Info text: Second NEOS recording with the fabulous Swiss clarinetist and composer Matthias Mueller Boris Tchaikovsky's Clarinet Concerto is presented here by NEOS as the first Western European recording. The work of the composer, who lived in the communist USSR, inspires with its Russian soul and playful insouciance. A concert far away from the Western European avant-garde trends that exudes joyful music with charm and nonchalance. Debussy's […]

Info text: Matthias Mueller impressively demonstrates that this wind instrument is suitable for virtuosity. Rossini's variations celebrate the romantic and bravura brilliance. The brand new clarinet concerto, which the Swiss soloist wrote for himself, focuses on tonal finesse and rhythmic variability. In the recorded solo works, these characteristics are taken to the extreme. In addition to the classics […]

Info text: “One hundred years of new music – what now?” The question thrown into the room by the organizer provokes different positions. Enno Poppe retreats to a dusty corner, Isabel Mundry to a philosophical hall of mirrors. Ben Johnston celebrates his late Donaueschinger debut with the “Quintet for groups”. Brice Pauset, Arnulf Herrmann and Bernhard Gander let their [...]

Info text: Borboudakis enjoys studying ancient mythology and philosophy as well as modern science and technology. For Peter Sadlo he wrote a drum concerto about “the primordial” (“Archégonon”), for the ensemble spectral a string quartet about “the number four” (“Tetractýs”) and a sextet about “alloys” (“Krámata”). In the “Photonic constructions” he argues with Ensemble Modern about the wave-particle dualism of light. […]

Info text: The Munich-born Paul Ben-Haim, once assistant to Bruno Walter and Knappertsbusch at the State Opera, then Kapellmeister in Augsburg, then unemployed and refugee, experienced a late rediscovery by the Munich Jakobsplatz Orchestra. Daniel Grossmann presents works from the years in which the composer was building a new life for himself in Israel: his “Sonata in G”, which he […]

Info text: Literary fixed stars stimulate Peter Ruzicka to continually explore new musical aspects. By reflecting on the language skepticism of Celan, Hofmannsthal and Hölderlin in his quartets, he examines his own thinking and feelings. Guided by a sharp, controlling mind, he dares to look inwards, into the depths of the soul. Violent emotional outbursts appear tied back to a […]

Info text: Consistent in her thinking and resistant to any form of opportunism, she had to remain silent in the Soviet Union for years, but she was not broken. Galina Ustvolskaya lived and survived in a narrow, narrow space. To call their music “protest” would be too short-sighted – it was simply “different”. The complete recording of her piano works by Sabine [...]

Info text: Musica Viva: Festival 2008 Top-class orchestras, choirs and soloists organized the first Musica Viva Festival together at the beginning of 2008. This selection of photographs shows perspectives and possible lines of tradition. “Symphonie L'Œuvre” (1937/38) by Karl Amadeus Hartmann, a plea for the freedom of thoughts and sounds, becomes a source of inspiration for contemporary confessional music: Matthias Pintscher’s “Hérodiade Fragments” […]

Info text: Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher reach for the stars: A cold, glittering vision of the young Péter Eötvös of the growth and decay of the cosmos forms the center of their new recital, which is staged as a flight through musical worlds. Dance and song studies from Béla Bartók's “microcosm” are viewed longingly, as if from the distance of space. […]

Info text: Orchestral music for piano four hands, interpreted precisely and simply: Franz Schubert's “Grand Duo” from 1824 in comparison with the 5th Symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich from 1937 (in an arrangement authorized by the composer). Here the reduction of a real orchestral sound - there a romantic desire for expression that pushes the limits of the instrument, [...]

Info text: Aperghis started working on the naked, unalienated piano sound relatively late - the results are all the more concentrated. Nicholas Hodges has been drawing a summary of the pieces since 1997: He emphasizes the clarity, the sharp lines, the luminosity of the colors. He transforms graceful movement into frenzy and back again. He lets rhythms and harmonies tumble wildly together, [...]

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 […]