NEW

LUDWIG QUANDT: SOLO

NEW

ESSENTIAL
<20 years of Ensemble Wien Berlin

MUSIQUE A VERSAILLES

Pleasure, intellectual entertainment with roguish thoughtfulness, skilled instrumental improvisation and of course also sensual experiences in the field of pictorially and theatrically inspired music at the court of Versailles - this is promised and can also be delivered by this combination of original compositions and arrangements with the "Trio Marie-Antoinette". The name of the ensemble - historically appropriate for music of this period - is an echo of the name of the baroque harp, which makes its entry in the trio.

Catalogue: C 130090

MOZART and SCHOENBERG

Entertainment in the cheerful, serious and comprehensive sense of the word

Mozart's Divertimento KV 563 and Schoenberg's String Trio op. 45: it is rare to find the juxtaposition of two compositions for identical instruments producing so many musicological and aesthetic cross-references. And understandably also a stimulus to new considerations, for example about the place that "entertainment" had in the context of the conception of "serious", high-quality music in earlier times or could justify today

Catalogue: C 130113

JOSEPH HAYDN
Bartolozzi Trios

Joseph Haydn dedicated several of his Piano Trios to women, for example the three trios Hob. XV: 27 to 29, which are dedicated to Therese Bartolozzi. The composer had probably met the 20 year-old daughter of an Aachen dancing teacher, then Therese Jansen, before her marriage. Haydn not only dedicated the three piano trios to her but also his last three piano sonatas Hob. XVI: 50 to 52. The technical demands that all these compositions make on the performer prove that Therese Jansen-Bartolozzi was a very good pianist.
It is no longer possible to discover what kind of relationship existed between this young women and Joseph Haydn, but it is certain that the virtuoso pianistic capabilities of the dedicatee determine the compositional structure of the three piano trios to a considerable amount.

Catalogue: C 130106

FRANZ AND RICHARD STRAUSS
Music for Horn and piano

Had his son Richard not become world famous for his tone poems and operas, Franz Strauss (1822-1905) would today surely be one of those forgotten musicians who were recognized as important artistic personalities in their lifetime. Franz Strauss became a living legend as a horn virtuoso, by "breathing soul, as it were, into the unthankful instrument", as on critic put it at the time. Even Richard Wagner hat to admit: "Old Strauss is an unbearable fellow, but when he plays the horn one can't really mind him".
This recording presents the complete works of Franz Strauss for horn and piano accompaniment.
It's no surprise that young Richard Strauss followed his father's taste both stylistically and in the choice of genre. With astonishing maturity, he created a work which can still hold its own in today's concert halls. It still makes the same demands on a horn-players ability, which caused Richard Strauss to consider revising it in order to render the "almost unperformable 'Variations' "playable "for human lungs and human lips, as he himself put it. It is not certain if such a revision took place. If so, it is not existent.

Catalogue: C 130120

***Viertelsjahrliste Deutscher Schallplattenpreis 1999***

FRANK MARTIN - JACQUES IBERT - WITOLD LUTOSLAWSKI
Concertante

Oboe, concertante with strings (J. lbert), oboe and harp as "Concertino" with strings (F. Martin), as well as with strings and percussion (Lutoslawski), constitute the central thematic idea for this CD. Nevertheless, although all three works were composed almost simultaneously after WW II, the contrast between them couldn't be greater: Martin's 3 South American dances juxtaposed with the Avant-Garde of Lutoslawski and lbert's Mediterranean forthrightness present a fascinating three-dimensioned musical spectrum.

Catalogue: C 130045

BENJAMIN BRITTEN
Chamber Music with Oboe

It was an oboist friend of the young Benjamin Britten who inspired the composer to write a number of works for the instrument, the most well-known being the Fantasy Quartet op. 2 and the Metamorphoses op.49 "Insect-Pieces" and "Temporal Variations", both for oboe and piano, were the first discovered after the composer's death. These four constitute Britten's complete oeuvre for oboe and they are combined on this CD with two other very personal works, his "Gemini Variations" and his Suite for harp.

Catalogue: C 130038

JOHANNES BRAHMS · HANS GÁL

 The sonatas written by Brahms late in his life for the Meiningen clarinetist Mühlfeld are well known and have been recorded many times. What makes this release interesting is the coupling of the Brahms works with the Sonata by the Hungarian Hans Gál, Brahms adoring biographer and a Viennese composer in his own right.

Catalogue: C 130052

CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL (J.S.) BACH
Sonatas

As royal Court Composer and Harpsichordist for Frederick the Great of Prussia, C.Ph.E. Bach's compositions were principally for his own instrument and that of the king, namely the flute. What is largely unknown is that he was also responsible for the first major solo harp sonata as well as a number of important oboe works. Today it is widely accepted that flute pieces of that time could be legitimately performed on the oboe or violin, therefore not only C.Ph.E. Bach's A minor flute sonata, but also the three sonatas erroneously attributed to J. S. Bach, profit from the new tonal spectrum offered by the oboe.

Catalogue: C 130021

MOZART IN DER BAUERNMUSIK

This CD is the most personal as well as intimate production within the whole series of our label: it connects adaptations of Mozart's pieces for the bavarian folk harp and double-bass with the original folk music of his time. Programmatically this CD walks along the borderline between the original longly backrooted austrian/bavarian folk music in the 18th century and its classical neighbors focused on W.A. Mozart. 

Catalogue: C 130076

JOSEPH HAYDN
Divertimenti for Winds

As a young composer before his long and successful time as music director at Esterhazy's castle Haydn was employed as music director at the bohemian castle of Count Morzine. In the 18th century those courts used to have a so-called "Harmoniemusik", a group of windplayers plus double-bass instead of a full orchestra and it was the "Harmoniemusik" at Morzine's for which Haydn wrote his 8 Divertimenti. They are also called "Feldparthien" which indicates that - at most of he serenades or cassationes - this music is designed to be played open-air.

Catalogue: C 130069

L. v. BEETHOVEN
Early Wind Music

Before the 22 years old Beethoven had left his home-city Bonn to become pupil of Haydn in Vienna (from 1792 on) for whom he wrote his op. 1, a group of three piano trios, he worked a lot with the musicians of the "Bonner Hofkapelle" which - influenced by the famous "Mannheimer Hofkapelle" - had excellent oboists as well as other wind players. This explains the big amount of pieces written for wind ensembles of the young Beethoven. On this CD you find a representative selection of this oeuvre which was written entirely before op. 1 yet shows already a lot of the typical profile of Beethoven's musical language. It is interesting to see that later on the composer did not return to this genre of music apart of very few exceptions.

Catalogue: C 130083

ROBERT UND CLARA SCHUMANN
Romances

Although the oboe was a centrally important instrument during the 17th and 18th centuries, it fell into near oblivion during the 19th century. The musical tastes of the elegant Bourgeoisie audiences now leaned more toward the newly developed clarinet with its fascinating legato and technical possibilities. Nonetheless we are indebted to Robert Schumann for his three wonderful Romances, written not only for oboe but for other instruments too. His wife, Clara, wrote Romances initially for the violin and, just like her husband's practice regarding wind instruments, she intended these to be performed in differing instrumentations. The primary motivation for this CD can be found in the proximity of the oboe to the human voice and just as Romances are like sung declarations of love, so it is only a short step to include actual Lieder by Schumann.

Catalogue: C 130014