Paul Klee’s picture Ad marginem provides inspiration and context for the present program and is a visual guide to performance for us as Talistrio: a radiant red circle in the middle, while around it - driven back to the margin - living creatures and abstract objects emerge. It is surely this mixture of melancholy and hope that links all the works listed below, be it Casella’s neoclassical dance on the volcano from the early 20th century, Tchaikovsky’s death and its shattering inspirational impulse upon the young Rachmaninoff, or the Japanese child scene at sunset. Amazement and admiration have attended Talistrio since its debut concert of 2012. The press credits the trio with “great intensity and virtuosity”, “great differentiation of tone”, and a “spiritual penetration of the compositions followed through to the slightest detail”.

Talistrio is the Augsburg piano trio that belongs to a new generation as an international ensemble. It was in 2011 that siblings Elisa and Wenzel Gummer joined cellist Takuro Okada to form a German-Japanese trio. Concert tours have since taken them from Bavaria to Holland, Switzerland and Japan. Talistrio sets great store by projects promoting exchange and understanding between the German and Japanese cultures.

Katharina Ruckgaber writes: “In the UK, sales of crime novels exceed those of romantic, fantasy or science fiction titles… It seems the eagerness to hunt the killer side-by-side with the detectives and a sort of collective desire to sit rigid with fear on our sofas and be subjected to all manner of horrors has taken hold of society. However, the fascination with the depths to which human beings can descend goes back much further; indeed it is part of our “cultural heritage”, so to speak… This is happening amid – or despite – the daily menu of dramatic events served up on news programs, the barbarous events taking place around the world, events of such stark reality that they surely leave crime thriller plots in the shade. Does that mean that anyone could become a murderer? Forensic psychiatrists have been investigating this question for years and have repeatedly reached the conclusion that no one is immune to committing an act of madness when fate has dealt them a dreadful blow. That is what happens to the female narrator on my new lieder album.

"Killing one’s rival, a variation on the crime of passion committed in a conflict situation as a result of overwhelming jealousy, by losing control over one’s negative character traits shines a light on a dark power that causes her to get carried away in a highly tense moment. And now she must live with what she has done, a crime that she is unable to reconcile with her conscience, a deed that makes her feel as if an alien part of her committed it…”

The year 1919: A point in time, European countries, a young woman, a young man and an elderly gentleman. This is the musical triptych that Marion Leleu and pianist Bertrand Giraud, who plays the wonderful grand piano Opus 102 by Stephen Paulello, have chosen for our album. These three composers could scarcely be more different, whether in their social situation, their geographical background, or their psychological make-up. Nevertheless the three are linked by their inspiration and their powers of musical invention, which is what has fascinated Marion Leleu from the start of this project. Like the waves of the sea in her homeland of Brittany, their melodic phrases come and go, they grow, develop amazing power, finally burst apart or die away gently.

Joseph Ryelandt’s Sonata op. 73 enthralled her at once and she is very happy to be the first to record this work and bring out the score in a new edition together with Bertrand Giraud. This music deserves to be better known, and she hope it will soon be part of the Romantic repertoire for the viola. The Sonata op.11/4 by Paul Hindemith is like a river or a journey, and although the playing time is not very long, you can feel like a marathon and remains a continuing challenge for the artists. The last work, the Sonata by Rebecca Clarke, is a necessary and moving call to offer her female successors greater visibility and freedom in the world of music. Marion Leleu: “Playing this work is like a return to the source of your feelings as a musician.”

Daniel Gubelmann’s trademark is his lyrical saxophone sound, around which his band “Five on Fire” is also centered. In 2013, the band fused with a string quartet. Now, their musical framework has been expanded even more: On their newest album Eternal Movement, “Five on Fire” perform with the renown Musikkollegium Winterthur’s large string section. Bridging the gap between jazz groups and “classical” ensembles has a long tradition, beginning in 1954, when Bebop pioneer Charlie Parker started incorporating the sound of string instruments. For Daniel Gubelmann, the opportunity to have his own band interact and engage with a great string orchestra is a dream come true. This cooperation is indebted to the broadcast station SRF 2 Kultur, which helped make the recording in the Stadthalle Winterthur (Civic Hall Winterthur) possible. In his compositions, Daniel Gubelmann refers back to the so-called “Third Stream” of jazz artists from the 1950s, represented by musicians like Gunter Schuller, who began to develop formal concepts aiming to break down the randomly drawn boundaries between jazz and classical music. The symphonic suites with jazz improvisations, consisting of several movements, that are featured on Eternal Movement are also inspired by musicians like Stand Getz and Eddie Sauter. On this release, the string orchestra and jazz quartet are on equal footing, and all soloistic exercises are shared evenly among them. The title of this album is testament to the saxophonist from Winterthur’s desire to think big. This album is showcases a subjective view on life, realized in a sensual musical language which tells of the experiences of this Swiss musician. Especially impactful was the time he spent in Buenos Aires, where he studied with Daniel Hector Montes. The piece “Preludio de Buenos Aires” takes us into the incomparable atmosphere of Argentine’s capital city.

Look, here it is. Fie! The mophead... The eight famous stories from the timeless children's book in witty, theatrical settings and arrangements by Konstantin Timokhine as an audio release: Directed by Salomé Im Hof, the musicians Ewa Miribung (violin, banjo), Georg Dettweiler (cello), Konstantin Timokhine (horn) and Jan Wollmann (trumpet) from the Basel Chamber Orchestra play, sing and tell the popular stories in a colorful, rhythmic and groovy, profound and poetic way: for young and old, recommended from 5 years on. The four stories "Der böse Friedrich", "Paulinchen mit dem Feuerzeug", "Zappel-Philipp" and "Hans-Guck-in-die-Luft" were arranged for the album and extended with the four other stories "von den schwarzen Buben", "Daumenlutscher", "Suppen-Kaspar" and "Zappel-Philipp". The original chronological order of the original book has been retained, so it is easy to read along and follow the pictures. Between the episodes, questions are asked in short intermezzi - spoken by and for children. Stimulating to form one's own thoughts and valuable as a mediating aspect of the audio release!

Enjoy the dramaturgical charm of "Ewig Dein Mozart" and simply surrender to the artist's "approach" to the genius Mozart. Because our generation would also be poorer by an infinite without Mozart. Max Mueller studied acting and singing at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna as well as with Edith Nordegg, Charlotte Grubenmann and Kammersänger Walter Berry. Performance engagements have taken him to such prestigious venues as the Stadttheater Klagenfurt, Wiener Metropol, Theatre de la Bastille, Paris, and many more. With the album "Ewig Dein Mozart" Max Müller also impressively presents himself as a singer in Germany. He combines letters from the composer with selected songs, which he "reads with delicious wit and interprets with emotional depth" (Prof. Gerda Fröhlich, Artistic Director Carinthischer Sommer) The press wrote about his concert of the same name: “You wouldn't want to believe that you can turn every Mozart song into a little scenic experience. Max Müller taught his audience better than that!”

After studying at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Max Müller first devoted himself to acting with numerous stage and TV roles. As the Bavarian police chief "Michi Mohr" in the hit ZDF series "Die Rosenheim-Cops" he has long been a cult figure! Now the baritone trained actor presents a wonderful Christmas album with fifteen songs in nine languages and Christmas texts from three centuries. Max Müller says: "I grew up in Carinthia where, theoretically, it is possible to celebrate Christmas in three languages: German, Slovenian and Italian. I guess that aroused my curiosity to find out how Christmas sounds in other countries and what other people have written on the subject of " Christkind und Co " over the last three hundred years. In the meantime, I have a good "CD metre" of Christmas music to my name - I have not yet counted the piles of sheet music and books on the subject - and I am very pleased to be able to invite you on my own personal Christmas journey with this release. We are accompanied by the harpist Elisabeth Goritschnig, who actually succeeds in putting even hardened Christmas opponents in a mild mood. Even in high summer, at the time of recording!”

I must have been a phylloxera in a former life, sings the man who, at first glance, you wouldn't believe had ever been intoxicated in this life! On closer inspection, however, you notice the mischievous, rascal-like quality that flashes out of his bright blue eyes and signals: "I've got more than you think! And he really does, this Max Müller, known from the TV series "Rosenheim Cops" as the lovable policeman Michi Mohr! On his new album "Tierisch!" he encounters his own weaknesses and imperfections "in animal garb", so to speak, singing and speaking. Whether in the razor-sharp everyday observations of Joachim Ringelnatz, in the bestial bel canto of Gioacchino Rossini, in the famously animal-friendly Viennese songs of Georg Kreisler, or deep down in the water, where even the fish sing their songs in Christian Morgenstern's songs - everywhere you will meet lots of good acquaintances! Hits of the 30s and 40s like "Die süßesten Früchte", "Wenn ich mit meinem Dackel ...", "So ein Regenwurm hat's gut", "In der Bar zum Krokodil" and "Am Amazonas" are represented as well as poems by Morgenstern and Busch.

From Gelsen, die keine Pension zahlen, to Schubert's "Forelle" and Mozart's "Papageno", the palette of this ravishingly enjoyable album ranges. Müller's artistic range matches his musical curiosity, diversity and expressiveness. "Tierisch!" is already the third release by the artist Max Müller on the Solo Musica label.

Surely not many cellists are able to perform rare, original cello duets with their own father. The GinzelDuello however combines the professionalism and experience of father Reiner Ginzel (a professor at Munich’s University of Music) with the youthful freshness and creative spontaneity of young cellist and composer Hans-Henning Ginzel, some of whose remarkable arrangements can be heard on this new release. His takes on classics such as Bach’s famous Air and Debussy’s “Golliwogg’s Cakewalk” feature alongside less familiar 19th-century compositions by Bernhard Heinrich Romberg and Sebastian Lee that are well worth discovering. This is an oeuvre rarely heard – an attractive programme of delights that no classical music lover can resist.

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

Born in Reims in 1934, Philippe Entremont is one of the most famous pianists and French orchestra conductors. The exceptional career of Entremont began at the age of eighteen when he came to international attention with his great success at New York’s Carnegie Hall, playing Jolivet’s piano concerto and Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Since then, he has pursued a top international career as a pianist, and for the last 40 years on the podium as a conductor as well. Phillipe Entremont is one of the most recorded artists of all time, and has appeared on many labels, including CBS, Sony, Teldec and Harmonia Mundi, and has garnered all of the leading prizes and awards in the industry. For more than half a century Philipe Entremont has been thinking of Schubert Sonata No 21 D960 – this work is considerably haunting and captivating, and in its simplicity it is very difficult too. The desire of recording it came later to him, much later, toward 2009, but it was still too early to record. This wonderful sonata has never left his mind and has had a home in his piano, and will remain there until the end. His decision to record the Schubert fantasy for 4 hands was an immediate choice on his part. Like the Sonata D960 it is an absolute masterpiece. It was written about at the same time as the sonata and just a few months before the death of the composer. It is hard to find words to describe the beauty of such a masterpiece. To listen you have to close your eyes and let yourself be invaded by the incredible power of its enchantment.

NO LIMITS: LEGENDARY LIVE RECORDINGS FROM MOZART TO WAGNER • Francisco Araiza (t); various cond & O • SOLO MUSICA 194 (67: 02) Live: 1978-2007


MOZART Don Giovanni: Dalla sua pace; Il mio tesoro. ROSSINI Il barbiere di Siviglia: Ecco ridente in cielo. BIZET Les pêcheurs de perles: Je crois entendre encore. GOUNOD Faust: Salut, demeure chaste et pure. MASSENET Le Cid: O souverain, ô juge, ô père. VERDI Rigoletto: La donna è mobile. PUCCINI La Bohème: Che gelida manina. GIORDANO Andrea Chenier: Un di all’azzurro spazio. TCHAIKOVSKY Evgeny Onegin: Kuda, kuda. WAGNER Lohengrin: In fernem Land. Die Walküre: Ein Schwert verhieß mir der Vater


Tenor Francisco Araiza wants you, the listener, to know that he is very proud of this CD because of his evolution “from lyric prince to dramatic knight.” Well, that is certainly well and good, and this recital does indeed run the gamut from light music to heavy, but where is anything modern? Not a single opera represented here was composed later than the 1910s, and those in a retro Romantic style. That being said, this is far from being an average tenor recital.


Truthfully, I hadn’t realized that Araiza was still singing as late as 2007, and certainly did not know that he had graduated to Wagner. I recall him as one of the finest of all light tenors of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and still value his recording of Mozart’s Idomeneo under Colin Davis. More interestingly, considering that Araiza sang his first Lohengrin in 1990, the two Don Giovanni arias date from 1987 (“Dalla sua pace”) and 1994 (“Il mio tesoro”). It’s true that Araiza was always a lyric tenor with a dark sound, and this is indeed evident even in his Mozart singing, but there is, to my ears, a bit less focus in the opening phrases of the latter aria, the vibrato just a bit looser here than in the first aria, and Araiza sounds as if he is forcing the voice more. (I had the same impression hearing his studio recording of Faust from those years.) He manages the long run on “tornar” in one breath, but is forced to slow the music down in order to sing all the notes cleanly, and there is a brief sagging in pitch. To turn from this to his 1978 reading of “Ecco ridente” with the Munich Radio Orchestra directed by Heinz Wallberg is to suddenly put into sharp relief how much easier his early voice was produced and how well he could sail through this type of music in those years, reminding me of his superb Almaviva on the Philips recording of Il barbiere with Agnes Baltsa and Thomas Allen.


Although many of these tracks have different conductors most of them come from Munich, and no less than five are conducted by Ralf Weikert in 1987 (“Dalla sua pace” and the arias from Pearl Fishers, Faust, Bohème, and Evgeny Onegin ). This was simply a phenomenal night for Araiza: The voice poured forth with melting lyricism and an excellent ring on top, all of it superbly controlled. To some extent, I contest the tenor’s claim that “he has personalized the original composition by placing his own stamp on it.” The stamp Araiza put on the arias he sang pre-1987 was mostly vocal, in the recognizable timbre of his voice and the unfailingly musical treatment of each aria. In most of them there isn’t much that emerges in terms of a character. His was a great, all-purpose voice singing excellent performances of virtually everything he touched in those years, but seldom portraying a character.


All of this changed later on, however; witness his unique 1997 reading of “Ô souverain, ô juge, ô père” from Massenet’s Le Cid (again Munich, this time conducted by Mark Elder). A finer reading I’ve not heard since the legendary old recording by Vilhelm Herold, who later trained Lauritz Melchior to be a tenor. I always wonder why tenors include “La donna è mobile” on recital discs, although Araiza does add some delicate touches to it that most singers don’t, and in his final cadenza he climbs “up the ladder” by lightly separating each note. And what a fabulous “Che gelida manina” he sings! I haven’t heard its like since José Carreras in 1974. It has everything: poetic feeling, romantic passion, superbly controlled dynamics, and a high C that honestly sounds as if it came from the middle of his voice.


Araiza also gives a surprisingly dramatic reading of Andrea Chenier’s “Improvviso”—the best, in fact, I’ve heard since Beniamino Gigli—and he fully captures the spirit of Lensky as he is facing almost certain death in the Evgeny Onegin aria (sung in Russian). Whatever his Wagnerian experience in Lohengrin did for him, it somehow transformed him from an excellent singer into an operatic actor, thus many of these later performances do indeed have the extra dimension that Araiza claims for all of them. When we finally do reach Lohengrin, a 1990 performance from Teatro La Fenice in Venice conducted by Christian Thielemann, it is a revelation, in part due to the superbly resonant acoustic, oddly similar to the famed Bayreuth sound. Araiza’s voice floats down to us almost like something out of the ether, an otherworldly character slowly alighting down to earth. Voice and character have indeed become one. The “Ein schwert verhieß” from 2007, taken from a performance with the “Festspielorchester Erl” conducted by Gustav Kuhn, is recorded more distantly than anything else on the disc. Araiza is pushing the voice fairly hard in the climaxes, perhaps more than is prudent for him, but by and large he sings it well and again tries to project a real character. He is certainly much better than some of the horrors we’ve heard on latter-day CD and DVD performances of Die Walküre; I wonder that he hasn’t been signed to sing some of those performances.


This is a recital that kind of creeps up on you. With the exception of the “Il mio tesoro,” nothing on this recital shows any forcing of the voice beyond reasonable means, and you can’t dispute the fact that his voice held up at least 30 years. Araiza has become, to me at least, the modern-day Gösta Winbergh, a tenor who moved gradually and easily from light repertoire to heavy and has done so with taste, elegance, good voice control, and a growing dramatic sense.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Henri Marteau (1874 - 1934) was one of the most important violin and violin teachers of the early twentieth century. His compositional work found little attention despite some respectable successes. Since 1982, the International Music Center Haus Marteau of the district of Upper Franconia maintains the artistic legacy of the German-French Composer in the form of master classes for musical talents from all over the world, publications on life and work as well as recordings of selected compositions on phonograms. Missing are the autograph and the orchestral libretto from Marteau's Violin Concerto op. 18. Raoul Grüneis re-orchestrated the work with the help of the piano reduction and a rehearsal recording by the WDR Symphony Orchestra. Enthusiasm among the audience and critics awoke the premiere of this version. “The work sends the listener more impressively home than many other violin concertos established in the repertoire,” Torsten Kohlschein judged in the Freie Presse.

•Franz Xaver Richter (1709-1789), Mannheim master ofcounterpoint and a composer of the most exquisite chamber music and symphonies, receives the posthumous honor of having his seven quartets, op. 5, released for the first time in a completerecording on the SOLO MUSICA label. Two exceptional CDs have been compiled, incooperation with the SWR broadcasting company, featuring the casalQuartett from Zurich.

This is a disc that deserves to be popular well beyond those already addicted to string quartets or to music of this period.

In listening to music, as in many other occupations, context is crucial. What might sound unremarkable in one context stands out in another. When recitals are given of Haydn Quartets it is too easy to think that the incredible sophistication of the later works means that the earlier examples can be regarded essentially as steps on the path towards that achievement. On this disc on the other hand the (relatively) early Haydn quartet stands out for its astonishing freedom, imagination and ingenuity in the use of the instruments and for the composer’s ability to extract all he can from his musical ideas. It is not that the other works are in any way poor or uninteresting but that the Haydn is the one that most clearly demonstrates the way in which writing for the medium would go.

To start at the beginning, however, the Sonata a Quattro by Alessandro Scarlatti is a pleasant piece, looking back to Corelli as well as forward to the Classical style embraced much more thoroughly by Sammartini. Wisely the booklet does not suggest that either of these works represents in itself “the birth of the string quartet”, but rather that this was a gradual process in which these are milestones, possibly even key milestones. Certainly the remaining quartets on the disc, by Mozart, Boccherini and Haydn are all early examples of the quartet in the form that has continued to the present. Perhaps form is not the best word to use, as it is not so much the structure of the music as the approach to the potential of a medium which can provide four individual voices or which can combine and contrast them in an apparently infinite number of ways.

The booklet notes suggest that Boccherini’s Op. 2 are the first real examples of the genre. On the basis of the work included here I would not argue with this. It is a very individual piece in only three movements, making the most of the minor tonality, very appealing melodically and full of imaginative ideas and textures. Although the Mozart is his earliest example of the medium it too is full of ideas and of variety and is seen to its best advantage in this company. As I have already indicated however, of all the works on the disc it is the Haydn that most clearly shows the way in which the medium would develop, as well as being of great beauty and effectiveness in itself.

All of this is made strikingly apparent by the superb performances by the Casal Quartet, who thoroughly understand the idiom of these works. Much is made in the booklet of their use of four instruments all by the seventeenth century maker Jacob Stainer. Certainly the reedy sound they produce suits the music and their playing style, probably best described as historically informed. The sheer beauty of sound of the Quartet as recorded here is in itself a major reason to purchase this disc.

The booklet’s notes – in German and English – nowhere explain whether the words “Volume 1” on the cover mean that there are to be more discs of quartets of this period from the Casal or merely more discs in general from them. Whilst I would welcome either, the former would be especially desirable as they clearly have a real sympathy with and understanding of this music. This is a disc that deserves to be popular well beyond those already addicted to string quartets or to music of this period.

- John Sheppard, MusicWeb International