Classical Music

TELEMANN HIGHLIGHTS

VERDI: String Quartet in E minor / BRITTEN: String Quartet N

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Bach's three sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord (BWV 1027-1029) were written around the year 1740. At those time Bach was Thomaskantor in Leipzig and also director of the Collegium Musicum, a chamber music society. Hille Perl was born in 1965 as daughter of a musicologist and harpsichordist. She studied viola da gamba with some of the leading experts in the field of historically informed performance. For more than 30 years she is travelling around the world, playing concerts and recording albums (more than 25) with different groups or soloizing, mostly in the field of 17th and 18th century music. Michael Behringer, born in 1956, studied church music, harpsichord and organ playing. He is travelling the world extensively, giving concerts with Jordi Savall, Musica Antiqua K�ln, Hesp�rion XX, Freiburger Barockensemble and many more.

The music of Wos (born 1967) is characterized by a romantic atmosphere, with the result that many, especially young artists, feel drawn to his works. However, the composer does not avoid a more radical sound, not even atonality. The works of Lukasz Wos include: Two Flute Concerts, Small Solemn Overture, composed for the opening of the new Kielce Philharmonic, Concerto Estivo for orchestra, 17 Sonatas for various instrumental ensembles, piano, organ and accordion compositions and songs. He also transcribed, rearranged and edited numerous pieces of music. The works are presented here by Krzysztof Kaczka, accompanied by Tatiana Chernichka.

Among Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's last works are quartets for piano, flute and viola, composed in 1788. His reasoning for composing these works is unknown bu tin several respects they represent a climax in chamber writing. Stylistically, they may be seen as an extremely elaborate synthesis of Classical writing and the individual style that caused Bach to be referred to as an original genius even during his lifetime.

Classical Music

Classical Music

The repertoire on this release was chosen intentionally, which would seem to suggest that the young musician has been engaged on a path "per aspera ad astra," from darker realms to brighter pastures. For after the lightless Bogdanović steeped in minor tonalities, Arnold's Fantasy movements already include pure major chords, and even more of them can be found in Khalil's Hommage to Philip Glass, where minor and major thirds steadily alternate with one another, even continuing to resonate in silence after the piece is over. Thus, major prevails over minor, something that is certainly welcime in our increasingly dark times.

The latest release in h�nssler Classic's exciting new series "The Choir Project" takes listeners on a vocal excursion to Denmark. The Girls Choir of Aarhus - or more properly in the Danish tongue, "Aarhus Pigekor", is an ensemble featuring the talents of 35 young singers. Although the choir has been around since the 1940s, it's only been since 2002 that they formally set down their charter and established for themselves the highest standards of musicianship. Since then, the Aarhus Pigekor has performed all over the world, Europe, US, South Africa, China, Argentina and Canada. Their first CD was released in 2008; in 2010 the famous Danish composer Per N�rg�rd composed a new work especially for the choir for them to perform on their international tour called "Singing - Swinging". Naturally, this recording includes some of N�rg�rd's music as well as that of another distinguished collaborator, the jazz pianist and composer S�ren M�ller.

For over 60 years, repeated efforts have been made to capture on sound carriers Robert Schumann's Complete Works for Piano solo, a fascinatingly broad and varied spectrum ranging from highly virtuosic pieces for the concert hall and valuable literature for teaching purposes. This attractive and yet challenging assignment was not always approached with the necessary intellectual rigor, quite apart from any purely artistic shortcomings, and so none of these sets can justly be deemed "complete". Schumann had published a string of works (Impromptus op. 5, Davidsb�ndlert�nze op. 6, Etudes symphoniques op. 13, Concert sans Orchestre or Sonata in F minor op. 14 and Kreisleriana op. 16) in two more or less divergent versions, so that it is highly questionable whether an edition can be labelled "Complete Recordings" if it only contains one of those versions or worse still, makes a misguided attempt to combine two of them. Meanwhile, works that were published at remote locations or remained unpublished, along with fragments that could easily be completed without resorting to audacious speculation, have hitherto been taken into account only in exceptional cases. The first true complete recording of Robert Schumann's works for piano solo on in 15 volumes, played by Florian Uhlig, seeks for the first time to offer imaginative compilations on album (e.g. "Robert Schumann and the Sonata", "The Young Piano Virtuoso", "Schumann in Vienna", "Schumann and Counterpoint", "Variations") containing all original works for pianoforte written between 1830 (Abegg Variations op. 1) and 1854 (Ghost Variations) according to the newest critical editions and/or first editions. Several of these albums include premiere recordings. The booklets by Joachim Draheim, who discovered and/or edited a number of the works, shed light on the biographical and musicological background to the works thus coupled.

Several of Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach´s, (called the “Bückeburg Bach”) liturgical works benefited from choral writing in cantatas, passions and oratorios by his father Johann Sebastian; at times, these even appear in prominent positions, as in the motet on the familiar hymn by Otto Nicolai (1566–1608) “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” (BR-JCFB H 101) with its elaborate counterpoint. The four-part chorale “Gloria sei dir gesungen” at the end of the work is taken from his father’s cantata of the same name (BWV 140). No specific occasion for the motet’s composition is known, and the work can be only approximately dated to the mid-1780s. Many passages written to show off the singer’s virtuosity are in the direct tradition of his father, who often gave his vocal writing an instrumental treatment – in accordance with his conviction that “everything must be possible”. The singers often found that this approach to composition tested them to the limit of their powers. We do not know the extent of Altnickol’s musical output. Very few of his compositions have survived. Apart from some keyboard works, a ricercare and the G minor harpsichord concerto, there are two Sanctus settings, two festival cantatas and the two chorale motets selected for the present recording, “Befiehl du deine Wege” and “Nun danket alle Gott”. Bach had testified to his pupil’s “quite special facility in Composition”. 1749 Altnickol married Bach´s daughter Elisabeth Juliane Friederica.