Velvety sound of unmatched beauty (The Guardian) "Musically, this 'Ring' blew away everything that had gone before - and we are talking about a performance history of more than one hundred years." (Die Welt) "Christian Thielemann creates a sound paradise." (S�ddeutsche Zeitung) "Tcherniakov, as usual, manages details on a level rarely seen in opera." (The New York Times) "A dream cast of voices" (Le Monde) "Wagner at his best." (BR Klassik) "Spectacular und breath-takingly precise, that's how Thielemann illuminates the Wagner score." (NZZ) "Michael Volle's Wotan [...] is an event, [...] Rolando Villaz�n plays a fabulous Loge." (FAZ)

With this LP, IBA is beginning to release a new series of live concert recordings from the immense sound/video archive of Idil Biret from the 1950s to 2020. On the first LP, Schumann's Fantasie Op. 17 from the New York concert at Alice Tully Hall in 1972 and Liszt's Sonata in B minor from the Paris concert at Salle Gaveau in 1978 are included. These two performances of the works were significant milestones in Biret's concert career, opening up to her the stages of the Soviet Union and East Germany.

Offenbach goes Hollywood: Mariame Clement's production of Les Contes d'Hoffmann transforms ist titular character into a storyteller of a different kind. The different acts, which are based on short stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann, take the audience on a journey through the world of cinema, from a 70s sci-fi flick over a costume drama to a feverish experimental sequence. The three love interests Olympia, Antonia and Giulietta are portrayed by American soprano Kathryn Lewek, who "impresses with brilliantly assertive coloratura, melting cantilenas and pulsating drama" (Drehpunktkultur). At the centre of this tragic tale of unrequited love is Hoffmann himself, stepping into the role of a script writer and film director in this production. The incredibly charismatic Benjamin Bernheim "splendidly cele brates the invasive tragedy of his character. Sound, expression and presence could not be better combined" (Der Standard). Kate Lindsey, who portrays the muse disguised as Hoffmann's friend Niklausse is a joy to watch and listen to as she "absorbs Clement's energy of ideas and gilds her vocal tour de force with scenic exuberance" (Der Standard). An opera evening that spans the emotional spectrum from hilarious comedy to deeply felt heartbreak.

Idil Biret's first concerto recording

Offenbach goes Hollywood: Mariame Clement's production of Les Contes d'Hoffmann transforms ist titular character into a storyteller of a different kind. The different acts, which are based on short stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann, take the audience on a journey through the world of cinema, from a 70s sci-fi flick over a costume drama to a feverish experimental sequence. The three love interests Olympia, Antonia and Giulietta are portrayed by American soprano Kathryn Lewek, who "impresses with brilliantly assertive coloratura, melting cantilenas and pulsating drama" (Drehpunktkultur). At the centre of this tragic tale of unrequited love is Hoffmann himself, stepping into the role of a script writer and film director in this production. The incredibly charismatic Benjamin Bernheim "splendidly cele brates the invasive tragedy of his character. Sound, expression and presence could not be better combined" (Der Standard). Kate Lindsey, who portrays the muse disguised as Hoffmann's friend Niklausse is a joy to watch and listen to as she "absorbs Clement's energy of ideas and gilds her vocal tour de force with scenic exuberance" (Der Standard). An opera evening that spans the emotional spectrum from hilarious comedy to deeply felt heartbreak.

Internationally acclaimed Swedish pianist Peter Jablonski is known as a fervent champion of Polish music. In this album Jablonski returns to some of his dearest piano music – Chopin’s Mazurkas. For Chopin, the Mazurkas became a deeply personal, intimate statement of his feelings as an émigré Polish composer living in Paris. From some of his very first compositions to his last, it is the only form that Chopin composed regularly throughout his life. Similarly, Chopin’s Mazurkas have followed Peter Jablonski throughout his entire career as a pianist in nearly every solo recital.

REVIEW:

Peter Jablonski is no stranger to Chopin’s Mazurkas, having recorded the Opp 6, 24, 50 and 68 groups in 2008. He’s now setting down the complete Chopin Mazurkas for Ondine.

This first volume reveals an authoritative, idiomatic, and individual stylist. He’s generally an epic, large-scale player who favors a wide range of dynamics and articulations. He can be yieldingly lyrical, yet he’s not afraid to get dirt underneath his fingernails.

He playfully inflects the cross-rhythmic phrases in the central section of the B flat Op 17 No 1. While he takes his time over the A minor Op 17 No 4’s decorative tracery, his grounded tempo is fluid and flexible.

Each of Op 30 No 2’s echoed phrases has its own character and color, words that succinctly describe Jablonski’s edgy way with No 3. The tension and release of No 4’s trills wouldn’t be out of place in Scriabin. Op 33 No 2 is not especially fast yet it still conveys boisterous lilt, and with very little sustain pedal for the most part. Jablonski’s effectively understated Op 33 No 3 sets the stage for a strikingly contrasted and personalised B minor No 4. An angular, questioning take on the short and swift B major Mazurka stands out in the well-played Op 41 group.

Needless to say, I look forward to this excellently engineered and annotated release’s follow-up volume.

-- Gramophone (Jed Distler)

Sony presents the next installment of Christian Thielemann’s complete cycle of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic - the orchestra’s first Bruckner cycle under a single conductor.

The Vienna Philharmonic premiered four of Anton Bruckner’s nine symphonies, including No. 4 in 1881 and has enjoyed a unique relationship with the Austrian composer’s music since 1873. Christian Thielemann, Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden, Artistic Director of the Salzburg Easter Festival since 2013 and Music Director of the Bayreuth Festival, is his generation’s most esteemed interpreter of the Romantic Austro-German repertoire. In the midst of a mutually stimulating relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic, he conducted his first New Year’s Concert with the orchestra in 2019.

REVIEW:

From expectant pizzicatos and hallowed strings to the blazing brass at the finish, for eighty-two minutes Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic engage and illuminate us with this majestic, sonorous and deeply expressive account of the mighty Fifth (Nowak’s edition), captured during March last year in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein, resplendently and with focus within the generous acoustic.

It’s an eloquent and powerful performance, detailed, dynamic, as capable of cathedral hush and awe as being sonically magnificent in Heaven-reaching fortissimos, the latter avoiding coarseness and brass-heavy balances. Drama, too, in the way Thielemann adjusts tempos without losing the movements’ threads and invests such as a quiet bass line with significance.

-- Colin's Column

Recorded in August 2022 at concerts given in Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie by the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg under Kent Nagano, this version of Johannes Brahms's celebrated choral masterpiece will come as a surprise to many. The German Requiem is heard not in it's usual seven-movement version, but rather as it was first performed in Bremen Cathedral on 10th April 1868 (Good Friday) under Brahms's direction, without the fifth movement for soprano and choir that was completed later that year. On the other hand there are numerous interludes, instrumental and vocal, secular and sacred, by Bach, Tartini, Schumann and Handel - including pieces that were then regarded as essential parts of a Good Friday concert. Such a programme might seem unusual today, but these musical additions shed new light on Brahms's work, which in this version manifests itself as what Umberto Eco might have described as an 'open work'. Presenting the work in the form heard at the Bremen premiere is more than just a reconstruction: it enriches our understanding of this unique music.

What does it mean for Schumann's Kreisleriana to be Romantic? Is it the violent contrasts, the mercurial shifts in mood, the fragmentary architecture, the raw and unfiltered expression? Is it the breathtaking lyricism? Or is it the spectre of the tormented kapellmeister Kreisler haunting this work that dissolves the boundaries between music, literature, and psychological portraiture? Acclaimed virtuoso Paolo Giacometti brings both poetry and psychoanalysis to Kreisleriana and Kinderszenen, performing them on a resplendent 1838 E�rard born in the very year these works first saw the light.

This new recording from the Staatskapelle Weimar under Hansjörg Albrecht presents a rarely heard compilation of Richard Wagner’s themes from Tristan und Isolde, arranged for orchestra by Henk de Vlieger (b. 1953). This is Hansjörg Albrecht's follow-up Wagner recording to his album Der Ring ohne Worte (OC1872). The Staatkapelle Weimar dates back to 1491, making it one of the oldest orchestras in the world, and one that is more than familiar with the works of Richard Wagner.

Nancy Dalberg's (1881 - 1949) songs were written in the period from 1909 to the beginning of the 1930s, and through her choice of lyrics she tells a lot about herself and her life. She grew up in a prosperous entrepreneurial environment, and early on she developed skills as a pianist. In 1901 she married First Lieutenant Erik Dalberg, who also had a significant artistic vein, and a few songs were thus written together. Due to an arm disease, however, she had to give up becoming a concert pianist, and with Johan Svendsen and especially Carl Nielsen as teachers, she acquired from 1909 on the compositional skills that, in addition to the songs and other smaller works, led to her string quartets and orchestral works, thus three of her songs are also available in an orchestral version. With the very personal choice of 47 mainly Danish poems, her songs take up a considerable amount of space, and she provoked her contemporaries with a sometimes quite rich piano accompaniment, whereby the soloist and pianist became more equal in the performance. The lyrics range widely from the cheerful to several more serious lyrics that revolve around the family and marital dreams that remained unfulfilled due to her lifelong health challenges and her husband's increasing mental illness, of the present selection, 9 songs have not previously been recorded.

Chopin's nocturnes are widely regarded as some of the finest works for solo piano and continue to hold a prominent place in today's concert repertoire. He composed 21 of them between 1827 and 1846, and they have become a cen- tral part of the repertoire. Many of his compositions began as improvisations - musical ideas discovered at the piano and later carefully crafted into written works. There is so much more to say about it - but for me, it was partially through studying and playing it over time that I have come to understand it better. From the beginning, the goal was never to just record these nocturnes. �I wanted to learn and grow as a pianist and mostly as a musician. I wanted to understand how to shape storytelling at the instrument, to create a musical narrative through phrasing, colour, timing, and silence. And there is no better repertoire to explore that with, than with these nocturnes. - Marie Francois

Smetana's two string quartets could be said to be the first programmatic chamber music pieces ever written. The first quartet is a remarkable work with a very strong connection to Czech musicians. It belongs among the real treasures of Czech chamber music. The main characteristic of the second quartet is it's intensity of musical ideas, as the composer was deaf and close to the end of his life. The Dance of Comedians illustrates the famous era of Smetana �s being considered the Czech national composer. An idiomatic account by one of Czech leading string quartets.

For the fourth instalment of his Schubert+ series, Can cakmur focuses on the genre of the impromptu, aiming to identify historical predecessors for Schubert's piano writing as well as gain an insight into the evolution of free-standing poetic keyboard compositions. Placing Franz Schubert's famous set of 4 Impromptus, D 899, at the heart of this recording, cakmur also presents two Impromptus by Jan Vaclav Vorisek, a composer who was praised by Beethoven and seems to herald Schubert. Four works by Chopin and two by Scriabin complete the programme and bear witness to composers' fondness for this free form, capable of expressing romantically a moment, a feeling or a mood. Designed to place Schubert's major piano works alongside works by other composers, Can cakmur's Schubert+ series has so far earned the highest praise: 'With Can cakmur you are returned to your first sense of wonder and revelation at discovering Schubert's genius' (International Piano), 'cakmur [is] remarkable from start to finish, with irresistible colours, refined nuances and a clear tone' (Crescendo), 'cakmur's phrasing and his use of dynamics and colours are overwhelming' (Pizzicato).

The University of York is very fortunate to own this exquisite 1856 Erard London concert grand piano, lovingly restored by Nigel Scaife and tuned to the Bach-Lehman temperament by Aidan Delacey-Simms. The piano is straight strung allowing greater separation of registers compared to it's more homogenised modern counterpart. The strings are damped from below, rather than above as in a modern piano, a less efficient design that results in pleasing result is a wash of colour and a ring of complex overtones that was surely an aesthetic choice. Pianos were likely not tuned in equal temperament in the mid-19th century and my choice of unequal temperament brings extra resonance to the instrument as well as colour to the music. Daniel Grimwood is best known as a world-leading exponent of 19th century virtuosic piano repertoire. Received with critical acclaim, Grimwood's recordings and performances of the music of Adolph von Henselt ensure his international reputation as a groundbreaking, inspirational musician, making him out as a unique voice amongst his generation of pianists. His recording of Henselt's Complete Etudes garnered "instant classic status" by Gramophone Magazine, which also named it piano release of 2023.

With his second disc Cristian Sandrin enters a ruthless competition: Beethoven's last three Sonatas. He does it with his modesty and humility - and with his individual (if not unique) sensibility and vision. A new version of these masterpieces that is not a standard addition to the catalogue, but a very personal view of a mature artist. Under the sister label Antarctica, Cristian already released a concept disc with music by Enescu, Scott and Ravel - Correpsondances - unanimously acclaimed by international specialized media.

Bruckner’s frantic revisions of his symphonies Nos. 3, 4, and 8 were borne out of his disappointment with Hermann Levi rejecting the original version of the 8th symphony. Helping in this large-scale revamping effort were former Bruckner-students Franz and Joseph Schalk, Ferdinand Löwe, Max von Oberleithner, and Cyrill Hynai, which resulted in these versions’ reputation – and especially that of the last version of the 4th – being varnished as something not quite Echt-Bruckner.

It wasn’t until the discovery of photographs of the 1888 version’s manuscript score and the subsequent publication of Benjamin Korstvedt’s edition thereof that it became clear: This late edition really did reflect Bruckner’s intentions. To ears familiar with the still better-known 1881 version, the result might sound mystifying, even troubling, but it also surprises with many particularly exquisite passages!

For their latest project on BIS, the Wigmore Soloists perform two works with unusual instrumentation: Beethoven’s and Berwald’s septets for violin, viola, cello, double bass, clarinet, bassoon and horn.

If the young Beethoven did not aspire to profundity in his own Septet, he nevertheless managed to create a fine balance between light-heartedness and substance. In the tradition of serenade, this work in six movements represents Beethoven at his most warmhearted and relaxed, yet his compositional craft and subtlety are typically sharp. As the septet achieved such fame during his lifetime, Beethoven eventually became irritated by its popularity, which he said overshadowed more mature works.

Best known for his symphonies, Swedish composer Franz Berwald also composed a septet that is in no way imitative of Beethoven’s. Berwald had his own voice and his own musical expression, and his artful handling of the wind instruments deserves praises. Thanks to its attractive transparency, Berwald’s Septet consistently exudes freshness thanks to its endearing musical humor and ranks as the finest of his chamber compositions.

REVIEW:

I know the Wigmore Soloists from their very fine 2021 recording of an undisputed masterpiece, Schubert’s Octet. Here they navigate the tricky line between popular and erudite music, and come up with the perfect compromise. Their Beethoven Septet is, quite properly, not treated as the Eroica, but neither is it tossed off with little regard for its true merits. The result is, I think, as fine a Beethoven Septet as I’ve heard.

Franz Berwald’s Septet seems like the perfect pairing for Beethoven’s Septet, since it was written in 1828, the year after Beethoven’s death. But this is, I believe, only the second time the two works have appeared together on one disc; the other was in a 2017 CD from the Uppsala Chamber Soloists. That was a well-played recording, especially the Berwald, but it’s completely outmatched by the new Wigmore Soloists disc. Everything about this new BIS recording is perfectly judged, from the splendid, authentic, joyful performance to the always impeccable BIS engineering, and the fine liner notes by Philip Borg-Wheeler. Very highly recommended.

-- Music for Several Instruments (Dean Frey)

String Serenades by Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) and Josef Suk (1874-1935) have become a stable part of the repertoire of Czech chamber string orchestras, providing them with an opportunity to prove their performing mastery, and are very popular with the listeners. This album is a re-edition of the recordings by the Czech Chamber Orchestra from 1994 (Dvorak) and 2000 (Suk) that were released in 2001 by WALDMANN label. Along with it's re-release on CD by Animal Music it is now being released also on streaming platforms for the first time. "In their pieces, Dvorak and Suk both drew on the older form of classical serenade, a kind of musical diversion in the best sense of the word, a form that reached the peak of it's popularity a century earlier as it was performed for the entertainment of the musicians and their music-loving audiences alike," says the musicologist Vaclav Holecek in the album's liner notes. This recording was made at a time when the Czech Chamber Orchestra performed under the leadership of the conductor, violinist and composer Ondrej Kukal (b. 1964). During his tenure, the orchestra was experiencing it's heyday. Interpretatively and dramaturgically, he followed the principles of the orchestra's founder, Vaclav Talich, who founded the orchestra in 1945 with some of his best students from the Prague Conservatory. Thanks to it's rigorous rehearsal routine and precise as well as enthusiastic approach to performance, the orchestra soon won a renown on the Czechoslovak stages and abroad, and collaborated, under Talich's baton, with foremost international soloists, including Pierre Fournier, Germaine Leroux, and others. The initial phase of the orchestra's promising career came to an end in 1948, when the Czechoslovak Communist regime banned Vaclav Talich from performing in public. In 1958, Josef Vlach (1923-1988), the first violin of the original Czech Chamber Orchestra and Talich's student and collaborator decided to revive his teacher's initiative. Under Vlach's leadership, the ensemble appeared on stages in Czechoslovakia, across Europe, Asia and America, and was a regular guest at prestigious festivals, including the Prague Spring Festival and the Salzburg Festival. Collaborations with soloists included Henry Szeryng, Yehudi Menuhin, Leonid Kogan, Ivan Moravec, and Josef Suk, to name just a few. After Josef Vlach's demise, the Czech Chamber Orchestra performed on irregular basis for some time. Nevertheless, the new first violin, Vlach's daughter, violinist Jana Vlachova took over the artistic leadership of the orchestra and also followed in the steps of her father and Vaclav Talich before him. Vlachova invited artists of her own generation into collaboration, among them the conductor, violinist and composer Ondrej Kukal (b. 1964) who became the orchestra's next leader. Under his leadership between 1993 and 2003, the Czech Chamber Orchestra maintained a regular concert calendar once again. After Ondrej Kukal gradually curtailed his conducting career due to a serious illness (he currently dedicates himself fully to composition), the conductor Andreas Sebastian Weiser collaborated with the orchestra. Today, the Czech Chamber Orchestra performs on special occasions only.

When Franz Liszt took over the court orchestra in Weimar in 1848, people there lived on the memory of Goethe, who had previously directed the court theatre. Liszt is the direct heir to this renowned stage - but as a musician. With his Faust Symphony, which was premiered on the same day as the dedication of the Goethe and Schiller monument in front of the theatre, psychology makes its way into music; Liszt's ambition was the renewal of music through its more intimate connection with poetry"". The Faust Symphony demonstrates the power of sound, of tone painting, to evoke a fantastic, epic and psychological world. Each movement corresponds to a character whose character and psychology it depicts. This is programme music, but it does not tell a story and is certainly not descriptive music. Liszt describes the profound nature of the characters musically, offering a subtle and analytical interpretation of the story of Faust as told by Goethe. The three character pictures are sonorous psychological tableaux in which Liszt does not simply tell the story of the characters or describe their feelings: He evokes their psyches. Kirill Karabits leads the Staatskapelle Weimar in this repertoire that so defines them."

After A Soprano's Schubertiade (BIS-2343) and Elysium (BIS-2573), Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton present a new recital devoted to Schubert's songs on the theme of the changing seasons. While there have also been other successful celebrations of the four seasons in music, Franz Schubert, a lover of nature, here evokes them in his lieder. Winter, imbued with nostalgia, is represented here by three songs in which the Schubertian hero sings of lost love. But gloomy thoughts soon give way to spring, synonymous with optimism and hope as nature returns to life: 'Welcome, with your happy swarm of newly awakened creatures around me.' If life is in full swing during the summer, the hero now seems uncertain about the happy outcome of his quest for love. In autumn, evoked here by six songs, the hero can only acknowledge his failure, reflected by nature preparing for a months-long sleep: 'Ah, as the stars disappear in the sky, so does life's hope fade away.' Clarinettist Michael Collins joins the duo for one song, 'Der Hirt auf dem Felsen', Schubert's penultimate composition. Inspired by yodelling, this extended lied ends with the hope of a better life, with spring just around the corner and the prophetic words of 'now I shall prepare/to go a-wandering' heralding the composer's approaching death.

Composers are often tasked with creating from a void, an emptiness. The blank page is an easel. The parts of a structure of a piece of music – melody, accompaniment, line, harmony, tension, and release – must take shape to reach the listener’s ear. Sometimes, instead of starting with an empty sheet of staff paper, a composer creates something which is pollinated by another source. Perhaps it is a folk song, a poem, a melody, or an even larger work, such as a full-length opera. New works are then realized. In the case of this two-cd set, an East South African folk tune receives new life as a romantic piano ballade. A sonnet of Petrarch resurfaces centuries later as a dramatic declaration of love, through a solo piano work. The repertoire on these discs traces Kristin Ditlow’s own growth as a pianist and musician. Each work marks a chapter of her development and artistry to the present. The song transcriptions are pieces that have been played countless times with vocal partners: the operatic works are works that she has coached or conducted. Her passionate pursuit of travel is also a thread which weaves throughout the discs: the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor spiritual arrangements are works that she became acquainted with as a high school choral accompanist: meeting her husband while on tour in China in 2012: the Mongolian Shepherd Song is her arrangement of a traditional folksong from the Chinese Mongolian community, a work introduced to her by her husband in China originally for erhu and pipa (traditional Chinese instruments) accompaniment but transcribed for violin and piano. Kristin Ditlow has spent five summers performing, teaching, and coaching in Hungary and the Bartók selections all harken back to those times in the Hungarian countryside. Pianist, coach and conductor Dr. Kristin Ditlow dedicates her musical career to collaboration and connection. She has been seen in concert throughout North America, Mainland China, and Western Europe as a soloist, collaborative pianist, and conductor. The set of music pieces in this album is representative of her “Passages” in her career.

Lars Vogt: 8 September 1970 - 5 September 2022

This new release is pianist-conductor Lars Vogt’s debut album together with the Orchestre de chambre de Paris. Lars Vogt started his tenure as the new Music Director of the orchestra on 1 July 2020. This album release continues Lars Vogt’s discography of recordings of cornerstone works within the classic piano concerto literature conducting from the keyboard. Previous album releases include the complete piano concertos of Beethoven and Brahms with the Royal Northern Sinfonia. In 2021, Lars Vogt won the OPUS Klassik award for the best solo piano album release of year from his recent Janácek solo album release (ODE 1382-2).

REVIEWS:

Lars Vogt’s dazzling playing on this new recording does [the concertos] full justice…this newcomer is very impressive and benefits greatly from the fine playing of the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris.

--BBC Music Magazine

German pianist Lars Vogt has been music director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia since 2015, and the recordings where he conducts from the keyboard have been markedly successful, including a complete Beethoven concerto cycle and (more daringly) the two Brahms piano concertos.

Vogt deserves praise for the crisp, precise, and buoyant accompaniments he evokes here from the Orchestre de chambre de Paris. These are vigorous, animated readings that take best advantage of the brilliant fast music in the outer movements, particularly the rocket that takes off at the start of Concerto No. 1. He made me appreciate the slow movements in both concertos, which doesn’t happen often, and the orchestral part is played with real warmth. Also, Ondine’s recorded sound is lovely, capturing piano and orchestra in perfect balance.

What I’ll return to are the two piano concertos, in which Vogt’s performances are as fine as any I’ve heard in years. Warmly recommended.

--Fanfare

Mendelssohn’s piano concertos are rather rarely played. Lars Vogt has recorded two of them together with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, of which he is the Music Director.

He and his orchestra play the Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 with a great deal of impetus, unaffected, fresh, and very colorful. Vogt has the necessary polish and pulsating agility for these movements. The slower passages are interpreted sensitively, nuanced, poetic, but by no means too emotional. The overall result is a joyful and thrilling performance that can only be warmly welcomed and recommended. The well-balanced orchestra, playing with a fresh sound, is an excellent partner for Vogt, sworn to his conducting and soloistic rhetoric.

The Capriccio brilliant, however, leaves the most lasting impression. Lars Vogt plays it not only energetically, but with jubilant enthusiasm, and he transfers this enthusiasm to the musicians of the Paris Chamber Orchestra, who play with great spontaneity.

It is important to note that Vogt does not work according to the principle of ‘fast and loud’, but combines his energy with a fine feeling for the musicality of the works. The result is fascinating.

--Pizzicato

Mendelssohn performed by a chamber orchestra and directed from the keyboard always looks like an enticing proposition. And so it proves with this new set from the Paris Chamber Orchestra with Lars Vogt at the helm.

There’s a wonderfully Beethovenian flair to the First Concerto’s opening movement, but equally striking is the musicians’ way with more lyrical moments. And, as you might expect from such a first-class chamber musician, he gives as much attention to places where the piano accompanies as he does when he’s center stage. Crucially, the orchestra respond in kind, matching the soloist’s articulation and dynamics to an unusual degree. There’s plenty of fantasy too – in the piano passages Mendelssohn writes to link the first and second movements of each concerto, for instance, which unfurl with a naturalness reminiscent of Murray Perahia.

The Presto finales are imbued with terrific energy but never become merely note-fests – the level of detail remains impressive.

The album is filled out by the Capriccio brillant, Op 22, and what can be mere froth in unimaginative hands is wonderfully characterful here, the mock military march given a jokey swagger, with nicely present timpani and brass. In the final a tempo, with its mad running dash of semiquavers, Vogt is impressively unfazed and dazzlingly understated. The recording is excellent too, with a vividness that brings these master musicians right into your sitting room.

--Gramophone

The first album of Postcards from Ukraine gave a potted history of Ukrainian music in the form of a series of miniatures for piano and violin, and the second presented four outstanding chamber works by important Ukrainian composers. This third instalment brings six new arrangements of Ukrainian folksongs, for violin and piano, by Markiyan Melnychenko, integrating them into a programme of folksong- and dance arrangements by some of his best-known virtuoso predecessors.

This new double-album by pianist Lars Vogt, violinist Christian Tetzlaff and cellist Tanja Tetzlaff includes some of Franz Schubert's greatest works of chamber music, including his Piano Trios and the Arpeggione Sonata in breath-taking interpretations. Pianist Lars Vogt tragically passed away on September 5, 2022 due to a serious illness before this album of Schubert’s chamber music was released. This album stands as a testament of his outstanding chamber musicianship together with his long-time chamber music partners Christian Tetzlaff and Tanja Tetzlaff. “If not much time remains, then it’s a worthy farewell. - - Incomprehensible. Such expression. Such fragility, such love.”

REVIEWS:

These are studio recordings made in separate sessions in 2021. Everything one could want in Schubert’s Piano Trios is present: rhythmic buoyancy, beautiful phrasing, united ensemble playing that still leaves room for individual voices, and inner joy in the music-making. There’s also the ineffable feeling of sympathy among three friends who feel free to be themselves without departing from the wholeness of a performance.

-- Fanfare

These 2020–2021 recordings containing the complete extant works for piano trio of Franz Schubert and featuring the well-known trio of cellist Tanja Tetzlaff, pianist Lars Vogt, and Tanja’s brother, violinist Christian Tetzlaff, are being released at this time partly in memory of Vogt’s untimely passing in September of last year. The recollections of both Tetzlaffs and their dignified expressions of sorrow for the loss of a longtime friend and collaborator who will certainly be very difficult to replace as the piano voice of the trio are most eloquent and moving.

In two well-filled CDs we are given all the music Schubert is known to have written for piano, violin and cello, including Piano Trios No. 1 in B-flat, D898 (Op. 99) and No. 2 in E-flat Major, D929 (Op. 100), the indescribably lovely Notturno in E-flat, D897, which was originally intended as the slow movement of Trio No. 1; a “Rondo brillant” in B Minor. D895; and a fine arrangement for cello and piano of the “Arpeggione” Sonata in A Minor, D821. The last-named gave new viability to a richly textured work originally written for a hybrid instrument that was soon considered strictly from Vaudeville and vanished from the musical scene.

All these works receive a stamp of excellence for the artistry Vogt and the Tetzlaffs apply here.

-- Audio Video Club of Atlanta (Phil Muse)

Between 1950 and 1980, he was one of the most important conductors of international standing, and yet he has been somewhat forgotten: Karl Böhm was the antistar among the podium greats of his time, a decidedly businesslike servant of the music. For the first time, two Lucerne concert recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic, with whom he was closely associated for decades, are released: Bruckner's Seventh Symphony and - a solitaire in Böhm's discography - an upbeat Hindemith concerto. In the summer of 1970, Böhm, by all means an advocate of contemporary music in his younger years, performed Paul Hindemith's 1949 Concerto for Woodwinds, Harp and Orchestra in Lucerne. The three-movement work offers the five-member Concertino group grateful playing tasks and, with its quotation from Mendelssohn's Wedding March, makes reference to Hindemith's own silver wedding anniversary. In addition to Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Strauss, the symphonies of Anton Bruckner were also central to Böhm's concert repertoire. Böhm's Bruckner interpretations possess an aura, but it is neither the religiously pathos-laden one of Eugen Jochum, nor the pathetically worldly one of Sergiu Celibidache, nor the matter-of-factly austere one of Nikolaus Harnoncourt. This is also evident in the Lucerne recording of the Seventh Symphony from September 1964: Böhm never loses sight of the whole and yet plays out every articulatory detail with almost scrupulous fidelity to the text. He follows Bruckner's blocky editing technique without aggressively emphasizing it. He does not avoid the music's solemn monumentality, but neither does he exaggerate it into false, violent pathos.

Since it's foundation in 2005, the Vorarlberg baroque orchestra Concerto Stella Matutina has firmly established itself as one of Austria's leading original sound ensembles. The group is a regular guest at the Kulturbuhne Ambach, where this live recording was made in 2024. In addition to Beethoven's 2nd Symphony, three concert arias by Mozart for bass voice were performed, which, in contrast to the concert arias for soprano, are unfortunately heard far too rarely in concert. The aria Per questa bella mano KV 612 also surprises with a solo double bass.

Semperoper Dresden presents an historic performance of Tristan and Isolde, directed by Marco Arturo Marelli and conducted by world-leading conductor Christian Thielemann. The sound he obtains from the Wagnerian score "fills the room with elegiac longing, drawing listeners into the emotional depths of the famous lovers." (Opera Online) Klaus Florian Vogt, in his debut as Tristan, is "fully present and convincing with natural phrasing and clear diction" (Opernmagazin), while Camilla Nylund as Isolde "convinced with her still incredibly lyrical, light soprano" (Sachsische Zeitung). At the zenith of his career, Christian Thielemann manages to set a new standard with his permeation of this difficult score and leads the Staatskapelle Dresden to new heights of artistic expression. "It would be most wonderful if this Tristan never ended." (Opernmagazin). "Brilliant performances that bring you to your knees". (Sachsische Zeitung)

Semperoper Dresden presents an historic performance of Tristan and Isolde, directed by Marco Arturo Marelli and conducted by world-leading conductor Christian Thielemann. The sound he obtains from the Wagnerian score "fills the room with elegiac longing, drawing listeners into the emotional depths of the famous lovers." (Opera Online) Klaus Florian Vogt, in his debut as Tristan, is "fully present and convincing with natural phrasing and clear diction" (Opernmagazin), while Camilla Nylund as Isolde "convinced with her still incredibly lyrical, light soprano" (Sachsische Zeitung). At the zenith of his career, Christian Thielemann manages to set a new standard with his permeation of this difficult score and leads the Staatskapelle Dresden to new heights of artistic expression. "It would be most wonderful if this Tristan never ended." (Opernmagazin). "Brilliant performances that bring you to your knees". (Sachsische Zeitung)

On this recording, Belgian clarinettist Roeland Hendrikx intends to rehabilitate Weber by playing his best music. Weber was an animal of the theatre in all his works: the Clarinet Concertos are increasingly recognised as early highlights in Weber’s career. The introductory assertion in the Breitkopf & Hartel-edition of 1954 states that Weber’s three works for clarinet and orchestra represent “a clear creative climax...the precipitation of a completely mature personality”. Previous release by Roeland Hendrikx on Evil Penguin: Dedications (Clarinet Concertos by Finzi, Mozart and Bruch). Klassik Heute: "Hendrikx's soft, unbroken tone, perfect in all registers, blends wonderfully with the with downright heavenly euphony and sublime tonal perfection of London Philharmonic."