The double bass is an instrument that can all too often be misunderstood and is often lightly dismissed: due to its impressive size it is assumed that the instrument is only capable of ponderous, heavy, grumpy sounds. The fact that there is not a grain of truth in either of these urban myths is borne out by the double bass sonatas on the present album and the soloist, Romanian double bassist Petru Iuga: music is innate to this instrument that is anything but cumbersome; it is in fact capable of producing sensuous melodies, virtuoso forms of expression suit it just as well as contemplative ones do, and its spectrum ranges from the deepest gruff growl to the brightest, most heartfelt burst of laughter. And (as with all other musical instruments) it requires a fully trained, experienced and attentive performer to elicit all of those characteristics from the instrument. What’s more, it requires a repertoire that makes demands both on the musician and the musical instrument and inspires them to give their very best – only then can those ethereal sounds be heard, even on a double bass.The Romanian double bassist Petru Iuga is one of the most successful classical musicians of his generation. During his musical training in his homeland, the 20-year-old student came to the attention of Yehudi Menuhin, who enlisted him for his International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad (Switzerland). 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 more than 100 recordings. The scope of his repertoire is surely unique, comprising some 90 piano concertos and hundreds of chamber music pieces.

In the almost three years since his move from Weiden to the Musikzentrum München Reger had himself with harmonically bolder and tonally uncompromising song collections, organ and chamber music works have earned the reputation of an "enfant terrible of the German music" was acquired. The Opus 77, consisting of a Serenade in D major for flute, violin and viola as well as the String Trio in A minor op. 77b, which in April and June 1904 should be a work of stylistic change according to the composer's will. When Reger eleven years later with the String Trio in D minor op. 141b another work in this instrumentation, the much performed first contribution already served as Reference work of a revived genus. The string trio Il Furibondo was founded in 2011 by violinist Liana Mosca, violist Gianni de Rosa and cellist Marcello Scandelli. The three musicians collaborate regularly with legendary early music ensembles such as “Il Giardino Armonico” and “Le Concert des Nations”. Their repertoire ranges from the Baroque (played on period instruments) to the music of the first half of the 20th century. “Furibondo” was the term used by Giuseppe Tartini to describe the performance style of the great violinist Francesco Geminiani. From the start, Il Furibondo gained recognition for its outstanding level of musical interpretation, including its recording of Bach’s Fuges transcribed by Mozart, for the recording label Stradivarius. Since then, the trio has been active in radio and concert performances throughout Italy and Europe, including Le Settimane Musicali (Merano), Ceresio Estate (Lugano), Milano ArteMusica, Paesaggi Musicali Toscani and Rencontres Internationales Harmoniques in Geneva.

Composer Philippe Racine on his ADAGIO For String Quintet (2018/2019): “I have composed this Adagio for string quintet at the request of my friend Walter Grimmer; it should be played in concert before the great string quintet in C by Schubert. What a story! What kind of hillock have I created next to the Himalaya of chamber music? Well, I have written a type of music with which I have striven to stay true to my own self. And yet the piece begins with Schubert’s closing trills for the two cellos and repeatedly a C major chord pops up, mostly delicately, but just once entirely explicitly. And as a reference to the Adagio from the great Austrian, I’ve given the second cello some repeated pizzicati to play. And as a gift for my friend who gave me this commission: a short cadenza from the second cello, followed by a coda in which both violins repeat the opening pizzicati two octaves higher. And the piece ends with a long deep C note, which should serve to introduce the beginning of the Schubert. And now you enter into a totally different dimension...” The 3G Quartet was set up in 2004 for a series of concerts and the recording of the two string quartets by Klaus Huber. Overwhelming reactions (Coup de cœur Charles Cros) inspired the four musicians to continue with further favorite projects : the quartets by Heidi Baader-Nobs as well as works by Schumann, Haydn, Mozart. The recording of the quintets by Franz Schubert and Philippe Racine completes a circle of their activity. Since 1965 Walter Grimmer has taught more than two generations of young cellists, firstly at the Academy of Arts in Berne, then from 2002 at the Zurich Academy for Arts.

Astor Piazzolla, the great Argentine composer and bandoneon player, was born exactly a century ago in 1921. Fascinated by the music of Bach, Mozart and Chopin, Piazzolla wanted to compose great classical music. From Alberto Ginastera he received lessons in orchestration, composition and conducting, as well as in literature and poetry. Following his studies with Ginastera, Piazzolla received a scholarship to study in Paris with the renowned pianist and composer Nadia Boulanger. Under her guidance, he began to conceive of and perfect his own style of composition. Composer and bandoneon player Omar Massa hails from Buenos Aires and has lived in Berlin since 2019. He is seen by music critics as the successor to Astor Piazzolla, whose work he has been performing from the age of six. Massa is considered to be an ambassador and champion of Argentine music as he too creates bridges to classical music with his own compositions. He combines minimalism with contemplative spaces, creates impressionistic colours, uses unusual meters and expands harmonic language without losing the inner melancholy of the true Tango Nuevo. Massa catapults the music of Buenos Aires into the 21st century. For over five decades, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra has been an integral part of Berlin's musical and cultural life, enriching the German orchestral landscape, and since 1990 has been the orchestra for all Berliners. In addition to the popular and long-established symphony concerts held in the Berlin Philharmonie, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra performs throughout Berlin and the surrounding area. With guest performances in Europe and tours to North and South America, Africa and Asia, as well as their appearances at international festivals (in France, Italy, Austria, Spain, Israel, among others), the Berlin Symphony Orchestra presents itself successfully worldwide and sees itself as a cultural ambassador for Berlin.

Jean-Nicolas Diatkine comes from a family of recognized doctors and considers commitment to others to be the basis of his profession. It seemed impossible for him to do without this basic attitude in the exercise of his profession, which is why he always sees his artistic development as a return to the essential artistic values to which he has devoted himself over the last thirty years. At the same time, he makes the in-depth study and deeper understanding of the narrative of each composer an absolute priority and an indispensable step before any public performance of a work. Diatkine about Beethoven: Musician-performers might regard the need to introduce and explain the pieces they are about to play as an implicit admission of failure, acknowledging the fact that music might no longer speak for itself. Goethe’s irritated reaction to Schubert’s settings of his poems was of the same order, although in reverse perspective: according to him, music was already included in his poetry. And Beethoven (like Bach) created such a vast, structured world that it defies any attempt at literary explanation for it does not need any. The following presentation illustrates this paradox.

“PICCOLO ENCOUNTERS” is the culmination of a career-long desire to capture the essence of the wealth of experience we have been able to accumulate as musical partners and friends. As varied as their nationalities, diverse as their backgrounds and contrasting as their cultures, the artists on this album share a close bond: that which connects these seemingly disparate elements and leads to the creation of Encounters that punctuate the lives of composers and performers alike. The sharing of these experiences with you, the audience, is the special privilege of the musician. These encounters and experiences that we were able to make in the world of music had a decisive influence on the life of Pamela Stahel and led to the creation of this album. It is not only the special perspective of a piccolo player that is important, but above all the special repertoire that makes up the character of this collaboration. Both the selection of the pieces and the performers are decisive. Pamela Stahel plays a Burkart Piccolo Elite XXV. Nicola Mazzanti plays a Keefe Piccolo. On the album are Works by Alessandro Cavicchi, Meyer Kupferman, Sophie Dufeutrelle, Francesco Santucci, Jeff Scott and Giacinto Scelsi.

In a world sometimes tired of contemplating its own treasures, a plethora of discography with immediate and commonplace access can make the release of a new recording dedicated to some of Beethoven's 32 sonatas surprising. More particularly, the choice made by an artist such as Philippe Entremont, after 70 years of a phenomenal career, to focus on one of the Viennese Master's most recorded parts, reflects the complexity and intensity governing the relationship between the performer and the work, the relationship between his instrument and the orchestral aspects of the writing. This year, the exceptional artist celebrates two anniversaries. 70 years on the international stage and his 85th birthday. The few sonatas on this album, milestones in Beethoven's oeuvre, are just a short list for the audience. For the very choice of the works testifies to a passionate commitment, a gourmet and jubilant approach to do justice, with style and elegance, to a long journey initiated in 1957, during a recording made at Pathé.

This album is already the artist's second encounter with Niccolò Paganini. After the 2014 album "Hommage á Paganini", this is now the complete Opus 1 of the great Italian. The versatile Russian searches for starting points for creativity in dealing with the highly virtuoso music. Thus the 24 Capricci once again become a continuous story. The fast tempi, the lightness in seemingly unplayable passages is only the surface. Rather, Malov searches for the depth, the wit, the variety of colors in this ingenious music. In addition to the improvisations and ornamentations, effects (forest echo, birdsong) can sometimes be heard. Before the last, 24th Caprice, there is a subjective summary of what has been heard so far. In October 2021, the artist will be awarded with the German “Opus Klassik” in the category "Solo Recording Instrument of the Year" for his most recently released album "Bach - 6 Suites for Cello Solo played on a Violoncello da Spalla".

The release of the present double album is the culmination of a festive project to mark the anniversary year of 2020, in which the music world (and not only the music world) will be commemorating the 250th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven. The year also marks 85 years since the birth of the renowned German composer Georg Katzer. The cellist Jörg Ulrich Krah had the idea that a contemporary colleague should express his thoughts on Beethoven in his own personal way, thereby creating an exciting bridge between Beethoven and the 21st century. Krah and Bernhard Parz began working on the cello sonatas as early as 2015 at a performers’ symposium, and it was through friendly contact with Katzer that in 2017 the latter composed his three “postscriptum zu B.” pieces, which were duly performed several times at concerts by the two musicians.

“For many years Denis Severin has been mulling over the idea of recording a Romantic programme for cello and string orchestra. After all, a large number of concertos for cello and strings were written in the Baroque era. Many such compositions were written in the Classical era as well. The age of Romanticism gave birth to a lot of charming examples of concertos for cello and large symphony orchestra, including the works of Dvorak, Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Elgar and others. For reasons that we can no longer ascertain, the composers of the Romantic era, with a few rare exceptions, wrote little or no material for cello and string orchestra. This genre, which flourished so abundantly in the 17th and 18th centuries, all but disappeared just a hundred years later. The choice of works for this album is quite deliberate. It occurred to the performers that the compositional style of Robert Schumann, the Romantic composer par excellence, tends in his chamber music towards almost orchestral fullness and complexity of timbre, be it in his piano trios, duo sonatas or Lieder. The Five Pieces in Folk Style op. 102 by Robert Schumann, his sole original work for cello and piano, is, in his view, well suited to be performed with a chamber orchestra and I commissioned an arrangement. This first successful venture inspired Denis Severin to do further research, which confirmed my intentions.” (Dorian Keilhack)

This is a selection of Lieder by Swiss composers – to give a superficial description of the songs recorded for this album. Making such a selection involves making decisions. What is important? What is essential? Are the chosen songs gems or rarities? Do they exemplify the work of the respective composers? A selection can be both a winnowing-out and a compilation. Each of these actions applies to the Lieder presented here. The recordings (re)present debut or early works, and also rarely heard works by established composers. This album centres on the “Seven Winter Songs” op. 1 by Hans Schaeuble (1906-1988). The words and music of the Lieder have now appeared in print, and this premiere recording was made in consequence. The music edition of the Sieben Winterlieder Op. 1 is based on a calligraphic manuscript in the Zurich Central Library, which is clearly a fair copy illustrated by Schaeuble’s brother Erich. The singer Luca Bernard is a study prize winner of Migros Kulturprozent. From the 2019/20 season he became a member of the International Opera Studio at Zurich Opera House. At the Zurich University of the Arts, pianist Hans Adolfsen has a Lied class together with pianist and composer Daniel Fueter, whose encounters with music and literature have provided him with a new source of inspiration.

The works on this recording range from Danzig (now Gdansk) by way of Güstrow, Hamburg and Gottorf to Copenhagen and Stockholm. Born in the early 17th century, the choirmasters and Kapellmeisters of the Lutheran churches and courts of the North had ideal working conditions. They were greatly indebted to a composer from the preceding generation, Heinrich Schütz. His activities as a teacher, and the sheer volume of his published works, exercised a decisive influence upon his students and emulators. When the sirocco, the hot desert wind, crosses boundaries and coasts and advances into the plains of north Germany, it lends Mediterranean temper to Nordic melancholy, embraces warmly where a Hanseatic breeze otherwise blows keenly, spices coastal mists with exotic aromas. Sirocco breeze finds its musical incarnation in Ensemble Schirokko Hamburg: founded in 2007, it is composed of musicians who have studied at leading international centers of instruction in historical performance practice, specifically in Trossingen, Bremen, Würzburg, London and Amsterdam. Under the direction of their leader Rachel Harris, the ensemble complements accomplished performance on period instruments or their facsimiles with vivid interpretations that are stylistically aware. From the beginning, singing meant language and life, religion and emotion for Beat Duddeck. Through singing on concert tours all over the world and more than 100 album productions with various early music ensembles, he found not only his profession, but also family and friends.

The guitarist Aljaž Cvirn and the cellist Isabel Gehweiler have been performing as a duo since 2016, making the cello-guitar repertoire known to a wider audience. Both musicians have won prizes in numerous competitions and triumphed together as a duo in the Paola Ruminelli Competition in 2017. The distinctive combination of the two instruments creates a magical, refined intimacy that is worthy of a chamber ensemble. Although original compositions are rare, a number of arrangements, including that of Franz Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata for cello and guitar, have become staple pieces for the duo. The duo’s current concert repertoire includes sonatas by Franz Schubert, Antonio Vivaldi and Radamés Gnattali. On this release, the two musicians approach the complex sonata genre from a great variety of stylistic angles, with their two instruments imparting a sea of tone colors on a comprehensive journey through different styles and performance practices.

A special, connecting and autobiographical element for this recording is the beautiful city of Salzburg, a place steeped in legend and music history, which became the hometown of all those involved in the production - from the composer to the conductor, the soloist to the orchestra musicians and the orchestra director - at least for an important period of their lives; in the actual as well as in the artistic sense. In addition to well-known repertoire, Rafael Fingerlos' recording also offers delightful trouvailles such as the rarely performed aria of Allazim from Zaide "Nur mutig mein Herze! ", the little concert aria Un bacio di mano and even a veritable world premiere recording: the so rarely performed and extremely Mozartian-daredevil cabaletta of the Conte Aria, comprising fourteen (!) high Gs, which Mozart composed especially for the Conte singer in the Viennese Figaro premiere. Beautiful, virtuosic, wild and spectacular. The following applies to this recording: less is more. Less editing, always opting for natural and musical phrasing. And the aim is always to achieve a sound that is as close as possible to the live experience and that can also be reproduced in concert at any time. As authentic and above all as natural as possible.

L'amore e poesia (love is poetry) is a song cycle for soprano and orchestra, built around four vocalises and an orchestral interlude. The various pieces were written over the course of nearly a decade and at very different stages of Flavio Motalla's life but they are all connected with each other by the underlying theme set forth in the title. The compositions feature a wordless soprano, even though I was urged by several of my friends to use a libretto at first. However, it occurred to me early on that the music could be vocal but without relying on words. Not only might a written text present a distraction for the audience, but even more so it's rhythmic pattern would have interfered too much with the organic flow of the composition. Also, given the subject matter, I strongly felt that the music should speak for itself. The pieces are written in a very lush, romantic style, both lyrical in expression and epic in scale. At times notably nostalgic, sometimes opulent but never cloying. The soaring melodies are clearly a nod to the likes or Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner, whose film music from the golden era of Hollywood has always been an inspiration to Motalla.