When Frank Peter Zimmermann says that Mozart has always been easy for him, he needs only to recall his debut concert at the age of ten when he played Mozart’s G major Concerto K. 216; or when as a fresh 20-year-old, he made his first recording of the five concertos for EMI. He’s played these works nearly 300 times in concert, and one can appreciate the intense physical and spiritual experience that Zimmermann brings to these new recordings.

Two Czech composers, one piano trio from each – that is the program of this recording. Not that they are contemporaries: the first composer, Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904), was born about half a century before his compatriot Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959). Both composers came from Bohemia, Dvorák from the little town of Nelahozeves on the west bank of the Vltava, Martinů from Policka in east Bohemia. And in the history of “classical” music, both of them are representatives of the National Czech School. This was a movement that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century to match similar developments in other European countries. This national dimension continued to grow up to the middle of the 20th century. The core commitment of the National Schools is to be seen in the way numerous European composers alluded in their works to the folk music of their land, bringing out national color in the sound of their music. Both Dvorák, an early representative of the Czech School, and Martinů, a late champion of Czech nationhood, pay tribute in their compositions to the popular music of their Czech homeland.

The three main works on the CD are favourite pieces of mine that I often listened to as a student. One is the Suite No. 1 in E minor, BWV 996, by Johann Sebastian Bach. Another piece that I have always liked immensely, and which I thought that I will one day learn is the "Valses Poeticos" by Enrique Granados, and in the same way, I had started the "Sonatine pour harpe" op. 30 by Marcel Tournier, but never finished it. I then developed a plan to make a CD in order to create an additional project for myself using these three pieces as a basis.

I combined the three great works by Bach, Granados and Tournier so that they became ‘pathfinders’, so to speak, with the Renaissance pieces by Mayone connecting these three longer pieces with one another. This has the effect of creating a larger whole that can be experienced as a single concept. -- Markus Folker Thalheimer

Why, in a booklet accompanying a recording of "Flute Music at the Court of Frederick the Great", is an attempt being made at this point to take a look into the soul of a damaged monarch? There is a guiding "thread of Ariadne" that leads through the labyrinthine trials and tribulations of Frederick's life and suffering – a singular passion that he discovered at a young age and never forgot throughout his life. It is the love of music, especially the love of playing the "flûte traversière".

It is a constant source of amazement that to this very day, musical gems even by famous composers often fail to receive the exposure they deserve or have even – despite modern digital access – been unjustly consigned to oblivion. The four works by Carl Friedrich Abel presented here are just such treasures, and two of them – the Sinfonie Concertanti WKO 42 and 43 – are released on record for the very first time to mark the composer’s tercentenary in 2023. The reason for this is surely that Abel’s activity and fame as a viola da gambist and as a composer for his instrument has obscured the fact that he wrote these four important concertante works for the violoncello. The present recording seeks to help restore the reputation that these works deserve.

“One of the most important advantages that the Luxembourg citizen has when abroad is that linguistically and culturally we embrace both the German and the French cultures...This gives a Luxemburger, particularly one active in the arts or the cultural environment, a different outlook and approach,” suggested Luxembourg composer Alexander Müllenbach in an interview. Perhaps it is this different perspective, the quite individual, open approach, that Françoise Groben herself had, a quality that she brought to her performance of German and French compositions for the cello. And it is for that reason that Banque Générale de Luxembourg placed at her disposal an exquisite instrument built by Matteo Goffriller in 1695.

Françoise Groben was born in Luxembourg on December 4, 1965. She received her first lessons in the cello at the age of five at the city’s Conservatoire, studying there with Francine Weber-Deprelle, Jean Join und Georges Mallach. She eventually completed her studies with Boris Pergamenschikov at the Cologne Musikhochschule, graduating in her concert examination, while continuing to attend master classes given by such artists as Daniil Shafran in Moscow or William Pleeth in London, or by the Amadeus Quartet. From 1974 onwards she was a member of the ensemble Les Musiciens founded by her father, Joseph Groben, and was only 15 when she first played in the Youth Orchestra of the European Union, going on to perform under such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Herbert von Karajan and Georg Solti. The recordings collected here illustrate the entire spectrum of Françoise Groben’s artistic interests, demonstrating that she was not only a leading soloist but also a gifted and coveted chamber musician who regularly included pieces by Luxembourg composers in her programs and was strongly committed to contemporary female composers.

"Being able to release my first solo CD with the hänssler CLASSIC label is simply fantastic. The assembled works on this CD reflect my musical focus. The juxtaposition of globally renowned and beloved compositions with the quest for seldom-performed musical treasures captivates me in my profession. I have recorded a journey through the colorful world of fantasy. The sound journey with Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn Bartholdy shows famous, rarely played and unfinished piano works, which, besides a reference to nature, find their nucleus in Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata'.

"The three composers are united by the search for new possibilities of expression. There are (almost) no limits to the imagination. Ludwig van Beethoven takes center stage. His contrasting works Fantasy for piano Unv 12, an unfinished sketch, and the universally known 'Sonata quasi una fantasia' op.27 No. 2, more familiar to most as the 'Moonlight Sonata', are an exciting combination.Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's Phantasie op. 28 'Scottish Sonata' harks back to Beethoven's love of nature. He wrote this fantasy in 1833 on his cultural journey through Italy, France and Great Britain. Here, Mendelssohn Bartholdy sets his impressions of the mood and landscape of Scotland to music. Franz Schubert's Fantasy op. 15 D 760 'Wanderer Fantasy' is a work that is close to my heart." - Maximilian Schairer

This new release showcases the high quality of Johann Georg Weichenberger's fascinating compositions, which now – finally – get a well deserved recording. “Weichenberger certainly must have had a certain reputation. In the New Groves Wolfgang Bötticher writes that he was held in high esteem “although he was only an amateur”. The more recent perspective does not follow this disparagement, with good reason. Considering the beautiful works by these composers the idea of dilettantism is far from the truth. We find first class compositions. Weichenberger's compositions touched me especially because of their beauty and naturalness.” (Joachim Held)

With this CD, we present a composer who is almost completely unknown. An astonishing admission, because his work is well documented in Georg Forster's songbooks and his compositions have also been published in print. Georg Forster himself held vom Brandt in high esteem, so much so that he dedicated the third volume of his"Teutschen Liedlein" to him. This dedication emphasises Forster's high regard for vom Brandt, but he also made dedications to other composers. Forster dedicated Volume II to his former fellow student Eck, Volume IV to Stephan Zirler, and Volume V to Dietrich Schwarz von Haselbach, with whom he had been associated since his Heidelberg days. While on the one hand friendship was important to him, he did not lose sight of quality when he wrote that he had"picked out the loveliest and worst from all of them". Forster's collection is aimed at the"friend and lover of noble music", not at the professional musician. Hence, the focus on the fact that he had selected not only the"loveliest" but also the"worst" (in the sense of plain or simple). Forster underscores that Brandt"noch heut bey tags ein sonderlicher Liebhaber un(d) fürderer ist, unnd solchs auch selbs mit der that alß mit setzen oder Componiren… noch heut bey tag beweyset" (still today by day a special lover and fancier, and also proves this himself with the deed as with setting or composing…still today by day). It seemed remarkable that vom Brandt composed during the day, for composing was not his main occupation.

The long overdue rediscovery of Emilie Mayer naturally earns her the near-universal label of “female Beethoven”, which she was called even by her contemporaries. On the one hand that is a great honor, for Mayer is indeed considered the most successful symphonist among the composing women of the Romantic era. She was thus not content with the “domestic” genres of Lieder, piano works and chamber music, which is all that her female colleagues were generally allowed,Conductor:on the contrary, she designed symphonies on the grand scale. On the other hand, that label shows that people are still thinking along gender-specific lines – even if they have happily escaped the 19th-century mindset that hampered Emilie Mayer’s own career. As late as 1878, the “Neue Berliner Musikzeitung” was describing her as a “rare phenomenon” and an “exception” to the rule that the “Production” of orchestral works was solely the “Domain of the creative male intellect”. By that date, Emilie Mayer had already presented eight symphonies. And in 1850, almost 30 years earlier, a critic had exclaimed in the same paper: “Hitherto woman’s fair hand has mastered the Lied at most (...). What female powers, powers of the second rank, can attain – that is what Emilie Mayer has achieved and reproduced.”

Dr. Albert Schelb writes: “As a composer, Josef Schelb incorporated the most important styles that had developed around the turn of the century into his early compositions, although most of these were destroyed in an air raid on Karlsruhe in 1942. After war, Schelb turned to impressionism, expressionism, atonality and finally also to twelve-tone composition, but without ever committing himself exclusively to any one of these styles. Self-taught, he combined them to develop a style all of his own, and followed, so to speak, his own rules of development. Throughout his life, his speciality was the polyphonic treatment of motifs and themes, which he handled strictly or playfully, as main elements or in episodes. His polyphony is never dry and academic, but rather is always paired with a dash of warming Romantic sensuality in sound. This even applies to his late orchestral music and Movimenti of the 1960s and 1970s, in which the themes are always twelve-tone expressionistic, but the harmony is also distinctly impressionistic.”

“Warm humanity that infuses everything technical with life and a sense of duty” - Numerous composers who were victims of Nazi persecution have been rediscovered in recent years. As in the case of many other outstanding musicians, one can only wonder why it has taken so long for Bernhard Sekles’s music to be rescued from oblivion. In Sekles’s case this question is very difficult to answer, since his works are truly of the highest quality and they enrich the repertoire in a number of different music genres. What is more, prior to 1933 Sekles was one of the best known personalities of his generation on the entire music scene; for a long time, he was pivotal to music life in Germany, both as a successful composer and author of many popular and frequently performed works and as an outstanding teacher of composition whose classes nurtured numerous famous musicians. Finally, he was, for almost ten years, the highly innovative Director of the Hoch Conservatoire in Frankfurt am Main, one of the most important, internationally acknowledged teaching institutions of its day in the field of music. He was very attached to the city of his birth; indeed, he lived there for almost all of his life.

Sarah Maria Sun is known as one of the foremost vocal performers in the contemporary music scene. Her repertoire currently spans more than 1000 compositions from the 16th to the 21st century, including 350 world premieres. She regularly performs as a soloist in renowned concert halls and festivals worldwide. At leading opera houses and stages she created complex female figures in music theaters, operas and monodramas. For her role as Elsa in Sciarrino’s “Lohengrin“ (2017) as well as for her performance in Philip Venables’ “4.48 Psychoses“ (2019) she was nominated as singer of the year. From 2007-2014, she was the first soprano of the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, a chamber ensemble of seven singers that has been one of the world’s leading pioneers of contemporary music for decades.

It is frankly little short of a miracle that the name of Carl Frühling is still remembered today, since we know next to nothing about him. Scant biographical notes provide a few reference points rather than an orderly résumé of his life, and a mere handful of the hundred or more works he is thought to have composed is extant today. The main reason for his relegation to oblivion is a fact that Frühling kept secret; a fact that nevertheless had to be declared on official documents: he was Jewish. Even before the Nazis took power his religion had caused him problems, making it difficult for him to pursue a career as a composer. As a result, Frühling understandably tried to conceal his religious adherence. In 1907 he converted to Protestantism and in his CV of 1929 he stated that he was born in Vienna. The truth is however that he actually came from Lviv (the Germans called it Lemberg, and today, the city is in Ukraine), then a predominantly Jewish city, where he was born on November 28, 1868. Frühling concluded his piano studies around 1889 and was awarded the Liszt Prize. He quickly established himself as a pianist, and was frequently in demand as a chamber musician. As a composer, however, Frühling found it difficult to make his mark. Initially, he tried to make a name with easy-listening piano works; he wrote virtuoso salon compositions such as concert waltzes, mazurkas and later, fantasias on tunes from popular operas. Although they were meant to be popular works that would sell well, they nevertheless evince a sense of proportion and cleverly thought-out pianistic writing, and are marked by humor and imagination.

Mikhail Pochekin writes of this new release: “Both violin concertos have in common that they were composed with great violinists in mind. With Mendelssohn it was the violin virtuoso Ferdinand David. There’s an interesting exchange of letters about the E Minor Violin Concerto and the friendship shared by Mendelssohn and David, which is a highly informative and compelling read. And the Bruch Concerto is unthinkable without Sarasate. Both works are based on a similar foundation. What the works have in common, however, is that they are two completely different masterpieces, each of which tells a completely different “story”. This combination creates many moments full of suspense, at least that’s what I hope when people listen to this album!”

Frank Peter Zimmermann, one of the most important violinists of our time, and his son Serge, who made his orchestral debut in 2000 at the age of nine with a violin concerto by Mozart, have succeeded in making a wonderful recording of the violin concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach together with the Berliner Barock Solisten. A great listening experience! The Double Concerto in D minor, one of Bach's most popular instrumental works, presents the principle of a contrapuntally linked, concertante dialogue between the solo violins in all movements.

A MusicWeb International Recording of the Month for July 2022!

All in all Maria Bach left more than 400 works to posterity. Most (about 80%) are Lieder and choral works, followed by smaller-scale piano works; not unlike Edvard Grieg or Hugo Wolff, she was an expert in that field, though she did also compose three ballets, made up of small, orchestral piano pieces. Her most ambitious works then, are the few excursions she made into the realms of chamber music (solo cello sonata, cello sonata, piano quartet and quintet, string quintet and two string quartets), in which she ventured a confrontation with the traditions of the grand, established genres. On the present release, Oliver Triendl, Marina Grauman, Nina Karmon, Öykü Canpolat, and Alexander Hülshoff showcase Maria Bach’s chamber works, including the Piano Quintet “Wolga-Quintet”, the Cello Sonata, and the Suite for Cello Solo.

Review

[Maria Bach's] music is infused with French and Russian elements and one can quite hear why it was so appealing to Roger-Ducasse who ensured that her 31-minute Piano Quintet was performed at the Paris Conservatoire when she visited Paris in 1930-31. Like all good music it’s clearly susceptible to strongly divergent interpretive stances. The Hänssler team is anchored by Oliver Treindl, who in my experience is probably one of the most hard-working and often recorded of players. He’s also an athletic figure who ensures forward-moving tempi.

The eminent cellist Paul Grümmer was a family friend and Bach was fortunate he liked her music and played the Cello Sonata frequently. It’s modestly structured – three movements and 19 minutes in this reading by Alexander Hülshoff and Treindl – and has a ripe Brahmsian rhapsodic feel, with a warmly curvaceous lyricism in the Romanze second movement. As with the Piano Quintet the finale is full of dextrous animation.

The final work in the disc is the Suite for cello, a crisp four-movement affair that looks back to Popper, as the notes indicate, rather than [J.S.] Bach. After a sonorous, chordal Praeludium come the registral leaps of an etude-like Scherzo, an expressive Air and then another of her favoured variations for a finale – including a Tango-like one – which call for supple bowing. It’s a deft work, all the more so in not honouring [J.S.] Bach’s legacy in any obvious fashion.

In terms of amplitude and density of sound this disc is an impressive one. The players sound firmly engaged in what must have been unfamiliar repertoire. They’ve been backed up by some classy notes. For overt expression, choose this[.]

Jonathan Woolf 

This album brings together things that at first glance don’t appear to have much in common: works by the two artists Johann Sebastian Bach and Agustín Barrios, who lived in distinctly different cultures many generations apart. However, the intriguing aspect of combining two so very disparate worlds is that shared elements only become apparent when they are placed side by side. Born in Uruguay, guitarist and composer José Fernández Bardesio began playing the guitar as an 11-year-old. He gave his first solo recital when he was only 15. He won first prizes at many renowned national and international competitions, including the Alirio Díaz (Gold Medal, Caracas), the Andrés Segovia Competition (Granada), the OAS Special Prize, and the Infanta Cristina Competition in Madrid.

Since making his debut in the United States and Spain in 1984, Bardesio has performed as a recitalist and soloist with orchestras in the Americas, Asia and Europe. He regularly appears at international guitar festivals and performs at important music centers including the Royal Festival Hall (London), Hall of the Americas (Washington, D.C.) and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall (New York). He is featured in recordings with broadcasters in Venezuela, the US, Spain and France and his discography in the US, Spain and Germany bears testimony to his artistry. His albums are released by Hänssler Classic and his compositions with Hofmeister Musikverlag in Leipzig.

REVIEWS:

If one had to identify an individual outstanding gem from this recording, which showcased the overall virtues of Fernández Bardesio, it would be the Mazurka Apasionada by Barrios. He composed in various styles, and the Romantic European style is strongly evidenced here; both tracks 1 and 13 have that common root. The influence of Chopin can also readily be recognized in this music. One detects a particularly strong empathy for the music in this rendition.

Fernández Bardesio is a master guitarist who demonstrates high levels of technical command over the instrument, and similar qualities of musicianship, in this recording. In comparing his renditions of Barrios and Bach, one gets the feeling that he is more at home with the former. That feeling is heightened when again listening to Bream play the Bach Lute Suites. There will always be disagreement about the ‘correct’ way to play this music, compounded by one’s overall preference for revered renditions of the past.

The instrument used on this occasion is not identified. However based on the accompanying photographs, and his past employment of an instrument by Daniel Friederich, it would be safe to assume that this same instrument was played here. This recording embodies an enjoyable programme, and fine guitar playing. The juxtaposition of Bach and Barrios’ while thematically interesting, inadvertently displays musicianship more at home with the latter.

-- MusicWeb International

"The hours I spent learning Beethoven‘s last three sonatas were among the most cherished of my life. They were filled with the exhilaration of being in the presence of something magnificent, something truly meaningful. Over the years, these sonatas have become my intimate companions – a continuous source of learning and an always sympathetic yet mercilessly honest corrective for me…

"I learned Helmut Lachenmann‘s Wiegenmusik (Cradle Music) as a teenager, around the same time I actually met him at my grandfather‘s home. As a young man, Helmut had been a member of my grandfather‘s choir. I will never forget the impression his warm and friendly manner had on me...Much later, in preparation for a joint concert in which I played solo four of his works for piano, Helmut, in his unique way, introduced me to his works and invited me to “listen” – to listen to everything that is acoustically perceptible, to hear the attack of the key and its consequence, and to open up myself more to the beauty of tones, beyond the so-called limits; and ultimately not just with his music, but with all music.

"This juxtaposition of Beethoven and Lachenmann explores the interaction between the works – the field of tension opened up by their proximity. Without alienating the individual masterpiece, a new listening context emerges. The symbiosis of their auras allows us to experience anew what we have become accustomed to. I dedicate this album to my grandfather Gerhard Wilhelm, who dreamed of living life as a pianist like I do now – as a child of a generation that, unlike his, did not have to experience war. Let us hope that this does not change. Both Beethoven and Lachenmann will help in this endeavor." -Soloist Moritz Winkelmann

Erwin Schulhoff went through many stages in his emergence as pianist and composer. Antonin Dvorák recommended the seven-year-old to the conservatory of his native city of Prague, then at 14 the boy moved to Leipzig to learn composition from Max Reger. While there, he gained valuable insights into the piano from Robert Teichmüller. In the last years of his course of study (from 1911) Schulhoff moved yet again, this time to the Cologne Conservatory, where his teachers were Fritz Steinbach for composition and Carl Friedberg for piano. Immediately upon graduating in 1913, Schulhoff succeeded in obtaining a few lessons from a normally student-shy Claude Debussy. Michael Rische´s commitment to the music of the twentieth century, however, quite clearly marks a contrast to his discoveries: the original or first premieres of piano concertos by George Antheil and Erwin Schulhoff, as well as recordings of other works in the “jazz influenced” style by Copland, Honegger, Gershwin and Ravel, have gained him an international reputation.

Every generation creates its own forms of expression. Often, this happens in abrupt rejection of what has gone before. And not infrequently, the provocative gestures in which a new attitude to life is articulated disappear again just as quickly as they appeared. Such thoughts may have moved Johann Sebastian Bach when, in the early 1740s, his two eldest sons took up the genre of the symphony, which had come from Italy and was accompanied by a novel treatment of the orchestra and compositional technique. Together with their generational peers, they created an independent line of tradition that was later referred to by music historians as the "symphony of the North German school." The fact that the symphony did not remain a short-lived fashion, favored by a handful of youngsters, but rather advanced to become a genre that was soon considered the "acknowledged paramount form of instrumental music", was one of the most significant and momentous musical achievements of the 18th century.

Béla Bartók’s monumental Mikrokosmos, containing 153 mainly short “progressive” piano pieces composed between 1932 and 1939, is both a very special piano method and a collection of wonderfully original performance pieces (the series actually contains almost the complete piano music by Bartók from the 1930s). Finally, it is also a detailed introduction to different aspects of his compositional style. With Mikro-kosmos, Bartók, who was generally reluctant to teach composition, created a veritable method of composition. A series of short piano pieces for the 1913 Piano Method jointly authored by Bartók and Sándor Reschofsky and published by Rózsa- völgyi in Budapest is the most immediate precursor of Bartók’s magnum opus, the six-volume Mikrokosmos. In 1913, the composer’s basic endeavor was to help produce a true modern piano school, in which all performance pieces and some easy exercises made up Bartók’s contribution. The 48 little pieces by Bartók included five-finger exercises, easy contrapuntal pieces, occasional essays in different styles as well as a range of character pieces.

Ana Topalovic is a visual synaesthete. For her, music has colors and shapes. This phenomenon opens up a new dimension of sound perfection for Ana, and with this ability she is able to search for concealed connections. For this album, Ana has selected five contemporary female composers who she feels provide a complementary synaesthetic connection to the individual movements of Bach's Suite No. 1. A very profound and intimate interpretation of her music has been created, thanks to years of close cooperation between Ana Topalovic, Doina Rotaru, Johanna Doderer and Gabriele Proy, as well as extensive experience with the music of Kaija Saariaho. Ana's breathtaking musical performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's Suite No. 1 leads the listener through the fantastic, playful, virtuosic and sensual world of modern music like a common thread or a friendly tour guide. Her interpretation lives in its own unique and extraordinary world, satisfying our need to connect the unknown with the known. The familiar sound of the cello shines in surprising ways, and its hidden depths are revealed, bringing its best qualities to the fore.

Every Sunday Telemann had to perform a church cantata and several Passion recitals, as well as one Passion oratorio every year. For the festive season he was required to deliver a composition for each and every holy day. In the 15 years he was there, during which he also directed the opera, he composed about 20 operas, as well as other music for large ensembles. In spite of his immense productivity, the quality of his work remained unaffected, and he was still able to create beautiful gems such as the Moral Cantatas and the solos for baroque flute, violin and viol. The cantatas served the musical cultivation of the Hamburg bourgeoisie and reflected a contemporary concern; the improvement of morals and the search for the joys of life as a consequence of modesty, reason, tolerance and a moral rectitude with regard to other people, in the sense of the philosophy of Enlightenment.

Viktoria Kaunzner writes of her new release: “The release of this album was preceded by 15 years of study, analysis and performance of Medtner’s works for violin. Concerts, whether in Prague, as part of a Medtner lecture evening at the University of the Arts in Berlin, the inaugural gala of the Medtner Society in Seoul and more concerts in Paris. It was here that his music came before me for the first time in a magical moment with my guest family during my Erasmus studies: I shall never forget all the subtropical plants, the enormous library, paintings being created and films we saw together and how amidst all this I suddenly heard songs by Medtner. From that day on, a golden thread of sound wove its way into my memory and would not let me go. My fourth album entitled “EurAsian Gold”, which highlights the music of Medtner, was prepared in exclusive techno-acoustic conditions.“