’Gateway into the Beyond' refers to the enigmatic six opening notes of the sonata by Eduard Erdmann - one of the most powerful and complex solo sonatas for violin from early classical modernism, is presented here as a premiere recording. A German album for solo violin juxtaposing four 20th century works written between 1920 and 1943 with the second solo sonata by Johann Sebastian Bach placed in its center. In addition to Erdmann, two composers who died during World War II are also presented in first recordings: Edmund von Borck with a compact, powerful prelude, and Heinz Schubert with a fantasy written in 1943 during abhorrent times, it’s flaming expression of despair amidst all the suffering virtually mystically transcending it at the same time. Paul Hindemith’s 2nd solo sonata is a playful counterpoint to both of these existentialist works. He employs variations from Mozart and a jaunty pizzicato scherzo to creates a diversity of connections to tradition. This album is the result of an eight-month period of intense musical collaboration between the soloist and the producer. Lucas Brunnert has proven himself to be a violinist who not only captivates with technical sovereignty, an extremely multi-facetted tone and great intensity, but also particularly understands and fulfills the spiritual, the superordinate context. The listener can experience how Eduard Erdmann’s use of Schönberg’s free tonality, not a-tonality, is coherent even in the boldest passages and how Paul Hindemith’s new harmonies, evolved out of the romantic tradition, unfold an inner vitality with much unexpected humor and ingenuity.

How can a great oratorio such as "The Creation" be reduced to a few instruments in order to enjoy it in a small, domestic setting? How should the arias, choirs and recitatives be presented, and how can the biblical text be conveyed? Joseph Haydn delegated this apparent challenge to the then well known composer Anton Wranitzky, who arranged the music for string quintet. He left open questions about the text, so the Pandolfis Consort, playing on historical instruments, embarked on the great adventure of integrating spoken recitatives as well as passages of the libretto to illustrate the history of divine action. The role of the narrator took over Fritz von Friedl, one of the most famous Austrian speakers and actors. The result is this highly impressive and moving recording of the chamber music version of this monumental work, which had been wrongly forgotten.

"The Messiah" by George Frederic Handel counts among the most popular and formative oratorios. Starting in 1750, it has for decades been annually performed as conclusion to the oratorio season in London, oftentimes under the baton of Handel himself. The "Messiah" is, essentially, nothing other than a biography of Jesus told in metaphors and described with the immense dramatic power, passion and religious emphasis of Handel. The concert given on Easter, 2016 in Kosterneuburg Abey, Lower Austria, by the Bach Consort Vienna, conducted by Ruben Dubrovsky, with the great Salzburg Bach Choir and the extraordinary soloists Hanna Herfurtner, Gaia Petrone, Michael Schade and Christian Immler marked a re-encounter with Handel's masterpiece and can now be relived with this live recording. The Bach Consort Vienna was in founded in 1999 under the baton of Ruben Dubrovsky and they soon grew into one of the most important Baroque Ensembles in Austria. Next to several performances at the Vienna Musikverein, the ensemble is ever-present on different European concert stages. Internaionally renowned artists, such as Bernarda Fink and Christophe Coin, are closely connected to the Bach Consort Vienna. The ensemble has always remained faithful to its original conceptual idea of chamber music.

Gordon Murray, born in Canada, was professor for harpsichord at the Universities of Music and Performing Arts in Graz and Vienna, Austria; he published numerous recordings and gave performances with some of the most popular ensembles of ancient music up to his sudden death in 2017. “Harpsifly”, the album in remembrance of his artistic legacy features some of his most established students playing on historic keyboard instruments from his personal collection, the likes of which include harpsichords by Andreas Ruckers from 1644, Nicolas Dumont from 1707, and Carlo Grimaldi from 1697, as well as new renditions of a Flemish instrument and a fortepiano by Anton Walter from Vienna. The works presented are by Frescobaldi, Sweelinck, Tomkins, Couperin, J. S. Bach, d'Anglebert and CPE Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven as well as ranging into modern times with “Hungarian Rock” by Ligeti and “Jazz-Impro” by one of the artists, Stefan Gottfried.

The piano concertos by Aram Khachaturian and Ulvi Cemal Erkin are exemplary works for the affinity and contrariness of the art music of Armenia and Turkey built on the ground of native musical traditions. Both are pianistically demanding, effective and - in their drama and atmosphere - immediately comprehensible and riveting compositions. Khachaturian's piano concerto quickly won its place in the world from the Soviet Union thanks to Van Cliburn's performances and is currently one of the most popular concertos in Asian countries. Erkin's concerto, with its much tighter dimensions, is hardly known outside Turkey until now and is released here as a first commercially available recording. The pianist Gülsin Onay is one of the most important Turkish classical musicians. She has already recorded the two piano concertos by Ahmed Adnan Saygun, together with Erkin Turkey's most outstanding composer, and performs internationally as a soloist. José Serebrier, an US-American of Uruguyan descent, studied with Stokowski, Szell, Dorati and Monteux. He is one of the great legends among conductors of the older generation, one of the most documented maestri on vinyl and CD, and also a remarkable phenomenon as a composer. As a musician, he is considered the spiritual successor of his former mentor Leopold Stokowski.

During his lifetime, Viennese violinist and composer Joseph Mayseder received numerous awards, including his appointment as Imperial Chamber Virtuoso in 1835, his becoming named an honorary member of the Pesth-Ofener Musikverein, Santa Cecilia in Rome and the Styrian Musikverein in 1839, in 1852 of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, and in 1862 he was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Franz Joseph Order. Nevertheless Mayseder is today considered an insider tip, his works are continually being published as world premiere recordings by violinist Raimund Lissy, member of the Vienna Philharmonic. Volume 5 of this series contains the Great Concert Piece No. 1, the Variations Op. 25 and Op. 40, the Potpourri-Variations Op. 27, the Polonaise No. 3 and the Duo Op. 31. Raimund Lissy is joined by the ensemble Violissimo consisting of Thomas Christian and Lara resp. Luka Kusztrich, violins, Robert Bauerstatter, Viola and Susanne Lehner, cello.

This new album by Bulgarian pianist Dora Deliyska reveals an imaginative insight into the world of the Dance. From Anderson’s Carmen Fantasy to the Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm by Bartok, and everything in between, these rhythms inspire the audience to dance. Accompanying Deliyskas are Luca Monti (piano), Jury Revich and Florian Willeitner (violins), Nora Schwarzberg (viola), and Georg Breinschmud (bass).

The musicians of the multinational ensemble Klangkollektiv Wien, comprised of members of renowned Viennese orchestras, feel the need to interpret works from their everyday professional lives in another manner, outside of the music industry, in their own right and for the audience. The co-founder, violinist and conductor Rémy Ballot, born in Paris and living in Vienna, a student of Celibidache, has for years now had great success as musical director of the symphony cycle at the Brucknertage festival in St. Florian. On this album Klangkollektiv Wien presents a concert recording of Mozart's Figaro-Overture, his equally popular “Jupiter Symphony” and Haydns Symphony No. 101 “The Clock”, which he wrote for his London journey. Connecting element of the program is Joseph Haydn's famous saying to Leopold Mozart: “I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me in person and by name; he has taste, and, what is more, the most profound skill in composition.”

El silencio imposible (“The impossible silence”) celebrates the silence, the peaceful nuances, the intimate. Nicholas Spanos, countertenor, Rafael Catalá, guitar, arrangements and composition, and Florian Eggner, violoncello present a live program that begins with works by John Dowland and Georg Friedrich Händel. Completely in the style of the Ancient Music heard so far, the journey passes Rafael Catalá’s eponymous work before culminating in a series of Sephardic songs that Catalá artistically arranged for this special instrumentation. Catalá, hailing from Valencia, and Spanos, born in Thessaloniki, give these songs unique authenticity, both being places where the population of Sephardic Jews exerted enormous influence until the waves of displacement in the 15th and 16th centuries. A homage to tranquility and contemplation in today's noisy and fast-paced world.

Since the year 2012, the association EntArteOpera has dedicated itself to holding yearly festivals celebrating the lively culture of remembrance and the revival of the extensive opus of forgotten, ostracized, persecuted by the Nazi regime, exiled or even murdered composers. The present recording’s main focus is on songs and works by the female composers Henriette Bosmans, Vally Weigl, Charlotte Schlesinger and Vitezslava Kapralova, with the addition of the “Love Song” H 259 by Bohuslav Martinu. Hermine Haselböck, mezzo soprano, Franz Bartolomey, cello and pianist Clemens Zeilinger take you into the passionate and at the same time poetic sound worlds of four extraordinary female composers whose music is heard as rarity and discovery.

For many years a solo member at the Vienna State Opera and sought after at international opera stages, Austrian baritone Clemens Unterreiner continues to perform in concert halls and churches alike. So it comes as no surprise that the Austrian star baritone abandons the dramatic repertory for this new release and presents a selection of the most beautiful German Christmas carols. Together with the ORF Radio Symphonic Orchestra, some of the most timeless melodies and contemplative songs are featured on this album, preparing inimitably for the holy days of the celebration of God’s love. In a second part, Clemens Unterreiner recites festive poetry by writers such as Heinrich Heine, Joseph von Eichendorff, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Stefan Zweig, Clemens von Brentano or Joachim Ringelnatz.

“One should sing with the fingers,” or “If you want to play piano, you need to learn to sing” —such statements and similar quotes by Frederic Chopin have been passed down by many of his students from their piano lessons with him. With a nearly Baroque-Classical aesthetic, he preached the idea of an analogy between music and language, and from this he paid meticulous attention to phrasing and articulation. It thus comes as no surprise that contemporaries and epigonic composers happily used the vocal habitus of many of his piano works to arrange them as actual art songs. Several particularly successful examples, written by Luigi Bordese, Pauline Viardot and anonymous composers were compiled for the present release by pianist Wolfgang Brunner, long-standing director of the Salzburg Hofmusik, with singers Lydia Teuscher, Olivia Vermeulen, Karol Kozlowski und Andreas Schmidt.

Cornelia Horak traces Joseph Haydn’s years of travel in England in search of the dawn of Classical-era song. Together with Richard Fuller on fortepiano, an acknowledged expert in this era, the internationally renowned Austrian soprano applies her talents to the “original canzonettas” that the composer wrote in the mid-1790s, most of them on texts by his British friend Anne Hunter. They represent an elaborate further development of the German-language songs Haydn had written up to that point and form one of the starting points for the immediately proceeding flights of fancy in this genre.

Antoinette van Zabner, born in Austria and raised in the United States, presents with this album a selection of largely peaceful and calm piano pieces by composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, such as Gabriel Faure, Alexander Skrjabin, Frederico Mompou and Ernst Toch. The enormous political and social upheavals in Europe around the year 1900 found their repercussions in music with the creation of smaller pieces, comprising elements of improvisation and spontaneous thematic ideas. The works selected here derive mostly from the Slavic and French tradition and go by titles like Prelude, Poeme and Improvisation. An atmospheric setting for a profound relaxation. Born in Austria and raised in the U.S.A., Antoinette Van Zabner began her musical training at the age of four: within the following year she won the first prize at a Canadian Broadcasting System competition. The musical colleagues with whom Antoinette Van Zabner has made numerous recordings for radio, television and on CDs include members of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Slovakian Chamber Orchestra, the Niederosterreichisches Tonkunstlerorchester: she has accompanied artists such as Nigel Rogers Patricia Wise and the Koehne Quartet and collaborations closely with the Austrian Society for Contemporary Music.

On the occasion of a concert at the Brucknertage festival St. Florian the great Austrian jazz pianist Rudi Wilfer took on his journey to Anton Bruckner and his IV. Symphony, which would widely circumpass the written music. Wilfer who has found his very own combination of meditation and swing perceived in Bruckner’s music a fascinating modernity, even agelessness. Surely, the pieces were recorded several times, yet no version turned out alike, even though the musical material remained the same. The listener could literally observe how Wilfer’s playing in every instant led to new paths – new harmonies, articulations, voicings. The album consists of two parts, the live recording and the studio recordings which at times shine a different light onto the same pieces, besides the homage to Bruckner also jazz standards like “You Must Believe in Spring” and “What Now My Love”, Viennese pieces like “Liebesleid” by Fritz Kreisler or “In einem kleinen Café in Hernals” by Hermann Leopoldi as well as “Wiegenlied” by Brahms.