Lars Vogt (1970-2022) early recordings collected here provide a document of an artist who always remained authentic, both to himself and to music. Lars Vogt never sought absolute truth, but truthfulness instead meant all the more to him. The man and the artist were always very close, never currying favour and never detached from the world. He was, instead, open and natural. "It's incredibly gratifying when you notice that you can perhaps light a little spark, a little flame for music in people, and when music helps you to find the path to your own soul."

For five decades Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923-2013) held a central position in the musical world. That centrality was reflected in a series of top orchestral and operatic posts and in his interpretations, free of self-regarding eccentricities. His modest but highly effective conducting technique also made him the ideal recording artist. Sawallisch was a Bavarian born in Munich, city of orchestras and a great opera company, which he headed for 21 years. He started his career as an outstanding pianist and remained a sought-after accompanist to great Lieder singers and instrumentalists. Volume 1 of a complete conspectus of his Warner Classics recordings (made for Electrola and EMI Classics between 1954 to 1997) includes wonderful Lieder and song collaborations, as well as famous concerto accompaniments for eminent soloists and a heartwarming traversal of Schubert's secular vocal and sacred choral music with Bavarian Radio colleagues. But the main focus among the 65 discs is on his symphonic achievements: Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bruckner and Dvor�k - the latter's Eighth Symphony was his first published recording, from 1954. Richard Strauss, an early influence, is strongly represented. This 65CD-box brings together all the non-operatic recordings that the German conductor and pianist Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923-2013) made in the years from 1954 to 1997 for EMI Classics and Electrola (now Warner Classics).

Paris is gripped by fear. A series of murders is leaving a bloody trail through the city. We are talking about E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "Das Fr�ulein von Scuderi," published in 1819 and often cited as one of the earliest German crime stories. And even though the story is set in the Paris of the time of Louis XIV, the work has a deeply romantic quality, driven by a fascination with genius, coupled with dark passions and terrible crimes. In 1925, Hindemith came into contact with the publicist and poet Ferdinand Lion. To Lion's libretto, influenced by New Objectivity, Paul Hindemith set music that, for all it's modernity, consciously takes up historical forms and brings them into play in a neo-baroque manner. The highly acclaimed, star-studded series of performances by the Vienna State Opera, is hereby released for the first time as a gripping live recording.

Paul Hindemith's Der Schwanendreher (literally 'the swan turner') is a viola concerto based on medieval German folk songs. While the 'swan turner' was literally someone who turned the spit of a roasting swan, metaphorically it referred to an itinerant minstrel whose street organ or hurdy-gurdy was cranked via a swan's-neck handle. He composed the work between September and October 1935, and it was premiered at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, with the composer (a virtuoso violist who did much to elevate the instrument's status) serving as soloist. In it, Hindemith creates a musical 'structure' that enhances the solo viola by contrasting it with a uniquely scored tutti ensemble of winds with four cellos and three double basses. After the slow introduction to the first movement comes a section in classic sonata form with orchestration evoking the world and art of minstrelsy. The second movement opens with a sad dialogue between the viola and harp, inspired by an ancient song on lost love; this is followed by a contrasting fugato in which the sadness of the cuckoo (an omen of doom) is alleviated by the musical writing. The third movement features seven variations on the titular 'Schwanendreher' song, whose jovial, light character is skilfully rendered with iridescent rhythmic articulation. A prolific and versatile composer, Hindemith was initially drawn to expressionism and atonal harmony before embracing a neo-Baroque style along his journey towards abstract objectivism. By the end of the first quarter of the 20th century, Hindemith had become one of the leading exponents of Gebrauchsmusik ('Utility Music'), a musical approach designed to respond to societal needs as opposed to individual abstract aesthetic feelings. It saw the creation of much music aimed at amateurs, though with no compromise on quality. It was in this context that Hindemith composed the set of Schulwerk fur Instrumental-Zusammenspiel (Educational Music for Instrumental Ensembles) between March and April 1927. Designed for a youth orchestra, the music is by no means uninteresting or technically simple. It's fourth section is made up of the Funf Stucke (Five Pieces) scored for a five-part string orchestra with an additional solo violin introduced in the fifth piece. While the writing remains within certain technical bounds, the score is brimming with expressive variety, rhythmic dynamism, harmonic freedom and timbral sensitivity, all of which can be recognized as hallmarks of this period in Hindemith's compositional career. They showcase the composer's contrapuntal expertise, a quality particularly pronounced in the third piece, Lebhaft, with it's direct connection to Johann Sebastian Bach. In these 'teaching works' Hindemith's meticulous attention to detail reveals a distinctly German penchant for musical craftsmanship meeting the expectations of even 'professional' musicians. - Recorded March 2023, Sala Bianca, Foggia, Italy - Bilingual booklet in English and Italian contains liner notes by Alberto Mammarella - Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) was one of the most important and influential composers of 20th century Germany. His eclectic style incorporates diverse influences such as expressionism, neo-classicism and even jazz. His music is energetic, rhythmically vibrant, witty and joyous, but also able to express deeper and tragic feelings. - Der Schwanendreher is a viola concerto composed by Paul Hindemith in 1935. The title translates to "The Swan Turner, " referring to a medieval kitchen servant who turned roasting spits. The piece is based on old German folk songs, giving it a unique blend of the modern and traditional. Hindemith, himself a violist, premiered it with the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, conducted by Willem Mengelberg. The work is admired for it's inventive orchestration, lyrical themes, and balance between historical charm and contemporary technique. - Performed by Luca Ranieri and the orchestra Ico Suoni Del Sud, conducted by Mario Moresco. Luca Ranieri successfully recorded the Suites for viola solo by Hindemith for Brilliant Classics.

HINDEMITH Der Schwanendreher. Trauermusik. Kammermusik No. 5 for Solo Viola and Large Chamber Orchestra. Concert Music for Solo Viola and Large Chamber Orchestra (early version) • Tabea Zimmermann (va); Hans Graf, cond; Deutsches SO Berlin • MYRIOS 010 (SACD: 79:59)


As all Hindemithians know, the viola was the composer’s very own instrument of choice, even though he learned to play all the others in the modern orchestra. And during the 1920s and 1930s he often appeared as either soloist and/or conductor, performing the three large-scale concertante works he wrote for his favorite instrument, as well as his various sonatas for it. This brilliant young woman musician, Tabea Zimmermann, has been recording all of this music for the first-class new German label, Myrios Classics. The major discographical interest of this release comes in the form of a premiere recording of Hindemith’s original six-movement version of the 1939 Concert Music , reconstructed from manuscripts and performance editions which the composer had apparently revised and rejected in the interest of making the piece both shorter and practicable.


Here, for the first time, we get a chance to hear two movements of the initial six—a relatively brief but lovely slow fourth movement containing a ravishing oboe solo theme, and an altogether different Finale that is more substantial and distinctive than the shorter and rather throwaway movement heard in all previous recordings. However, in the revised version it is interesting to notice how every movement is permeated by the insistently busy, bustling, motto-theme heard at the very opening of the score, while this initial attempt has more thematic diversity and less of an organic integration. Perhaps Hindemith could have made the suite-like Concert Music even longer by inserting the variations somewhere between earlier movements, since it seems he remained forever undecided about the over-all form of the work, having originally conceived of it as consisting of two separate sections of either two or three movements each. In any case, this is a recording of a work poised on the cusp of the composer’s gradual evolution from the precedent-shattering, nose-thumbing defiance of the 1920s Kammermusik set—whose prickly concerto grosso incarnation for viola is superbly realized here—to the somewhat mellower, more magisterial yet genially neo-Baroque manner of his later years.


This program opens with perhaps one of the most perceptively precise and idiomatic recording of Hindemith’s popular Schwanendreher Concerto, in which the composer discovered and exploited the down-to-earth idiom of the German medieval folk universe. One would have to go back to the old Primrose recording to find an equal to this rendition.


Also included here is the ethereal Trauermusik for viola and string orchestra, composed at the last minute in memory of King George V—a work which Hindemith is quoted in the booklet as describing as a “minor effort”—hardly an accurate evaluation, to say the least. The booklet also offers a number of deliciously evocative photos of Hindemith and the dedicatees of the Schwanendreher , Darius and Madeleine Milhaud, as well as other illustrious musicians of the era.


Conductor Hans Graf and his musicians have these scores in their bloodstreams and, as for Ms. Zimmermann and the Myrios engineering team, words of praise fail me. In short, this CD belongs on everybody’s shelf.


FANFARE: Paul A. Snook

In Mosaici di Piazza Armerina, Semini takes up the cloistered music by Respighi with Vetrate di chiesa. The evocation of the figures in coloured pieces is translated into a use of continuously overlapping motifs, which creates a rotating, cyclical effect and alludes to the eternity of art, perpetually capable of dying only to rise again. On his side, Hindemith created 'music of use': art from workshop and craft, bound to live beyond the romantic myth of transcendental inspiration.

The album contains recordings of three sonatas by Paul Hindemith, who began his compositional career under the influ ence of Claude Debussy - who was still active back then - and ended it in a com pletely different reality of the 1960s, in the era of sonoristic, formal and har monic experiments. He was also an excel lent violist, hence a significant number of his works dedicated to viola. The first sonata is still of a romantic nature; it cap tivates us with it's beauty and richness of motifs, whereas the other two are much more contemporary in terms of sound. All of them are demanding, both technically and structurally. Maria Shetty, a violist associated with the Cracow Academy of Music and the NOSPR, chamber musician, co-founder of the Messages Quartet, and pianist Monika Wilinska-Tarcholik form a perfect duo. They guide the listener through complex, meaningful musical matter with virtuoso flair and with great sensitivity to tone colour and stylistic details.

Recorded for the first time on one album, this release features Hindemith’s complete works for violin and piano and the rarely recorded Kleine Sonata for Viola D’amore and piano. Hindemith’s reputation as a master composer, viola virtuoso and dominant pedagogue- who, being able to play practically every standard instrument (and a few non-standard ones), expected the same from his students- has tended to obscure the fact that he first came to attention not as a composer or violist but as a violinist. Roman Mints has had a lifelong love of the works of Paul Hindemith, which began when he was a young violinist, studying in Moscow in the 1980s. He says “This music, written not just before I was born but closer to the time of my grandparents’ birth, felt completely contemporary, and daringly advanced in its sound- and not just to me, as it turns out: 30 years on, Hindemith is still regarded by concert programmers as too difficult for the wider public. I put Sonata in D on the stand. I was gripped by the first subject, constructed from seconds and sevenths, marked to be played ‘with stony defiance.’ I was never the same again and he became my window into contemporary music.”

Classical Music

Music for Viola

Complete Works For Solo Viola

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The year 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Paul Hindemith, one of the most important composers of the 20th century. It is for this reason that the German cellist Judith Ermert decided to record the repertory for cello and piano, too rarely played and recorded. With the Belgian pianist Daan Vandewalle, a specialist in avant-garde music, she embarks on a journey that explores all facets of Hindemith's artistic development, ranging from the post-Romantic language of the Three Pieces for cello and piano op.8 to his own rhythmic style, known as Motorik, which echoes the industrial era in the Sonata for solo cello op.25.

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) is without a doubt, one of the most revolutionary composers of the 20th Century. Among his achievements, completing a sonata for each of the orchestral instruments shows how versatile this composer was. As an acclaimed violist himself, he dedicated to the viola an extended part of his complex and unique composing literature. These four monumental sonatas for viola solo represent the backbone of the viola repertoire, which also demonstrates a synergy of compositional language rooted in the Baroque, representing the technical, structural and philosophical evolution of this German composer. Thirty-year-old Spanish violist Jesus Rodolfo Rodriguez is widely recognized for his performances, which combine the spontaneity and fearless imagination of youth with the discipline and precision of a mature artist. He has been praised by the New York Times, Digest, as "... Jesus Rodolfo is a start whose light transcends the stage...”, his authority over the most complex technical demands of the repertoire as well as for the depth of his musical insight made his stand among the top young musicians in the world.

• Three essential works for clarinet from Paul Hindemith, two of which are making their premiere Stoltzman-performed releases. • The foremost clarinetist in the world. Virtuosity, technique, imagination and communicative power sum up this legendary artist. • Pianist Yehudi Wyner is a former teacher of Richard Stoltzman and former student of Paul Hindemith. • Album Web Application includes interviews with Stoltzman and Wyner, study scores, liner notes, and more www.navonarecords.com/resolve

This set is available at a special price: 3 CDs for the price of 2.

The second CD with Paul Hindemith’s string quartets - superbly interpreted by the renowned Juilliard String Quartet - has just been released. Samuel Rhodes writes in the liner notes of the CD: "My group, the Juilliard String Quartet, has been fascinated by the Hindemith quartets for some time. We are challenged by the depth of the musical content, the overflowing vitality, and the sophistication of compositional technique that exist in these works." German Record Critics' Award for the complete recording of Hindemith's string quartets by the Juilliard String Quartet! The CD was awarded the Quarterly German Record Critics' Award!

Paul Hindemith's works for piano have been completely released on CD now, with Siegfried Mauser as pianist. "Hindemith's Klaviermusik op. 37 shows the way", wrote Eberhard Preuner already in 1927, "strict thematic forms are combined with sweeping improvisational lines, melody is pitted against melody, everywhere you hear a style derived from pure chamber music." The individual movements of the "Tanzst�cke" op. 19 have clearly more the character of ballet music than that of a sequence of popular dances. Parallel fourths and sevenths clusters as well as parallel shifts of entire chords in the foreground are earmarks of Hindemith's textural technique in the early 1920s.