Classical Music

Classical Music

The title of this new release translates as "Now you must give me wings!" The three-album celebration from vocalist Peter P. Pachl, flautist Uwe Mehlitz and pianist Rainer Maria Klaas focuses on melodrama from the late 19th and 20th centuries. Born in Bayreuth, Peter P. Pachl first studied music, theater and speech at the University of Munich, where in 1977 he received his PhD. Currently, he teaches event management and speech presentation at the Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin. Uwe Mehlitz began his musical studies as a chorister in the Berlin Concert Choir. While he went on to study law, he also consistently studied flute as his primary instrument and in addition to being a lawyer in Berlin he can be heard performing in the Berlin Concert Orchestra, an ensemble which he helped to establish. Rainer Maria Klaas is regarded as one of the most versatile interpreters of 19th and 20th century piano and chamber music. Concerts and master-classes have taken him to several European countries, the USA, Israel and South Korea. His repertoire encompasses more than 600 composers.

The German pianist Ulrich Urban presents a CD of the long neglected, and possibly unrecorded until now, Fantasies on all five operas of the German composer Hans Pfitzner (1869-1949). An exact contemporary of Richard Strauss, he is not usually associated with glittering virtuoso transcriptions for his art Is much too intimate, too lyrical, and even austere in character. But a number of piano arrangers, all of them Pfitzner contemporaries, succeeded in skillfully combining themes and tunes from his operas, bringing out the best of these late romantic masterpieces of 20th C. opera.

Hailed as "Four of the Best" by the British press after their Wigmore Hall debut, the Philharmonia Quartet Berlin have long been acknowledged as ranking among the world's premier string quartets. Founded in 1984 by the principal concertmaster and string section leaders of the Berlin Philharmonic, the quartet appears regularly at the world's most prestigious concert halls and annual international festivals. The ensemble's substantial Thorofon Classics label discography includes quartets by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Shostakovich, Reger, and now, Brahms complete string quartets.

On this new release with lieder by Erich Wolff, singer Rebecca Broberg and pianist Rianer Klaas have chosen songs to poems by Michelangelo, Robert Burns and Richard Dehmel. In the musical language of his songs, Wolff owes a strong debt to the older and by then already very famous, Richard Strauss. Strauss and Wolff shared a certain predilection for second rate poets but also for ravishing melodic lines that rise to jubilant heights.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Peter Pachl and Rainer Maria present this extensive album of works by Strauss, Zemlinsky, Kreutzer, Stolz, Shoenberg, and more. German director, author, and publicist Peter Pachl began his formal study of music, theater, and speech at the University of Munich, where in 1977 he received his PhD. In addition to his studies, he worked as an assistant at various opera houses at home and abroad. He has held several teaching positions during his long career, and is currently a professor at the Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin. Rainer Maria is regarded as one of the most versatile interpreters of 19th and 20th century piano and chamber music. He regularly travels across Europe and North America, and his extensive repertoire encompasses more than 600 composers.

This CD comprises works by 19th and 20th century composers whose roots are in jazz, tango and Spanish folklore. Paul Schoenfield's Cafe Music is one of his most popular pieces, often played in concert. The Gelius Trio's version of Astor Piazzolla's 'Four Seasons' is based on Argentinian cellist and composer Jose Bragato's arrangement. Works by Turina andeniz are also featured. The Gelius Trio are known for their beautiful, impassioned, deeply sensitive sound and diverse repertoire.

Beethoven's String Quartet's op. 59 and op. 74 form the core of his middle period chamber works. The Philharmonia Quartet Berlin has since it's inception established itself as a chamber music ensemble that sets high standards, is well-regarded and in demand worldwide on concert stages or in recording studios.

This release features songs and chamber music by Late Romantic Composers. The Austrian composer, cellist and pianist Casimir von P�szthory (1886-1966), born in Budapest, lived for decades in Vienna. His songs on poems by Rainer Maria Rilke and Hermann Hesse, which are presented here, testify to the composer's sense of literary quality. He provides the singer with unobtrusive piano accompaniment, great creative freedom and leaves the vocal declamation close to the linguistic style of the templates. Born in Linz, the Jewish composer Arnold Winternitz (1874-1928) originally belonged to the circle around Arnold Sch�nberg, whose path to atonality he nevertheless did not go along with. Winternitz develops a very unique tongue strike in the 1919 song sequence "Japanese Spring." The haiku-like brevity of the Japanese texts must have particularly addressed Winternitz. Other pieces featured on this album include works by Ludwig Ferdinand von Bayern and Casimir von Paszthory.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music