From the Church of St Mary, Marienberg

Sächsische Bläserphilharmonie
(The Saxony Philharmonic Wind Orchestra)
Thomas Clamor, Conductor
Ruth Ziesak, Soprano
Rundfunk – Jugendchor Wernigerode
Peter Habermann, Chorus Master
Ensemble Sonora

TRACK LIST
1. Wolfgang Schumann: Christmas Toccata
2. Gloria in Excelsis Deo
3. George Frideric Handel: Arrival of the Queen of Sheba
4. George Frideric Handel: Let the bright Seraphim
5. George Frideric Handel: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion
6. From Heaven above to Earth I come (trad.)
7. Richard Wagner: Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral
8. Blest Mary wanders through the thorn (trad.)
9. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Excerpts from the “Nutcracker” Suite
10. Felix Mendelssohn: Christmas / In Advent
11. Lo, how a rose e’er blooming (trad.)
12. Felix Mendelssohn: For He shall give His angels charge
13. Let us listen, blessed angels (trad.)
14. Eduard Ebel: Snow falls softly at night
15. Sweeter the bells never sound (trad.)
16. Richard Eilenberg: St Petersburg Sleigh Ride
17. Roger Harvey: Festive Cheer
18. John Francis Wade: Adeste fideles
19. Engelbert Humperdinck: Evening Prayer
20. Siegfried Köhler: A thousand stars are a cathedral
21. Franz Gruber: Silent night, holy night
22. Oh, how joyfully (trad.)

Picture Format DVD: NTSC 16:9
Sound Formats DVD: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, PCM Stereo
Region Code: 0 (worldwide)
Running Time: 84:15 min
Number of Discs: 1
Disc Format: DVD-9

Rather than parachuting in any headline-catching international soloists, the Kansas City Symphony has enlisted its concertmaster and principal cello as protagonists in two of the Saint-Saëns works. Noah Geller is soloist in the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, and he is joined by cellist Mark Gibbs in the once rarely heard but now almost ubiquitous La muse et le poète. Backed by airy orchestral textures, Geller exudes lyrical warmth and a perky rhythmic spirit in the first work, and in the second he uses the violin’s wily flights of fantasy to engage Gibbs’s poetic cello in an intimate dialogue.

Then comes the big beast of the programme, but, as always, the crucial test is not so much the volume of the organ but the way in which the orchestral context of the symphony as a whole is established. Here Michael Stern impressively injects impetus into the first section’s sinewy fabric, alert to instrumental colour and the contrapuntal discipline and intrigue of the writing. The organ, making its muted first entry in the Adagio, is a 5,548-pipe Casavant Frères instrument, an integral part of Kansas City’s Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts where the recording was made, as indeed is Jan Kraybill who plays it. Stern crafts a proper, stately Adagio but an Adagio with momentum and shapely contours, and he ignites real fire in the Allegro moderato of the symphony’s second part. When the tempo changes to presto, the piano’s arpeggios and scales are prominent enough to make their point without leaping out at you, just as the organ in the finale asserts its grandeur without overwhelming the orchestral palette.

Even in a competitive market, this version has a distinct edge.

– Geoffrey Norris, Gramophone

When it rains, it pours. This is the third recording of Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony in nearly as many months, and like the previous ones, it’s remarkably good. The Kansas City Symphony under Michael Stern withstands comparison to any of the competition. My only quibble with the interpretation comes in the first movement, where Stern’s concern for precision of rhythm, otherwise admirable, seems to preclude that last bit of intensity at the tops of those crescendos that propel the principal theme onward into the second subject.

Otherwise, this is an unusually vivacious and texturally transparent reading, recorded with welcome clarity in an acoustic that never permits detail to get obscured by excessive reverberation. The balance between organ and orchestra in the finale, even when everyone is blasting away, could not be more perfect. In the serene Adagio too, which flows with impressive poise, the soft tones of the organ add just the right touch of color to support the strings and solo woodwinds. In the scherzo, Stern keeps the rhythm taut, and he doesn’t drag out the quiet coda to the point where one’s patience begins to run thin. In the finale everyone really does pull out all of the stops, literally and figuratively, bringing the work to a thrilling conclusion.

The fillers are welcome, and not the usual stuff. Le muse et le poète is a rarely heard late tone poem with parts for solo violin and solo cello, more than ably taken by orchestra principals Noah Geller on violin and Mark Gibbs on cello. Geller also plays an excellent, sunny Introduction and Rondo capriccioso. And let’s not forget organist Jan Kraybill in the symphony. I do wish, though, that Reference Recordings had included a stop list in the booklet. The instrument has some interesting timbres and I would have liked to know what resources it calls upon to make them. Audiophiles will want to hear this for the superb sonics, but the musical values are just as strong..

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

For piano lovers, this CD is like an ice cream sundae, with hot fudge drizzle, Spanish peanuts, a ribbon of cream, and a booze-soaked cherry on top. It’s pure pleasure, first note to last, with a generous heaping of sugar ... There’s even a Wedding Cake.

Pianist Joel Fan has assembled seven short works for piano and orchestra, which you’ll never hear in concert since we have an unwritten rule that only full-sized concertos are allowed. The works range from Weber and Chopin to the musical scenes of Mexico and New Orleans.

Chopin is represented by his Krakowiak, and Weber by a polonaise which was later orchestrated by Liszt. Camille Saint-Saëns is here, too, bringing his “Wedding Cake”, which half the internet calls a Caprice-Valse and the other half calls a Valse-Caprice. Reference Recordings uses both titles.

By now you’ve probably heard of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the Creole genius who mixed up Chopin with the sounds and folk styles of North and South America (Hyperion ~ Naxos 8.559320 ~ Naxos 8.559036). Some of his works evoke spirituals, banjos and wild bar-room dances. He’s a clear precursor to jazz. Here he contributes a Grand Tarantelle for piano and orchestra, echoing back to an older tradition and form. There are tambourines, rich faux-Italian tunes and pianistic virtuosity aplenty.

Gabriel Pierné, the French conductor-composer whose concerto was recorded a few years ago by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, here contributes a short ballet for piano and orchestra. This piece was written at age 21, long before its author conducted the world premieres of The Firebird and Daphnis et Chloé, and long before he wrote his masterwork, Cydalise. The Fantaisie-Ballet starts with a cadenza, then settles into a series of dances which are a whole pastry shop of delicious morsels. The last is an Italian tarantella with pounding timpani and tambourine. You’ll detect influences of Saint-Saëns, for sure — think the Third Concerto — and maybe the ballets of Fauré.

Even if you’re feeling like a music history buff for knowing about Gottschalk, you might, like me, be stumped by Ricardo Castro Herrera and Charles Wakefield Cadman. Here are two very obscure names. Castro was a Mexican native whose fame in his native country and beyond could have been greater if he hadn’t died of pneumonia at age 43. The waltz here is a real charmer, in the French tradition, with no trace of Mexican roots.

Cadman, by contrast, is almost over-eager to get as much local colour as possible out of his evocation of New Orleans. It’s noisy fun, although I must say that when this composer finds a good tune, he’s all too eager to use it as much as possible.

Pianist Joel Fan, who presumably herded this program together, plays it all with aplomb. He has the light touch, wit and fleet fingers necessary to keep these treats as sweet and bubbly as possible. He’s ably backed up by the Northwest Sinfonietta, a chamber orchestra based in Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, although in bigger, more dramatic pieces, like the Pierné or Gottschalk Tarantella, you have to wonder what a full-sized, top-flight orchestra could do.

Throw in excellent notes from Reference Recordings and Fan’s obvious enthusiasm and you have yourself a heck of a deal. This is not a profound disc but it’s a great dessert. Dig in and don’t count the calories.

– MusicWeb International (Brian Reinhart)

BIZET Symphony No. 1 in C. Jeux d’enfants. Variations chromatiques (arr. Weingartner) • Martin West, cond; San Francisco Ballet O • REFERENCE 131 (75:27)


While we rightly lament the deaths of Mozart and Schubert, which came much too early, let us also save a few tears for Georges Bizet, who died at age 36 shortly after having composed what is, arguably, the most popular opera ever written, a piece that was admired by such disparate musical figures as Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner. He also left behind him such charming pieces as Jeux d’enfants , the L’Arlesienne incidental music, the Symphony in C, and The Pearl Fishers. Jeux d’enfants , a suite of 12 brief pieces, was originally composed for piano, four hands. To simplify my task, I’ll give the names in sequence since I will be referring to them again: 1) “L’Escarpolette” (The Swing), 2) “La Toupie” (The Top), 3) “La Poupée” (The Doll), 4) “Les Chevaux de bois” (Hobby Horses), 5) “Le Volant” (The Shuttlecock), 6) “Trompette et Tambour” (Trumpet and Drum), 7) “Les Bulles de savon” (Soap Bubbles), 8) “Les Quatre Coins” (Puss in the Corner), 9) “Colin-Maillard” (Blind Man’s Bluff), 10) “Saute-Mouton” (Leap Frog), 11) “Petit Mari, petite femme” (Little Husband, Little Wife), 12) “Le Bal” (The Ball). Bizet later orchestrated numbers 2, 3, 6, 11, and 12 and named the result the Petite Suite.


Given the ballet origins of this collection, a little history might be appropriate. In 1932, Leonide Massine choreographed Jeux d’enfants for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, using the five pieces Bizet orchestrated with the rest orchestrated by (I’m guessing here) Sigfrid Karg-Elert. Unfortunately Massine’s autobiography only mentions the sets by Joan Miró—perhaps the name of the orchestrator did not interest him. Antal Doráti did not conduct the opening night, but I assume that as a conductor for the company he was familiar with the arrangement. In 1937, presumably with the limited space of 78s in mind, he recorded 10 of the pieces with the London Symphony Orchestra, omitting numbers 7 and 10, changing the order of two pieces, and making a cut in number one. Though he was quite capable of doing his own arrangements, I am assuming that the five non-Bizet orchestrations were by Karg-Elert. Later, Jeux d’enfants was choreographed by George Balanchine (2–8) and Francisco Moncion (9–12) with number one serving as an Overture. One reference book says the non-Bizet pieces were “orchestrated by an unidentified English composer.” Could it have been Roy Douglas? Still later, Balanchine used only numbers 6, 3, 11, and 12 for a pas de deux called The Steadfast Tin Soldier.


Several conductors have recorded the Petite Suite, but I guess this is the first recording of a complete orchestrated Jeux d’enfants . On this recording, in addition to the Petite Suite excerpts, the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra performs five orchestrations by Roy Douglas and two ( L’Escarpolette and La Volant ) by Hershey Kay. Whereas Doráti had to concern himself with fitting the music onto 78 sides and sometimes rushed the tempos, Martin West uses the time available to him and the result is moderate, danceable tempos—I particularly like his relaxed way with “Trompette et Tambour.” Throughout, he allows the music’s simple charm to come through.


I suppose most people are aware of the fact that Bizet’s Symphony in C is a student work, written in 1855 when he was merely 17. Bizet apparently forgot about it, and it did not receive its official premiere until 80 years later when Felix Weingartner led a performance in Basel, Switzerland. Later the music was the basis of one of George Balanchine’s signature ballets, Le Palais de Cristal , eventually simply called Symphony in C . I don’t think I’ve ever heard a recording that does the last movement repeat, but it is used in the choreographed version and West does it. He also does the first movement exposition repeat, which isn’t used in the ballet. Perhaps hearing the piece done by ballet orchestras (usually conducted by Robert Irving) is responsible for my affection for this performance, which is so pleasant and danceable. It is most definitely my favorite recording of the nine that I own (for the record, Ansermet, Beecham, Delacôte, Munch, Pons, Saraste, Stokowski 1 and 2, West) but I wonder if many people will favor it since everyone else takes it faster and skips some of the repeats.


Given that Felix Weingartner was the first conductor to lead a performance of the Symphony, it’s not inappropriate to complete the CD with his orchestration of Bizet’s Variations chromatiques , originally composed for piano in 1868. I imagine that Bizet’s piano music, other than Jeux d’enfants , hardly gets played at all. He wrote very little of it and, while Weingartner’s orchestration adds a welcome element of color and power, the piece still doesn’t exactly fly. Bizet’s biographer, Winton Dean, wrote, “It seems probable that, though he loved to play genuine keyboard music … his greatest interest in the piano lay in its power beneath his fingers to evoke the different colors of the orchestra….His original music for the piano suffers from a double disadvantage: it is too clumsy to reward the concert pianist and too difficult for the moderate amateur.” Even if one discounts the Variations chromatiques (and some may like it more than I do), that still leaves the CD with an hour of delightful music and music-making. It’s beautifully recorded, too.


FANFARE: James Miller

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Donka Angatschewa presents this album of Beethoven’s solo piano works. This recording features Beethoven’s Appassionata, Op. 57, 11 Bagatellen, Op. 119, Sonata, Op. 90, and Rondo a capriccio, Op. 129. Donka Angatcheva debuted with the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra when she was only ten years old. She has won numerous awards at international piano competitions, and frequently performs internationally.

Dear children, today we would like to tell you about Frederic Chopin. This phenomenal composer and pianist is still known around the world , even today. He was born about 200 years ago in a small mansion house in Zelazowa Wola, not very far from Warsaw. Count Skarbek owned the house, where Frederic's Dad, Nicolas Chopin lived. Frederic's Dad was a tutor, which means he taught children from rich families at their home. Frederic's Mum was a very warm-hearted and caring person. She kept a warm and welcoming home where everyone felt comfortable. Little Frederic was very gifted at the piano. He began lessons at six years old and soo after started composing. Frederic grew into a world-renown composer and on this album you can hear his most important works.

Classical Music

Arkadiusz Adamski is one of the most active clarinetists in Poland. He performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician, and has an active teaching career. Thanks to many competition successes, which include first prize at the Polish Chamber Music Competition in 1983 and second prize at the International Competition for Karol Kurpinski, Adamski has been one of the most recognized Polish clarinetists from the very start of his career. The present album, presented alongside renowned chamber musicians Marcin Zdunik, Magdalena Wojciechowska and the Apollon Musagete Quartet, includes two works by Johannes Brahms: his Trio for clarinet, cello and piano in A minor op. 114, and Quintet for clarinet, two violins, viola, and cello in B minor, Op. 115.

Classical Music

Otto Klemperer was one of the most important German conductors of the 20th century. After his return from emigration he guest-conducted some of the most important orchestras in Germany - including the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. He did not assume the position of Chief Conductor in his homeland again, however: he felt estranged and alienated from post-war Germany, and this was compounded by his advanced age and poor health. In April 1956, Klemperer conducted the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks for the very first time - the debut of a man who was almost 71 years old. Up to May 1969, he would conduct a total of eleven evening concerts in Munich. The audiences were always just as delighted as the critics. The latter emphasized the "utmost perfection" of his interpretations and were aware that, due to the conductor's advanced age and state of health, the Munich concerts bore "the seal of the unrepeatable", and that "those fortunate enough to hear these concerts will remember them all their lives". This new album from BR-KLASSIK features Klemperer's interpretations of Haydn's Symphony No. 101, "The Clock" (recorded in the concerts of October 18 and 19, 1956), and Brahms' Fourth Symphony (recorded on September 26 and 27, 1957). - Both works form part of the core classical and romantic symphonic concert repertoire with which Klemperer, like his Munich orchestra, was so familiar.

Bruckner's symphonies form the backbone of Late Romantic symphonic music. Indeed, he can be said to have reinvented the symphony – something that not even Liszt or Wagner had dared to do in the wake of the groundbreaking masterpieces by Beethoven that until then had ranked as the climax and end-point of the genre. It was Bruckner and, somewhat later, Brahms who sought and found new methods of reviving the symphonic genre and developing it further. In this regard, Bruckner's approach was entirely new.

From the outset, he relied on the sound of the large orchestra, and rather than mixing the individual groups of instruments he tended to either separate them from each other or couple them together like organ registers. Terraced dynamics, that is, the immediate juxtaposition of piano and forte without transition, was also something Bruckner derived from the organ. As a church musician, he had close contact with these and other elements of Baroque music, and they flowed into his symphonies.

As far as dramaturgical development was concerned, he tended to favor Schubert; indeed, it was the organic continuation and alternating interconnection of themes Bruckner had learned from Schubert that also explains the unprecedented performance length of his symphonies.

Bruckner's Nine Symphonies are a constant in the repertoire of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, as in those of all major orchestras. The special feature of the release being presented here by BR KLASSIK is that the recordings are conducted by not only one but a total of four conductors closely associated with the orchestra, all of them proven international Bruckner experts. More than in any other compilation, common features in interpretation (also due to the same orchestra) as well as fascinating differences due to the various interpretive approaches of the respective conductors can all be detected. In these recordings it also becomes clear what brilliant contributions Herbert Blomstedt, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons and Lorin Maazel have made over the decades to Bruckner’s symphonic oeuvre.

REVIEW:

Here we have a marvelous collection of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies Nos. 1-9 played by the Bavarian Radio Symphony under the baton of four outstanding conductors. Lorin Maazel recorded the first two symphonies in 1999. He does not provide any new insights, but the performances are thrilling nevertheless. The fifth and sixth symphonies with Haitink are also wonderful interpretations, but Blomstedt’s Ninth and the recordings with Jansons are more fluent and warmer than the other performances. Blomstedt offers an interpretation aimed at salvation, without any fear of death. This positive view is good for the music, but also enables profound moments of contemplation. For Jansons one could summarize and say that Jansons inspires his orchestra to a breathtakingly intense playing. From the very beginning one feels the strong lyrical and luminous power providing an eloquent, rhetoric performance.

-- Pizzicato

The "Great" C major Symphony was the last symphony that Schubert composed – a “Finished” to follow his "Unfinished", the first two movements of which he had just completed before discontinuing work on it (for reasons unknown). In contrast to his far shorter Sixth Symphony, also in C major, it was named "the Great" - and it is indeed a great and magnificent work, marking the culmination of his symphonic oeuvre. It is monumental and representative, and was written with large audiences very much in mind. Schubert began this composition in August 1824, or possibly even as late as March 1825. Most of the work on it took place in the summer of 1825, during the longest Journey of his life. It took him from Vienna via Linz, Steyr, Gmunden (where he found the scenery "truly heavenly"), Salzburg and then up to Bad Gastein, where he saw some magnificent alpine peaks. The first page of the score manuscript is dated "March 1828" – possibly the month in which he finally completed the work. On November 19 of that same year, Schubert died at the age of only thirty-one. The symphony was premiered posthumously on March 21, 1839 in the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and conducted by the Gewandhaus Kapellmeister at that time - the 30-year-old Felix Mendelssohn. This exciting live recording features the special acoustics of the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz.

-----

REVIEW:

Mariss Jansons presides over an uncommonly engaging performance of Schubert’s uplifting ‘Great’ C major symphony. This is great music-making of unshakable conviction.

– MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Ludmila Dvorakova enjoyed global fame as a slim, blonde soprano with a magnificent stage presence and possessing a voice of a distinct timbre, capable of both softness and drama, smoothly negotiating the high registers and with a dark middle register, always accurate and breathtaking. She excelled in the most demanding dramatic soprano roles and, following in the footsteps of Ema Destinnova, Maria Jeritza and Jarmila Novotna, was the first modern-era Czech singer to appear at the world's major opera houses, including the MET in New York. Ludmila Dvorakova started her career in Ostrava and soon caught the attention of Prague, where the National Theatre engaged her in 1954. In the following year, she was afforded the opportunity to work for the Staatsoper in Vienna, and in 1960 for the Staatsoper in Berlin. When Wieland Wagner heard her singing Ortrude in Munich, he invited her to the Bayreuth festival. Her debut appearance, in 1965, was followed by six years of collaboration and a degree of fame that no Czech artist had previously attained in Bayreuth. In 1966, she was offered contracts with the MET and Covent Garden. This recital, featuring recordings released on CD for the very first time, is compiled from Dvorakova's rare studio recordings made for Supraphon and Czechoslovak Radio. The venerable soprano's imminent 90th birthday represents a perfect opportunity to recall a voice that garnered enthusiastic applause at major opera houses worldwide. Ludmila Dvorakova - a breathtaking voice that dazzled audiences at the most prestigious opera houses worldwide.

The Principality of Liechtenstein celebrates it's anniversary - and the Liechtenstein Symphony Orchestra celebrates with a new release in super audio quality! The orchestra's founding anniversaries are only one year and an important zero apart: while in 2018 the orchestra was in it's 30th season, in 2019 the fourth smallest country in Europe - and the sixth smallest in the world - can look back on 300 eventful years. Under the baton of conductor Florian Krump�ck, the Liechtenstein Symphony Orchestra performs the Symphony in D Minor op. 10 "Wallenstein" by the European romantic Josef Gabriel Rheinberger (1839-1901).

The three works selected for this recording by pianist Caspar Frantz – Davidsbündlertänze, op. 6, his first great piano cycle; Nachtstücke, op. 23, and Gesänge der Frühe, op. 123 –are quite dissimilar in some ways and yet closely related in others. • Typical of the arch-Romantics, all have as their inspiration a literary source, and all three differently represent Schumann’s early creative burst and his somewhat ill-considered latterly decline. +Mr. Frantz is an internationally recognized concert and recording artist, with two acclaimed previous recordings for the Ars Produktion label.

"Danae Dörken is one of the most extraordinary young artists I have had the pleasure to meet. Her absolute devotion to music, paired with a breath-taking talent for musical expression and tone color, turns her performance into a truly unique experience..." - Lars Vogt

Despite being only 24 years old, Danae Dörken has already performed in numerous concert halls around the world with the highest calibre of ensembles. This recording is Danae Dörken's third release with ARS Produktion, following the ICMA Award nomination that she received for her second album.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Since Marianna Shirinyan won 5 prizes at the 2006 ARD International Music Competition in Munich her career as a soloist and chamber musician has really taken off. In 2010 she received Danish Radio's P2 Artist Prize for her contributions to the musical and artistic life of Denmark, and 2012 sees Shirinyan as the Carl Nielsen Artist at the competition and festival of that name in Odense, Denmark.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Beethoven's five cello sonatas are the quintessence of his personality and work: they exemplify the creative development of this great composer who is perhaps even more relevant in our modern, ephemeral society in which little time is left for reflection. + Cellist Maja Weber and pianist Per Lundberg have been playing chamber music together for more than twenty years, mostly in piano quartets and quintets. + The idea of forming "Duo Leonore" was thus a natural consequence of their working together.

This new release is an outstanding recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s Elias. This work was recorded live at Konzerthaus Berlin in July of 2015. Soloists featured include soprano Marlis Petersen, mezzo-soprano Lioba Braun, tenor Maximilian Schmitt, and baritone Thomas Oliemans.

The Lucerne Festival Orchestra, under the baton of master conductor Claudio Abbado, present this new recording of Anton Bruckner’s first Symphony. The version performed here is the “Vienna” version of 1891, edited by Gunter Brosche. “Abbado uncovered the radical nature of the work with its fascinating accumulations of intensity and abrupt interruptions... Long and enthusiastic standing ovations at the end for the conductor and orchestra.” (Die Welt)

Even if Elena Mosuc is considered first and foremost a bel canto specialist and a performer of various Mozart heroines for dramatic coloratura soprano, it should be noted that Giuseppe Verdi´s stage works have always been an integral part of her repertoire and will in the future become an even more prominent part of it. Since Maria Callas, these roles are sung with heavier and primarily dramatic voices. In our times this is considered common property. Nevertheless, one should always keep in mind, that these roles - in terms of requirements and stylistics – can´t be separated from the epoch of bel canto and, even in Verdi's time without any exception, sung by leading bel canto prima donnas or explicitly composed for this kind of voice. Elena Mosuc started her brilliant international career at the Zurich Opera House. Guest appearances have taken place at the most important houses and festivals in the world (including the opera houses of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Hamburg, Teatro alla Scala Milan, Munich, Vienna, Salzburg, Paris, London, Helsinki, Rome, Venice, Verona ) as well as in the USA to the MET, and to Japan, China and Korea.

From the Merel Quartet's inception, the music of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy has played an important role in ou repertoire. We find it fascinating how he achieves his own musical language in his string quartet writing, even in his earliest works in that genre. Clearly he is influenced by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, nevertheless, from the very first measures of his quartet Op 12 it is his own voice, his own unique sound which we hear. You simply have to love this music: the freshness, the intelligence, the enthusiasm which is especially infectious in these works; the high virtuosity of the Scherzi - witty, light, mysterious elfin, similar to his music for A Midsummer Night's Dream"; the lyricism - often we have the feeling that even in his chamber music he has written songs without words; and finally the codas - I don't know of anything more intoxicating than the end of the octet's first movement, or when, in the Finale of Op 12, he returns to material from the first movement, closing the circle and coming to rest - wonderful! The Octet Op 20 is unique in it's genre. Mendelssohn, just 16 years old, draws on all the possibilities of the eight instruments with unsurpassed mastery. As an example: his brilliant command of counterpoint especially in the Finale, beginning with an eight-voice fugato and leading to a theme quoted from the Halleluja Choir from H�ndel's "Messiah": "And He shall reign forever and ever". We feel extremely fortunate to have met the young English foursome with whom we recorded Mendelssohn's octet: the Castalian String Quartet. It is very rare indeed to find such a close musical affinity between two ensembles and working with them was extremely rewarding. The idea for this recording was born during our performance of the octet at the chamber music festival "Zwischent�ne" in Engelberg in October 2017." (Merel Quartet)

The Lucerne Festival Orchestra brass players perform a broad spectrum of brass music. The ensemble's repertoire includes early polyphonic and Venetian antiphonal masterpieces, Classical and Romantic works, and pieces from the 20th and 21st centuries by composers such as Sofia Gubaidulina, Wolfgang Rihm, Galina Ustwolskaja, and Einojuhani Rautavaara. The group also performs arrangements of well-known piano or orchestral works, often transcribed especially for them. The forces of the ensemble vary according to the demands of the pieces, ranging from solos and duets to a full wind ensemble. The group is also regularly augmented by other members of the festival orchestra, particularly the percussionists. The concerts of the Brass Ensemble of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra are a popular and indispensable element of the festival's summer programs.