Baroque Bass Cantatas from Mügeln Archive offers a representative sampling of cantatas for bass voice from St. John’s Kantorei Archive, established in Mügeln (Saxony) in 1571. The cantatas presented here are from the first half of the 18th c. and were copied during the tenure of the music director Daniel Jacob Springsguth. All the composers were from the Saxony and Thuringia regions. The CD, featuring bass baritone Klaus Mertens and the Accademia Daniel under conductor Shalev Ad-El, demonstrates that even minor masters operating in the countryside could compose on a very high level.

Recordings of Adolf Busch as a violinist and the leader of the Busch Quartet are legendary. However, Busch not only was the leading German violinist between the two world wars but also a composer who compiled a catalogue of more than a hundred works, three of which, and all chamber music, are featured here, played by the Ravinia Trio. The difficulties of the violin parts call for a well-versed violinist like Busch himself, and for the piano part of the much later quartet the pianist had to be familiar with classical music and with the more recent music of Reger, Schönberg, and Busoni.

Johann Nicolaus Denninger (1743-1813) numbers among the many musicians of the Classical period who in their multiple roles as instrumentalists, composers and music directors contributed not inconsiderably to tilling the field for the greats of their epoch. In the few extant instrumental works remaining it his main instrument, the harpsichord or the fortepiano then coming into fashion, occupies the focus. Formally and stylistically, these works represent the state of development during the last two decades of the 18th c., a period for which Haydn and Mozart set the decisive standards.

The present cpo recording of George Enescu’s Fourth Symphony in E minor is, like the Symphony No. 5 in D (cpo 777 823-2) another world-premiere release from Peter Ruzicka and the NDR Philharmonie, Hannover. The composer’s Rumanian idiom is subtly present, in many instances employing old church mode scales, or scales based on Byzantine tradition, combining them with familiar keys of the major-minor system. Much later, in Paris and in poor health, Enescu composed his Chamber Symphony op. 33 for twelve solo instruments, his last work that in every way has the character of a last will and testament.

The cpo label now completes its edition of the concertos of Kurt Atterberg with the Cello Concerto and the Horn Concerto, both written in the 1920s when Atterberg was already a very experienced musician known throughout Europe and active at home and abroad. More intuitive than analytical as a composer, one may understand the ‘movements’ of the Cello Concerto as representatives of ‘normal’ sonata form in which the motifs are reconfigured and then taken up again, whereas the Horn Concerto, despite its unusual but purposeful employment of forces, adheres to traditional form.

The ingenious Munich vocal quartet Stimmwerck presents a recording of late-medieval motets and songs compiled from manuscript sources, offering an in-depth cross section of early vocal music. Recorded in conjunction with the musicological research project Musikleben des Spätmittelalters in der Region Österreich (ca. 1340-ca. 1520) devoted to late-medieval music documented in the Austrian sphere of influence, this release presents an opportunity to experience in music the epoch during which the Habsburgs became a world power and Vienna the capital of the music world.

After a long break, cpo continues its important, yeoman’s Heinrich Schütz edition – repeatedly hailed as a benchmark series – with the Weser-Renaissance Bremen under Manfred Cordes. This latest release has the ensemble interpreting Schütz’s Symphoniae Sacrae I, the oldest printed collection of his works. To capture the essence of these works involving obbligato early baroque instruments that also qualify very much as solo music, the technical bases must be fully and truly exhausted by the composer and the interpreters. “… Interpretive vibrancy, presence…and joy in sound…” (FonoForum)

Conspiratorial plots, intrigues and affairs at the court of Austrian Empress Maria Theresa dominate the scenario of Die Kaiserin. However, the true focus of this wrongly forgotten operetta by Leo Fall (1873-1925) is formed by the steadfast love between the empress and her prince consort Francis Stephen of Lorraine. With a generally accurate historical libretto, the operetta was supposed to keep abreast of the times both in its music and content while avoiding all-too-obvious references to current political events, common practice in the operetta genre at the time of its 1915 Berlin premiere.

Following the release of two of Friedrich Gernsheim’s symphonies, cpo presents two piano quintets by this composer whose life was very much of European stamp. His first Piano Quintet quite audibly moves along paths marked out by Brahms’s Piano Quintet in F minor, composed twelve years before. The second Piano Quintet, composed in the year of Brahms’s death, is precisely in the key of B minor and 6/8 time for the first movement – just as in Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet – certainly to be understood as paying Brahms tribute. The Bohemian theme heard in the Scherzo of op. 63 honored the works’ dedicatees.

Ernst Wilhelm Wolf (1735-92) developed into a central figure in Weimar’s music world after 1760. Among the chamber genres Wolf devoted himself extensively to was the string quartet, or quartet for four stringed instruments, which for him referred to the older Northern and Central German quadro, a trio sonata with an additional melody part set contrapuntally in trio against a basso continuo. The three quartets, Op. 3, form the genuine high point in Wolf’s quartet oeuvre. His predilection for contrast and his compositional techniques lend these compositions their special appeal.

In conjunction with the Martin Luther Decade and in preparation for the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017, cpo presents the two-part oratorio Luther in Worms by Ludwig Meinardus (1827-96) in a recording from the 22nd Knechtsteden Festival. After harsh judgments pronounced upon him by Schumann and Mendelssohn, Meinardus joined a pietistic, nationalist and Protestant-combined revival movement. Nevertheless, his principal work does not go over into empty bombast and heroic posing but holds in store many musical refinements, cast in an operatic design.

Founded in 1999 Écho du Danube’s festival and concerts programs often include rediscoveries based on intensive research and library work, an often exciting as well as laborious but important aspect of its musical existence and as the source of new inspiration. The ensemble formations vary from duo or trio to twenty persons or more based on the work requirements. On cpo the ensemble here offers a multifaceted program of spirited and fresh music from 16th-17th c. Neapolitan composers with lavish instrumental resources including the salterio and baroque percussion instruments.

For quite some time the composer and music educator Ludwig Thuille (1861-1907) seemed to stand in the shadow of his friend Richard Strauss, three years his junior. Nevertheless, in the end their friendship and the exchange between them contributed to artistic development on both sides. Thuille's chamber music, including mature contributions representing the high point of his composing, occupies a very great place in his overall oeuvre. Here we find tonally beautiful works full of swing and rich in thematic invention guaranteed to enthrall listeners even today.

The young Johann Friedrich Fasch quickly numbered among Telemann’s admirers and even later in Zerbst, where he found his permanent lifetime post as the chapel master at the Anhalt-Zerbst court, he always remained true to his model Telemann. Nevertheless, in Zerbst, above all owing to artistic networking with the Dresden court orchestra and its concertmaster Johann Georg Pisendel (both musicians had previously become acquainted in Leipzig), Fasch developed into a composer delighting very much in innovation above all in the field of instrumental music. This fact is impressively demonstrated by his compositional contributions to the genres of the overture suite, concerto, symphony, and sonata, and after occupation with Fasch had begun again it was also this progressiveness that enthused music scholars – (above all Hugo Riemann already in 1900) and has continued to fascinate musicians and musicologists through to the present. For instance, Fasch also hit upon the highly original idea of combining the French overture and the Italian sinfonia form. Until now these compositions have been subsumed under the overture suites; in truth, however, they represent a new work type for which the term »overture symphony« suggests itself. His music most beautifully brings to life the musical ideals of the late baroque period, is always carefully elaborated, and offers choice entertainment. Appropriately, this year’s [2015] Fasch Prize awarded since 1993 for special service in the popularization or investigation of Fasch’s life and work was bestowed on Ludger Rémy, the conductor and harpsichordist on our current Fasch CD. Congratulations! - cpo

Premiering in Munich in 1903, Le donne curiose numbered among the greatest and earliest successes of the German-Italian composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari. No Wagnerian pathos or turn-of-the-century bombast here: Wolf-Ferrari’s merry work is based on a Carlo Goldoni comedy in the spirit of a newly discovered rococo. Le donne curiose formed the basis of his world renown as a composer whose dramatic talent was always overshadowed by the subtle humor of his buffo operas. Ulf Schirmer again presents a convincing case on his behalf (previous release: Wolf-Ferrari, Orchestral Works: cpo 777 567-2).