Julian Prégardien / Martin Helmchen / Christian Tetzlaff / Florian Donderer / Rachel Roberts / Tanja Tetzlaff / Marie-Elisabeth Hecker SCHUBERT Schwanengesang - String Quintet

 

SCHWANENGESANG - STRING QUINTET

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

 

PIANO CONCERTO 3 - TRIPLE CONCERTO

 

Marie-Elisabeth Hecker / Antwerp Symphony Orchestra / Edo de Waart ELGAR Cello Concerto - Piano Quintet

Cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker made her international breakthrough with her sensational success at the 8th Rostropovich Competition in Paris in 2005, where she became the first contestant in the event's history to win the first prize as well as two special prizes. Since then Hecker has become one of the most sought-after soloists and chamber musicians of her generation, recognised for her deep expression and natural affinity for the cello, with Die Zeit describing her playing as "heartbreakingly sad and instinctively beautiful". 

After making several discs of chamber music by Brahms and Schubert, the cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker now records a large-scale concerto, showing the full range of her talent. Composed between 1918 and 1919, Elgar’s Concerto Op.85 was poorly received at its first performance but has since become established as one of the key works in the cello repertoire. To complete the programme, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker rejoins her chamber music partners, the violinists Carolin Widmann and David McCarroll, the violist Pauline Sachse and the pianist Martin Helmchen, in Elgar’s Piano Quintet, composed at the same time as the Concerto and premiered in London in 1919.

Marie-Elisabeth Hecker / Martin Helmchen BRAHMS Cello Sonatas

When Brahms played through his First Cello Sonata with its dedicatee, Josef Gänsbacher, the cellist apparently complained that he couldn’t hear himself over the piano. ‘Lucky you,’ muttered Brahms. There’s no such problem on this new disc from Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and Martin Helmchen. As Hecker calmly, eloquently shapes her low-lying opening melody, Helmchen’s off beat piano chords don’t so much drive the rhythm as hang from her line – helped by a recording that places the cello ever so slightly forward.

That’s no bad thing. Brahms may have followed Beethoven’s cue in describing these pieces as sonatas for piano and cello, rather than the other way around, but there’s no question that balance can be an issue. Not here; both instruments come through clear and unforced, enabling Hecker to take the lead in shaping a performance of the First Sonata that’s essentially lyrical and poetic. She doesn’t dominate, mind. The booklet-notes make much of the fact that Helmchen and Hecker are husband and wife, but this is real duo playing, with each player stepping forwards or conceding the musical argument without any grandstanding. That pays rich dividends in the more extrovert and fantastical Second Sonata (a sister work, in spirit, to the Third Symphony). Helmchen’s majestic swell of sound in the centre of the Adagio affettuoso makes as much musical and colouristic sense as Hecker’s forceful pizzicatos.

Any new recording of these two sonatas is up against competition ranging from du Pré and Barenboim to Alban Gerhardt and Markus Groh, and 53 minutes of music is not exactly generous (others offer Brahms transcriptions or Schumann cello music). But if you’re after a thoughtful and musicianly pairing of these two works alone, you won’t be disappointed. (Richard Bratby / Gramophone)

Martin Helmchen FRANZ SCHUBERT Forellen Quintet

With hundreds of recorded performances of Schubert's "Trout" Quintet available, what is it that distinguished this 2009 PentaTone disc from the rest? Partially the playing, partially the couplings, and partially the sound. Played by pianist Martin Helmchen, violinist Christian Tetzlaff, violist Antoine Tamestit, cellist Marie Elisabeth Hecker, and double bassist Alois Posch, this "Trout" is light, lively, and lyrical, with a singing tone, a smiling interpretation, and a vivacious feeling for rhythm. The players are first-rate by themselves and outstanding as an ensemble, with a tight but relaxed grasp of form and an intuitive sense of tempo. The couplings here are rather unusual: the Variations on Trockne Blumen for flute and piano and the Notturno for piano trio, the former receiving a polished and appealing account by pianist Helmchen with wooden flutist Aldo Baerten and the latter getting a broadly paced but beautifully sculpted reading by Helmchen, Tetzlaff, and Hecker. And the super audio sound by the Dutch PentaTone label is so realistic one cannot only hear Baerten breathe, one can almost smell the wood of his flute. Longtime listeners may already have their favorite recordings of the "Trout" Quintet, but by virtue of the playing, the couplings, and the sound, this one deserves to be at least sampled. (James Leonard)

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.