The Beethoven pupil Ferdinand Ries always holds surprises in store for listeners. Whether considering his symphonic music, chamber works, or vocal oeuvre (a broad selection available on CPO), his vibrant powers of invention, formal mastery and genial talent when it came to multiple paving of his own unique paths for the musical language of his times never fails to enthuse. The concert overture probably took shape in response to specific demands arising from the development of the concert as a public event. Ries’ rousing works of this genre are now rendered audible for vinyl fans!

An absolute highlight rounds off the Offenbach Year 2019: two one-act operettas presented in historical performance practice by renowned soloists and the K�lner Akademie on instruments from the epoch. Trafalgar sur un volcan is set in Dublin during the Napoleonic period, while the action of Pomme d'api, it too with it's love triangle, takes place in the household of the retiree Rabastens in Paris. He forces his nephew Gustave to renounce his beloved Catherine, nicknamed "Pomme d'Api" (Little Red Apple), a bride beneath his social class. Gustave pretends to agree to this arrangement, but a little later is surprised to find her as the unsuspecting Rabastens' new housekeeper. In other words, this too is a m�nage � trois that will not last in the long run. Both works are full of witty arias, duets, and trios and rise to the absolute heights of Offenbach's melodic genius, which is magnificently revealed in his brilliant instrumentations!

How Anton Rubinstein in the end succeeded in creating a comprehensive oeuvre covering all the genres while making breathtaking concert and traveling rounds as a pianist is something that numbers among the incomprehensibilities of his life marked by a tireless work ethos. During the course of his busy life on the go he composed more than a dozen operas, six symphonies, an oratorio, a ballet, some two hundred songs, countless works for piano solo and for piano in the concerto style and with orchestral accompaniment, and chamber music for various formations with and without piano. He also composed ten string quartets, two of which are now being released on cpo. Rubinstein composed these works during his time in Leipzig, and the Reinhold Quartet, whose members are musicians of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, offer powerful interpretations of them. The two Quartets Nos. 1 and 3 in minor keys from op. 47 are on the one hand subtly linked together motivically and on the other hand most highly different in design. Especially striking triplet motifs livening up in the secondary segments, refined motivic transformations, and fortissimo outbursts of absolutely orchestral might – these are all typical characteristics of Rubinstein’s quartet style. And what might possibly top the impressive conclusion of the first quartet? The gigantic, virtuosic, and harmonically and formally bolder conclusion of the third quartet, that’s what!

Contemporaries of Joachim Raff (1822-82) valued him as an expert in the history of music and art and as a composer who knew how to produce richly colored instrumentations. Following releases of some of his symphonies and piano trios, cpo now turns to the composer's Second, Third, Fourth and Eighth String Quartets. In his �middle quartets� the classicistic control of his music from those years makes itself manifest, i.e., interpretive markings in Italian, exposition repeats unmotivated by an increased degree of difficulty, a reduction in chromatics and a return to old dance forms.

The genesis of the story of Francesca da Rimini began with verses from Dante's Inferno, then expanded a few decades later by Boccaccio and finally in 1901, formed as a theatrical drama by Gabriele D'Annunzio who spun a film noir-ish tale with a fatefully flawed anti-heroine engaging in morally ambivalent actions during politically dark times under duress of fitful love. Sensing being able to capitalize on the irresistible lure the scandal had on a public both outraged and titillated, the librettist/producer Tito Ricordi commissioned the young Riccardo Zandonai, at the start of a highly promising career, to compose the music for this four act opera which had it's premiere in 1914 and remains the one work Zandonai is noted for. Recorded in Freiburg with leads Christina Vasileva and Martin Muhle in the leads the Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Fabrice Bollon.

The magnificent Graz premiere of Joseph Marx’s Herbstsymphonie (Autumn Symphony) was held on 28 September 1922 under the expert conductor and sound specialist Clemens Krauss. It was a great triumph for Marx, and when Krauss selected this work for a concert program in Vienna in late May of the following year, the public went wild. The Herbstsymphonie is not so much a symphony in the traditional sense as a multimovement rhapsody of massive proportions, both in view of its huge orchestral dimensions and its performance length. For this reason this gigantic composition ranks as one of music history’s most lavishly instrumented works. Until now Joseph Marx has been known primarily as a composer of songs and chamber music. However, already in 1911 he had composed the sumptuously designed cantata Herbstchor an Pan (Autumn Chorus to Pan), a work that also in its choice of theme may be said to herald the coming of the Herbstsymphonie.

Since 2017 Golo Berg has been the general music director of the Munster Symphony Orchestra, which was founded by the composer Fritz Volbach in 1919. It was only logical that Berg would also occupy himself with the composer around this centennial year, and Volbach turned out to be a significant personality both as a musicologist and as a composer. Berg and cpo both were surprised by the originality and high quality of these works. During the first decade of the twentieth century Volbach’s name continued to be thoroughly familiar to people who were interested in music; his works were regularly included in programs, but then they were forgotten somewhat. Volbach’s most popular works included the Symphonic Poem “Es waren zwei Konigskinder” based on the famous folk ballad of the same name. Like Richard Strauss in Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Volbach drew on this universally familiar material of folk character in response to the turn-of-the-century predilection for German tales and sagas. He attached great importance to clear structure and an intelligible musical realization, so that the story of the two enamored but unlucky royal children can be imagined without difficulty. The subsequently composed Symphony in B minor formed the crowning conclusion of Volbach’s instrumental music for orchestral ensembles. It represents, so to speak, the “royal category” at the end of his development inasmuch as his aim in this form was to demonstrate his true mastery as a composer.

Our comprehensive and successful Reznicek edition now presents three very different works – the Symphonic Suite No. 1 (1882), Dream Play Suite (1915 / 21), and Carnival Suite (1932) – which the composer nonetheless assigned to the suite genre. Taken together, they document his compositional and stylistic development over the decades. Moreover, they are performed by an orchestra that Reznicek himself once had conducted for a short time: the Weimar State Orchestra. His Symphonic Suite is more like a three-movement symphony for full orchestra. It is clearly audible that here Reznicek is not concerned with motivic work and thematic fission but with the contrast of moods. The harmony and the instrumentation leave little doubt about its source of inspiration in Wagner. The suite from the incidental music to Strindberg’s Dream Play is a series of short, atmospherically dense musical pictures, and in terms of its compositional history the Carnival Suite is a symphonic intermezzo dividing the opera Gondoliere des Dogen into two parts. In the manner of a Baroque suite, it consists of seven parts: March – Introduction – Pierrot and Columbine – Gigue – Furlana – Passepied – Aria – Gypsy March. The relation of the suite to the rest of the opera music results from the circumstance that here too the rhythm of the Furlana (dance from the Friuli region) is omnipresent.

Classical Music

Gripping interpretations of Spohr’s Violin Concertos are now on 8 CDs from cpo. Mere words do not suffice to praise Ulf Hoelscher’s violinistic achievement highly enough. Gramophone: “Hoelscher has the elegance and almost cantabile qualities going hand in hand with Spohr’s composing for the violin.”

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

This set is a special offer: 5 CDs for the price of 4.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music