The artists on this album have explored an exciting new path with this crossover project. The trio has put Schumann’s Dichterliebe into context with the narration of poems from Heinrich Heine’s Lyrical Intermezzo. Soprano Cornelia Horak is joined by Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz and pianist Stefan Gottfried.

Classical Music

Ukrainian mezzo-soprano Zoryana Kushpler was an ensemble member of the Vienna State Opera from 2007 to 2020 and performs regularly on the major international stages and festivals as both an opera and Lied singer. Kushpler pays special attention to music from and around her home country. Less than six months after the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in violation of international law, she gathered the Luhansk Symphony Orchestra, which had fled it's home town in it's entirety, in Lviv to record opera arias by Ukrainian composers and arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs for this CD production in collaboration with conductor Ivan Ostapovych. The resulting album "Ukrainian InterMezzo" offers an insight into the work of the most important Ukrainian composers such as Mykola Lysenko, Julij Mejtus, Borys Lyatoshynsky, Oles Chyshko, Viktor Matyuk, Anatoliy Kos-Anatolsky or Oleh Kiva, which is characterized by the special local color and themes such as love, longing and homeland.

Dedicated to Ludwig II of Bavaria, Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 in E major brought Bruckner the greatest success he had known in his life. The symphony is sometimes referred to as the “Lyric,” though the appellation is not the composer’s own, and is seldom used. The present release is part of the world’s first major Bruckner cycle from his home of St. Florian, with the Altomonte Orchestra under Remy Ballot. Since 2013, the award-winning ensemble has recorded Bruckner’s Third, Eighth, Ninth, Sixth, Fifth, and now Seventh symphonies. The “Gramola Bruckner Days Set” is already half full! The Altomonte Festival Orchestra was founded in 1996, the 100th anniversary of Bruckner’s death, by the legendary church musician Augustinus Franz Dropfreiter and the cellist Thomas Wall. It counts among its members several of the highest-ranking musicians from the leading orchestras of Europe, together with some of the most outstanding of today’s emerging young players. The name of the orchestra is taken from the18th Century father-and-son painters Martino and Barholomeo Altomonte, who adorned the magnificent rooms of the St. Florian Monastery with their beautiful, large-scale frescoes. Matthias Giessen has led the orchestra since 2003. From 2013, Rémy Ballot has conducted the orchestra, achieving widespread acclaim with his Bruckner interpretations.

Humor in music is the theme of this album by the 25-year-old pianist Hanna Bachmann from Austria, who plans debuts in the Berlin Philharmonic and concerts in the UK and US next season, and whom the conductor Kirill Petrenko attested “great musicality, creativity, high technical ability, fine sound and a matured personality”. The spectrum of variety of this program spans from the childlike cheerfulness of Mozart (Variations on “A Woman is the Most Delightful Thing” K. 613) to the profound wit and deliberate irony of Beethoven (“Diabelli Variations” Op. 120) to the pungent laughter of Prokofiev (“Sarcasm” Op. 17).

The composition competition of the Vienna Tonkünstlerverein in 1896 under honorary president Johannes Brahms intended to promote chamber music “which uses at least one wind instrument” and resulted in 18 submissions, twelve of which were selected for five concerts. The first and third placed works of this competition, namely the Clarinet Quartet in E flat major Op. 1 by Walter Rabl (world premiere recording) and the Clarinet Trio in D minor Op. 3 by Alexander Zemlinsky were now recorded for this album by Christoph Zimper, clarinet, Kristina Suklar, violin, Florian Eggner, cello and Peter Ovtcharov, piano. The proximity to the music of Johannes Brahms is not least influenced by his own chamber music works for clarinet, but can also be seen in numerous stylistic and aesthetic aspects with both Rabl and Zemlinsky.

Soprano Ildiko Raimondi, the ensemble Young Philharmonic of Vienna and conductor Michael Lessky present immortal melodies from the first decades of the 20th century. Besides the world premiere recording of the “Lustspielouvertüre” (Comedy Overture) by Alexander Zemlinsky, which has been discovered by Michael Lessky as well as three songs from his estate that have been orchestrated by Lessky, two “Brettl-Lieder” by Schönberg as well as works by Lehár, Dostal and even Gershwin are featured – a compilation that is unusual only at first glance: it spins an arc from the “serious” composer to the “light muse” in the years from 1900 until the thirties, revealing interesting musical interrelations.

"One must defend the Hungarian Rhapsodies on two fronts: First against musicians of the 'serious' brand who look down on them as showpieces, and secondly, against the piano maniacs who abuse them as showpieces." By these words, great pianist Alfred Brendel characterizes the Hungarian Rhapsodies S 244 by Franz Liszt, which have now been recorded for Gramola by the young Bulgarian pianist Martin Ivanov. The thin line between overwhelming virtuosity on one hand and poetic finesse on the other seems to be tailor-made for Ivanov, who already showed great success with his recordings of Chopin, Schumann and lately with his recording of Liszt's Sonata in B minor.

Stuttgart-born mezzo-soprano Christina Baader has been a much sought-after musician for many years, not only as an opera singer and soloist, but is also an internationally successful visual artist. To mark the 100th anniversary of Gabriel Faure's death, Christina Baader and Gert Hecher, piano, are presenting an album by the title MONDE ET MYSTeRE with a selection of his songs as well as those by Henri Duparc, who also played a significant role in establishing an independent French art of song. The expressive songs are based on poems by famous French poets such as Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire, Armand Silvestre, Theophile Gautier, Rene-Fran�ois Sully-Prudhomme and Jean Lahor. Together with Gert Hecher, a specialist in the restoration of historical keyboard instruments, two grand pianos from 1868 and 1879, respectively, from the famous erard piano manufactory in Paris, which at the time had a similar status to Steinway & Sons today, were chosen to best emphasize the different tonal and stylistic elements of the works of the two composers.

Since 2004, the lost world of the former “Buchenland” (Beech Country) with its Jewish-Christian culture, which was expelled and destroyed by Naziism, has played a special role in Alexander Kukelka’s oeuvre – his ancestors came from Czernowitz (Chernivtsi) and the former Bukovina. The album “Call to the Highest Vision” is a follow-up to the production “Czernowitzer Skizzen” released in 2008, and stands as a further attempt to pay compositional tribute to this historically unique “multi-ethnic mosaic” on the edge of the Carpathians with its capital Czernowitz, also known as “Little Vienna” or “Jerusalem on the Pruth”. The selected works combine most diverse styles of composing, with works ranging from the concerto for nai (pan flute) and string quintet, songs for bass baritone, bass clarinet and piano, Meditations for solo clarinet and Klezmore Orchestra, works with ironic titles such as “About a March That Set Out to Learn How to Dance – Humoresque for Wind Quartet” or “Requiem for a Dead End – Farce for Flute, Cello and Piano”. However, no “historical distance” or compositional employment can relativize or explain the irretrievable loss of this unique linguistic and cultural landscape, in which half a dozen ethnic groups dreamed of a better world in peaceful coexistence on the eve of the Shoah.

Anton Heiller (1923-1979) was by far the most influential figure to shape the significance that the 'king of instruments', the organ, achieved in Austria in the second half of the 20th century - a significance that continues undiminished today, decades after Heiller's death, and is passed on by his many students and their students in turn. In Heiller, the composer, the additional creative dimension can be heard and, provided one is able to do so, played. While there is, strictly speaking, no need for anniversaries to honor this outstanding personality, the 100th anniversary of Heiller's birth is a unique opportunity to present his works in a systematic manner, as is the case with this recording of his organ works. Its distinctive character has established Heiller's music firmly in the international repertoire, with sacred music occupying the most prominent place in the composer's oeuvre. His organ compositions also frequently refer to ecclesiastical themes.

For this complete recording of all 36 works, Ludwig Lusser, cathedral organist at St. Pölten, recorded the 24 works for solo organ, the ten works for choir and organ, and the two concertos for organ and orchestra on the cathedral's Metzler organ, starting in 2012, and working with conductor Otto Kargl (Domkantorei St. Pölten, Cappella Nova Graz), Simon Erasimus (Momentum Vocal Music), Norbert Matsch (Puellae Wilthinensis), and Peter Planyavsky (Niederösterreichisches Tonkünstlerorchester).

It is both comforting and gratifying that, contrary to current trends in dealing with deceased contemporary composers, Anton Heiller remains widely present today through his vital musical legacy.

The 2023 edition of Brucknertage Festival St. Florian was presenting a very rare specialty: Rémy Ballot and the Altomonte Orchestra St. Florian’s premiere performance of the critical new edition of Anton Bruckner's Symphony in D minor, WAB 100, "The Nullified" (formerly known as "Die Nullte" or "No. 0") by David Chapman. Contrary to what one might induce, it is by no means a symphonic debut by Bruckner but has been composed in 1869 after his first symphony, designated to be Symphony No. 2. Many parts of the composition are radically new and already herald the revolutionary compositional models of the later Bruckner. The so-called “First Theme” alone, as later in the introductions to the IIIrd and IXth Symphonies, does not form a developed theme, but only sound surfaces, prompting the understandable, but disastrous question by conductor Felix Otto Dessoff of the Vienna Philharmonic: “Well, where is the main theme there?” This single criticism was enough for the sensitive 45-year-old to “annul” the work, adding the number “0” to the autograph and disregarding it for the rest of his life… It was not until 1924 that this magnificent D minor symphony, which was certainly unjustly banned from his catalog of works, was finally premiered in Klosterneuburg.

He makes you feel what it feels like to be alone at the top. Whoever sees and hears him suddenly knows more about the search for the right path that drives every serious person. His stage characters touch the heart. The bass Günther Groissböck embodies kings, scholars, philosophers in the great opera houses of the world; he plays priests, mythical creatures, gods. You could say he specializes in solitary figures.

At first glance, however, Günther Groissböck does not seem like someone who has personal experience with the subject of loneliness. The singer stands, works, acts on and off stage in intensive contact with people. He is married, father of a daughter, in the middle of life or, as conductor Philippe Jordan puts it: “He burns for many things in life, not only for art”. Can you play what you don’t know? How does he shape his stage characters? What are the building blocks for the play? When does the instrument, his voice, touch the audience? How much public spirit, how much individuality does an opera singer need today? And where does Günther Groissböck get the incredible energy he radiates on stage?

For two years we accompanied the artist from Waidhofen an der Ybbs (Lower Austria) with our camera, on night journeys and day trips. At rehearsals, sports, and performances. We filmed him as the black-robed Kaspar, as the powerful King Philip, or as a searcher in the villa of Richard Strauss. The result is a film portrait that tells of a special attitude to life; of loneliness as a source of artistic strength; of a man who can fill his voice with content from within. The film about Günther Groissböck tells of two lines from a Rückert poem, set to music by Gustav Mahler: “I live alone in my heaven, in my loving, in my song.”

"After an appropriate prelude, the bishop ascended the pulpit, pronounced one of the seven words and began a discourse on it. As soon as he had finished, he descended from the pulpit and knelt before the altar. This pause was filled with music. The bishop entered and left the pulpit for the second, third time and so on, and each time the orchestra reentered after the end of the speech. My composition had to be appropriate for this presentation.” With these words, Joseph Haydn described his work "The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross," and this recording is designed in the same way: The reflections on the seven last words are by Father Julius Kappel, FSSP (member of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter), performed by the renowned actor and narrator Michael König. Haydn’s music is interpreted by the ensemble Capella Paulana, consisting of Dominik Hellsberg and Georg Wimmer, violins, Robert Bauerstatter, viola, and Benedikt Hellsberg, violoncello, who have been artistically associated with each other for many years. In the sequence of words and music, the underlying biblical message is impressively conveyed both musically and linguistically."

Palestinian-born musician Marwan Abado has resided in Vienna for nearly forty years. The album “Longa Vienna” emerges just before his reflective gaze at these decades. “Longa” denotes an oriental musical form introduced to the Ottoman Empire from Romania by the Roma people around the mid-18th century. Originally a fast-paced dance music signaling the conclusion of a concert, Arab musicians and composers within the Ottoman Empire embraced and further developed this form as a part of the Arab instrumental music tradition. “Longa Vienna” serves as a musical odyssey through Vienna – the cultural crucible of the city becomes audible, resonating with the vibrant life of the urban landscape, imbued with colorful, poetic, and intricately woven musical narratives. The contemporary Viennese sound, as interpreted by Marwan Abado on oud and vocals, Maciej Golebiowski on clarinets, Arnulf Lindner on bass guitar, Peter Rosmanith on percussion, with Syrian singer Dima Orsho as a guest, captivates listeners with its rich tapestry of melodies and rhythms.