Walter Kaufmann (1907-1984) was among the artists who lost their livelihoods with the founding of the 1000-year Reich and had to find his way in another place. The former pupil of Franz Schreker earned his keep at All India Radio in Bombay, where he was the music director for twelve years and also supplied India's aspiring film industry with soundtracks. He spent his later years as a teacher and composer in the USA. This recording marks Kaufmann's debut release, featuring four tightly structured, mostly playful works, and his vivacious 'Indian Symphony' and the 'Indian Miniatures' may now claim a worthy place in the ranks of renowned 'exotic' works. All works on this CD are first recordings!

In terms of the quantity of his output, Ernst Eichner should be regarded as a minor composer. His legacy consists of several operas, chamber music and several collections of symphonic works of six pieces each; this amounts to about fifty works, revealing something quite different from the label "minor composer". The spirited, colourful and empathetic treatment of the orchestra often appeared to contemporaries as being an expression of a "tender heart" or of "meek grace and charming sweetness", whereas they were certainly not yet conscious of the fact that in Eichner's creations (as well) were the beginnings of the symphonic form, which not much later became the classical standard bearer of all great things. The Italian orchestra Theresia has chosen four representative pieces from his remarkable catalogue for these recordings. These reflect the stylistic development of this superb violinist and composer, who initially left his native Mannheim for Zweibrücken and finally, after an odyssey, arrived at the court of the Prussian king in Berlin, where he died in 1777 at the age of 37.

For the last ten years or so, there has been a gratifying renewal of interest in the eminent Russian composer Nikolai Myaskovsky, whose career spanned the late Romantic to early Modern periods. His creative legacy deserves far greater attention than is currently paid to him: Myaskovsky's music demonstrates the highest level of craftsmanship and explores a very unique realm of emotional and soulful experience. His Cello Concerto, Op. 66, was composed in the last three months of 1944. What prompted Myaskovsky to compose this work is not known, since the work was neither commissioned by a performer nor written for a specific artist. It was probably intended to contribute to the growing repertoire of instrumental concertos being created for the rising generation of young Soviet virtuosos.

The two-movement concerto opens with a contemplative Lento ma non troppo in a modified sonata form, with a brief solo cadenza taking the place of the development. The prevailing autumnal melancholy mood is balanced by a passionate second theme in major. The ensuing Allegro vivace is shaped as a rondo, with two slow episodes complementing the energetic main theme with its lively triplets. After a brilliant cadenza, the movement reaches its climax when the material of the opening movement is resumed, then leads into a meditative coda. In addition, two virtuoso cello sonatas by Myaskovsky can be heard. The remaining pieces on this CD are by Myaskovsky's teachers at the St. Petersburg Conservatory - Nikolai Rimsky-Korssakoff, who taught him the art of orchestration, and Anatoly Lyadoff, with whom he studied harmony, counterpoint, and free composition.

Rarity – German version of Mozart's "Finta gardiniera. 5 years ago, the Munich Radio Orchestra under Andrew Parrott performed Mozart's singspiel "Die verstellte Gärtnerin" - the rarely performed German version of "Finta gardiniera," which can now finally appear on cpo. When this opera was first performed, Mozart was 19 years old - an age at which most composers had not even begun. Wolfgang Amadeus' career as a musician - and as a composer - had been in full swing for several years, however. The work belongs to the genre of opera buffa, within which it follows the type of opera semiseria (half opera) popular at the time. Accordingly, in addition to buffa parts, there are also semi-seria parts and even a pure seria part. The music is of great richness. Mozart shows himself here as a true master of opera buffa. At the same time, the music already points beyond these to masterpieces such as Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. The first two acts of the opera contain large-scale, effective finales. In the second act, Mozart combines the finale with several preceding arias and recitatives to create a grand scene that transcends the boundaries of contemporary number operas.

Bruno Walter is probably still known today, well over 50 years after his death, to all music lovers as a great conductor. He came to public attention as a composer mainly in his early Viennese years (1901-1912). In 1903 the famous Rosé Quartet played his String Quartet in D major, and it also took on (with the composer at the piano) the Piano Quintet in F-sharp minor in 1905. Until recently, only movements Nos. 2, 3, and 4 of the quartet survived in Walter's estate. But in the course of the present production, the question of the 1st movement arose, and indeed a copy of the entire composition was found in the music collection of the Austrian National Library, which could now be recorded in its entirety by the Aron Quartet!

His Piano Quintet was such a great success at the time that the "star critic" of the Wiener Zeitung, Robert Hirschfeld, gave the work the following praise: "It is rich in beautiful and deep, peculiar thoughts, passionate in the corner movements, the slow movement, a confession of the soul, flowing from true, heartfelt feelings, is certainly among the most significant that we have encountered in modern chamber music."

Adalbert Gyrowetz is one of the numerous, highly talented Czech musicians of the 18th century who received an excellent education in Prague and then turned to the musical centers of Europe. His music is strongly influenced by the classical language of Haydn. Architectural structures, harmonic progressions of tension, instrumentation, disposition of a cycle, representation of affect, and the general idea of music as a balanced language of feeling and reason dominate the aesthetics of this style. The quartets for flute and string trio are all in three movements with the tempo sequence fast-slow-fast. Around 1800 this was rather the exception, since Haydn's mature string quartets had established four movements. The duration of the pieces is about the same as the total duration of a "normal" four-movement chamber work of the time.

In addition, it is interesting that the voices, especially those of the flute, violin, but also viola and cello, feature rapid and virtuosic solos. Gyrowetz thus writes a cycle of three lively quartets that want to be nothing more than virtuoso divertissements and amusements with esprit. The composer has succeeded in this!

In the early 17th century, Italy was the wonderland of music; all new ideas and suggestions came from here, and whoever was a composer in the north - i.e. also in Germany - could not avoid these innovations, e.g. the "madrigalian manner". Johann Hermann Schein, too, enthusiastically embraced the southern stimuli as they reached the ears of German musicians in madrigals and sacred concertos from the beginning of the century, but he was never able to deny his musical upbringing and education rooted in German chapel and cantor tradition. This is especially true of his cycle of 26 sacred madrigals for 5 voices and b.c., the Israels Brünnlein - Fontana d'Israel, published in 1623, when Schein was already Leipzig's Thomaskantor.

This cycle is virtually a combination of the German-Dutch motets tradition and the New Italian art of expression. Schein commands the stylistic phenomena with aplomb, committed only to the affects and the expression. The collection is a step on the way to a more subjective, emotional practice of faith, as it then breaks through in Pietism.

The symphonic oeuvre of the Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz has never before been recorded in its entirety "from one source", so that the series beginning here represents a pioneering act. The Third Symphony for large symphony orchestra was written in early 1952 and the monumental and pathetic music shows a hitherto unknown face of the composer. One of its characteristics is the use of large instrumental blocks, although fragments also appear that hint at the lighter expressivity of the neoclassical tradition. It is a masterfully constructed work and the overt formal schemes of the Classical period are complemented by the subtle use of elements that were characteristic of music between the wars - in particular the timbres of the French tradition. Nevertheless, this work is not about setting new accents. The same applies to the Fourth Symphony. The orchestra of this work from 1953 is larger than in the previous symphony - among other things, English horn, E-flat and bass clarinet, contrabassoon and harp are now also called for. In both works, the composer achieved an excellent balance between the music of the past (form referring to tradition) and new sources of inspiration (folklore) as well as a new approach to traditional elements (rhythm). As a result, she managed to reconcile the autonomous, artistic qualities of her music with the expectations of the cultural policy of the time. We are very happy to have found congenial interpreters for this project, which sets new standards in the WDR Symphony Orchestra and the Polish conductor Lukasz Borowicz.

At last I have fulfilled a wish: The production of melody-saturated overtures and waltzes by Paul Lincke. It is also an overdue rehabilitation of the composer Lincke, who certainly wrote more than just the "Berliner Luft". Of course, that is included in our Vol 1, and it is certainly not due to the rhymes of Heinrich Bolten-Baeckers that this march has become the unofficial Berlin anthem and has remained so to this day. It is Paul Lincke's music, whose unashamed catchiness "overtakes you", as his first biographer, the composer Edmund Nick, wrote: "Only a genuine Berliner like Lincke was capable of making a declaration of love to his father city in this way. All the softer emotions that move the Berlin heart are included in it." Irrespective of such clichéd attributions, Paul Lincke founded something with works like this that had never existed before: Berlin's own popular music. And like Franz Lehár, Paul Lincke was a master of instrumentation, but remained true to the classical orchestral movement, like his models Jacques Offenbach and Franz von Suppé. And he took special care with overtures, whether to a farce or an operetta, whereas most Viennese operettas of the time had to make do with a short prelude. Look forward to many Lincke discoveries!

The close-knit nature of the Bach musical family is documented in many sources. They met regularly for family celebrations, exchanged experiences and, of course, always had an eye on where there was a vacant position. In baroque Central Germany, the name "Bach" was practically synonymous with the job title "musician". For the Ensemble Polyharmonique and Teatro del Mondo with its director Andreas Küppers, too, the "Old Bach Archive" is the most important starting point for the musical representation of Bach's "Family Affairs". Six compositions from this valuable collection were selected for the present recording. These pieces are complemented by further works from Bach generations up to the late 18th century. A clearly audible connection is revealed not only by the consistent instrumentation of four to six vocal parts and basso continuo, but also by a kind of "family sound". Even when Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach composes a motet in the style of Empfindsamkeit, it may be assumed that he also had the works of his ancestors in mind, which were composed more than 100 years earlier. The "Family Affairs" with 15 works from four generations thus provide an impressive testimony to this unique musical dynasty.

Probably born in Hamburg in 1623, Dietrich Becker not only mastered organ playing, but also developed into an outstanding violinist and composer. His music-historical importance lies primarily in the field of instrumental music, but his contribution to sacred music also shows him to be a distinguished composer: five sacred concertos from his pen have survived in their entirety; they are united as first recordings on this release. The form and style of the sacred concertos show typical similarities: As instrumental parts, Becker preferred a full-voiced string instrumentation; the singing parts are not conducted virtuosically, but predominantly syllabically, and serve primarily a clear reproduction of the text and follow the affect of the text. Singing voices and instruments frequently confront each other in dialogue.

Under the title "It is good for me", the words from the 73rd Psalm, love songs, jubilant and psalm chants from the 17th century by Johann Rosenmüller, Claudio Monteverdi, Nicolò Corradini and others can be heard with the tenor Georg Poplutz, who is highly esteemed for his "expressive yet sensitive interpretation" and is now one of the most sought-after interpreters in baroque music. Here are his personal words about this album: "It is now also a pleasure for us to be able to present this program to you, which we hope will give you as much pleasure in listening to it as it gives us in making mu-sic! I would like to thank Arno Paduch for his tireless research and rediscovery of new (for our generation) works of this already old music. I am very pleased that we have now been able to record all these treasures and present some of the settings on album for the first time. To sing these works is indeed good for me - once more to God's glory and to the people, yes, to you for edification and joy!

The orchestral songs by the now almost forgotten Viennese composer and late Romantic Karl Weigl date from 1916, while the Rhapsody for String Orchestra goes back to the String Sextet composed in 1906, but was composed together with the Piano Concerto only in 1931 and, like the latter, reveals a progressive and yet completely organic, natural development. There are neither radical changes of direction nor any signs of stagnation in Weigl's work. We can perhaps best see where Weigl was to be placed in the New Music of the twenties from the fact that the Composition Prize of the City of Vienna in 1925 was awarded to four prominent artists: Karl Weigl, Franz Schmidt, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Weigl never reached the dissonant extremes of expression with his language as Alban Berg did, but the works on this release show that he often ventured to the limits of his self-imposed scope. The Piano Concerto is the most unusual and original work on this album and illustrates the transition from the tantalizingly seductive language of Weigl's early Viennese works to a more powerful, definite tone.

If you are still looking for proof that quantity and quality need not be mutually exclusive in the case of composing geniuses, you will find plenty here. Listening and discovering is pure pleasure, wrote FonoForum when the first part of Telemann's cantatas of the French Year was released on cpo. And Vol. 2 of our large-scale and unbelievably exciting project with the world's first complete recording of a complete vintage of 72 large-scale church cantatas by Georg Philipp Telemann (Frankfurt 1714 / 15) again does justice to these statements. This time, on 2 albums, cantatas for Laetare (Sunday of the Dead), Oculi (Sunday of Lent), Easter and the 22nd to 24th Sundays after Trinity can be heard, depending on the occasion with different musical means of expression and very expressive. It is this ingenuity, this astonishing imagination, which accounts for Telemann's special status - today as well as during his lifetime. Worth discovering, not only for Telemann fans!

Carl Reinecke became known not least for his piano works, in which he reveals his style rooted in Romanticism. He wrote not only for solo piano, but also for piano four hands and for two pianos. The piano duo Genova & Dimitrov have now discovered this group of works for themselves and describe Reinecke as "one of the greatest surprises and discoveries of our musical path". The duo now presents the first recording of all works for two pianos and reveals: "Even while playing through the beautiful, introductory phrase of his Andante with Variations op. 6, a whole new world opened up before us in a split second and drew us into the further almost 200 minutes. It is a world of multi-layered human emotions, contrasts and spontaneity, a world of boundless, pure love and courtesy for fellow human beings, of unconditional helpfulness and understanding, of the deepest respect for others, of devoted selflessness and unshakeable faith in God and in the good in people. All that is Carl Reinecke as a person gushes forth ceaselessly from his music. Through the present recordings, we hope to be able to pass on to our audience this 'source of life' as pure and unadulterated as possible, just as we received it as a gift from the great master." A brilliant complete edition!