Robert Kahn’s early oeuvre was initially classified primarily in relation to composers such as Robert Schumann and Robert Franz. During his later years, however, the influence of Johannes Brahms – which surely was intentional – became clearly audible. This also applies to the three works for violoncello and piano recorded here. Brahms held this composer born in Mannheim in 1865 in such high regard that he even offered him his advice in compositional matters. And in some of the movements of Kahn’s Cello Sonata No. 1 – for example, in the mirthful and playful finale – both Brahms and Schumann are recognizable as very important forerunners who stimulated his compositional development. Kahn’s tendency to compose short expressive pieces is displayed in the Three Pieces for Violoncello and Piano op. 25. The Romance in F minor in the first position is a highly expressive song piece – to a certain extent a »song without words« in the manner of Mendelssohn’s piano compositions of this sort. And from the very beginning of the Cello Sonata No. 2 there can be no doubt about Kahn’s ties to German Romanticism. The thematic design of the first movement could have been thought up by Brahms or even by Beethoven before him. Here too the material is developed and elaborated in the manner of a classically transmitted sonata movement and with a sovereign command of the compositional craft.

This month we are happy to present to you a great Passion oratorio that Johann Sebastian Bach in all likelihood pieced together for his last Passion service. He took a work by Carl Heinrich Graun, a composer whom he admired, and expanded it to produce a magnificent two-part Passion. To it he added compositions of his own authorship and others by his friend Georg Philipp Telemann. The result was a pasticcio, a new work consisting of set pieces. This practice was very common during Bach’s times. Both composers on whose works Bach drew were contemporary stars who did not at all object to this practice, especially since they occasionally operated in precisely the same way. The composer Georg Philipp Telemann saw no reason to complain about the reuse of his works. Although we do have quite a bit of background information about the Passion, the riddle surrounding it is only beginning to be solved. Accordingly, Bach scholarship can only hope that additional sources will be found and prove Johann Sebastian Bach’s authorship once and for all. The work perhaps even offers evidence pointing to one of his lost Passions, and it might even be his last Passion oratorio – which, as the current state of research knowledge sees things – can only have been written during the years following 1733.

As Adolf Tegtmeier, the alter ego of Jürgen von Manger, knew quite well, overtures exercise an important function in the opera: “They begin, you see, right off with the curtain and start by playing all the melodies in a row, everything that happens to come up later. But this is just to give you the chance to familiarize yourself with the music. And of course it’s important … so that later on you don’t get such a big shock.” The orchestral overtures brought together on the present recording make the listener eager to hear each of the particular works following them. Even those who do not recognize the fine details of their design will enjoy the inexhaustible wealth of their melodies, the irresistible rhythms and lyricisms, and the skilled details of their instrumentation. In their entirety the works on this album invite us to approach Jacques Offenbach’s sumptuous oeuvre by way of unknown paths on the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of his birth – without having to worry about “later getting such a big shock.”

Our gigantic edition of Carl Loewe’s complete song and ballad oeuvre proved to be a great success and revealed a genuine cosmos of great dramatic works and enthralling genre miniatures. However, it is known only to a few that Loewe not only composed some six hundred songs and ballads but also produced chamber music. In 1831 the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung described his Piano Trio or Grand Trio op. 12 as “magnificent, finely invented, sustained, and intelligently developed.” Robert Schumann expressed himself in a similar vein: “It is perhaps one of the most fundamentally genuine and most imaginative works by Loewe, one of those worthiest of the best master. Every trio circle must have it.” In his last instrumental work, the Duo Espagnôla for viola and piano, the composer once again ventured onto national terrain and took with him the viola as a special expressive means conveying the Spanish character. The work is melodious throughout and shows both instruments in their best light. The Scottish Pictures for clarinet and piano from Loewe’s late period are demanding genre scenes inspired by the composer’s interest in the Scottish landscape and the country’s vicissitudinous history. At the time enthusiasm for the wild north of the British Isles was very fashionable.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold greatly revised the comic operetta A Night in Venice by Johann Strauss (Jr.) on the basis of the libretto version by Ernst Marischka. The original Straussian version initially rapidly made its way around the world, with performances in the lands of the Danube monarchy as well as in Hamburg, Munich, and London and even in New York. Nevertheless, until the end of World War I it experienced only about five hundred performances, which means that it was clearly overshadowed by Die Fledermaus. Again and again the attempt was made to reinterpret the text with interventions revising its content. Erich Wolfgang Korngold took an additional step in 1923, when he not only adapted the text but also changed the original instrumentation and integrated inserts into the work from other operettas by Strauss, for example, from Simplicius (1880). For several reasons Korngold’s revised version was a success when it was performed at the Theater an der Wien on 25 October 1923: the stage set was lavish and magnificent, the new orchestration displayed tonal sophistication, and the great Richard Tauber was heard in the role of the Duke in quest of erotic adventures. A few years later Korngold’s version made its way to the stage of the Vienna State Opera.

A magnificent oratorio, long forgotten, has been rediscovered in Leipzig. Gregor Meyer conducts the Gewandhaus Chorus and the camerata lipsiensis in Friedrich Schneider’s Das Weltgericht. The composer, pianist, organist, and Anhalt-Dessau court music director Friedrich Schneider was one of the most creative and productive minds in the Central German music world during the first half of the nineteenth century but today is unfortunately a forgotten man. Das Weltgericht was once one of the most famous German oratorios, inspired euphoric headlines everywhere when it was first composed, and occasioned genuine storms of enthusiasm among concertgoers. The libretto is by August Apel, who based his text on the biblical accounts of the Last Judgment in Matthew 24-25 and the Revelation of John. A plot in the strict sense is not narrated; rather, the persons are biblical messengers who tell us of heaven, hell, and earth. This oratorio situated between classicism and romanticism was often performed but then was forgotten for many decades. The conductor Gregor Meyer wants to stimulate a new discussion about the oeuvre of Friedrich Schneider, who once lived and worked in Leipzig. A critical edition of the source materials will assist him in this project.

Following Tatjana Ruhland’s cpo release with flute compositions by Carl Reinecke, which has just been awarded the OPUS KLASSIK 2018 for the best concerto recording of the year, music critics have described her as "the top class in her field" and as "a virtuoso and nimble flutist" with "a warm tone full of interpretive intensity." On her new cpo album she dedicates herself to three flute concertos by August Eberhard Müller. Beethoven esteemed Müller as an artist, and Goethe valued him as a music expert; contemporary lexicographers praised him as a composer and as an interpreter on the flute, piano, and organ, and Friedrich Rochlitz, the founding editor of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, described him as a composer whose works were "of definite, enduring value." Müller also did not have to beg for prestigious posts: he was the St. Thomas choirmaster and organist and Johann Sebastian Bach’s fourth successor in Leipzig from 1804 to 1810 and the court music director in Weimar, "seat of the Muses," from 1810 until his death. Müller’s flute concertos, eleven in all, were printed between 1794 and 1816, and two single pieces for flute and orchestra were published in 1804 and 1817. It thus may be said that he thoroughly occupied himself with this genre or instrumentation during his active years as a composer, and his flute concertos make no secret of his great admiration for Mozart.

On 8 June 1807 the cornerstone of a new Lutheran Town Church was laid in Karlsruhe, and in 1816 a festive dedication celebrated its completion. During the concert held in 2016 on the occasion of the town church’s two hundredth anniversary, the Karlsruhe Bach Choir performed Psalm compositions by Franz Danzi, who from 1812 until his death served as the court music director of the Baden Court Orchestra in Karlsruhe, and by Friedrich Ernst Fesca, who was among the members of the Karlsruhe Court Orchestra during the Danzi era. Danzi’s "Preis Gottes" cantata continues to breathe the spirit of the eighteenth century and of Mozart, for example, in the highly virtuosic arias for soprano and tenor, while the choruses suggest the oratorios of Handel and Haydn. By contrast, his short Psalm 128 op. 65 for mixed choir and smaller orchestra is painted in delicate romantic colors. It was published in Leipzig in 1823 with the Latin text and the German translation of the psalm by Moses Mendelssohn, which Louis Spohr, a friend of Danzi’s, also used in his Three Psalms op. 85 for double choir (1832). Fesca proves to be a master of the transition from classicism to romanticism – and very much the equal of his boss Danzi, with whom he apparently was on good terms. He knew how to craft brilliant and richly varied instrumentations, had a firm command of formal matters, and supplied rhythmic and harmonic surprises.

After 1933 nobody had the opportunity to hear this opera. Then the Osnabrück Music Theater rediscovered Das Lied der Nacht by Hans Gál and performed it in 2017. This late-romantic opera to a text by Karl Michael von Levetzow premiered in 1926, but since its composer was of Jewish origin, the Nazis prohibited stage productions of it. During his later years Hans Gál was doubly forgotten: as one of the many Jewish artists who were forced into exile by the Fascists and as a conservative "very-latest romanticist" pursuing paths laid out by Brahms and Richard Strauss. He himself described Das Lied der Nacht as a "dramatic ballad" symbolically representing the emotional world of a Sicilian hereditary princess destined for sovereignty. The text set in twelfth-century Palermo evokes a magical, romantic world in which Antiquity and Byzantine and Moorish elements combine to form a synthesis of rare fascination and a lyrical blend of European and Oriental culture. After the premiere at the end of May 2017, the NOZ wrote, "Fantastic music, a good libretto, a marvelous performance, an all-around successful rediscovery that the premiere audience in the Osnabrück Theater celebrated with abundant applause." Now on cpo and an absolute listening must!

It is our good fortune that Ferdinand Ries bequeathed to posterity six remarkably beautiful Quartets for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Violoncello. These compositions sparkle like gems in the early Romantic chamber literature including the flute. On the present release, Vol. 2 of our complete recording, his Quartets in G major WoO 35, 2 and E minor op. 145, 2 as well as his remarkable String Trio in E minor WoO 70, 2 are heard. On the one hand, conventional elements verging on practically Baroque sequential processes stand out in the trio. On the other hand, here we also find innovative musical surprises and full-fledged, motivically organized development sections, above all in the fourth movement. The violin part is very exceptionally demanding. In any event, the young Ries was able to compose a work representing a highly expressive contribution to the not exactly large number of string trios. In the chamber compositions recorded here Ries once again presents himself as a composer who experienced musical classicism firsthand and adapted it but then increasingly pursued his own path and found a unique personal style marking the beginning of a new worldview. Following the release of our Vol. 1, Heinz Braun enthusiastically wrote: “I freely concede that over the years I have become a glowing admirer of the Bonn master and have impatiently awaited each new release. In the present case too, the wait has been well worth it. The Ardinghello Ensemble with the flutist Karl Kaiser succeeds overall with its fine sense of sound, supported by Manuel Braun’s outstanding sound technique.”

The title “Seelen-Music” (Soul Music) refers to the first complete collection of all the extant Cantatas by Johann Theile for soprano solo with viol accompaniment, presented here with the recording premieres of Sacred Concertos by Theile’s fellow Northern German Christian Flor and Instrumental Suites by the Gottorf violinist Gregor Zuber. The composer Johann Theile is of great significance in music history inasmuch as he is held to be one of the last pupils of Heinrich Schütz, who was the most important German-language composer of the seventeenth century. Theile presumably was appointed to the post of chapel master in Gottorf at the suggestion of Duchess Marie Elisabeth, the daughter of Prince Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony and in her youth a Schütz pupil in her own right. From 1673 to 1678 he worked at this court under her son Duke Christian Albrecht. When Gottorf was under Danish occupation, Theile accompanied the duke into exile in Hamburg, where both contributed to the establishment of the first public opera house in Germany and its opening with Theile’s singspiel Adam und Eva. In Dorothee Mields we have found a dream soloist for these mostly contemplative works, and her bright, sublimely balanced soprano voice lends them breathtaking depth.

During the third concert in our series "Music from Wolfenbüttel Castle" in 2017, sacred compositions from the Opus Novum of Daniel Selichius were presented and recorded. Selichius was born in Wittenberg in 1581 and succeeded Michael Praetorius as court chapel master in Wolfenbüttel during 1621-26. His oeuvre includes the twenty-four sacred concertos of his Opus Novum of Sacred Latin and German Concertos and Psalms of David. This collection published in Wolfenbüttel in 1624 was one of the earliest printed collections of fully dimensioned sacred concertos in Protestant Germany. For these concertos we once again have obtained the services of the Weser-Renaissance Ensemble of Bremen under its conductor Prof. Dr. Manfred Cordes. This ensemble specializes in early music and over the decades has produced interpretations of Baroque music regarded as exemplary in this field.

Hamburg marked an important year in its history in 1762. The city’s large St. Michael’s Church had been destroyed by fire in 1760, and twelve years later the magnificent new Baroque structure (as yet without a tower) was dedicated. This event was celebrated as an official state ceremony, and of course Georg Philipp Telemann, the city’s music director, who by then was eighty-one years old, had to supply the music for it. Aware of the great importance of this event, he produced one of his most magnificent and most expressive scores with an ensemble including six double-choral trumpets and timpani. He wrote Der Tag des Gerichts, the great oratorio of his old age, during the same year, and his dedication music is situated on this same high musical level.

Aram Khachaturian was an established Soviet artist when he realized an old dream of his in the first postwar year 1946 and composed a grand, quasi-symphonic work for his main instrument. Following his spectacular concertos for piano and for violin, which in the meantime had taken the world by storm, he now surprised his public with music that only gradually reveals its fiery temperament: we hear very clearly how well the composer knew the violoncello, the instrument on which during his study years he had practiced until his fingers hurt, in all its special qualities and how precisely he knew how to bring out its expressive and velvety autumnal personality. Neither this concerto nor the Rhapsody composed by Khachaturian seventeen years later for Mstislav Rostropovich can be mastered with mere virtuoso ostentation. Both works demand the services of a soloist who does not misunderstand the unprecedented difficulties of his parts as an opportunity for self-display, and Daniel Raiskin has found such an interpreter in the person of the Swedish cellist Thorleif Thedéen: sovereign in every technical respect, he surmounts the enormous challenges even when he removes himself from the intensive dialogues with the orchestra and – left entirely to his own devices – captures the whole of Khachaturian in the monologues.

Giovanni Alberto Ristori was the son of the Italian actor Tomaso Ristori and came to the Saxon court in Dresden when his father found employment there as the director of the Italian acting company. Giovanni Ristori was regarded as a talented composer, pianist, and organist, and obtained the post of »compositeur« with the Italian court acting company in 1717. He later received the posts of chamber organist in 1733, church composer in 1746, and the Dresden court’s assistant chapel master under Johann Adolph Hasse in 1750. Unfortunately, more famous names, like Jan Dismas Zelenka and Johann Adolph Hasse, currently obscure Ristori’s contributions in the public’s perception of the Saxon court ensemble in the eighteenth century. The reason for this is simple: although the court acquired the composer’s papers after his death, many manuscripts, including his complete church music, were removed from Dresden during World War II and never brought back there. Isolated new performances of extant compositions of high quality nonetheless have led to inquiries concerning the existence of other works by him. Therefore, the quest for Ristori manuscripts marked the beginning of the present recording project; and so it is that it is now our privilege to hear three top-quality sacred compositions by this talented composer. All three works not only are able to contribute to the vindication of a composer who has been particularly hard hit by the loss of primary sources but also demonstrate the high level of the musical everyday at the Dresden court church.