Martin Helmchen / Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Andrew Manze BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto 3 - Triple Concerto

 

PIANO CONCERTO 3 - TRIPLE CONCERTO

 

Julian Steckel KODÁLY

KODÁLY

Tetzlaff / Hornung / Dörken / Weithaas / Powell / Helmchen DVORÄK Trio SUK Quartet

Antje Weithaas and friends perform Dvorak's Piano Trio in G minor, Op.26 and Suk's Quartet, Op.1 in live recordings from the Spannungen festival, 2017.

In 1876, Dvorak composed the Trio in G Minor, op. 26 in a mere 16 days. Certain traits in this trio already seem to reveal Dvorak's profound affinity with Brahms on an instinctive level. Gradually emerging from a series of brief motifs, the first movement's main theme is subjected to thematic treatment throughout. This movement is also the longest, lasting a total of twelve minutes. It's sombre mood does not yet reflect the true personal style of he who would soon write the Slavonic Dances. Notwithstanding, certain cello cantilenas in the slow movement and towards the end of the sombre, violent scherzo offer a foretaste of the great melodic gifts that Dvorak would soon reveal to the world. 

The composition Suk submitted for the final exam is none other than the Piano Quartet in A Minor, op. 1. The first movement's disarming impetuousness engulfs the listener like a shock wave, betraying not only the influence of Brahms, the true doyen of Late Romantic chamber music, but also that of Dvorak, his own teacher. More significantly, however, a personal style already becomes noticeable in this work. The energetic introductory movement is followed by a clear contrast: a muted, nocturne-like, melodically intense Adagio that sets in with a warm cello cantilena. The second movement's expressive middle section exudes a fairy-tale-like atmosphere, similar to the one in the incidental music that Suk would later compose for the play Raduz and Mahulena. The final movement begins with a march-like main theme that is alternated with contrasting episodes, thus giving the general structural impression of a rondo. (Pedro Obiera) 

Arcanto Quartett QUATUORS À CORDES

Admirers of the Arcanto Quartet will lap this disc up, and it deserves to be a spur to anybody who has not yet been alerted to this ensemble’s expertise, panache and interpretative perception. Previous discs of Brahms and Bartók have shown how the players, while possessing personalities of their own, coalesce and strike sparks off one another, instinctively sensing opportunities for crisp, collaborative counterpoint, for quick reactions, for rich, lyrical togetherness and for poetic eloquence as well. On this disc the landmark French quartets of Debussy and Ravel are combined with a later-20th-century classic by Henri Dutilleux, his Ainsi la nuit, completed in 1976. The playing throughout is masterly, and also thoroughly involving in terms of both technique and expressiveness.

The interpretation of the Debussy Quartet has sinew and propulsion, with that apt shading of dynamics and subtlety of nuance that have become hallmarks of the Arcanto’s distinctive and distinguished style. Delicacy and fluency are equally embraced in this commanding performance, as they are in the Ravel, where colouristic finesse is allied to clarity of articulation, sharp definition of thematic ideas and a warmth and energy in the overall characterisation of the music. With its broad outlook on the quartet repertoire, the Arcanto bring no less imagination to Dutilleux’s Ainsi la nuit, in which the short, epigrammatic miniatures that go to make up this seven-movement piece are played not only with complete control of the practical aspects but also with a gripping immediacy, personality and kaleidoscope of fascinating detail. (Gramophone)

Arcanto Quartett / Jörg Widmann WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Clarinet Quintet - String Quartet K.421

If you want a recording of Mozart’s Quintet on a conventional clarinet, Jörg Widmann and the Arcanto Quartet are up there with the best. Using a basset clarinet, with its treacly extra low notes, Romain Guyot or Matthew Hunt (with Ensemble 360) bring more Papageno-ish fun to the finale. But few performances I know rival Widmann and the Arcanto for mingled refinement, imagination and sensitive give and take.

In the first two movements the players balance autumnal lyricism with more than a hint of period-style astringency. Tempi – not least in the flowing Larghetto – are on the brisk side, textures crisp and lucid, with sparing string vibrato, dynamic contrasts unusually wide. In the Minuet’s second Trio, Widmann creates two distinct characters, yodelling blithely, then digging with a vengeance into his deep, chalumeau arpeggios. The whole performance combines illuminating detail with an unerring sense of the music’s larger shapes, whether in the mounting harmonic tension of the first movement’s development or the floating serenity of the Larghetto, clarinet and first violin locked in tender colloquy.

On their own, the Arcanto, lean and sinewy of tone, are no less eloquent in the D minor Quartet. In the opening Allegro they stress the music’s elegiac fatalism rather than its agitation. Rarely will you hear such intense pianissimo playing in the mysterious – and still shocking – remote modulations at the start of the development. Here and elsewhere their response to mood and colour is matched by their care for balance and contrapuntal clarity. Perhaps the Arcanto’s rubato in the Minuet’s serenading Trio totters on the edge of winsomeness. But their vivid characterisation of the finale’s variations, from the truculent cross-rhythms of No 2 to the chaste tenderness of the D major variation, sets the seal on a desirable Mozart coupling, recorded in an aptly intimate acoustic. (Richard Wigmore / Gramophone)

Marie-Elisabeth Hecker / Antje Weithaas / Martin Helmchen SCHUBERT Arpeggione Sonata - Trio No. 2

Following a first recording on Alpha devoted to Brahms which garnered much praise – ‘real duo playing’ said Gramophone, while Classica discerned ‘shared music making . . . a world full of nuances and subtlety, boundless sonic imagination (Marie-Elisabeth Hecker), playing of rare intelligence (Martin Helmchen)’ and awarded the disc a ‘Choc’ – the duo is reunited. Its new programme features two summits of chamber music: Schubert’s famous Arpeggione Sonata – named after a now obsolete instrument that was a cross between the guitar and the cello – and his no less celebrated Trio no.2 D929, which achieved even greater popularity thanks to Stanley Kubrick’s film Barry Lyndon. In the latter, the duo is joined by an eminent musician with whom they enjoy playing, Antje Weithaas, ‘one of the great violinists of our time’ (Fonoforum) and also one of the teachers most sought after by the young generation. For example, she taught Tobias Feldmann, the young violinist recently signed by Alpha.

Antje Weithaas / Camerata Bern JOHANNES BRAHMS Violin Concerto - String Quintet op. 111

Founded in 1962, the CAMERATA BERN is a highly-acclaimed chamber orchestra uniting top level musicians inspired by the idea of performing within a flexible, self-conducted ensemble.

Its members are gifted soloists and chamber musicians. Under its artistic director, the violinist ANTJE WEITHAAS, as well as guest concertmasters Erich Höbarth, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Pekka Kuusisto, Amandine Beyer, Enrico Onofri and others, CAMERATA BERN performs a broad repertoire ranging from early Baroque to today’s composers. The orchestra stands out for its subtle and perfectly homogeneous sound, its freshness and mastery of style. With charisma and spontaneity adding to its ability to thrill its public, CAMERATA BERN is now renowned as one of the prime ensembles among chamber orchestras in Europe.

The ensemble’s outstanding qualities has led it to perform with such eminent artists as Heinz Holliger, András Schiff, Vadim Repin, Alexander Lonquich, Jörg Widmann, Sabine Meyer, Tabea Zimmermann, Vessilina Kasarova, Bernd Glemser, Christian Gerhaher, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Maurice André, Bruno Canino, Radu Lupu, Peter Serkin, Gidon Kremer, Nathan Milstein, Boris Pergamenshikov, Narciso Yepes, Pepe Romero, Barbara Hendricks, Peter Schreier, Jan Vogler, Reinhold Friedrich, Leonidas Kavakos, Angelika Kirchschlager and others.

The ensemble has toured extensively in Europe, South- and North-America, as well as in South-East Asia, the Far East, Australia and Japan. Its recordings on Sony, Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv, Decca, Denon, ERATO, Berlin Classics, Novalis, ECM, Claves and Philips have won several international awards, such as the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, the Grand Prix International du Disque, the International Record Critics Award, the Record Academy Prize, and the Prize Echo Klassik ‘97 of the Deutsche Phono-Akademie. The latest CD-releases feature Antje Weithaas in a Beethoven programme (CAVI, September 2012). The next CD will be released in September 2015 with Antje Weithaas as soloist in Brahms’ Violin Concerto.

Lately, CAMERATA BERN has performed at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova, Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato/Mexico, Morelia Festival in Mexico, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, in the Sala Sao Paulo, at the Teatro Solis in Montevideo, at Geneva’s Victoria Hall, at deSingel in Antwerp.

Within its large scale educational project for children since 2010, the CAMERATA BERN performs concerts in schools across the Canton of Bern. The project developed in the frame of the Education Department’s “Education and culture” programme has reached over 10’000 children up to now, mainly in the canton’s rural areas.

The CAMERATA BERN also focuses on historically informed performance and performs an early music concert series in Bern. (Squire Artists)