On this double SACD, "Paths into Impressionism" are taken: starting with the two important Sonatas for Violin and Piano by Gabriel Faure, the first of which was already described as a masterpiece by Camille Saint-Saens, and four other short pieces by Faure, the great Salzburg violinist Thomas Albertus Irnberger and the German pianist Michael Korstick, who is already very familiar with the French idiom through many of his own recordings, present further works from the French and Belgian repertoire in their usual masterly and spirited interpretations: the Sonata by the early deceased Guillaume Lekeu, which was commissioned and premiered by Eugene Ysa�e, and Maurice Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Piano (with a Blues as the middle movement), which is characterized by Ravel's view that violin and piano were fundamentally incompatible. The resulting manifold parallel developments and bitonal frictions create specific stimuli, though without showing even the slightest hint of the music falling apart. Ravel's "Kaddish" and the "Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Faure", dedicated to his teacher, can also be heard, as well as the Sonata by Francis Poulenc, written in collaboration with Ginette Neveu and dedicated posthumously to Federico Garcia Lorca, and the fascinating work "Theme et variations" by Olivier Messiaen, which he dedicated to his first wife, a violinist, and which still contains many impressionistic elements.

A fascinating testimony to Beethoven's time, these musical treasures area authentically and lovingly performed on historic instruments by ensemble1800berlin with great respect for the original and Hummel's ingenious arrangement.

Chorus sine nomine, founded in 1991 by Johannes Hiemetsberger, is one of the most distinguished and innovative concert choirs in Austria. On this CD, the choir presents motets by Anton Bruckner. Bruckner simply called them sacred choruses, as the reason for their composition can usually be traced back to a liturgical occasion. The six works on the CD correspond to such liturgical interludes: Graduale (Christus factus est, Locus iste, Os justi, Virga Jesse), Offertorium (Ave Maria) and a hymn for the Good Friday liturgy (Vexilla regis). As an organist, Bruckner was admired above all for his improvisations. He was particularly admired for his high contrapuntal skills, in which he demonstrated his craftsmanship in fugue and imitation. The style of the fugal parts of his improvisations was based on Baroque patterns (such as Handel), while in other, more imaginative parts the tonal language of his organ playing became increasingly typical of Bruckner. Martin Haselbock establishes this connection to Bruckner with his organ improvisations.

Antonín Dvorák was a deeply religious person, and sacred music duly constitutes a significant part of his oeuvre. The present album features three different types of works. The Mass in D major was commissioned by the composer’s patron Josef Hlávka for the inauguration of a country chapel. The Biblical Songs are highly intimate pieces, set to the Czech translation of Dvorák’s favourite Psalms, while Te Deum is a magnificent cantata for festive events, which, however, just like the other two works, affords space for contemplation and meditation. All three opuses are adorned with inspired melodies, as well as intriguing involvement of the solo singers and the choir. The album contains recordings made by the Prague Philharmonic Choir and the Prague Symphony Orchestra in 1969 and 1970. The Biblical Songs are performed by the baritone Jindrich Jindrák, a long-time soloist of the National Theatre in Prague. Dvorák’s heartfelt sacred music, singularly performed by superb artists.

Tchaikovsky's lyric opera 'Eugene Onegin' is based on Alexander Pushkin's novel in verse - a masterpiece of Russian literature. The narrative tells the story of Onegin's remorse in rejecting the young Tatyana and his instigation of a fatal duel in which his friend Lensky dies. The opera is constructed in what Tchaikovsky termed 'lyrical scenes', with music that articulates the feelings of the characters with great sensitivity and subtlety. With a minimalist set design, director Laurent Pelly's staging underlines the lightness and sadness of the subject while fully expressing the characters' fantasies and inner torments. After his forays into the Russian repertoire, Alain Altinoglu conducts La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with a cast of outstanding singers.

Edvard Grieg, arguably the most popular composer ever to emerge from the Scandinavian peninsula, made substantial contributions to the chamber music canon with his violin sonatas rather than with his works for cello: only one sonata for cello and piano (Op. 36) was written for this line-up. Daniel Müller-Schott, always driven to expand the musical repertoire for his instrument and with a keen sense of transcriptions, for this all-Grieg album – which is his 20th album on the label Orfeo – hence transcribed and recorded for the first time the violin sonata in C minor, Op. 45, No. 3, for the cello. Accompanied by his long-standing duo-partner Herbert Schuch on piano, the short Intermezzo in A minor (EG 115) guides us to the second part of the album, where the duo presents selected songs of various characters transcribed for cello and piano.

REVIEWS:

Cello originals and borrowings played with great allure… The instrument’s cantabile qualities ensure that the selection of Grieg song transcriptions works equally well, with Müller-Schott presenting a nicely wide-ranging choice.

-- The Strad

Edvard Grieg’s cello sonata ekes out a shadowy existence in his oeuvre. Daniel Müller-Schott and Herbert Schuch enter the music with the Allegro agitato in such a furious and energetic way that one is carried away by this inner fire and its power. Even in the Andante, for all its lyricism, there remains much nervousness. The finale is buoyant and dance-like, all nervousness has gone, but the energy remains.

Grieg himself considered the violin sonatas his most important works. Daniel Müller-Schott has rewritten the third for cello. Müller-Schott and Schuch play with the greatest expressivity, very full of contrasts, and thus create a tension even through the second movement that does not even dissolve in the Allegro animato.

Also in the smaller pieces, there are two Agitatos, so that even this part of the CD is not characterized by charm throughout. And so there is one thing we probably retain from this release: the exceptional energy and intensity with which the performers play their Grieg. I think even the composer would have been amazed.

-- Pizzicato

As one of the finest pianists of his era and an improviser of genius, Ludwig van Beethoven’s preferred vehicle for musical exploration was the piano. With his five piano concertos composed between 1788 and 1809, he not only achieved a brilliant conclusion to the Classical piano concerto, but also established a new model for the Romantic era: a sort of symphony with obbligato piano which was to remain a reference point well into the twentieth century. After the first two concertos, which still closely follow the models of Haydn and Mozart, Concerto No. 3 marks a profound stylistic change. In the piano part, Beethoven pushes the instrument to its limits, leading commentators to remark that he was writing for the piano of the future. This trend continued and reached its fullness in the Fourth and Fifth Concertos, which today rank among the great composer’s most admired works.

In 2009, Haochen Zhang was the youngest pianist ever to receive the Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Since then he has captivated audiences worldwide with a unique combination of deep musical sensitivity, fearless imagination and spectacular virtuosity. He now performs the five Beethoven concertos supported by the prestigious Philadelphia Orchestra under its principal guest conductor, the charismatic Nathalie Stutzmann.

REVIEWS:

In a crowded pool of complete Beethoven piano concerto recordings, young Chinese pianist Haochen Zhang makes an impressive splash with his traversal of one of the most imposing cycles in the entire repertoire. With French conductor Nathalie Stutzmann leading the Philadelphia Orchestra, Zhang deftly handles Beethoven’s fiendish runs and cadenzas throughout these five imposing works. Most memorable are the 3rd and 4th concertos, which have the most balance between urgency and delicacy.

-- The Flip Side

Roberto Devereux is the fourth and finest of Donizetti's works dedicated to the Tudor period of English history, and is considered by many to be the ultimate masterpiece amongst his Italian operas. The tragic narrative is a tale of intrigue and vengeance in the court of the elderly and weary Queen Elisabeth I, with Donizetti's powerful score expressing all of the intense drama and sorrowful emotion demanded by the opera's finely etched characters. This star-studded Donizetti Opera Festival production received wide critical acclaim.

Native from Naples, Italy, pianist Lorenzo Pone lives in Salzburg and is one of the most highly acclaimed young pianists today. Having been a student of Paul Badura-Skoda's for almost a decade, he dedicates his debut album "Tribute to Paul Badura-Skoda" to this great master. Universally praised for the distinctive quality of his sound and his formidable perfectionism, Pone presents among others piano sonatas which he worked on with Badura-Skoda during the last weeks of the latter's life in 2019, among them the Sonata No. 51 by Joseph Haydn, the Grand Sonata No. 26 in A-flat major by Ludwig van Beethoven, the Piano Sonata Op. 1 No. 10 by Lodovico Giustini and the Three Nocturnes Op. 15 by Frederic Chopin. The program, which is derived from a piano recital given at the Teatro di San Carlo of Naples in honor of Badura-Skoda in October, 2019, closes off with three pieces of Claude Debussy's Preludes: Minstrels, La fille aux cheveux de lin and La Puerta del Vino.

On his new album “31” pianist Fabian Muller plays the late work of Franz Schubert- the piano sonatas no. 19-21 as well as Drei Klavierstucke D946. The idea behind this recording is to play the late works as a young person- in view of the fact that Schubert himself was a young man when he composed them. Muller plays the pieces lovingly, peaceful. Sad, but at the same time incredibly happy- and in his interpretations he likes to take liberties with the tempo and sometimes leaves out repetitions. “It’s important to take the composer seriously, but it’s also important not to overdo it. In the end, it often remains a mystery what the composer really wanted anyway. That’s why I have great confidence in making my own decisions,” Muller says.

The debut of the Vienna Piano Trio on the MDG label set a new standard. Their brilliant recording of all of Franz Schubert's piano trios was praised by the BBC as the benchmark: best available version. It is now available for the first time as a double album. In addition to the two great trios in E-flat and B-flat, this carefully prepared edition also includes the enchanting Notturno and the original version of the E-flat major finale. As a special treasure, an early sonata movement is heard which the young Franzl may have originally prepared for lessons with Salieri. Apart from this early work, Schubert only began to work on the piano trio towards the end of his life. The large-scale works, which today undoubtedly rank among the top of the chamber music literature, are correspondingly mature and complex. The pieces of their compatriot fit the Viennese piano trio like a tailor-made suit: the Austrians make music so glowing and stirring that you wouldn't want to hear it any other way. The meticulousness with which the musicians approach Schubert's cosmos certainly contributes to this. Extensive study of the sources, including insight into the precious autographs of the Austrian National Library, brings many a frequently overlooked detail to light and reveals something astonishing: the sheer number of corrections and improvements that the 14-year-old Schubert made to his op. 28 is overwhelming... Only the best is good enough for Schubert's piano trio: what applies to the interpretations of the Viennese piano trio also applies to the sound of the carefully balanced recordings made in the historic Fürstliche Reitbahn Bad Arolsen - top-quality classical music for very unique listening moments!

Zoraida di Granata, a stirring tale of love, betrayal and reconciliation, set in the Moorish kingdom of Granada in Andalusia in 1480, gave the 24-year-old Donizetti his first major operatic triumph. It marked his establishment as a true musical dramatist with a sure sense of craftsmanship and a flair for the dramatic. The opera's virtuosic central roles, fine choruses and powerful set-pieces show Rossini's unavoidable influence, though it is more a presence rather than imitation. This performance of the 1822 edition, not the 1824 revision, is performed on original instruments by Gli Originali and conducted by Alberto Zanardi.

Donizetti's Don Pasquale is one of a triumvirate of 19th-century Italian opere buffe - L'elisir d'amore and Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia being the others - that continue to enchant the world's stages. Don Pasquale represents the high point of the opera buffa tradition, employing figures taken from commedia dell'arte - the blustering old man, his lovesick nephew, the wily widow and the scheming doctor - and brings new life to the genre in this beautifully constructed comic opera full of cabalettas, cadenzas and coloratura, gently tinged with melancholy. This production employs a new critical edition of the work and stars the seasoned baritone Roberto de Candia in the central role, alongside Giulia Mazzola as Norina.

MacBeth is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, telling the story of a power couple galvanised by witchcraft and superstition, and obsessed by a craving to conquer the throne by force, even by murder. This French version of Verdi's opera takes us into a sphere of decorum and decency that hides monsters capable of the worst atrocities, portrayed in some of the composer's most blood-curdling and intense passages of music. A genuine rarity on stage, this 2024 production of the French version was acclaimed for it's powerful vocal performances and fine acting.

For four decades, Marie Podvalová (1909–1992) was one of the most popular and sought-after opera singers of the National Theatre in Prague, where she was engaged from 1937 to 1978. She dazzled in the part of Bedrich Smetana’s Libuše, which she created in 1938 under the guidance of the conductor Václav Talich, as well as in the roles of Milada in Dalibor and Anežka in Two Widows. She also appeared in Dvorák operas, performing to acclaim Armida, the Foreign Princess in Rusalka and Julie in The Jacobin, and in Janácek works, primarily excelling as Kostelnicka in Jenufa.

Supraphon is for the first time releasing the complete studio recordings Marie Podvalová made between 1939 and 1950. The set encompasses three songs from the collection Venec ze zpevu vlasteneckých (A Garland of Patriotic Songs, 1835–1844), which she performs accompanied on the piano by J. B. Foerster. It contains Marie Podvalová’s final, previously unreleased, studio recording, with the soprano singing Beatrice in a scene from Zdenek Fibich’s opera The Bride of Messina. The album also captures the voices of Jan Konstantin, Jindrich Blažícek, Marta Krásová, Ivo Žídek, Jaroslav Gleich, Zdenek Otava, Štepánka Jelínková, Jaroslav Jaroš, Josef Otakar Masák, Maria Tauberová, Ludek Mandaus, Stanislav Muž, and other singers. The Prague Symphony Orchestra and the National Theatre Orchestra are conducted by Rudolf Vašata, Zdenek Chalabala, Jaroslav Krombholc, František Škvor, Zdenek Folprecht, Otakar Jeremiáš and Karel Nedbal. The release marks the 30th anniversary of the legendary artist’s death.

Sachiko Furuhata was born in Yokohama, Japan, and completed her piano studies at the Tokyo Conservatory. Further studies took her to Germany at the Detmold University of Music and the Robert Schumann University in Düsseldorf. Her teachers include Roberto Szidon, Detlev Kraus, Naoyuki Taneda and Willem Brons. Her concert activities have taken her to Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Japan. With this third recital album, Sachiko Furuhata takes up selected works by Frédéric Chopin. With the famous etudes, the nocturnes and waltzes, different moods are singled out and compare so that an independent Chopin portrait is drawn.

The first performance of Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony at the Zurich Tonhalle took place on 14 January 1924, to mark the centenary of the composer’s birth. Under the direction of Walter, Furtwängler, Klemperer, Böhm and Karajan (to name but a few!), the orchestra has since given many performances of this monumental work which was its composer’s first great success and which the conductor Hermann Levi considered ‘the most significant composition since the death of Beethoven’. The orchestra’s Brucknerian tradition is perpetuated with this cycle conducted by its music director Paavo Järvi, which will continue with the Eighth and Ninth Symphonies until 2024, the year of Bruckner’s bicentenary.

On his latest album "Brahms, Schumann, Gade", the clarinet virtuoso and three-time ECHO Klassik winner Sebastian Manz dedicates himself to three absolute opera magna of the clarinet repertoire. The focus on the chamber music core repertoire makes this album project stand out clearly from the artist's previous discography. Without distractions or programmatic embellishments, Sebastian Manz completely serves the artistic content of these timeless masterpieces in this album. Sebastian Manz is accompanied on the piano by Herbert Schuch. Together they inspire with recordings in which one can hear that time and space have been left for spontaneous musical qualities. The thoughts and emotions of the performers thus come to the fore unfiltered. In addition, large-scale takes preserve the musical flow and their naturalness.

In every way, a superior Brahms chamber release.

Their recording of the American Quartet and String Quartet No. 13, Op. 106 (Gramophone Award – Recording of the Year), elevated the Pavel Haas Quartet among the finest performers of Antonín Dvorák’s music. This position was subsequently confirmed by a recording of the composer’s quintets, made with the violist Pavel Nikl, a founding member of the ensemble, and the pianist Boris Giltburg, winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition. The album received the most coveted classical music accolades (Gramophone Chamber Award, BBC Radio 3 Record Review Discs of the Year, Diapason d'Or, etc.). While recording the Dvorák quintets, the logical idea of a Brahms album was born. And now it has come to fruition.

Dvorák was encouraged by and ultimately attained global fame owing to the kind support and friendship of his older colleague Brahms, who in his twenties had been just as generously aided by Clara and Robert Schumann. Brahms' relationship with Clara is probably also behind the Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34. Originally conceived as a string quintet, in the spring of 1864 Brahms transformed it into a sonata for two pianos, yet Clara voiced her doubts about this version’s sound too. The desired contrast and richness of color was ultimately achieved by combining the strings and the piano. Clara Schumann performed the piano part at the private premiere of the quintet, which she referred to as having “symphonic” proportions. This aspect is clearly foregrounded on the present Pavel Haas Quartet recording. Brahms allegedly intended the String Quintet in G major, Op. 111, to be his last piece of music. In this light, it may come across as a reflection of the music he had cherished during his life – from Beethoven, Schubert, the Viennese waltz, his contemporary Wagner, to his beloved Hungarian dance motifs. From Dvorák to Brahms. A spellbinding “symphonic” chamber music sound.

REVIEW:

The group gets big sonorities, propelled but not overwhelmed by the piano in Op. 34 and by the cello that opens the Op. 111 quintet. The group really shines in the turbulent F minor piano quintet, as dark and intense as anything else Brahms ever wrote, and a work that went through several versions before the composer was satisfied with it. One feature of this ensemble is the variety of timbres offered by the individual players, with the rich tone of violist Luosha Fang an ideal foil for the edgier violinists. The players are aided by superb, almost tactile sound from Prague's Domovina Studio. In every way, a superior Brahms chamber release.

-- AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

Joachim Raff moved in circles that included Franz Liszt and Robert Schumann, and he ultimately became one of the best-known German composers of his day. Of Raff's six stage works, Dame Kobold ('The Phantom Lady') was the first of a series of comic operas that anticipated later trends, moving away from Wagnerian pathos and looking back to the levity of Rossini. Admired for it's utterly gorgeous musical setting, the opera is notable for a disarmingly simple yet fast-paced plot, bewitching solos and elegantly flowing melodies, and a deftly responsive marriage of language and music.

The last years of Schubert’s life were clouded by illness, so thoughts of the afterlife cannot have been far from his mind. For their latest recital for BIS, Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton present an all-Schubert recital themed around Elysium, the mythical idea of a blessed and happy eternal future, with texts that explore different states of the afterlife by well-known authors such as Goethe, Rückert and Schiller as well as by lesser-known ones. Opening with a hymn to the divine in nature, this recital in turn evokes distant realms, blissful eternity and dream-filled sleep, before concluding with a farewell to the earth; from the passion and doubt of Die junge Nonne (The Young Nun) to the beautiful and touching Du bist die Ruh (You are peace).

Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton have released several acclaimed discs for BIS, including Album für die Frau, a collection of songs by Clara and Robert Schumann and A Soprano’s Schubertiade, a Schubert anthology, named ‘Recording of the Month’ by MusicWeb International and ‘CD-Tipp’ by BR Klassik.

REVIEW:

I love it when a conceptual framework provides an occasion for performers to program music they might not always prioritize. This sagely programmed and beautifully sung (and played) recital of Schubert Lieder offers an attractive balance between Schubert’s most beloved songs and songs that rarely appear on recital programs – all connected via their texts’ exploration of the blissful attitude toward death exemplified in the concept of Elysium, from which this album takes its title.

This SACD boasts the superb sound quality that one associates with BIS. Hardly a damper sound or an audible breath intrudes on the performance; we are presented with the full dynamic range of each musician; and we hear the kind of warmth and resonance we might enjoy in a private chamber performance. I give this album my highest recommendation.

-- Fanfare

After her award-winning album "Røta", Ragnhild Hemsing dedicates herself to the Norwegian national epic "Peer Gynt" and its musicalization by Edvard Grieg. Through the collaboration with the Trondheim Soloists the world-famous melodies resound in new arrangements for violin and Hardanger fiddle with string orchestra. "Edvard Grieg himself has said that his Peer Gynt music is inspired by Norwegian folk music. With that in mind, my desire through this project has been to penetrate deeper into the sound world of the Peer Gynt music and explore the exciting intersection between folk and classical music", says the Norwegian artist. From "In the Hall of the Mountain King" to "Morning Mood", her new album has everything you need to immerse yourself in the Nordic soundscapes and mythical sagas.

REVIEW:

Ragnild Hemsing once again makes a strong case for the Hardanger fiddle and, through Tormood Tvete Vik’s clever and tasteful arrangement of Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt music, brings it very close to Norwegian folk music. The 12 individual movements are played alternately by Hardanger fiddle and the violin.

Ragnild Hemsing plays beautifully and creates indescribably atmospheric moments that have never been heard before. The Trondheim Soloists accompany the soloist with beautiful sound that exactly reflects the mood of the music. This somewhat short CD (48') is a must, and not only for those who like to explore. There are also informative booklet texts.

-- Pizzicato

Robert Schumann, a versatile, well-educated young artist destined for great things, a man whose music has always amazed with its extent and profundity ... and also a person of delicate psyche, which many a time led him to the very border between life and death.

He composed the Piano Quartet in C minor, his first piece of this ilk, at the age of 18, and although, notwithstanding his original intention, he would never remake it into a symphony, he still had it on his mind some 20 years later: “I vividly recollect a passage in one of my works (1828), which I thought was romantic, with a spirit different to that of old music that appeared to me as though opening up a new poetic life.”

The Piano Quartet in E flat major, Op. 47, already attests to Schumann’s compositional mastery, with its idiom inspired by Bach and Beethoven yet speaking in a clearly singular language. The 1853 Märchenerzählungen (Fairy Tale Narrations), was one of the composer’s last happy creative upswings, written shortly before he attempted suicide by jumping from a bridge into the river Rhine with the aim to put an end to his unbearable mental torment. The Dvorák Piano Quartet’s album spans the entire arch of Schumann’s work: the beginning, the peak and the end. Just like all his music, it shows how immense beauty is often close to pain and suffering. Immense beauty and anguish of the soul in Schumann’s chamber music.

Fernando Sor is probably only known to guitar enthusiasts today. The fact that his extensive oeuvre is hardly known beyond the etudes probably has to do with his renunciation of outward virtuosity while at the same time maintaining the highest technical standards. It takes a master like Frank Bungarten to lend glowing expressivity and delicate elegance to works that at first sight seem brittle. Sor does not make it easy for guitarists: where his contemporaries increasingly produce pleasing salon pieces or shine with virtuoso bravura, he writes sonatas of enormous scope, and instead of at least delivering a rousing finale, he ends with an almost timid minuet. For the listener, many of the smaller pieces seem simple and unpretentious - at least when Frank Bungarten makes us forget the enormous difficulties.

Sor explores the expressive possibilities of the guitar in uncompromising depth, especially the cantabile playing and the complexity of the movement are unparalleled. Exceedingly comprehensively educated, he seeks to make the limitations of the instrument forgotten. His ambition to succeed as an opera composer remained unfulfilled - so the everyday dramas take place in the small forms... This is not for the large concert hall, where one hardly ever encounters Sor's works. In the intimate atmosphere of the salon or the living room at home, however, a universe of dreamlike nuances of musical expression opens up to the attentive listener. The finely balanced recording technique never pushes itself into the foreground and allows a deep immersion in this world of sound, which begins to sparkle particularly attractively in the three-dimensional reproduction.

Giorgi Gigashvili is only twenty-two, but he is already hitting the headlines: now a pupil of Nelson Goerner, he is a protégé of Martha Argerich, who gave him the urge to play the piano alongside his first love, pop singing: at the age of thirteen, he was a contestant in The Voice in his homeland, Georgia, and won the prize! A few years later, Argerich discovered him at a piano competition, and he went on to win prizes at several more, including the Hortense Anda-Bührle Prize at the Géza Anda Competition in Zurich in 2021. Another high-flying mentor, the violinist Lisa Batiashvili, asked him to play him the piano on her recording of the Franck Violin Sonata. His free and spectacular playing impresses, his creativity and personality astonish. Here he presents his first recital, revealing his palette of colours: Scarlatti, Beethoven, Scriabin and Messiaen. But never far away is his shadow, the singer of the electro band Tsduneba (‘temptation’ in Georgian) which he founded with his friends.

This unique box set explores the deep bond between Ludwig van Beethoven's music and literature-from Schiller and Goethe's poetic inspiration to Beethoven's theatrical scores like The Ruins of Athens, Egmont, and Fidelio. New text versions and insightful interpretations breathe fresh life into rarely heard works, highlighting Beethoven's belief in music as a moral force. A powerful journey through music shaped by words, and words inspired by music.

Baritone Konstantin Krimmel, voted ‘Best Newcomer’ of the year at the 2023 Oper! Awards in Germany and a member of the eminent Bavarian State Opera company since 2021, presents his third recording for Alpha. In close partnership with pianist Daniel Heide, he places his artistry and his feeling for words at the service of the lied repertory. This is also an opportunity to discover his vision of the work, an unexpectedly contemporary, socio-psychological analysis: ‘Die schöne Müllerin is a work that romanticises the development of a mental illness, and shows, unfiltered, how a young person can feel without a tempered emotional world. With all its dark sides.’

After two stylistically diverse anthologies – In Motion and Renewal – the United Strings of Europe and their director Julian Azkoul have chosen to devote their latest project to a single composer: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. They open with the composer’s Serenade, a tribute to Mozart’s divertimentos, but infused with Tchaikovsky’s characteristic pathos and melancholy. It is one of his most popular works, with the especially beloved Waltz as its second movement, and a finale featuring Russian folk songs. The other works included on this recording are arrangements tailor-made for the ensemble by Julian Azkoul. Andante cantabile, the slow movement of Tchaikovsky’s First String Quartet, is a piece of great emotional power, based on an old folk song which Tchaikovsky reportedly heard in the Ukrainian town of Kamenka. Composed following a stay in Florence, the Sextet is brooding in temperament and despite its title arguably more Russian than Italian in character. Like the Serenade, it makes use of classical forms and devices but also includes passages evoking traditional Russian music. After completing the work, Tchaikovsky – who was otherwise his own harshest critic – wrote: ‘it’s frightening to see how pleased I am with myself’. The album closes with At Bedtime, an early composition for mixed choir with a meditative quality reminiscent of Eastern Orthodox chant that lends itself well to the string orchestra textures.

Though Belgium in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was known above all for it's "school" of violin-playing, represented by figures such as Henry Vieuxtemps and Eugene Ysaye, it was also home to a flourishing piano "school". After independence in 1830, the new nation's conservatoires opened numerous classes, method-books and anthologies proliferated, and piano-makers kept pace with new patents and instruments. This dynamic environment naturally had an effect on composers; everyone who wrote music wrote for this king of instruments, and promoted the results either by performing them themselves or by confiding them to virtuosos to execute in concerts or competitions. The most famous of these, the Eugene Ysaye Competition (since 1951 the Queen Elisabeth International Competition), opened to pianists in 1938, with Emil Gilels emerging victorious. A quarter of a century later, Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden entered this prestigious contest and, at sixteen years of age, came away with a third prize. Trained at the Brussels Conservatoire by Eduardo del Pueyo, he would go on to an international career still active six decades later. The programme of this CD is an homage to this long lineage of teachers and students. It testifies to the practices as well as the networks of friendship that gave this "school", throughout it's various ramifications, a particular character.

Rossini's Adina is a one-act farsa sentimentale or semiseria set in a seraglio in Baghdad where we find the Caliph determined to marry Adina who is also loved by Selimo. To this standard story Rossini brought an unexpected psychological depth, augmented by coloratura arias and male choruses of richness and daring. However, for unknown reasons he omitted a vital Terzetto, which has made the work problematic to fully realise in performance. This recording employs the Terzetto from Giovanni Pacini's opera La schiava in Bagdad, a solution first proposed in 1861, much to the benefit of the opera's pacing.