The cellist Roger Morelló has intercalated three sarabands from the Suites for Cello Solo by Johann Sebastian Bach. The first is the one included in the Suite No. 1, whose prelude served as primary material for the work by Marc Migó. The second saraband that appears is the one from the Suite No. 2, which is in the key of D minor, and the third is the E flat major saraband. Along with these pieces, we encounter the Suite for Cello Solo by Gaspar Cassadó – a renowned Casals pupil and one of the most legendary violoncellists of the twentieth century as well as a composer. Along with this piece, Morelló has added his cello arrangement of an original work for viola da gamba from Les voix humaines by Marin Marais, which is the piece that lends this album its title. Side by side with these historical references that have become timeless, Roger Morelló includes two contemporary works. One of them is formed by the Variations on the name of Casals by Marc Migó, a work commissioned by Morelló himself, to whom it is also dedicated. The other contemporary composition that Morelló wanted to include on this album is a work that he commissioned from Elisenda Fábregas, who in turn dedicated it to him. It has Catalan dances as its title and consists of four dances.

Lebensmuth is the final episode of Signum Quartett’s acclaimed Schubert trilogy, in which early and late string quartets are combined with song arrangements created by the group’s violist Xandi van Dijk. Schubert’s First String Quartet in G Minor, written when he was 13, already reveals his inclination to bold and unexpected moves. His last String Quartet in G major, D. 887 veers between a profound examination of personal trauma and a blazing triumph over adversity, and it is this resilience of spirit which is further highlighted by songs such as ‘An die Musik’ and ‘Lebensmuth’, pieces that courageously embrace life and all the beauty it offers. The Signum Quartett is frequently hailed as one of the most adventurous and outstanding ensembles of today. The quartet’s first Pentatone recording Aus der Ferne (2018) won an Opus Klassik 2019 award, as well as a diapason d’or, and was followed by Ins stille Land (2020).

The two early concertos of Chopin are repertoire works, deservedly so, for their prodigious synthesis of virtuoso finesse and lyricism. However, the composer’s music for piano and orchestra does not stop there: he produced a quartet of standalone concertante pieces, each on the scale of his concerto first movements, which once were recorded as fill-ups to the concertos but have been neglected in recent years. The Russian pianist Ekaterina Litvintseva redresses this neglect with a beautifully polished new album of all four pieces, for which she receives warmly idiomatic support from the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra of Pardubice, on an intimate scale which the composer would have recognized (and preferred).

Chopin wrote his variations of Mozart’s ‘La ci darem’ as a prodigally talented teenager, a composition exercise for his teacher back in Warsaw. While cast in the popular style of its time – a grand introduction for a popular operatic melody, elaborated with pianistic sleights of hand for maximum effect, and a rousing finale – the piece is inspired with moments of originality that elevate it above contemporary comparison pieces. The Fantasy on Polish Airs and the Krakowiak soon followed, as Chopin was becoming celebrated across Europe as a new star of that new instrument, the piano. The themes in the Krakowiak are Chopin’s own,but their character is designedly Polish – mystic in the Romantic, piano-and-horn-led introduction, then sparkling with gaiety in the main Allegro. The same kind of formal balance is developed in the Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise Op. 22: it opens with the kind of ethereal melody which would soon become known as inimitably characteristic of Chopin, the dreamer of the piano, preeminent master of his art in the generation after Beethoven at translating a poetic consciousness and private thoughts into the domain of music.

Friedrich Wührer was appointed Professor at the Vienna Academy of Music at the age of 28 but he did not confine his activities to teaching. He soon became increasingly active as a concert pianist. His concert tours led him to most countries in Europe, and earned him the reputation as one of the finest keyboard artists of his time.

Marek Janowski presents his first purely-orchestral Schubert recording, together with the Dresdner Philharmonie, performing the composer’s two final, groundbreaking and most famous symphonies. While the two movements of the “Unfinished” symphony in B Minor reach a level of perfection despite the work’s apparent incompleteness, Robert Schumann praised the “Great” symphony in C Major for its “heavenly length”. Janowski’s interpretation combines a sense of tradition with vitality and intensity.

Marek Janowski is one of the most celebrated conductors of our time. After having recorded Schubert songs in orchestrations by Reger and Webern with the tenor Christian Elsner in 2015, Janowski now adds this symphonic Schubert album to his impressive Pentatone discography, following complete recordings of Bruckner, Brahms and Beethoven’s symphonies, several works by Richard Strauss, as well as Wagner’s ten mature operas. He works together with the Dresdner Philharmonie, with whom he already released complete recordings of Beethoven’s Fidelio (2021), Puccini’s Il Tabarro and Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (both 2020).

Brad Mehldau presents The Folly of Desire, a song cycle inquiring the limits of sexual freedom in a post-#MeToo political age, together with tenor Ian Bostridge, one of the greatest song interpreters of our times. Setting poetry by Blake, Yeats, Shakespeare, Brecht, Goethe, Auden and Cummings, Mehldau’s music shifts seamlessly between a jazz idiom and Classical art song, and the work explores a theme as timeless as it is topical. The stylistic diversity of this project is underlined by adding a selection of jazz standards, as well as a Schubert lied.

Grammy®Award winning jazz pianist Brad Mehldau has recorded and performed extensively since the early 1990s, and makes his Pentatone debut with The Folly of Desire. His performances and compositions convey a wide range of expression. Ian Bostridge is one of the most celebrated tenors and lied interpreters of his generation. His Pentatone recording of Schubert’s Winterreise (2019) was crowned with the ICMA Vocal Music Award 2020. Bostridge has also released Die schöne Müllerin (2020), Schwanengesang (2022) and Respighi Songs (2021) with the label.

"Being able to release my first solo CD with the hänssler CLASSIC label is simply fantastic. The assembled works on this CD reflect my musical focus. The juxtaposition of globally renowned and beloved compositions with the quest for seldom-performed musical treasures captivates me in my profession. I have recorded a journey through the colorful world of fantasy. The sound journey with Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn Bartholdy shows famous, rarely played and unfinished piano works, which, besides a reference to nature, find their nucleus in Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata'.

"The three composers are united by the search for new possibilities of expression. There are (almost) no limits to the imagination. Ludwig van Beethoven takes center stage. His contrasting works Fantasy for piano Unv 12, an unfinished sketch, and the universally known 'Sonata quasi una fantasia' op.27 No. 2, more familiar to most as the 'Moonlight Sonata', are an exciting combination.Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's Phantasie op. 28 'Scottish Sonata' harks back to Beethoven's love of nature. He wrote this fantasy in 1833 on his cultural journey through Italy, France and Great Britain. Here, Mendelssohn Bartholdy sets his impressions of the mood and landscape of Scotland to music. Franz Schubert's Fantasy op. 15 D 760 'Wanderer Fantasy' is a work that is close to my heart." - Maximilian Schairer

SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to pay tribute to the British tenor Ian Partridge on his 85th birthday on June 12 with Stimme der Liebe (The Voice of Love), a collection of iconic songs by Schubert, on which he is joined by his pianist-sister Jennifer Partridge and pianist Ernest Lush. The great German lyric baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau hailed Partridge’s Schubert interpretations as “a pure joy”, an accolade that these 20 performances of Lieder, taken from BBC Radio broadcasts between 1968 and 1972 – and available now for the first time on disc – readily illustrate. They reveal Partridge’s unique, insightful affinity with the complexity and nuance of Schubert’s response to matters of the heart, a quality Fischer Dieskau described – in a facsimile letter to the singer included in the booklet – as his “respect and love for the music”. Among familiar works such as ‘Im Frühling’, ‘Das Fischermädchen’ and ‘An den Mond’, are relative rarities such as ‘Vor meiner Wiege’, which Partridge describes in his booklet interview with Jon Tolansky exploring his “life-long love affair” with Schubert’s Lieder, as one of the composer’s “most inspired creations”.

With a repertoire ranging from Monteverdi and Elizabethan lute songs to Schoenberg and Britten, Ian Partridge is one of the most acclaimed lyric tenors of his generation. He is especially known for his success with songs and Lieder and regarded as one of the great modern Schubert interpreters. His hugely successful partnership with his pianist-sister, Jennifer, saw the duo giving more than 430 recitals and making numerous recordings over their 52-year-long partnership. The booklet also includes informative notes, texts and translations by Richard Stokes, Professor of Lieder at London’s Royal Academy of Music, and author of The Book of Lieder (Faber, 2005). Restoration of the original recordings has been undertaken by audio expert and long-time SOMM collaborator, Lani Spahr.

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.’

With this CD box set, 35-year-old pianist Sunwook Kim presents a first-class curated selection of works by composers Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms and César Franck. Beethoven's piano sonatas hold a special place in Sunwook Kim's repertoire. This box set contains recordings of his most famous sonatas, among others No. 8 "Pathétique", No. 21 "Waldstein" and the last three sonatas op. 109-111. With recordings of Johannes Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Staatskapelle Dresden and Myung-Whun Chung, the Sonata No. 3 and the Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118, Sunwook Kim highlights his deep understanding of the composer's music. The collection is completed by a sensitive interpretation of the emotionally charged and highly complex work "Prélude, Choral et Fugue" by French composer César Franck.

After several years of intensive preparation and many live concerts, Swiss pianist Oliver Schnyder has recorded the Goldberg Variations. He has recorded the cycle two times; it was only the second time that the result met his expectations. Rare recording of the cycle on a Bösendorfer grand piano.

Pianist, composer, and producer Sergei Kvitko’s new album, Schubert by Candlelight - Live in Madrid is a stunning collection of Schubert’s piano works. The album features thirteen piano works that showcase the beauty and depth of Schubert’s music, as well as the artistry and versatility of Kvitko, who is not only an award-winning, critically acclaimed pianist, but also a composer, arranger, producer and sound engineer. The album was recorded at Hinves Pianos, Madrid, Spain on April 7, 2022. (Reference)

An extraordinary disc. Baritone Thilo Dahlmann couples the innocence and beauty of Brahms’ Volkslieder with the the despair and mourning of Glanzberg’s Holocaust Lieder. Glanzberg’s scantly known Lieder are imbued with a stunning melodic gift. Through the juxtaposition of these two masterworks, the musicians highlight one of the most tragic cultural ruptures in history.

The Art of Fugue, Bach’s final and most quintessential work, while a monument, is far from being a monolith! Here, Les Récréations present a new version using different combinations of instruments that best suit each individual movement, from the piccolo violin to the cello with a detour via the violoncello piccolo; such revelations of the work’s extraordinary variety, from the Stile antico to the beginnings of the Empfindsamer Stil, refresh our perception of this masterpiece.

Malcolm Martineau is the brilliant initiator of this new one-of-a-kind series on Linn. The Brahms Songbook has set the unprecedented goal to record Brahms’s lieder by complete opus number. For its first instalment, Martineau has teamed up with famed Dutch baritone Thomas Oliemans in the expansive Romanzen aus Magelone, Op. 33. Composed between 1861 and 1869, the youthful, inevitably romantic fifteen-song cycle tells the story of a noble warrior, a Neapolitan princess and a sultan’s daughter. The operatic-like cycle goes through the emotions of each character as the tale unfolds. Oliemans’s busy stage career and ‘communicative singing style’ (The New York Times) make him the perfect fit. The album concludes with the virtually unknown ‘Regenlied’ cycle: four songs that were later included in Acht Lieder und Gesänge, Op. 59. Volume 2 will see Dame Sarah Connolly and Hanno Müller-Brachmann share the bill.

Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier was written at a time when composers had begun to expand the limited tonal compass of keyboard instruments through far wider use of keys and; ultimately; equal temperament. The 48 preludes and fugues that constitute The Well-Tempered Claver are composed in a wide range of styles; and the work remains one of the most important and influential in Western classical music. Francesco Cera is a prominent Italian early music specialists and he plays on a copy of a Hemsch harpsichord of 1736; using his own personal tuning. For Book II he employs the Altnickol edition of the score which includes numerous variants.

For the first time; this edition makes available Herbert von Karajan's previously unpublished early live recordings from the Lucerne Music Festival - made in a decade in which Karajan was rebuilding his career. Included are legendary soloists such as Clara Haskil and Géza Anda; Robert Casadesus and Nathan Milstein. The Lucerne International Music Festival (today's Lucerne Festival) was the first organiser outside Austria to engage Herbert von Karajan after his ban from performing and denazification proceedings; thus enabling him to return to the international podiums. "I will never forget that," Karajan later confessed. For almost four decades; from 1948 to 1988; he was to make his mark on Lucerne Festival. His annual guest appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic (from 1958) enjoyed cult status. But already in the decade before; which this edition documents; Karajan thrilled audiences and critics alike in Lucerne and quickly rose to become the defining artistic personality alongside Wilhelm Furtwängler: with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra; but above all on the podium of the Swiss Festival Orchestra; which he held in high esteem and which he conducted in a total of nine concerts.

The preserved Lucerne live recordings range from Bach's C major Concerto for Two Keyboard Instruments BWV 1061 (with Clara Haskil and Géza Anda) to Arthur Honegger's Symphonie liturgique. The exciting; rhythmically tightly formed interpretations show Karajan to be an extremely form-conscious; textually faithful conductor of great expressive power. He spurs his orchestras on to top performances; but also acts as a sensitive and at the same time extremely present accompanist - for example in Brahms' Violin Concerto with Nathan Milstein or in Mozart's dramatically pointed C minor Concerto K. 491 with Robert Casadesus. As a digital bonus; the edition includes Bach's Mass in B minor; which Karajan celebrated at the end of the 1951 festival with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra; the Vienna Singverein and a top-class quartet of soloists (Elisabeth Schwarzkopf; Elsa Cavelti; Ernst Haefliger and Hans Braun): a stylistically distant; but nevertheless fascinating audio document due to Karajan's very personal approach. The sound of the live recordings on the 3-CD box set has been carefully restored. The 62-page; trilingual booklet contains essays by Wolfgang Rathert and Erich Singer on Karajan's new career start in the post-war years and on his special relationship with Lucerne Festival. It contains numerous previously unpublished photos.

REVIEW:

Included among the contents of this set are quite a few gems. Most unexpected but welcome is Brahms’s Violin Concerto with Nathan Milstein. Karajan and his Swiss Festival Orchestra are fully ablaze, Milstein’s tone typically lean and sinewy. Overall, this is an intriguing batch of musically worthwhile live Karajan discoveries, very well transferred from clean analogue sources.

— Gramophone

Since 1822 the Royal Academy of Music has inspired generations of musicians to connect; collaborate and create. This recording of Bach Partitas continues this mission; reuniting renowned harpsichordist and conductor Trevor Pinnock with students from the Royal Academy of Music and The Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory in Toronto. Following the success of Goldberg Variations (arr. for small orchestra by Józef Koffler); the Principal of the Academy; Jonathan Freeman-Attwood commissioned ‘re-imaginings’ of three of Bach’s most celebrated keyboard Partitas for the same scoring; by alumnus composer Thomas Oehler. The creative challenge – to bring a fresh perspective to some of Bach’s most elegant resourceful and refined keyboard writing – pays off in the hands of wonderfully talented musicians; and reveals how Oehler’s faithful response to Bach’s score allows the music to glow as brightly as ever.

The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin launches a series of Mozart symphonies to appear on Pentatone, starting with the composer’s “Paris” and “Haffner” symphonies. On this first album, the works are coupled with his enchanting Oboe Concerto – performed by the ensemble’s first oboist Xenia Löffler - and the bold overture to Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Mozart’s own woodwind arrangement. Taken together, these pieces demonstrate the rich palette and expressive power of Mozart’s music in the period between 1777 and 1783, during which he finally managed to spread his wings and leave his hometown of Salzburg.

The Akademie für Alte Musik is generally seen as one of the best period-instruments ensembles of today, and has a substantial Pentatone discography, including CANTATA with Bejun Mehta (2018), Handel’s Concerti grossi Op. 3 and 6 (released in 2019 and 2020), Telemann’s Miriways (2020), Handel’s Messiah (2020), Haydn’s L’isola disabitata (2021) and La Passione with Christina Landshamer (2022).

Following a highly anticipated televised performance at the 2023 BBC Proms, Dunedin Consort and its director John Butt now release Mozart’s ‘Great’ Mass in C minor and Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach’s Heilig ist Gott on Linn. Devised to celebrate his marriage to Constanze, but left unfinished at the composer’s death, Mozart’s Mass can clearly be traced back to the choral writing of Johann Sebastian Bach and his son, Carl Phillip Emmanuel. This musical genealogy is displayed here in a lavish double-chorus, double-orchestra feast where both works echo each other. No stranger to Mozart – the ensemble’s recording of the Requiem was a Gramophone Award Winner and Grammy-nominated – Dunedin Consort puts its stamp on these most spectacular contributions to church music.

Bach's six suites for cello (BWV 1007 to 1012) are considered the must-haves of the instrument's repertoire. In this recording, Valérie Aimard offers a generous version that radiates without ever seeking effect for its own sake. With finesse and subtlety, the performer honors Bach's greatness.

For her first recital, Juliette Journaux evokes the figure of the Wanderer: a wayfarer, a traveller, a man who walks alone, without apparent purpose. He confronts a Nature that is beyond him and his deepest thoughts. The wanderer's drifting is also inseparable from the dream, the acceptance of a dilated time. Musically, one immediately thinks of the worlds of Schubert, Mahler and Wagner... Another aspect of this project is Juliette Journaux's passion for transcription. In tackling the difficult task of transcribing vocal or orchestral works for solo piano, she draws on her knowledge of the orchestra and the operatic voice thanks to her three masters degrees in piano, vocal accompaniment and voice direction from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris... The album opens with Schubert's Lied Der Wanderer in a piano transcription by Liszt, followed by his three Klavierstücke D.946; then comes her transcription of Mahler's last two Lieder eines fahrendes Gesellen, full of pain and sorrow. She also evokes Wagner and his opera Siegfried where Wotan becomes the Wanderer. The farewell and renunciation of the world that is the Abschied from Mahler's Song of the Earth concludes the programme.

REVIEWS:

Enhancing the appeal of pianist Juliette Journaux’s first recital is the concept she used to shape its selections into its nearly hour-long form. In using the figure of the wanderer, a nomad walking alone with no apparent goal or destination, as a guide, she’s sequenced works by Liszt, Schubert, Wagner, and Mahler into an epic travelogue. As a result, the Romantic self-questioning and angst of the prototypical wanderer dovetails seamlessly with the inwardly probing character of the material and lends the recording a satisfying arc and design.

Making the project even more special, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris graduate doesn’t simply perform piano works created by others but for the most part plays personalized transcriptions of the material.

Recorded in October 2022 at Cultural Centre Gustav Mahler in Dobbiaco, Italy, Wanderer Without Words includes two pieces by the great Austrian composer, Journaux transcriptions of “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” from Rückert-Lieder and “Der Abschied” from Das Lied von der Erde. Augmenting the Mahler selections are a Liszt piano transcription of Schubert’s “Der Wanderer,” Wagner’s “Mein Schlaf Ist Träumen” (from Siegfried), and other Schubert settings. The journey begins, aptly, with Schubert’s “Der Wanderer,” our protagonist setting out in the hope that his journey will bring answers and resolution. As tormented as that traveler is Wagner’s Wotan, whose questions to the all-knowing goddess Erda are met with confounding riddles.

In notes included with the release, Journaux clarifies the difference between reduction and transcription. She says of her Wagner transcription that it’s primarily based on the principle of reduction, “a concentration of all the elements of the orchestral score into two staves that can be played with two hands.” Whereas reduction aims to retain in pianistic form as much as possible of the orchestrated original, transcription, in her view, is a more personal interpretation of the score in that the transcriber might choose to bring greater attention to certain aspects of the work than others. She writes, “When Liszt faithfully adapts a Beethoven symphony for piano, he is making a reduction; when he arranges a Schubert lied for ten fingers with great freedom of writing (arpeggios, octaves, even re-harmonizations), he is making a transcription.”

“Der Wanderer” finds our protagonist embarking on his journey with determination and resolve, his steps guided by the conviction that answers to his questions will materialize and allowing himself moments of rapture as he confidently makes his way. That alternately serene and dramatic statement’s followed by Wagner’s “Mein Schlaf Ist Träumen,” it similarly oscillating between episodes of tenderness and violence. The focus returns to Schubert for the three-part Drei Klavierstücke, the chorale-like “Allegro Assai” first tempestuous and then lyrical, the subsequent “Allegretto” gently pretty in its reminiscing but also turbulent, and the closing “Allegro” rousing and buoyed by optimism. With “In Der Ferne,” a Journaux-transcribed lied from Schubert’s Schwanengesang, the album moves into its second half and shifts the thematic focus to renunciation, specifically renunciation of the self.

In one of the album’s strongest performances, Journaux imbues her gentle reading of Mahler’s “Ich Bin Der Welt Abhanden Gekommen” with a poetic intimacy that reflects a thorough grasp of the material and emotional connection to the composer’s sensibility. The seven-minute performance creates the impression of the wanderer having temporarily stopped moving to wholly surrender to an inner reverie. That peaceful quality carries over into the final Schubert setting, “Wandrers Nachtlied II,” both pieces setting the stage for the closing movement of Das Lied von der Erde, “Der Abschied.”

Journaux’s musicianship and performances...are stellar from start to finish. This exemplary pianist brings virtuosic command to the pieces but even better a thoughtful and sensitive sensibility that allows her to probe the material deeply, whether it be Mahler, Schubert, or Wagner. It’ll be interesting to see where her next venture takes her.

-- Textura

From the first notes, the snowy steps of "Fremd bin ich eingezogen" (As a stranger I arrived), the new recording of Schubert's "Winterreise" by the GewandhausChor makes one sit up and take notice: Choirmaster Gregor Meyer has arranged one of the most paramount lieder cycles for his "instrument", the choir, and makes virtuosic use of the possibilities offered by the ensemble's polyphony and sonority. Meyer has split the original piano part between two accordions, played here by Heidi and Uwe Steger. Their instruments are astonishingly close to the human voice, breathing, shouting, whispering, and singing. Tobias Berndt, an accomplished lied singer, takes on the baritone solo part in this recording with the choir of one of the most renowned concert halls.

This second and final volume of Chopin’s Mazurkas by Peter Jablonski includes the composer's Mazurkas Nos. 30-51 alongside six posthumous mazurkas. For Chopin, the Mazurkas became a deeply personal, intimate statement of his feelings as an émigré Polish composer living in Paris. From some of his very first compositions to his last, it is the only form that Chopin composed regularly throughout his life. Similarly, Chopin’s Mazurkas have followed Peter Jablonski throughout his entire career as a pianist in nearly every solo recital. This album also includes Chopin’s final composition that was written just few weeks before his death, the Mazurka No. 49 in F minor (1849).

With this album, fittingly entitled Traum der Jugend, the young musicians of Kebyart see a longstanding dream come true. Drawn by its eagerness to reveal new soundworlds, the saxophone quartet has interwoven works from different epochs and given them a new, unconventional guise through its own arrangements. Taking Jörg Widmann’s 7 Capricci as a starting point – a work specially written for the quartet which sparked the idea of this recording – Kebyart draws a myriad of musical connections that journey from Felix Mendelssohn, one of Widmann’s favourite composers, to Johann Sebastian Bach, himself a source of inspiration to Mendelssohn. The programme culminates with a tribute to Fanny Mendelssohn, whose skilful compositions played a key role in developing the musical personality of her brother Felix.

On the occasion of Cambreling's 75th birthday the label SWR Classic releases a 10-disc boxed set of recordings made by SWR between 1999 and 2011.

Sylvain Cambreling was the chief conductor of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden and Freiburg between 1992-2016. When he took up his position at the broadcasting corporation Südwestrundfunk, he knew only too well that he was the successor to charismatic colleagues such as Hans Rosbaud, Ernest Bour, and Michael Gielen. He met with an orchestra that was young, efficient, and enthusiastic, and whose members were eager and willing to fulfill the task the broadcasting corporation had set: a strong commitment to New Music.

Cambreling was and still is enormously hard-working, curious about anything new and complex, displays a versatility that is without competition, and is a great communicator: therefore, he was the ideal cast for this orchestra and its tasks. The hymns of praise, specifically those of the foreign press, regularly (and not without envy) point out the qualities and possibilities of the orchestra and also the apparently reliable sponsorship from the broadcasting corporation. Just as reliable were the invitations from Salzburg, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, Lucerne, Aix-en-Provence.

Reissue. Originally released in 2014. The audio clip below associated with this release is from the original issuance of this title. - ArkivMusic

An account that reflects the latest information and researches on 'period instruments' practice. A 'one to a part' standard - for both voices and instruments.

The Christmas Oratorio is actually not an ‘oratorio’ in the mold of, for instance, Bach’s Ascension Oratorio or Handel’s Messiah. It is a series of 6 separate cantatas, collectively relating the story from Christmas through to Twelfth Night. Bach wrote the work in Leipzig in 1734 and 1735 for Christmas Day (I), Boxing day (II), the third day of Christmas (III), New Year (IV), the Sunday after New Year (V), and Twelfth Night (VI).

As with the Passions, the texts here are drawn from three sources: (1) the evangelical texts (primarily Luke and Matthew) intoned by the Evangelist (tenor) as recitatives, (2) chorales from the Lutheran tradition and (3) free texts for arias and some choral passages, written by the poet Picander.

The fifth album of Philzuid features works by Béla Bartók, Anders Hillborg and Claude Debussy. Chief conductor Duncan Ward takes you on a journey filled with innovative sounds and with folk music. Bartók developed his own tonal language through elements taken from folk music whilst Anders Hillborg’s surprising tonal language shows the influence of Scandinavian folk music and of Klezmer. Claude Debussy, however, turned Romantic tonality on its head with harmonies and melodies that owed part of their development to Javanese gamelan music.

SOMM Recordings is happy to present the fourth release in the planned First Recordings of the complete Beethoven Symphonies in the legendary edition for piano duet by Xaver Scharwenka, continuing a direct connection to Beethoven via his teacher Franz Kullak who studied with Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny, played by the ‘wholly exceptional’ duo of Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman.

This new CD couples Beethoven’s Symphonies 1 & 6 ‘Pastoral’ together with Busoni’s brilliant Concertino BV88 on a theme of Mozart K. 459, for Two Pianos. Extract from the Duo’s recent Gramophone Blog: We would like to highlight our personal historical connection to this music – particularly the Zeitgeist of Berlin, the city where Scharwenka lived and worked. Tessa’s mother Helga Bassel was a concert pianist who also hailed from Berlin, and in the 1930s had to seek refuge in Cape Town. She was indeed fortunate to be able to leave Germany accompanied by her Blüthner grand piano and her collection of piano music which included Scharwenka’s duo transcriptions of the nine Beethoven symphonies.”

Previous releases in this ground-breaking set have received outstanding reviews: ‘Uys and Schoeman play marvellously...SOMM’s fine sonics do justice both to the performers and to their superbly regulated Steinway model D concert grand’ (Classics Today); ‘I was immediately struck by the orchestral quality of their sound – this is an exhilarating account’ (Rebecca Franks, BBC Music Magazine); ‘The result is stunning...these are two superb pianists who breathe through all this music as if they were one’ (Gramophone); ‘In a pure state...the work’s argument has a drivenness and gloriousness that seems to define what a musical argument might be...’ (The Sunday Times); ‘This is undoubtedly superb musicianship throughout’ (Musical Opinion). This new recording is fully up to the superlative standards with which this most gifted of piano duo’s previous recordings have been acclaimed. SOMM is proud to continue this unique integral series of world premiere Beethoven releases.