He loved to improvise on the organ, which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart considered "the king of instruments". It is all the more astonishing that only a few " genuine" organ compositions found their way into his catalogue of works. For his latest production, Christoph Schoener combines obvious and surprising arrangements with Mozart's original works. The new Wegscheider organ in St. Jakobi in Stralsund proves to be the ideal instrument in his respectful reference to the masters of the 18th century. The Stralsund organ has had a checkered history: the magnificent case has always fascinated art-loving visitors from all over the world, but for a long time the organ work behind it did not live up to its visual pretensions. The first instrument soon fell into disrepair due to inferior workmanship, and later alterations and extensions tended to worsen the condition and threatened to destroy the ornate carving through overloading. It was not until Kristian Wegscheider completed a new building in 2020 that the ornate exterior was matched by an adequate interior. Schoener knows how to make the most of this: Be it for Mozart's original works, which were mostly composed for a self-playing instrument, or be it for the transcriptions, from the "Magic Flute" and the "Figaro" to piano works such as the popular Variations on "Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman". Even Franz Liszt, who is extremely knowledgeable about the organ, is among the arrangers ("Ave verum corpus") - if that's not incentive enough!

And another exciting debut on MDG: Caterva musica has committed itself entirely to early music. What makes it special: Each member is a gifted soloist, but knows how to fit into the accompanying orchestra when needed. Five remarkable solo concertos of the 18th century show once the stupendous virtuosity of the individual, but also but also the harmonically colorfully coordinated ensemble performance of the top-class group.

It is the otherwise little-noticed instruments that stand out soloistically on this first set: Graun's Viola Concerto presents the viola both cantabile-sonorous and surprisingly virtuosic in the lively final movement; Johann Joachim Quantz's Horn Concerto is scored in the astonishing key of D-sharp major; Molter's Sinfonia gives the timpani, of all things, an almost concertante solo part – above which the trumpets blossom splendidly. The Cello Concerto by the today almost unknown Nicola Fiorenza effectively combines the Neapolitan stile antico with breakneck acrobatics. In doing so, Fiorenza blithely plays with the expectations of the audience, which gets its money's worth, not least with Vivaldi's Concerto for alto recorder with lively trills and fragrant garlands.

With Caterva musica, all of this comes across as immensely fresh and unspent, and the unbridled joy of music-making is immediately transferred to the listeners. The natural recording technique has its share in this: unfiltered and if necessary in 3D - so this baroque bouquet of flowers is delivered as a sounding business card with unclouded listening pleasure!

In the best Bohemian-Jewish virtuoso tradition, Hans Seeling traveled through the salons and concert halls of Europe in the mid-19th century. As the cover suggests, he also stayed for some time in Venice before succumbing far too early to the effects of a lung ailment in his hometown of Prague. From the highly interesting compositional legacy of the piano virtuoso, Karl-Andreas Kolly has now made a remarkable selection that sheds illuminating light on a corner of Romantic piano music that has hitherto been completely in the dark.

Very little is known about Seeling's life, even about his piano teachers. His music, however, reveals role models: His etudes reveal immediate affinities with Chopin; even the melancholy character of the Barcarole recalls one or another of the great Pole's mazurkas. Now and then one finds echoes of Schumann or the other great virtuosos of his time, from Moscheles to Henselt. At the same time, Seeling draws on wide-stretched melodic arcs of almost vocal quality. Especially the "Schilflieder" after Lenau's poems, which were extremely popular at that time, almost immediately invite to sing along. And even the etudes break away from technical exercises to become extremely distinctive character pieces. "Memoirs of an Artist" is the title of Seeling's op. 13, which he put to paper on his deathbed, following the testimony of a friend. The composer is silent about programmatic details; only the last two pieces, with their titles "Marche funèbre" and "Apotheose," may point to a biographical relationship. It is fascinating how Seling understands how to take the listener directly with him on his life's journey: A sounding vita, which was snatched from oblivion by Karl-Andreas Kolly in the most loving way and with almost casual virtuosic elegance.

The song oeuvre of Darius Milhaud is almost unmanageable. Holger Falk and Steffen Schleiermacher approach this huge convolute with a first selection that already shows the entire breadth of Milhaud's compositions - from humorous cabaret pieces to serious songs, from extended cycles to occasional works "thrown down" with a nimble hand. Throughout his long life, Milhaud remained faithful to tonality. He followed atonality and twelve-tone music of his contemporaries with interest, without ever applying it even on a trial basis. Nevertheless, the simultaneous sounding of different tonalities became almost a trademark of Milhaud - along with his preference for exciting borrowings from distant peoples and exotic rhythms. The "Vocalise-Étude" in 5/8 time sounds more like a South American dance than a vocal exercise; "Dans les Rues de Rio" contains a variety of acoustic memories of a stay in Brazil's capital; the "Soirées de Pétrograd", based on recordings by Russian emigrants, seems almost cartoonish-cabaret-like. And the text is always in the foreground. Milhaud leads the words with his music to a new sphere - to be observed especially well in the "Poèmes juifs". Holger Falk, with his highly flexible voice, knows excellently how to shape this expansion of meaning, and he is supported by Steffen Schleiermacher, who is as sensitive to sound as he is expressive on the contemporary Steinway.

Hardly understandable: Joseph Haydn is still one of the most underrated composers of the classical era. With these four sonatas, Christian Zacharias presents a very individually designed solo album. The works from Haydn's "middle" creative period were written at the Esterhazy court and surprise us with their generous freedom of form, which Zacharias knows how to develop beautifully. There was no fixed scheme for the form of the sonata in Haydn's time. And so even the outer structure is very different: Two or three movements, sometimes a cycle of variations at the beginning, major and minor keys in surprising alternation - Haydn does not impose any constraints on himself, and so a kind of intelligent monologue emerges, which lives from the entertaining alternation of aphoristic ideas. Absolutely fascinating, how Haydn, who is always up for a joke, flashes up again and again... With Christian Zacharias, this manifold richness is in the best hands. Singing legato, delicate intonation and phrasing of convincing naturalness allow the audience to share in the master's ideas; Zacharias' recital takes the listener on a journey that awakens astonishing associations and hidden emotions - and should never end. The natural sound reproduction in three-dimensional 2+2+2 Recording on high-resolution Super Audio album does its part to make one forget the sophisticated technology behind a striking matter-of-factness. It is almost unbelievable what sounds Christian Zacharias is able to conjure out of the modern Steinway "Manfred Bürki" from 1901.

Fernando Sor is probably only known to guitar enthusiasts today. The fact that his extensive oeuvre is hardly known beyond the etudes probably has to do with his renunciation of outward virtuosity while at the same time maintaining the highest technical standards. It takes a master like Frank Bungarten to lend glowing expressivity and delicate elegance to works that at first sight seem brittle. Sor does not make it easy for guitarists: where his contemporaries increasingly produce pleasing salon pieces or shine with virtuoso bravura, he writes sonatas of enormous scope, and instead of at least delivering a rousing finale, he ends with an almost timid minuet. For the listener, many of the smaller pieces seem simple and unpretentious - at least when Frank Bungarten makes us forget the enormous difficulties.

Sor explores the expressive possibilities of the guitar in uncompromising depth, especially the cantabile playing and the complexity of the movement are unparalleled. Exceedingly comprehensively educated, he seeks to make the limitations of the instrument forgotten. His ambition to succeed as an opera composer remained unfulfilled - so the everyday dramas take place in the small forms... This is not for the large concert hall, where one hardly ever encounters Sor's works. In the intimate atmosphere of the salon or the living room at home, however, a universe of dreamlike nuances of musical expression opens up to the attentive listener. The finely balanced recording technique never pushes itself into the foreground and allows a deep immersion in this world of sound, which begins to sparkle particularly attractively in the three-dimensional reproduction.

Tradition and progress - this is how Joachim Raff himself characterized his compositions, with which he was caught between all stools in his time. On the occasion of the 200th birthday of the composer, who is today unjustly almost completely forgotten, the Leipzig String Quartet presents his string octet, which follows this principle in an exemplary manner. With the Fantasy op. 207b for piano quintet and two surprisingly original encores, the growing Raff fan community can look forward to a special birthday present, world premieres included. On the face of it, the octet is based on the classical four-movement form. It goes without saying that this would have offended the "New German Composers". Harmonically, however, Raff is completely with the modernizers around Wagner and Liszt - already the beginning of the first movement shows bold turns, and the extended slow movement can't get out of the rapturous indulgence... For the Fantasy, of which there was originally a version for two pianos, the Leipzigers can be assured of Rudolph Meister's participation. The accomplished pianist shines already at the virtuoso beginning, whose rushing cascades accompany the palatable string singing. In the Larghetto section, the quartet and piano then find an extremely harmonious cooperation, and in a finely crafted play with the expectations of the audience, the quintet storms to a furious conclusion. The two encores are a real rarity: Under the name of Joseph Küffner, an immensely popular arranger at the time, though already deceased, Schott-Verlag for a short time published arrangements of popular operas from Raff's pen. Primarius Stefan Arzberger and Rudolph Meister can clearly hear the pleasure in Verdi's evergreens "Il Trovatore" and "Rigoletto" - bel canto melting at its best!

Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" is one of the greatest evergreens of all time. The sound painting of the Venetian violin virtuoso simply casts a spell over everyone. David Gorol and Theophil Heinke go one better: Their arrangement for violin and organ makes use of the richness of sound of the queen of instruments and adds a whole new dimension to Vivaldi's already broad palette. In addition, there is the A minor Concerto, which Bach had already transferred to the organ. The fact that a historical jewel, the famous Trost organ in Waltershausen, can also be heard in its original sound makes this brand-new Super Audio album a triple listening pleasure. Above all, Vivaldi's sound extremes are considerably expanded with the organ: it thunders and flashes in the summer thunderstorm, it's a joy; the horns blow cheerfully for the hunt, and at the latest when the birds warble in spring, one no longer wants to miss the flute stops of the listed instrument.

The adaptation is by no means trivial: the highly virtuosic violin part, which David Gorol presents on a modern instrument with somnambulistic certainty and a fine feeling for the drama of the score, remains untouched. In favor of a brilliant expression, a retuning to the historical pitch of the organ was dispensed with - a challenge for Heinke, who thus has to orchestrate in extremely unusual keys. As an encore, Gorol and Heinke also offer the distinctively arranged A minor Double Concerto. Here, the violin performs directly with the second soloists part played by the organ.

Johann Wilhelm Wilms knew his way around the flute very well. Helen Dabringhaus has already demonstrated this impressively with her splendid rediscovery of the urbane virtuoso in the wake of Mozart and Haydn - an important expansion of the classical flute repertoire. Now the flautist, who is eager to make discoveries, is following up with another set of his chamber music together with her long-time piano partner Sebastian Berakdar and cellist Hannah Vinzens, including Wilms' single trio, which attracts attention with its remarkable instrumental treatment. Although the main task undoubtedly falls to the piano, the parts of the flute and especially the cello go far beyond what was usual at this time. Instead of simply concealing the weaknesses in the bass and treble of the pianos in use around 1800 by doubling the lines, both instruments make a significant contribution to the musical events - almost visionary, and a trailblazer for the emerging Romantic period.

This is especially true of the Flute Sonata op. 33, which assigns both instruments rewarding tasks. Wilms knows how to treat the flute in particular - just as he did in the early sonatas op. 18 - to great advantage; not a matter of course, considering that the groundbreaking improvements to the instrument by Theobald Böhm were still several years away. Helen Dabringhaus and Sebastian Berakdar make it clear why Wilms was so immensely popular in his adopted home of Amsterdam during his lifetime. The gallant, pleasing tone is convincing from the first to the last note.

The Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra took advantage of the restrictive time without an audience and an outstanding soloist for a new production with an exquisite Beethoven recital: the overture "The Consecration of the House" is followed by the 4th Piano Concerto with a once again fantastic Lauma Skride, who also contributes to the listening pleasure with the rarely heard Variations in C minor WoO 80. As a bonus, the second album contains an intellectual and linguistic highlight: Peter Gülke and Alfred Brendel discuss Schubert, Beethoven and the art of interpretation.

The beginning of the Piano Concerto No. 4 is unique: instead of a showy and determined start, Beethoven begins with a downright flippant prelude; piano and orchestra are far apart, find each other only with difficulty, and the composer completely denies the soloist essential parts of the thematic material. Lauma Skride and the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra celebrate the autobiographical loneliness of the deafened virtuoso, which takes on desperate forms in the second movement, in a touching way - even the finale's gut-wrenching moments are not free of the mood of the beginning.

Beethoven based the C minor Variations on an extremely unwieldy theme. And he treats it with extreme rigor; the relentlessness with which he sticks to the formal structure of the theme as well as to the fundamental tone is very reminiscent of a passacaglia. Only at the very end does the composer free himself from the corset, before the work fades away in pianissimo.

Josef Bohuslav Foerster's life spanned almost an entire century. In the year of his birth, Wagner laid the axe to the roots of tonality with "Tristan"; shortly after his death, Boulez did the rest... Hermann Bäumer and the Osnabrück Symphony Orchestra have documented Foerster's symphonic output on three albums. This commendable edition, now available for the first time as a complete edition, shows a master who was highly respected during his lifetime and who remained true to himself through all the upheavals. Raised in Prague, Foerster spent many years in Hamburg and Vienna and only returned to his homeland after the founding of Czechoslovakia in 1918. Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, and Grieg encouraged him in his younger years, and later Gustav Mahler sought his advice.

Foerster's symphonies often have programmatic references. In the Second, it is the requiem-like memory of his sister who died in childbirth, while the mystery of death and resurrection determines the style of the Fourth, which in the manuscript still bears the later erased title "Easter Vigil". In the Fifth, Foerster deals with the painful loss of his son Alfred, from shattering grief to the hope of redemption in the end. Again and again, echoes of famous colleagues can be discovered in Foerster's work, mostly as an attitude, occasionally also as a quotation. Whether "Rosenkavalier" or "Tosca", "Tristan" or "Rusalka" - the allusions are always subtle, never epigonal. All the more refreshing then to hear the early symphonic poem "In den Bergen", in which the great talent already revealed itself to contemporaries.

The renowned Utrecht String Quartet delivered a long overdue and critically acclaimed redemption with their complete recording of Alexander Glazunov's string quartets. These groundbreaking recordings are now available for the first time in an attractive 5-album set - a feast for friends of chamber music, and a treat for all those who seek to discover both the sophisticated and the culinary off the beaten track. The 5 albums represent a long composer's life, from the exuberant youthful works of the "new Samson", as the enthusiastic St. Petersburg audience dubbed the 17-year-old highly gifted composer, to the deeply penetrating masterpieces of the celebrated orchestrator, contrapuntalist and university teacher.

Glazunov combines traditional Russian with the refinement of Western compositional art like no other: almost folk-like themes meet oriental flair, rhythmic freedom is combined with ingenious shaping. With this edition, the Utrecht String Quartet set standards that made international critics rejoice: Radio K1 attested to the Utrecht musicians "at the highest level", the Hessische Rundfunk discovered "fun with dance and folk art". The magazine "Ensemble" saw in it "a valuable enrichment of the current chamber music repertoire", and "Crescendo" praised the "refined sound culture" and the "excellent sound engineering".

REVIEW:

The third series of string symphonies by the youthful Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy marks a turning point: more and more, the rococo character that so unmistakably marked the first six symphonies recedes in favor of a deeply romantic attitude. In addition, the 7th Symphony, in four movements for the first time, is twice as long as its predecessors. The dogma chamber orchestra presents this groundbreaking composition together with the Double Concerto for violin and piano, which was composed only a little later and seems to have been written for the soloists Stephen Waarts and Annika Treutler. Waarts presents the technically demanding violin part with a melting that one does not often hear in the young generation of violinists. Treutler is in no way inferior: The pianist knows how to bring out the immeasurable richness of tone colors of the Steinway concert grand "Manfred Bürki" from 1901 to its best advantage.

The dogma chamber orchestra is much more than just an accompanist. Led by concertmaster Mikhail Gurewitsch, the strings prepare the ground for the two soloists and let the bravura solos culminate in intoxicating sound. Perfectly attuned to each other, there is no need for a conductor: top chamber music quality in symphonic garb! The seventh symphony also profits immensely from this: from the powerful unison opening to the Andante amorevole, which oscillates between melancholy and hidden dance, and the minuet, driven forward by a trenchant bass, to the brilliant fugato finale, the performance of the dogma chamber orchestra exudes esprit and enthusiasm.

Mozart's operas in the distinctive sound of the Trio d'Anches - the Trio Roseau has been extremely successful in expanding the repertoire of chamber music for winds. Episode three takes on Don Giovanni, whose darker sides are somewhat relegated to the background in favor of the "dramma giocoso". Much to the advantage of the slender instrumentation with oboe, clarinet and bassoon, which in Ulf-Guido Schäfer's arrangement finds a wonderfully serenade-like tone. Of course, the great arias are to be found in Schäfer's entertaining arrangement, in which the three instruments cheerfully compete for the leading role. In this way, the restriction to three voices is transformed into a lively collaboration that shows off the fabulous virtuosity of the three players to their best advantage.

And there is also something new to discover: Schäfer has arranged three of Mozart's concert arias for oboe and string trio. The famous oboe quartet served as a model. Virtuosic in the fast parts, generously cantabile in the wide vocal arches: Rachel Frost on oboe and English horn does not miss Mozart's singer friends at any moment. Mozart wrote two arias from "La Clemenza di Tito" with an obbligato clarinet part for Anton Stadler. Of course Schäfer, who plays the clarinet in the Roseau Trio, would not miss this opportunity to perform with his musical friends. And he intervenes in the voice leading with a twinkle in his eye - Mozart must have liked it very much.

Adrian Tully presents himself to his audience on his own, and what the Australian saxophonist does with this venture is impressive: he adapted solo works from across the centuries for his instrument. The result is a colorful and surprisingly varied album that could not have been more personal and surprises with its depth of expression. The saxophone was not invented until the middle of the 19th century. For the older music, Tully therefore quite inevitably had to fall back on repertoire for other instruments. Whether Boismoitier, Stamitz or Quantz: the versatility that Tully displays with his instrument here quickly makes one forget the original sound of oboe, flute or violin. In addition, there is an unparalleled art of phrasing that reveals a deep understanding of older music.

The change from soprano to alto saxophone does the rest to let the works of Vieuxtemps and Reger shine in the most beautiful light. Tully's reputation as an instrumentalist and chamber musician did not make the three still living composers of this unusual recital hesitate for a moment to agree to an arrangement of their works. And so the pieces by Kazuo Fukushima, Kalevi Aho and Thierry Escaich round off a program that is hard to beat for esprit. The recording technique, finely tuned to the historic concert hall, does the rest to create an all-round fascinating sound experience in the literal sense of the word.