Duo Compagni, comprising of tuba and piano, was established during the course of this CD production and has been touring internationally ever since. The duo performs new compositions and arrangements of works from all over the world. Their focus is on sound design and the musical joy of playing, which unites the pianist Susanne Endres and myself as solo tuba players. The tuba is no longer to be underestimated as a solo instrument. This has also been recognised by the German State Music Councils, who have named the tuba as the instrument of the year 2024, a fact that also inspired me to use this as an opportunity to produce this CD. (Siegfried Jung)

Marc-Antoine Charpentier is unquestionably the greatest master of church music in 17th century France.
Two of his most important works are expanded in this recording with organ interludes from organ masses by François Couperin.

For all its traditional ties, Stravinsky's music continues to have a shockingly modern effect on many listeners even today. In his music, praise of God is formulated in tones entirely different from those expected by music lovers schooled in the romantic tradition. Stravinsky did not compose "emotional" or "expressive" religious music but sought objectivity, archaic prototypes, and traditions of timeless value, presenting these elements as if under microscopic enlargement.

Constantinescu stands out among the composers who followed George Enescu into the Romanian musical limelight during the first half of the 20th century. On the one hand, through his diverse oeuvre, which encompasses almost all of the genres from chamber music to film music, and on the other hand, through his own musical language, consisting of great color and harmonic variety. Skilfully adapted ecclesiastic Byzantine modes and chants, modal scales, and the authentic and fascinating melodies of Romanian folk music merge within Constantinescu's oeuvre, which stands balanced somewhere between Western tradition and a national musical idiom.

American Chamber Music

John D. Gottsch (*1950) was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and shortly afterward his family moved to Florida. He spent his youth in the lake country of Florida, swimming with alligators and always looking down when in woods or a swamp to avoid rattlesnakes and water moccasins. He traveled many of the rivers of the state which would begin in the back country and eventually empty into the Gulf or the Atlantic. These explorations of Florida gave him an enduring love for the beauty and wildlife of the state. Gottsch now splits his time between Baltimore and Key West. He has been a lifelong composer, and his compositions reflect his deep appreciation of the outdoors.

Although few of Eduard Erdmann’s Lieder from the years up to 1918 were published, they occupy an important place in the public perception of the young composer. The influence on the impulsive young composer of his role models Schumann and Brahms, Hugo Wolf and Richard Strauss, cannot be denied – and yet his songs also point to something new. It is to be regretted that a number of Erdmann’s early Lieder, quoted in an undated handwritten list (“12 Lieder by various authors”), have been lost or destroyed.

The music critic Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt, who addressed himself in his essay “Neue Lieder” (Melos 1/1920) to the art-song repertoire of his time, observed that since Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder it had seemed almost impossible to write anything singable. There are accordingly few composers whose Lieder Stuckenschmidt recognizes as sufficiently distinctive to earn praise in his article: these are the fifteen Schoenberg songs from Stefan George’s “Buch der hängenden Gärten” (op. 15), the four Lieder op. 2 by Alban Berg, and works by Karl Horwitz, Karol Szymanowski, Manfred Gurlitt – and Eduard Erdmann.

The Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart is performing all these cantatas in chronological order exactly 300 years later. The 23 concerts in all are taking place in and around Stuttgart; the refined live recordings are being released in this CD series on the Hänssler Classic label. The performances follow the latest state of Bach research documented in the new 2022 catalogue of Bach’s works BWV 3.

The ensemble of the Bachakademie, the Gaechinger Cantorey, plays under the direction of Hans-Christoph Rademann. For this purpose it comprises the instrumentalists and up to four vocalists per voice, including the soloists (details on the performers via QRCode), all specialists in their field, as Bach himself wished it. This is a vision that only now can be fulfilled in its ideal form. To this day the music will inspire its audience to devotion, challenge them to reflect and make them glad. It addresses questions of faith and comes to terms with particular situations of human life.

What do you associate with the term “reflection”? Do you think of the physical phenomena in the “rebound” of light, sound, and warmth, or do you define the word as a psychological process of mental consideration and critical review? Kathrin Inbal-Bogensberger and Tatiana Liakh take inspiration from the reflective observation of a musical work’s structure and genesis and from biographical features of its composer’s life. At the same time, the physical aspects of reflection are important to the work’s exponents if the acoustics of the performance venue are to bring out the full effect of a composition. Notably, the mirror image or inversion as a fully developed form of reflection is a frequently employed musical technique at all periods. The space of time in which this recording was made was shaped by the continuing Covid pandemic and the early stages of the Ukraine war and demanded self-reflective qualities of its performers in their identity as interpretative artists. The two artists accordingly saw the title of the recording, “Reflections,” as a guiding thread governing the players of the works, the works themselves, and the works’ composers.

Rudolf Moser composed works across a wide range of genres for a variety of instrumentation. He was particularly interested in historical musical styles and borrowed forms and phrases, ecclesiastical compositional modes, and historical instrumentation from the past. This CD focuses on Moser's orchestral music. The compilation of works from his middle and late periods reveals a mature artist who has found his style.

Discovery: In 1870, Marie Jaëll takes composition lessons with César Franck and Camille Saint-Saëns at the Paris Conservatoire. Franz Liszt became her advisor and supporter. He publishes her works and plays them in concert, writing: "A man's name above her music, and she would be on all pianos".

Music and lyrics by women and men. It is only natural that the spirit of the Romantic era should embrace, envelop and encircle the male and female composers and lyricists on this album in their depiction of wistful longing – the omnipresent theme of the era. But this is not the only point of reference behind this concept. The deeper one delves into the life stories and works of these artists, the more complex and far-reaching the network of associations proves to be.

“In Relation” is an invitation to plunge into the associative field of 19th-century words and music and it shows that the connexions between the two arts and their male and female practitioners were more extensive than one might imagine.

This CD - significantly only the second CD dedicated exclusively to von Zieritz - presents a longitudinal section of her oeuvre. It begins with the Japanese Songs, written in 1919, here in the version for soprano and chamber orchestra from the 1980s. The centrepiece is Le Violon de la Mort, composed in 1953 for violin and piano and arranged for violin, piano and orchestra in 1957, as well as the trumpet double concerto of 1975, the final piece and, as it were, a satyr play. Like Hans Bethge's collection Die chinesische Flöte (The Chinese Flute) from 1907, the poetic model of the Japanese Songs belongs to the context of interest in exotic art of the fin de siècle. Gustav Mahler made Bethge's poems the basis for a large symphonic work; Grete von Zieritz took the opposite approach with the Japanese Songs. These are a kaleidoscopic sequence of the briefest miniatures. It would hardly be possible to do otherwise, since the Japanese models are not song texts in the European sense, but poetically condensed sayings that defy conventional song settings. Aphoristic brevity was the order of the day.

"I sense a deep humanity in Dvorák's music. He was a great master of orchestration, and he composed unusually beautiful melodies and harmonies. But at the forefront he always presents honesty and generosity. And when we listen to this music, this penetrates deep into our hearts. I consider Dvorák's Violin Concerto to be unique, and it occupies a very special place among all of the violin concertos of this period. Behind its creation lies a very unusual story. The composition dates back to 1879, but its premiere did not take place until 1883, exactly four years later. The reason for this was that the concerto was dedicated to Joseph Joachim, who repeatedly requested a number of changes in the piece. The story subsequently ended in such a way that Joachim, despite the changes and his years of collaboration with Dvorák, ignored the piece when it was completed, leaving it to be premiered instead by Czech violinist František Ondrícek."
-Mikhail Pochekin

With BENJAMIN, Peter Ruzicka presents his own subjective, musical"reenactment" of Benjamin's thoughts and life. A narrative unfolds in seven stages which reflects Walter Benjamin's flight in suggestive images in which dream sequences and reality interweave. Benjamin's encounters with Hannah Arendt, Bertolt Brecht, Gershom Scholem and Asya Lacis - the woman who tried to persuade him for many years to embrace historical materialism - became the cornerstones of this rhetorical arc."These stages", says Ruzicka,"may represent a unique life story in the 20th century, whereby in view of the devastation of that century, it is inevitable that the wounds that are thought to have healed are made to bleed again".

Inspired by Franz Schubert's late lieder compositions and works by Johannes Brahms, among others, in which voice and piano are enhanced by another melody instrument, we have taken a completely new approach to our lieder recital repertoire. The result can now be heard on this CD: Songs of the Romantic period, freshly arranged for soprano, violoncello and piano.
In art songs, as in chamber music in general, there are often concealed lines within the piano movements which gain greatly in expression through the accompaniment of a solo instrument. For this reason, we feel that our combination of voice, piano and melody instrument is particularly effective and has an enriching effect on the listening experience of the art songs presented here. The contrasting registers of soprano and cello complement both the music and the substance of the text from different angles, the timbre of the cello being ideal for the hues and shades of these songs as its solo role augments these delicate arrangements. The work"Auf dem Strom" by Franz Schubert - also on this CD - is one of the best-known original compositions of this genre.