Ludwig van Beethoven took his first musical steps in the chapel of the prince-bishop's court in Bonn. With the "Edition Hofkapelle", the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn is searching for traces. The first series of Harmoniemusik reveals something astonishing: Beethoven was never again as operatic as he was in Bonn, inspired by a musical environment that appreciated musical entertainment at the highest level. "Richard the Lionheart" was on everyone's lips and ears in Beethoven's Bonn time; the master himself composed a cycle of piano variations on Grétry's catchy melodies. It is not unlikely that he also knew Franz Ehrenfried's harmony music on the popular opera, which the wind players of the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn present here with a delight in the theatrical - from Blondel's soulful romance "Une fièvre brûlante" to the spirited drinking song about the Sultan Saladin. The Hofkapelle approaches Beethoven's Octet with equal verve, which, despite the misleading opus number 103, can be located in his Bonn period. Beethoven is seldom heard in such a lively and animated manner - associations from Mozart's "Abduction" to Rossini's "Barber" come to mind. The "Rondino" is given a particularly distinctive color by the impressively virtuoso use of natural horns, which Beethoven knows how to enhance even further by playing with mutes. As orchestra director, Joseph Reicha must have had a special influence on the young Beethoven; this may be evident from both sextets. With Lorenzo Coppola as coach, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn has brought in a real specialist for wind music of the classical period, and the fact that with the rococo festival hall of the Redoute, an almost originally preserved performance venue can be experienced on this album and the three-dimensional sound rounds off this unusual production beautifully.

For Erik Satie, his whole life was a single theatre. Even his whimsical outfit was carefully staged: always the same suit, with melon and umbrella, but never unfolded to protect it . Steffen Schleiermacher now directs the spotlight on Satie's seventh series of piano works to his compositions for the stage, including Satie's last work ever, "Relâche", which brought together theatre, music and film in what was then a radically modern multimedia way. Steffen Schleiermacher is a pianist, composer, and festival and concert promoter. He studied piano (Gerhard Erber), composition (Siegfried Thiele, Friedrich Schenker) and conducting (Günter Blumhagen) at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Academy of Music in Leipzig from 1980 until 1985. He was master pupil for composition with Friedrich Goldmann at the Academy of Arts in Berlin during 1986/87 and for piano with Aloys Kontarsky at the Cologne Academy of Music during 1989/90. Steffen Schleiermacher has concertized as a soloist with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Deutsche Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Münchner Philharmoniker, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and other orchestras under Vladimir Ashkenazy, Friedrich Goldmann, Ingo Metzmacher, Wladimir Jurowski and Fabio Luisi. Schleiermacher's recordings amount to more than 80 albums.

The harpsichord sounds light and airy when Tatjana Vorobjova plays the " Sechs Musicalischen Partien " by Johann Krieger. Apart from the stupendous playing technique of the virtuoso with Latvian roots, this is of course due to Krieger's compositional style, which conjures up filigree character pieces of deep content from the standardized dance movements of the suites. In addition to the printed collection of the six suites, the finely balanced Super Audio album also contains handwritten individual pieces that round off the high baroque listening pleasure in a refreshing way.

The Trio Parnassus already caused a sensation with the world premiere recording of Vol. 1 of the chamber music works of Johann Christian Heinrich Rinck, who celebrates his 250th birthday this year. Since its beginnings, the Trio Parnassus has dedicated itself to long forgotten music. Once again, the spirit of discovery is rewarded, and with beautiful sound enhancement by Helen Dabringhaus on the flute, this highly welcome new release also shows: it may not always be Beethoven! Rinck prefers the smaller form, some of the piano trios even consist of only one or two movements. An exception is the large Trio in D major, which already claims a higher standard with the slow introduction. Instead of detailed motivic work, however, the composer usually prefers original ideas; at most in the 3rd Trio from op. 34, a bit of Beethoven shines through. Only rarely does Rinck use a minor key, the cheerful tone clearly predominates. The Trio for flute, violoncello and piano is highly original, with an indescribably beautiful slow middle movement, framed by folk echoes in the outer movements. The fact that Rinck once again calls the violin sonata recorded here a "Sonata très facile" seems bold in view of the very demanding instrumental-technical requirements – as an accomplished pedagogue, he is probably more interested in the pleasing character of the Preziose, whose gallant style is reminiscent of Mozart's contributions to the genre. Even though Rinck is of the same age as the currently omnipresent Beethoven, the music could not be more different: rococo lightness meets romantic sentiment, there is no trace of brooding Sturm und Drang. But what the four musicians make of it is far more than fine entertainment and makes listening to this album, which is also sophisticated in terms of sound technology, a pure pleasure.

Airy, transparent, light as a feather – if any composer’s music answers to these attributes, then it is that of Maurice Ravel, including his Piano Trio, even if this work too has its more serious moments. On its newest Super Audio album the Vienna Piano Trio brings together this marvelously unique achievement and a very differently gripping trio by Ernest Chausson – a fascinating contrast and one most beautifully celebrated by our Vienna threesome. Chausson composed his trio as an act of defiance. He had abandoned his study of composition without a diploma and had recently retired to the countryside. As if he wanted to show all his critics and especially the jurors of the Prix de Rome what he could do: in the Piano Trio an impetuous artist assumes a revolutionary and romantic expressive stance. This begins already in the impassioned first movement, to whose themes he repeatedly returns during the course of the other parts, and reaches its high point in the great breadth and unforgettable melodiousness of the third movement.

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REVIEW:

The Trio's finely honed interpretation of the Ravel is charactized by finesse, maturity, and lucidity. Chausson’s Franck-inspired Trio makes a great pairing. There are some breathtakingly lyrical moments in the violin and cello here, and the rich piano figuration never feels laboured.

– Gramophone

Joachim Raff was an autodidact. Having grown up in Switzerland, he first tried his hand with moderate success in numerous places as a composer of salon pieces. Franz Liszt became aware of the young man's talents and hired him as a kind of private secretary. In Weimar Raff orchestrated some of Liszt's early symphonic poems and gained his appreciation. This first recording by the Leipzig String Quartet shows that this was no accident. Raff's first two quartets are large-format works which reveal great ambitions. By the time Raff composed his first quartet in 1855, he was already beginning to emancipate himself from Liszt and the narrow circle of his friends. The "Neudeutsche Verein" had just been founded when Raff left him for Wiesbaden, in financially uncertain circumstances but artistic independence. And indeed, Raff's music cannot be pigeonholed either in the "New German" or the "Brahmsian" category - perhaps the reason why he was admired by such diverse colleagues as Richard Strauss, Peter Tchaikovsky or even Franz Liszt. His first quartet op. 77 was premiered by the famous Hellmesberger Quartet, who had already offered the podium to Franz Schubert and the late Beethoven. The second quartet op. 90 was also quickly adopted by the Viennese. The turning away from a harmonically fixed formal scheme is a trend-setting move; chromaticism and free harmony gain the upper hand over schoolmasterly counterpoint. Self-marketing was not Raff's thing. Rather prim in his private life, he rarely performed publicly, though he was an excellent pianist. He also gave his work away rather than negotiate reasonable fees. As founding director of the Hoch'sche Conservatory in Frankfurt he nevertheless enjoyed great recognition among his contemporaries. To rekindle this in our time, the new recording of the Leipzig String Quartet is a highly welcome beginning.

Franz Berwald was an independent genius. His contemporaries would never have dreamed that the trained violinist is today considered the most important Swedish composer of the 19th century. With a brand new recording, the franz ensemble wrests his individual and almost visionary chamber music from oblivion - and in doing so brings to light something literally "unheard-of". A good 200 years ago, the extremely conservative cultural scene in Stockholm couldn't handle Berwald - and he couldn't handle it. As a composer largely self-taught, the descendant of a widely ramified dynasty of musicians orchestrates as it comes to his mind. And so the pianist in the quartet for piano and wind instruments does not unload a thunderstorm of keys à la Moscheles or Hummel, but rather blends in with the wind instruments with one- and two-voice lines. The effect is simply striking. Berwald also goes its own way in formal terms: In the middle of the septet, which he wrote when he was just 20 years old, the scherzo and slow movement are intertwined to form a surprising unity. At the beginning of the Serenade, the tenor must first of all state that silence prevails and that one can now begin with the music... No wonder that Berwald had to irritate with such experiments. By the way: as flexible as he was, he was also self-taught and focused on the development of orthopedic equipment, ran a glass factory and a sawmill. The franz ensemble has adopted the originality of this very special composer. The musicians pursue the imaginative sounds with great pleasure and commitment.

Hardly any of Beethoven's symphonies lives as much from the colorfulness of the instrumentation as the "Pastoral". Nevertheless, a contemporary dared to write a chamber music transcription of this nowadays so popular masterpiece immediately after its publication. With profit! The latest discovery of the Parnassus Academy juxtaposes Michael Gotthard Fischer's version of the 6th Symphony for string sextet with his piano quartet, which have never been recorded before. Fischer is only three years younger than Beethoven. And he was one of the first reviewers of the "Pastorale" in the renowned "Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung". His judgement shows a deep understanding of Beethoven's visionary creative power and the subtle tonal details of the composition. The fact that he used the then still quite exotic instrumentation of the string sextet for his arrangement suggests considerable sonic ambitions. Through skillful choice of registers and combinations of instruments, Fischer achieves a differentiation that the few sextets of more famous contemporaries do not come close to. And there it is, the unrestrained tumult in the thunderstorm scene... Does one really miss the little birds of the flute and clarinet in the "Scene am Bach” (Scene at the Brook)? The colorfulness of the movement compensates by far. No wonder: Fischer was an extremely talented composer, as the piano quartet beautifully demonstrates. The ambition of the large-scale work is expressed not least in the dedication to Queen Luise, and Fischer does justice to it by every trick in the book. Elements of sonata and concerto are skillfully interwoven and artful cadenzas introduced. When the musicianship is as glowing as that of pianist Johann Blanchard and the other soloists of the Parnassus Academy, the only thing that can be said is: more of it!

Bach's cello suites are an immovable milestone and touchstone for every cellist. Six weighty monologues in Bach's unmistakable language, to which the playing technique was only gradually able to fully respond. To follow the genius's train of thought through this musical microcosm is a unique attraction, presented by Martin Ostertag with fine nuances and great sensitivity. Martin Ostertag studied with Leo Koscielny at the University of Music Karlsruhe and with André Navarra in Paris and Detmold. In 1967, he was laureate of the International Competition of the City of Vienna and in 1968, made the Young Concert Artists national selection by the German Music Council. After that, he was first principal cellist of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, the Amati Ensemble Berlin, Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and finally, starting in 1974, the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra of Baden-Baden and Freiburg. Since 1980, Martin Ostertag has been professor of cello at the University of Music Karlsruhe.

Great music for small rooms - Schönberg's "Association for Private Musical Performances" made this possible. Beyond star hype and public attention, this small group wanted to devote itself exclusively to the musical language and orchestrated symphonic works for chamber ensembles. The Thomas Christian Ensemble shows in this attractive double album with arrangements of the 4th symphony by Gustav Mahler and the 7th by Anton Bruckner that reduction of the instrumentation can bring a plus of experience. The composers Erwin Stein, Karl Rankl and Hanns Eisler shared the Bruckner arrangement; Stein was solely responsible for Mahler. Freed from pasty orchestral layers of color, the music shines as if after a cure of fresh cells. What was intended as a stopgap measure against sloppy performances still provides completely new insights into the substance and structure of the now recognized masterpieces. Hissing and applause was prohibited in Schönberg's club. If the performers had played only half as well as the Thomas Christian Ensemble, there would not have been any demonstrations of displeasure anyway. Christiane Oelze lends the heavenly vocal part in Mahler's Fourth the necessary distance to earth. The clear recording envelops the instruments pleasantly with natural ambient sound - one can hardly escape this effect.

Ewald Straesser (or Sträßer) was highly respected during his lifetime, and the list of his interpreters reads like a "Who's Who" of music: Furtwängler, Abendroth, Mengelberg, Nikisch and Pfitzner conducted his works, and the pianists Elly Ney and Max van der Sandt repeatedly included him in their programs. Today, Straesser's music has completely disappeared from the repertoire in the succession to Brahms; the new recording of three chamber music works by the Rhinelander-born composer by the Berolina Ensemble, which is eager to make discoveries, is all the more commendable. Straesser composed intuitively; according to his own statements, a deeper "intention", possibly even a political or educational one, was alien to him. This made him suspect in avant-garde circles, and since he himself made little fuss about his person and tended to avoid public appearances, his artistic star by no means shone as brightly as his works deserved. As the critic noted at the time, the premiere ensemble in 1903 was probably not able to meet the high demands of the wind quintet. It is good that the Berolina Ensemble now provides an adequate interpretation! With a traditional foundation and excellent technical skills, Straesser is often seen by contemporaries as a successor to Brahms. However, he was ahead of Brahms in his ability to write wide-ranging melodic arcs, which can be heard particularly beautifully in the Clarinet Sonata written in 1932 shortly before his death. Together with the Clarinet Quintet of 1915, these three works span an entire composer's life, which shows an interesting development, especially from a harmonic point of view. Without ever getting into atonality or twelve-tone technique, Straesser finds his own way into a modern tonal language, chromaticism increases, surprising dissonances sometimes remain unresolved... The Berolina Ensemble traces all this with audible enthusiasm and adds another highlight to its now considerable discography.

Jörg Demus died a few weeks ago at the age of ninety. MDG commemorates this great pianist with a new release of the Fantasiestücke op. 12 and Humoreske op. 20 by Robert Schumann, to whose music Demus felt drawn throughout his life. Performed on a Viennese pianoforte by Conrad Graf and recorded with the finest digital technology even more than thirty years ago, this program documents his tireless advocacy of historical keyboard instruments. The name “Fantasiestucke” contains a program. With ETA Hoffmann’s writings as their model, these “Fantasy Pieces” create a whole cosmos of romantic associations. Even the titles of the individual pieces suggest yearning for the faraway: “In the Night,” “Fable,” “Dream’s Confusion”- fantasy spreads its wings and rises in flight. Schumann is found in his entirely in the “Grand Humoresque,” as the composer described it to Clara; laughter, mixed with tears: “Everything is beautifully depicted in my op. 20.” Jord Demus, who was at home on the concert stage from the age of sixteen, brilliantly understood how to bring audiences closer to “Eusebius and Florestan,” the two souls in Schumann’s heart. His death is a great loss.

With Erik Satie, the connection between the beguilingly simple music and the sometimes very strange titles remains enigmatic: What is one to imagine by "Withered Embryos", "Penultimate Thoughts" or "Automatic Descriptions"? Steffen Schleiermacher does not even attempt an interpretation. In what is now the 8th installment of his Satie recording, he lets the associations work that the title, texts and playing instructions trigger. The result is music of that captivating clarity that Satie's avant-garde contemporaries admired so much in the eccentric maverick. The "cycles" collected here are mostly in three parts and all of them are surprisingly short, some move only in the five-tone range and seem to be almost children's pieces... And sometimes Satie borrows from deceased colleagues - and misleads both pianist and audience again: The motif of the "famous mazurka by Schubert" is - of course - neither by Schubert, nor is it a mazurka... "Sports et Divertissements" is completely out of the ordinary: Satie composed the total of 22 miniatures on commission as musical accompaniment to a collection of copperplate engravings by a famous fashion illustrator of his time. The pictures illustrate the leisure pleasures of the better-off, from tennis to sailing, and indeed one finds many a correspondence in the music - not without the usual eye-twinkling: the collection opens with an "unappetizing chorale"... For all the supposed simplicity of the music, Satie's manuscripts are true masterpieces of calligraphy, which, together with the curious playing instructions ("without blushing of the finger" - "from the tip of the eyes and held back in advance"), do not pass an artist like Steffen Schleiermacher by without leaving a trace. Incidentally, Satie expressly forbade the reading aloud of his bizarre texts - under threat of legal consequences...

Classical Music

When in 1928 the great organ in the Bremen "Glocke" was handed over to the concert public, the critics were full of praise for the successful symbiosis of the excellent instrument from the renowned Sauer workshop and the outstanding acoustics of the concert hall. The organ has survived war and destruction almost unscathed and was thoroughly restored a few years ago after an extended Sleeping Beauty sleep. Now this instrument, which is uniquely preserved in Germany, has been honored for the first time on Super Audio album and shows that it is capable of "perfectly reproducing the literature of past times as well as that of the present.” This is what was written in the handover report, and four organists will be performing this virtuoso sound test: Stephan Leuthold, Felix Mende, David Schollmeyer and Lea Suter will be playing music from Johann Sebastian Bach to Maurice Duruflé. And indeed, Sauer also built typical stops into his ultra-modern instrument based on models from Praetorius and Silbermann, so that the "Old Masters" can be played appropriately. The four-manual instrument is equipped with a pneumatic action - self-evident for the time of its construction, a rare specialty for connoisseurs of historical performance practice today. However, the instrument can show its great strength in the floating, multi-layered sound colors, for example in Mario Enrico Bossi's "Theme and Variations" op. 115, or in the works of Joseph Jongen, which were clearly influenced by French Impressionism. Liszt's "Consolation" experiences an enraptured, almost world-forgotten mood through the registration, which leads the roaring finale of Vierne's Organ Symphony No. 6 to a furious conclusion.