Pitiful indeed-most pitiful-was the fate of the satyr Marsyas. (Ovid, "Metamorphoses") Apollo versus Marsyas-a musical contest pushed to it's ultimate limits. On it's new GENUIN album, the German-Spanish ensemble Marsyas Baroque transforms this ancient myth into a compelling musical narrative: an instrumental pasticcio that follows the unfolding story, interwoven with brief spoken texts that illuminate key moments along the way. Performed on historical instruments, works by Vivaldi, Telemann, Gesualdo, Reichenauer, and others enter into dialogue with a newly commissioned composition by Alessandra Bellino. Who decides the outcome of a contest over music itself? The answer is as unsettling as it is unforgettable.
Benjamin Günst makes his GENUIN debut with 'Submergence'-a musical deep dive between light and darkness. The German Music Competition prize winner presents an ambitious and thoughtfully conceived program. From the rhapsodic sounds of Enescu and the Baroque mysticism of Biber to Bartók's 'Sonata for Solo Violin', rarely recorded in it's original version with microtonal intervals, the violin reveals all it's many facets. Works for violin and piano are set alongside solo works, while lyrical passages alternate with moments of breathtaking virtuosity. Together with his piano partner Martin Klett, Benjamin Günst spans centuries of violin music in a fascinating musical arc.
On the Bach and Sauer organs of St. Thomas Church Leipzig, the outstanding young organist Julian Emanuel Becker has recorded his new GENUIN album. On this album, works by Johann Sebastian Bach stand alongside Julius Reubke's 'Sonata on the 94th Psalm' (1857) and Tilo Medek's haunting 'Broken Wings' (1975). Thoughtfully conceived and compellingly interpreted, the program explores expectation, hope, and redemption at one of the most important places in the Bach tradition.
If there is one idea that unites Christian Ridil's chamber music, it is a fascination with musical communication. His music thrives on interaction: voices converse, challenge one another, overlap, and continually reshape their relationships. On the sixth album in GENUIN's Christian Ridil series, the musicians of Ensemble Modern illuminate these relationships with remarkable acuity and infectious vitality. These world premiere recordings bring together works from different phases of the composer's career and offer a multifaceted view of the chamber music of a composer now over eighty-from a work for solo viola and pieces for wind trio to large mixed ensembles with piano.
A city as a soundscape: On their new GENUIN album, violinist Eva Wetzel and pianist Antonio Di Dedda invite listeners to embark on a musical journey of discovery through Hamburg. Spanning composers from Johannes Brahms to Sofia Gubaidulina and Alfred Schnittke, the program blends the familiar with the rarely heard, revealing a multifaceted panorama of Hamburg's musical life from the 19th century to the present day. Guided by a keen sense of connection and context, they craft a musical city tour whose colorful and nuanced interpretation brings the many facets of this rich musical landscape into vivid relief.
What music do angels play in a Baroque manor house? At Gut Hohen Luckow, Renaissance trombonist and composer Ercole Nisini set out to answer precisely that question. Inspired by the musical putti of the Ulmer Salon, the emblems of the Knights' Hall, and the allegories of the seasons, he created a cycle of new works: contemporary music for a place dating from 1709. GENUIN now presents the world premiere recordings of these compositions, performed by an ensemble of internationally acclaimed early-music specialists. Through the distinctive combination of tenor, Renaissance trombone, theorbo, harp, organ, and historical percussion, love emblems, images of the seasons, and angelic dances spring to life in sound-a musical fantasia inspired by a place, it's images, and it's stories.
Every new sound carries a shadow of what came before: on their new GENUIN album, the piano duo Ekaterina Zhemaitis and Polina Kulikova journey through the dialogue between memory and invention. At it's heart stands the world premiere recording of Rodion Shchedrin's 'Romantic Duets', alongside works that draw breath from tradition while reshaping it into strikingly individual musical languages - from Stravinsky to Taneyev. Performed by an internationally award-winning duo, the program unfolds with rare coherence, revealing hidden lines, lucid structures, and unexpected connections across time.
The highly acclaimed pianist and composer Johannes Obermeier guides the listener through the lyrical piano world of Felix Mendelssohn on his new GENUIN album Beyond Words. As a composer himself, Obermeier brings a keen sensitivity to sound, structure, and expression, offering a particularly refined perspective on Mendelssohn's music. At the centre are the famous Lieder ohne Worte-music that speaks without words and resonates deeply. Works such as the Variations sérieuses and Rondo capriccioso broaden this musical world. With great sensitivity and attention to detail, Obermeier reveals a fresh perspective on familiar repertoire.
An unusual instrumental combination with a fascinating sound: sonatas for two oboes, bassoon, and basso continuo are rarely found in the repertoire. Yet this combination brings together three wind instruments whose tone colours complement one another in particularly appealing ways. Ramón Ortega Quero and Ángel Luis Sánchez Moreno (oboes) have recorded a collection of masterful sonatas by Jan Dismas Zelenka for this instrumentation, joined by Marc Trénel (bassoon), Wies de Boevé (double bass), and Alfonso Sebastián Alegre (harpsichord) for GENUIN. These works are particularly demanding and virtuosic. These are magnificent, surprise-filled works by a long-neglected Baroque composer. The five outstanding musicians, all recipients of international prizes, bring these masterpieces of European contrapuntal art vividly back to life.
Music as ritual: On their debut GENUIN album, the internationally acclaimed piano duo Pisareva-Tchaidze presents three landmark works of early modernism. Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps" - a piece that has stood at the heart of their repertoire for fifteen years - is set alongside Debussy's "epigraphes antiques" and Bartok's "Two Pictures". Written within the same turbulent historical moment shortly before the First World War, these compositions reflect a time of profound cultural upheaval. The album explores the interplay between them - their archaic energy, their rhythmic vitality, and their dialogue between past and present. The duo's finely calibrated ensemble playing brings striking rhythmic precision and luminous clarity of sound to these works.
With Just Wonderful, Duo Giovivo presents it's fourth album on the GENUIN label, showcasing both wit and remarkable versatility. Multi-instrumentalists Fabian Bloch and Muriel Zeiter bring together lively dances, jazz-inspired hits, well-known opera melodies, and freshly reimagined children's classics. Drawing on a total of seven instruments, they create an extraordinary sonic palette: Fabian Bloch effortlessly moves between euphonium, alphorn, bass trumpet, and Wunderhorn, while Muriel Zeiter impresses on piano, violin, and flute. Be it the Swedish "Vallflickans Dans" or the jazzy "What a Wonderful World," each piece is given it's own distinctive, highly personal character. A vividly crafted album that radiates joie de vivre-fresh, passionate, virtuosic, and just wonderful.
Dreams, illusions, nightmares, tender and formidable images: all this can be heard on the new, third GENUIN CD by the Japanese flutist Atsuko Koga. From the first lost melodies by her fellow countryman Akira Miyoshi and the yearning musical arcs of Carl Maria von Weber to the playful, even euphoric figurations of Bohuslav Martinu, Koga and her partners succeed in taking us into ever-new musical and spiritual landscapes.
Barber, Beethoven, Connesson, Poulenc & Strauss: Works for W
Genuin
CD · 1 disc
$20.99Oct 14, 2014
A cappella music is on the program on the Ensemble Nobiles second Genuin CD, in a broad curve extending from the quiet beginning of the church year on the first Sunday of Advent and the jubilation of Christmas to the prophetic Feast of the Epiphany. The ensemble’s members all originally sang in the Choir of St. Thomas's and are currently winning prize after prize. The ensemble's flawless intonation is as convincing as its musical culture and choice of pieces. Here is an alternative for the Christmas season for those seeking fresh repertoire, both old and new, from the Renaissance to the present day.
Three world premiere recordings of high-quality 19th century orchestral works: this alone will cause listeners to sit up and take notice. The Concertante for Violin and Cello, the Horn Concerto and the fully fledged Symphony were composed by three members of the same family, and is surely unique and a cause for jubilation amongst experts.
One can experience with admiration how one of the most important works in chamber music literature lives and breathes when it is awakened to sonorous life. Laureates of the German Music Competition play Schubert's great Octet of 1827 and these young musicians perform at the highest level.
Wild, impetuous, rocking, fantastic - in short, Stepan Simonian playing J.S. Bach! All seven Bach Toccatas for piano are on this CD, works that have led a wallflower existence compared to other Bach keyboard works. When one listens closely to the virtuoso playing of the 2010 Bach Prize winner the music flashes and sparkles and polished details are presented to the delighted listener.
The young, much-praised pianist Schaghajegh Nosrati makes her grand, auspicious Genuin label CD debut with Bach’s The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080. Born 1989 in Bochum, Germany, Ms. Nosrati’s career has already been marked by numerous successes at national and international piano competitions as well as appearances at major European music festivals and concert halls. “Miss Nosrati's interpretation is highly impressive and profoundly moving.” (Sir András Schiff) “The interpretation is well-balanced, conscientious, natural and convincing in its structure. Quite a feat!” (Robert Levin)
The Edition Primavera already consists of numerous commendable CDs, produced by GENUIN in collaboration with the German Music Competition! The latest offering in this series is the debut CD of pianist Frank Dupree (b. 1991), the 2014 prizewinner. His clever program spans an extremely wide range of music: bracketed by Beethoven's first and last piano sonatas, works of the 20thand 21st c. – a world-premiere recording of Peter Eötvös, as well as Berio's Encores and Alban Berg's first sonata, are performed, all-in-all an intellectual as well as a sensual musical pleasure.
17th and 18th c. musical Venice's legendary status was owed partly to the development and spread of the instrumental form known as the trio sonata. It's first great creator, the Italian Baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli, was followed by such distinguished figures and fellow countrymen as Tomaso Albinoni and Antonio Vivaldi, both of whose cheerful, playful and profound efforts in this area are heard on this Genuine CD played by the Camerata degli amici, under the direction of the oboist Jaime González, a widely recognized chamber, soloist and orchestral musician.
Rounded, differentiated and balanced: this describes the sound of the Quatuor Sine Nomine on their second GENUIN CD, already the 13th of the Artist Consort Edition-a series on which artists dedicate themselves to matters truly dear to their hearts. The works exude a warmth that goes directly to the listener's heart.
