Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

For more than fifty years Eduard Napravnik conducted at the Imperial Opera in the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. The legendary renown of this theater very much goes back to the Napravnik Era. The Spyros Piano Trio demonstrates on the recording premiere of Napravnik’s two piano trios that the gifted orchestral conductor was also an outstanding composer. It is thus not all that surprising that we frequently encounter operatic elements in Napravnik’s works. Going against the emperor’s predilection for everything Italian, he frequently and fondly included the music of his Russian contemporaries on the program. He conducted the premieres of operas such as Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades and Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. Nevertheless, in his own works one is occasionally reminded of Verdi. The astonishing fact is that Napravnik found any time at all to compose while conducting a total of more than four thousand performances. His quick mind enabled him to conduct the second rehearsal of an opera from memory. It is rumored that the legendary Felix Mottl interrupted a general rehearsal of Wagner’s Tristan prepared by Napravnik after half an hour because after the excellent preparation there was no longer anything left to rehearse. The members of the Spyros Trio, Tatiana Korsunskaya, Bartek Niziol, and Denis Severin, came together by chance to perform chamber music by Louise Adolpha Le Beau. The resultant MDG recording immediately received rave reviews and in 2015 was awarded the coveted ECHO Klassik prize- just the right incentive for closer collaboration and the welcome continuation presented on this recording of works by Napravnik.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Richard Strauss composed a career total of more than two hundred songs, most of them for a high female voice. The master repeatedlyw as inspired by sopranos, and the fact that he married one of these ladies, Pauline de Ahna, is proof of his intimate association with this wonderful art. Maria Bengtsson's fine selection from all his compositional periods demonstrates the versatility of Straussian composition, and in Sarah Tysman she has a piano partner whose subtle interpretations far transcend mere accompaniment. Commenting, illustrating, harmonizing- Strauss indeed assigns very important tasks to the piano. In "Morgen!" it is more the case that the voice accompanies the piano; thunder and storm are experienced in "Schlechtes Wetter"; and in "Standchen" we can even feel the youth's jittery nerves. The writer's shout verging on bitonality at the end of "Fur funfzehn Pfennige" shows what undiscovered possibilities lie in store in traditional harmony; of course, until the end of his long life, Strauss rejected all atonal advances. Maria Bengtsson meets these challenges with the natural magnificence of a virtuoso also schooled on Strauss's theatrical oeuvre. And her teamwork with Sarah Tysman can be experienced in impressive transparency above all in this meticulously produced album.