There were 2 Herzogenbergs: the young, wild Herzogenberg of his early years, inspired by Wagner and Liszt, and the classicistic Herzogenberg of his later years, under the spell of his venerated Brahms. Signs of this duality are found in all the works for violin and piano on this release.

Busoni was a musician of rare versatility – a pianist, composer, writer and editor. His deep study of Bach and Mozart was essential to his own thoughts and creativity. It also bore much compositional fruit in the form of transcriptions and adaptations. The most famous transcription surely is his piano arrangement of the Chaconne from Bach's D-minor Partita for unaccompanied violin.

In conjunction with the Martin Luther Decade and in preparation for the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017, cpo presents the two-part oratorio Luther in Worms by Ludwig Meinardus (1827-96) in a recording from the 22nd Knechtsteden Festival. After harsh judgments pronounced upon him by Schumann and Mendelssohn, Meinardus joined a pietistic, nationalist and Protestant-combined revival movement. Nevertheless, his principal work does not go over into empty bombast and heroic posing but holds in store many musical refinements, cast in an operatic design.

Includes work(s) by composers. Ensembles: Sächsisches Vocal Ensemble, Batzdorfer Hofkapelle. Conductor: Matthias Jung.

The name Graun is not as well known in musical circles as it should be, nor even as it once was. It was the surname of three talented brothers, all born in Wahrenbrück in east-central Germany and all flourishing in the period between Bach and Beethoven. A church fire destroyed all record of their birth, hence the imprecise dates. The oldest, August Friedrich (1698/9 – 1765) achieved only local distinction, rising to the position of Kantor and organist at the cathedral school of nearby Merseberg, a position he held for the last 36 years of his life.

His two younger brothers, represented on this disc, achieved much broader fame. Johann Gottlieb, a year or so older than his brother, was engaged in 1726-27 to teach J.S. Bach’s oldest son Wilhelm Friedemann to play the violin. In 1732 he earned a position in the orchestra of the then Prussian Crown Prince Frederick, and rose to the position of director after the prince was crowned King Frederick II in 1740.

Frederick the Great built the strongest musical centre in all Europe, and the Graun brothers helped him do it. The youngest, Carl Heinrich, a professional singer in the town choir at age 10, was soon writing operas and sacred music. He studied at the University of Leipzig and became a good cellist without ever studying the instrument. But it was as a singer and opera composer that he too caught the ear of Frederick the Great. Graun wrote, and starred in, operas, sometimes to librettos written by the King.

History has not been kind to the Grauns, as most of their music seems to have been destroyed. Even what’s left is contentious: The manuscript for the third piece on this disc has only the attribution “di Grau..” leading scholars to think it more likely that Christoph Graupner (1683–1770) wrote it. All the works on this disc represent some of the best of the orchestral High Baroque, but that is not what Carl Heinrich Graun was best known for. Besides his operas, he wrote sacred music, notably Der Tod Jesu, a passion oratorio that received annual performances in Germany for 75 years until Mendelssohn conducted Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in 1829. C. H. Graun’s best known composition was supplanted forever.

I like the variety of selections on this disc. It begins with a Symphony, as tuneful and brief as the symphonies of English contemporary William Boyce. Then follow four concertos for different combinations of instruments all reminiscent of contemporary Telemann. All five pieces have a fast-slow-fast pattern, all feature the gritty sound of baroque strings, and one can hear in each of the slow movements the background of a basso continuo (mislabelled in the notes as a ‘bassoon continuo’).

The five pieces here are as close as one is likely to get to what was heard at the court of Frederick the Great. The performers are all from the leading Baroque orchestras in and around Germany, notably the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Camerata Köln, and Concentus Musicus Wien, and they all teach at the Institute of Historical Interpretation Practice at the College of Music and the Performing Arts in Frankfurt am Main. The work of Karl Kaiser on transverse flute is especially outstanding. The 17 musicians came together in 2006 and have made three recordings. I hope they introduce us to more of the Grauns’ music.

-- Paul Kennedy, MusicWeb International

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Richard Wagner’s birth. This CD clearly shows Wagner’s ambition to vie with Beethoven, manifesting the inclination towards big and boundless writing. Tobias Koch, one of the most versatile keyboard instrumentalists of his generation, reproduces Wagner’s original sound in brilliant fashion.

Ernst Wilhelm Wolf (1735-92) developed into a central figure in Weimar’s music world after 1760. Among the chamber genres Wolf devoted himself extensively to was the string quartet, or quartet for four stringed instruments, which for him referred to the older Northern and Central German quadro, a trio sonata with an additional melody part set contrapuntally in trio against a basso continuo. The three quartets, Op. 3, form the genuine high point in Wolf’s quartet oeuvre. His predilection for contrast and his compositional techniques lend these compositions their special appeal.

Includes work(s) by Jacques Offenbach. Ensemble: Cologne West German Radio Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Gerhard Oskamp. Soloist: Guido Schiefen.

Premiering in Munich in 1903, Le donne curiose numbered among the greatest and earliest successes of the German-Italian composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari. No Wagnerian pathos or turn-of-the-century bombast here: Wolf-Ferrari’s merry work is based on a Carlo Goldoni comedy in the spirit of a newly discovered rococo. Le donne curiose formed the basis of his world renown as a composer whose dramatic talent was always overshadowed by the subtle humor of his buffo operas. Ulf Schirmer again presents a convincing case on his behalf (previous release: Wolf-Ferrari, Orchestral Works: cpo 777 567-2).

Beethoven’s gifted pupil Ferdinand Ries was never entirely forgotten, but it is only in recent years that cpo and Hermann Max dedicated themselves with great success to the rediscovery of this spirited late classicist and romanticist. His oratorio Der Sieg des Glaubens heard here for the first time since 1829, celebrates the triumph of believers of gentle heart.