Diese Haltung des inneren Rückzugs ist es, die neben wunderbarer Anschlagskultur und scheinbar müheloser Fähigkeit, das Klavier in allen Farben leuchten zu lassen [...]

[...] clôt magnifiquement cet enregistrement dont tous les interprètes méritent les plus vives louanges, à commencer par la brillante et sensible soprano Viktoriia Vitrenko, dont la voix claire, la fine sensibilité et la technique assurée sont ici idéales. On louera tout autant les belles contributions du violoniste David Grimal, du sensible cymbalumiste Luigi Gaggero et de l’éblouissant contrebassiste Niek de Groot.

In diesem reinen Beethoven-Programm mit drei schwergewichtigen Sonaten zeigt sich die koreanische Pianistin Jimin Oh-Havenith als subtile Gestalterin mit großem lyrischem Empfinden, der es zudem gelingt, ganz neue Töne anzuschlagen. Sie scheut zwar die Kontraste nicht, aber ihr Spiel ist nie streng, herb oder gar laut. Dazu kommen dann noch eine absolut brillante Technik, eine außergewöhnliche Klarheit des Anschlags und eine überzeugende Artikulation.

Das sensible Musikantentum der Pianistin kann man durchaus als feminin bezeichnen, aber auch die Spontaneität des Interpretierens und die Wärme durchaus persönlicher Ansichten prägen diese interessanten Deutungen.

Die Tonaufnahme ist von bestechender Klarheit, ideal räumlich und präsent zugleich.


In this pure Beethoven programme with three heavyweight sonatas, Korean pianist Jimin Oh-Havenith shows herself to be a subtle performer with great lyrical sensitivity, who also succeeds in highlighting new aspects. Although she does not avoid contrasts, her playing is never austere, harsh or even loud. In addition, she has an absolutely brilliant technique, an extraordinary clarity of touch and a convincing articulation.

The sensitive musicality of the pianist can certainly be described as feminine, but we also like the spontaneity and the warmth of thoroughly personal views.

The sound recording has a great clarity, it is ideally spatial and present at the same time.

La discografía de Josu de Solaun se enriquece de un nuevo capítulo. El sello Audite acaba de publicar Fantasque, la última grabación del dúo formado por el pianista español y la violinista Franziska Pietsch. El programa del disco, grabado el pasado mes de octubre en la Jesus-Christus-Kirche de Berlín, explora la vertiente francesa del repertorio para violín y piano con sonatas de Gabriel Fauré (nº 1 op. 13), Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel y Francis Poulenc.

This is an exceptional recording of some exceptional music. Prince Johann Ernst IV (1696-1715) was known as the "Thüringian Vivaldi." Ernst showed musical talent at a young age. He composed nineteen works, all within nine months of his death at age 18.

But there's more to the story. His primary teacher was Johann Gottfried Walther. Walther's cousin, Johann Sebastian Bach arrived in Weimar in 1707 as court organist.

Ernst had a substantial collection of Vivaldi's music. which he carefully studied. Bach would create keyboard transcriptions from those Vivaldi works, as well as some of Ernst's concertos. Georg Phillip Teleman also took an interest in the young composer, editing and publishing six of his violin concertos as Ernst's Op. 1.

That publication makes up the bulk of this new release. Also included are two additional violin concertos (one for 2 violins), and a trumpet concerto.

Ernst thoroughly absorbed Vivaldi's style. The works are all in three brief movements, alternating fas-slow-fast. They also mimic Vivaldi's use of ritornello and extended sequences.

While the structure may have come from Italy, the music is original to Ernst. Some of these, through Bach's transcriptions, are already regarded as masterworks. The Op. 1, No. 1 Concerto is Bach's BWV 982; the Concerto in G major is BWV 592; the Concerto in C major is BWV 595.

Hearing these concertos in their original form is a revelation. To me, it's apparent that Bach didn't need to "fix-up" his source material. Ernst's concertos are both original in content and skillfully composed.

The Thüringer Bach Collegium perform on period instruments. The ensemble has a somewhat gritty sound I find completely authentic. There are also moments of great beauty, especially in the slow movements.

The ensemble delivers this music with all the energy and enthusiasm one imagines a teenager would invest in his work – even one who was racing against time.

Audite's announced the ensemble's second release will be compositions by Johann Bernhard Bach, second cousin to Johann Sebastian. I'm in.

The Quartetto Italiano was the first of the new post-war groups that inaugurated a new golden age of String Quartets: the Quartetto Italiano was formed in 1945, the Juilliard String Quartet and LaSalle Quartet in 1946, and the Janáček and Amadeus quartets in 1947. Audite here brings us three CDs worth of fabulous recordings for RIAS ("Radio in the American Sector" of Berlin). The RIAS studios were excellent, and their engineers highly accomplished, so we have (as with the Amadeus Quartet album I reviewed late last year) an excellent idea of how these musicians sounded, in this case between 1951 to 1963. The group's repertoire is interesting, especially considering the period: Donizetti, Malipiero and Cherubini provide an Italian antipasto, if I may be permitted a metaphor (pun!) in questionable taste (taste!). Their 1959 Ravel interpretation is searching, and sometimes fierce; maybe even more so than their late recordings of core repertoire. This is a standout performance, though it's perhaps less than Gallic. The early String Quartet no. 8 by Schubert, from 1963, has the characteristic QI sound of their studio recordings of the Viennese masters: it's taut and tight and intense, eschewing sentimentality and emphasizing structure over story-telling. The first of the Haydn String Quartets op. 77 is the earliest recording here, from 1951. It's sunnier and more fun (to listen to, and I expect, to play) than the more disciplined Haydn the Quartetto Italiano developed later in their recording career. These recordings are at a higher level in both sonics and interpretation than your average historic releases, and the excellent documentation and the fact that a number of the works have never been released, make this a must-listen for chamber music fans.

Esecuzioni eccezionali di uno dei più grandi Quartetti di tutti i tempi. Per il quartetto di Shostakovic, e per quelli di Donizetti e Cherubini si tratta delle uniche registrazione disponibili del Qt. Italiano. Qualità sonora e remastering eccellenti nonostante l'epoca di registrazione, sono stati utilizzati i nastri originali RIAS. Il livello artistico e l'unicità delle esecuzioni giustifica senza dubbio il prezzo elevato.

A new Audite release offers a thought-provoking coupling of violin sonatas by Richard Strauss and Dimitri Shostakovich, written respectively in the early summer and winter of the composers’ lives. Strauss composed his Violin Sonata in EI Major during the years 1887–88. Strauss, in his mid-20s, was then an assistant conductor at the Munich Opera. During this period, Strauss met and fell in love with soprano Pauline de Ahna, whom he would marry in 1894. Strauss’s tone poem Aus Italien premiered in Munich in 1886. On November 11, 1889, Don Juan received its triumphant first performance in Weimar, conducted by the composer. From that point on, Strauss became recognized and celebrated as a master of narrative works, including orchestral tone poems, operas, and songs. The Strauss Violin Sonata, which premiered in Elberfeld on October 3, 1883, is, unlike the programmatic Aus Italien and Don Juan, absolute music. But the voice of the Strauss Violin Sonata is clearly that of the composer who would soon dazzle the world as one of the greatest musical storytellers (the vaulting theme of the finale is a sort of Don Juan meets Der Rosenkavalier). And it is a bold, youthful, and exuberant voice in the bargain.

By contrast (and it’s difficult to imagine a more profound one), Shostakovich wrote his Violin Sonata, op. 134, dedicated to David Oistrakh, in 1968. Shostakovich was 62, and just four years away from his death, due to lung cancer. In addition to the hardships of surviving the Stalin era and the Nazis, Shostakovich had suffered a heart attack, as well as contracting a form of polio that ended his ability to play the piano, and even made putting notes to paper a difficult task. Is it any wonder that the Symphony No. 14, composed in 1969, is a setting of various poems about death, or that at the work’s premiere, Shostakovich told the audience: “Death is in store for all of us and I for one do not see any good in the end of our lives. Death is terrifying. There is nothing beyond it.” In the Shostakovich op. 134 Violin Sonata, an expansive opening movement, bleak in mood and spare in texture, yields to a brief scherzo, a danse macabre laden with violence and anger. The finale is a passacaglia in slow tempo, based upon a 12-tone theme. The movement is constructed as a grand arch, building to a fearsome climax before resolving to hushed resignation. A final cry of pain yields to the whispered closing measures.

Both sonatas receive superb performances from the duo of violinist Franziska Pietsch and pianist Josu de Solaun. The Strauss is played with arresting virtuosity, rich and vibrant tone, and imaginative and superbly executed flexibility of phrasing. This is a performance with a level of precision that can only be the product of meticulous preparation, but one that still sounds absolutely spontaneous. The musicians adopt a far more austere voice for the Shostakovich, but with no lack of the requisite power for the work’s emotionally crushing moments. Once again, the level of execution is on the highest plane. In short, Pietsch and Solaun both highlight the stark contrasts between the two sonatas, and realize each work’s individual greatness. These excellent performances are reproduced in marvelous, lifelike sound; impactful, but without any sense of artificial enhancement. Jose de Solaun’s superb program notes—passionate, insightful, elegantly written, informative, and educational, but without a hint of pedantry—are a model of their kind, and a true asset to the project. This is not a recording designed for easy commercial success, but it deserves to be heard by the widest listenership possible. Highly recommended.

This is a remarkable discovery that shows Liszt's natural voice in opera. What an eye-opening recording! The music is thrilling – an opera composed at the peak of its time. Liszt’s lyrical voice is clear in its melodic and harmonic fingerprints, and yet the music is constantly surprising – from the opening Italianate chorus with its melodious, twirling waltz to Beleso’s dark timbre and moments of Wagnerian drama.

Listening to this disc, I was emphatically persuaded that Liszt was capable of composing opera, and of shaping psychological drama on the stage. It comes from one of his most productive periods (1849-52), i.e. right in the middle of his career, at the same time as the two piano concertos, the first four symphonic poems, the B-minor sonata, revisions to the Dante Sonata and Totentanz, sacred choruses, Lieder, psalm settings etc.

There are four scenes, lasting 52 minutes. After the ethereal prelude (redolent of the Prelude to Lohengrin, with its characteristic woodwind and high strings) we move straight to the opening chorus of concubines. It's tantalizingly situated between Bellini and Verdi, but with more exploratory, chromatic harmony.

Scene 2 is for soprano alone. And what a feat of stamina, drama and coloratura it is. Mirra is angry at her situation: torn in two directions, between her love for the king, and his destruction of her homeland. Soaring lines, v moving in the lead up to the cabaletta. The final cadenza is sumptuous.

Scene 3 features a love duet between tenor and soprano, as they work out their feelings towards one another. Tension rises throughout (often through well-paced harmonic steps) with occasional moments of lyrical release, particularly the central march in 'sotto il tuo sguardo'. It's gripping stuff, and the closing climax is surely one of the finest in any opera from this period.

Scene 4 sees the entrance of the bass-baritone Beleso, who keeps urging the King to take his royal duties seriously, and go to war. It’s richly dramatic, almost Wagnerian stuff. There is also a stunning soprano aria here (‘Oh perché, perché’) from Mirra, and the final trio transforms this music into a high-paced, rousing finale. (What could possibly have followed this in Acts 2-3??)

For the performance there can only be praise – clear, at times beautiful and thoroughly committed. The orchestration is rich and thoroughly idiomatic, and the Weimar orchestra makes a terrific case for this rediscovery. All in all, it is a remarkable first recording that adds fascinating new colors to Liszt's identity. Surely it can’t be long before others join it.

This is vintage Liszt, the unfinished opera Sardanapolo and the symphonic poem Mazeppa. It is a pity that Liszt did not get to complete his opera, but only act I. It is monumental, with such powerful music and great arias and chorus. It is sung beautifully on the CD, and both the soprano and the tenor have great voices, with clarity and great expression. Joyce El-Koury has such a beautiful voice, and in this opera her singing captures so well the emotions and the drama of the action. The orchestra is also excellent. Sardanapalo is the last king of Assyria, who after a life of luxury and debauchery, hesitated before taking up arms, but after ineffectual resistance, committed suicide to avoid capture.

Mazeppa is a lovely piece of music, quite dramatic, evoking the suffering Mazeppa endures until he finally comes victorious. It is nowadays played to portray the suffering in the world. According to legend, Mazeppa ended up in the Ukraine after being sent off from Poland tied to a loose horse as a punishment for his misdemeanour. The tone poem was revived in the Ukraine when they gained their independence in 1991.

I recommend this audio CD.