Jacques Thibaud is considered to be one of the early 20th century’s leading violinists and chamber musicians. Such composers as Eugène Ysaÿe and George Enescu dedicated works to him. His memory lives on in such bodies as the Jacques Thibaud String Trio, founded in 1994, who pay homage to his lifelong love of ambitious and eloquent music-making in ensemble. The violinist was born in Bordeaux in the ancient lands of Aquitaine in south-west France, in Département Gironde, on September 27, 1880. His father had recognized his son’s musical talents and was still giving him violin lessons when Jacques gave his first public performance in Bordeaux at the age of eight. In 1893, when he was 13, he began studying at the Paris Conservatoire with the eminent Belgian violinist Martin Pierre Joseph Marsick (1847-1924), winning the conservatory’s Premier Prix in 1896. He also took instruction from Marsick’s compatriot Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe (1858-1931). From 1940 Jacques Thibaud taught at the Paris school of music directed by the French pianist, piano teacher and writer on music Marguerite Long (1874-1966), with whom he gave many concerts. The two artists initiated the Long-Thibaud competition for pianists and violinists (Concours international Marguerite Long–Jacques Thibaud) in 1943. The violinist later taught at the École normale de musique de Paris, founded in 1919 by Alfred Cortot , and in the 1950s directed summer courses at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. The 73-year-old violinist’s life was tragically cut short on September 1, 1953 – 10 days after his last concert in France – when the plane taking him to Tokyo crashed into Mont Cimet near Barcennolette in the French Alps.

Compared to the far more popular cycles by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven, the piano sonatas of Franz Joseph Haydn have for too long occupied an inferior position among listeners, though they are highly esteemed by pianists who know their importance and greatness. Musically, Haydn's sonatas are formally innovative and rich in invention and expression, and they require great skill and taste to be performed effectively. This is perhaps why only the most confident and capable of pianists, such as Marc-André Hamelin, Jenö Jandó, John McCabe, and Rudolf Buchbinder, attempt to record complete sets. Add to this select company the name of Ekaterina Derzhavina, a Russian pianist who has established a fine reputation for her interpretations of Bach, and who now demonstrates her thorough mastery of Haydn. Playing with clean lines and a refined touch, Derzhavina creates the effect of Classical period practice on a modern piano, and by avoiding the pedals, her sound is crisp and intimate, without the quirkiness of a fortepiano's tone quality. These recordings were made between 1993 and 2008, and Profil's audio quality is first-rate, with close microphone placement and a pleasantly resonant acoustic that makes the music especially appealing.

-- All Music Guide

Brahms’s friend Carl Goldmark completed Merlin in 1886, when it was premiered at the Vienna Hofoper. Fairly successful on both sides of the Atlantic before the Great War but hardly heard since, it’s representative of an almost-forgotten genre of 19th-century operas on aspects of the Arthurian mythos. (Chausson’s Le Roi Arthus and Albéniz’s Merlin are other examples).

The libretto by Siegfried Lipiner concentrates on Merlin’s fatal love for the wild child Viviane, which dims the magical powers with which he had served King Arthur, so that he falls victim to the Demon he had previously enslaved.

This spirited revival reveals a beautifully-scored and theatrically quite sure-footed piece fascinatingly poised between Brahms and Wagner: chromatic, Tristan-esque motifs contrast with choral writing more out of Rinaldo and the Triumphlied.

Between these extremes there is a supple, late-Romantic middle-ground where Goldmark’s declamatory vocal writing rises to occasional eloquence, with some noble orchestral passages that seem to anticipate Elgar.

The piece was certainly worth revival, but actual greatness eludes it. Luckily this production is vocally strong, with Robert Künzli as a noble-voiced Merlin, Frank van Hove as the scheming Demon and Anna Gabler a touching Viviane being the clear stars of the show.

-- Calum MacDonald, BBC Music Magazine

Flautist Brandon Patrick George describes his debut album as a dialogue between the past and the future. It is indeed quite a leap in time from Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) to the Finnish composer Kalevi Aho, born in 1949 – yet he has included works for solo flute by both composers on this recording. There are also two important chamber works for a flute and piano duo which represent milestones in the repertoire: a sonata by Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) and a sonatina by Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) – and so this release represents a walk through musical history spanning 300 years. Brandon Patrick George is the flutist of the Grammy®-nominated Imani Winds, and has performed with many of the world’s leading ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE).

REVIEW:

What strikes the listener on this debut release by Brandon Patrick George is the chances he takes. Until the final Flute Sonata, Op. 94, of Prokofiev, George plays perilously virtuosic works, with every detail of his playing exposed by hyper-clear sound. George chooses an intelligent program that begins with the Bach's Flute Partita in A minor, BWV 1013. George's crisp, sharp-edged performance is masterly. The pieces by Pierre Boulez and Kalevi Aho not only extend the virtuoso challenges but tie into the implied Baroque counterpoint of Bach's Partita. Only with the Prokofiev Flute Sonata does the music relax, and George with it. It's an exceptionally well-structured program, flawlessly executed.

- James Manheim, AllMusic.com

“I can count myself as a very fortunate person indeed; all my album recordings with orchestra have been preceded by a major concert tour. This project was no exception. Before we recorded the album, Jonathan Bloxham and I played six concerts with the North West German Philharmonic. We grew ever closer, sharing our opinions of the music, and the depth of the interpretation and the extent of our freedom steadily increased. At the recording we played together as a perfectly coordinated team and yet were able to give free rein to inspiration. When I was studying in Moscow I concentrated principally on the works of the Romantic composers: Rachmaninov, Chopin, Schumann. Then when I moved to Germany, I developed a real interest in playing the classic German pieces. Then Franck and Strauss came to mind because their music had always attracted me.“ (Ekaterina Litvintseva)

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is undoubtedly one of the greatest vocalists of the past century – and one of those with the most extensive discography. Yet we constantly note the disappearance from the catalogue of early recordings for radio or gramophone, particularly those which covered less popular repertoire. And there are a number of recordings that have simply never been issued on album. The present anthology aims to bridge this gap – with seven albums offering an average of 77 minutes playing time, or a total of some nine hours of music: rare repertoire, seldom or never yet available in these versions on album, matched by indispensable gems of recorded music such as the young Fischer-Dieskau in Gustav Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen in the orchestral version under the baton of the great Wilhelm Furtwängler. That legendary orchestra director, in his turn, judged that “no-one has ever sung Mahler better” than the young baritone.

Rimsky-Korsakov´s musical legacy made a huge impact and stretches far into the twentieth century. Even if the language barrier makes full understanding difficult, some of his operas can still prove deeply moving. This series brings together for the first time Rimsky-Korsakov’s entire operatic oeuvre, including the fragment Nausicaa and recordings that have survived of Vera Sheloga and Servilia, all in authentic performances featuring singers from the Golden Age of the Bolshoi Theatre. Some of them can be heard here on album for the very first time. Time and again, they show that Rimsky-Korsakov is one of the greatest Russian composers who ever lived. His musical colleague and near contemporary Claude Debussy (1862-1918) paid homage to him in the most wonderful manner: “The magic of the themes and the shimmering brilliance of the orchestration and rhythm cannot be expressed in mere words. Show me someone who fails to be moved by the power of this music. Making that silly sound with one’s hands ... is certainly not sufficient to thank a man who has given us minutes of pure happiness.

SET CONTENT HIGHLIGHTS (Complete Operas):

• Pskovityanka (The Maid of Pskov) • Mayskaya noch' (May Night) • The Snow Maiden • Mlada • Noch'pered rozhdestvom (Christmas Eve) • Sadko • Mozart and Salieri, Op. 48 • Pan Voyevoda, Op. 59 • Skazaniye o nevidimom grade Kitezhe i deve Fevronii (Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya) • Zolotoy petushok (The Golden Cockerel)

REVIEW:

This collection features some remarkable performances which in turn have great singers in starring roles – the likes of Natalia Shpiller, Ivan Kozlovsky, Georgi Nelepp, Pavel Lisitsian, Alexander Pirogov, Mark Reizen, and Andrei Ivanov with conductors such as Nikolai Golovanov, Alexander Gauk, and Samuil Samosud. Mlada is in stereo (under Evgeny Svetlanov) and includes the sort of imaginative sound palette that Rimsky also employed for Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. The sound has its ups and downs, but if you’re after authentic performances of Russian opera, you’ll be well catered for.

–Gramophone

The works on this release were performed in the Dresden Staatskapelle’s second symphony concert of the 2002/2003 season on September 29 and 30 and October 2, 2002. It was Bernard Haitink’s first subscription concert as Principal Conductor of the orchestra, after he had spontaneously declared his willingness to take over this position and support the Staatskapelle in the difficult situation that had arisen following the sudden death of Giuseppe Sinopoli the previous year. It still seems a stroke of luck for Dresden, and in particular for its orchestra, that it could find a personality of such international standing who had a deep understanding both of the Staatskapelle’s great tradition and of its special character and thus was uniquely qualified to maintain and enhance its high artistic level, its individual sound and its worldwide reputation. Orchestra and conductor had known each other since 1989 from recordings and concerts at home and abroad. This then was the beginning of a sustained, if all too short, period of continuous work togheter, which wonderfully met the highest expectations “at home” and on tour in Europe and the Far East.

It was the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler who first gave Gottlob Frick the nickname "Der schwärzeste Bass". This accolade has been picked up time and again, gone through various manifestations, and become a sort of trademark of the German bass Gottlob Frick. That said, the attribute "black" is often applied to define the vocal range of a basso profundo's ability to produce sonorous deep notes. However, the definition of "black bass" means far more than that: it applies primarily to the deep, dark timbre, the rich and sonorous sound and the lasting flexibility of the voice even in the deep registers, paired with strength, momentum, natural resonance and abundant expression in the entire vocal range. "If you have ever heard the timbre of Gottlob Frick's voice, you will never forget it," as the German singing expert Jürgen Kesting accurately observed in his standard reference work "Die großen Sänger". Gottlob Frick is seen rightly therefore as the incarnation of the black bass. He is a German bass who, thanks to the many sound recordings he left us documenting his sonorous, unusually beautiful and fluently melodic singing, enjoys a popularity to this day that is probably unparalleled in this vocal register. One of the reasons the internationally renowned critic John B. Steane advanced to justify his inclusion of Gottlob Frick in his list of 100 most important singers in "Opera Now" is encapsulated in this fitting characterisation: "When it comes to the Wagnerian basso profundo, the only name in recent times that matters" – by which he means the 1940s to 1980s – "is that of Gottlob Frick: a tower of strength in the strongest ensemble and one of the greatest basses of all time. His voice is steady despite its powerful capacity, supple and splendid. Frick's two-and-a-half-octave bass is remarkably well trained and remains constant through its entire spectrum. He has a strong sense of rhythm and he can sing both legato and staccato in exemplary manner, without depriving his listeners of that rich timbre of his."

Friedemann Wuttke, the internationally recognised guitarist, joins forces here with his musical friends and companions. The result is an entertaining programme which not only shows the musical association of these friends, but also demonstrates how eras and nations are connected through music. A colourful collection of interesting, popular pieces has come into being. This ranges from the Renaissance to the 20th century; from Argentina to Spain. We thus arrive at a very exciting interplay between widely diverging styles and a great variety of musicians, in musical encounters that arose from two decades of international concert appearances. The guitar is joined by various contributors who are carried away by the lightness and charm that Friedemann Wuttke allows to prevail through his choice of pieces. In everything, the will of the guitarist to do justice to his instrument, to the composers, and also to the listener, is displayed in ways that are both entertaining and demanding.

Solomon (1902-1988) was one of the best and most successful concert pianists in the world when in December 1956 his career came to an abrupt end after a debilitating stroke. This collection is the first to offer an overview that ranges from the most important early recordings such as Brahms’s Handel Variations and the concerto by Arthur Bliss premiered by Solomon, via the exemplary Beethoven sonatas, to the last performances in Rome, Berlin and London. The critics praised Solomon's recordings, above all, for his tonally beautiful, powerful and yet sophisticated playing. On the subject of the Beethoven sonatas, Joachim Kaiser praised the inner meaning of Solomon’s “austerity”, perceiving an astringency, a fire sparked by the work itself, a total commitment to the interpretation and meaning of every single note.

REVIEW:

Solomon’s coloristic intuition and refined tonal qualities, combined with a well handled rubato, are wonderfully vivid, especially in the solo pieces included here. Whoever is satisfied with pure beauty and brilliant pianism is certainly well served.

– Pizzicato (Remy Franck)

The present release is a live recording of 1942 from the opera house of the State Theatre of Saxony, the Semperoper, destroyed by bombing three years later and finally reopened in 1985. The opera chorus and orchestra are to be heard performing alongside an outstanding ensemble of soloists under the musical direction of Karl Böhm, then principal conductor in Dresden as successor to Fritz Busch. Sung in German to a text by Julius Hopp, the new production – advertised as being in its 500th performance in mid-June 1942 – was created by Heinz Arnold, then Oberspielleiter (chief production supervisor) and post-war opera director to the Dresden State Opera. Stage sets and costumes (given as Trachten, “outfits”, work clothes or regional dress) were the responsibility of Adolf Mahnke and Richard Panzer. What little has survived as evidence of this historic staging suggests that it was strongly influenced by the Paris premiere. The Hispanic-Moorish elements of the stage façades clearly suggest the architecture of faraway lands. This thrill of the exotic is also to be found in the “outfits” and of course in the music. Georges Bizet thus combined and compared the charm of folklore with the (normally forbidden) deviant behavior of his characters. With their dusky harmonies, these psychologically convincing sequences of tuneful numbers hold the audience under their spell. The performance is an irresistible delight, especially in this realization under a maestro like Karl Böhm.

On 22nd September 2018 the Staatskapelle Dresden celebrated its 470th jubilee. The orchestra was directed by Bernard Haitink from 2002 to 2004. (Haitink turns 90 in 2019.) Principal Conductor since the 2012/13 season has been Christian Thielemann. Founded by Prince Elector Moritz von Sachsen in 1548, it is one of the oldest orchestras in the world and steeped in tradition. Over its long history, many distinguished conductors and internationally celebrated instrumentalists have left their mark on this one-time court orchestra. Previous directors include Heinrich Schütz, Johann Adolf Hasse, Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner, who called the ensemble his “miraculous harp”. The list of prominent conductors of the last 100 years includes Ernst von Schuch, Fritz Reiner, Fritz Busch, Karl Böhm, Joseph Keilberth, Rudolf Kempe, Otmar Suitner, Kurt Sanderling, Herbert Blomstedt and Giuseppe Sinopoli.

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REVIEW:

Haitink has previously recorded all of the music on these six discs, but these new releases are still welcome. The Bruckner Eighth and Mahler Resurrection are particularly fine. The Bruckner is mighty indeed, Haitink’s finest available recording of the work. Throughout the engineers have captured a full, rich, well-balanced sound.

– ClassicalCDReview.com

The present recording is inspired by the timbre which Brahms had intended. Contrary to usual philharmonic practice, Gerd Schaller and his Philharmonie Festiva perform with a smaller string section, and therefore more in keeping with Brahms’ preference. The sound is admittedly unfamiliar, yet exhilarating. In particular, the balance between the winds and strings brings out the woodwinds far more distinctly, while allowing the brass to show off too. The effect is to produce a transparent way of music-making: Gerd Schaller and his 53 musicians set great store above all by a refined sound that nevertheless conveys the passion inherent in Brahms’ music. The album was recorded in the historic Max Littmann Hall of the Regentenbau (part of the spa complex buildings) in Bad Kissingen. Inaugurated in 1913 and offering ideal dimensions enhanced by its cherrywood panelling, it is considered one of the best concert venues in the world. This magnificent concert hall was also where the Philharmonie Festiva recorded Carl Goldmark’s opera Merlin (which won an ECHO Klassik award), his First Symphony “The Rustic Wedding”, the late symphonies by Franz Schubert, Anton Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony and the Great Mass by Johann Ritter von Herbeck. All of these recordings have been released on the Profil Edition Günter Hänssler label.

Katsuya Watanabe was born in Japan in 1966. He began learning the piano at the age of three and the oboe at thirteen. From 1985 to 1989 he studied at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he won first prize and the grand prix in the Oboe Competition in 1991. In 1988, whilst still studying, he became deputy solo oboist in the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa and remained in that post until 1992. He held the position of solo oboist first in the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra from 1992 to 1996, then in Karlsruhe for a year and from 1997 to 2008 in the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. At present he is solo oboist in the Solistes Européens in Luxembourg and increasingly devotes himself to solo activities, giving frequent recitals and performing in concerts with the Philharmonic Orchestras in Bratislava and Zagreb, the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo and other ensembles. In 2011, he was chair of the jury at the very oboe competition where he had once won first prize. Katsuya Watanabe is visiting professor at the Senzoku Gakuen College of Music in Tokyo.