."

Classical Music

The appointment of a Principal Guest Conductor with effect from the 2012/2013 season was a novelty in the long history of the Dresden Staatskapelle and bears testimony to the close relationship between Myung-Whun Chung and the orchestra. Since November 2001 the South Korean maestro has repeatedly stood at the head of the Staatskapelle during symphony concerts at the Semperoper; in the orchestra pit he has directed a premiere series of Verdi’s Don Carlos and he has joined the Staatskapelle on tours of Europa, the USA and Asia. Furthermore, he has frequently performed together with members of the Staatskapelle on the chamber music podium. At the 2013 Salzburg Easter Festival, for instance, he assumed the dual role of conductor and pianist. During the course of his Dresden Mahler cycle Chung has so far directed the First, Second, Fourth, Sixth and Ninth Symphonies, to be followed by the Fifth in the 2016/2017 season. Born in Seoul, Myung-Whun Chung began his career as a pianist. He started conducting as an assistant to Carlo Maria Giulini in Los Angeles. He has served as principal conductor at the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Opéra Bastille in Paris and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome; he was music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France for 15 years. He continues to hold various offices in his native South Korea, including artistic director of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and the Asia Philharmonic Orchestra, which brings together Asian musicians from the world’s major orchestras for concert projects. In addition to his artistic activities Myung-Whun Chung is highly committed to humanitarian and environmental causes. He has been an ambassador of the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) and was nominated UNESCO’s “Man of the Year” in 1995.

Classical Music

Karajan in Italy, Vol. 2

Beethoven, L.: Immortal Beethoven (The) - Highlights of His

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Following up to her recording of piano concertos by J.N. Hummel and Beethoven, Austrian pianist Ingrid Marsoner is now presenting her interpretations of late piano sonatas by Beethoven. Marsoner's subtle yet vigorous play is opening with the Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101. The Rondo alla ingharese, quasi un capriccio, Op. 129 i sbetter known by its popular name ''Rage Over a Lost Penny'' and is as an early work like the ''lighter'' Sonata No. 24 in F sharp major, Op. 78, a welcoming intermezzo and an interesting contrast to the somewhat more profound late sonatas. As such the Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111 symbolizes this world and the hereafter with its two very dissenting movements. The Austrian pianist Ingrid Marsoner is blessed with a musical sensitivity rarely to be found in the younger generation. Without any mawkishness, she is capable of moving listeners with Franz Schubert, accomplishing structural and atmospheric miracles with J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations, unfolding an amazing energy in musical competition with symphony orchestras and then, when she dips into the subtleties of a Mozart sonata or a modern impression, differentiating the finest nuances so fluently that the famous borderline between musical art and music ocne more completely loses its validity. She has received major musical inspiration from other eminent pianists such as Tatiana Nikolayeva, Paul Badura-Skoda and Alfred Brendel.

This is a very important recording, as it is the first time the original piano quartet version of the Eroica Symphony has been recorded. (it should not be confused with the arrangement by Ferdinand Ries published 50 years later). This anonymous arrangement was made at Beethoven's insistence (though he had requested a string quintet) and published in 1807, three years after the orchestral premiere. The writing is far superior to that of Ries in the later version, and this work stands as a fine and magisterial piano quartet in it's own right.

For his fourth release on the Fuga Libera label, the pianist and fortepianist Piet Kuijken, professor at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and the Antwerp Conservatory, presents a programme of music by Ludwig van Beethoven. The starting point of this double album is an artistic approach that is both pedagogical and musical: the first half of the release contains pieces such as the Sonate Pathétique op.13 and the Sonata op.110 performed on a historical piano (a Tomkison original from 1808), while the second invites you to compare this with pieces of the same magnitude – the Appassionata Sonata op.23 and the imposing op.111, amongst others – played on a modern piano. A text written by the eminent musician invites you to follow the artist’s approach, within the same type of repertory when faced with these two different instruments. A sensitive and interesting album to help you discover all the different facets of this artist!

In a new collaboration with ensemble Trio Ex Aequo, this release which features Beethoven’s piano trios, is the first in a series of three. Matthias Moosdorf is the cellist of the Leipzig String Quartet, one of the world’s premier quartets. He has performed with the quartet in more than 60 countries on all continents and can be heard in over 80 prize-winning CD recordings. He has won four Echo-Klassik awards.

Classical Music