In the church year 1730/31, Telemann performed a volume of special conception: Regular oratorios were to be heard in the church service. And so the focus of our latest Telemann album is his magnificent oratorio for the feast of St. John, Gelobet sei der Herr, with expressive texts by the poet and musician Albrecht Jacob Zell. Zell succeeds in imagining dramatic, almost theatrical scenes, thus providing Telemann with models for tone-painting. Not only is the vocal cast extremely lush, including three basses, but the instrumentation is also very rich, including the use of four horns and three transverse flutes. Once again, Telemann unfolds a wide range of expression. The lament of the Egyptians over the slain children, in F minor and chromatic turns, is moving,Conductor:the depiction of the fleeing people and their pursuers, who cannot reach them, is full of external movement and tension, with chains of sixteenth notes on the one hand and syllabic declamation on the other.

Ferdinand Hiller was a figure of European renown during his lifetime, but unfortunately his work and activity were quickly forgotten after his death. The two works recorded here, the 3rd Piano Quartet (1870) and the Piano Quintet op. 156 (1872) represent the mature Hiller's weightiest contributions to chamber music. But despite their initial success, even these demanding pieces failed to gain a lasting foothold in the concert repertoire. While Hiller's early works were still clearly in the tradition of Hummel, the late ones clearly reflect the new standard that Schumann had set with his works of the 1840s. For his piano quartet, Hiller chose the key of A minor, which was considered passionate in the High Romantic period. For long stretches, this key determines the work's basic dramatic tone, which only brightens into a radiant A major in the finale. The piano part is too demanding to be performed in the context of house music. His Piano Quintet proves to be more of a lyrical counterpart to the Piano Quartet. The real surprise is that the theme of the final movement turns out to be a variant of the main theme of the first movement, bringing the quintet as a whole closer to a cyclical form.

The present trio sonatas for transverse flute, violin and basso continuo by Christoph Georg Wagenseil, who was one of the most famous Viennese composers of his time, are all conceived in three movements according to the usual sonata scheme of fast - slow - fast, but they are by no means musical "mass-produced goods", since the music of the 17th and 18th centuries was, without exception, committed to the musical imitation of the so-called "affects", whereby this term was understood to mean any human emotion. This imitation of affect was considered the highest goal of composition in those days. As means for this imitation, the composer had all the parameters of composition at his disposal, such as style, genre or form, key, melody, rhythm, tempo, meter, harmony, dynamics, articulation and instrumentation, whereby he should always choose such means and their combinations that best corresponded to the intended affect. The Ensemble Klingekunst interprets these trio sonata jewels - all first recordings, by the way - expressively and passionately.

Anett Fritsch is dignified as Heinrich’s betrayed wife Catharina, but Julia Sophie Wagner is the pick of a more than passable bunch in the trouser role of the page Eduard. The choral singing has spirit, the recording (in Munich’s Prinzregententheater, though it doesn’t sound live) is nicely balanced, and it’s all swept cheerfully along by conductor Ulf Schirmer. - Gramophone

Georg Abraham Schneider was born in Darmstadt in the same year as Beethoven. His musical talent became apparent at a very early age, and after an educational trip to Rheinsberg, he was engaged by Prince Heinrich of Prussia as a horn player for the Rheinsberg Chapel. The composer Schneider is a representative of the spirit of Haydn and Mozart, who wanted to be understood as their preserver. In the reviews, he was attested to compositional skill and a dignified artistry that was committed to the bourgeois taste of the time. Schneider wrote a remarkably large number of compositions for flute, including four flute concertos, about 90 flute duets, and 60 quartets for flute and string trio. The charming, very light-hearted, three-movement Flute Concerto op. 12 is in classical concerto form, and the Mozart model is clearly audible. His Concerto op. 53 conforms to the classical scheme of the instrumental concerto, with ample opportunity for soloist Gaby Pas-Van Riet to display her virtuosity. The work charms with lovely delicate themes that offer the flute every opportunity to explore the instrument's tonal spectrum. In the Concerto op. 63, printed in Leipzig in 1812, the orchestra is augmented with two trumpets and timpani in addition to the double instrumentation of oboes, bassoons and horns. Schneider here demonstrates his ability to orchestrate a concerto well and to use the winds effectively.

Our third album with symphonies by Louis Glass features his Fourth Symphony - a large-scale work with a playing time of about one hour. It calls for triple woodwinds as well as six horns and the strongest wind section that Glass used in his symphonies. And the composer also works here with tighter thematic structures than in the three earlier symphonies. The piece immediately attracted attention and was not only performed repeatedly in Copenhagen from 1912 to 1933, but also abroad. After the composer's death, it was performed three more times; since then, however, it has probably not been performed in public. But with this large-scale symphony, Louis Glass had consolidated his position as one of the most important Danish symphonic composers of his time.

The Lombardini Quartet is not only named after the Venetian violin virtuoso and composer Maddalena Laura Lombardini Sirmen, but now also recorded her versatile "Sei quartetti" op.3 from 1769. Lombardini Sirmen was one of the few women to realize a career as a professional musician in the 18th century and, according to sources, the first woman to compose string quartets, at a time when this genre was still extremely young and in the formal experimental stage. The interpreter's highest credo is always the speaking play and the uncovering of all affects in the music, of the finest emotions, which often change so quickly in the quartets - a veritable rollercoaster of feelings. All the quartets are in two movements and enchant with their variety of colors and richness of form: "Like a walk through a blossoming spring meadow: It is worthwhile to turn one's gaze very carefully to the many beauties that nature offers to the left and right. We felt the same way about Lombardini's music: many little flowers by the wayside to discover, some large and recognizable at first glance, some very small and easy to overlook. It is fragile music that reveals a rich inner life on closer inspection," says Elisabeth Wiesbauer of the Lombardini Quartet.

From the works Matthias Weckmann wrote for the Collegium Musicum, eleven autograph sonatas are preserved in the Lüneburg Council Library. While two of the sonatas call for a conventional trio of two violins and bass (in the tenth sonata a viola da gamba and in the eighth a dulcian), the remaining, more extravagant pieces are written for a heterogeneous quartet of cornettino (treble zinc), violin, trombone (in two sonatas alternatively viola da braccio and viola da gamba), and dulcian or bass shawm. In the pieces for the Hamburg Collegium Musicum, Weckmann pushed all of the instruments, but especially the trombone and cornettino, to their absolute limits. An important characteristic of the sonatas are the strong contrasts. Typical features are: abrupt changes of tempi, meter, and tessitura (sometimes accompanied by echo effects), close and wide harmonies, and alternating polyphonic and homophonic passages in which three instruments occasionally play parallel chords as in a faux bourdon. Notwithstanding these commonalities, each sonata is an individual piece and not forced into any prefabricated mold.

Finally: Beethoven's Piano Concertos 0 to 7 as interpreted by Michael Korstick are available on 4 albums, and once again he sets new interpretational standards. In the meantime, volumes have been filled with attempts to approach the question of an adequate interpretation of Beethoven's works, and with the indispensable elements of grandeur, drama and inwardness, the study of these works remains timelessly topical and will continue to open up new perspectives in the future. This complete recording of all the piano concertos arranges the six works that Beethoven gave an opus number in the appropriate order, leaving all the other pieces to follow on the fourth release. This project would not have been possible without the generous support of Dr. Ernst Denert. For his patronage, Michael Korstick was able to fulfil a long-cherished dream.

Affecting Passions by Heinichen. The Passion music Johann David Heinichen wrote for the Dresden court is a document of cultural and confessional openness of the Saxon residence, and his two Italian oratorios heard here are surrogates of large-scale Passion music. "Come? S'imbruna il ciel" - composed in 1728 - is the latest of the sepolcri, his other Passion "L'aride tempie ignude" the first of the sepolcri to survive from Heinichen in Dresden. Both texts are by Stefano Pallavicino, who had been active at the Dresden court since 1719. In the first-mentioned Passion, the meditation on the Passion event recurs to the experience of the earthquake that, according to biblical accounts, occurred immediately after the death of Jesus. The description of the violent natural events gives Mary the Mother of God, John (Jesus' favorite disciple), and Mary Magdalene an opportunity to reflect on their relationship to the Crucified. Different aspects of affection and love are thematized. The meditation on the Passion event in the second-named Passion is designed as an allegorical play of death (Morte) and hope (Speranza), divine love (Amor divino) and penance (Poenitenza), and follows an easily comprehensible dramaturgy. The affinity to opera seria is evident in both passions not only in the arrangement of the pieces. The keys, gestures and instrumentation also correspond to the models familiar from baroque musical theater. Full of affect!

The five works on our Vol. 8 offer a fascinating cross-section of Telemann's violin concertos from the early creations of the Eisenach period (1708-1712) to the 1730s, when the composer published his Musique de table as a musician highly respected throughout Europe. And the genres and instrumentations on this album are also varied: concertos for two and three solo violins stand alongside a Violetta double concerto and Telemann's only concerto overture with two solo violins. "The wealth of variations in compositional technique and style testifies to a composer who constantly reinvented himself, or who did not need to do so because of his great versatility. Another jewel in cpo's Telemann crown." (klassik.com on Vol. 7) Here, too, the Wallfisch Band convinces with freshness, the best inner ensemble balance and great respect for each other, which results in audibly friendly musical cooperation.

“Here loving service is done to a composer who is perhaps Sweden’s most important symphonist and certainly its most popular one.” This is what FonoForum wrote of Vol. 2 of our edition of symphonic works by Hugo Alfvén, who numbers among the most productive and most versatile Swedish cultural personalities. Alfvén’s Symphony No. 2 brought him a success that he termed his definitive artistic breakthrough. A second performance was held during the same year, and it was not long before it was also being presented in foreign countries. This work became his most popular symphony and the first of his compositions to appear in print (1900). At the time national Romantic tones had long dominated music by Swedish composers, while Alfvén adopted a taste that was more Continental – a fact that reviewers registered with astonishment. His Swedish Rhapsody No. 3, a composition featuring impressive work with motifs from Swedish folk music, rounds off this album.

"I am too cowardly to be a proper composer," Hugo Wolf confessed to a Viennese friend when he was barely 28 years old. And the result of his introspection was not so wrong: everything in his life, not only composing, proceeded in explosive spurts. He wandered through the deepest emotional valleys, suddenly flew up into the highest regions, suffered agonies when he couldn't think of anything to say, shouted his enthusiasm about a successful piece to the whole world and still managed to produce a respectable, albeit fragmentary oeuvre, from which the early poem Penthesilea after Heinrich von Kleist's tragedy of the same name stands out as a symphonic masterpiece. The Austrian baritone Benjamin Appl and the Jena Philharmonic Orchestra, led by its principal conductor Simon Gaudenz, have prefaced this highly dramatic monolith with twelve selected songs, most of which were orchestrated by their author himself: a dozen small, finely polished gems based on texts by Goethe, Mörike and Heyse, whose subtle arrangements leave no doubt that Hugo Wolf would certainly have had the makings of a "proper composer". Whether then, of course, the ingenious things would have been created that posterity owes to him - that is another matter.

The next-to-last album in our complete recording of Johann Kuhnau’s cantatas once again presents outstanding examples of German Lutheran church music. “They reinforce the positive impression created by the previous volumes. The singers very much know their way around Kuhnau, and this knowledge is rendered audible. The instrumental parts are perfectly executed” (musicweb international of Vol. 6). Kuhnau’s magnificent cantata “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern” for five-part choir, two corni grandi, two recorders, five-part strings (with divided violas), and basso continuo is certainly an outstanding composition within his oeuvre and a special highlight on Vol. 7. This work has been transmitted in a copy made by the renowned Weimar city organist and lexicographer Johann Gottfried Walther, who is known to have engaged in personal dialogue with Kuhnau. The cantata is framed by Philipp Nicolai’s sacred hymn of the same name and traces its origins to an anonymous poet, and in it Kuhnau lives up in every way to the outstanding reputation that he enjoyed among his contemporaries as a vocal composer in the devotional church style. The opening chorus clothes the chorale in a musical fabric of great sonority consisting of imitations, in anticipation, in repetition, and of motet character, such as only a few composers of his generation could have committed to paper.

Georg Philipp Telemann’s intermezzo Pimpinone celebrated its premiere at the Gänsemarkt Opera in Hamburg on 27 September 1725 as an insert in George Frideric Handel’s opera seria Tamerlano and turned out to be a major public draw that continued to find its place in the Hamburg performance program until 1740. Telemann too valued this work and published it on his own in 1728. Apart from Telemann’s music, one reason for the success of this three-part intermezzo involved his pointed realistic look at the contemporary professional and private spheres. And each intermezzo offers us music fans today insights into existential worlds that only seemingly have disappeared over time: they tell of the hard life of single women, the significance of wealth and social standing for eligibility for marriage, the injustices of patriarchal marriage law, and the ridicule directed at romantically inclined senior citizens. In 1708 Tommaso Albinoni became the first composer to set the libretto Pimpinone e Vespetta by Pietro Pariati; in 1725 Telemann and his librettist Johann Philipp Praetorius lent the work a Hamburg touch. Italian arias were retained, but some arias, duets, and the recitatives were given new texts. Telemann proves to be – also in these scenes from a marriage – a master of musical depictions of moods, situations, and persons. Without exaggeration it may be said that this cpo new production with the Akademie für Alte Musik represents a benchmark recording.