Music is the key

The piano pieces of Frédéric Chopin and Claude Debussy may be regarded as coming from either side of the great Romantic divide, conceived in reaction against the movement's excesses yet often embodying its ideals. Chopin never considered himself a Romantic, and Debussy struggled to eradicate its influence. Both composers had a common interest in avoiding the grandiose forms and sweeping gestures of Liszt and Wagner, and instead sought beauty in intimate forms, such as miniatures and character pieces. Yet, insofar as they were both poets of the piano, they expressed the Romantic passion for evoking moods and love of tone painting, and in terms of expression, Chopin and Debussy have much in common. Javier Perianes perceives the way Debussy absorbed Chopin's refined musical language and shaped it into his own, without overtly borrowing or quoting, and this accounts for many of their shared sonorities, effects, and mannerisms. For this Harmonia Mundi album, Perianes ...

It is said that in 1992 when the BBC Radio 3 broadcasted Stanze in the harp version, the phones of the radio station were buzzing with callers asking for the name of the composer. Since then the fame of Stanze and of Ludovico Einaudi has continued to grow.  This is not surprising if we consider the appeal and communicative spirit of these pieces. Even today they represent a model for the post-classic genre, still loved and imitated, which Einaudi - uncontested maestro - was able to imprint with an all Italian original and refined tenor.  After 25 years from the first recording, I present Stanze, here for the first time, in the original piano version composed by Einaudi himself. The score, published by Ricordi in 1992, is made up of 14 numbers: two less than the 16 of the harp recording. Calmo and Attesa are in fact missing. All the other ones are almost the same, just a few changes due to the dissimilar techniques of the two instruments. Only one, Moto perpetuo, in t...

Winners of the Grand Prix at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition in 2001, the Psophos Quartet was founded by students of the Conservatoire national supérieure de Paris. Trained and mentored in Basel by the great Walter Levin, the quartet was strongly influenced by his passion commitment and musical rigour. The Quartet was the first French quartet chosen to be part of the prestigious BBC Radio 3 ‘New Generation Artists’ scheme from 2005-2007 and was also named ‘Best Ensemble of the Year’ at the 2005 Victoires de la musique. The quartet has performed in prestigious halls and festivals all over Europe including the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Wigmore Hall, London and its trajectory has been further enriched by appearances at the Folle Journée festivals in Nantes, Tokyo, and Lisbon, at the BBC the Proms and many other renowned festivals. These performances have given the quartet the opportunity to share the stage with musical personalities including...

The music collections of the Vatican Library (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana) are among the largest and most significant in the world, and have since the late 18th century been an essential resource for the study of music history and for musicolo- gical research. The finest polyphonic works of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, most of which are to be found in the Cappella Sistina and Cappella Giulia collections, have long been studied by scholars from around the world, but have become even more popular since they were transferred from the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s to the Vatican Library itself (the Cappella Giulia material was moved in the 1930s and 1940s, the Sistine Chapel material a few decades earlier), when new indices and catalogues made them more easily accessible. The director of the Sistine Chapel Choir is in the fortunate position of having access to all the music resources of the Vatican Library. With that good fortune, however, comes a two-fold responsibility: fi...

Riccardo Muti chose to celebrate his 75th birthday with a programme at the 2016 Salzburg Festival featuring two masterworks from the Austro-German tradition that had both been premiered by the Wiener Philharmoniker under the direction of their respective composers: Bruckner’s Symphony No.2 and R. Strauss’ Orchestral Suite Der Bürger als Edelmann . Alongside celebrated pianist Gerhard Oppitz is violinist Rainer Küchl, on the eve of his retirement from the Wiener Philharmoniker following a remarkable 45 years of service.

These are the most stimulating and fascinating accounts of the Beethoven violin sonatas I have heard in many years. Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov bring out the full quirkiness of the earlier works as well as their beauty, and their playing is remarkably accomplished throughout. Faust reflects the Viennese taste in Beethoven’s day for light, strongly articulated bowing, much of it ‘off-the-string’, with sparing vibrato. Particularly fine is their account of the profoundly original last sonata, Op. 96. Melnikov and Faust allow its opening movement to unfold in leisurely fashion, and in an atmosphere of hushed lyricism, though their decision to append a ‘turn’ to the ubiquitous trill that forms such an integral part of the main subject’s melodic line may not be to everyone’s taste. As for the Kreutzer Sonata, their performance of the opening movement contains a welcome detail that’s seldom heard. Shortly after the start of the presto main section the mus...

Camille & Julie are the Berthollet sisters, two extraordinarily gifted musical siblings from the idyllic Rhône-Alpes region in France. Camille (18) plays violin and cello and Julie (20) violin and viola. They became celebrities in France when the then 15-year-old Camille won Prodiges , a TV show for classical virtuosos under the age of 16.  After captivating more than four million viewers on the France 2 network with her searing rendition of ‘Summer’ from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons , Camille was immediately signed to Warner Classics, her debut album (featuring her older sister as duo partner) achieved Gold status with more than 80,000 copies sold in France alone and more than 1.7 million streams. This is their third album and the expectation of their fans is already high! The Berthollet sisters: “ On our third album we play a variety of styles from Bach to Sinatra, from Rachmaninov to soundtracks. We picked these pieces as they allow us to express ourselves freely....

Celebrated for her sonorous tone, compelling interpretations and flawless technique, Francesca Dego is quickly becoming one of the most sought after young violinists on the international scene. Signed in 2012 by Deutsche Grammophon, her debut album of Paganini’s 24 Caprices and a subsequent complete survey of Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas received critical acclaim. Autumn 2017 sees the release of her highly anticipated first concerto disc featuring works by Paganini and Wolf-Ferrari. This album marks Italian violinist Francesca Dego’s debut orchestral recording on the Deutsche Grammophon label. It features two Italian masterpieces: Wolf-Ferrari’s seldom-performed Violin Concerto and Paganini’s renowned Violin Concerto Number 1, which celebrates its 200th anniversary this year. Francesca recorded Wolf-Ferrari’s Violin Concerto live in March 2017, when she gave the UK premiere of the piece at Symphony Hall with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the renowned Italian...

'An admirable performance of the Sonata for two pianos and percussion, where Tiberghien is both goaded and kept in check by fellow pianist François-Frédéric Guy, with sensitive support from the percussionists Colin Currie and Sam Walton. Superb sound sees to it that every kicking syncopation and drum tap is clearly focused' (Gramophone) Cédric Tiberghien’s Bartók series has been an ear-opener—expressive and sharp-witted performances that clinch the music’s essence in original terms. The French pianist has saved some of Bartók’s most straight-up tuneful material for last, and this instalment includes the Three Hungarian Folksongs from the Csík District (melodies Bartók learned in summer 1907 from a Transylvanian flute player), the Three Rondos on Slovak Folk Tunes and the slight, blithe Sonatina. Tiberghien balances these with the knotty Études and the thick-set Sonata—and through it all, the angular and the earthy, he has a way of making Bartók’s rhythms soun...

Cédric Tiberghien's first CD for Hyperion of Bartok's piano music was brilliant from start to finish (reviewed in June 2016). The 47 tracks of this new one are of the same standard, barring just one: his account of Allegro barbaro is polite, neatly controlled and utterly lacking in anything remotely 'barbaric'. For the rest, his approach is admirably responsive as he explores, one by one, the enticing little abodes of Bartók's great compositional experiment. Who would dream that a piece entitled 'Major seconds broken and together'—and lasting less than two minutes—could constitute a uniquely beautiful sound world? Bartok described his 4 Bagatelles—with their implicit nod back to Beethoven—a representing 'a new piano style… a reaction to the exuberance of Romantic piano music of the 19th century; a style stripped of all unnecessary decorative elements, deliberately using only the most restricted technical means.' Those words could ap...

Bartók's piano music has the appearance of simplicity, and many of its notes are mere grace-notes, so the games which Bartók plays with rhythm and counterpoint, and with moments of impressionism, make very special demands on the pianist. Possessing an instinctive feel for that impressionism, and for the ebb and flow of those rhythms with their little hesitations and sudden rushes forward, Cédric Tiberghien is ideally fitted for this task. Moreover the selection of works on this CD makes a very satisfying survey of the Bartókian piano œuvre. Every piece here is in one way or another an experiment, including the unassuming little Suite, whose Allegretto and Scherzo reflect the composer's researches into Romanian and North African styles respectively, while its concluding Sostenuto floats and dreams in a very Debussian manner. Out of Doors brings one of Bartók's most magical piece of night-music with softly-whirring hover-flies, croaking frogs and chirrupi...

Going well beyond mere historical interest, this album unveils the charms of a repertoire that delighted Parisian concert halls and salons throughout the 19th century. It demonstrates how the viola finally emerged from the violin’s shadow thanks to virtuoso playing, now resuscitated by the talent of Antoine Tamestit and Cédric Tiberghien in pieces which offer much more than the exquisite languors of bel canto. Italian for 'beautiful singing' or 'beautiful song', the term remains vague and ambiguous but is commonly used to evoke a lost singing tradition; in this case the famed singing tone of Antoine Tamestit's viola, a 1672 Stradivarius, loaned by the Habisreutinger Foundation. Born in Paris, Antoine Tamestit studied with Jesse Levine at Yale University and with Tabea Zimmermann. He has won several coveted prizes including the William Primrose Competition, first prize at the Young Concert Artists (YCAT) international auditions, a place on BBC Radio...

By 2012, the San Francisco Symphony had played about two dozen of John Adams' works, about half of them world premiere or U.S. premiere performances, including seven pieces it commissioned, so it has easy claim on the title of being THE orchestra for Adams performances. Adams wrote the massive Harmonielehre for the orchestra while he was its Composer in Residence, and Edo de Waart led the premiere in 1985. This live 2010 performance with Michael Tilson Thomas leading the orchestra marks the 25th anniversary of the piece. This performance is so extraordinarily fine that it would be pointless to quibble over whether or not it surpasses the terrific original recording with de Waart, but it certainly gives it a run for its money, and may for some listeners have an edge. In any case, it is incalculably superior to its only other real competition with Simon Rattle leading the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The extraordinarily clear, lively sound of SFS Media's sonically spec...

It is race-mixing and the exchange of ideas that normally start the process of music innovation. In this sense, the colonization of America by the Spaniards, which encouraged the meeting of European, American and African cultures, boosted the birth, evolution and breeding of brand new music styles. The exchange of different kinds of rhythms, tunes and cadences which, centuries later, would give birth to jazz, had already been the origin of flamenco. All over the Andalusian and American towns people could hear songs and dances that had been originated here and had gone there to come back again, sometimes to eventually travel overseas anew. From the Guinean Gulf to the Caribbean, then to Triana and the Bay of Cádiz, these tunes continually melt, overlapped, in a delocalized, bubbling melting pot, where jácaras, folías and chaconas existed as a common heritage both to popular and educated music. It is normal then, for instance, to listen to Guarachas de Zéspedes which remi...

 “Four fundamentally different works merge into a musical whole by virtue of our deep and personal relationship with them – like a quartet.” (Schumann Quartet) When the Schumann Quartet took stock of the selection of works for this recording, they realised that they had, completely intuitively, put together a concept album, without ever having planned to do so. The pieces had to be ones that are close to their hearts, ones that they often play. (...) Ultimately, they are works from four different parts of the classical-music world: an Estonian piece, a Japanese piece, a Hungarian piece and an Austrian-German piece. And contrasts, differences and contradictions also dominate within the works themselves. This is what Christopher Warmuth relates in the booklet text, after a conversation with the quartet.  This recording thus represents the kind of pure antithesis that gives life to every great whole. Alongside Joseph Haydn's “Sunrise Quartet”, op. 76, No. 4, a ...

In “New Eyes on Martin Luther” the ensembles have focused on the similarities instead of the differences, and have scrupulously avoided attempts at parody or postmodern extravagance. Everyone is just doing what they’re best at, and with the open tonality of the renaissance music, they have found the perfect meeting place and playground for it. Swedish soprano Jeanette Köhn together with a small ensemble (Johan Norberg guitar, Magnus Lindgren, flute and clarinet, Eva Kruse, bass) fronted by Nils Landgren, recorded their album “New Eyes On Baroque” with Swedish Radio Choir under the baton of Gustaf Sjökvist (2013) released on ACT: “… how well the timbres of soprano saxophone, trombone and guitar suit the original melodies. The effect in Handel's ’Gia nel seno’ and Purcell's ’When I Am Laid in Earth’ is gorgeous” (The Observer, GB). ”A strong direct quality about the music which is distinctly Nordic in character…a superb piece of music making on the part of all invol...

Composed during his time at the court of Frederick the Great in Berlin, Bach’s sonatas provided the court gambist with ample opportunities to display both virtuosity and sensitivity. The viola da gamba was going out of fashion when the forward-looking C.P.E. Bach composed these works, however, they represent some of the finest and most expressive music in the instrument’s repertoire. German Viola da Gambist Johanna Rose is a member of Accademia del Piacere and has worked with many ensembles including La grande Chapelle, La Orchesta Barroca de Sevilla. She has performed throughout Europe, South America and Japan. Johanna studied at the Schola Cantorum in Basel with Paolo Pandolfo and later in Vittorio Chielmi in Lugano and Venturo Rico in Seville where she now lives. The recording of the three CPE Bach Viola da Gamba sonatas with Javier Nuñez is her debut solo album. (Rubicon Classics)

The overall winner of the Geneva Competition (unanimously awarded First Prize) and the Busoni Competition (first Asian pianist to win First Prize since it began in 1949), Jiyeong Mun – known in the music world as Chloe Mun – seems to be following in the footsteps of Martha Argerich, who won both awards in 1957, launching a brilliant international career. Thanks to her absolutely genuine and natural approach to the instrument, the young South Korean pianist, who was born in 1995, has earned the appreciation of the public and prestigious international juries alike in recent years. Jörg Demus, president of the 60th International Busoni Competition jury, said about her: “I have rediscovered in her a naturalness of musicality that I thought had disappeared.” Chloe Mun began studying piano at the age of five. Raised under disadvantaged conditions, since both parents are disabled and receive only a state subsidy, she began studying the instrument at her own initiative. Becau...

For Eternamente, her first studio recording in six years, soprano Angela Gheorghiu focuses on Italian composers of the generation that followed Verdi and predominantly on repertoire she has not sung before – including some fascinating rarities. Joining her for duets from Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and Giordano’s Andrea Chénier is another star of today’s opera stage, tenor Joseph Calleja. Eternamente is described as a collection of verismo – the term used generically for Italian opera of the immediate post-Verdi era. No matter when they were composed, and no matter what their subject matter, all these operas demand great passion and commitment from their performers – and they get it from Angela Gheorghiu . “It is like my soul, it is something different, it is not the voice,” she explained in an interview with Opera magazine. “The voice is also there, it has to be there, and it has had to be prepared – but at that moment of the performance, there is more. The respo...

Olga Scheps frequently performs recitals in venues such as the Berlin Philharmonie, the Great Hall of the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Munich’s Prinzregententheater, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Liederhalle Stuttgart, Musikverein Wien, and Cologne’s Philharmonie. Highlights of this seasons include tours with Staatskapelle Weimar and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra. An exclusive artist of SONY Classical/RCA, Olga Scheps’ debut CD “Chopin” was released in January 2010; she received the ECHO Klassik award as “Newcomer of the Year” in October 2010. After the success of her Satie album, Olga Scheps is back with a new recording of beautiful music from Tchaikovsky. The Russian-born pianist grew up in Cologne , but still retains a connection to Tchaikovsky’s music. The album mixes his famous first Piano Concerto with solo works such as the popular piano arrangement of the Nutcracker Suite from Mikhail Pletnev, as well as music from “The Seasons”, “Chanson Triste” and more!

Breathtaking virtuosity flows seamlessly with expansive lyrical passages and fiendish passagework in this commanding performance by Arabella Steinbacher of the restless and technically demanding violin concertos of Britten and Hindemith , with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.  Britten’s haunting and mesmerising violin concerto is considered one of the century’s finest. The three contrasting movements are replete with grand theatrical gestures, unabashed lyricism, and show-stopping pyrotechnics, and the work closes with an austere passacaglia of other-wordly beauty and power. Following the work’s enthusiastic reception at its premiere in 1940 at Carnegie Hall, Britten declared “So far, it is without question my best piece”.  “Britten and Hindemith completed their concertos at about the same time,” writes Steinbacher, “both are absolutely bursting with emotional turmoil, persisting precariousness, and latent despair.” Steinb...

In just a few years, through her international concert appearances and her award-winning Naïve recordings, 29 year-old Lise de la Salle has established a reputation as one of today’s most exciting young artists and as a musician of uncommon sensibility and maturity. Her playing inspired a Washington Post critic to write, “For much of the concert, the audience had to remember to breathe… the exhilaration didn’t let up for a second until her hands came off the keyboard.”  A native of France, Ms. de la Salle first came to international attention in 2005, at the age of 16, with a Bach/Liszt recording that Gramophone Magazine selected as „Recording of the Month.“ Ms. de la Salle, who records for the Naïve label, was then similarly recognized in 2008 for her recording of the first concertos of Liszt, Prokofiev and Shostakovich – a remarkable feat for someone only 20 years old. Recent recordings offered works of Schumann and the Complete Works of Rachmaninoff for Piano and Orchestra ...

The Amadeus Quartet developed a reputation as one of the finest string quartets from the second half of the twentieth century. Its tradition and style were Viennese and its repertory was largely Austro-German: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms were at the core, though it performed works by Smetana, Franck, Bruckner, Bartók, Britten, Tippett, and other twentieth century composers. They also regularly performed quintets and sextets (Mozart, Brahms, Schubert, etc.), usually adding cellist William Pleeth and/or violist Cecil Aronowitz. The Amadeus was one of the longest-lived quartets, performing for 40 years without a personnel change, and it was also among the most popular string quartets in England, Germany, the United States, and parts of Europe. It made numerous recordings -- many still available -- for several labels, including DG, Decca, and EMI.

Both of these suites by Jesús Echevarría constitute a veritable hommage to the baroque music of New Spain, a spledorous period which gave the 17th Century world talents such as those of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Juan Ruíz de Alarcón in the field of literature, and those of Antonio de Salazar and Manuel de Sumaya in music. The concerto grossi and trio sonatas of the Neapolitan and Venetian schools descended  upon the shores of the New World via the Kingdom of Naples, which was under Spanish rule during the 17th Century. The influence of these genres is felt in both of the Echevarría suites recorded here; passages evoking an Andalucian origin are also denoted in the mixture of Flamenco resources with polyphony, in which the composer's skill is more than evident, and which he proves himself a worthy successor of Corelli and Vivaldi. As with Mexican colonial architecture - in which the Baroque's more formal elements coexist with more popular influences (witness the Francis...

The two musicians have known each other since an early age and ever since have performed together intensely on every continent across the planet. For their second album together, the violinist Rachel Kolly d’Alba and the pianist Christian Chamorel have chosen two of the most demanding sonatas from the post-romantic repertoire.  Linking the Belgian Guillaume Lekeu and the German Richard Strauss on the same disc is as captivating as the dialogue between their two inspired interpreters. Richard Strauss wrote his Sonata op. 18 in 1886 and Guillaume Lekeu followed him 6 years later. Besides this chronological proximity, the two composers were both 22 when they composed these works: so it’s natural to ask if these sonatas have other points in common.

Warner Classics' album French Impressions, with Swiss violinist Rachel Kolly d'Alba, is not, as you might initially expect, a survey of French violin works from the so-called Impressionists. Rather, it is an intriguing look at the many different directions French art music was taking in the early part of the 20th century. From the Third Violin Concerto of Saint-Saëns -- a longtime holdout of the Romantic style, although he accepted and encouraged the advancements of his compatriots -- to the exotic, virtuosic, and flashy Tzigane of Ravel, this program has more to offer listeners than just a grouping of Impressionist works. Likewise, d'Alba offers her listeners a breadth of colors and moods that match nicely with the changing characteristics of the scores. The Saint-Saëns concerto is played with invigorating force and drive, yielding a spontaneous, off-the-cuff feeling. Both the Ysaÿe works as well as the Chausson Poème are played with beautifully shaped, long,...

This exciting new release of contemporary music includes three new concertos by Finnish composer Olli Virtaperko (b. 1973). The concertos are combining multiple styles from Baroque to prog jazz as well as different performance practices. Romer’s Gap is a concerto for electrically amplified cello featuring as soloist Perttu Kivilaakso, best known as lead cellist in the multi-million selling rock band Apocalyptica. Ambrosian Delights is a concerto for the knifonium, a vacuum-tube-based analogue synthesiser created by Jonte Knif. Multikolor, written for Joonatan Rautiola, is a single-movement work for baritone sax and small chamber orchestra. All three works are recorded by the Jyväskylä Sinfonia under conductor Ville Matvejeff.  “The three concertos on this album were written within a relatively short space of time, between 2013 and 2016. They reflect basic themes in my music in different ways, including my relationship to tradition and the problems of combining mult...

This new release by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu is an all-Sibelius programme featuring internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. The album includes two major tone poems by Jean Sibelius (1865–1957), Tapiola and En Saga, combined with a set of songs orchestrated by Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935) in 2015. • Sibelius’ tone poem Tapiola, written shortly after the 7th Symphony, may be regarded as the culmination of a period that began with the Fifth Symphony, a period where Sibelius created music that grew organically out of tiny germs into huge processes. It was completed in 1926 and remained Sibelius’s last great orchestral work . In Tapiola, Sibelius appears to equate the primacy of nature with the value of art for its own sake, the unattainable truths of which remain uneroded by time or by the shifting ideals of mankind. Sibelius stated to his private secretary: “My inspiration for Tapiola came wholly from nature, or even ...

They are widely recognised as the most exciting young string quartet of the present moment, bringing new insights to contemporary composition and core classical repertoire. In parallel, they have also made surprising and impressive forays into the world of Nordic folk music. Their 2014 album Wood Works (Dacapo Records) was a left-field hit, and audiences around the world have been delighted by concert performances of the music. Now the Danish String Quartet bring their folk project to ECM with a stirring new recording. Last Leaf took its initial inspiration from an unusual Christmas hymn, “Now found is the fairest of roses”, published in 1732 by Danish theologian and poet H.A. Brorson. The hymn is set to a mysterious, dark melody: Brorson had chosen an old Lutheran funeral choral to accompany his Christmas hymn, elegantly showing how life and death are always connected. “From here we embark on a travel through the rich fauna of Nordic folk melodies until returning to ...

The violinist Franziska Pietsch, the “Anne-Sophie Mutter of East Germany”   (W Dulisch)   Stupendous stage presence, supreme musicianship and outstanding instrumental prowess; transformation of political repression to a personal musical success: the violinist Franziska Pietsch cuts her own path, away from the standard soloistic career. From promising star of the GDR with a burgeoning solo career to boycott, via a new beginning, chamber music and leading orchestras back to being a soloist, now enriched by a transformed understanding of her own role: with this recording of the Prokofiev Violin Concertos , Franziska Pietsch has come full circle. Thanks to her intensive engagement with chamber music and her experience as a concert master, Franziska Pietsch’s performances as a soloist are not only world­class, but also characterised by an exceptional sense of chamber­like intimacy.  Born in East Berlin, she received her first violin lessons from her father at the ...

Lars Vogt continues his cycle of Beethovens Piano Concertos with the Royal Northern Sinfonia. On this second volume, the recording also includes Beethovens Triple Concerto where Lars Vogt is joined together with his longtime artistic partners Christian Tetzlaff and Tanja Tetzlaff. Vogts recordings of chamber music with the trio have gathered astonishing reviews and recording awards, including a Grammy nomination for the recording of Brahms Piano Trios (ODE 1271-2D). Beethovens Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Cello in C major, Op. 56 is a work radiant with joy, described by many as a concerto for piano trio and orchestra. The work, completed in 1803, has standed unrivaled in its genre. Beethovens Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 is a slightly earlier work and it was premiered together with his Symphony No. 2 in a concert in 1804. It has been noted that the theme in the first movement of the concerto is possibly a quotation from Mozarts Piano Concerto No. 2...

Josquin Desprez (c. 1450/1455-1521) and Tomás Luis de Victoria (c.1548-1611) lived and worked, for the most part, in different countries and perhaps shared little in terms of abstract compositional style. Yet throughout Europe, generations of musicians came to recognize them as kindred spirits, and tablature versions of their masses and motets circulated amongst lutenists. For John Potter, this is “the secret life of the music – in historical terms its real life.” In this characteristically creative project, Potter explores “what happens to music after it is composed.” As John Potter explains in the liner notes: “We don’t usually think of Josquin being a major influence on Victoria, and for most modern listeners and performers, one is ‘early renaissance’ and the other is ‘late’. But the musicians of four hundred years ago made no such distinction: for them a new choral work by a great master was another source of inspirational material to add to the stream of music fr...

Tatjana Ruhland has been described as »the Paganini of the flute.« At the very latest since her debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall she has numbered among the most prominent artists performing on the flute. On the present program she dedicates herself to Carl Reinecke’s chamber and concertante flute compositions, all of which he composed during the second half of his life. Along with the Undine Sonata op. 167 for flute and piano, today his most frequently performed work, the recording features the two concertante works written by him when he was over eighty years old. Here the initial dominance of stylistic elements associated with Mendelssohn has yielded to a tonal language that is both electrifying and highly individual. Reinecke’s music is diatonic in design but so strongly pervaded by semitones and suspensions that it also continues to flow. The »build-up phase« of the concertante last movements is only one of the procedures hardly invented by Reinecke but very much loved by him....

Last December I travelled to Finland to play Fantasia for Violin and Orchestra, written by the great composer, Einojuhani Rautavaara, which I will be premiering with Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony this upcoming season. Sadly with Rautavaara’s recent death, this will be a posthumous world premiere.  Rautavaara was a legendary Finnish composer who wrote eight symphonies, 14 concertos, and numerous other works for chamber ensembles and choir. He was a protégé of Sibelius, active until age 87, and was best known for writing Symphony No 7, Angel of Light and the beautifully haunting work, Cantus Arcticus: concerto for birds and orchestra , a piece that took my breath away the first time I heard it. In my early twenties, I regularly went to record and sheet-music stores, looking through items one at a time in the hope of discovering music that would make the hairs on my neck stand up. It was then I first discovered Rautavaara’s music, and for years, dreamed o...

Riff & Transfiguration presents four pieces of truly excellent modern classical music of the strong, dramatic vein. The earliest of Hyla's compositions on this release is "Amnesia Variance," from 1989. It is performed by a small ensemble of strings, clarinet, piano, and hammered dulcimer. Based around the idea of musical memory, or the loss of such, it often leaves out the usual transitions between the active, strongly dramatic sections and the quiet, spacious moments that are led briefly by alternating single instrument solos. The other three compositions -- all composed during the '90s -- are solo piano works, each performed by a different pianist. All of them are extremely accomplished virtuosos, lacking in neither technique nor passion. Judith Gordon and Stephen Drury perform the first two pieces, respectively. It bears repeating that the virtuosic work here is head-turning, not to mention the works' compositional strength. The title piece i...

This magnificent programme of three of Bach’s keyboard masterpieces begins with the English Suite no.2 in A minor BWV 807. But why ‘English’? Bach’s first biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, whose source of information was the composer’s two eldest sons, speaks of ‘Six great Suites, consisting of preludes, allemandes, courantes, sarabandes, gigues, etc. They are known by the name of English Suites because the composer wrote them for an Englishman of rank’. Bach’s exchanges with British musicians, ‘of rank’ or otherwise, would seem to have been tenuous in the extreme. Having reflected at length on the question, scholars have come to think that this Englishman of rank might have been the . . . French musician François Dieupart , known as Charles. He lived in London for the greater part of his life, and died there around 1740. The reasoning behind this is that Bach quotes a motif borrowed from Dieupart in the Prélude to the very first suite. He had even copied out in his own hand, ...

„….Original compositions for viola as a solo instrument were quite rare before 1775. There are several reasons for this, and they go back a long way. In ensembles, the viola, as the middle part, usually played a subordinate role. In court and municipal orchestras, the posts of violists were generally poorly filled in terms of both quality and of quantity – also because violists were poorly paid. The first author to highlight the viola’s pivotal role in harmony and voice-leading was Johann Mattheson (1681-1764), who pointed out in 1713 that everything would sound dissonant without the viola. Then, in 1738, Johann Philipp Eisel (1698-1763) described the viola as the “innards of music”. Further statements can be found – for instance, Johann Samuel Petri (1738-1808), in his Manual of Practical Music-Making (1782), exclaimed: “Another mistake! The viola is so mistreated! A beautiful instrument that achieves such great effect is generally put through torture by ignorant appr...

Hanna-Elisabeth Müller studied with Rudolf Piernay with whom she still closely collaborates. The multi award winning soprano later fine-tuned her skills in masterclasses with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Julia Varady, Elly Ameling and Thomas Hampson. In March 2017 she made her debut at the MET in New York as Marzelline in Jürgen Flimm’s Fidelio. In May, she will make both a role and house debut at the Scala in Milan as Donna Anna in Robert Carson’s production of Don Giovanni. She will return to the MET, as Pamina, in December 2017, followed by her debut at the Opera Zurich as Ilia in Mozart’s Idomeneo. In 2014, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller achieved her international breakthrough at the Salzburg Opera Festival with her sensational debut as Zdenka alongside Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson under the baton of Christian Thielemann and, shortly afterwards, was distinguished by German magazine Opernwelt as Young Artist of the Year. She later resumed the role at Semperoper Dresden ...