After her triumphant Schumann recording, rising violin star Lena Neudauer returns to tackle the incredibly demanding violin works of Maurice Ravel. Accompanied by Paul Rivinius on piano and alongside guest cellist Julian Steckel, Neudauer presents rare and popular works alike, creating a true image of a master.

Classical Music

After “Songs of Yearning" (HC16080), the current “Invitation au Voyage” is the second album with Thomas Wise and Baritone Giorgos Kanaris to be published by Hänssler Classic. Giorgos Kanaris is a recitalist as well as an opera singer. Together with the conductor and pianist Thomas Wise he has given numerous recitals with works including Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Liederkreis, Schubert’s Schwanengesang, Winterreise and Die schöne Müllerin, Ravel’s Don Quichotte à Dulcinée and songs by Richard Strauss and Hans Pfitzner.

The sonatas on this album (except K311, this sonata was written in Mannheim) were composed in Munich as part of a cycle encompassing six sonatas. Mozart found himself in the Bavarian capital over the winter of 1774-1775 to produce his opera La finta giardiniera. The degree of imagination that Mozart, as a youth of 18 or 19, drew upon in his approach to the sonata genre is truly astounding. Each of these works - which based on their extensive virtuoso demands were presumably written for his own use - offers an individual and profoundly original solution to the specific problems of the genre, and if the young composer perhaps lacks something in his mastery of the form compared with his later works, it is well compensated for by his sheer wealth of imagination. What is more, we read in Mozart's correspondence that he repeatedly performed the works himself from memory, which was not a given in those days.

Her playing may aptly be described as emotional and intense. Displaying “amazing expressiveness and brilliance” (Westfalenpost) and “an empathy that touches one deep inside” (Märkische Allgemeine), Gerlint Böttcher fascinates her audiences in Europe, Asia, America and the Middle East. She makes solo appearances with such celebrated orchestras as Berlin’s Konzerthaus Orchestra, the South-West German Chamber Orchestra of Pforzheim, the Berlin Symphony, the Ryazan Philharmonic in Russia, the Philharmonic State Orchestra in Halle and the Brandenburg State Orchestra of Frankfurt an der Oder under such conductors as Sergey Oselkov, Heribert Beissel, Timo Handschuh and Nicholas Milton. The pianist is a regular performer at major festivals; in cooperation with the Bayreuth Festival, she has repeatedly played at Haus Wahnfried in Bayreuth. Many of the compositions that she has premiered were written expressly for her by composers of the first rank. Alongside the solo repertoire, which takes first place in her artistic life, she takes part in programmes of genuine rarities together with such partners as Echo Klassik prizewinners Bassiona Amorosa and actor Hans-Jürgen Schatz.

The artists write: “On this recording, we open up the complete original music set for the voice in Franz Schubert’s “Winter Journey” to the two wind instruments oboe and bassoon. We play Winterreise from an inner conviction – it draws us in and will not let us go. After we had played some of these Lieder at home for the first time, we could not resist them. We were seized by the ambition to arrange this setting with oboe, bassoon and piano, and make it as intensive and expressive a version of Winterreise as we could. We set out to show that the two instruments breathe, even sing, just as naturally as the human voice. The poetry of Wilhelm Müller should on no account be dismissed or disregarded for that reason. On the contrary, we rely on the subconscious recall of the sung words – by us and by our listeners – in order to bring out convincingly in instrumental sound the ideas inseparably associated by Franz Schubert with Wilhelm Müller’s poetic narrative. We were carried away by the euphoria of making this music, by the gloomy, despairing mood full of yearning and desire. Where such an emotional journey can lead is evident only when one has lived it every step of the way. We all belong to one family and yet in the past we had very little opportunity to make music together. Each one of us was harnessed to their own career path and it was seldom possible for us to come together as a group. The worldwide Corona crisis has suddenly jerked us to a kind of “emergency stop”. That has allowed us to grow together again as a family, not just physically but artistically too.”

As we reflect on Johann Sebastian Bach and his sons, we are all too likely to overlook the fact that there were six sons from two marriages who “inclined towards Music”. True, Maria Barbara’s third son Johann Gottfried Bernhard, born in Weimar in 1715, more or less disappeared from view in 1737, and it is plain that Anna Magdalena’s first son Gottfried Heinrich, born in 1724, was mentally handicapped: “A great Genius, which however was never developed,” wrote his half-brother Carl Philipp Emanuel in the family chronicle. For thirty years, making and writing music, he had been the musical front-runner in Saxony and Thuringia: the vanguard was located wherever he was, in his hands and at his writing-desk. Increasingly, twenty-year-olds and a few late starters in their thirties were coming on to the market and showing Bach a new way forward: the galant style, spreading north from Naples ever since 1715, and the flamboyant, ever more richly ornamented music of the late Baroque, constantly threatening to break down under the weight of emblematic connotation and religious symbolism, in contrast to that simpler form, written by mortals for mortals, distinguished by its slow, easily comprehensible harmony and its truly singable melodies in what was at most an expanded two-part structure.

Hamburger Ratsmusik: an ensemble with a 500-year-old history. This contrast prompts a creative dialogue between tradition and the present day, about Early Music and vivid interpretation. The origins of Hamburg‘s “municipal music” go back to the 16th century. Under the motto “in praise of God and for the pleasure, delight and edification of Hamburg”, the city created an elite ensemble of eight city musicians, which was to be the equal of the princely court ensembles (Hofkapellen) to be found elsewhere. The Ratsmusik attained early excellence in the 17th and 18th centuries under such eminent musicians as William Brade, Johann Schop, Georg Philipp Telemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Revived in 1991 by gambist Simone Eckert, the ensemble now performs in Germany, many European countries, the USA and China. More than 30 albums (largely with world premiere recordings of Early Music) and recordings for all German public radio stations and Austrian broadcaster ORF document its rediscoveries of music from the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. The ensemble received the Echo Klassik award in 2006 and 2010, and was awarded the 2016 RITTER Prize by the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation in Hamburg. The musicians will be responding to renewed invitations to China in 2021. Hamburger Ratsmusik is the Ensemble in Residence in the Komponisten-Quartier museum complex in Hamburg.

CHRISTMAS MUSIC FOR BRASS AND ORGAN: Great Joy, Vol. 2

Classical Music

Classical Music

For the ninth installment in haenssler CLASSIC's new budget series "Premium Composers", we've assembled a collection of Beethoven's most beautiful and popular piano sonatas. Included is the timeless "Moonlight" Sonata, the "Pathetique" and the witty "Les Adieux". This collection is an exceptional value, making available selections from Gerhard Oppitz's critically acclaimed complete edition at a budget price for the very first time.

“The pupil Beethoven was here!” – the young piano virtuoso Ignaz Moscheles caught sight of this sentence in block letters on a note in the house of his teacher Antonio Salieri, Kapellmeister to the Viennese court. “A man like Beethoven still has something to learn from somebody like Salieri? How much more do I!” thought the fourteen-year-old acolyte of the arts and ardent admirer of Beethoven. It is indeed noteworthy that Beethoven, who by 1808 was already widely acknowledged as a genius, was still ready to take advice from Salieri. The two musicians must first have met in the mid-1790s; Beethoven made his first appearance as a soloist in Vienna in March 1795 with a piano concerto of his own that Salieri conducted. He was already known as a virtuoso and instrumental composer, but had yet to make his mark in the prestigious genre of opera. Beethoven began at that time to pursue his goal of employment in the operatic sphere and was evidently aware of his relative lack of experience in the field of vocal music. Salieri for his part was Vienna’s unchallenged authority on the subject and had been so for decades. The sociable and well connected maestro never charged his students, and Beethoven made good use of the offer of free lessons over the years. He thanked Salieri for his generosity by dedicating his op. 12 Violin Sonatas to him and by composing a set of variations on a Duettino from Salieri’s opera Falstaff ossia Le tre burle.

This album of Bach transcriptions for piano is the fifth recording of its kind featuring the pianist Angelika Nebel. This recording of twelve transcriptions is the second of two releases that will collectively run through each and every key in the same pattern as The Well Tempered Clavier and thus form a kind of opus magnum. The artist once again presents transcriptions by arrangers from Germany and elsewhere. This is Nebel’s way of paying a global tribute to the great Thomaskantor. The German pianist, Angelika Nebel, studied at the colleges of music in Stuttgart and Hannover, where she was educated by the famous teachers Jürgen Uhde and Hans Leygraf and finished her studies with the concert examination. Angelika Nebel's repertoire includes pieces of solo-, chamber music and Orchestra music from the 18th to the 21st century, which she presented as a guest at several festivals: Alte Oper Frankfurt, Schumann-Festival Düsseldorf, Semperoper Dresden, Darmstädter Tage for contemporary music and monastery San Domenic, Pistoia, Italy. She has given concerts in different European countries as well as in South-Korea. She also performs regularly with her chamber music partner delian::quartet.

“These are special performances and as a group make a highly effective addition to Jean Muller’s intended Mozart cycle. I hope that the next volume will not be delayed too long. I found the disc a sheer joy from start to finish and I hope others do too.“ (MusicWeb International) The present release is the third volume in pianist Jean Muller’s Mozart Piano Concerto project, and features the Sonatas Nos. 10, 2, 8, and 16. Muller has performed Mozart’s complete piano sonatas in concerts across the globe, on stages like the Shanghai Oriental Art Center in 2016 and the Salle Cortot in Paris in 2018/2019. He receives outstanding reviews from the industry’s leading media (BBC Music Magazine, Classica, Concertclassic, Diapason, Fanfare, Fono Forum, Gramophone, International Piano, Pizzicato, ResMusica, Stereoplay etc.) and has been a featured cover artist for International Piano Magazine. His recordings are regularly broadcasted around the globe, and he has on several occasions had the opportunity to perform live on the famous program InTune on BBC Radio 3.

“Gift Voucher: six Suites for Slava” This note, scribbled on a paper napkin was a promise supposedly made in 1964 by Benjamin Britten to the cellist Mstislav Leopoldovich “Slava” Rostropovich. It would appear that he wanted to compose for his friend a contemporary counterpart to Bach’s Solo Suites, which for any cellist are a sort of Old Testament in the cello repertoire. Britten took Baroque dance movements as a model and formed them into modern character pieces. Both from the point of view of form and tone, they exude a kinship and affinity with Johann Sebastian Bach. The fact that he actually only composed three suites was due to Britten’s poor health and his death not long afterwards. Britten’s encounter with Mstislav Rostropovich was the motive and inspiration for his cello works: they had met in the early 1960s through Dmitry Shostakovich at a performance by Rostropovich of the Soviet composer’s First Cello Concerto. Shostakovich is said to have complained after the concert of bruised ribs because during the concert Britten had often jabbed him in the ribs out of pure enthusiasm for the music. That enthusiasm led Benjamin Britten to dedicate his cello suites to the exceptional cellist. (Jakob Spahn)

"This is a thrilling performance, which, like the Tchaikovsky Symphony, shows the indisputably high level of the Stuttgart Philharmonic." (Pizzicato LU) “The Stuttgart Philharmonic, founded in 1924, is in its 6th year under the busy Israeli conductor Dan Ettinger. His regular work at almost all of the leading opera houses in the world makes his approach to the melodies of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff just about perfect." (American Record Guide) The present album is a showstopping production of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony paired with Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. The featured soloist in the concerto is Alexander Korsantia, one of the leading pianists of our time. He has been praised for “piano technique where difficulties simply do not exist.” (Calgary Sun). His recordings of works by Beethoven, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, and Copland have won multiple awards.

With 3600 works to his credit, Georg Philipp Telemann is rightly regarded as of one of the most prolific composers of all time. This superlative however has brought him less honor than one may have hoped, because with so many works came the suspicion that quality may have been sacrificed in the process, a view that prevailed especially throughout the 19th century. As a result, the objective study of Telemann and his protean work only began in earnest in the late 20th century, resulting in many discoveries and first performances that show the seriousness and depth of the composer's genius. The present CD features a trio of cantatas from the so-called "Engel-Jahrgang" (lit. "Angel cycle" named for the image of an angel that appears on the cover of the printed scores) dating from 1748/49. In these works, Telemann has already begun to explore the Rococo style, which had just begun to take root and demonstrates his compositional skill and originality at every turn. Three festive cantatas ring out in glorious tones: "Der Herr lebet" for the first day of Easter, "Ehr und Dank sey Dir gesungen" for the Feast of St, Michael and "Der Geist giebt Zeugnis" for the Day of Pentecost. The Bach-Chor Siegen, the Hannoversche Hofkapelle, singers Miriam Feuersinger, Franz Vitzthum and Klaus Mertens and director Ulrich St�tzel are in their element with Telemann - having previously released several Telemann albums with h�nssler CLASSIC - and present another installment of enchanting and accomplished performances of rarely heard music from one of the greatest masters of the Baroque.

Joseph Haydn is regarded as the "father of the symphony" and the "father of the string quartet" for his more than 100 symphonies and almost 70 string quartets. Haydn also produced numerous operas, masses, concertos, piano sonatas and other compositions. His oratorios The Creation and The Seasons, both composed in the last decade of Haydn’s active compositional life, are his most widely known and admired choral compositions today, just as they were in his lifetime. Recordings from some of Haydn’s most formidable interpreters are showcased on this extensive release, including the Bach Collegium Stuttgart, Kammerchor Stuttgart, Helmuth Rilling, and more.

REVIEW:

For this set Hänssler have grouped together three major choral works of Haydn from their back catalogue of the many recordings made by the noted German choral conductor Helmuth Rilling. Rilling was the founder of The Oregon Bach Festival, and such musical ensembles as the Gächinger Kantorei and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, both of whom appear on these recordings. As filler, some works recorded by the lesser-known Frieder Bernius have also been included.

The first two discs contain Rilling’s 1993 Die Schöpfung. With Rilling this great work proceeds naturally with no hint of forcing the music to wring more drama out of it. He provides tempi that are very solicitous towards his singers. His approach presents the work with a more smiling aspect than one usually encounters. In this aspect Rilling comes closer than anyone else to Leonard Bernstein’s earlier recording of the work with the New York Philharmonic. Rilling’s soloists are a fine team topped by Christiane Schäfer’s exquisitely shapely tones. She makes a lively Gabriel, molding the lines of her recitatives with grace. She provides a heavenly account of “Nun beut die flur” and manages to avoid sounding tweety in the process. Michael Schade is a sunny-sounding Uriel, as he was in the John Eliot Gardiner recording two years later. He is especially good at enunciating his text and producing his sound to evolve from the words, a rare achievement these days. His coloratura is perfectly executed, which makes me place him among the most successful portrayals of Uriel in the catalogue. Andreas Schmidt is a fine Rapaehel. His voice sounds warm and pleasing, yet he suffuses his music with sufficient gravitas for an ideal balance. He manages the awkward intervals of “Rollend in schäumenden” with ease. The choir and orchestra play splendidly and there is a decent sense of ambience to the recording.

The fifth disc brings the oratorio version of The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross. Maestro Rilling is definitely back on best form here and he leads a really good team of soloists. The disc is rounded off by two shorter items as filler, which proved to be among the real highlights of the set. Both the Responsoria de Venerabili and the Ave Regina Coelorum are bright and fresh-sounding, led by the sure hand of the accomplished Frieder Bernius. The Württemberg ensemble is wonderfully responsive to his lead with a standout solo by Inga Nielsen in the Ave Regina. Nielsen was still in the coloratura phase of her career when this was recorded and her voice exhibits a glow that would lessen as she started heading into more dramatic roles a few years later. This is a superb example of her voice at its zenith. Hearing it makes me want to search out a copy of the Nelson Mass which accompanied these two works on its original release.

--MusicWeb International

The friendship between Mátyás Seiber and Antal Doráti dates back to their youth, when they were the two youngest students in Zoltán Kodály's composition class in Budapest in the 1920s. Doráti was one year younger than Seiber and held him in high esteem from the beginning. In the memoirs, Így láttuk Kodályt [‘Thus We Saw Kodály’], he writes the following: "The two 'best' were Mátyás Seiber and Lajos Bárdos. Matyi [Mátyás] wrote a great string quartet at the time, which has survived. One of our tasks was to write variations on a Handel theme. In response to one of Seiber's slow-tempo variations, Mr Kodály said: 'That's nice'. In our eyes - at least in my eyes - that was the canonization of Matyi."

Bach’s partitas BWV 825-830 are a set of six harpsichord suites that became well-known as “Clavier-Übung I”, published in 1731. They are the last set of suites that Bach composed, and the most demanding, compared with the French and the English Suites. Trevor Pinnock, born in 1946, is a famous British harpsichordist and conductor. He is one of the pioneers of the modern revival of early music performance, founding The English Concert in 1972 and the European Brandenburg Ensemble in 2006. He appears as a guest conductor with many of the world's leading symphony orchestras as well as giving solo harpsichord and chamber music recitals worldwide. Apart from his concert activities he is now focusing on teaching and giving masterclasses.

An imaginative player offers an outstanding reading of the violin's 'old testament'

Christian Tetzlaff, always one of the most thoughtful, imaginative violinists, has obviously found Bach’s solo works a stimulating and rewarding challenge. Technically, he’s most impressive: using a modern bow, he can achieve, with each phrase, the kind of subtle give and take that’s normally the preserve of the best Baroque violinists. His chord playing, too, shows wonderful control; in the more densely polyphonic pieces – the Chaconne and the fugues in the three sonatas – it seems there’s often little choice between aggressive accentuation and rhythmic distortion caused by spreading the chords. Tetzlaff, however, manages to avoid both pitfalls, with varied arpeggiation that never fails to take account of the music’s rhythmic requirements.

The performances have a remarkable air of spontaneity, the result of a pervasive rubato especially notable in the ornamented opening movements of the first two sonatas, and in the freer sections of the Chaconne. There’s a sense of line and balance that ensures that each departure from metronomic regularity sounds entirely natural, unlocking the music’s expressive potential. I felt this even when, in a few movements in the partitas, the dance character suggests a more regular, metrical pulse. Apart from this, it’s notable how Tetzlaff realises the virtuosity of Bach’s violin writing – the moto perpetuo finales of the sonatas sound truly thrilling, full of temperament and fire. Even if you’ve fallen for Julia Fischer’s beautifully stylish, polished accounts, or the expressive richness of Richard Tognetti’s gut-strung Guadagnini, I’d urge you to investigate this outstanding set.

-- Duncan Druce, Gramophone [8/2007]

BACH, J.S.: St. John Passion, BWV 245 (Highlights)

With vol. 8, pianist Florian Uhlig reaches the midway point of his widely acclaimed, much admired first truly integral Schumann recording project. - This new CD deals with the dual nature of the composer and writer, finding it's finest expression in the David's b�ndlert�nze (1st version, op. 6). - The typical romantic play of rubrics, musical ciphers and pseudonyms can also be found in the Carnival, op. 9. - Additionally, Mr. Uhlig has collected some related miniatures that Schumann either rejected or were never included in subsequent printed editions, at least three being world premiere recordings.

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.