Estelle Revaz / L'Orchestre de Chambre de Genève / Arie van Beek JOURNEY TO GENEVA

 

JOURNEY TO GENEVA

Münchner Symphoniker / Kevin John Edusei FRANZ SCHUBERT Symphonie Nr. 3 - Symphonie Nr. 7 E-Dur

SYMPHONIE Nr. 3 - SYMPHONIE Nr. 7 E-DUR

Margarita Höhenrieder / Julius Berger BEETHOVEN Complete Works for Piano & Cello

COMPLETE WORKS FOR PIANO & CELLO

Fabiola Kim / Münchner Symphoniker / Kevin John Edusei 1939

The 1930s proved to be a bumper decade for violin concertos, and 1939 was the most productive year of all, with these three works seeing fruition (the Walton and Hartmann were both later revised), as well as concertos by Britten, Hindemith and Gál – any of which, incidentally, would have fitted on the rather skimpily filled second disc. Korean–American violinist Fabiola Kim proves an ideal exponent of all three concertos. There’s real warmth to her playing in the Walton, with some perceptive interplay between her and Kevin John Edusei’s Munich musicians. A particular strength is the variety of tone colours she displays, especially in the mercurial closing section of the central ‘alla napolitana’ Scherzo.

Hartmann’s Concerto funèbre is the only work of the three here that demonstrably reflects the wider state of the world in that fateful year, and Kim’s first entry is filled with fragile foreboding, matched with sombre retorts from the richly hued Munich strings. The main Allegro di molto has as much anger as vigour, and dissolves into the closing funeral march with a melancholy inevitability as Kim’s keening lines peal away into an uncertain future.

Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto was written as he faced the dilemma of whether to stay in Hungary or flee, and the result is one of the most overtly Magyar of his late works. Kim gives a heartfelt performance that taps its emotions as much as it exploits its unashamed playfulness, and again there’s vigorous, characterful orchestral support. This, then, is a highly satisfying concerto collection, all in excellently recorded sound.

Margarita Höhenrieder CLARA & ROBERT SCHUMANN Piano Works

Margarita Höhenrieder writes of her new release: "After just a few notes on this exceptionally fine Pleyel grand piano in Kellinghusen, north of Hamburg, in a collection of Eric Feller’s, I found myself plunged into a different century. This pianoforte was built in Paris in about 1855 and professionally restored using historical materials and methods. It is absolutely uniform with the instrument that Chopin possessed, and is of typically French elegance – in sound as well as in appearance. It reflects the soul of the Romantic era. Apart from that, it offers an authentic testimony to the sound of the instruments that Fryderyk Chopin and Robert and Clara Schumann played. Clara’s father, Friedrich Wieck, gave his daughter a Streicher grand, built in Vienna. Personally, I saw this Pleyel as the ideal instrument on which to play the works of Robert and Clara Schumann as authentically as possible while also matching as precisely as possible the exacting demands they place on piano technique. The constant aspiration in today’s music world towards ever larger and more versatile instruments and architecturally and acoustically challenging auditoria meant that I was in search of a convincingly authentic sound for compositions written in and around the 1830s, while also looking out for a suitable performance location – comparable to a mid-19th-century salon and differing from today’s concert halls."

Mikhail Pochekin J.S. BACH Sonatas & Partitas BWV 1001 - 1006

Mikhail Pochekin is one of the most captivating violinists of his generation. He appears with many renowned orchestras including the Mariinsky Theater Symphony, the Russian National Orchestra, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic, the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia “Evgeny Svetlanov”, the Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra or the Lithuanian National Orchestra and worked together with conductors such as Heinz Holliger, Vassily Sinaisky, Yuri Simonov, Kevin Griffiths, Valentin Uryupin, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Dimitris Botinis, Mei-Ann Chen or Alexander Sladkovsky.

“Pure and penetrating” was the violin playing of Johann Sebastian Bach according to the tradition of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel: “He fully understood the possibilities of all violin instruments. This is testified by his soli for violin and cello without bass. One of the greatest violinists once told me that he had seen nothing more perfect to become a good violinist and he could advise nothing better than the violin soli without bass mentioned above.” When Carl Philipp Emanuel addressed these words in a letter to the musicologist and early Bach biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel in 1774, Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin were known to a still manageable, albeit growing circle of enthusiasts.

Münchner Symphoniker / Kevin John Edusei FRANZ SCHUBERT Symphonie Nr. 5 - Symphonie Nr. 6

The recording presented here is dedicated to the last two symphonies of Franz Schubert’s earlier compositional period. Both are united by their emergence in the atmosphere of the amateur orchestra founded by Otto Hatwig, in which Franz played the viola, and his brother Ferdinand the violin. This orchestra was a stroke of luck for the young Schubert, akin to a laboratory where he could thoroughly test his compositions against the works of composing contemporaries such as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Méhul, and in real world conditions. Nevertheless, in their compositional intent, the symphonies are so fundamentally different that it is tempting to present these two dissimilar siblings on one CD. As one of the city’s four symphony orchestras, the Munich Symphony is strongly committed to Munich and its musical traditions. Kevin John Edusei is one of today's most promising young conductors.

Marlis Petersen / Camillo Radicke DIMENSIONEN - ANDERSWELT

The Otherworld... The human being rooted in the world that sees only what the eye can see… Does he at once dare a glance to the side where nature, spirits and elemental beings reside? Not many of us have kept the ability to view them and get in contact. This release offers you the ‘Otherworldly’ eye from the early Romantic period up to the classical modernism, including the Northern countries (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland), and now hope you allow yourself to be "lost to the world"… Plunge into the magical world of twilight - populated with elemental spirits, elves, waterlilies, nymphs and merman. The creatures of the unseen are the protagonists of this classical song album and tempt the listener into their legendary realms. Carl Loewe, Johannes Brahms, Max Reger, Nikolai Medtner, Hugo Wolf, Alexander Zemlinsky, Franz Schreker, Hans Sommer and many more engaged themselves in this mystic world and set it in music in a very sensual and playful way!

Rebekka Hartmann / Salzburg Chamber Soloists / Lavard Skou Larsen OUT OF THE SHADOW

Rebekka Hartmann is the winner of several national and international awards. Her international concert activities brought her together with conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Justus Frantz, Salvador Mas Conde, Esa Pekka Salonen, Jukka Pekka Saraste and Enoch zu Guttenberg. Her repertoire comprises the complete spectrum of violin literature from early Baroque to contemporary music and new compositions, of which she has also performed some first recordings and world premieres like works for solo violin by Håkan Larsson and Anders Eliasson. In 2012 Rebekka Hartmann was awarded the ECHO Classic-Prize in the category „Best solo recording of the year” for her CD „Birth of the Violin“(2011, Solo Musica). Rebekka Hartmann performs on an Antonio Stradivarius violin from 1675.

The Salzburg Chamber Soloists have completed four extensive tours of South America to date. For the 250th Mozart Anniversary in 2006, the The Salzburg Chamber Soloists were invited by the city of Salzburg to perform a Best of Mozart concert series. They then continued these celebrations on two extensive tours of the USA and Mexico, visiting cities including Washington, Boston, San Francisco, Indianapolis and Mexico City.

Sonja Leutwyler / Astrid Leutwyler / Benjamin Engeli HYMNE À LA BEAUTÈ

Hymne à la beauté' brings together rarely heard gems of chamber music in delightful arrangements for voice, violin and piano, passionately performed by the aspiring and outstanding Swiss artists Sonja Leutwyler (mezzo soprano), Astrid Leutwyler (violin) and Benjamin Engeli (piano). This programme of discoveries features captivating works by Louis Spohr, Johannes Brahms, Charles Ives, Camille Saint-Saëns, Felix Petyrek, Czesaw Marek and Ottorino Respighi. On a special commission for this CD, the Swiss composer Martin Wettstein has composed the piece 'Hymne à la beauté (hymn to beauty)' for mezzo soprano, violin and piano after a poem by Charles Baudelaire.

Elena Moşuc VERDI HEROINES

Although Elena Moşuc is first and foremost a bel canto specialist and performer of various Mozart heroines for dramatic coloratura soprano, it must be noted that Giuseppe Verdi’s stage works have always been an integral part of her repertoire and will play an even more prominent part of it in the future. Since Maria Callas these roles are sung with heavier and above all dramatic voices. Nowadays this is considered common property. However, one should always keep in mind that these roles – in terms of requirements and stylistics – can not be separated from the era of bel canto and even in Verdi’s times were sung or composed explicitly by leading bel canto primadonnas for these types of voices , Elena Moşuc began her brilliant international career at the Zurich Opera House. Guest appearances take place at the most important houses and festivals in the world (including the opera houses of Amsterdam, Barcelona, ​​Berlin, Hamburg, Milan, Munich, Vienna, Salzburg, Paris, London, Helsinki, Rome, Venice, Verona) as well as in the USA at the MET, in Japan, China and Korea.

Martina Filjak PIANO

One of the most exciting young artists to emerge in recent years, Martina Filjak is garnering international praise for her poetic passion and technical mastery at the keyboard as well as for her charismatic personality and magnetic stage presence.

Martina Filjak came to international attention by winning the Gold Medal, the 1st prize and the Beethoven prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2009, which brought her numerous engagements in the United States and internationally. Prior to that, she won 1st prizes at the Maria Canals Piano Competition (Barcelona) and the Viotti Piano Competition (Vercelli), and was a laureate at the Busoni Piano Competition.

In recent years, Ms Filjak has performed with esteemed orchestras including The Cleveland Orchestra, San Diego Symphony Orchestra, The Florida Orchestra, the Strasbourg Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony, Bilbao Symphony and the Granada Symphony; the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, the Staatskapelle Weimar; the Israel Chamber Orchestra as well as the Orchestre Symphonique de Nancy. She has been heard in major international venues such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus Berlin, l’Auditori and Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Sala Verdi in Milan, Salle Gaveau in Paris, Musikverein and the Konzerthaus in Vienna, NDR Hall in Hannover, Residenz in Munich, Auditorio Nacional in Madrid.

Her most recent conductor collaborations include JoAnn Falletta, Michael Schonwandt, Christoph Poppen, Hans Graf, Sebastian Lang–Lessing, Josep Caballe-Domenech, Tito Munoz, Christopher Warren-Green and Stefan Sanderling.

The artist’s extensive repertoire ranges from Bach to Berio and encompasses more than 30 piano concertos. She is dedicated to continuous exploring of piano literature and various concert formats. Performing with orchestra takes the biggest part of her time and she frequently states that she enjoys the interaction and the exchange of energy between so many musicians on the stage.

An avid chamber musician, she frequently takes part in chamber music festivals, and has participated in the recording of Schumann's Andante and Variations with cellists Jan Vogler and Christian Poltera, released on Sony Classical (August 2013). Her recording of Sonatas by Padre Antonio Soler was released in 2011 on the Naxos label.

During the 2014-2015 season, Miss Filjak appears in Brazil and Japan and performs with the Osaka Century Symphony Orchestra and Alan Buribayev, the Slovenian Philharmonic and Marcelo Lehninger, the Sinfonieorchester Aachen and Kazem Abdullah, the Zagreb Philharmonic and Hans Graf. She debuts with the Orchestra Sinfonica La Verdi in Milano as well as at Milan's Serate Musicali. Upcoming performances in 2015-16 feature her with the Staatskapelle Halle and Josep Caballe Domenech, the Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra and Markus Poschner, the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra and Stefan Sanderling, the Phoenix Symphony and Tito Munoz the San Antonio Symphony and Karina Canellakis, the Las Vegas Philharmonic and Donato Cabrera, and the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra and David Danzmayr in performances of concerti by Beethoven, Ravel, Brahms, Saint-Saens and Rachmaninov.

Martina speaks seven languages. Fortunately, for an active performer, she loves to travel.

Marija Vidovic ANMUT My Favorite Arias

“I am especially pleased to introduce to you a young singer, Marija Vidovic. In describing her voice, the words that come spontaneously to me are qualities like grace, sweetness and mellowness, and when it comes to her personality, I think of authenticity, charisma and above all elegance. All of those qualities amount to something special, something which anyone who loves music and the vocal art is always looking for but seldom finds: magic. I have often been witness to the spell she casts on her audience when performing. Allow yourself to be enchanted!” Francisco Araiza 

Marija Vidovic has performed regularly in concerts and song recitals in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Croatia, Italy, China and Mexico. Her Opera Arias CD will premiere in September 2015, with the Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Francisco Araiza.