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

The Eighties success story Guitarissimo - Peter Horton and Sigi Schwab - has upgraded itself to XL, unveiling two new jewels in the crown of sound that is Guitarissimo: Tommi Muller, bass and Andreas Keller, drums & percussion. Peter Horton and Sigi Schwab were associated for many years, and soon joined forces to create the Duo Guitarissimo. The two became musical legends and an inspiration worldwide to guitarists and lovers of the guitar.

Hailed for his “Apollonian virtuosity and sensitive tone” (Online Merker, Germany), multi-award-winning pianist-composer Zhen Chen has performed as a soloist and chamber music artist at prominent music venues in the USA, Europe, and China. These venues include Stern Auditorium and Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall of Lincoln Center, Preston Bradley Hall of the Chicago Cultural Center, and China National Centre for Performing Arts.

Since its founding in 1952, the Chamber Orchestra Mannheim has been particularly committed to the rediscovery of and care for the Mannheim School, thus acting as a direct descendant of the famous Mannheim Hofkapelle during the times of Prince Elector Carl Theodor (1724–1799). Thanks to Carl Theodor's modern and enlightened thinking, Mannheim and the Palatine Electorate developed into one of the most innovative and forward-thinking regions in Germany and Europe in the realms of science and art during his reign. It was particularly in the area of music that he succeeded in setting new standards by attracting the best composers and instrumentalists of their time – among them Johann Stamitz and his sons, Anton and Carl, Franz Xaver Richter, Ignaz Holzbauer, or Christian Cannabich – to the Mannheim court, who were to pave the way for a new orchestra culture with their work.

Viennese-born Thomas Rösner is in high demand as a conductor for symphonic repertoire as well as opera since he made his debut with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva.

Why is the early 19th century still so vividly present in literature, philosophy, music, and art? Why do Beethoven and Schubert continue to dominate many concert programs as well as a considerable volume of contemporary music journalism? German Romanticism was never an arcane hideout for other-worldly escapists; rather, it has to this day remained one of the most popular wellsprings of activity and discussion. So how does Rahel Varnhagen fit into this? From 1790 to 1832, she hosted a famous salon in which she had discussions with and inspired eminent figures in the fields of literature, theater, philosophy, music, politics, and science. Her chains of somewhat unconventional correspondence span thousands of pages. Since Hannah Arendt’s groundbreaking book on Rahel (1933/58), her historical significance as a “pariah”, as an outsider who was constantly in the spotlight, as a woman of Jewish descent and as a (non-publishing) writer has been brought into ever-sharper focus. Pauline, the daughter of a banker by the name of César, was from a very early age admired by many on account of her beauty. She soon went her own way, bore the child of a Russian officer, and became the lover of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, who was also a composer and was later killed in battle, leading his men against the forces of Napoleon. So how can such an exchange of letters work as a stage production? Pauline writes in the way she presumably spoke, constantly switching between her Berlin dialect, a distinctive form of standard German, and a highly adventurous Prussian French with her own spelling rules. Portrayed here by a concert singer, Pauline is allowed to be extravagant, whereas Rahel, who leans more towards straight theatre, is rather more rigid in her spoken and sung idiom. The scenes allow answers to be given straightaway even though the two protagonists do not actually meet until the epilogue. Born in 1943 in Bern (Switzerland), Roland Moser studied composition with Sándor Veress and has degrees in piano and music theory from Bern. In Germany, he undertook further studies in Freiburg and Cologne. From 1969 to 1984, he taught theory and new music at the Winterthur Conservatorium. Until his retirement, he was subsequently professor of composing, orchestration, and music theory at the City of Basel Music Academy. From 1968 onwards, he gained experience with experimental music in the Ensemble Neue Horizonte Bern, most of whose members also compose.

There is only anecdotal evidence of how the composer Hans Schaeuble discovered music. He evidently learnt the piano at an early age: he was writing out pieces of music even in his childhood. For his years in Lausanne, there are copious accounts of his attendance at concerts by the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Ernest Ansermet, which led him to the conclusion that he should be a composer himself. Against the wishes of his parents, particularly his stepfather (his father having died in 1922), he prepared himself for a course of study in music. From no later than 1927 until the end of 1930, he studied piano with Karl Adolf Martienssen and composition with Hermann Grabner at the Landeskonservatorium in Leipzig. Schaeuble moved to Berlin on December 15 or 16, 1930. He was now a freelance composer and remained so until the end of his life; he never held any official position.

The Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra op. 50 of 1967 is Schaeuble’s fifth work for piano and orchestra. His first essay in the form dates from 1931, his first year in Berlin: the Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra op. 9, which remained unperformed. The Concertino for Oboe and String Orchestra op. 44 of 1959 is the first of three wind concertos that Schaeuble composed in succession between 1959 and 1962. On September 9, 1956 he wrote his first note about preliminary studies; on November 11, 1956, he signed off on his Serenade in B flat for String Orchestra op. 42. Although the piece appears to have been a commissioned work, there is no record of any performances.

Joy of discovery and perpetual reaching for new horizons are the traits that best describe the Grammy-winning State Chamber Orchestra Sinfonietta Riga. Since its foundation in 2006, the orchestra's artistic director and chief conductor has been Normunds Šne. One can hardly imagine a more devoted champion of neglected and rarely played composers than pianist Oliver Triendl. His tireless commitment – primarily to romantic and contemporary music – is reflected in almost 150 CD recordings. The scope of his repertoire is surely unique, comprising more than 100 piano concertos and hundreds of chamber music pieces. In many cases, he was the first to present these works on stage or to commit them to disc.

Five of the best brass players in the world united in a chamber music ensemble: The Reinhold Friedrich Brass Quintett was founded in 2022 and presents here its first CD, UNITY.

For this brass quintet's lifelong dream, world-renowned trumpeter Reinhold Friedrich has brought together the best players in their respective fields, musicians who not only get along extremely well with one another in a musical sense but also on a personal level. In their playing, one can feel their mutual appreciation and their joy in making music together, and, coupled with their unique technical and musical skills, as well as their chamber music experience, this enables the musicians to merge into a single unit.

The players that form this top-class quintet come together from a variety of European countries: Jeroen Berwaerts hails from Belgium and as a former principal trumpeter of the NDR Symphony Orchestra is a much-sought-after soloist who now teaches at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. The Dane, Lasse Mauritzen, who was knighted to the Order of Dannebrog by Queen Margarethe II, is first principal horn of the Copenhagen-based Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra (DRSO). Although Ian Bousfield is British, he now lives in Switzerland and is accustomed to performing around the world as a former principal trombonist with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as being a soloist and a conductor. Fundamental to the quintet is the Norwegian Thomas Røisland, who now lives in Sweden and is principal tuba in the DRSO, as well as playing in other renowned European orchestras.These five musicians are united by their desire to set new standards in brass chamber music for their audiences and to present premiere recordings and commission arrangements of classics that have not yet been recorded at a world-class level.

The Chaos String Quartet, named BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist for 2023-2025, was founded in 2019 based on the principles of chaos in art, science, and philosophy. Having won such prestigious international competitions as ARD (2022), Bordeaux (2022), Bad Tölz (2023), and Haydn (2023), the ensemble is rapidly gaining prominence on the international stage, most notably performing at the Musikverein Vienna, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Bozar (Brussels), and Philharmonie de Paris. Other awards include prizes at the Heidelberg String Quartet Festival 2023, the Bartók World Competition 2021, and the International Premio V. E. Rimbotti in Italy 2020. In addition to its classical concert activities, the quartet is dedicated to developing projects that make the quartet repertoire more accessible and open to a wider audience.

The ensemble completed its studies at the mdw, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, supervised by their mentor Prof. Johannes Meissl, and completed a postgraduate course at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole with the Cuarteto Casals. The young musicians received further important musical impulses from artists such as Eberhard Feltz, András Keller, Oliver Wille, and Helmut Lachenmann.

This is the ensemble's first CD on the label of the mdw in Vienna, under the label management of Solo Musica. Works by Joseph Haydn, György Ligeti, and Fanny Hensel were recorded.

In the 20th Century, as new song forms emerged worldwide, including genres like jazz, rock, and pop, the classical art song of the 19th Century gradually lost popularity. A singer, a piano, poems of love and death, and a romantic tonal language: the leading art form of the bourgeois salon increasingly became a musical niche for lovers and aficionados. The heyday of the European art song, which began in the middle of the 18th century, came to an end at the beginning of the 20th century.

However, composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály took a different path: they renewed the art song by returning it to its folk origins. The most fascinating aspect of their work was not just their painstaking ethnomusicological field research. While they preserved Hungarian folk music, recording (as best they could at the time) and notating this music, they also allowed it to inspire their own compositions.

At a time when many musicians appropriated folk music for political reasons, Bartók and Kodály created genuine folk art that did not pander or simplify, but spoke of feelings that directly touched its listeners.

This CD recording is the result of a succession of different moments of musical happiness and the encounter between the solo harpist of the Basel Symphony Orchestra, Aurelie Noll, and two exceptional musicians. María Cristina Kiehr and Yolena Orea-Sanchez (violoncello) have put their talent and artistic sensitivity at the service of this wonderful repertoire. The special sound of the harp creates a kind of new relief here and lends this unusual album its special charm. The program includes works by Reynaldo Hahn, Tchaikovsky, Manuel de Falla and Gabriel Faure. One highlight is certainly the new composition for soprano, cello and harp by Swiss composer Silvan Loher, whose delicate and impressionistic musical style fits wonderfully into this project. Soprano María Cristina Kiehr, born in Tandil, Argentina, is a specialist in "early music". The South American cellist Yolena Orea-Sanchez is a permanent member of the Basel Symphony Orchestra, as is the harpist Noll. She can be heard regularly at numerous European music festivals with the Trio Anthilia (violin, cello and piano), which she co-founded.

The cycle of poems “novembrig” by the Swiss lyricist Elsbeth Maag describes the naturalness of dying and death as a self-evident stage within the perpetual process of becoming and passing. Tenderly and encouragingly, the poet approaches this preferably repressed topic in vivid images. She succeeds in creating verses of captivating sensuality that are conciliatory while preserving the mystery. Ulrich Zeitler’s setting of “novembrig” from 2021/22 was initiated by the Swiss cultural promoter Alois Bischof. It is based on the poet’s standard German version from 2017 of the text originally written in Swiss dialect in 1997. Zeitler’s composition is inspired by the richness of colours and images evoked by the lyricist’s concise, powerful words. It sensitively explores the atmospheric density, the unspeakable, which can only be found in between the lines. The diverse layers of the topic create a cosmos of sounds that makes the heavy become light.

It is one of the magical abilities of musical sounds that they create the most intense “present” and a vital “now!” Therefore, in these TIME TRAVELS, past epochs can be brought into the 21st century and temporal dimensions can experience a sensual vivification: Exactly 400 years before this CD recording, William Byrd (1543–1623) died and is brought back to life here with the magnificent THE BELLS. BRANDENBURGER REMIXED was composed as a tribute to the 300th anniversary of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, whose legendary virtuoso trumpet part is still an outstanding benchmark for all trumpet soloists today. – The saxophone concerto SIDDHARTA was composed in 2021 to mark the centenary of the first edition of Hermann Hesse’s novel, acclaimed by millions, in which Hesse so unprecedentedly aptly described a living Buddha who takes us back some 2500 years into the past. – Finally, SILK ROAD refers to Marco Polo, probably the most prominent explorer, who died exactly 700 years ago in January 1324 in his birthplace Venice. So let’s bring back all these places and times with the colourful sound world of these TIME TRAVELS to experience them all over again.

It has long been my wish to record both of Johannes Brahms’s piano concertos for CD. In doing so, I have been able to build upon many experiences that allow me at this point in time to open myself up even more to the essence of these works, which move me to the depths of my being. Both works offer me something incredibly great, something that in my conception of things can hardly be further enlarged. Each of the two concertos fascinates me with its vast wealth of sound, its intensity, above all with its simply infinite emotional range. Highly dramatic developments open out into playful lightness of being. Time and again there are sincerely thoughtful moments, marked by deep serenity. The slow movements of these two concertos particularly fascinate me on account of those passages, which give us a glimpse into what is above and beyond the world we know. The Magyar in me senses many Hungarian influences. My engagement with the two concertos in the course of making the present recordings together with the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen has enabled me to look at the above aspects with new eyes. These are insights that go ever deeper throughout one’s whole life. The process is never complete. The cathedral is too big for that. Andrea Kauten

The album "Inner Spaces" is the third album of the Istanbul-born pianist Serra Tavsanli. With great certainty one can claim that it is her most personal album. With the works by Johann Sebastian Bach recorded here, she not only presents a masterful interpretation on a modern grand piano, but also connects the music with her own history and origins. In doing so, she reveals her innermost self and provides insight into very personal spaces of thought.

Based on the initials B A C H, Serra Tavsanli has selected the pieces that match the key. Even more, because in the album's booklet she writes: "Pieces that for me stand for different concepts that make up being human and play a role in all traditions and religions. B (Partita in B flat major) symbolizes faith; A (Partita in A minor) stands for hope. C (Toccata in C minor) represents love. B (French Overture in B minor) symbolizes our present. With this selection, the pianist takes her audience directly into her emotional worlds, into her "Inner Spaces".

Serra Tavsanli has ventured deeply into the world of Bach and is completely absorbed in it while playing. In a certain way, she also intentionally makes herself vulnerable. Her playing is narrative, it opens up associative spaces and is at the same time effortless, yet completely uncompromising. In the booklet she writes: "I was suddenly there, where everything succeeds, where it is safe and free. A place that is accessible to everyone, and where origin, religion, skin color or gender no longer play a role. A place where we are not alone." Serra Tavsanli decided to share her insights and experiences, which made her become an exceptional pianist, with her audience. At concerts, she likes to recite texts that she wrote in collaboration with cultural manager and Bach specialist Folkert Uhde to give the works even more context, but also to bring them into our time.

"As an artist, I want to open this place to everyone, to share with anyone and everyone the experience that fear becomes strength, that paralysis becomes strength. A place of hope, of freedom, of doing well. A place where no one is excluded," Serra Tavsanli describes her concern. With this recording, she will certainly succeed in this.

For years, Margarita Höhenrieder was searching for the authentic sound of Frédéric Chopin's piano works. Which instrument of its time most convincingly reflected Chopin's music? Chopin himself had given the answer in 1831: "Pleyel's instruments are the non plus ultra"!The choice for the recording therefore fell on a Pleyel fortepiano, built 1848 in Paris and expertly restored using historical materials and methods. It is absolutely identical in construction to the instrument that Chopin owned, and thus represents an authentic sound testimony. For acoustic reasons of the sound of the original instruments, the Oberstrass Church in Zurich (1st Piano Concerto) and the Vienna Musikverein in Vienna (2nd Piano Concerto) were chosen as recording venues.

The orchestras "La Scintilla" conducted by Riccardo Minasi and the "Wiener Akademie" conducted by Martin Haselböck also played on historical instruments. We hear in each case the historical versions by Jan Ekier. Margarita Höhenrieder's careful recreation of the authentic Chopin sound gives the listener highly interesting insights into music history.

From long form to short form: that seems to be the voyage Jean-Nicolas Diatkine leads us in his new CD, from Sonata no. 3 to the 24 Preludes. Yet this impression is partially deceptive. Granted, these preludes are miniatures, however they also form a whole twice as long as the sonata, when considered in their totality. Hence the work overcomes confrontation between fragment and whole, between unity and diversity. Yet a first paradox of this magisterial work is that this consistency is nonetheless varied and complementary in style – so much so that certain imaginative performers have foisted evocative titles on each prelude. The second paradox is in its title. Even though the genre is clearly defined, a ‘prelude’ must always pose the question of what it is a prelude to. And yet notwithstanding restricted dimensions, it allows us to wonder about the infinite because, even ended, narrowly circumscribed, and signed off, it remains inconclusive, suspended like an introduction to which no development follows.

Without doubt, the denomination ‘prelude’ is interesting partly because we have no ready answer to the question of what a prelude really is a prelude to, which obliges us to rephrase the question. From this perspective, Jean-Nicolas Diatkine’s version of the preludes is neither a performance (although literally speaking it is one), nor a demonstration, but possesses rather a quality that may seem unreasonable: spontaneity. This interpreter’s spontaneity is not an intrusion of his own self into the composer’s ideas, nor substituting a hermeneutic inspiration to that which gave rise to the work. No, his spontaneity is the clear-sighted audacity to believe in interpretation where a musician can be so immersed in a piece (or in 24 for that matter), as to take the liberty of showing the listener what the work has revealed to him, what it has opened him up to.