Japanese pianist Katsuya Watanabe began learning the piano at the age of three and the oboe at thirteen. He studied at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he began gaining fame and won first prize at several competitions. Watanabe is currently the solo oboist in the Solistes Europeens in Luxembourg and increasingly devotes himself to solo activities, giving frequent recitals.

Well-known for spearheading a general revival of interest in, and modernizing the performance practices of Baroque music, especially Bach, after WWII, Karl Richter (1926-81) also conducted works by composers other than Bach, including Handel and Mozart. Heard here conducting the choral and orchestral forces he founded in mid-20th c., the Munchener Bach-Chor and Munchener Bach-Orchester, this performance of Mozart's Requiem, KV626 features a stellar company of soloists, including sopranos Maria Stader, Hertha Toepper and the fine Dutch-born lyric tenor John van Kesteren.

Conductor Ferdinand Leitner (1912-96), learning his trade from masters like Walter, Busch, Richter and Karl Muck (as rehearsal pianist at Bayreuth), gained the experience that lead to his being dubbed the "singers' conductor" by all who worked with him during a long and lustrous career marked by his tenure as Zurich Opera music director (1969-84) and some 300 commercial recordings. The 1970's-80's Bayreuth stalwart, bass-baritone Franz Mazura as Tamerlano and famed American lyric soprano Helen Donath as Asteria headline this 1966 Leitner-led performance of Handel's Tamerlano.

Constantin Silvestri (1913-1969) was a Romanian conductor, pianist and composer who was already playing the piano in public at the age of 10. At the age of 16, he won the George Enescu Prize, presented to him by the composer himself. Enescu, who very much admired Silvestri, is believed to have said: "We want Silvestri to be able to do everything we expect of him - and that's a lot". Silvestri was a very humorous man; at the same time, however, very serious and critical; a non-conformist. He was inventive, with complex interests and a difficult nature. Owing to political changes in Romania and rivalry between several colleagues, follow-up performances of "Oedipus" were abruptly cancelled, as were other concerts of his in Romania. Silvestri decided to leave his homeland and eventually settled in England. He successfully performed with many renowned orchestras, and led the rather provincial British Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra to worldwide fame. Nevertheless, in parallel with the prestige attached to being an orchestral conductor, Silvestri (a brilliant improviser) also devoted his time to playing the piano and to compositions for this very personal instrument, to which he entrusted his most secret thoughts colored by his own subjectivity. It is a great credit to the pianist Luiza Borac to be presenting here to the public the first recordings and arrangements of Silvestri's complete piano works.

Olga Dubowskaja and Olesya Salvytska, who are from Belarus and Ukraine respectively, have been giving concerts since 2005 as DUO IMTAKT. They favour two formation types which are seldom heard in Germany: mandolin & piano and domra & piano. The two musicians possess a remarkable sense of expression and they devote huge commitment to all of their performances. The artists are very careful with their choice of compositions; they have a penchant for music from the rich repertoire of their homelands. The two friends often choose to arrange some of the works, including famous classical pieces. They are careful to ensure that the instruments’ tonal characteristics reflect the mood of the chosen music. Usually, the repertoire requires no adaptation, since there is a wealth of Mediterranean and Slavic music available for this formation.

To celebrate the composer's 250th birthday, this edition presents all available chamber music compositions by Josef Elsner in new recordings of historically informed interpretations. Joseph Elsner was born in the town of Grottkau (Grotk�w) in Silesia. He initially attended the Dominican monastery school in Breslau (Wroclaw) where he was trained as choirboy and violinist and afterwards the Jesuit School as well as the Leopoldinum where at first he studied theology and later medicine. Aged twenty he moved to Vienna and chose a musical career. Elsner finally ran the Main School for Music (Szkola Gl�wna Muzyki) at Warsaw University where his students included Fr�d�ric Chopin, Feliks Ignacy Dobrzynski et al. Towards the end of his life Elsner compiled a comprehensively commented catalogue of his musical pieces the German original of which has unfortunately been lost. What remains is a Polish translation, nowadays considered the main source for Elsner's life and work.

There's Stravinsky, there's Bart�k, there's Hindemith; but where is Piazzolla? With this question, the leading composition teacher Nadia Boulanger set the course of a musical about-turn in the work of her student Astor Piazzolla. We speak of tango nuevo - the new tango - created by this very man, Astor Piazzolla. At first, it brought the young composer little more than hostility in his Argentine homeland, but it later brought him world fame. To reach that point was a long journey. The present release presents Piazzolla's concertos and chamber works performed by the trio of William Sabatier, Friedemann Wuttke, and Wilfried Holzenkamp. The trio first emerged as a duo when in 2017 bandoneon player William Sabatier and guitarist Friedemann Wuttke met at the Kiosk European Festival in Lyon. Out of this encounter arose a successful collaboration and beautiful friendship.

Is there anything better than the touch of someone who loves us? As much as we only want the sunny moments of life, there are also dark days. The songs that Profil founder Gunter Hanssler would like to present on this album were created in these different moments, and represent the comfort of touch. Founder G�nter H�nssler says: "A friendly pressman once called me the consummate collector of great moments. I am naturally pleased when others say that about me. For ten years, I have been releasing "magical moments" of classical music on the PROFIL label, unforgettable concert experiences for audiences that still convey the same magic to listeners decades later. With each recording I track down today, I ask myself whether it is worth placing it among the multitude of releases on the market. Does it have the necessary substance? One must listen very precisely to determine that, not only hearing with one's ears, but feeling with all one's senses what is exceptional about the recording. I spend much time in the archives of the broadcasting corporations and work my way through their catalogues. Distinguishing the brilliant from the good is an exciting challenge and also my passion!"

Martha Argerich was born in Buenos Aires in 1941 and in the course of her career has risen to become the best-known female pianist in the world. She attracted attention at the early age of three at a school performance. Her formal musical education began when she was five years old, and in 1949 she publicly performed piano concertos by Mozart and Beethoven in Buenos Aires. She was able to attend concerts given by the great pianists of that era and was very impressed with their skill. Friedrich Gulda accepted her as a student in 1955 and she went to Vienna to study with him, although he freely admitted that he did not know what he could teach her. In 1957 she won first prizes at piano competitions in Bolzano and Geneva. Her early recordings made in Buenos Aires (1955) and Geneva (1957) form an interesting part of this collection. These were followed by performances at radio stations in Hamburg and Cologne and then by her first official vinyl recordings. She gained early international recognition in 1961 thanks to a concert in Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, where Martha Argerich performed together with the brilliant violinist Ruggiero Ricci. An example of that historic performance is included in this first audio documentation of the beginnings of this exceptional pianist’s career.



REVIEW:

This is young Argerich, sometimes errant Argerich, but mostly thrilling and thoroughly compelling Argerich. While her pacing can sometimes push limits, she is excellent most of the time; put simply, you are far more likely to be astounded than dismayed.

– MusicWeb International

Gerd Schaller writes: “Bruckner conceived and composed his String Quintet in F major as a work of chamber music. It is accordingly different from his symphonies in its layout and its realization; one substantial difference, for instance, is in the lack of mysticism in the string quintet: on the contrary, there is a sense of radiant blossoming. The underlying atmosphere is brighter, more optimistic, clear, even a little livelier; there is a constant flow and current running through the work. The slow movement is so full of inner meaning and in my view is certainly one of the most beautiful pieces of music that Bruckner ever wrote. The heaven-storming events, the concentrations of sound and erratic blocks of the symphonies, will be sought in vain.“ The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra is one of the oldest and most important Czech orchestras and is a welcome guest throughout the Czech Republic and on concert platforms abroad. The orchestra was established in 1926, three years after the foundation of Czechoslovak Radio. Gerd Schaller studied conducting and held positions at various German state theatres until 2006, and since then has been a freelance artist in constant demand as a guest conductor with well-known orchestras and at concert halls and opera houses at home and abroad.

Born in 1984, in Bulgaria, Evgeni Bozhanov completed his studies in Essen and D�sseldorf (Germany) with Prof. Boris Bloch and Prof. Georg Friedrich Schenck. His international career launched following top prizes at international competitions including the Sviatoslav Richter International Piano Competition in Moscow, Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas and International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. In past seasons he has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the National Orchestra of Belgium, Philharmonia Orchestra, and others. The Dallas Morning News wrote: "He can produce more nuances of tone in a measure of music than most pianists find in a lifetime." For this release, he has chosen to perform Shostakovich's Piano Concerto op. 35 and Mozart's Piano Concerto K453.

Rising pianist Ekaterina Litvintseva writes of this release in which she performs Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor Op. 15: "From a technical and musical perspective, it is one of the hardest concertos ever written! What clearly distinguishes it from other concertos is it's symbiosis of orchestra and pianist. What I mean is that the orchestra and pianist are very closely interlinked so as to give the concerto a thoroughly symphonic complexion. It is known that Brahms originally conceived the work as a symphony. It stands to reason, therefore, that this work should sound symphonic. The task set before the pianist when tackling this work is a very tall order, namely the challenge of playing a 50-minute concerto and, throughout every minute, immersing oneself in the music without losing sight of the overall picture. A useful analogy might be to imagine a mountainous landscape and, whilst enjoying the harmony and unity of the mountains, also to observe their slightest elevations and hollows. I believe that nature abounds in this work, as if I were to breathe in the fresh mountain air, feel it's vigor and visualize scenic colors. I have put so much time and energy into this concerto. By giving so many concerts, I was able to thoroughly immerse myself in the music and experiment with it 13 times. So I think I'm justified in saying that it has become my concerto."

All the other works of art, literature and music titled "Seasons" treat the seasons as determined by the weather and human activity (planting and harvest, heat and cold) characteristic of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Not so with Tchaikovsky. He divides the year into it's twelve months. Each piece of the piano cycle illustrates a month of the year. This is most likely due to the demands of it's St Petersburg publisher Nikolay Bernard, who in 1875 asked Tchaikovsky to write suitable piano pieces for the twelve 1876 issues of his periodical Nouvelliste as musical inserts for domestic performance, which Tchaikovsky was very happy to do, not least because of the generous remuneration he could expect for them. Each piece is prefaced by a literary motto drawn from contemporary Russian poetry, no doubt added retrospectively by the publisher. Poets quoted include Alexander Pushkin, Alexey Tolstoy, Nikolay Nekrasov, Vasily Zhukovsky and Afanasy Fet. On this new release, Tchaikovsky's Seasons are performed by Andrej Hoteev.

Mravinsky relentlessly honed the quality of the individual musicians and of the orchestra as a whole. He rehearsed tirelessly and remorselessly with the individual sections of the orchestra, kicking out anyone who did not meet his expectations and replacing him with the best. In the concert hall, he was able to apply in technically perfect and precise manner his extremely finely graduated dynamic range, immense palette of tone colors and volcanic outbursts. He never gesticulated wildly and often did not even use a baton. "His" Philharmonic Orchestra could measure itself with the best in the world. Mravinsky recorded in studios from 1938 to 1961. He was, in the words of music commentator Norman Lebrecht, "the most capable of all Soviet conductors." This release is the fourth volume in Profil's exploration of Mravinsky's recordings, and features works by Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Khachaturian, and more.

The critic of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung wrote of Schmittbauers works: "Hr. Kapellm. Schmittb., is one of the first to have distinguished himself in Germany on account of the most charming of all Instruments, which is surely so little used only because it is so precious and on account of a certain quaint prejudice against it - and has done so in compositions, through playing it himself, and by building exceedingly good Harmonicas. The less often something for this Instrument appears; the more indispensable to the player, who does not know how to express his own ideas and sentiments in notes, are pieces written especially for this instrument; the more commonly and regrettably most players resort to pieces arranged as may be: the more is this small Work to be recommended. One readily recognizes in it the good player of the Harmonica. The pieces are not without poetic worth, and yet - some particular passages excepted, which one can soon modify appropriately - easy to perform [...] No one, who is able to perform them adequately, will play them without being delighted by them." This release will prove that not only will the performers be delighted by these works, but so will the listeners.