Zieritz: Japanese Songs; Le Violon de la Mort etc. / Brenner, Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie
Haenssler Classic
CD
$20.99Jan 05, 2024
This CD - significantly only the second CD dedicated exclusively to von Zieritz - presents a longitudinal section of her oeuvre. It begins with the Japanese Songs, written in 1919, here in the version for soprano and chamber orchestra from the 1980s. The centrepiece is Le Violon de la Mort, composed in 1953 for violin and piano and arranged for violin, piano and orchestra in 1957, as well as the trumpet double concerto of 1975, the final piece and, as it were, a satyr play. Like Hans Bethge's collection Die chinesische Flöte (The Chinese Flute) from 1907, the poetic model of the Japanese Songs belongs to the context of interest in exotic art of the fin de siècle. Gustav Mahler made Bethge's poems the basis for a large symphonic work; Grete von Zieritz took the opposite approach with the Japanese Songs. These are a kaleidoscopic sequence of the briefest miniatures. It would hardly be possible to do otherwise, since the Japanese models are not song texts in the European sense, but poetically condensed sayings that defy conventional song settings. Aphoristic brevity was the order of the day.
Who doesn't know this loveable master of light entertainment? asked an admiring critic in 1925, when Berlin composer and publisher Siegfried Translateur celebrated his 50th birthday. Although this rhetorical question does not likely garner even a nominal response today, 150 years after his birth, concert halls were once filled with thunderous applause. The man from Upper Silesia did well for himself with his compositions, not to mention that his student work Wiener Praterleben had just become the hymn of Berlin's Six Day Race and had been transformed to the "Sportspalastwalzer". When Reinhold Franz Habisch aka "Krucke" whistled, the "Nudeltopp" boiled over. But Translateur is so much more. He knows what flowers are dreaming of, he takes a stroll through the big city, waltzes jauntily through life - a charming proponent of a silver era that never really went away.
Inspired by his impressive descriptions, ensemble feuervogel follows Coryat on his voyage of discovery through the alleyways, squares, and canals of the Serenissima: from the magnificent St Mark's Basilica to the noble palazzi of the Venetian aristocracy and the elegant courts where music, dance, and courtly art played a central role. The concert programme Observations of Venice brings ornate diminutions and madrigals into dialogue with dance music, ricercars, and canzonas. In this way, ensemble feuervogel receives the music of the Venetian cinquecento, which Coryat wrote was "so beautiful that I would willingly walk a hundred miles at any time to hear the like of it."
I love Schubert," writes pianist Eric Lu. "It is difficult to describe how meaningful his music is to me. He was the ultimate artist, in the purest sense of the word. Late in his life, with death staring him down and all his hopes and dreams dashed... he continued to churn out one masterpiece after another. I have come to the conclusion that he is the composer who moves me most intensely." Lu's album of Schubert pairs two of his greatest sonatas - D 784 in A minor, written in 1823, and D 959 in A major, written in 1828, the last year of the composer's short life; complementing them is the Allegretto in C minor D 915, dating from 1827. When Eric Lu won the 2018 Leeds International Piano Competition, the Guardian welcomed him as "one of the most exciting prospects in a long time... a veritable poet of the keyboard." These words were borne out by the critics' response to his first Warner Classics album, a programme of Chopin, Schumann and Brahms. International Piano magazine found it "truly magical", while Fanfare welcomed "a gifted musician... who can probe the depths of the piano literature with poetic sensibilities and imagination.
Weihnachten in aller Welt (Christmas around the world)
Audite Musikproduktion
CD
$14.99Nov 11, 2016
This album presents secular Christmas carols from Europe and South America. These traditional songs have been newly arranged by Manfred Frankel for voice, accordion, violin and percussion instruments. The carols are intended to sound as natural as possible and yet offer something unusual. Older and more recent songbooks from a wide variety of countries served as the basis for the adaptions - in some cases the original languages were retained, and in others the texts have been translated into German. The result is an impressive kaleidoscope of folkloristic, international Christmas carols. The different musical orientations from which Ursula Fielder and Manfred Frankel originally come - she from a "classical music", he from "folk music" - made them curious about each other. At first, they developed a Breton-Celtic programme: the success of this encouraged them to produce this somewhat different Christmas album with newly found, rather unconventional repertoire.
Famous horn player Felix Klieser presents Italian arias on his instrument, the follow-up project to the Pop Chart award-winning album "Baroque Arias for Horn". He is joined by the Italian orchestra I Solisti di Pavia, recorded in the famous Teatro Fraschini at Pavia. The album contains well-known opera arias from Rossini, Verdi, Puccini and Italian songs like O Sole Mio and the Nino Rota's film music from "The Godfather". All tracks have been newly arranged for Felix Klieser and the ensemble.
Having completed the entire trilogy of Handel's Concerti grossi, the Akademie Fur Alte Musik Berlin presents a recording of the first six Concerti grossi, Op. 6 by the composer, ensemble leader and violin virtuoso Arcangelo Corelli, who received the almost cult-like reverence during his lifetime. The composer had been experimenting with this one of the most distinctive forms of instrumental music of the Baroque era since the late 1670s, but it was only towards the end of his life that he sought to publish these compositions and selected only twelve exemplary pieces from what was probably a much larger collection. He laid the foundations of this instrumental form for future composers such as the aforementioned Georg Frederic Handel, who paid tribute to the Italian Baroque master with his two opuses. The Akademie Fur Alte Musik Berlin and it's two concertmasters, Mayumi Hirasaki and Georg Kallweit, who demonstrate their extraordinary virtuosity, only prove why they are regarded as one of the most influential period-instrument ensembles of today. The Akademie Fur Alte Musik Berlin has a substantial PENTATONE discography, including the Diapason d'Or awarded 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), La Passione with Christina Landshamer (2022), a recording of Mozart's Paris and Haffner symphonies and the Oboe Concerto with Xenia Loffler (2023), Telemann's Ino (2024), and a recording with Mozart's symphonies Nos. 29 & 33 and the Clarinet Concerto with Ernst Schlader (2024).
Do many Americans realize what they owe to Josef Gingold, who after a distinguished career as concertmaster and soloist has now taught several generations of violinists at Indiana University? In addition to teaching some of the stars (whose publicists often prefer to label their charges as Galamian or Heifetz pupils, even when it was Gingold who made musicians out of them) of the solo and chamber-music platforms, America's orchestras benefit mightily from having Gingold pupils populate their violin sections. The Faéré, from a two-LP set on Red Bud that John Wiser praised in Fanfare 8:5, p. 249, is a 1966 concert recording with much tape hiss and audience noise, but is no less lovely for all that: patience and experience are called for and supplied. The Kreisler items, some of which are rarely encountered in recital or on disc, are from a mid-1970s Fidelio LP (I cannot find the Fanfare review). Gingold's rhythms are perhaps not as springy and tight as Kreisler's from the 1920s—this is more like the later Kreisler, when Gingold knew him. The sound here is a bit metallic. While the entire Red Bud set should be transferred to CD, this is a worthy and desirable homage to Josef Gingold.
-- David K. Nelson, FANFARE [9/1989]
The Fauré is a mono recording; the Kreisler pieces are recorded in stereo.
One of the jewels of Decca's unrivalled opera catalog, Herbert von Karajan's classic 1960 'Die Fledermaus' returns to celebrate the bicentenary of Johann Strauss. A Viennese cast in excelsis: Hilde Gueden, Erika Koth, Walter Berry, Erich Kunz and the Wiener Philharmoniker. Presented in it's original format with the Gala Sequence of guest artists including Renata Tebaldi, Jussi Bjorling, Leontyne Price, Birgit Nilsson, Teresa Berganza, Fernando Corena, Mario del Monaco, and Joan Sutherlan. Newly remastered from the original stereo master tapes at 24 bit / 192kHz. Deluxe packaging with a facsimile of the original booklet. Hybrid SACD 2-Disc Edition: presenting 24-bit audio. Rigid slipcases with hardback coffee table book. Limited Edition.
Cartellieri: Concertos For Clarinet And Orchestra / Klöcker
MDG
CD
$23.99Feb 01, 1996
REVIEWS: BBC Music (6/98, p.67) - Performance: 4 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5) - "Great credit is due to Professor Dieter Klöcker, not only for his fine performances here, but also for his tireless research into composers who do not deserve the obscurity in which they languish....Klöcker, with very fine accompaniment from the excellent Prague Chamber Orchestra, plays with his usual effortless virtuosity..."
The Austrian composer Wilhelm Kienzl (1857-1941) - also a pianist, conductor, musicologist and writer on music - enjoyed the esteem of his contemporaries particularly for his vocal music. But his star has waned over the past century, and only a handful of his 238 songs have had recent recordings. In style they range from the simple and folk-like to the dramatic and quasi-operatic; their harmonic world likewise embraces both the diatonic and chromatic, with hints of the influence of Schubert, Schumann and Brahms and a foretaste of later composers. The four song-cycles recorded here treat the grand themes of life: love, loss, death and man's interaction with nature.
Nessler: Der Trompeter Von Sackingen / Froschauer, Prey, Klepper, Spath
Capriccio
CD
$22.99Oct 29, 2013
The first performance of 'The Trumpeter of Sackingen' on May 4, 1884 at the Stadttheater in Leipzig was an unprecedented success. For the hundredth Leipzig performance there was a procession with flaming torches in honor of the composer. 'The Trumpeter' then began it's triumphant conquest of the entire German theatre scene; within a few years the opera had been performed several thousand times and, by the turn of the century, had established it's place in the repertoire of all the major opera houses. That great critical authority Eduard Hanslick showed most restraint, making an attempt to analyze the 'popular force, the winning something' in Nessler's 'musical mediocrity', and concluding: 'The most remarkable thing in this unprecedentedly successful opera is precisely it's success.' in 1884 - the year following Wagner's death, the year which saw the premieres of Massenet's 'Manon' and Puccini's first work, 'Le Villi', the year in which Bruckner's seventh symphony and Mahler's 'Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen' were composed, - the tastes of the Biedermeier period and quaint romanticism had made their second conquest of the German opera world.
Susanne Westenfelder, music theorist and music journalist, writes in the booklet for the latest addition to the Calmus CD library 'Liebesleid', among other things: 'In 2017, the two researchers Kazuma Mori and Makoto Iwanaga published a study. The result: songs that bring tears to our eyes seem to have a cathartic effect on us, calm us down and even make us feel good afterwards. A German newspaper concluded what we all already suspected: Music helps against lovesickness. Tear-jerking songs for tear-jerking eyelids. ' We have taken on this mission - as usual across styles and eras. We move between baroque (Johann Grabbe: Three Madrigals) and contemporary music (Gordon Kampe: 'Je deviens fou... ') and also make a stopover in the German Romantic period with works by Johannes Brahms and another with folk songs from the British Isles (John Rutter: 'Five Traditional Songs'). We have also been able to recruit outstanding arrangers to tailor some of the love song dramas to us. These include our house and court arranger Juan M. V. Garcia with 'Hallelujah' and 'Another Love' as well as ex-King's singer Philip Lawson with the eponymous arrangement of Fritz Kreisler's 'Liebesleid'. Because alongside all the heartache, there is always certainty at the end: 'And if you are ever sad, don't despair, because it will always be like today: love's sorrow is followed by love's joy. '
This CD features works whose first editions or manuscripts are preserved in libraries north of the Alps, particularly in present-day Germany. Of particular interest is that these are primarily works for wind instruments, especially oboes, but also trumpets. Another important aspect is the transcription and arrangement of Albinoni's works and themes from the pen of two famous German composers, Johann Sebastian Bach and Johann Gottfried Walther. Albinoni was already very famous during his lifetime and admired by princes and fellow musicians, even north of the Alps!
Searching For Ludwig / Kremerata Baltica, Mario Brunello, Gidon Kremer
Alpha
CD
$20.99Oct 23, 2020
Gidon Kremer and Mario Brunello pay tribute to Beethoven by presenting two of his most famous quartets in a version for string orchestra played by Kremerata Baltica. The ensemble’s founder Gidon Kremer directs op.131 from the violin, while Mario Brunello conducts op. 135 and adds two contemporary pieces, one by Leo Ferre, ‘the revolutionary, anarchic, inspired singer-songwriter and great lover of Beethoven’: Muss es sein? Es muss sein! ‘We perform this hymn to ‘free music’ in a version arranged by Valter Sivilotti for cello, strings and percussion with Ferre’s original voice… Note sconte means ‘hidden notes’ in Venetian dialect. Franco Rossi, the legendary cellist of the Quartetto italiano, always invited his students, including me, to look for and give importance to the note sconte in the scores of string quartets. I asked Giovanni Sollima to write a piece in memory of Franco Rossi, of his great passion for Beethoven and his note sconte,’ comments Mario Brunello. ‘These two works form a bridge between Beethoven and our times, giving the expression “Searching for Ludwig” a concrete reality in sound,’ concludes Gidon Kremer.
Schreker: Der Schatzgräber (Reissue) / Faveyts, Uhl, Albrecht, Netherlands PO
Challenge Classics
CD
$21.99Oct 21, 2022
Schreker is well known for his operas and wrote the libretto and composed his opera "Der Schatzgräber" after the great success of "Der ferne Klang" (1912) and "Die Gezeichneten" (1918). "Der Schatzgräber", questioning the value of materialism versus love, was to prove particularly powerful in post-War Europe. Musicweb International raves: “... this is one of those operas and recordings which ‘has it all’, from the drama and sublime beauty of the music to the glorious performance and sumptuous recording. If you are a fan of opera on record from any period this is a treat, but if you love your music-dramas exciting, moving and Romantic with a big-boned ‘R’ then this is one you will want to keep close to your media player for a long time to come.”
The Geisterinsel is a masterpiece of poetry and language: nothing more musical could be imagined. This positive judgment pronounced by Goethe in 1798 was seconded by Duke Carl August, the ruling prince in Saxe-Weimar, when he wrote in 1801 that there was "really beautiful music" in this stage work. Both men were championing a singspiel in three acts premiered at the National Theater in Berlin on 6 July 1798 and performed fifty-five more times at this house until 1825. The authors of this successful work were the Gotha-born Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter and Friedrich Hildebrand of Einsiedel and it's composer was the Königsberg native Johann Friedrich Reichardt. After a short phase as a brilliant violin virtuoso Reichardt, who was influenced by the philosophy of the Enlightenment, became a pathbreaking "thinking artist" who soon met with recognition in various European countries as a composer and versatile writer active in many fields. With simple means Reichardt's music seeks, in keeping with the particular situation, to do justice to the tension between the "gentle melodies" of delightful spirit voices and the horrors of hell. It is primarily in his ensemble and final scenes that this composer produces a complexity that he had learned from Gluck and Mozart.
Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg (Bayreuth, 1958)
Andromeda
CD
$21.99Jul 08, 2014
In addition to the less-often heard at Bayreuth production of Lohengrin in 1958, French conductor André Cluytens also led this Die Meisteringer at the same year’s festival. + This newly re-mastered recording features noted Wagnerian Austrian-born baritone Otto Weiner (1911-2000) as Hans Sachs, Elisabeth Grümmer as Eva, and legendary bass-baritone Hans Hotter as Pogner.
Beethoven: Complete Piano Trios, Vol. 2 / Van Baerle Trio
Challenge Classics
SACD
$20.99Jul 13, 2018
Chamber music arrangements of symphonies were very common in the late 18th and early 19th century, and it is probably true that a large proportion of the people who were familiar with the symphonic repertoire at the time were so because of them. The Second Symphony is the only one for which Beethoven himself produced an arrangement, although there is evidence that his student Ferdinand Ries did the bulk of the work, with Beethoven adding the finishing touches. One of the three piano trios published under op. 1, the second announces its pretentions to the symphonic genre earlier than its siblings and has several common points with the Second Symphony that was written ten years later. The Allegretto in E flat, Hess 48, probably was one of the first works for piano trio that Beethoven wrote, dating back to the early 1790s. Its form is a short, but humorous conversation between three different instruments.
