Hans-Eberhard Dentler, a graduate medical physician but also an outstanding cellist and pupil of the renowned Pierre Fournier and founder of a Bach Society in Italy, has occupied himself with this opus over the course of many years. Because he finally wanted to realize Bach's score in a manner true to its spirit and sound, he found a concept for his ensemble ''L'Arte della Fuga'' that unifies its more profound scholarly background with practical musical and artistic aspects. The puzzle of this work can only be solved when one grasps its rootedness in the sphere of Pythagorean musical thinking. Dentler's edition, scored for violin, viola, violoncello, double bass and bassoon in an utterly well thought-out arrangement of movements will soon be published by Schott Verlag in Mainz.

Victoria and Her Hussar is a rare pearl of the glamorous revue-operetta that is not often presented. Even in Mörbisch, this piece could only be heard twice: in 1960 and most recently in 1973, over forty years ago with Johannes Heesters, amongst others.

This series marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Anton Bruckner, which falls in 2024. It's dedicated to Bruckner’s symphonies, most of them recorded in new transcriptions for organ by Hansjörg Albrecht. The 5th. recording was made on the impressive organ of Konzerthaus Vienna with with the transcription of Bruckner's 4th Symphony by Thomas Schmogner. A bonus track on each volume will be a brand new composition for organ that references Bruckner the composer. Two or three volumes will be released each year, with the project reaching its conclusion in 2024.

This compilation includes selected works by the noted Renaissance composer Ludwig Senfl, who was an important student of Heinrich Isaac. In 1523 Senfl joined the Munich court orchestra at the court of Maximilian I, where he worked until his death. Singer Pur will perform these pieces at their Singer Pur Tage festival, and at the 2023 Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference in Munich. Singer Pur is a German vocal sextet founded in 1991 by former members of the Regensburger Domspatzen. The five original members were joined by a soprano in 1994. The sextet is focused on classical music, but who have also performed and recorded traditional folk songs and pop music. Singer Pur have recorded more than 30 albums. Singer Pur have given concerts and workshops in nearly 60 countries all over the world.

After the signal event that was World War I, young, hopeful, gifted composers trooped into the French metropolis. In 1925, the publisher Michel Dillard coined the term École de Paris (School of Paris) for the foreign composers then living in Paris, especially the Hungarian Tibor Harsányi (1898-1954), Pole Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986), Czech Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959), Russian Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977), and Romanian Marcel Mihalovici (1898-1985), whose works he specialized in disseminating. All five composers came to Paris from Eastern Europe and all, with the exception of Martinu, died there. All five initially attempted to translate the principal aspects of the difficult-to-notate idioms of folk music from their homelands into standard musical notation. Some works can be heard in a World Premiere Recording.

In this recording, David Stromberg deals with the well-known Bach cello solo suites. Unlike the usual recordings, he uses a historical style of playing and interpretation using the baroque cello, piccolo cello and a baroque bow. The gut strings of the baroque cello have a more versatile sound than the steel strings and enable the finest nuances in the tone. In this way one will discover these works in a fresh new way. The cellist David Stromberg is looking for new listening experiences - be it with the baroque cello, the cello piccolo or the modern cello. He is fascinated by both early music and new music, he searches for new forms of expression in improvisation, arranges well-known masterpieces so that they appear in a completely new guise and searches for forgotten instruments. David Stromberg completed his cello studies at the Hamburg University of Music and Theater in the class of Prof. Wolfgang Mehlhorn and at the Music Institute Schloss Edsberg in Stockholm with Prof. Frans Helmerson.

REVIEWS:

This is a lovely production. These fresh recordings of the 6 solo cello suites are the result of meticulous research and preparation by cellist David Stromberg. The first five suites are performed on a baroque cello which, according to the notes, has a slightly different tuning for number five. The sixth was apparently originally written for a five-stringed instrument which is used here. Straightforward and very accessible notes are included in the accompanying booklet.

-- Lark Reviews (Stephen Page)

With the versatile sound of the gut strings and also the historically informed handling of the bow, the finest nuances in tone can be explored. It is therefore only logical that David Stromberg concentrates entirely on his playing qualities and those of the music, away from any unnecessary fuss that only serves the presentation without meaning. Thus, on the one hand, he creates a coherent world of the six suites as well as a precise attention to the details of each movement and phrase. He sticks to the beautiful sound and only in a few places, for example in the fourth suite, he lets it creak a bit. But this then brings a new shade of color into the interpretation and does not seem careless or unintentional.

-- Pizzicato

The Polyphonia Ensemble Berlin, which was founded by musicians from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, presents French chamber music from around 1900 on this recording. The featured composers – Théodore Dubois, Vincent d’Indy and André Caplet – may have been overshadowed by their better-known contemporaries, but they nevertheless played major and original roles in the development of music in France, bequeathing us an appreciable quantity of remarkable works. At the same time, they represent three generations in the development of music at the dawn of the 20th century.

REVIEW:

The concert is thoroughly professional and artistically convincing. Timbres are resonant; and the balance, blend, and teamwork are terrific. The slow movements are warm and lyrical; and the fast movements are vigorous and sparkling. Each of the scores here deserves more frequent performances; and the Polyphonia Ensemble Berlin gives a masterclass in how to play them. Every serious chamber music collector should have this album.

-- American Record Guide

Of the three works on this disc, the one by perhaps the least well-known composer, Caplet, turns out to be the most virtuosic for the wind instruments, the most colorful, and the most enjoyable. … Caplet was a master orchestral scorer. And it sounds to me like his Suite persane demands the most in technical skill from the Polyphonia Ensemble Berlin’s ensemble of 10 wind players. The performance is really quite outstanding. The vivid and vibrant playing from this all-wind band is executed with absolute accuracy of pitch and such clarity of detail that all the rhythmic complexity and brilliance of Caplet’s scoring take on a three-dimensional quality.

-- Fanfare

Overall, this is a very enjoyable recording. None of the individual movements is longer than nine minutes, so there is never a sense of them overstaying their welcome...[nor] of the aimless burbling that I used to associate with the few wind ensemble works I had heard in the past. The playing of the wind section of Polyphonia Ensemble Berlin seems, to my inexperienced ears, to be very good. In the Dubois, there were a few moments when the violins were a little harsher than the music seemed to require. The recording blends the instruments naturally, and there are no extraneous noises from the players or the instruments.

-- MusicWeb International

These 2004 recordings,, reissued by Oehms Classics, with the renowned Clemencic Consort conducted by René Clemencic include works by the important composers Johann Joseph Fux and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. In the selection of Fux's works, cosmopolitan skill meets French and Italian styles with southern German tradition. Graceful in the graceful pieces by Biber, magnificently representative in the solemn ones, this recording with a varied program offers an authentic portrait of one of the most important masters of baroque music. The Clemencic Consort under the direction of René Clemencic is one of the most renowned ensembles for music from the Middle Ages to the Baroque period with a focus on authentic interpretations. Numerous award-winning recordings bear witness to the work of the ensemble.

REVIEW:

The first CD contains ballets and sonatas for trumpet and strings by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. The highly virtuosic music is heard in opulent and magnificent ensemble playing. Baroque opulence also abounds in the works of Johann Joseph Fux. The works assembled here impressively demonstrate the composer's versatility. The Clemencic Consort emphasizes this with a variety of tonal color and dynamic contrasts, fully exploiting the dance-like element of Fux’s music.

-- Pizzicato

Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, which premiered at Lindenoper/ Berlin in 1925, is regarded as one of the key music compositions of the 20th century and an essential work in any connoisseur’s collection. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck, which was left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's play on May 5, 1914, and knew at once that he wanted to base an opera on it. From the fragments of unordered scenes left by Büchner, Berg selected fifteen to form a compact structure of three acts with five scenes each. He adapted the libretto himself. On this release, the Frankfurt Opera, under the baton of Sebastian Weigle, delivers a razor-sharp and exciting interpretation. With Audun Iversen and Claudia Mahnke in the main roles the recording shows an ideal cast.

After his move to Moscow in 1943, Weinberg had to face widespread anti-Semitism, both among the population and on the part of politicians. Perhaps for this very reason, he composed the opera Congratulations! especially for the discerning entertainment and edification of the Jewish community in Moscow in the mid-1970s. It is a work full of Jewish topoi that at the same time disguises itself as being Socialist (here, the ‘rich people’ are clearly identified as the enemies and suppressors, and they must be disempowered) – probably because there would otherwise not have been any chance of performing it in Russia. The original text for the opera, to which Weinberg himself made only few amendments, derives from the ‘Jewish Mark Twain’, from Sholem Aleichem (1859–1916). Today, we are familiar with Aleichem mainly from his short story Tevye the Dairyman, which later provided the material for the musical Fiddler on the Roof. The Kammerakademie Potsdam under Vlademir Stoupel performed the Version for Chamber ensemble by Henry Koch live from the Konzerthaus Berlin.

That Hansjorg Albrecht is becoming increasingly involved with conducting, ever since his highly successful Braunfels orchestral songs, is no longer a secret. In the following recording, some of which was recorded live in Weimar, he has turned to Richard Wagner's Ring. He has once again selected the Staatskapelle Weimar for this task, an ensemble whose history extends all the way back to the year 1491. Thus this orchestra has one of the richest traditions of any ensemble in the world, and is more than familiar with the works of Richard Wagner.

REVIEW:

The sound is high-quality digital, with the Weimar orchestra as full and deep as on many audiophile recordings of Wagner, so the recording could only be improved with a multichannel version. Perhaps of greatest interest to newcomers is the inclusion of all the standard concert pieces, as well as generous portions of music that convey important aspects of the drama, though without any vocal parts. Maazel’s recording is still available, but Albrecht’s interpretation gives it a salutory renewal, so The Ring Without Words continues to make Wagner’s masterpiece accessible to listeners who haven’t taken the plunge.

– AllMusicGuide.com (Blair Sanderson)