Nicolas Altstaedt / Alexander Lonquich BEETHOVEN Complete Works for Fortepiano and Violoncello

                                    WORKS FOR FORTEPIANO AND VIOLONCELLO

Vilde Frang, Lawrence Power, Nicolas Altstaedt, Barnabás Kelemen, Katalin Kokas, Alexander Lonquich VERESS String Trio BARTÓK Piano Quintet

The Lockenhaus International Chamber Music Festival is regarded as one of Austria’s most prestigious festivals: it was created by the violinist Gidon Kremer to offer a new vision of chamber music and the opportunity to create musical exchanges in an intimate setting. The cellist Nicolas Altstaedt succeeded Gidon Kremer in 2012 and now continues the spirit of the festival. For this first recording in partnership with Lockenhaus, he is joined by experienced partners, including the Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang, the Hungarian violinist Barnabás Kelemen, the German pianist Alexander Lonquich – whose Schubert double album was recently released on Alpha (Alpha 433) – and the British violist Lawrence Power. Together they have selected two works, the Piano Quintet of Béla Bartók, a demanding composition, rarely performed even though it is considered an intensely personal work, and the String Trio of Sándor Veress, a former student of Bartók. Nicolas Altstaedt has joined Alpha for several recording projects that will illustrate the full range of his talents, in a highly eclectic range of music.

"What makes this CD unmissable is the Veress Trio, a masterpiece and a performance to match. I’ve already pencilled it in as a potential contender for next year’s Gramophone Awards."  Gramophone

Alexander Lonquich SCHUBERT 1828

Alexander Lonquich has his own special place in the world of the piano: this German pianist, who made his home in Italy, has enjoyed an untypical career. A disciple of Paul Badura-Skoda, he is highly respected by many conductors and instrumental artists, such as Philippe Herreweghe, Nicolas Altstaedt and Christian Tetzlaff, with all of whom he collaborates on a regular basis. Navigating his way between the modern and the early piano, he takes the time needed to allow programmes to properly mature, working on them and thinking them over for several years. Such was also the case for this recording, carefully made on a modern Steinway piano, and we have genuinely fallen in love with it. As Alexander Lonquich’s accompanying notes to the CD testify, the artist has intensively reflected on and lived with the music of Schubert before recording it.

The year of Schubert’s death, which took place on 19* November 1828, was marked - particularly from its springtime - by an extraordinary burst of artistic creativity, produced at a frenetic working pace. It was during this period that he composed the three last piano sonatas and the threeKlavierstücke that make up this programme.

Colibrì Ensemble / Alexander Lonquich SCHUMANN - BURGMÜLLER

The lives of Robert Schumann and Norbert Burgmüller intersect in fascinating ways. Both were born in 1810, and both spent significant periods of their lives in Düsseldorf, which is how Schumann came to orchestrate the Scherzo of Burgmüller’s Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 11. Acclaimed pianist Alexander Lonquich has long been intrigued by the complex interrelationships between these two composers and their circle of influences. Lonquich brings his unique and scintillating insight to this performance of Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, a work which began life as a Phantasie for the composer’s wife, pianist Clara Schumann, but was later augmented to become an irresistible full-length work.
The conversational principles of the concerto’s first movement are taken even further in the central Intermezzo, in which Schumann creates a sense of intimate dialogue enhanced by the delicate, almost chamber-like treatment of his orchestral forces. We then tumble effortlessly into the finale, which is full of subtle touches that reveal a composer at the peak of his powers: there are no perfunctory finale fireworks, but rather a movement of quirky good humour and perfectly-judged invention.
Burgmüller’s Second Symphony unfolds with charming ease, undulating between genial lyricism and stormier interjections reminiscent of Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony. The work culminates in the Scherzo, a tussle between a refined dance, perhaps representing the civilised aspects of humanity, and sudden torrents of sound reflecting the irrepressible forces of Nature.
Alexander Lonquich is joined on this disc by The Colibrì Ensemble, a chamber orchestra which performs regularly in Pescara, Italy, where it has its own concert season. Founded in 2013 by Andrea Gallo, this vibrant collection of musicians has already forged strong relationships with a host of outstanding artists, including a special connection with Alexander Lonquich, who is now a regular guest each season.

Carolin Widmann / Alexander Lonquich FRANZ SCHUBERT Fantasie C-Dur - Rondo h-Moll - Sonate A-Dur

This insightful recording of Franz Schubert’s music is also a first documentation of the musical alliance between violinist Carolin Widmann and pianist Alexander Lonquich, which has been gathering momentum over the last four years. They first came together to play Messiaen in Salzburg in 2008. The following year a Lonquich solo recital in Rome convinced Widmann that they should collaborate on Schubert’s music for violin and piano.

In this album, recorded at Historic concert hall Reitstadl Neumarkt, the duo plays the C-Major Fantasy of 1827 and the Violin Sonata in A-Major of 1817, as well as the B-minor Rondo of 1826. If the influence of Beethoven is still marked in the 1817 sonata, the 1826 and 1827 pieces remain striking in their originality. Written at the request of Viennese virtuosi Josef Slawik and Karl Maria von Bocklet, they are pieces that transcend ‘mere’ virtuosity.

Lonquich describes them as “paradoxical”, compositions conceived as technical which nonetheless feel “thoroughly metaphysical”: “Schubert is music’s great Wanderer. He goes through highs and lows and subtle harmonic progressions. He’s invariably spoken of as the great writer of melodies, yet there is always extraordinary harmonic tension at work as well.”

Carolin Widmann: “There is ambivalence in Schubert: pain and beauty expressed with the same intensity. I can hear the Austrian countryside in his music when I’m playing and at the same time this feeling of reaching for the heavens. Great art is made out of this combination of rootedness and transcendence…”

Widmann and Lonquich’s empathetic reading casts aside conventions of violin and accompaniment, responding instead to the changing needs of Schubert’s music.

Carolin Widmann, who received praise and awards both for her accounts of Schumann’s violin sonatas and for the recital disc “Phantasy of Spring” (with music of Feldman, Zimmermann, Schoenberg and Xenakis) now applies her acute interpretive sensibilities to Franz Schubert. Widmann and Alexander Lonquich (whose own New Series disc with music of Schumann and Holliger was also a critical success) play the C-Major Fantasy of 1827 and the Violin Sonata in A-Major of 1817, as well as the B-minor Rondo of 1826 (the only one of these works published in Schubert’s lifetime). This is duo playing at a very high level, as Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich emphasizes in the liner notes: “Not once does Carolin Widmann and Alexander Lonquich’s intelligent and empathetic reading devolve into the trivial state of music for a domineering violin with piano accompaniment. Instead we are treated to a magically iridescent poem of changing colours, melodies and counterpoints.”