Franz Peter Schubert

A tribute to the deceased in September 2008 German-Argentine composer Mauricio Kagel.

When in the spring of 2003 we approached Maurico Kagel with the request to examine the possibility of composing a piece for saxophone trio, we were shortly afterwards absolutely delighted to receive his very friendly reply. This was that our CD which we had sent him had pleased him very much; with regard to his composing something however, he could not give us much hope as his calendar was completely full for the next few years.

"… yet I have an idea which might be helpful to you: Among my compositions is "Der mündliche Verrat" (The oral treason) a stage work, for which I at first wrote a piano score. It's made up entirely of relatively short character pieces, and I'm sure something good could be selected from these. For "Trahison Orale" I haven't prescribed any particular orchestration, but have made a sort of piano score, because this seemed to me to be the most suitable form in which to put my intentions into effect. One of the most important lessons we can learn from Romanticism is the primacy of the musical substance over a specific tone colour: if your power of imagination is impressive enough, then with interchangeable instruments a means of expression can be found which will do it justice."

Mauricio Kagel, from a letter to Sax Allemande

In 1816 - 1817 Schubert composed the two string trios which we selected for this recording. The opus D471, with its complete first movement and second movement which survives only as a fragment, makes up the formal framework of the CD. Optimism and joie de vivre in the neo-classical Allegro start the recording off, with the melancholy of the fragmental movement ending it with no really comprehensible closure. Incorporated along with this, the complete opus D581, composed in 1817, forms a dialogue with the music of Mauricio Kagel.

"In the course of our approach to the "Kagel Schubert Project", it was almost uncanny experiencing how the two musical spheres moved towards one another. Transitions and editing points engendered a mutual diffusion of the musical material; allowing the Schubert to be heard in the Kagel, and the Kagel in the Schubert."

Sax Allemande

The Quatuor Terpsycordes performs on instruments made by the Vuillaume studio of luthiers, kindly leant by the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva. The instruments have been prepared for historical performance with gut strings and have been tuned for this recording to A430.

Jan Vermeulen presents Vol. 4 of his unique series of recordings. “It’s a real treat to hear some of Schubert’s finest works for piano so well played on a Streicher und Sohn exactly contemporary with the music.” Richard Maunder Early Music Review

Written for the virtuoso Ferdinand Bogner, the Variations on Trockne Blumen from Die schöne Müllerin, Schubert’s only original composition for flute and an instrumental tour de force, takes its theme from the climactic song of the cycle The Fair Maid of the Mill.

Six other songs, from Schubert’s final cycle, Winterreisse, and the posthumous Schwanengesang, arranged for flute and piano by his contemporary Theobald Boehm, complement a highly effective transcription of the much-loved Arpeggione Sonata by the renowned flautist and conductor Uwe Grodd.

The Rotorua Post from Grodd’s native New Zealand praised the flautist-conductor’s “purity of sound and refined musicianship.”

Revered for his incomparable Lieder, Franz Schubert was also an avid operagoer who yearned, largely in vain, for success as a composer of stage works.

This disc features several of his less familiar early overtures, from Der Spiegelritter and Der Teufel als Hydraulicus (circa 1811/2) and his first completed opera, the Medieval fantasy Des Teufels Lustschloss (1813/4), to the Overture in B flat (1816).

It is hard to believe that such accomplished and effective music was the work of a teenager.

A collection of outstanding Monteux public performances from Boston presented in high fidelity sound; includes several works not available on Monteux’s studio recordings, such as violin concertos by Bartók and Symanovski, Schumann’s “Rhenish” Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Concert Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra and Hamlet, and Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony.