2 CD's

Info text: JOACHIM RAFF – PAUL JUON – ANTON ARENSKI Works for two pianos Symphony for four hands Anyone who is interested in the music of the German Romantic period may have already come across the Swiss composer Joachim Raff (1822–1882). Although the works of the composer, who was born in Lachen in the canton of Schwyz, have been played more often in recent years [...]

Info text: ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810–1856): Kreisleriana op. 16 In what was apparently only a four-day creative frenzy, Schumann's half-hour cycle of "Fantasy Pieces for the Piano" was created in April 1838 - expanded by an eighth in May. The title is identical to a collection of seemingly unrelated sketches, Kreisleriana - plural of Kreislerianum -, from the estate of the fictional bandmaster Johannes [...]

Info text: THE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS Considerations for tempo design Whether it was ever intended to play the Goldberg Variations as a cycle can never be fully clarified. Reports from those around Johann Sebastian Bach, who composed this work around 1740, give reason for a different interpretation. The Bach biographer Johann Nicolaus Forkel speaks around 1800 on the basis of [...]

Info text: CÉSAR FRANCK - FROM HARMONIUM TO ACCORDION Pièces pour harmonium (1890), published under the title L'Organiste (1892), transferred to the accordion (Doris Bertschinger, 2019) Five cycles of seven pieces each in the keys C to E chromatically ascending order Anyone who knows the great works of the great masters usually has no idea about the miniatures or […]

Info text: Homage to Heinrich Schiff 17 CD box with 62 works by 30 composers, including 25 first releases of the recordings Orchestras and ensembles: Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Berlin Philharmonic, Camerata Salzburg, The Vienna Wind Ensemble, German State Philharmonic Rhineland-Palatinate, Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, NDR Sinfonieorchester Hamburg, Northern Sinfonia, […]

Info text: AN AENEAS, AN DIDO… Simon A. Rosenbaum talks to Gilead Mishory about his cycle and the context of this CD SAR: How did you come up with Aeneas of all things? GM: I heard the story of Dido and Aeneas from my father as a child before he went to sleep. The ancient myths probably also have his childlike world [...]

Info text: Transcriptions "Four hands, once again" (with a wistful emphasis on one) was the title of Theodor W. Adorno's text that he wrote in the year of disaster 1933 for a December issue of the Vossische Zeitung and in which he said goodbye to a music-making practice that Part of his childhood and youth was: playing four-handed at home “on the piano as a piece of furniture” […]

Info text: The history of the Christmas album When I decided at the beginning of 2008 to design a Christmas album for SOS Children's Villages, I had no idea how much wonderful support the project would receive. I also had no idea what a challenge this CD would mean for everyone involved. The engagement threatened to fail more than once. I am all the more grateful […]

Info text: The internationally renowned Henschel Quartet celebrated its long-awaited return to the United Kingdom with a concert at London's Wigmore Hall on July 23, 2008 (together with the famous Japanese viola star Kazuki Sawa), where they performed the recently rediscovered String Quintet in E flat major by Max Bruch premiered. The quintet lasts just under 20 minutes. 1918 as […]

Info text: Fleeting waltzes as 'permanent music' "Unfortunately not from me," Johannes Brahms once wrote under the opening bars of the waltz On the Beautiful Blue Danube, and there are numerous testimonies of Brahms' admiration of the waltz king Johann Strauss and their mutual appreciation. The waltz was not only a distinctive idiom of the Habsburg imperial capital Vienna in the 19th century, but [...]

Info text: NEOS is offering an absolute special feature for Christmas 2008: a newly discovered Christmas mass from the 15th century! Rupert Huber, director of the WDR Rundfunkchor Cologne, was looking for a program for the 2007 Christmas concert. A musician friend drew his attention to an old book that her father had given her as a gift. As it turned out, […]