Classical Music

Lyoba 2

Paul Juon is in many senses a man who “crossed boundaries”. It’s obviously true in a geographical sense, and in that he lived in a world of radical political change. But it’s also true in musical terms. He lived and worked in both Romanticism and Modernism, East and West. His successful endeavours to achieve a musical language of his own can be heard in his music, and is another reason for the fascination that this composer exudes. Especially in the field of rhythm, Juon made a fundamental contribution to the development of music in the 20th century. A recent touring exhibition on Juon was entitled “Born late, forgotten early, newly discovered”. We are delighted that it is the “new discovery” of Juon that increasingly has the upper hand today. Juon’s oeuvre includes works in almost all genres, though the emphasis is on chamber music. Music for the violin played a major role throughout his composing career. Besides the works recorded here, he composed 6 piano trios, 4 string quartets, 3 sonatas for violin and piano and 7 collections of smaller pieces of various types for violin and piano. The violin is the solo instrument in 3 concerti accompanied by large orchestra; it also features in a Burletta with orchestra and in a triple concerto. The three groups of works recorded here are for an instrumental ensemble that one rarely comes across, for it is not easy to find the right balance of sound with two violins and piano. Paul Juon solves this problem successfully after his own, elegant fashion and with considerable compositional finesse, exploring to the full the violin’s possibilities for expression and virtuosity, both on its own and in a duo, and he subtly weaves the piano into their music to create these beautiful works.

Schoeck was brilliant at first drafts. His operas Venus and Schloss Dürande were finished at a feverish tempo, essentially before the libretti were completed. Such a phenomenal process of sound-sculpting aims to go directly to the very core of the matter, to the essentials. The process of fine tuning – making sure that everything sits properly – was of secondary importance to him. That’s why many of Schoeck’s works can so easily be arranged and orchestrated, as long as their fiery core is protected. The little gem that is Sommernacht, composed for the Bern Symphony Orchestra, is here performed in a version for solo strings and large string orchestra. It flirts a little with Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, though without moving in similarly radical, harmonic spaces. Sounds of nature such as birdsong, then bells, a distant reminiscence of accordion music, the glittering starry sky and the cries of the farmers – all these are embedded in a musical material that already been long out of fashion when the work was first performed in 1945. But just as in his other works, Schoeck succeeds here, too, in turning backward-looking techniques into something highly individual, something hitherto unheard-of and timeless. It’s simply a fact that while Othmar Schoeck at first glance might seem perfectly bourgeois in appearance, he is in fact, regardless of his attire, an unwieldy revolutionary – a wolf in sheep’s clothing. - Musiques Suisses

• Recent compositions (2003-2011) • One of the fast rising young star Swiss composers • Mr. Bianchi recently received the prestigious German distinction "Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik – Bestenliste“ • Among the various musicians heard here are the Klangforum Wien and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart

The symphonies of the two Polish composers on this release were composed and first performed within several months of each other in the mid-1920s (they are both also in g minor, as it happens). At first glance it could almost seem as if these two men, Paul Kletzki and Czeslaw Marek, spent their lives shadowing each other. They were born just nine years apart in the then divided Poland, and while Kletzki grew up in “Russian” Poland under the Tsar and Marek lived as an Austrian citizen under Emperor Franz Josef, they both later moved in the same circles of Warsaw musicians, they both left their homeland to study in Germany, they were both compelled by war to flee and found refuge in Switzerland, and – perhaps the most extraordinary coincidence – they both abandoned composition altogether at almost exactly the same age of 43. Their fate was bound up intimately with that of their native land; and yet it seems that Marek and Kletzki never actually met. This is the world premiere recording of both of these works, performed beautifully by the Polish National Radio Symphony, conducted by Thomas Rosner.

Jürg: Chamber Music

Fritz Brun - Othmar Schoeck: Strichquartette

A maverick for his entire career, Albert Moeschinger was awarded the Music Prize of the City of Basel in 1953 and was considered ‘the most versatile and most imaginative among the creative personalities of more recent Swiss music’ by musicologist Hans Oesch. At first influenced by the works of Max Reger and Richard Strauss, Moeschinger’s music evolved from an expressive and differentiated harmonic language to atonality: inspired by Thomas Mann’s novel “Doctor Faustus,” Moeschinger adopted twelve-tone music, beginning in 1956. These three works illustrate Moeschinger’s impressive stylistic breadth. Each of the works is receiving here its world premiere recording.

This album explores clarinet music by Swiss composers from the mid-19th century to the present, showcasing six different instruments from the clarinet family. Five of the eight pieces are world premiere recordings. The main performer, Bernhard Röthlisberger, is principal clarinet and bass clarinet in the Berne Symphony Orchestra. As a soloist he has played with internationally acclaimed conductors such as Jonathan Nott, Reinhard Goebel, Vasily Petrenko and Mario Venzago. His chamber music partners include the Amar Quartett, the Merel Quartett, Esther Hoppe, Rafael Rosenfeld, Peter Somodari, Ivo Gass, Matthias Racz and pianists Benjamin Engeli and Christian Chamorel. He is the artistic director of Summer Academy Hitzkirch (Lucerne) and he gives master classes in throughout Europe and has visited prestigious institutions such as the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, Gent, Leuven, Gnesin Academy und Tschaikowsky Conservatory Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Clarinettist Bernhard Röthlisberger and pianist Benjamin Engeli return to the Musiques Suisses label and are joined by violinist Fióna Kraege and cellist Milena Umiglia, in an album of mostly world premiere recordings. The artists write: “The genesis of the present album is closely linked to that of the Swiss Clarinet Music album (Musiques Suisses NXMS 7002) that we recorded in the summer of 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, as a reaction to the lockdown. Further scores had come to light in the course of researching that project, which have hitherto been largely ignored. Five of these works, by Johann Carl Eschmann, Paul Juon, Richard Flury and Paul Müller-Zürich, are brought together here. What they all have in common, regardless of the dates of composition, which span a century, is that their musical idiom is deeply rooted in Romanticism and late Romanticism.”

REVIEW:

All of the works here share a musical idiom that is deeply rooted in Romanticism. The surprising harmonic turns of Eschmann's pieces are reminiscent of Schumann and Mendelssohn, while Juon (the trio is from 1901) has been described as "the missing link between Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky". Flury's trio was written in 1950 to mark the 25th anniversary of Radio Bern, and Müller-Zürich, one of the most significant figures in Swiss 20th-century mystical life, demonstrates the utmost technical refinement in his 1937 quartet.

-- Records International

The portrait of Swiss musician and composer Rico Gubler.

This new release features live recordings from the 2019 Alpentöne, a three-day biannual international music festival promoting music associated with the alpine tradition. Alpentöne has no stylistic limitations: contemporary classical music, jazz, folk, pop and miscellaneous forms all form part this unique festival. Performers on this release include Pino Minafra, Alpentone Blasorchester, Ensemble Building Bridge, Andreas Gabriel Ensemble, and more. The artists perform traditional tunes, as well as modern compositions and improvisations.