Chamber Music (Baroque) - Frederick Ii / Benda, F. / Bach, C

Ferdinand & Mendelssohn: Piano Quartets

ABBEY ROAD: A CAPELLA

Weber, C.M. Von: Flute Trio, Op. 63 / Ries, F.: Flute Sonata

Flute and Guitar Recital: Nicodemus, Heike / Mangold, Maximi

Martin, F.: Trio Sur Des Melodies Populaires Irlandaises / B

Brahms, J.: Trio in A Minor, Op. 114 / Clarinet Sonata No. 1

Stravinsky, I.: Rite of Spring / Strauss, R.: Don Juan / Til

Mountain Worlds, Soul Flight

Handel, G.F.: Giove in Argo [Opera]

This new release features a fresh interpretation of Bach's masterly cycle The Well-Tempered Clavichord by Heidrun Holtmann. Heidrun Holtmann was born in Germany where she began her musical education at the age of four. Five years later she was accepted by the Music Academy of Detmold, where she worked with Renate Kretschmar-Fischer and completed her studies with highest honors. She was awarded several prizes at national and international competitions. Appearances with conductors such as Antal Dorati, Ivan Fischer, and David Zinman followed, and she performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and many other symphony and chamber orchestras in Germany and abroad. Her discography includes the complete works for piano and orchestra by Robert Schumann, Ludwig van Beethoven's Third and Fourth Piano Concertos in chamber music versions dating from the nineteenth century and several solo albums spanning a wide repertoire ranging from Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Debussy, and Szymanowski as well as works from the contemporary repertoire.

Distler, H.: Harpsichord Concerto, Op. 14 / Ritter Blaubart

Johann Schop and his Contemporaries

Until well into the second half of the eighteenth century it was the harpsichord which served at the very forefront as a sounding body for experimental and avant-garde. At the latest with the generation around Beethoven, the “modern” fortepiano had become the key instrument for this task. With the renaissance of the harpsichord toward the end of the 19th century, the interest of living composers in this instrument gradually awoke. A first peak was reached in the 1920s, when Manuel de Falla and Francis Poulenc created the first significant works with their respective concert pieces. Fortunately, music continues to be diligently composed for this “old” instrument. The performance of a recital on this release in 2004 is intended to document the liveliness and timeliness of new harpsichord music, even if the most recent piece from 1999 was written at that time.

ROYAL WINTER MUSIC

Harpsichord Recital: Willi, Barbara Maria - BACH, J.S. / COU

Brahms, J.: Clarinet Sonata No. 1 / Holst, G.: The Planets

Bach & Reger: Sonatas for Cello and Piano, Vol. II

The fourth and final album of the complete recordings of the piano works by Franz Xaver Mozart also offers an interesting insight into the work of Leopold Mozart and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, grandfather and father. It includes early works by Franz Xaver, the Diabelli Variations from 1824 and two of the last compositions- Leopold composed the four short dance movements in the “Galanten style,” and The Praambulum is one of the few notated examples of WA Mozart’s art of improvisation. Susanne von Laun has recorded the works of the three Mozarts, most of which can be heard on album for the first time, on an original instrument from 1812, on which Franz Xaver could also have made music. It is a fortepiano by Joseph Brodmann, built in Vienna in 1812, from the Beurmann collection

Royal... noble sound in a courtly context is a short description of the music of the famous renaissance lutenist John Dowland, which is the focus of Stefan Koim's second album. On the one hand, compositions by Dowland are presented; compositions that represent an impressive combination of heart, mind and intellect from the pen of a worldly musician of the 16th century. On the other side are the two important modern compositions by Benjamin Britten and Hans Werner Henze, which refer in their works to Dowland and the lute music of the Elizabethan era. Explicitly, this is done in Britten's Nocturnal, a variation on John Dowland's Air Come heavy sleep, whose original form untypically appears only at the very end of the composition. Rather implicitly, the reference to Hans Werner Henze, who drew inspiration for his London-based cycle Royal Winter Music in the works of the English poet and playwright William Shakespeare, is known to be a contemporary of Dowland. Unimaginable, therefore, that he did not also have Dowland's lute music in his ear when writing his work for solo guitar... And so the compositions collected on this album should especially draw attention to two things: the still fascinating sound of a time that is often called the "golden age" of English History is described as well as the 400 years of still inspiring potential of this music for the music of modern times.

Beethoven's Forgotten Contemporaries

Hill, W.: 2 Romances / 3 Pieces for Viola and Piano / Violin

Mozart, W.A.: Piano Music

Onslow, G.: Piano Trios Nos. 7 and 8

Mozart: Bassoon Concerto, K. 191 - Violin Concerto No. 1 - H