Hugo Siegmeth / Stefan Hunstein / Axel Wolf WINTERREISE

 

WINTERREISE

 

Tamara Stefanovich / Thomas Bloch / Nationaltheater-Orchester Mannheim / Alexander Soddy MESSIAEN Turangalîla-Symphonie

TURANGALÎLA-SYMPHONIE

 

Gürzenich-Orchester Köln / Dmitrij Kitajenko SERGEJ RACHMANINOW Die Glocken SERGEJ TANEEV Johannes Damascenus

DIE GLOCKEN - JOHANNES DAMASCENUS

Natalie Clein / Recreation – Großes Orchester Graz / Michael Hofstetter HAYDN Cello Concertos

CELLO CONCERTOS

Orchester des Nationaltheater Mannheim BJÖRK'S VESPERTINE

An album as an opera. Pop music is theatrical, it lives on stories, constantly creating new characters of art. In addition, no other style has changed and influenced music reception so enduringly as pop music. Most people can draw biographical references on the map of pop music. So, it seems high time to open the doors of the opera to a new visitor. With its symphonic elements, dramatic singing lines and ethereal choir vocals, Vespertine seems to be the perfect model for the complex project.
OehmsClassics begins the new partnership with the Nationaltheater Mannheim (NTM Edition) with a bang. Rarely has a premiere in Germany experienced such a press echo as this, in May 2018.

Norbert Anger / Michael Schöch STRAUSS | WAGNER Werke für Violoncello und Klavier

Like Richard Strauss, besides the dominating stage works Richard Wagner’s oeuvre catalogue shows several works for other genres, including compositions for choir, piano and chamber music as well as songs. Amongst them, the Wesendonck-Lieder, composed after texts by his occasional muse, Mathilde von Wesendonck, the wife of a Swiss industrialist, have attained special popularity. Very special is the version which can be heard on this recording for deep voice played by the violoncello. Additionally, the ‘Album Page’ and prelude to ‘Tristan und Isolde’ in the cello/piano version by Richard Wagner can be found on this release. These pieces are beautifully performed on this release by cellist Norbert Anger and pianist Michael Schöch.

Essener Philharmoniker / Tomáš Netopil GUSTAV MAHLER Symphony No. 9

Gustav Mahler was already very close to the after world, when he finished working on the 9th Symphony. So, the work is permeated by a permanent presentiment of death. At the same time, Mahler’s music vibrates full of vital energy, putting the listener in a melancholic, yet optimistic mood simultaneously. The result is a harrowing work with moving passages and violent explosions, mirroring Mahler’s personal drama between life and death. The present recording from the Essen Philharmonie is a perfect proof of all this.

Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester / Chor der Oper Frankfurt / Sebastian Weigle ALBAN BERG Wozzeck

Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, premiered at Lindenoper/ Berlin in 1925, is regarded as one of the key music compositions of the 20th century and an essential work in any connoisseur’s collection – Frankfurt Opera, under the baton of Sebastian Weigle, delivers a razor-sharp and exciting interpretation. With Audun Iversen and Claudia Mahnke in the main roles the recording shows an ideal cast.

Rüdiger Lotter / Lyriarte THE ENIGMATIC ART OF ANTONIO AND FRANCESCO MARIA VERACINI

Two particularly spectacular personalities of the Baroque period, which was not short of exciting figures: Antonio Veracini, violin virtuoso, teacher and composer in Florence. Although he was a highly respected musician and teacher in his own time, only few of his works have survived. His nephew Francesco Maria, to whom he taught violin and composition, was a completely different type. Hotheaded, eccentric, ingenious – as he was described by his contemporaries. This character is reflected today in his works, which attest to an extraordinary freedom from conventions. On this CD the soloist Rüdiger Lotter finds a celebrity partner in the recorder player Dorothee Oberlinger. The Continuo part very well cast also promises an adventurous listening experience through the contrasting soundscapes of the Veracinis.

Roman Trekel / Oliver Pohl SCHUBERT Schwanengesang

The swan is famous for its song. The Indo-Germanic stem “suon/suen” stands for “moaning” or “resounding.” But can he really sing? The mute swan, common in the composer’s region, does not. The great white bird usually glides majestically yet silently over the water. The singing swan, a bird with a more upright neck that ever more frequently winters in Germany, is another case altogether. After Die Winterreise (Winter Journey) and Die schone Mullerin (The Fair Maid of the Mill), Roman Trekel has selected Schwanengesang (Swan Song) for his latest Lied- album available from Oehms Classics. He interprets well known titles from this cycle, such as Kriegers Ahnung (Warrior’s Foreboding), Liebesbotschaft (Love’s Message) and the famous Standchen (Serenade) with intelligence as well as a mature, warm voice. His regular piano partner, Oliver Pohl, accompanies him with sensitivity, at times with vigour as well. (Naxos)

Mona Asuka SCHUBERT - LISZT

Mona Asuka, the sister of Alice Sara Ott, demonstrated a great talent for music at a very young age. At four years old she performed as a guest artist at a competition in Munich’s Residenz. At eleven she appeared as a duo partner of Marcello Viotti with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester in a televised production of Ravel’s Ma mère l’oye, which has been broadcast several times on German television.

Mona Asuka made her orchestral debut aged 13. This was quickly followed by appearances with the Hong Kong Philharmonic and Edo de Waart, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg and Ivor Bolton, Philharmonia Orchestra London, Dresdner Kapellsolisten, Württembergisches Kammerorchester, Münchner Symphoniker, Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie and Staatskapelle Weimar. Performances in Japan have included the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Kanazawa under Kazuki Yamada and New Japan Philharmonic at Suntory Hall. 

Solo performances have taken her several times to the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, Festival La Roque d’Anthéron, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Kissinger Sommer, Moritzburg Festival, Next Generation Festival in Dortmund, Burghofspiele Eltville, Europäische Wochen Passau, Stuttgart’s Liederhalle and Zurich’s Tonhalle. 

In 2014 Mona Asuka was Artist-in-Residence at the Boswil Music Summer festival.

Elisabeth Brauss DEBUT

This is apparently the debut recording of the remarkable young artist Elisabeth Brauss. Born and trained in Hamburg, Brauss will be 22 this year, yet the maturity and sophistication of her thoughtful interpretations would be the pride of any pianist twice her age. In the last piece of her varied program, the Étude de couleurs for two pianos by the Bonn-based composer and cellist Michael Denhoff, Brauss is joined by Fabian Müller, demonstrating a lifelong commitment to chamber music.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this Beethoven D major Sonata is Brauss’s immense stylistic assurance. The opening Presto is fleet-footed without sounding pressured or rushed. Details are given their full due, from fermatas held not a second too long to delicate equilibrium maintained in the smallest phrase. Every gesture seems imbued with meaning and the whole motivated by an abundance of joy, with sly wit twinkling through from time to time. The tragic scena unfolding during the course of the Largo e mesto has all the more impact for its classically proportioned restraint. Brauss prepares and builds the movement’s climactic peak with consummate skill, lending the whispered final chords an all but unbearably desolate resignation. Never was a Minuet more welcome, and particularly this one with its exuberant Trio. The exquisite Rondo seems ebullient in the realisation that, the hard work accomplished, music may now run free.

Throughout the bristling rhythmic vitality, tricky voice-leading and constantly shifting harmonic colours of Prokofiev’s Second Sonata, Brauss never loses sight of the composer’s fundamental lyric impulse. She is also fully cognisant of the kinaesthetic sense that enabled Prokofiev to compose so effectively for the dance. When Prokofiev wants to raise a great noise, Brauss happily complies, just as, in the Scherzo for instance, she is able to generate a tightly wound, unstoppable motoric impulse. Embarking on the dark waters of the Andante is certainly mysterious but one feels a compass always at hand. Mocking parody and gaudy colours are woven into the circus antics of the finale, even as it scurries on its madcap course to an implacable cadence. Calling Brauss’s Prokofiev civilised would imply that it is somehow tamed, which is not the case. Better said, it is Prokofiev without brutality.

This passionate B flat minor Sonata occasionally verges on despair, redeemed always by the eloquence of Chopin’s rhetoric. The Scherzo’s volte-face to the Trio is a small miracle of characterisation. When the Trio is recalled at the end of the movement, it is suddenly recognisable as a portent of the Marche funèbre. Hushed restraint pervades that sad journey, funeral tolls heard from a distance. Out of this sombre cortège emanates a Trio that, in its ethereal poise, could be an aural avatar of Marie Taglioni’s appearance at the Paris Opéra ballet as the first Sylphide. The Presto finale conjures an apparition, indifferent to all that has transpired, its flight more felt than glimpsed, until its final dive brings the sonata to a defiant conclusion.

It is rare to encounter this degree of instrumental mastery wed to musical depth and sensitivity in one so young. Brauss’s exhilarating Beethoven is so thoroughly integrated that each movement is emotionally and spiritually amplified by what has gone before. Her original and unaffected Chopin-playing is fresh and a joy to listen to. If you find yourself uncertain about the future of the art of piano-playing, listening to Elisabeth Brauss could be the antidote.  (Patrick Rucker / Gramophone)

Christina Landshamer / Gerold Huber ULLMANN - SCHUMANN Lieder

Christina Landshamer was born in Munich and initially went to the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in the city, where she studied under Angelica Vogel, following which she studied in Konrad Richter’s singing classes and in Dunja Vejzović solo classes at the State University for Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart.

Following initial guest performances at the Stuttgart State Opera, she sang at the Opéra du Rhin in Strasburg under Marc Albrecht (Fidelio/Marzelline) as well as at the Komische Oper in Berlin (Susanna). In 2009 ‘the triumphant and virtuoso Christina Landshamer’ had her very successful debut at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna as Clarice in Haydn’s Il mondo della luna under Nikolaus Harnoncourt. This was followed by performances at the Paris Théâtre du Châtelet (with a stage version of the Messiah) and at the Salzburg Festival in Frau ohne Schatten (Hüter der Schwelle – Stage direction: Christof Loy) under Christian Thielemann in 2011. She performed at the Salzburg Festival again the following year as Frasquita in Carmen, this time under Sir Simon Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic. Also in 2012 she had her debut at the Baden-Baden Festival, again under Christian Thielemann (Ariadne auf Naxos, Najade). Later that year, Christina Landshamer made her highly acclaimed debut as Pamina in Simon McBurney‘s celebrated new production of Mozart’s Magic Flute at the Amsterdam Opera under Marc Albrecht. In 2014 she can be seen in Handel’s Rinaldo as Almirena in Glyndebourne. In 2015 she will collaborate again with Christian Thielemann (Freischütz/Ännchen), this time at the Semperoper in Dresden.

She is particularly fond of singing lieder: a recital of duets with Maximilian Schmitt at the Vienna Konzerthaus marks her first collaboration with Gerold Huber, with whom she had several guest performances in 2013 with a number of recitals, such as at the ‘Musik im Riesen” in the Essen Philharmonic and the Rheinvokal, with lieder by Schumann, Ullmann and Brahms. This season’s programme will be recorded on CD.

Apkalna BACH - GLASS

For her 2015 double-CD release on Oehms Classics, organist Iveta Apkalna has selected works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Philip Glass that make an interesting, if not wholly successful, pairing. Superficially, Bach's motoric polyphony and Glass' cycling patterns share a mechanical quality that might make them seem well-matched, especially on the organ. Yet Bach's works were composed specifically for the organ, with its differentiated voicings giving clarity to his counterpoint, while the Glass transcriptions were written for ensembles with rather uniform instrumental textures, creating an altogther different effect. That said, Apkalna demonstrates a technical brilliance in the Glass pieces that is comparable in speed and precision to the original versions, but she shows a deeper affinity for Bach, and her playing in this part of the program is dynamic, energetic, and personally expressive. While one may listen to the Glass CD once to see how well his music sounds on the organ, the Bach disc shows Apkalna at her best and invites repeated listening. The recording in the Himmerod Abbey captures the full resonance of the church acoustics, which seem to be well-suited to the bright sonorities of the Klais Organ. (Blair Sanderson)