The pan flute holds a significant place in Romanian folk music, with Gheorghe Zamfir pioneering flute techniques in the '80s, elevating it to a concert level worldwide. In the hands of Zamfir, the pan flute becomes an instrument equal to traditional orchestral instruments, offering endless expressive colours and technical capabilities for playing modern music. Surprisingly, there is a lack of large original compositions for the pan flute. Therefore, writing two original compositions for this instrument and a modern orchestra is a revolutionary and groundbreaking project, providing justice to the pan flute and offering future players a challenging musical and technical work. Elia Cmiral is best known for his film scores, most natably Ronin which influenced Hans Zimmer's use of the deduk in his score for Gladiator. Gheorghe Zamfir met composer Elia Cmiral whilst collaborating on a short film for which he composed the score. Gheorghe played solo on a few tracks. During this period, their connection deepened, with a shared appreciation for musical aesthetics and a mutual love for emotionally resonant melodies. Their joint understanding continued after the completion of the film, evolving into a cross-continental friendship - Cmiral in Los Angeles, US, and Gheorghe in Bucharest, Romania.
Consistently applied over the last twenty-six years, this unique approach to performance has led to a stupendous degree of recognition and approval on the part of audiences and critics alike. On concert podiums from Tokyo or Seoul to Berlin, from London to New York, from Paris to Shanghai or Taipei as well as in a number of smaller towns - everywhere the Berliner Barock Solisten perform, they have left an indelible musical mark, ensuring that the ranks of their true fans are continually enlarged. Their programs are documented on numerous CD recordings whose exceptional quality has been widely acknowledged by music critics.
The new album of the world-renowned horn player Radek Baborák, released on Animal Music, brings compositions by three romantic authors in arrangements for the French horn and string quartet. These include Radek Baborák and Alexei Aslamas’s arrangement of Brahms’s legendary Quintet in G major, Op. 111, two shorter pieces by Alexander Glazunov (Idylle and Serenade No. 2), and a Quintet in G minor, “Käyrätorvi” (French horn in Finnish), which was created by Baborák by extending the original score of Jean Sibelius’s famous String Trio. This album by Baborák Ensemble – Radek Baborák (French horn), Milan Al-Ashhab and Martina Bacová (violin), Karel Untermüller (viola), and Hana Baboráková (cello) – features the world premiere recording of the works by Brahms and Sibelius.
Having reached worldwide success and an absolute peak in horn performance, Radek Baborák (b. 1976) has been dedicating himself with great vigor to ever new artistic projects which he often initiates as a soloist, conductor, or artistic director of several chamber ensembles. Following two albums which he, together with his ensemble Orquestrina, dedicated to the music of Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, he now releases an entirely different project: a complete recording of Mahler’s famous Lieder collection The Youth’s Magic Horn. The original orchestration has been adjusted to the possibilities of Baborák Ensemble and its variable line-up of seven to sixteen players. The diverse and lively new arrangements which have been made with respect to the brilliant qualities of the individual instrumentalists (members of the ensemble include oboe player Jana Brožková and harpist Katerina Englichová), inject new energy and youthful spirit into Mahler’s beautiful music. Baborák invited three internationally renowned Czech vocalists to collaborate on the album: Katerina Knežíková, Markéta Cukrová and Adam Plachetka.
Bach: Horn Concertos / Baborák, Berlin Baroque Soloists
Haenssler Classic
CD
$20.99Jul 02, 2021
The musicians of the Berlin Baroque Soloists, who for the most part are members of the Berlin Philharmonic, are well known to Radek Baborák from his time as solo horn player of the orchestra from 2003 to 2010. “That is why the recording with the Berlin Baroque Soloists was not such an unusual project,” says Radek Baborák, “but it was a dream of mine to play something by Bach with this ensemble, which plays modern instruments. Some eight years ago, we played together in a program of works by Telemann and Zelenka. That was a thrilling time. What particularly appealed to me about my colleagues was that for all their concentration on the work in hand, they still had a relaxed approach. They were orientated towards historical performance practice, but without the dogmatic rigor that one sometimes finds in specialist ensembles.” To make his dream come true, and drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of Bach, Radek Baborák trawled the composer’s works. He comments: “I am not a musicologist, in the first place I am a musician. When I find something I like, I use it for my purposes. If the material is robust – and it always is with Bach – it doesn’t matter what you play it on: the harpsichord, the organ, with strings, with choir, it will always sound good.”
The phenomenal French-horn player Radek Baborak comes with a new album (his second on Animal Music) featuring music by the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, in arrangements that were tailor-made for his eleven-member ensemble which unites foremost Czech and international players. Piazzolla's music - which listeners all over the world know as a one of the purest expressions of "tango nuevo"- does not feature French horn. Radek Baborak, however, continues on his pioneering mission of an arranger and a performer of Piazzolla's work in atypical line-ups. The role of the bandoneon - traditionally the carrier of the Argentine-tango sound - is here taken over by the French horn, the bass clarinet, violin and piano. Baborak thus succeeds in reaching his desired aim, which is not to sound as one of the many "revival bands" of Piazzolla's own legendary quintet. Instead, the arrangements let the music itself stand out and they highlight the masterful invention of Piazzolla who was able to combine in his compositions great expressivity and exulted passion with melancholy and humbleness. All those qualities remain at the heart of the interpretation by Radek Baborak Orquestrina while they are taken to a whole new level in this recording based on perfect harmony and vigorous interpretation.
Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante, Music for French Horn
Supraphon
CD
$41.99Oct 19, 2018
Warning: this recording is not intended for musicological purists. But if you love spontaneous music making in the most select of company, this is definitely the right recording for you. Radek Baborák, for example, does not hesitate to arrange a discarded movement from a symphony to add as the missing movements of an unfinished horn concerto. Of course, to tell the truth, didn't Mozart himself do the exact same thing countless times? In this way, the preserved fragments are turned into two "new horn concertos." The Sinfonia concertante for four wind instruments and orchestra, K 297b is a work surrounded by many mysteries, and it fits beautifully in this context of discovery. Here, it is recorded in Baborák's arrangement for Mozart's original instrumentation. Playing the solo parts are virtuosos from Europe's best orchestras. For the 12 horn duets - the only completely extant composition on this album played in it's original instrumentation - Baborák's partner is another of today's legendary horn players, Radovan Vlatkovic. Radek Baborák and his friends are inviting you on an excursion to the world of their elder colleague Wolfgang Amadeus - with his inexhaustible supply of jokes, ideas, and colors.
An artist with a penchant for seeking out the new, Radek Baborak has joined forces with other outstanding musicians so as to interpret the pieces as arranged for horn and string quartet. "I liked the idea of presenting the concertos in the form they may have been heard when Mr. Leutgeb would visit the Mozart's home, get together with Mr. Michael Haydn and Mr. Sussmayr, and make music."
