What a fortunate circumstance! Although Johannes Brahms destroyed all his sketches, drafts, and early versions of many of his works, the Trio in B major op. 8 managed to survive his pyromaniac verdicts. A comparative study of the youthful and romantic first version and the tightly constructed late version of this masterpiece offers a most highly interesting insight into Brahms’s artistic development Thirty-five years later, however, he thoroughly revised it. Along with the Trio in C minor op. 101, the early version rounds off the Vienna Piano Trio’s complete recording of this great composer’s piano trios- now heard for the first time in full in the latest three-dimensional Super Audio quality. Here the Vienna Piano Trio is of course in its element. It is absolutely fascinating how these three full-blooded musicians convey the Viennese and Hungarian flair of these works. The high-resolution Super Audio album is also perfectly balanced and offers a crystal-clear stereo sound as well as a breathtaking listening experience in three-dimensional multichannel technology- musical pleasure representing the highest level!

Only a little chamber music for flute by Beethoven has survived. He was not particularly fond of this instrument. However, he managed to pen an elegant, nimble Serenade, op. 25, which the Ardinghello Ensemble is now releasing along with a new rendering of the magnificent String Trio op. 3.

For the Ardinghello Ensemble Beethoven stands at the beginning of an epoch of special interest. The four instrumentalists performing with Karl Kaiser – all of them women – very undogmatically operate with insights provided by historical performance practice and set out in quest of the “Faraway Sound” of romanticism - while discovering unheard-of and never-expected material.

This instrument revolutionizes organ building. The main organ in the church of St. Martin in Kassel, consecrated in 2017, already boasts numerous innovations; now the experimental organ, completed in 2021, turns the laws of organ building that have applied for centuries on their head. With a technically highly innovative trick, the traditional Rieger company has succeeded in having the wind flowing into the organ pipe controlled by the touch of the key, stop slide and bellows system. The new sound cosmos of swelling and dying tones that opens up inspires young composers to experiment, documented for the first time on a brand-new Super Audio album that presents both instruments as a convincing unit in overwhelming spatiality. The main organ in St. Martin's is also visually an eye-catcher: the facade is spread across the entire width of the nave, with tufts of artificial hair in front of its labia moving with every breath of wind. With two stops tuned in the middle tone, even the oldest organ music can be heard authentically, while a quarter-tone manual invites composers and audiences alike to embark on a journey of tonal discovery. St. Martin has been known for its innovative spirit for centuries, and Johann Sebastian Bach was drawn to Kassel in 1732 to examine the organ. Bach is both the beginning and the end of Manz's program, which is extraordinary in every respect, with Messiaën's Pentecost Mass at its center. Works by Cabezón, Praetorius, Böhm and de Grigny represent the Renaissance and Baroque, while pieces from Caspar Johannes Walter's composition class represent contemporary, youthful music. Otfried Büsing uses the entire spectrum, from delicately disappearing tones to the mighty quarter-tone cluster: a gigantic rush of sound!

Albert Einstein already knew: If you are looking for the world formula, you will find it in Johann Sebastian Bach. This is true not only for the Art of the Fugue, the Goldberg Variations or the St. Matthew Passion: here Elisaveta Blumina presents a Bach of dance in a very personal piano album inspired by the now legendary Steinway concert grand "Manfred Bürki" from 1901. Elisaveta Blumina actually wanted to become a ballerina - but much to her chagrin at the time and our delight today, she was discarded from the company as a towering teenager - despite great talent. She nevertheless retained her unerring sense of momentum and rhythm as a pianist, and this audibly benefits the suites and partitas on this new production. For even if Bach creates highly artificial gems out of the traditional dance forms, Blumina still lets us feel the swing that makes the individual movements pulsate. As a synaesthete, Blumina also has a very special relationship with the key characteristics so important to Bach. The radiant E major of the French Suite BWV 817 becomes a sun-drenched event under her hands, while the C minor Partita BWV 826 exudes a solemn festivity. The pictures attached to the lavishly designed booklet show the colourful creative power of this versatile artist. Blumina unleashes a veritable firework with the highly virtuosic C minor Fantasy BWV 906, to which the English Suite in D minor BWV 811 with its monumental Prelude stands in the greatest possible contrast.

“Antonio Rosetti is one of the most popular composers of our times.” Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart wrote these words in his Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst, and it is high time for us to recognize this fact today. In this special edition MDG is presenting two recordings of orchestral works by the Bohemian master featuring the Rosetti specialist Johannes Moesus in performances with the Hamburg Symphony and renowned soloists. Even when they were first released, these recordings set standards. Schubart continued, “As easy as his compositions may seem, they are difficult to perform.” The Hamburg musicians do the same outstandingly: “With a very firm grasp of style and tonally beautiful.” This was the judgment of FonoForum, which awarded the recording five stars and an extra point for special repertoire value. The symphony entitled La Chasse is a genuine public favorite and a work in which Rosetti evokes everything, from hallali to tally-ho, designed to represent the hunt in music which may have contributed its part to the great success of these recordings. Christian Specht, Susanne Barner, Stefan Czermak, and Akiko Tanaka equip Johannes Moesus with a quartet of soloists who know how to bring out the fine details behind and beyond the grand virtuosic show. Highly enjoyable.

As early as 1882, audiences acclaimed the premiere of the first symphony by Alexander Glazunov, who was just 16 years old. The Niederrheinische Sinfoniker, under the baton of their principal conductor Mihkel Kütson, now present an extremely attractive selection from the early composer's extensive oeuvre, in which the folk-typical national Russian elements of the "Mighty Little Group" combine most advantageously with Tchaikovsky's Central European-influenced tonal language. Glazunov calls his 7th Symphony "Pastoral", and the parallel to Beethoven - especially in the bucolic opening movement - is unmistakable. The still young man has mastered his compositional tools, acquired from Balakirev and Rimsky-Korssakov, to perfection: motif processing, counterpoint and cyclical form combine to form a convincing whole that also unfolds magnificent splendor in the rousing finale. In "Stenka Razin", Glazunov transforms a popular, highly dramatic subject from Russian history into a symphonic poem. The famous, melancholy song of the Volga tugboats drives the plot around the rough-legged pirate, including a love affair with a Persian princess. Of course, there is a tragic ending, which is, however, greeted with enthusiasm by the companions... The Poème lyrique and the Carneval Overture round off a program that is not only convincing in terms of content: captured in three-dimensional sound and presented in the best Super Audio quality, this Glasunov project is also a multi-colored audiophile treasure that is sure to make symphonic enthusiasts go into raptures.

He was a cellar master and council musician, impresario and music manager, concert promoter and composer. But above all, Johann Daniel Pucklitz was a deeply devout protestant Christian. With his Goldberg Baroque Ensemble, Andrzej Szadejko has reconstructed Pucklitz's oratorio "The Very Different Change and Death of the Godless and the God-fearing", bringing a score of incomprehensible color to new life after more than 250 years. The two-part work is already surprising in its proportions: An extensive, three-movement Sinfonia is followed by a wide-ranging chorale motet, which also brilliantly brings out the soloists in the aria sections. Pucklitz was probably following the expectations of the Gdansk public, for he composed such works on his own account and at his own risk. Pucklitz's sense of dramaturgy and tonal effect is fascinating. The instruments of the large orchestra are used sparingly but very effectively, including solo bravura parts. And while the wicked celebrate with timpani and trumpets in the first part before breaking out into fearful lamentation, redemption and eternal peace beckon to the godly in the second part. Pucklitz has saved several sonic surprises for this finale: A glass harp lends the "Desired Hours of Death" almost unearthly magic, while harp and cymbals delicately and gently prepare the triumph of the heavenly kingdom - a grandiose finale that no one can resist.

Astor Piazzolla's Tango Nuevo still enjoys great popularity 30 years after the composer's death. Hardly any other music is able to enthuse the classical concert audience as much as the lover of light muse, world music, or the jazz enthusiast and the specialist for contemporary music. Sonic Art Saxophone Quartet has arranged three great suites by the Argentinean grand master, which bring the rhythmic energy of the tango to the stage in highly different ways. And Valentin Butt's accordion provides the unmistakable color in the "Tango Sensations". "Estaciones Porteñas" superficially describe the Four Seasons. But they are much more than that: Buenos Aires and its people, its squares and streets, plus the atmosphere of a city where joy and suffering are often very close together. The music conveys pure emotion, inimitably captured from wild exhilaration to near silence. The almost 30 minutes of "Tango Sensations" are Piazzolla's musical legacy. The five composed states of mind were originally intended as film music and they are Piazzolla's last cyclical work. The "Suite del Diablo" was written as stage music and constantly oscillates between heaven and hell; the devil is sometimes fearsomely threatening, sometimes sugar-sweetly flattering - just as Piazzolla imagined life to be. For the tightrope walk between concert hall and club, between stage and street, the saxophone is the ideal instrumentation. No less than four of them offer a palette of expressive possibilities that blend perfectly with the accordion and which the Sonic Art Saxophone Quartet knows how to use with virtuosity. The dynamics of the performance are impressive and are unlikely to keep anyone in their seats.

Joseph Haydn must have been curious: Away from the extensive obligations for music at the court of Prince Esterhazy, he found in the string quartet the ideal field for experiments. The quartets from op. 9 contain ideas that would only find expression in symphonies and sonatas much later. The Leipzig String Quartet are starting with Quartets 1 to 3, that sound as fresh and new as if they had just come from the pen. After all, ten years of compositional experience lie between Haydn's first attempts in the genre and the six quartets op. 9. The pieces repeatedly demand ludicrously virtuosic passages from the first violin, and some movements with their bravura cadenzas are even reminiscent of a violin concerto. However, the far advanced balance of the voices is surprising. Far from being simply accompaniment, there are also many demanding details in the lower voices. The slow movements, which always come third in the op. 9 quartets, are grandiose and at the same time touching. Wide melodic arches give the primarius opulent opportunity to indulge and to "speak" in conversation, in order to finally create space for a final movement that is as lively as it is capricious. This is not least due to Italian influence, but Carl Philip Emanuel Bach also leaves his mark alongside Sammartini; the themes seem to be thrown down, gain immense lightness, and the works become increasingly individual. It is not known what Haydn's employer thought of the innovations; with the historically informed Leipzig String Quartet, he must certainly have taken a particular liking to them.

The Chimaera Trio debuts on MDG with music of the Fin de Siècle. The Dutch musicians have grouped works by Alban Berg and Anton Webern around the almost symphonic clarinet trio by Alexander von Zemlinsky; the pivotal point of the programme, however, is Gustav Mahler (and not least his wife Alma), whose song transcriptions in this compilation offer room for all kinds of relationship associations. Gustav Mahler often transcribed his Lieder compositions into purely orchestral works, thus casting them in a completely different light. And suddenly the works reach a completely different musical level without the text. This is precisely the reason for the Chimaera Trio's extremely beautiful and careful transcriptions of, for example, the "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen". The melancholy in "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" (I am lost to the world) is downright enchanting!

Despite his rather repulsive appearance, Alexander von Zemlinsky must have had a tremendous charisma. Alma Mahler, quite demanding in her choice of lovers, recognized this discrepancy - and still fell for him. The trio of the 25-year-old shows a high integrative power: clearly influenced by Brahms, sheer endless melodic arcs and surprising harmonic turns point rather to Richard Wagner - but in symbiosis far into the future. There they meet Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Romantic feeling seems to be condensed into a very small space, and in Webern's "2 Pieces" the reduction is even taken to extremes. From glowing to concentrated, the Chimaera Trio creates an almost archetypal image of music around 1900 - captured in the finest Super Audio album technology and opulent spatiality.

Ewald Straesser's catalogue of works contains over 200 compositions, thirteen numbers for violin and piano alone. Gudrun Höbold and Eri Uchino have unearthed some astonishing pieces from the completely forgotten collection of this Rhinelander composer, who was seen by his contemporaries as a successor to Brahms. A violin sonata, a suite for violin alone and a series of character pieces leave only one question: Why only now? During his lifetime, Straesser was highly regarded as a composer; in the autumn of 1917, an entire Straesser Festival was even held in Cologne, at the opening of which his violin sonata was played. Much honor - the avant-garde, however, resented the adherence to the tonal, even though Sträßer went his own way harmonically. And Ewald Straesser was even ahead of his model Brahms in his great melodic inventiveness, which is particularly evident in his works for violin and piano.

The "Ariosio" already bears the melodic element in its title, and the other character pieces, here entitled "Drei Reigen" (Three Tales), also offer a particularly rewarding task for the violin. And one should not be deceived by the titles "Ländler - Spanish Dance - Mazurka": Straesser cannot and will not deny his optimistic Rhenish origins even on his journey through European styles... In general, it is the tender, sometimes even sentimental mood that is so enchanting about Straesser's music, along with the very broadly sweeping melodic arcs. It leads to fairytale-like episodes in the almost symphonic dimensions of the sonata. Gudrun Höbold and Eri Uchino dive deeply into this special world of sound, of which one would like to experience much more.

REVIEW:

Excellent music, great playing, and MDG’s guarantee of a well-designed sound environment assure us of a satisfying experience. Let’s hear some more of this fine composer with so much to say.

-- Fanfare

Federico Mompou is unique in the musical world of the 20th century. While fellow composers went through rapid developments, sometimes even dramatic breaks, in their creative work during this period, one searches in vain for them in the Catalan composer's oeuvre. Mompou's lifelong longing for beauty and elegance can now be traced in his song compositions, from which Julia Sophie Wagner and Steffen Schleiermacher have made an impressive, almost beguiling selection. Mompou's mélodies seem to float, only short episodes characterize the singing, often accompanied by bell-like sounds of the piano - perhaps as a reverence to the ancestors who have been casting bells since the 15th century? Frequent sequences and repetitions spread a static atmosphere: music that is at peace with itself.

Mompou finds the verses for his mélodies in French, Catalan and Spanish poets. The idiosyncratic master refrains from texts that are currently in fashion, such as those by Apollinaire, for example. Alongside complex poems such as those by Paul Valéry, we suddenly find simple counting rhymes among his compositions - and he then dedicates these to a celebrated prima donna... Julia Sophie Wagner creates these enchanting miniatures with a deep sense of the beauty of colors and sounds. Expressive without ever lapsing into false drama, the two religious songs in this collection are also captivating, to which Steffen Schleiermacher lends a touching aura with sensitive playing - and at times surprising virtuosity.

With this brand-new Super Audio album, Hannah Vinzens and Gordon Safari accomplish a true pioneering feat: not only do they present the complete works for cello and organ by the Dresden composers Oskar Wermann and Gustav Merkel for the first time on sound recording; during the research for this special project, it also turned out that Wermann's Sonata op. 58 is probably the very first contribution to this genre. The two young artists continue the Dresden tradition that developed from this work with stylistic confidence and exquisite taste. Dotzauer, Kummer, and Grützmacher - the great soloists of the Dresden Hofkapelle are not only familiar to cellists - they shaped generations of virtuosos and orchestral musicians. No wonder that Wermann and Merkel, as organists at the Kreuzkirche and Hofkirche, regularly relied on the vocal playing of the Hofkapelle's solo cellists. What is new with Wermann is the ambitious organ part, which in this instrumentation goes far beyond mere accompaniment. And the search for the right instrument led Vinzens and Safari to the Jehmlich organ from the Christuskirche in Dresden-Strehlen, which, after extensive restoration, now shines again in its original 1905 glory. With its period-typical gentle blending of basic colors, it is the ideal instrument for these special repertoire discoveries.

Hannah Vinzens and Gordon Safari share a deep and extremely versatile artistic collaboration. Now based in the musical metropolis of Salzburg, the two lead the BachWerkVokal ensemble, whose album debut on MDG caused a sensation. In addition to early music, both are also dedicated to new and the very latest music - and define new standards in the instrumentation of cello and organ.