Antwerp Symphony Orchestra / Christian Lindberg CHRISTIAN LINDBERG 2017 - Liverpool Lullabies - Waves of Wollongong

 

CHRISTIAN LINDBERG

Antwerp Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins KALEVI AHO Trombone Concerto - Trumpet Concerto

Hugely prolific as well as widely acclaimed, Kalevi Aho has composed 30 concertos to date. Many of them are available in recordings from BIS, and the present release features two works from the past decade. The Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra was commissioned for Jörgen van Rijen, who also performs it here. The concerto is actually Aho’s second concertante piece for the trombone – his Symphony No. 9 (1994) included a substantial and very virtuosic solo part for the instrument. In that work, and even more so in the concerto, the composer’s aim has been to extend the expressive and virtuosic possibilities of the trombone. Composed around the same time, the Trumpet Concerto is scored for the wind section of a medium-sized symphony orchestra, plus two saxophones, baritone horn and percussion. It was given its premiere by the same musicians that perform it here, the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins supporting its principal trumpet Alain De Rudder in what is often a surprisingly jazzy work.

Eldbjørg Hemsing DVORÄK Violin Concerto SUK Fantasy & Love Song

Eldbjørg Hemsing’s very successful debut album of Shostakovich & Borgström violin concertos, e.g. having entered German Top 20 Classical Music Charts in May this year, is followed in autumn 2018 by a recording of Dvořák’s Violin Concerto and Suk’s Fantasy and Love Song with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and Alan Buribayev. 

Eldbjørg Hemsing says about her second solo album release: “A special and close relationship with Antonín Dvořák’s Violin Concerto in A minor goes all the way back to my childhood. I grew up with two siblings, and my younger brother Andris used to play the concerto constantly at the highest volume until my mum decided to hide the recording. However, my curiosity about Dvořák grew, eventually also leading to my discovery of Josef Suk’s compositions. Despite the difference in expression and style between the two composers, the eloquence of the Czech idiom that they share fascinated me. Dvořák’s Violin Concerto is a masterpiece, both playful and yet very serious. Josef Suk’s Fantasy is on the other hand like a mosaic adventure, where each of the stories come together forming the piece. And, finally, Love Song is somehow a true reflection of the romantic idea of love.”

Marie-Elisabeth Hecker / Antwerp Symphony Orchestra / Edo de Waart ELGAR Cello Concerto - Piano Quintet

Cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker made her international breakthrough with her sensational success at the 8th Rostropovich Competition in Paris in 2005, where she became the first contestant in the event's history to win the first prize as well as two special prizes. Since then Hecker has become one of the most sought-after soloists and chamber musicians of her generation, recognised for her deep expression and natural affinity for the cello, with Die Zeit describing her playing as "heartbreakingly sad and instinctively beautiful". 

After making several discs of chamber music by Brahms and Schubert, the cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker now records a large-scale concerto, showing the full range of her talent. Composed between 1918 and 1919, Elgar’s Concerto Op.85 was poorly received at its first performance but has since become established as one of the key works in the cello repertoire. To complete the programme, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker rejoins her chamber music partners, the violinists Carolin Widmann and David McCarroll, the violist Pauline Sachse and the pianist Martin Helmchen, in Elgar’s Piano Quintet, composed at the same time as the Concerto and premiered in London in 1919.