Wilhelm Backhaus realized the significance of the gramophone record early on, making his first solo recording in 1908 and going on to record many more, each tantamount to a live performance. These recordings, offered up here, represent the earliest ever recordings of works by composers like Mozart, Strauss, Chopin, Brahms, and Liszt.

The irresistible Boulanger Trio, composed of pianist Karla Haltenwanger, violinist Birgit Erz, and cellist Ilona Kindt have won a number of prizes worldwide and built an excellent reputation in the chamber music community. In addition to their traditional repertoire like the Shostakovich here presented, the Trio are in demand as interpreters of modern composers like Peteris Vasks, whose "Episodi e Canto perpetuo" grace this disc.

The combination of Der Rosenkavalier and Dresden has always been very special. The work was premiered at the Semperoper in 1911- and was an immediate sensation. The dress rehearsal alone received more comprehensive press coverage than the Kaiser’s birthday on the same day, with reporters racing to wire the wonderful success to their papers. The Deutsche Reichsbahn scheduled special trains to bring ardent musiclovers from other places to the city on the Elbe. There was perhaps a feeling that it would be the last European operatic event before the First World War broke out… Not least the work itself contributed to the nostalgic fin-de-siecle atmosphere. Strauss and his librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal had written a “comedy for music” in which the Rococo era of Maria Theresia’s Vienna was revived- not for historical reasons, but as a reflection on their own apocalyptic mood. Everything seems so genuine in this piece and yet it is all an illusion. From the solemn presentation of the rose (a Hofmannsthal invention) to the Viennese waltz mania, it is a musical anachronism- which makes its timelessness all too clear. The work was premiered in January 1911, not in Vienna, but in opera-loving Dresden, where Strauss’s “personal conductor” general music director Ernst von Schuch conducted the Dresden Hofkapelle (today’s Staatskapelle), which Strauss deemed to be “the best opera orchestra in the world.” The Staatskapelle musicians still play their idol’s work from the original orchestral parts of the premiere.

Brhams worked at his First String Quartet for twenty years, not publishing it until 1873. He wrote as follows about it to his surgeon friend Theodor Billroth, to whom the piece is dedicated: "Composing is not difficult, but it is fantastically difficult to get rid of the superfluous notes", humorously adding that a doctor was urgently needed to assist this "forceps birth". Billroth replied: "It contains a great many beautiful things in compressed form: yet it is enormously difficult not only technically, but also in content." He meant that to the density of the motivic work was unique in Brahms's oeuvre. All four movements of the quartet develop out of a single motif in the firs tmovement.

Dorothea Seel brings us on this recording a historically informed performance of Handel’s flute sonatas. Performing on flauto traverso, Ms. Seel is accompanied by Luca Gugliemi on Cembalo. Dorothea Seel is a critically acclaimed performer. “…Dorothea Seel was a graceful and gentle flute soloist” (New York Times) “…with quite breathtaking athletic playing and hauntingly elegiac moments.” (Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2014)

This new release from tenor Gerhard Siegel features Leider from Kurt Hessenberg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Richard Strauss. Gerhard Siegel has been working freelance since 2006, performing Max in the new production of Weber's Freischutz at the Komische Oper in Berlin, in Hindemith's Das Nusch-Nuschi under Gerd Albrecht, Max in Jonny spielt auf (Johnny strikes up the band) in Cologne, Florestan at the Granada Festival, Weill's Protagonist at the Bregenz Festival, Herod at the Vienna State Opera, in Brussels, Barcelona, London and Madrid, Captain (Wozzeck) at the Teatro Real Madrid and the Opera Bastille in Paris, in Zemlinsky's Gorge the Dreamer at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Sellem in The Rake's Progress at the Theater an der Wien and Prince Shuisky in Boris Godunov in Munich. Central roles in his present repertoire are Herod, as well as Mime in Rheingold and Siegfried. He sang the latter role in his debuts at the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Bayreuth Festival and in the Ring directed by Jeffrey Tate at the Cologne Opera, as well as at London's Covent Garden and in Barcelona, Bayreuth, Vienna, Augsburg, Budapest and Tokyo. Schoenberg's Gurrelieder (Klaus-Narr) formed another highlight on a tour with Michael Gielen and the SWR Symphony Orchestra and with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta.

Classical Music

Aside from some smaller piano pieces, the String Quartet in F major is the only remaining composition by Theofil Richter, father of pianist Sviatoslav Richter, who preserved the manuscript. In this work, Theofil Richter presented his compositional mastery in the sophisticated genre of the string quartet. Felix Blumenfeld's String Quartet Op. 26 in F major (1898) captured first prize of the St. Petersburg Chamber Music Society (Russia). This powerful piece is characterized by a wealth of melodic imagination. The Odessa String Quartet gives these works their world premiere recordings.

Born in Japan, Seiko Tsukamoto studied with Jacques Rouvier at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, where she was unanimously awarded a Premier Prix in 1994. Tsukamoto has appeared throughout Europe, the United States as well as Israel and Asia, both as a soloist and chamber musician.

Classical Music

Schumann's only piano concerto is romantically poetic and not a work of bravura virtuosity. The piano and the orchestra do not contend for dominance. Their parts are closely interwoven, and one is not imaginable without the other. Mozart composed his last three symphonies within an incredibly short period of less than two months in the summer of 1788.

Classical Music

As a tribute to guitar legend Andres Segovia, Profil has compiled performances by the master himself as well as up and coming guitarist Friedemann Wuttke. The works are focused on favorites and evergreens from Segovia's repertoire, works of Albeniz, Sor, Vivaldi, Carulli, Paganini, and more, played intimately and soulfully in this beautiful 2 disc set. A fitting homage to a giant.

Classical Music

Classical Music