Since it's founding in 2009, Ensemble Schmuck has been praised by audiences and the press for it's charismatic performances. The ensemble appears in around 50 concerts across Germany every year, presenting attractive programmes in a way that is both original and skillful. The intriguing range of genres, from Classical and Romantic works through gripping tango arrangements to staged concert formats with drama, appeals to listeners of all generations, thanks in no small part to the adaptability of the trio's formation, with three members able to switch effortlessly between violin and viola. Ensemble Schmuck is centered around clarinetist Sayaka Schmuck, who has gathered together a number of outstanding young artists in pursuit of the great passion they all share: chamber music. In the process, each musician contributes experiences, energy and ideas from his or her own musical practice, thus giving manifold impetus to the ensemble's work in rehearsals and concerts and instilling color and flexibility into it's performances.

The court music establishment in Karlsruhe was in some respects rather special: for reasons of cost, the court did not engage any expensive foreign soloists, such as castrati for the solo parts, and instead deployed up to 40 orchestral musicians in addition to a 70-strong girls' choir, which is likely to have overlapped with the legendary Blumenmadchen, a group of young ladies-in-waiting who were notoriously engaged by Carl Wilhelm for his entertainment. There were surely some talented vocalists among these members, but the ability to master and embellish such challenging pieces as the arias of miniature operas requires extensive vocal training. The final cantata by Molter draws on delightful coloraturas to describe the ascent of a lark, whose lovesick and despairing flight through the skies follows a concise formal pattern: two stanzas of an aria, this time without a B section, a recitative, a brief second aria and then the two stanzas of the first aria in da capo form. What is interesting is that the cantatas presented here are all cut of similar cloth, yet, on closer examination, exhibit great compositional variety, particularly in their formal structure.

The Russian word romans ("romance") denotes an art song whose lyrics usually - but not always! - deal with the subject of Romantic love. A counterpart to the German Lied or French romance, the Russian romans embarked on it's journey late in the 18th century. Predictably, the earliest romansy imitated the Western models and were set in French and Italian. As it happens time and again in Russian history, a Western innovation timidly arrived in Russia, steeped in the country's unique culture, and after years of evolution re-entered the West as something strikingly new, fresh, and... yes, indeed "Russian." When it comes to the genre in question, the West discovered the dramatic romansy by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff not so long ago. Our album L'histoire de la romance russe is designed to show what preceded these glorious masterpieces.

Classical Music

October 8, 2017 marked the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Dresden State Opera Chorus. This new release from Profil, the tenth volume in the label's Semperoper Edition, celebrates their long and successful history, as it features the earliest recordings of the ensemble. The album includes opera choruses under the baton of general music director Karl Bohm. Other esteemed directors featured on the album include Kurt Striegler, Rudolf Neuhaus, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Sir Colin Davis, and others. The release provides a broad overview of the ensemble's impressively large repertoire, with opera choruses by Wagner, Gounod, Strauss, Bizet, Dvorak, Beethoven, and more.

•Spanish Impressions features the works of Albéniz, Shchedrin, Sarasate, Granados, Ginastera, Cassadó and Turina performed by the Young Soloists of Kronberg Academy; Niklas Liepe, violin; Benedict Kloeckner, violoncello; and pianists Nils Liepe & José Gallardo.

This recording is based on the edition of Prof. William Carragan (Version 1878), which is oriented towards the Nowak Edition. It is shorter and much catchier than the usually performed version. The strings have the upper hand here instead of the brass, but the four horns do resurface with reminiscences of the first movement. Gerd Schaller leads the Philharmonie Festiva. Live recording.

Great conductors often bring out the universality of music with particular clarity, a gift especially present in Klaus Tennstedt. Particularly known for his singular interpretations of the symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler, this recording reveals that Tennstedt was an equally adept interpreter of the symphonies of Haydn and the music of Mozart.

Amid the countless small salon forms evoked by fashion in the mid-1800s, the sonata form continued to reign supreme. Chopin’s sonatas are among his best-loved works and the most gorgeously composed sonatas of the time. Up and coming pianist Eugéne Mursky executes all three with style and musicianship to spare.

The courtship and marriage of Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck is one of the great love stories in the history of music. Their relationship, embodying all the requisite elements of Romantic fiction, has taken on mythic proportions through it's frequent depiction in novels and movies.

Classical Music

I discovered Rimsky-Korsakov piano trio through the recording of David Oistrakh trio. Purely from curiosity I searched the catalogue of the Belaieff edition and came across number of beautiful works by Glazunov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Liadov and Blumenfeld. Most of these works are not commonly performed, particularly the short piano pieces. -Miki Aoki.

A release celebrating the centennial of the birth of German soprano Elfride Trotschel. Songs and arias by Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, among others. Ms. Trotschel not only had exceptional vocal and acting ability; she truly lived her roles, transforming into one of many fragile female figures, whether Rusalka, Tatyana, Mimi or Butterfly, suffering and perishing just as they did. 'She sang what she felt,' as Professor Reinhard Ulbricht, Staatskapelle leader for many years, describes it.

Designed as a musical response to one of the best-known classics of cello repertoire, the early-20th-century Schelomo by Ernst Bloch, Timofeyev Ensemble's Shloyme brings together the post-Romantic aesthetics with the bitter-sweet beauty of the Yiddish folklore. The main focus of the project is the inner world of an imaginary hero Shloyme, a Jew who was born in a Ukrainian shteytl and who survived all the major calamities of the 20th century: the pogroms, October Revolution, Civil War, Stalin's Gulag, and World War II.

Classical Music