Japanese flutist Atsuko Koga's debut GENUIN CD includes works by the great composers Widor, Massenet, Gounod and Schubert, but also discoveries by Gaubert and Borne, presenting the abilities of this internationally successful soloist in the very best light. Her playing is notable for it's soulful tone and breathtaking virtuosity, blending together perfectly with Mayuko Miyata on piano.

On this unique record, Paul Badura Skoda performs three different versions of Schubert’s final Sontata in B-flat major. Each of these versions is performed with a distinct sound on three different pianos: an 1826 Graf fortepiano, a 1923 Bosendorfer and a 2004 Steinway grand.

We wonder whom we should admire the most: the composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who at the age of fifteen wrote such consummate, sparkling, and profound music, or the Hanover Piano Trio, which with violist Konstantin Sellheim has so immaculately recorded the young master's quartets on this GENUIN release. The four internationally sought-after artists demonstrate a great understanding of historically-informed performance practice, dedicating themselves with panache and at a high level to an oeuvre that deserves more attention - perfect timing for the Beethoven anniversary year!

On her GENUIN debut release, splendid Polish pianist Aleksandra Mikulska presents Franz Liszt’s reminiscences of the great loves of his life: they include both people and places as well as his own works that had grown dear to him. With broad musical lines and a wonderfully sensuous tone, the Special Prize-winner at the 15th International Frédéric Chopin Competition breathes new life into some of the most beautiful works of the repertoire: the "Liebestraum" and "Hungarian Rhapsody" and the celebrated "Frühlingslied", an arrangement of the song by Robert Schumann – a true delight for piano lovers, and much more than just black and white!

Once again, the collaboration between Geniun and the German Music Council has resulted in a true dream release: Katharina Konradi, the winner of the 2016 German Music Competition, has chosen songs from the Romantic period to the modern age for the Primavera Edition. They are set between day and dream, between moonlight and midnight, and their spectrum ranges from Schubert's Faith in Spring to Lori Laitman's tragic songs from Theresienstadt. The flexible soprano voice of the young singer is ideally suited for this literature, nestling in perfect harmony with the lost dreamlike sounds from Schubert to Trojahn - a magnificent debut album!

To his audience back then, Beethoven must have been radical, stormy, piercing - overwhelming! Even the smallest loudspeaker jumps to the Aris Quartet, grabbing the listener and not letting go – pretty amazing for an ensemble whose members’ combined age is not yet 100! The multiple prizewinners of the 2016 International ARD Competition are among the absolute shooting stars of the quartet scene and, with their GENUIN album, they show why: cutting edge middle and late Beethoven – definitely worth listening to! The Aris Quartett was founded in 2009 on the initiative of Hubert Buchberger, Professor of Chamber Music at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. At the time, Anna Katharina Wildermuth (violin), Noemi Zipperling (violin), Caspar Vinzens (viola), and Lukas Sieber (cello), were still high school students, but already studying their respective instruments as junior students at the music university. Begun as an experiment, this meeting between the four young musicians proved to be a genuine stroke of luck. Zipperling writes: “It was truly a wonderful accident that he chose us in particular. Otherwise it probably never would have occurrec to us to play chamber music in this combination, since at the time we didn’t know each other at all.” Eight years later, the Aris Quartett is one of the most striking quartets of the younger generation.

This symphonic wind ensemble is a product of the "El Sistema" system, the Venezuelan music education project of José Antonio Abreu. This CD testifies to the versatility and unbridled joy in playing of the 100 plus young wind instrumentalists. Valdemar Rodríguez, founder of Banda Sinfónica, and young Víctor Mendoza are featured as soloists.

This third release on Genuin marks the Quintessenz 20th anniversary. The program chosen for this album includes works by Rossini, Debussy, Doppler, Saint-Saens, and more. Incantations also includes two world premiere recordings: Anze Rozman’s Medusa, and Ian Clarke’s Spells.

RHEINBERGER 3 Motets, op. 133. Mass in F for Male Choir and Organ, op. 190. Hymn, op. 140. Mass in g for Female Choir and Organ, op. 187. Mass in E?, “Cantus Missae,” op. 109 • Elizabeth C. Patterson, cond; David Chalmers (org); Gloriæ Dei Cantores • GLORIÆ DEI CANTORES 121 (74:05 Text and Translation)


This is a retread. Recorded in 1994, it was previously reviewed by John Bauman in 2000 in Fanfare 23:6. What I can’t be sure of is whether or not the original has been remastered, for in Bauman’s headnote it carried a label number of 108 and in its current reincarnation Gloriæ Dei Cantores has renumbered it 121. The discrepancy is significant inasmuch as Bauman complained in his review of engineering that damaged the music, noting a distant perspective that lacked full bass. Since I don’t have the earlier release to compare with the one at hand and, indeed, never heard it, I can only comment on the disc before me. Having listened to it, I’ll venture that nothing has been done to correct or compensate for Bauman’s impression of the recorded sound, for the singers do in fact come at the ear as if from some distant aural space. The effect is compounded, in my opinion, by a kind of churchy acoustic, which is strange, given that the recording was not made in a church but in the splendid acoustic venue of Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts.


Besides panning the recording, Bauman expressed little love or patience for Rheinberger’s music, dismissing these works in a few pithy, if amusing, words worth quoting: “Perhaps Rheinberger’s writing reflects the late-19th-century calm of the Catholic Mass that favors the lack of big, almost explosive outbursts. It makes one want to throw the whole of his sacred writing out. Even with the organ, the Masses just seem to go on forever. They last just over 20 minutes, which is really a very short time compared to the Masses of Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert. All of these three Masses are thus afflicted, as well as the short motets and hymns. In short this is well-crafted music that ultimately brings about a big ho-hum. The performances seem to be good but one—at least this listener—just doesn’t care.”


I tend to be more charitable toward Rheinberger, allowing for the fact that even in his own lifetime (1839–1901) he was probably more sought-after as a prominent professor of organ and composition than he was recognized as a great composer. His roll call of students at the conservatory in Munich was long and impressive; it included Humperdinck, Wolf-Ferrari, Horatio Parker, George Chadwick, Henry Holden Huss, and Wilhelm Furtwängler, among others. And though his methods were stern and pedantic, apparently he was beloved by all who came under his wing.


From an entry in the February 1902 issue of Etude Magazine , we get some insight into Rheinberger’s MO from a J. W. Nicholl who had studied organ under him. “At a technical blunder the professor would frown, and if later in the lesson the same mistake occurred he would expostulate. Once, from nervousness or perhaps lack of sufficient preparation, a student made the same mistake three times during the playing of a Rheinberger sonata, the result was that the lesson came to a violent stop, and the unfortunate student left the Conservatorium in a very unenviable state of mind.” Lest you think this shows an impatient and ill-tempered tutor, I think it shows quite the opposite. I’ve known teachers who wouldn’t suffer a student the same mistake twice, let alone three times.


As the opus numbers in the headnote indicate, Rheinberger was nothing if not prolific, churning out a large volume of organ music, as well as numerous Masses, motets, and other sacred vocal works. But he also produced many secular songs and ballads, some chamber music, at least two symphonies I know of, and two or three operas. I can’t say I’ve ever heard an opera by Rheinberger, but I do have a recording of his Symphony No. 2 in F Major with Alun Francis leading the Northwest German Philharmonic on the Carus label, and a two-disc set on MDG of his complete piano trios with the Parnassus Trio, and I find them quite to my liking.


Rheinberger’s style tends to confound expectations for a German-Romantic composer who was almost exactly contemporaneous with Brahms and who couldn’t have escaped the lingering malodor that hung over Munich following the real-life opera starring Wagner, Cosima, von Bülow, Liszt, and King Ludwig.


The works on this disc have very little in common with Brahms’s sacred motets. Rheinberger’s music is not nearly as contrapuntal—the voices move mainly together in harmonic, chorale-style blocks—and it’s regular in its progressions, consonant, and sweet. One writer has suggested that rather than regarding Rheinberger as a lesser Brahms, we should think of him as a “South German Fauré.” That analogy may apply to Rheinberger’s chamber music—there’s definitely a bit of a French accent in his piano trios—but I don’t think it holds up in these Masses. When I think of Fauré and sacred vocal music, I think of his Requiem, and these pieces are nothing like that. They’re of a much more staid and devotional character. If I had to compare them to anything, I’d say they’re a bit reminiscent of some of the sacred vocal works by Bruckner.


Bottom line: I’m not bothered, as Bauman was, by the distant perspective and churchy acoustic. In fact, for me, it tends to enhance the ethereal quality of the music. I can see how one might become bored by more than an hour’s worth of this stuff, which pretty much all sounds alike, but I find it calming, comforting, consoling, and peaceful, much in the way I find a good deal of 16th-century Renaissance vocal polyphony to be. So, on that note, I’m going to recommend this disc with the stipulation that I’ve described the music to you and told you what you can expect.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Pi-hsien Chen was born in Taiwan and grew up in Germany where she still lives. Among contemporary pianists she is one of the few who are really selfless: for more than half a century she serves the good cause with full devotion, and without prejudices - Bach, the masters of the Viennese Classical School, the romantic heritage, or modern and contemporary music. She has become the latter's prophetic pronounciator with her authoritative interpretations of the piano works by Stockhausen and Boulez, as well as Cage and beyond. But Schubert is - as the new edition of his 'grandes sonates' proves - her 'heart music'. This bold enterprise on three albums presents those sonatas (D 568, 845, 850, 894) together that demonstrate groundbreaking progressiveness and were explicitly intended as 'grandes sonates' and published under that title. Chen underlines Schubert's emancipation from Beethoven as well as his dialogue with the titan in a manner that is discreet and sharp at the same time and herewith leads the listener into Schubert's innermost tonal language that transcends everything and articulates it's own world of real music of the future. To reveal this process until it's climax, Mrs. Chen adds two of the three 'legacy works' that Schubert wrote a few weeks before he died: the sonatas in C minor (D 958) and in A (D 959) with their utmost dialectic tension who built the peak of the iceberg 'future'.... Chen leaves us without this most popular last sonata in B-flat (D 960) that conceals the abysses in enchanting beauty. She leaves us amidst the process, looking openly toward the unknown. In this interpretation Schubert's mediating function between yesterday and tomorrow becomes unmistakable in it's tragedy and greatness.

Born in Odessa, pianist and conductor Boris Bloch has long been regarded as one of the most important interpreters of classical and romantic piano music. His large and ever expanding repertoire extends from Scarlatti and Bach, the Viennese Classicists, Chopin and Liszt, the German and Russian Romantics, and the most important composers of the 20th c. This new six-disc edition of Bloch live Liszt recordings contains the complete Annees de Pelerinage I-III, the Harmonies poetiques et religieuses, paraphrases on opera themes, as well as polonaises, concerto etudes and other piano pieces.

The lyrical, soulful sound of the flugelhorn is paired with the orchestral rich colors of the Wanamaker organ in this beautiful recording. Popular melodies abound, from the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" theme to Debussy's "Clair de Lune." Peter Richard Conte celebrated his 25th year as Wanamaker Grand Court Organist in 2014. He is only the fourth person to hold that title since the organ first played in 1911. He performs concerts twice daily, six days each week, on the largest fully-functioning musical instrument in the world. Andrew Ennis is a graduate of Rowan University where he received his undergraduate degree in music education, specializing in trumpet. In addition to his full-time duties as the Orchestral Music director at the Collingswood, New Jersey Middle and High Schools, Mr. Ennis also serves as the Director of Instrumental Music and Principal Organist and Pianist of St. Joachim in Bellmawr, NJ. He also studies organ with Peter Richard Conte.

"This may not be the best performance of Bruckner's Eighth, but it has become the one I most cherish, because it is the one that most cherishes the music. More than any other, it takes me where I want to go when I listen to Bruckner. If music so rich needs to be listened to as slowly as possible, well, with this recording, it can be."

-- Richard Lehnert, Stereophile

It is perhaps no coincidence that the duration of this performance runs to what will seem to many an extreme and etiolated 104 minutes. That would be unprecedented, were it not for the fact that the timings overall and for individual movements match almost exactly those of the recording made by Sergiu Celibidache with the Munich Philharmonic for EMI in 1993. I do not know if Celibidache was in any sense Rémy Ballot’s mentor, but Ballot certainly studied briefly under him in Paris in the 1990s and this recording suggests that he imbibed the precepts of that eccentric maestro.

Comparisons with other recordings are to some degree otiose, insofar as no other recording apart from Celibidache’s begins to approach the leisureliness of this one but the other recordings this most resembles include the two by Karajan, especially the earlier one from 1957, Giulini’s two recordings from 1984 with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic respectively, and Gunter Wand, also with the BPO in 2001. These are all massive, vertical interpretations aspiring to transcendence, as opposed to the fleeter, nimbler versions by such as Tennstedt, R?gner and even Furtwängler, using his own adaptation of the 1892 Haas edition.

Obviously the edition chosen has an impact on timings, too. Both Ballot and Celibidache employ the 1890 Nowak version yet even the slowest of the other recordings that use this same score is still over a quarter of an hour faster then theirs, while many are as much as half an hour shorter. Even those recordings which use either the most complete Nowak edition of the original 1887 score, or the somewhat longer edition of the 1890 score produced by Robert Haas, or even the elaborated version as recorded by Schaller, do not begin to approach Ballot for expansiveness. Nor is comparison with many excellent historical recordings, such as those by Knappertsbusch, very valid, as they invariably used the revised and heavily cut first performance version of 1892.

If this preamble sounds like a critical caveat to the consumer against trying this recording, I hasten to add that I am merely trying to establish its uniqueness and am in no sense implying that excuses have to be found for Ballot’s tempi - although a predisposition on the part of the listener to tolerate them would be an advantage. Ballot carries off his vision of this symphony triumphantly; the weight and dignity of this monumental account enhance my conviction that it is the greatest Romantic symphony in the canon.

Of the twenty or so different recordings with which I am familiar, five of the best are with the BPO and three with the VPO, suggesting that the presence of a first tier orchestra steeped in Brucknerian tradition is of paramount importance – yet the virtuosity of the Upper Austria Youth Orchestra rides a coach and horses through that notion. Their talent and technical prowess are phenomenal, and there are certainly no more blips or minor flubs than one would expect to hear in any live performance by a first rate professional band. The notes tell us that 130 musicians with an average age of seventeen took part in this performance, although only 96 are named; presumably there were more guest instrumentalists than are credited and they make a magnificent sound. Nonetheless, it is undeniable that despite their prowess, they cannot quite emulate the security of attack or the silky sheen that Karajan’s orchestras achieve, and despite the emphasis conductor Ballot’s places in the notes upon the importance of varying dynamics, nor is their ability to shade them quite so subtly responsive.

This performance took place in the same location almost a year to the day after the Third Symphony was recorded live and subsequently released on Gramola label; I reviewed it here very favourably. The Ninth will follow later this year and the Sixth in 2016. The resonant acoustic of the Stiftsbasilika favours and even demands slower speeds if the articulation of faster passages is not be obscured by the reverberation. By all accounts, the recording engineers are better able to sift and clarify the sound than human ears listening live can process it; certainly there is no “sonic mush” here to trouble the listener. Inevitably, given the live location, this recording cannot match the transparency Karajan achieves in the studio but the sound remains rich and round, if slightly veiled. Coughing is minimal and there is no recurrence of the hum from the lighting which mildly marred the recording of the Third last year.

In many ways, the sum of this performance is greater than its parts: it clearly greatly impressed those present and remains mightily impressive as a recording per se and as a memento of what was evidently a great event, even if at individual points other interpreters are more effective – or simply different. Thus in the mighty, brooding opening, Karajan, Giulini and Furtwängler generate more tension, while Tennstedt or Maazel are more urgent and imploring, whereas Ballot tends to slow down marginally before the big moments such as the climaxes to the brass crescendos in order to emphasise and underline their impact. The Totenuhr, too, is especially chilling, dwindling spectrally into nothingness, its graduated dynamic beautifully judged.

Despite its length, there is absolutely no sense of dragging in the Scherzo and indeed some of the additional time is accounted for by Ballot sharing Thielemann’s attachment to making the pauses count, allowing the reverberation to fade and an expectant silence to prevail. The ostinato of falling fifths is superbly articulated. The distension of the Adagio represents the most daring of the risks Ballot takes with this music and but the results are heavenly. It is true that sometimes the young string-players do not “bow through” their phrases sufficiently to emulate the richness of tone their senior counterparts generate and the sustained phrases begin to fade and sag very slightly in comparison with the shaping of Wand or Karajan, but Ballot succeeds magnificently in creating a breathless hush, the descending octaves from the flutes hanging in the dusk like floating flares.

The finale is in many ways the most impressive movement of all. Ballot’s grip on phrasing, his exploitation of pauses and his meticulous care over dynamics results in a wholly satisfying melding of its four, disparate main themes into a coherent cosmic narrative. The din of the clashing cymbals in the final orchestral climax is overwhelming. Whatever your reservations regarding the arguable excesses of Ballot’s concept of this masterwork, this is a recording that every committed Brucknerian should hear.

A couple of pedantic niggles regarding the notes and their translation: Bruckner’s “Faszination für Zahlen” is rendered literally as his “fascination for numbers” when of course the correct preposition should be “with” if the sense intended is not to be reversed to mean that it is the numbers who are fascinated by Bruckner. Secondly, a critic is quoted as presumably favourably describing the Youth Orchestra as “[n]icht irgenwelche ästhetisch kaum erreichbaren Wiener, Berliner oder Münchner Philharmoniker”, which is translated into English as “not some aesthetically unapproachable Vienna, Berlin or Munich Philharmonic”. Apart from the fact that I cannot understand what is meant by the phrase in either language, “aesthetically unapproachable” sounds like a back-handed compliment, as does “scarcely accessible” – unless the sense is “irreproachable”.

-- Ralph Moore, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Classical Music

The group presents 4 trios all composed by great pianists: Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov, and Shostakovich.

Following up to her recording of piano concertos by J.N. Hummel and Beethoven, Austrian pianist Ingrid Marsoner is now presenting her interpretations of late piano sonatas by Beethoven. Marsoner's subtle yet vigorous play is opening with the Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101. The Rondo alla ingharese, quasi un capriccio, Op. 129 i sbetter known by its popular name ''Rage Over a Lost Penny'' and is as an early work like the ''lighter'' Sonata No. 24 in F sharp major, Op. 78, a welcoming intermezzo and an interesting contrast to the somewhat more profound late sonatas. As such the Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111 symbolizes this world and the hereafter with its two very dissenting movements. The Austrian pianist Ingrid Marsoner is blessed with a musical sensitivity rarely to be found in the younger generation. Without any mawkishness, she is capable of moving listeners with Franz Schubert, accomplishing structural and atmospheric miracles with J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations, unfolding an amazing energy in musical competition with symphony orchestras and then, when she dips into the subtleties of a Mozart sonata or a modern impression, differentiating the finest nuances so fluently that the famous borderline between musical art and music ocne more completely loses its validity. She has received major musical inspiration from other eminent pianists such as Tatiana Nikolayeva, Paul Badura-Skoda and Alfred Brendel.

Classical Music

Classical Music

I could, if I wanted to, but I don't... This was the alleged response of Anton Bruckner to singer Rosa Papiers question, why he wouldn't compose songs like Johannes Brahms did. Eight songs by Anton Bruckner are academically proven, which - with one exception - were composed during his time and life in St. Florian and Linz. With his latest recording, the distinguished Austrian Bass Robert Holzer devotes himself, along with Thomas Kerbl, piano and conducting, the choir Chorvereinigung Bruckner and the chamber orchestra of the Anton Bruckner private conservatory Linz, to the unjustly neglected songs and the Magnificat by Bruckner. A sensation came about in the year 2015 with the discovery of the song Der Mondabend, with it's world premiere recording being released on this album.

Classical Music

On this release, recorded in 1978 and 2007, Paul Badura-Skoda and Jorg Demus present works by Schubert for piano four hands. The artists comment: “There are no such things as the two of us - two studious, open-minded young Viennese musicians who want to serve their darling Schubert with all their Four Hands in what is probably the most beautiful chamber music hall in the world, which Brahms loved so much that it later was named Brahms Hall, in the venerable house of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde - among the founding members were Beethoven and Schubert - on the most Viennese of all pianos, the Bösendorfer with its singing, downright Schubertian treble. Both of us had just escaped physically and spiritually sound from the turmoil of war; one thought of creating a new world of the beautiful and the good, both of us at least in music. We had a unique generation of great masters to look up to: Wilhelm Backhaus, probably the greatest of all Bösendorf players, Walter Gieseking, Edwin Fischer - we were even granted to study together in Lucerne in 1948; Paul remained connected to him throughout his life. Above all, the wonderful violin sound of the Vienna Philharmonic delighted us, and in Furtwängler the brilliant overall conception: Have you heard "His" Unfinished, or the Great C major symphony? Schubert's songs delighted us with the wonderful voices of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Irmgard Seefried, and soon also by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Joseph Krips had just presented the opera with a Mozart style that was fully natural. The whole world seemed to breathe a sigh of relief (it was before the darn Iron Curtain) and Vienna was once again the capital of music. And so we played the piano with our Four Hands, above all Mozart and Schubert, as faithfully as possible to the scores of Schubert, but we were happy to incorporate temperament, feeling and inspiration into our ten fingers.”

Classical Music

While the theme of this album may seem contradictory, the chamber music of powerhouse composer Richard Wagner has been taken by Gerald Schubert and proven to be of substance and beauty. Gerald Schubert, who is a long time member of the Vienna Philharmonic, joins with pianist Bernadette Bartos for this recording. The works on this recording include Wagner’s Duo for Violin and Piano on Motifs from Wagner’s “Tannhauser”, Walther’s Prize Song from “Die Meistersinger von Numberg,” Five Poems for a Female Voice after Texts by Mathilde Wesendonch, and Isolde’s Love Death from “Tristan and Isolde”, Sigfried- Paraphrase, and Parsifal-Paraphrase. +

Classical Music

Classical Music

The three works on this second volume of Raff's piano works come from the very pinnacle of his career. The 1871 Fantasie Sonata is a fascinating and richly imaginative hybrid, whilst the Variations on an Original Theme is marked by fertility of invention. The Four Piano Pieces exemplifies Raff's gift for lyricism and characterization.

Beethoven performing seemingly rather trivial tasks for publishers offers a lesser known perspective on the mastermind: the businessman. Like with Joseph Haydn, there exist a multitude of folk song arrangements by Beethoven from many different language areas, besides the here portrayed Scottish, Irish and Welsh songs also Spanish, Hungarian or Swedish ones. Scottish musicians Lorna Anderson, soprano and Jamie MacDougall, tenor and the Austrian TrioVanBeethoven (Verena Stourzh, Clemens Zeilinger, Franz Ortner) take on an exploration to the treasures of Celtic melodies. Beethoven's personal touch in these songs is not only perceivable in the pre- and postludes, but is present in all of the instrumentation - a fact that motivated the initiator George Thomson several times to request even more simple instrumental parts as accompaniment, which Beethoven rejected in his very own way: "Unfortunately, I am not able to fulfill your request. I am not accustomed to retouching my compositions."

Karl Goldmark was one of the most popular and frequently performed Central European Romantic composers until the Nazi Regime in the 1930's. The ostracism of his work continued after World War II, until finally at the end of the 20th century slowly a selective rediscovery of his oeuvre took place. With this release Thomas Albertus Imberger continues to ending this oblivion of Goldmark's manifold work.

Anton Bruckner's Fifth Symphony is one of the most moving and magnificent of his symphonic works. Matthias Giesen, who has been working for more than 20 years as the organist and stablemaster of the Monastery of St. Florian, where Bruckner started his musical training as a choirboy, presents his transcription for organ of this monumental opus on this recording for Gramola. Matthias Giesen refined his rendition of Bruckner's Fifth on the Bruckner organ of St. Florian, which can be heard on this recording, but also on numerous other organs for many years in order to do justice to the work both in terms of technical and musical matters. In 2017, Giesen presented his adaptation of the "Fantastic", which Bruckner himself never heard in orchestral version during his lifetime, for the first time to an enthusiastic audience.