This CD, which has been much praised for it's piano and musical quality, has now been published on Audio-DVD by Tacet. In two variants the listener can follow Schirmer's succinct, impressive interpretations of the Russian cycle of pictures and reflections played on a remarkable Fazioli instrument. Ravel's Miroirs are presented in Tacet Real Surround Sound", the pictures are also in "Tacet Moving Real Surround Sound". Compared with the "normal" stereo Version (Tacet 132) the listener is put on the weather side, acoustically speaking, as if he or she was surrounded by the piano - not exactly a natural position. But the result is the birth child of good sound engineering.

This is not a historical recording. Yet mysteriously the music is performed in an interpretation which is historically authentic down to the last detail. The key to this mystery is: The original performer was present at the recent recording session, but not physically: The music is heard on a modern Steinway. Never has music stored in the Welte-Mignon system sounded so "right" or so good. Thanks to TACET's much-praised recording technique, and because the Welte-Mignon memory system and sound production mechanism have now been newly adjusted for the first time by the leading expert in the field - and are thus able to meet TACET's requirements. (Welte-Mignon was invented in 1904.) the Welte-Mignon mystery can now speak to US without distortion.

Mozart's Flute Quartets appear on this DVD with excellent sound, and with the instrumentalists situated around the listener, which has become the trademark of the TACET label. The result is a chamber music tonal picture in which all the instruments are of equal importance and the flute does not force itself to the fore. Musically the recording is also remarkable; (crescendo) TACET's creative use of this multichannel medium takes Mozart's lovely Baroque background music out of the soporific and into the energetic. And the playing is first rate. (Audiophile Audition)

For twenty-five years Ulrich Beetz, Birgit Erichson and Gerrit Zitterbart have been making music together as the Abegg Trio": and there can be no doubt that this is a very special recording which this trio, the winner of so many awards, has brought out to celebrate their silver jubilee. It is one which the Abeggs have obviously treated themselves to, because the Piano Trio op. 8 by Frederic Chopin, the Piano Trio op. 42 and the Novelettes op. 29 by Niels Wilhelm Gade are outstanding for the calm and meticulous care which has arisen from long practice with these works.

On this recording, the essence of these works has been understood and realized in exemplary fashion. (Der Schallattenmann)

This LP fits in seamlessly with an entire series of releases that have come from TACET over the years. TACET has thought up quite a number of novel tones and signals in order to systematically test the qwuality of an LP system. Some of these sounds enter into the border of what vinyl technology is capable of achieving. The LP was created in cooperation with the Analogue Audio Association and with the help of Daniel Krieger of SST Cutting Technology.

With Carlo Rizzi, Gordan Nikolic and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra Amsterdam, one of the most sought-after conductors, one of the best violinists and an absolutely top-notch orchestra got together for a TACET production. What an honour to be able to work with such artists! We have tried to apply the precision and painstaking detail from chamber music to this project as well. Carlo Rizzi brings out typically Ravellian details that frequently have the effect of being levelled out, e.g. the composed overtones. There will be some surprises in store for one listener or another. In all honesty: do you know what the saxophones in Bolero play a few bars before the end? Or when the first harp plays and when the second harp plays in La Valse? Not least, this production should offer something to the many old-fashioned crazy audiophiles, our beloved public, who still prefer a carefully produced sound carrier to a blurred or squeaky You Tube download. Whether the result is really worth more than merely another line in the table "Recordings of the Great Orchestral Works of Ravel" - that is up to the critics to decide. It's your turn! (Of course the recording is also being issued as an LP and in TACET Real Surround Sound.). Andreas Spreer

Classical Music

Tacet's ongoing survey of all 555 sonatas written by the great Italian Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti as recorded by the prolific and acclaimed pianist Christoph Ullrich reaches, with these 30 works, K.454-83, available on 2 CD's, it's fourteenth volume. "Unlike Horowitz, who brought out the inner eccentricity of the pieces, or Christian Zacharias, who liberated them from the smell of mere glamour, Ullrich waits for the moment in which the music begins to float." - Die Zeit.

Evgeni Koroliov announces himself again with a recording of the Late Piano Sonatas of Beethoven (opp. 109, 110 and 111). A heavy, powerful touch is not his thing. Playing loudly where it is called for, Koroliov attempts to capture the listener’s attention in a different way, seducing one with his nuanced touch and an almost all-absorbing intensity. “If I could chose just one piece and soloist on a lonesome island, I would chose Koroliov. I would listen again and again to his recordings, dying of thirst and hunger till my last breath.” György Ligeti

Although this 2006 Schubert four-hand program might be difficult to source as a physical CD, it is now easily obtainable via digital download. I have rarely heard such grand, grounded, and deeply considered performances of these two major Schubert masterpieces.

Too many younger duos impose tricky phrasings and fancy rubatos throughout the F minor Fantasia, whereas Evgeni Koroliov and Ljupka Hadžigeorgieva allow the opening section to seemingly play itself, with the climaxes and soft moments carefully scaled and the embellishments perfectly placed. The Largo conveys a rare buoyancy by virtue of the duo’s seamlessly matched trills and triplet chords. They take time over the Scherzo and slightly relax the pace in the Trio section; as a result, the imitative writing gains a lovely conversational lilt. Likewise, the players keep the fugal finale’s foreground and background material in clear perspective, so that the music sounds weighty yet never cluttered or clangorous. You don’t get the Perahia/Lupu edition’s moments of otherworldly intimacy and harmonic pointing, yet Koroliov/Hadžigeorgieva are no less distinctive.

Comparable textural organization and deftly effected transitions characterize this duo’s remarkable synchronicity in the Grand Duo’s first movement, both technically and musically. They appropriately feel the long second-movement Andante in two long beats to the bar, and, more importantly, let the music sing. The Scherzo often comes off as clunky when pianists fall into the trap of accenting most downbeats. Here, however, the triplet patterns fall into long lines that effortlessly move over the barlines. It’s easy to turn the note-packed Finale into a bloated Hungarian Dance that just won’t end. Yet through intelligent balances, subtle animation, and variety of articulation, the Koroliov/Hadžigeorgieva duo brilliantly reveals the movement’s symphonic scope and truly “grand” aspirations.

My home sound system loves Tacet’s resplendent engineering, by the way! No Schubert lover nor piano duo maven should miss this most gratifying release.

– ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

Total playing time: 65'15

Blu-ray on TACET means: use like a simple CD player. Enjoy either stereo or 5.1 as desired; switch over with a simple button push. The representation of detail compared with those of other recordings is unmatched. And the love of these four musicians for Joseph Haydn is heard in each and every note. 'Once again, the Auryn Quartet shows itself to be the ideally matched partner for Haydn's world of thought... hardly another ensemble will be able to hold a candle to them.' (klassik-heute)

We pay homage to a conscientious artist who has found a composer and a cause to champion. (Audiophile Audition)

• The Auryn Quartet perform Haydn's Op.55 quartets Nos. 1-3 (1788). • In its 30-year existence, the Auryn Quartet has not had a single change of personnel. • The Auryn Quartet have been exclusive Tacet recording artists since 2000. • Since 2003 the quartet has maintained a teaching position at the Music Academy in Detmold, Germany, where they are professors for chamber-music.

The Auryn Quartet have been working with TACET for years now. And those of you who are in the know will appreciate what that means:... The challenges for a quartet formation from playing Beethoven's works mean picking up the tensions in the score and hanging on to them. The Auryn Quartet is not only equal to this task: they really seem to gain strength and fun from this field of tension. To be able to play at this level, the musicians constantly have to redefine the boundaries between respect for the other players and healthy self-interest. Playing in a quartet seems to have become a life elixir for the four Auryns: For twenty-three years now they have been rising to greater and greater heights. With the Quartets op. 18 by Beethoven they have definitely reached a peak. We await eagerly the promised continuation of their complete collection of Beethoven's Quartets. (WDR Herzeichen) There is no shortage of great and famous Beethoven Cycles, but there are no performances such as these. For me, this is now the set to beat. (Laurence Vittes)

The tunes on this release aim to awaken the listener’s imagination. From a small boat rocking helplessly on the waves, to unhatched chicks dancing in their shells, the listener experiences every second. These works by Modest Mussorgsky and Maurice Ravel are frequently performed, well loved, and are presented here in a new guise by Markus Schiermer. Markus Schirmer is a professor of concert piano at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz. He recently received the Music Manual Award at the International Music Convention, and the Karl-Bohm Interpretationspreis.

This is not a historical recording. Yet mysteriously the music is performed in an interpretation which is historically authentic down to the last detail. The key to this mystery is: The original performer was present at the recent recording session, but not physically: The music is heard on a modern Steinway. Never has music stored in the Welte-Mignon system sounded so "right" or so good. Thanks to TACET's much-praised recording technique, and because the Welte-Mignon memory system and sound production mechanism have now been newly adjusted for the first time by the leading expert in the field - and are thus able to meet TACET's requirements. (Welte-Mignon was invented in 1904.) the Welte-Mignon mystery can now speak to US without distortion.

Even for true experts on the musical women's movement, it has until now been virtually impossible to experience works by Louise Farrenc except on paper. As so often, it is a small label which has taken the bold step of opposing the usual, so familiar repertoire and letting her D Minor Trio follow that of the better known Swedish composer, Franz Berwald. The Abeggs play the important piano trios entrancingly. Their interpretation is thoroughly well thought out and yet quite obviously with a love of novelty; this should become a test for any emulators. (Audio)

Long live the tube! This newest release in the "transistor-free" series by Tacet is another musical jewel. The music that Tonmeister Andreas Spreer with his nostalgic, exquisite recording technique, using nothing but tube microphones and tube amplifiers, has conjured onto the disc boasts a naturalness, warmth and vividness we thought had disappeared forever and had almost forgotten. Here a violin still sounds like a violin.

The string quartet offers countless possibilities of interplay between the different instruments. If you add a fifth person to the mix, in this case the viola player, Nobuko Imai, with the Auryn Quartet, then it not only gives the whole sound a comparatively orchestral quality but also considerably increases the methods at the composer's disposal. These are just two reasons why Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's combination of 2 violins, 2 violas, and a cello have become so well-loved. In this release many ingenious, refined and playful themes, the whole inexhaustible richness of Mozart's ideas are realized even more clearly.

Evgeni Koroliov isn't the kind of musician who prefers to concentrate on previously unrecorded music. His specialty lies in discovering something new in well-known works. This is particularly true in this collection of pieces by Maurice Ravel. He immerses himsel fin the music without any extravagance, adding nothing to the score. Nevertheless, Koroliov always manages to make the music sound fresh to our ears. In Ma Mere l'Oye, Ljupka Hadzigeorgieva harmoniously completes this process of re-creation.

This is vol. 2 of the "Haydn Quartets" by W. A. Mozart, played by Auryn Quartet and in the guise of TACET Real Surround Sound. After strong recommendations for the previous Auryn/Imai Mozart string quintets recording (Audiophile Highlight in Stereo, klassik-heute recommendation, nomination for ICMA) and lots of praise for the previous version of this recording there is not a lot to say. Except maybe that once again TACET Real Surround Sound musically reaches far beyond normal stereo. Every magical detail of the interaction between Matthias Lingenfelder, Jens Oppermann, Stewart Eaton und Andreas Arndt becomes clear. An ambitious multichannel recording is no high tech version of stereo, and for many listeners it is equal to a live concert. A stunning recording!

A discographical note: Volume 11 is actually the second installment issued in Christoph Ullrich’s projected complete Scarlatti sonata cycle. The pianist has sequenced each volume by sonata in numerical order. His initial release, Volume 1, contains sonatas 1 through 42; sonatas 358 through 387 are here on Volume 11; and Nos. 43 through 357 presumably will follow on Volumes 2 through 10.

The admirable qualities of Ullrich’s earlier Mozart and Schubert releases often inform his Scarlatti, starting with the rhythmic kick and well-turned ornaments in the two opening D major sonatas. Ullrich’s firm and deliberate F minor K. 365 proves equally rewarding alongside faster, lighter piano versions from Serge Babyan and Yevgeny Sudbin. However, Konstantin Scherbakov bests Ullrich’s K. 360 for linear independence.

Ullrich takes the E-flat K. 371 Allegro directive with a grain of salt, and employs changes of color and pace to illuminate the music’s unpredictable harmonic shifts, whereas Maurizio Baglini is fast, harder hitting, and just a few feet short of reckless. The adjacent B minor K. 376/377 pair are sensitively phrased, although Ullrich’s F major K. 378 seems a trifle prosaic next to Fou Ts’ong’s brighter, more unpredictably accented reading, while his relatively flat and generic K. 380 pales in comparison with individually gripping interpreters of this popular sonata such as Horowitz, Lipatti, and the unusually slow yet mesmerizing David Greilsammer.

Ullrich’s clear and shapely delineation of the F minor K. 386’s busy, toccata-like writing is perfectly fine on its own terms, but Christian Zacharias’ suppler touch elevates this approach to a higher level, albeit a few notches below Clara Haskil’s breathtakingly fast yet perfectly controlled 1950 Westminster recording. Though less striking on the surface than Mikhail Pletnev’s spiky, aggressive K. 387, Ullrich’s suaver, faster, and more graceful performance is easier to digest. In a nutshell, Ullrich’s Scarlatti is never less than good, if not so consistently outstanding as Carlo Grante’s ongoing Scarlatti cycle on Music & Arts.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

What the legendary conductor always wanted more than anything was to be a composer. And what other works merely hint at is clearly obvious from this huge three-movement work, a child born of the pain of more than twenty years, a statement: Furtwe�ngler was a man of longing who wanted to outdo Wagner and Bruckner in tonality and the span of feeling. The Clarens Quintet turns this document into an experience. (Kultur-Spiegel)

An outstanding career spanning three decades has made the Auryn Quartet one of the most sought-after and respected ensembles performing around the globe."The Auryn plays with an enviable balance of abandon and discipline" (American Record Guide) and "shared spirituality" (The New York Times).