LAURENCE KILSBY, tenor · ELLA O’NEILL, piano

AWAKENINGS ·  Songs for Tenor & Piano

“It is with immense pleasure and pride that I introduce this album in collaboration with my great friend and musical partner, Ella O’Neill.

Since our respective studies at the Royal College of Music in London,
we have been extremely fortunate to have enjoyed successes at the Das Lied Competition at the Heidelberger Frühling Festspiele and the Wigmore Hall/Bollinger International Song Competition.
We have been planning this programme for a number of years, and it was a privilege to record these songs at the Hans Rosbaud Studio in Baden-Baden.
……...
What I enjoy most about many of these songs are the various perspectives from the different characters portrayed, which are immense fun to interpret and dissect.

The pianist plays a role of equal importance in colouring these texts, and in exploring this musical dialogue between voice and piano, the dramatic tension is revealed. ...“
(Laurence Kilsby)

Release date  07 June 2024 

KATHARINA KONRADI , Soprano · CATRIONA MORISON, Mezzo Soprano
AMMIEL BUSHAKEVITZ, Piano

ECHOES · Duets for Soprano, Mezzo Soprano & Piano

Where did you get the idea to record this CD together?

Katharina Konradi : I always found it fascinating to sing songs in duet with someone or in an ensemble. And there are so many folk songs people can sing together in the family circle or at parties with friends. When you share the same text and melody simultaneously with other people, it becomes a powerful, meditative experience – and such experiences form a bond among us. ..

Catriona Morison : I started my musical training in a girls’ choir in Edinburgh when I was very young and later played the violin and viola, so I have always enjoyed singing in ensembles and playing chamber music. Duet song repertoire is really an extension of that, Katharina and I actually met back in 2012 through one of our old singing teachers from Berlin. ..

Ammiel Bushakevitz: In the end it is a question of musical consensus and compatibility. I can say that in this case, I feel enormously honoured to work with two masters of their domains who are not only technically in complete control, but also know how to prepare in order to be as productive as possible. .. (from the booklet’s Interview)

Release date  31 May 2024 

KILIAN HEROLD, clarinet ·  BARBARA BUNTROCK, viola ·
TANJA TETZLAFF,cello · FLORIAN DONDERER, violin

SERENADE for Clarinet & Strings

The century was only twenty-one years old, and so was Ernst Krenek, when his Serenade op. 4 was premièred on 31 July 1921 at the newly launched “Donaueschingen Chamber Music Performances for the advancement of contemporary music.”

The event soon came to be known as Donaueschingen Festival, now one of the oldest specialized music festivals worldwide: Krenek’s music has occasionally been heard there since then – albeit as a series of utterly contrasting works one would hardly ascribe to the same composer. ….

Hans Gál, under threat as a Jew in Germany and, from 1938, also in his native country of Austria, found refuge in the United Kingdom – although initially only as an intern in a camp, as he would vividly describe in his book “Musik behind Barbed Wire.” Hans Gál’s style remained rooted in the Vienna tradition of the “long” 19th century…..

Penderecki composed his Clarinet Quartet, which exists in a further version for string orchestra, entitled Sinfonietta No. 2. Here we are dealing with a tranquil, subdued work that almost ventures into Schubertian confines, featuring a tender nocturnal dialogue between the clarinet and the viola as the first movement’s point of departure.
© 2024 Johannes Jansen

Release date  26 April 2024 

KATHRIN ZUKOWSKI, soprano · KammerMusikKöln

THE WAGNER PROJECT

The recording of this CD on the occasion of the “10+1” anniversary concert of the KammerMusikKöln ensemble stood entirely under the motto of Richard Wagner, reflecting our desire to put on several of his works in arrangements for chamber music ensemble.

Thus, with this Wagner Project, we present several rarities along with a world première.

For one, we are thrilled to introduce Engelbert Humperdinck’s almost entirely unknown arrangement of the prelude to Tristan und Isolde. This recording also features a true world première: Wagner’s extremely rarely performed French Songs in an arrangement we have commissioned from Simone Fontanelli, coupled with the second public performance of Fontanelli’s arrangement of Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder, a further commission by KammerMusikKöln.

We also have the particular pleasure of presenting Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll in the composer’s own chamber music arrangement, a particularly gratifying piece for small ensemble.

We consider ourselves particularly lucky to celebrate KammerMusikKöln’s anniversary with the largest project we have ever put together, featuring fifteen instrumentalists and a vocal soloist.

And we are fortunate to count on the collaboration of soprano Kathrin Zukowski, a member of the regular ensemble of soloists at Cologne Opera.
(Monika Hermans-Krüger)

Release date  19 April 2024 

ANTJE WEITHAAS, violin & DÉNES VÁRJON, piano

BEETHOVEN  · Violin Sonatas Nos 1, 5, 6 & 10 Vol. III (2 CDs)

The BEETHOVEN WISPERER

The missing final Four…with all the contrasts!!! all complete now!!!

“Volume I with sonatas 2, 4, and 9 was reviewed by Mr Magil (S/O 2023), who called them some of the very finest readings of these works; and we can extend these same words to Volume II” (American Record Guide March/April 2024)

“Just once in my lifetime, I wanted to record Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas as a cycle!” For violinist Antje Weithaas, this was a long-held wish.
”This music exudes profound humanity, a trait I find in each of the violin sonatas. And every piece by Beethoven I know contains a moment of deeply moving emotion.”

Antje Weithaas embarked on her journey through several creative periods of Beethoven’s output in the company of one of the most versatile, sensitive pianists of our time: the Hungarian Dénes Várjon. ..
(Excerpt from the booklet notes by Elisabeth Richter)

 Release date  28 March 2024 

PŘEMYSL VOJTA, horn & YE WU, violin & FLORENCE MILLET, piano

JOHN CAGE · Music for Three

John Cage (1912-1992) holds his own special place amidst this stylistic pluralism. Although Cage did not specifically write a trio for horn, violin, and piano, his work Music For (1984) can be easily fleshed out in this instrumental lineup. ...

YE WU: …...Cage was truly trying out a lot of different things. I find that horn, piano, and violin, with their differing timbres, offer the perfect lineup for this music……..We’re also dealing with a kind of freedom when such moments emerge quasi-spontaneously from our playing without having to plan them together beforehand. ”

Přemysl Vojta: …...John Cage’s Music For Three allows us such freedoms and possibilities. That is why this music emerges so fresh and turns out differently every time it is performed on stage or in the recording studio. For me, it’s been a thrilling experience, this way of dealing with time and the position we occupy within it – thanks to a score that always allows us to find that standpoint and interpret it anew.….

Florence Millet: We’re allowed to set in for the first time whenever we want within the first 35 seconds. That is already the first freedom this piece allows us. As soon as we hear one of our colleague’s notes, or the breath inhale that precedes it, we can react to what is going on.…
(Excerpts from the booklets notes by Johannes Zink)


Release date  26 January 2024 

SANDRINE CANTOREGGI, violin & SHEILA ARNOLD, piano
GUSTAV RIVINIUS, cello · MICHAEL FAUST, flute

MEL BONIS · Entre Soir et Matin (2 CDs)

WATCH ON          

SÉRGIO PIRES, Clarinet & KOSUKE AKIMOTO, Piano
LES SIX  · Merci et Adieu, Claude

 
Sérgio Pires is the new Principal Clarinet of the London Symphony Orchestra

We are very delighted to inform you that Sérgio Pires has become the Principal Clarinet of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO)!

According the the orchestra's website,  Sérgio Fernandes Pires is a winner of more than a dozen prizes at international competitions.

On the occasion of this announcement, the LSO also has published an interview with Sérgio Pires. You'll get access to both the announcement and the interview by using the following link:  click

For more information about Sérgio please visit the  artist's  and the  agency's  website as well.

HERBERT SCHUCH, piano
WDR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ,TUNG-CHIEH CHUANG, conductor

Beethoven und Schulhoff in Dialogue

Schuch: “Indeed, it’s quite exciting to look at what was going on exactly 100 years ago – perhaps because 1923 doesn’t seem all that distant to us. Certain events and circumstances seem to mirror one another a century apart.

From a musical point of view, Erwin Schulhoff’s piano concerto is a truly interesting work that has not attained the recognition it deserves. . …

In terms of style, the piano concerto, composed between 11 June and 10 July 1923, is one of those works where Schulhoff radically deals with the dance types of jazz, which had crossed the Atlanticand spread out from Paris until taking all of Europe by storm…
.
No other pair of composers could be more different – on paper – than these two. Schulhoff always took a decisive stance against traditionalism.

Indeed, he may have been something of an iconoclast, but he was also a talented and well-trained pianist – a pianist who wanted to earn success in that very role. …….“
(Excerpts from the booklets notes)

Release date 10 November 2023 

ANTJE WEITHAAS, violin & DÉNES VÁRJON, piano

The middle three…

“…..Weithaas and Várjon have a great deal to say and are not afraid to say it, but their focus
of interest is always and emphatically Beethoven – not themselves.”
 (MusicWeb Intern’l July 23)

Both highly in demand on a worldwide scale as unique, exceptional chamber music performers: Antje Weithaas and Dénes Várjon each ideally combine the highest degree of enthusiasm and precision...

“In Antje Weithaas’s und Dénes Várjon’s complete edition of these sonatas in three volumes, each individual release is designed to illustrate those stages of artistic development (instead of featuring the works in strict chronological order).

From the onset, Beethoven ascribed utter importance to the principle of dialogue between the two instruments, as we can infer from a letter he wrote to Artaria on 19 June 1793…..

The current Vol. 2 release contrasts the third sonata (in E Flat Major) of the early Op. 12 group with the second and third sonatas of Op. 30. ....."
(Excerpt from the booklet notes by Elisabeth Richter)


Release date 27 October 2023 

SANDRINE CANTOREGGI, violin & SHEILA ARNOLD, piano
GUSTAV RIVINIUS, cello · MICHAEL FAUST, flute

MEL BONIS · Entre Soir et Matin (2 CDs)

A late discovery of a most important female composer from France for the musical world. Mélanie Hélène Bonis, known by her artistic pseudonym Mel Bonis (21 January 1858 – 18 March 1937), was a Romantic composer in the late years of the 19 c. and first half of the 20c..


To everybodies surprise Mel Bonis succeeded in the Paris society and was well regarded by her male composer fellows Camille Saint-Saëns, her fellow student Claude Debussy and others. Some of her works have been officially published.


Sheila Arnold and Sandrine Cantoreggi initiated this album and discovered not only a piece - Soir - never played or was registered before, but kept her choice also mainly to their own instruments Violin and Fortepiano (on a Bluethner Fortepiano 1871).

  Two Trios (one with Cello, the other with flute) embrace the program of small short pieces for Violin and Fortepiano, highlighting in particular the larger Violin Sonata, Op. 112.

“Music speaks to me about what I want, but then it withholds it. It kindles my desires and makes me feel the futility of everything on this earth. Oh! Words are so empty when they try to express all of these things! …..” (Mel Bonis)


Release date  20 October 2023 

FEININGER TRIO

BRAHMS · KRENEK · Piano Trios

Kreneks relation to Brahms

Volker Michael in conversation with David Riniker

Brahms, Piano Trio No. 1 B Major, Op. 8(1889)

….By combining Brahms’s piano trios with works in the same genre by his younger Viennese successors, we aim to open up new perspectives on Brahms’s output. The two works featured on the current release, Brahms’s Trio Op. 8 and Ernst Krenek’s Trio-Fantasia Op. 63, are essentially different in one particular way.

In Brahms, the two string instruments often play together, either in octaves or in sixths, and the two are particularly closely intertwined in the B Major Trio (Op. 8). …….

Ernst Krenek, Trio Fantasy Op. 63

…..The instrumental parts are not as closely interwoven in this piece as in Brahms’s trio. But Krenek’s Op. 63 seems to depict an entire life story. It starts very softly; then, a series of events take place, just as in real life; toward the end, the music seems to vanish into the heavens. We come, and we go.

That expressive “life curve” is profoundly moving and provides unity. The work thus follows a form akin to an arc: at the end, we return to where we started, but not before having experienced utter transformation in the course of the piece…….

Release date 13 Oktober 2023 

SEVERIN VON ECKARDSTEIN, piano

VERS LA FLAMME  


"The starting point was Beethoven's Sonata op. 111, but this little piece by Scriabin exemplifies an idea, and the title is ideal for the whole CD.

The idea is a journey from the earthly to the light, it is about the question of how life and death are connected. Now you can say that it is generally a function of music that it catapults you into a new level of consciousness.

But I think the four works on this CD do that in a special way, they radiate a tremendous power. They reflect different personal worlds, were written at different times and spring from different genres and sound ideas, yet they all have a similar function. Strauss is about a terminally ill person who suffers, but at the end of his life ascends to new spheres and finds redemption.

Beethoven is also initially about something threatening, earthly, but he looks at it more philosophically. Beethoven does not reveal much of himself directly, everything is subject to a strict, architectural form, and that is why his music seems to be carved in stone.

 But in his last piano sonata, he crosses a boundary, one senses the jagged world he is divining, here he has finally expanded the form so much that he can ascend to new spheres. .."
(Excerpt from the booklet Interview with S. Von Eckardstein)

Release date 06 Oktober 2023 

KILIAN HEROLD, clarinet & ARMIDA QUARTETT

MAX REGER & JOHANNA SENFTER · Clarinet Quintets   

Teacher and Pupil

In March of 1908, 27-year-old Johanna Senfter went “on a pilgrimage” to visit Max Reger in Leipzig. Having studied piano and violin at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main, she now wanted to learn composition.

Reger, only six years her elder, had been in charge of a masterclass for musical composition at Leipzig Royal Conservatory for only a year. Johanna Senfter started by taking private lessons from him. …

Moreover, for clarinetist Kilian Herold, this recording fulfills a long-cherished dream. “Clarinetists love Reger’s Quintet. It’s a particularly beautiful piece”, he adds. “Reger places himself in direct succession to Mozart and Brahms: the Quintet is densely woven, but also utterly transparent – a work bathed in light, full of color, relaxed and released from all anxiety.”

As far as Kilian Herold is concerned, Johanna Senfter’s quintet serves as a thoroughly fitting counterpart to Reger. It is “likewise gorgeous music, and the listener can tell that it comes in a line of descent from Reger.”

Johanna Senfter felt that way herself after Reger’s death: “With all my heartfelt gratitude and admiration, he will remain in my memory. In any case, all the beauty and goodness I received from him will continue to work in me.”
(Excerpt from the booklet liner notes by Almut Ochsmann)

DIGITAL Release 22 September 2023  /  Release date CD 6 November 2023

LAURA LOOTENS, guitar

ALBÉNIZ       DEBUT CD

Who can avoid thinking of flamenco, bolero, paso doble, and guitars when they hear the term “Spanish music”?

Born in 1860, Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz was mainly a pianist and wrote primarily for the piano. More than any other musician, he succeeded in incorporating the Spanish guitar idiom and folklore into his style. Thus, for instance, his works contain allusions to rasgueado, a guitar technique that strums all six strings percussively in rapid succession, as we often hear in flamenco.

Thus it is no wonder that many of Albéniz’s piano works have also been performed on the guitar: particularly Asturias (from the Suite Española), a piece that has become a staple in practically every guitarist’s repertoire.

But things are different when we come to Albéniz’s Iberia, a suite of piano pieces so complex that few solo guitarists have ever attempted to transcribe and perform them .
(although a few guitar ensembles have managed to accomplish the feat).

Once I fell in love with guitar playing, I could not avoid becoming familiar with the music of Spain, which drew me immediately under its spell, thanks to its fiery character, grace, and astoundingly gorgeous melodies coupled with vibrant rhythms.

I was particularly fascinated by Isaac Albéniz’s music, which is why I desired to devote my first CD to him, with my own arrangements of his music.

In these transcriptions, I have endeavored to stay as close to the original as possible in order to retain the original pieces’ complexity.

Release date  15 September 2023

CUARTETO SOLTANGO & LEONEL CAPITANO, voice

POESÍA

A dream comes true, CUARTETO SOLTANGO negotiated for a long time with the star Tango singer LEONEL CAPITANO until he came to Munich for the production - a co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk.

Arranger and pianist Martin Klett and Leonel Capitano have put together 16 tangos in different styles of famous Tango composers.

There are famous styles and their founders: Aníbal Troilo, Osvaldo Puglieses, Horacio Salgán, Oswaldo Tarrantino. Elías Randal, Virgilio Exposíto, Acho Manzi, Sebastián Piana etc. provide the music.

The lyricists are also genuine South Americans and have written popular, sometimes very human lyrics, which also repeatedly emphasise the social aspects.

The intoxicating sound of these pieces of music, two of them instrumental, makes the rhythm go straight to your feet, a feast for the ears of the highest order.


Release date  18 August 2023

DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON and CAvi-music announce strategic
partnership across label & catalogue

Yellow Label has partnered with CAvi-music’s rich catalogue of bespoke music titles
and albums featuring some of the finest established and young artists

CAvi-music founder, record industry veteran Dr Andreas von Imhoff,
to retain strong connection to the label ...

Download here the press release (PDF)

ARIS ALEXANDER BLETTENBERG, piano
Hommage à Beethoven  · SCHUMANN · LISZT · BEETHOVEN    DEBUT CD

Per aspera ad astra : a musical journey from darkness to light

The programme on this CD begins and ends with transcriptions of works by Beethoven. The first piece is the Allegretto  (2nd movement) from Beethoven’s 7th Symphony in the arrangement by Franz Liszt, and the programme ends with a solo piano version of Beethoven’s song An die Hoffnung, created especially for this CD. The two pieces form a framework of sonorities and emotions that set the basic mood for this musical journey. ..

 On the one hand, there is a somber mood that runs through the entire programme: we find it in the Allegretto’s passages in minor, in the Schumann variations, in the third movement of the Beethoven sonata, and in the recitativo-like passages of An die Hoffnung.

These are complemented by episodes of light: the A-Major sections of the Allegretto, the first, second, and fourth movements of the sonata, and, ultimately, the hopeful, optimistic sonorities we find in the song transcription with the final cry: “O, Hope!”
(Aris Alexander Blettenberg)


Release date  15 May 2023

MARTIN KLETT, piano & ARMIDA QUARTETT
FRANCK & MARTIN  · Piano Quintets

Late Romantic Piano Quintets

“… We only have two hands, and our ten fingers are not capable of exploiting all the possibilities”: that is how composer Frank Martin (1890-1974) once described the inadequacies of the keyboard.

However, pianist Martin Klett and the members of the Armida Quartet view things somewhat differently. Similarly to the string quartet as a whole ensemble, the piano forms “a perfect unit in itself”, Klett affirms.

According to Klett, the piano quintet is ”the perfect line-up in chamber music”, since “the two components have a wide spectrum of sonorities at their disposal, enabling them to bring out all the timbre qualities we know from chamber as well as orchestral music, from the most intimate sonorities imaginable to the dense amassment of sound we encounter in a symphony!”
(Excerpts from the liner notes)

Release date  24 April 2023

PŘEMYSL VOJTA , horn · YE WU, violin · FLORENCE MILLET, piano
MODERN HORN TRIOS

Modern Horn Trios

"Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen wrote his Seks Stykker for horn, violin, and piano in 1984 on the occasion of a National Radio concert featuring the Danish première of György Ligeti’s Horn Trio. …

John Cage opens up a new perspective on the subject of the horn trio. Cage’s Music for Three embodies one of the possibilities of performing his “Music for,” a collection of 17 parts that can be assembled in any possible combination: each combination is a fully valid version of the “work”…….

Musical quality was the ensemble’s principal criterion in selecting repertoire for this CD, and they found a wonderful exemplar in a work by French composer Charles Koechlin. …

After intense research and preliminary tryouts, the ensemble also chose to include the Second Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano op. 40 by former Cologne Conservatory professor Hermann Schroeder. ..."
(Quotations from the booklet liner notes by Johannes Zink)

Release date  10. March 2023

ANDREAS BAUER KANABAS, bass & DANIEL HEIDE, piano
FRANZ SCHUBERT Schwanengesang

Reflective and happy coincidence

"I find it truly liberating to be able to deploy my voice in an unstrained manner: this is a boon for the singer and the audience alike. Thus, in the case of certain songs, we have chosen keys that differ from the ones featured in the usual editions – and we find we have good reason to do so.

 A truly relaxed voice achieves ideally beautiful radiance. The usual transpositions we find in printed editions are rather arbitrarily chosen, and inconsistent within the cycle.

During the health crisis, we became particularly aware that all moments of happiness are just as much a treasure as they are fleeting and fragile. The Lieder contained in Schwanengesang address those very themes.

These are the last songs Franz Schubert wrote before his death: in Vienna, in 1829, his publisher Tobias Haslinger gathered them from the composer’s last papers to form a posthumous collection..."
(Excerpt from the booklet note by Andreas Bauer Kanabas)

Release date 17 February 2023

ARMIDA QUARTET
MOZART · String Quartets complete (7 CD)

' Mozart’s string quartet output can be easily divided into two groups: on the one hand, the thirteen early works written by a teenager, and the ten “celebrated” Viennese masterpieces on the other.

Not a single movement in this impressive oeuvre could ever be described as insignificant; on the contrary.
Mozart’s early string quartets are brimming with endless variety of imagination, with the pleasure of experimenting, and the sheer joy of music-making; meanwhile, each movement of the “ten celebrated quartets” (Alfred Einstein) is a unique masterpiece in its own right....'

(from the booklet notes by Dr. Wolf-Dieter Seiffert (Henle)

This box with 7 CDs collates the original 5 Volumes (incl. the original booklets) , which had been released between 2016 und 2022.

Release date 20 January 2023

EDITION KLAVIER-FESTIVAL RUHR Vol. 41 (2 CD)  Live Recordings 2022
ROBERT SCHUMANN AND YORK HÖLLER

ROBERT SCHUMANN PUR
YORK HÖLLER – World Premiere

„This year, once again, we invited a series of young talented pianists to perform their debut at the Ruhr Piano Festival. Two of them, Elena Fischer-Dieskau and Giorgi Gigashvili, are featured on the first CD of the current Vol. 41 boxed set, and they both centered their recital programmes around the great Romantic composer Robert Schumann.

 Our first CD thus consists of “pure Schumann.”

I was particularly thrilled that this year we were able to ensure the world premiere performance of the great York Höller’s Double Concerto for Cello, Piano and Orchestra, a work commissioned by the Ruhr Piano Festival.

Thus, our second CD offers you a fascinating overview of the output of this particularly appealing composer. ..“
(Excerpt from the Forword of the Booklet by Franz Xaver Ohnesorg)

Release date 20 January 2023

ELENA BASHKIROVA, piano
MOZART · Sonatas & Fantasies

„I adore playing Mozart“

“Interesting as they are from a historical perspective, the Six Variations on the Final Theme of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet were not written by Mozart himself, but by an anonymous composer ten years after his death; this was kept secret for a long time, probably for expedient commercial reasons.

The lyrical fifth variation stands out among the others: Bashkirova interprets it as if she were evoking a child sitting wide-eyed at the piano, playing, and drifting into entirely distant worlds. In contrast, the pearly runs in the Piano Sonata in B Flat Major, K. 333, are full of substance.

In the final movement, Mozart is said to have intended to imitate the full texture of a large-scale piano concerto with its own cadenza. That is not necessarily what one hears in Bashkirova’s version, but her playing exhibits truly Apollonian clarity and serenity.”
(Udo Badelt, Tagesspiegel/Berlin, 24 Jan 2019)

Release date 18 November 2022

CAPELLA AUGUSTINA · ANDREAS SPERING, Dirigent
HAYDN · SÁNCHEZ-VERDÚ

HAYDN and . . .

 “This recording is the result of a project launched a few years ago by the Brühl Castle Concerts series (Brühler Schlosskonzerte) and Capella Augustina within the framework of the Haydn Festival, which they organize.

In 2018, we commissioned a piece from Spanish composer José Maria Sánchez-Verdú, one of whose works I had the privilege of premiering a while back: a mesmerizing, fantastically well-orchestrated work.

Born in Andalusia, Sánchez-Verdú chose to enact a new musical encounter with Haydn’s work Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze (“The Seven Last Words of Our Savior on the Cross”). . .

Sánchez-Verdú has written Sheba (the Hebrew word for “seven”) as a series of interludes to be inserted between the movements of Haydn’s original work. Each of Haydn’s seven “sonatas” is followed by a 2-to-3-minute movement that serves as a commentary, an exegesis, a prolongation, or an antithesis to what has been previously heard . . .“
(Excerpt from the booklet notes by Andreas Spering)

Release date  18 November 2022

TRIO IMÀGE
MARTIN · VLADIGEROV · TURINA  · Piano Trios

Pan-European Sonorities

"For this CD, we have decided to record three works written between 1916 and 1926. In that period marked by the First World War and its aftermath, it is remarkable to note these three composers’ widely varying creative approaches and ideas.

Composed during a summer stay at the French seaside resort of Capbreton, Frank Martin’s piano trio has accompanied us on our journey as an ensemble ever since we were students.
....
Two of us – Gergana and Pavlin – have been familiar with the music of Pancho Vladigerov ever since early childhood. His sole piano trio, a monumental work in A Minor, captivates us with its original melodies and harmonies. Although Vladigerov finished writing it during his studies in Berlin, we also find that it has unmistakable traces of Bulgarian folklore. ..

Joaquin Turina’s frequently performed Second Piano Trio is a work we discovered somewhat by chance in 2011. After only one rehearsal we were already fascinated with this colorful, highly emotional composition that presents Spanish harmonies and rhythms in a thoroughly authentic way..."
(Forword of Trio Imàge)

Release date  04 November 2022

HERBERT SCHUCH, piano
SCHUBERT & JANÁČEK

SOULMATES

"The idea of finding relationships between the music of Franz Schubert and Leoš Janáček emerged in my head for the first time in a kind of dreamworld between sleep and waking . . .

Each one of them is a composer who discovers and creates his own world of sound step by step, by groping or wandering. Schubert embarks on his journey with a certain degree of open-mindedness: I get the impression that he is not so certain about where his destination lies or which path he will take to reach it.

This feeling of departure, of improvisation, of setting one foot after the other, is something I also sense quite intensely in Janáček. In these two composers, there is a special relationship between the outer world and inner world: their music is clearly connected with nature, but nature is only a mirror of their inner emotions.

I find it exciting to juxtapose these two artists – these two human beings, I would say – and see what happens if we let them share a portion of their journey in each other’s company.” (Excerpt from an interview with Michael Kube)

Release date  21 October 2022

KILIAN HEROLD, clarinet & HANSJACOB STAEMMLER, piano
BRAHMS · BERG ·  KORNAUTH ·  KORNGOLD

VIENNA 1913

"The years 1900-1914 were perhaps the most thrilling period in European music history: the cradle of what we now call musical Modernism. This was the time when the great “avant-garde schools” took shape: in Paris, Berlin, Saint Petersburg, and particularly in Vienna. ...

Our programme selection for this CD focuses on two works written in Vienna in 1913 – the “summer of the century”, as author Florian Illies calls a pivotal year that put an end to the long 19th century and introduced the somber 20th century.

The two works are Alban Berg’s Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano op. 5 and Egon Kornauth’s Sonata for Clarinet and Piano.

1913 was the year of several “scandalous” premieres: Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, Berg’s Altenberglieder, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and others that were less scandalous: Debussy’s Images pour Orchestre, Max Reger’s Isle of the Dead, Sibelius’s Luonnotar, de Falla’s La vida breve, and Richard Strauss‘s Festliches Präludium. .."
(Excerpt from the liner notes by Ludwig Holtmeier)

Release date  21 October 2022

MINGUET QUARTETT & JENS PETER MAINTZ
WALTER BRAUNFELS · String Quartets No. 1-3 & String Quintet (2 CDs)

Complete Recording of Braunfels’ String Chamber Music

“Analysis obviously cannot seize the essence. […] If my music has meaning, it does not lie in the musical material itself, but beneath it: in the artistic approach and its relationship with my world view.” (Walter Braunfels).

With the complete recording of Walter Braunfels’s chamber music for strings, the Cologne-based Minguet Quartet has chosen to pay reverence to a figure who played a decisive role in the upbringing and artistic trajectory of a great number of musicians in Cologne during the period between the two world wars.

 Already widely respected and hailed as a composer and as a pianist, Braunfels responded to the Culture Ministry’s initiative in 1925 and founded the Second Prussian Conservatory.

He served in that institution as president and music professor until 1933, when he was dismissed from all posts, regardless of his merits, because he was half Jewish. Devastated by this unfair ostracism, Braunfels moved to the town of Überlingen on the Lake of Constance and went into what is now termed “inner emigration. . .”

Cologne is the city where the Minguet Quartet is based, along with the CAvi-music label and the Deutschlandfunk broadcasting headquarters: it seemed quite natural and timely to create a lasting document – a complete recording – as a homage to the legacy of a composer and teacher who meant so much for the city in the 1925-1933 period, but who had to face so much suffering and rejection thereafter….. (Excerpt from the booklet notes by Ute Jung-Kaiser)

Release date 05 August 2022

DIYANG MEI, viola & OLIVER TRIENDL, piano
VIOLA à l’ÉCOLE de PARIS

In the wake of World War I and the October Revolution, countless artists emigrated from Eastern Europe to Paris – particularly a number of Russians. They were able to build a reputation by virtue of keen public interest in their art, and sometimes thanks to savvy networking and helpful contacts.

This was the case of Alexander Tcherepnin, whose father, a respected composer and conductor, had reaped great success in the first season of the legendary Ballets Russes in 1909.

Alexander Tcherepnin was soon welcomed and adopted by groups of artists such as the École de Paris, a loose gathering of emigrants from several countries that included Bohuslav Martinů and Romanian composer Marcel Mihalovici (see below). Alexander Tcherepnin’s two brief pieces featured here, Romance (1922) and Elegy (1929), can only offer a glimpse of this widely traveled composer’s cosmopolitan output: he was a man constantly in search of new ideas.

Tcherepnin could switch from one musical genre to another in an instant; he eventually even incorporated influences from the Far East. Although the Romance is still entirely under the spell of Late Romanticism, the Elegy is already quasi-Modernist in tone – a work revealing a heightened sensitivity for timbre, as we can hear, for instance, in its iridescent violin flageolets.

Approximately the same age as Tcherepnin and successful, like his colleague, as a pianist, Tibor Harsányi arrived in Paris via the Netherlands in 1923.….. (Excerpt from the liner notes by Johannes Jansen).

Release date 05 August 2022