Dmitri Kabalevsky composed a mere two string quartets, in this category hardly a quantitative match for his fellow Dmitri (Shostakovich). His first quartet of 1928 from his late study years with Nikolai Yakovievich Myaskovsky is a work structured with great refinement not only fulfilling academic requirements but also representing a remarkably independent achievement. His second quartet from the period immediately after World War II very dramatically reflects the events of the preceding years. Here Kabalevsky produced a work of extraordinary eloquence with a clear per aspera ad astra arising from the horrors of the war and its end but in no way limited to this aspect. It is known that Serge Prokofiev was looking a bit over Kabalevsky’s shoulder while he was composing, but the result is of course in no way a stylistic copy.

Previous albums have featured electrifying marches, sparkling polkas, and yearning waltzes by Benjamin Bilse and Richard Ellenberg, the conductor Christian Simonis – this time with the Nuremberg Symphony – now presents peppy popular pieces by Carl Millöcker, who was born in Vienna in 1842. In the context of the Viennese operetta of the nineteenth century, the composer and theater conductor Millöcker is usually mentioned together with the younger Johann Strauss and Franz von Suppé, and he certainly numbers among the most important creative personalities of the »Golden Years« of the Viennese operetta era. His musical oeuvre comprises some 110 stage works (operettas, singspiels, music for farcical comedies – and more), numerous piano compositions, some ninety songs, music for orchestra (waltzes, polkas, marches), choral works, and chamber music. At the time the customary practice was to arrange the best and most beloved melodies from stage works as dance music, as waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and marches, and such was also the case with Millöcker’s music, including the “Sonntagskind-Walzer.” Its formal design is like the one known to us from the Strauss waltzes of this period. After a lavish introduction a series of four waltzes is presented; then a lengthy coda follows in the manner of a reminiscence.

When the Osnabrück Symphony Orchestra goes to the studio, it is working on all the key features. This was the case with the symphonies of Joseph Bohuslav Foerster, and so it is with the latest product: Two viola and a flute concerto by Osnabrück composer Christian Westerhoff are immortalized. The orchestra thus ends with a recording of a symphony, a clarinet and a double concerto by Westerhoff, which has been recorded by Hermann Bäumer. Westerhoff was born in 1763, and was a real contendor of his time: no Mozart, no Haydn, no Beethoven, but certainly a composer who composed serious music. The viola concertos No. 1 in G major and No. 3 in C major sound lively and fresh - it is a pleasure to listen to the orchestra under Andreas Hotz. The two soloists have also played a decisive role in this: Barbara Buntrock plays the Solopart in the viola concertos, and the same applies to Gaby Pas-Van Riet as a soloist in the Flötenkonzert.

Yes, there is such a thing: an opera, not an operetta, by Franz von Suppé, through-composed and Italian in its dramatic character – which is hardly surprising from a man who was Donizetti’s distant nephew! Des Matrosen Heimkehr was a commissioned work for the Hamburg Opera, but our recording of this romantic work does not draw on the textual circumstances of the Hamburg premiere, during which Anton Langer’s original text was performed. The Italian version, whose translator has remained unknown, is found in the piano reduction published by August Cranz of Hamburg and in part in Suppé’s manuscript score, housed today in Vienna’s City and State Library. The Italian version is also the better medium for the Italian character of the music. The Suppé biographer Roser then was also justified in terming it »magnificent music,« and the Vienna magazine Die Lyra praised the »fine attractive appeal, charmingly enthralling melodies« avoiding the »high-flown style of the grand opera« and mentioned the »avoidance of the shallow and the ordinary.« In any case, the recording represents a successful pioneering effort that once again has found a place for a forgotten work from a neglected genre – the opera oeuvre of Franz von Suppé – in musical and cultural memory.

Tatjana Ruhland has been described as »the Paganini of the flute.« At the very latest since her debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall she has numbered among the most prominent artists performing on the flute. On the present program she dedicates herself to Carl Reinecke’s chamber and concertante flute compositions, all of which he composed during the second half of his life. Along with the Undine Sonata op. 167 for flute and piano, today his most frequently performed work, the recording features the two concertante works written by him when he was over eighty years old. Here the initial dominance of stylistic elements associated with Mendelssohn has yielded to a tonal language that is both electrifying and highly individual. Reinecke’s music is diatonic in design but so strongly pervaded by semitones and suspensions that it also continues to flow. The »build-up phase« of the concertante last movements is only one of the procedures hardly invented by Reinecke but very much loved by him.

Julius Bauer, a man known not only for his intelligent, original, and witty texts but also as Vienna’s most influential theater critic, wrote the libretto for Die Juxheirat in 1904. This wild, dizzying, surprising, and bold work was far ahead of its times as well as reminiscent of The Taming of the Shrew – only carried to the absolute extreme. The shrew is a frustrated widow and suffragette, and the male protagonist is just the opposite of a lady-tamer: overtaxed and irritated, he just wants to live out his love. Michael Lakner, then the director of the Lehár Festival, declared in an interview, "I am especially fond of this operetta with a story taking us to the United States around 1900. Franz Lehár’s name is above all associated with The Merry Widow, his great worldwide success; a year before he had already written Die Juxheirat. During his lifetime this work was performed only forty times. And we are presenting this conversation operetta in a semi-scenic performance." The conductor Markus Burkert elaborated and reconstructed this work note by note; the musicians pieced their parts together note by note. "They also take this commitment with them into the performance – and play with verve the interesting waltzes, marches, and ensemble pieces. The fact that the Franz Lehár Orchestra also produces a wonderful, transparent, and lively sound makes it the perfect ensemble for the operetta genre." (BR-Klassik Operetta Review). A bold and daring Lehár without his otherwise typical sentimentalities – and a discovery!

A MusicWeb International Recording of the Month!

For centuries the Lamentations of Jeremiah have inspired composers to write some of their most expressive music. Originally these lamentations were written by the prophet Jeremiah in reaction to the downfall of Judah and its capital Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple of God and the deportation of the Jewish people to Babylon. In the Christian church these texts were considered very appropriate to be recited or sung during the last three days of Holy Week. A parallel was drawn between the destruction of Jerusalem and the suffering and death of Jesus: both were the effect of the people turning away from God. A refrain was added to every chapter: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, turn back to the Lord your God", from the prophet Hosea (ch 14, vs 2). Liturgically the Lamentations are part of the Matins (or Tenebrae) on each of the last three days before Easter, the Triduum sacrum: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

In the renaissance a large number of polyphonic settings were written, but in comparison the number of settings in the baroque era seems rather limited. Today the best-known are those written by French composers of the late 17th and early 18th century, like Lambert, Lalande, Charpentier and François Couperin (Leçons de Ténèbres). It is often suggested that in other parts of Europe hardly any settings of the Lamentations were written in the baroque era. Whether that is indeed the case is hard to prove. There are probably more than one would think, but they are hardly known and are seldom performed and recorded. Alessandro Scarlatti, for instance, composed a set of Lamentations, but as far as I know these have been recorded only once. The same goes for settings by composers as Giacomo Carissimi, Francesco Durante and Niccolò Jommelli. Recently settings by little-known composers have been recorded, for instance by the Neapolitans Cristofaro Caresana, Gaetano Veneziano and Gennaro Manna.

Giovanni Paolo Colonna can also be ranked among the little-known composers. Although is name is certainly not unfamiliar, he is rather badly represented on disc. Colonna was born and died in Bologna. The son of an organ builder, he was educated as such. He developed into an expert in organ construction. After initial studies in Bologna he went to Rome, where he became a pupil of Orazio Benevoli and Giacomo Carissimi. After his return to Bologna he was active as a composer and became second organist of the basilica of San Petronio. From 1662 until his death he was maestro di cappella there. He held the same position in two other churches for some years. His extant oeuvre is not that large, compared to the output of some other composers of his time. In our time especially his oratorios have attracted some attention; eight of these have survived. He also composed some secular dramatic works, such as cantatas and a couple of operas. His sacred oeuvre includes masses, motets, psalms, responsories and canticles.

In 1689 he published his Sacre lamentationi della Settimana Santa; the publisher erroneously gave it the opus number 8, whereas in fact it was his Op. 9. The collection includes nine lamentations, three for each of the three days. They are set for solo voice and basso continuo. The first is always for soprano, the second and third lamentation for the two first days are for alto and bass respectively, but in the settings for the third day it is the other way around. When these Lamentations were written, the strict monodic style from the time of Monteverdi had made way to a more lyrical approach, but the recitative, which was to take such an important place in vocal music of the 18th century, had not fully developed yet. These Lamentations bear witness to that. They are largely syllabic; in the text of the Lamentations only very few phrases are repeated. Melismatic passages are rare. Melismas are mostly confined to the introductions ('Incipit lamentatio Jeremiae prophetae'; 'De lamentatio Jeremiae prophetae'), the Hebrew letters which open every section and the refrain 'Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum'. There is also some coloratura here and there, mostly at the concluding phrase of a lamentation.

The scoring for a solo voice offers opportunities to express the text. These settings include many specimens of that. Obviously the contrast between dark and light is explored. The rather gloomy nature of these texts results in the lower part of the tessitura of the singers being fully explored. That is expecially the case in the settings for alto and bass, and fortunately in the voices of both Annalisa Mazzoni and Matteo Bellotto the low register is well developed.

These pieces ask for an optimum communication of the text. The three singers meet that requirement with flying colours. Every word is clearly intelligible. They sing in a truly speechlike manner, and also make use of dynamic shading to emphasize particular words. Especially Francesca Cassinari makes a strong impression in this recording. Her interpretation is very expressive and the often strong emotions of the text come off to the full.

The liner-notes give little information about the performance circumstances. Were these Lamentations written for the church or for a convent? Here they are embedded in a liturgical framework: every lamentation is followed by a responsory. These texts have been frequently set in the course of time. Especially settings from the renaissance are very well known, for instance from the pen of Tomás Luis de Victoria and Carlo Gesualdo. Here we hear them in plainchant, sung by just one cantor. Considering the scoring of the Lamentations that seems a logical option. Massimo Lombardi is exemplary in his performance of the liturgical chants.

This is a most interesting and musically captivating contribution to the repertoire for Passiontide. It shows that the exploration of the Lamentation repertoire is well worth the effort. And Colonna is certainly a composer who deserves more attention. This disc is also entirely convincing as far as the performance is concerned. I urge anyone who wants to hear something different during Passiontide to add this disc to his collection.

– MusicWeb International (Johan van Veen)

The highly talented Eduard Kunneke is known above all as a German operetta composer. The operetta Der Vetter aus Dingsda (1921) became his most famous work. Since he had not exactly experienced positive things in the United States, he evidently was not so eager to go into exile. As a result, during the Nazi era he became known as the "Master of the German Operetta," even though he hardly made concessions to the regime and repeatedly ran into trouble because he refused to separate from his "half-Jewish" wife Katarina. Along with his operettas, Kunneke regularly composed »serious works« for the concert hall that were almost completely neglected – wrongly so. For example, his Piano Concerto is a work very much displaying higher aspirations and qualifying as top-quality musical entertainment. His concerto is certainly the most original and spirited example of a genre of works engaging in dialogue with classicism and swing in the 1920s and including contributions by Gershwin and Ravel. The "game of musical catch" played by the orchestra and piano at the beginning of the first movement is simply astonishing. In the Gypsy Melodies and Serenade for Orchestra, pieces with which Kunneke demonstrated his early mastery around 1907, he styled himself as a very creative heir to Brahms and the late romanticist Max Reger, who had taught him the craft of composition.

Our first collaborative project with Klingekunst and the ensemble’s soloist and leader Sieglinde Größinger presents premiere recordings of the earliest Viennese flute concertos, which date from the reign of Empress Maria Theresa. The selected concertos by Georg Christoph Wagenseil, Giuseppe Bonno, Florian Leopold Gassmann, and Matthias Georg Monn, heard here on historical instruments, represent a significant contribution to the artistic recovery of the forgotten Viennese music culture of this epoch, a field that is only beginning to be researched. When Emperor Carl VI died in 1740, his successor Maria Theresa inherited a state budget burdened by heavy deficits. Forced to adopt economy measures, the new empress suspended the operation of the court orchestra and then offered its services to interested parties. However, the artistically marginalized musicians did not accept defeat when these unexpected developments put them in an existentially precarious position. No longer obliged to serve and obey a court aesthetic, they delighted in experimentation with new styles and forms of expression. The revolutionary character of these exciting times very much may be viewed as preparation for the Viennese classical period. Moreover, the flute now became a solo instrument for use in the orchestra and concert performances. Until about 1740 it was only rarely employed and then merely for additional tone color, but now it first enjoyed its share of spotlight.

The renowned American music magazine Fanfare called our first cpo production featuring Gaetano Donizetti’s string quartets "a compelling demonstration on behalf of some of the most dazzling works of the quartet literature." Now the Pleyel Quartet of Cologne, which during the course of its existence has gained fame above all for its rediscoveries of forgotten masterpieces of the string quartet literature, presents three more quartets by the Bergamo master – his early Quartets Nos. 1-3. Performed on original instruments, these quartets develop a special tonal appeal and offer astonishing examples of Donizetti’s compositional talent and special music feel. Since they are obliged to an older ideal, they combine seriousness and delightful sound; both technically and musically, demanding and entertaining elements maintain a balance. According to a friend’s memoirs, Donizetti wrote his first six string quartets at his desk, with the greatest concentration and without the assistance of the piano. On the one hand, they reflect impulses and influences from the Viennese quartet literature and from the Parisian quatuor concertant. On the other hand, they also show just how astonishingly quickly Donizetti was increasingly able to develop mastery while working with his models and contributing his own ideas.

New chamber compositions by Telemann made available to the concert world by intensive research and in modern score editions form the focus of the Magdeburg Sunday Concerts, in German: the "Sonntagsmusiken." klassik. com described our first album with Advent and Christmas cantatas as "A treasure trove of brilliant sacred arias!" The arias on the second portion of this series involve pieces taken from "complete" sacred compositions and performed in Hamburg’s principal places of worship during the church year 1726-27. The two arias contained in a particular sacred composition were removed from their context for the purposes of publication. The Eisenach court secretary Johann Friedrich Helbig was the author of the texts for the church compositions and the arias included in them. Telemann packed a great deal into the concentrated aria space. We might say that he balanced the minimum of the ensemble with compositional intensity and complexity in respect of melodic formation as well as with the thematic design of the basses, forceful declamation and rhythmic scheme, and the large spectrum of keys and harmonic manifoldness.

Following Der fidele Bauer, Paroli, Die Kaiserin, and Madame Pompadour, we are now proud to present to you Leo Fall’s Bruderlein fein – and next year we plan to release Die Dollarprinzessin! Bruderlein fein is an Old Viennese singspiel in one act that is closely related to the operetta. The libretto is by Julius Wilhelm, who was regarded as a specialist in the tales of Old Vienna that had been the fashion since the turn of the century – just when the city began to be transformed into a modern metropolis. Old Vienna was created as its idyllic opposite, as the fiction of a Biedermeier city in which life was a dream, an image that continues to exercise its fascination even today. Bruderlein fein treats a fictional episode from the life of the legendary composer Joseph Drechsler. From 1822 to 1830 he was the conductor at the Leopoldstadt Theater, where he wrote the stage music for Ferdinand Raimund’s Zaubermärchen. His last and most famous work, Der Verschwender, contains »Bruderlein fein,« the song from which the title of Fall’s one-act work was derived. For this delightful subject Leo Fall developed an affectionate tone, endowing it with a warm sound all of his own. The Neue Freie Presse went into raptures: "Leo Fall has adorned the outstanding libretto with a sounding and singing wreath of sweet Old Viennese melodies numbering among the most fragrant gifts of this master so strong in feeling and emotion." The premiere on 1 December 1909 was followed by 113 more performances in the Hölle Cabaret in the cellar of the Theater an der Wien, bringing Fall one of his greatest successes.

The discovery of Telemann’s previously unknown Altona Jubel-Music von 1760 in an omnibus manuscript belonging to the Hamburg State and University Library but first returned in 1998 from Armenia, where it had been deposited for wartime safekeeping, is remarkable in several respects. »Already immediately after the first performance of the work in Altona’s principal church on 16 October 1760, an unknown reporter writing in the Altonaer Mercurius judged that it was ‘a superbly beautiful composition.’ And it is in fact a qualitatively outstanding composition ranking with the best that Telemann composed during his last years. One more top-quality work increases our knowledge of Telemann’s late oeuvre. Until a few years ago it was also not known to what an astonishing degree Telemann had been active as a composer in Altona (at least twelve festive compositions written from 1741 to 1764), which then belonged to Denmark, or that at the time there was even a noteworthy musical scene in Altona. The two-part composition consisting of sixteen numbers to the text of an unknown poet honors King Frederick V of Denmark on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the hereditary sovereignty of the Danish royal house« (Jurgen Neubacher, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg).

A hundred years ago it was absolutely the greatest hit everywhere in Europe – the oratorio Quo Vadis by Feliks Nowowiejski, based on Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novel of the same name and magnificently scored for soloists, mixed chorus, organ, and orchestra. We at cpo are now releasing this gigantic work in an interpretation by the Poznan Philharmonic under the conductor Lukasz Borowicz and with outstanding soloists and the Chorus of the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic of Bialystok. Nowowiejski composed his oratorio in 1903, and during the following thirty years it was performed more than two hundred times throughout Europe and in North and South America – not least because its literary source, Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novel with this title, was very well known. The Polish writer Sienkiewicz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1905, and the popularity of his novel Quo Vadis must have substantially contributed to this decision. Many of Nowowiejski’s works are the expression of a quest for identity, and here the oratorio Quo Vadis leads the search. After all, it embodies generally humanistic values – like Sienkiewicz’s literary oeuvre – and was and is situated beyond the realm of partisan politics.

The first recording in our cpo SYMPHONIC JAZZ SERIES with the WDR Radio Orchestra of Cologne is entitled American Connection. Concertos for jazz clarinet by Jorge Calandrelli, Daniel Freiberg, and Jeff Beal are heard in performances with the world-famous clarinetist Andy Miles. Andy Miles is one of the youngest representatives of a guild whose members received posts as solo clarinetists in German orchestras (in his case with the Hamburg Philharmonic). Later he made his way to Cologne as the principal clarinetist of the WDR Radio Orchestra. Thanks to his "wild past" as a saxophonist in rock bands, a tin whistler in folk bands, and a clarinetist in jazz bands, Miles is able to exercise his activity in many musical fields. He numbers among the few genuine crossover musicians who succeed in mediating between classical and jazz music because they feel at home in both of them. The press has called him »the Marco Polo of the Clarinet.« It should also be mentioned that the famous Alan Silverman was in charge of an additional mastering of our recording in the United States. Alan has worked for artists like Norah Jones, Chaka Khan, The Rings, Dolly Parton, and Keith Richards and received more than fifty Grammy Awards. His Art! Mastering, one of the largest and best-equipped mastering studios in New York City, offers first-class analogue and digital outboard equipment and an excellent monitoring system.