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.

The Salzburg violinist Benjamin Schmid’s preoccupation with the violin works of W.A. Mozart has now lasted for more than four decades, was initially influenced by the then Mozarteum professors Sándor Végh and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and received numerous awards as his style of interpretation became increasingly personalised. His first CD recording in 1990 with Mozart’s Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg led by Hans Graf was also celebrated by reviewers as a discovery. 32 years and hundreds of performances later, Benjamin Schmid now completes his recordings of the violin concertos with the Sweden based Musica Vitae, of which he has been the musical director since last year, and describes his journey as follows: “As a violinist who grew up in Vienna and Salzburg, Mozart was ultimately always the most important composer for me; I defined this preference as early as elementary school age, and the interest grew with the discovery of the complete works of this probably at least most gifted of all composers. For me, the key to Mozart interpretation lies in the duality of singing and speaking; singing as immediate emotion and phrasing and articulation as form-giving grammar.”

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.

Ingrid Marsoner dedicates her latest recording to Franz Schubert’s late piano works and contrasts the “Four Impromptus D 899” with the more intimate and much less frequently performed “Three Piano Pieces D 946”. The Impromptus D 899 were composed in 1827, around a year before Schubert’s death and close in time to the “Winterreise” D 911. The composer was in a particularly gloomy mood at the time and it was certainly no coincidence that he chose such distant keys as G-flat major for the third piece, in keeping with the eerily moving beauty of these works. The “Three Piano Pieces, D 946” were composed in 1828, the year of Franz Schubert’s death. They were not published during his lifetime and were only discovered and published by Johannes Brahms. At the end of his life, Franz Schubert studied counterpoint intensively and even attended a lesson with Simon Sechter, Vienna’s first music theory teacher. In the middle section of the first piano piece in particular, one can discover a surprising polyphony for the composer. The CD concludes with the Allegretto in C minor D 915, also composed shortly before his death at the age of 31.

The pianist Andreas Eggertsberger, who studied in Austria and the USA with Karl Heinz Kämmerling and Oleg Maisenberg, among others, deals with the late works of three composers on his new album “Spätlese” (Late Harvest): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms and Frédéric Chopin. Whether a work is considered a late work has less to do with the composer’s age and more to do with where the breaking points and further developments are in a composer’s oeuvre. Some of the three selected masters were still young when they entered their late phase: Mozart was in his late twenties when he composed his Fantasia K. 475 and Sonata in C minor K. 457, Chopin was thirty-four when he composed his third and final Sonata in B minor, and Brahms was fifty-nine when he composed his Three Intermezzi Op. 117. Many a future is anticipated. Mozart, for example, builds a bridge to Beethoven with his Fantasy and Sonata in C minor. Chopin, on the other hand, takes a look at late Romanticism and beyond with his increasingly bold harmonies, and Brahms foreshadows musical developments that would only become influential in the 20th century.

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.

During his lifetime, Johann Schantz (1762-1828) was considered the most important and respected piano maker in Vienna alongside Anton Walter and Nannette Streicher. His instruments were widely appreciated by musicians and composers, including explicitly by Haydn and Beethoven. One of his early fortepianos were integrated into the collection of old musical instruments at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in 1939 from private ownership due to the fact that it could not be restored without considerable investment. There it was painstakingly restored in several phases and finally brought to it's present, playable condition in 2009. On this recording, pianist Richard Fuller, renowned for his decades-long involvement with historical instruments, presents this fortepiano with the Sonatas for Fortepiano in E major, Hob. XVI:31 (1776) and E-flat major, Hob. XVI:49 (1790) by Joseph Haydn. The collaboration with the soprano Karoline Pilcz demonstrates that this instrument has unique sound characteristics not only as a solo instrument but also as an accompanying instrument. The Arette italiane, Op. 31 (1790) and the Cantata in Honor of Marie Theresie Paradis (1784) by Leopold Kozeluch also date from the time of the instrument's creation, as is characteristic of this KHM edition.

It is no exaggeration to call Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) one of the two or three most significant Austrian violinists in music history. Decades after his passing, his name remains a vibrant touchstone for music lovers worldwide. Viennese pianist Andrea Linsbauer, who has long immersed herself in Kreisler's enduring legacy, now unveils a singular project with the album "Fritz Kreisler's Heirs". Here, she gathers five of Austria's most celebrated violin virtuosos today Benjamin Schmid, Ekaterina Frolova, Leonhard Baumgartner, Christian Altenburger and Daniel Auner to offer their deeply personal interpretations of Kreisler's miniature masterworks. That these artists have been Andrea Linsbauer's recurring duo partners for years is evident in every note: each performance resonates with the intimacy of shared musical dialogue, honoring Kreisler's own spirit of reinvention.

In contrast to their teacher, several of Anton Bruckner’s students devoted themselves with great passion to composing chamber music, as the three piano trios recorded here for the first time bear witness. Paul Caro, a native of Breslau, studied with Bruckner from 1880 to 1885, to whom he gave the printed edition of his Piano Trio in E major, Op. 8 in September 1886. Linz-born Mathilde Kralik von Meyrswalden, who was Bruckner’s private pupil from 1875 onwards, achieved one of her first great successes with her Piano Trio in F major, premiered in 1880. Franz Marschner, born in Leitmeritz in Bohemia and a student of Bruckner’s counterpoint from 1883 to 1885, created an ambitious and masterful work of almost symphonic dimensions with his Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 30, around 1902. The recordings, for which three young, already internationally sought-after musicians have joined forces to form the TONALi Trio, are complemented by Daniel Linton-France’s world premiere recordings of two fascinating piano works by Bruckner’s students Cyrill Hynais and Alfred Stross, who studied at the Vienna Conservatory from 1876 and presumably took private lessons from Bruckner at the same time.

Following the successful album "Nicht Wiedersehen!", the internationally acclaimed bassist Gunther Groissbock and one of the most distinguished pianists in his field, Malcolm Martineau, are now dedicating their new program to the subject of love; under the title "Mannerliebe und Leben" (A Man's Love and Life), they explore love from a man's point of view - based on Schumann's well-known cycle "Frauenliebe und -leben" (A Woman's Love and Life). Beginning with what is probably the first known song cycle in music history, "An die ferne Geliebte" by Ludwig van Beethoven, the well-rehearsed duo then present Schumann's "Dichterliebe". Three songs by Anton Bruckner ("I'm April", "Herbstkummer" and "Mein Herz und deine Stimme") are preceded by further selected songs by Johannes Brahms, including "Wie bist du, meine Konigin", "Unbewegte laue Luft", "Die Mainacht" and "Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen".

Joseph Mayseder took part in a performance of Joseph Haydn’s oratorio “The Seven Last Words” in 1803 when he was only 14 years old. In later years, he played in numerous Viennese orchestras, including under the direction of Beethoven and Schubert, and was concertmaster of the Vienna Court Orchestra from 1830. He composed numerous violin works and chamber music at a young age, primarily for his own performance. Mayseder’s compositions were performed in thousands of concerts worldwide in the 19th century, including by artists such as Henri Vieuxtemps, Joseph Hellmesberger, Franz Liszt and Giovanni Bottesini; however, they are still considered an forgotten gems today. Vienna-based violinist Thomas Christian, who has already released recordings of the violin concerto and virtuoso works with string quartet by Joseph Mayseder, presents a cross-section of Mayseder’s works for violin and piano on this double CD with the versatile pianist Sina Kloke. The works, all world premiere recordings, range from variations on opera arias to polonaises and fantasies to duos for violin and piano. The combination of virtuosity and unmistakable Viennese charm plays a central role in the interpretation of Mayseder’s oeuvre.

The horn concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart have always been part of the standard repertoire of every horn player. Tyrolean hornist Hansjörg Angerer presents the four horn concertos with the Ensemble Salzburger Hofmusik under the direction of Wolfgang Brunner on an original instrument by an unknown Bohemian master from around 1800. The natural horn originated from the hunting horn by combining the windings, whereby the natural tone series could be played in all common keys by placing different tuning bows on it and, in addition, the intermediate tones of the natural tone series could be obtained, and the sharp or flat tones could be regulated by inserting the right hand into the falls by “plugging” and “damping”. The complex playing techniques as well as the characteristic sound differ fundamentally from a modern valve instrument and allow a deep dive into the great variety of colors in the music of this era.

“The complete violinist” Benjamin Schmid inspires both audiences and international critics in the field of jazz and improvisation. For his latest album “Jazz Violin Concertos” with the Swedish chamber orchestra Musica Vitae; Schmid presents jazz violin concertos written by Austrian composers. Friedrich Gulda’s Violin Concerto entitled “Wings” is conceived as a single large violin cadenza with orchestra; which lacks not only virtuoso but also groovy parts. Herbert Berger’s “Metropoles Suite” was adapted for violin by the composer for Benjamin Schmid; each of the movements “Insomnia”; “El largo adios”; “A la minute” and “Avenida” can be assigned to a metropolis. “Three Songs for an Abandonend Angel” by the Austrian jazz pianist and composer Sabina Hank was also written for Schmid.

This CD collection presents a broad range of Hansjorg Angerer's many recordings and also serves to showcase an extraordinary artistic personality in his entire versatility. The Art of Hansjorg Angerer allows you to experience the art of horn playing - encompassing in an extremely fascinating way the natural horn, the double horn in F/B flat and the horn in F as well as the historical Parforce horn, highlighting the special musical interpretations of this artist.

Thomas Albertus Irnberger, the Salzburg violinist, who performs worldwide, and Michael Korstick, piano, internationally known for his Beethoven interpretations, release works by Sergei Prokofiev for violin and piano on this double SACD. With unmatched precision in ensemble play and critically acclaimed virtuosity, the performers present the two sonatas for violin and piano, Op. 80 and Op. 94a, the “Five Melodies, Op. 35a” and “Five Pieces from Cinderella”. Also included on this recording is the Sonata for Violin solo, Op. 115. Irnberger dedicates this recording to Igor Oistrakh, who was born in Ukraine and died in 2021, from whom he received important impulses for his own playing, and whose father David Oistrakh was one of the most important Prokofiev interpreters and friends of the composer.

The Austrian bass Günther Groissböck enchants on the opera and concert stages around the world with the unique noble sound of his voice and virtually breathtaking verve of performance. Together with Malcolm Martineau, who is recognized worldwide as one of the leading piano accompanists of his generation, Groissböck presents on the album “Nicht Wiedersehen!” incomparable interpretations of late Romantic songs and ballads by Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and Hans Rott.

The duo pays homage to passion in Strauss songs such as “Zueignung”, “Allerseelen” or “Breit' über mein Haupt”, or leaves the audience rather thoughtful with “Der Einsame”, “Das Thal” or “Befreit”. Hans Rott, who died at a young age, can be heard in “Wandrer’s Nachtlied”, “Geistesgruß” and “Der Sänger”. Groissböck also brings the tragic characters in Mahler’s songs “Revelge”, “Zu Straßburg auf der Schanz’”, “Tamboursg’sell” or “Nicht wiedersehen!” to life in an incomparable way, before this great recording promises a transcendental end with “Urlicht”.

The album “Atlantic Crossings” by the Parisian Orchestre Pasdeloup, directed by Wolfgang Doerner, is dedicated to music written by European composers who came across the Atlantic to New York or later had to flee there from the Nazis. Gustav Mahler, who since 1907 has been travelling annually to New York over the winter to perform there, is introduced with the “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen” with the Austrian baritone Daniel Schmutzhard, “Das himmlische Leben” with the French soprano Amel Brahim-Djelloul, as well as the orchestral pieces “Blumine” and “Entracte” (from “The Three Pintos”).

Extended by the jazz orchestra of percussionist Franck Tortiller, Orchestre Pasdeloup presents Sigmund Romberg’s “Lover Come Back to Me”, again featuring Amel Brahim-Djelloul; Romberg had been living in New York since 1909 and had established himself on Broadway. In the same line-up, Kurt Weill, who had to leave Europe for good in 1935, can be heard with “Berlin im Licht”, the chanson “Je ne t’aime pas” written in France in the early thirties and the Broadway song “That’s Him” from 1943.

Violinist by profession, the Japanese-born Viennese musician Tomoko Mayeda also learned to play the piano from the age of four. Her teacher and mentor Paul Badura-Skoda often took the time to teach her at the piano in addition to his support as a pianistic accompanist at countless concerts and a joint album recording. Mayeda had for a long time cherished the wish of being able to accompany herself at the piano, which she was finally able to realize during the pandemic through technical refinements: First, Mayeda recorded the piano part, to which the violin was then recorded in a second recording session. Since the otherwise usual and necessary agreements regarding musical features are omitted the result is Tomoko Mayeda “100%”, an uncompromising interpretation of W. A. Mozart’s late Viennese violin sonatas (B-flat major, K. 454; E-flat major, K. 481; A major, K. 526).

Franz Schubert’s opera “The Magic Harp” was premiered in 1820 at Theater an der Wien, Vienna, but was withdrawn after only eight performances due to in part devastating response from audience and critics (“nonsense and tedious”, “wretched trash”). The apparently poor libretto and detailed records of the staging were lost, only the music survived, with the overture later serving as the overture to “Rosamunde” and becoming extremely popular. The musicologist and Schubert specialist Brian Newbould transformed the existing melodramas into an orchestral suite, which was premiered in 2019 by the Junge Philharmonie Wien under conductor Michael Lessky. The present world premiere recording of this Magic Harp Suite shows that the music of the then 23-year-old Schubert is already quite progressive and forward-looking, and full of gripping drama in support of the action of the libretto, which could be reconstructed in excerpts.

Anton Bruckner's Fourth Symphony, the so-called "Romantic", is characterized by a long history of development, stretching from the first drafts in 1874 to the third version in 1888. However, this version, which was common until the 1950s, was rejected in the "version dispute", and instead the second version from 1878/80 became the prevailing version during the second half of the 20th century. The third version was only rediscovered in 1996 by the Bruckner researcher Benjamin Korstvedt and re-edited in 2004. This version, regarded by Bruckner as the final version, which contains a few cuts and mainly tempo adjustments in favor of a slower playing style, was presented by conductor Rémy Ballot and the Altomonte Orchestra at the St. Florian Brucknertage Festival 2021.

The concept album “Arvo Pärt” by Gramola is based on the motif of the mirror. Following up on Daniel Barenboim’s saying “Music comes from silence and ends with it”, there is a prologue and epilogue for piano solo (“For Alina” / “Variations for the Healing of Arinuschka”), which in minimalist form and Pärt’s own tintinnabuli style provides the framework for this almost spiritual journey. Embedded in it, the instruments violin, viola and violoncello, each in combination with piano, play three times first “Spiegel im Spiegel” (Mirror in the mirror) – moving down the musical scale, and then in reverse order of the instruments “Fratres” (Latin for Brothers). The meditative character of these works as well as the special timbres of the instruments are presented inimitably by the musicians Ketevan Sepashvili, piano, Veriko Tchumburidze, violin, Gertrude Rossbacher, viola, and Sandro Sidamonidze, cello.

Hans Leo Hassler is considered one of the most significant personalities among Late Renaissance composers in the German-speaking world. A striking number of his works have been published as printed editions early on, for instance in 1590, when he only was aged 24, the “Canzonette a quatro voci” in Nuremberg and one year later in Augsburg the “Cantiones sacrae“, where among others the motets Dixit Maria and Beata es virgo Maria as well as the Magnificat octavi toni have first been released. In his Missa octo vocum, the mass for eight-part double choir, Hassler follows the sequence of the Catholic mass with its six parts that comprise its ordinary: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. The Ensemble Vox Archangeli is directed by bassist Manuel Schuen, who is also performing on the Sieber-organ at St. Michael’s Church in Vienna.

For this complete recording of Johannes Brahms' piano trios, the internationally successful Salzburg violinist Thomas Albertus Irnberger chose his usual top-class ensemble partners. Irnberger has long had an intense artistic friendship with the versatile cellist David Geringas, who, like the Russian-born pianist Lilya Zilberstein, can point to a number of recordings that are as long as they are impressive. The Piano Trio No. 1 in B major op. 8 can be heard here in the revised version, which closes the time gap of almost 25 years to the other two trios (No. 2 in C major Op. 87 and No. 3 in C minor Op. 101), since the revision took place after the completion of these works and thus at the peak of Brahmsian compositional art. For the Trio for Clarinet, Violoncello and Piano in A minor Op. 114, Brahms envisaged the viola as an alternative instrumentation from the very beginning, which is mastered by Irnberger as brilliantly as the violin.

Thomas Albertus Irnberger, violin, and Pavel Kašpar, piano, lead us with their album Salon de Budapest into the bourgeois salon of the late 19th century – an oasis amid the ‘good old days’ which weren’t, of course, that good to begin with: mired turmoil, social inequalities, and wars as much and more than ever since. The invited audience were to listen to Hungarian dances by Brahms, Kodály or Rachmaninoff, Csárdás’ by Franz Lehár, Miska Hauser or Jeno Hubay, Romances, Fantasies and other melodies by Tchaikovsky, Leopold Auer, Carl Bohm or Joseph Joachim. Some songs from operettas by Lehár, Jeno Huszka, Emmerich Kálmán and Pongrác Kacsóh with the Hungarian soprano Brigitta Simon complete this musical visit to the Salon de Budapest.

When George Gershwin presented his Rhapsody in Blue at Manhattan’s Aeolian Hall in 1924, Jazz had prized its way into the classical concert halls. Only one year later the Concerto in F followed – the motifs and themes ‘jazzy’, whilst bearing all the hallmarks of the instrumental concertos of the previous 150 years. After its premiere on December 3rd, 1925, at New York’s Carnegie Hall, the composer of songs Gershwin was fully established as a classical concert-composer. The Concerto for Piano (2020) was composed for Karl Eichinger as a commission of the state of Lower Austria by the 1990 Vienna-born Daniel Muck, who has always felt a stylistic connection with Gershwin, and hence is an expression of his intent to cleave the rift between the grand past of the romantic virtuoso concerto and contemporary popular music.