Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

In 1948 Hanns Eisler returned to Europe from exile in the United States, where he had found refuge from the National Socialist regime. On his return he found hardly any traces of the Germany he had left in 1937 and expressed his feelings of grief and loss in many choice songs – some of which Holger Falk and Steffen Schleiermacher have selected for the enthralling and exemplary program on this second volume of their Eisler edition. These songs lend expression to Eisler’s profound love for Germany- a passion hardly to have been expected from a committed communist. He even calls for praise of Germany in the Neue deutsche Volkslieder to texts by Johannes R. Becher, and employs the folk element to counteract the poet’s tone, which at times exceeds the proper limits of pathos, and produces a tender emotional picture.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Throughout his life, Anton Bruckner was initially highly regarded as an organist. Rudolf Innig demonstrates with a spectacular listening experiment how much the great symphonic composer was also influenced by "his" instrument: Innig transferred early orchestral works by Bruckner to the organ with loving attention to detail. The result: astounding. And equally good. Bruckner was 39 years old when he completed his two-year composition course with Otto Kitzler, ten years younger than him, with some orchestral pieces and a full symphony. The works already show Bruckner's preference for irregular periods, as he also used them in his organ improvisations, and his preference for sequencing rather than complex motivic processing, and the great dynamic developments. Thus the "Three Orchestral Pieces", which use motifs from Beethoven's piano sonatas, among other things, are given the typical Bruckner tone; with a grand gesture, Bruckner avoids the so obvious stylistic copy of the classical model. Extended organ points, also and especially in the G minor overture, do the rest, and in Innig's organ adaptation, the journeyman pieces acquire an astonishingly convincing plausibility. Rudolf Innig chose the Goll organ in the Marktkirche in Hanover for his Bruckner project. The sound of the large four-manual instrument is perfectly adapted to the needs of the 19th century.

A debut could not contain two greater contrasts: Liszt’s inscrutable Sonata in B minor and Schumann’s enchanting Kinderszenen in performances by the young Swiss pianist Joseph-Maurice Weder. A bold program- since recordings of these two works are not in short supply. Weder nonetheless repeatedly discovers new things in these frequently performed works- with important support from the legendary “Manfred Burki” Steinway concert grand piano of 1901, an instrument with a brilliant treble shining its supernatural light over the profound bass. Even though Joseph-Maurice Weder is not yet thirty years old, he can already look back on a distinguished career. The winner of many prizes, he represented his native Switzerland as the “Swiss Ambassador” in Great Britain in 2013 with concerts at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall and in Edinburgh, Belfast, and Cardiff. He has also appeared as a guest at Berlin’s Philharmonic Hall and at Vienna’s Musikverein. His MDG debut of course has been produced with high resolution SACD technology, finely balanced and as always in three dimensions- for true-to-life listening pleasure in the home.

Classical Music

What ensemble could be more predestined for Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano trios than the Vienna Piano Trio? Following its brilliant beginning with the Trios op. 70, this top ensemble from Vienna now presents the magnificent and mighty “Archduke Trio” op. 97 in surprisingly close album association with the standout Trio in C minor from op. 1, a work with trailblazing qualities that immediately caught Joseph Haydn’s attention.

And with a beginning that must have immediately irritated listeners of those times: is that still the introduction or already the theme? Beethoven could have cared less about the convention; the master of motivic elaboration also avails himself of what appears to be material of no great importance and in this way lends each and every note a significance that perhaps will never be deciphered in full. The fact that the trio in Beethoven’s “destiny key” of C minor then also ends in very tender pianissimo, not with a rousing and triumphant stretta, makes this work of his youth really something out of the ordinary.

Beethoven dedicated the Trio op. 97 to his patron and protector Archduke Rudolph of Austria, who was an outstanding pianist in his own right and probably quite often played this large-format work in a private setting. The Archduke was very demanding, and the structure is correspondingly complex – such as, for example, the very unique form of the scherzo, in which the contrasting trio is interwoven with the main part of the scherzo with fine art. The variations in the third movement undergo increasingly intricate development, until in the coda a new motif leads into the very free concluding rondo. The Vienna Piano Trio brings out all these special qualities and does so in inimitable style. From the very start the unison beginning unfolds a suggestive effect. In this three-dimensional format the balanced sound picture develops its full magnificence. His Imperial Majesty certainly would have been impressed!

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REVIEW:

There's a natural ease to their playing that lends everything they touch a high level of authenticity. And we're not talking about getting all the notes right here, but rather the pneuma behind these notes. They perfectly project Beethoven's youthful 'classical' enthusiasm and audacity in the Piano Trio Op. 1, No. 3, as well as his 'romantic' hunger in the slow movement of the Piano Trio Op. 97, a work that holds a certain status within his output.

– Classicsl Music Sentinel (Jean-Yves Duperron)

This enthralling double album brings together opposites that normally would not attract: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's violin sonatas, including the surprisingly original Violin Sonata in F major by the eleven-year-old child prodigy, and Camille Saint-Sa�ns's contribution to the same genre when this composer who had also begun his career as a wunderkind was a mature master. Jean-Jacques Kantorow and Jacques Rouvier very unpretentiously present this carefully preserved treasure from the legendary Denon Archive as that which it is: great music. Saint-Sa�ns deserves substantial credit for enabling chamber music to regain a foothold in France alongside the omnipresent opera. Although the establishment of the Soci�t� Nationale de Musique going along with this process was intended as a demarcation from Germany, the neighboring country also dominant in chamber music, musicians on the other side of the Rhine could not completely ignore it's great models. Brilliant writing style, particularly in the first sonata, is typical of Saint-Sa�ns. At it's premiere this work was enthusiastically received by Marcel Proust (among others), who erected a famous literary monument to the work and it's composer in the person of Vinteuil and his sonata in � la recherche du temps perdu. The potentially notorious "brillante element" may have contributed to the self-critical Mendelssohn's decision not to publish his sonata of 1838. It was first Yehudi Menuhin who rescued the sonata from oblivion, and this work occupies a special place in the composer's oeuvre. The rarely performed sonata clearly paved the way to the magnificent Violin Concerto that was composed a little while later. By contrast, the Sonata in F major from 1820 still clearly has Haydn as it's model, while the vigorous Sonata in F minor by this composer who achieved early perfection continued Beethoven's Sturm und Drang only a few years later.

It is with the legendary recording of Bruckner’s Symphonies Nos. 4 and 7 by the Staatskapelle Dresden under its former principal conductor Herbert Blomstedt that we are now launching a cooperative venture guaranteed to create a sensation. Licensed by Nippon Columbia, MDG will release top-quality recordings from the extensive Denon catalogue. Following this outstanding Japanese label’s decision to focus exclusively on the Asian market, they were no longer available in other parts of the world. As already the first release demonstrates: more great things are yet to come! Bruckner’s Fourth and Seventh number among his most popular symphonies. Wagner is clearly audible as his model, and especially the Fourth, known as the “Romantic Symphony,” delves deeply into the emotional world of earlier days. The famous horn solo at the beginning recalls Wagner’s Lohengrin, though more in its stance than as a quotation. The extremely self-critical Bruckner bequeathed to posterity several versions and reworkings that Leopold Novak first in the 1950s brought into a coherent, playable form for the complete edition of Bruckner’s works. By contrast, things are very different with the Seventh. Already a gigantic success at its premiere, this symphony by exception did not experience any thorough revisions. Block-like, abrupt changes of tone and color recall the manual shifts of a huge organ – which is hardly surprising inasmuch as Bruckner was a highly talented organist. Arthur Nikisch, the conductor of the Leipzig premiere, raved, “Since Beethoven nothing even remotely similar has been written!” The Staatskapelle Dresden was made in musical heaven for Bruckner’s music. Richard Wagner called it his “wonder harp,” and Herbert von Karajan characterized the sound of this oldest orchestra in the world as the “brilliant glow of old gold.” All this and much more is found in Herbert Blomstedt’s interpretation of both symphonies from 1981. And we can look forward with suspense to the continuation!