Erwin Schulhoff

The Piano Duo Danhel-Kolb perform a recital of Czech music for piano, four hands on their GENUIN debut CD. The disc includes a world premiere recording: Ilja Hurnik’s elegantly brilliant and rhythmically gripping Variations on a Theme of Pergolesi. This is inspiring piano playing and the repertoire is very exciting.

During his short life Erwin Schulhoff absorbed a wide range of musical styles. The jazz-inspired Partita includes witty takes on the Tango, Foxtrot and Shimmy. Further synthesis comes in the Suite No. 3, written for the left hand alone, which adapts folk and jazz influences in a bracingly novel way, while the Variations and Fugue reveals indebtedness to Debussy, with whom Schulhoff studied.

Another orchestral tour de force from Sascha Goetzel and this outstanding orchestra: after their acclaimed debut recording for ONYX of Respighi, Florent Schmitt and Hindemith, the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra and their charismatic Viennese music director have devised a fascinating programme of ballet music composed during the turbulent inter-war years of the 20th century.

The music reflects the edgy, dangerous and turbulent political and social landscape of the period. This is music of great rhythmic vitality: Ravel’s refracted memories of a vanished Habsburg Vienna destroyed by the 1914–18 War, to the primitive barbarism of Prokofiev’s 'Scythian Suite' and the lurid violence of Bartok’s 'Miraculous Mandarin' with its themes of lust, criminality, prostitution and murder.

Schulhoff’s ballet 'Ogelala' like Prokofiev’s score concerns pagan rituals and warring tribes, and a young couple who are meant to kill each other, but end up falling in love.

Holst’s comic opera, 'The Perfect Fool', written in 1918–22, begins with a ballet which is danced by Spirits of Earth, Water and Fire. The score is brilliant – and though less concerned with human drama than the other works on this disc, the drive, energy and sheer brilliance of Holst’s score is very much of its time.

To coincide with the 30th anniversary of Gidon Kremer’s Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival in Austria, ECM releases a 5-CD box set of recordings from 1981-2008. Out-of-print material reappears here, joined by never-before-released recordings of Richard Strauss (conducted by Simon Rattle) and Messiaen.

Edition Lockenhaus is the first New Series release in ECM’s Old & New Masters range, produced as specially-priced limited edition, with 60-page booklet. It includes recordings from 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, and 1986 – previously issued as Edition Lockenhaus Volumes 1/2 and 4/5 (ECM 1304/05 and 1347/48). These have been long unavailable on CD and LP, and are eagerly sought-after by Kremer aficionados. Lockenhaus has been, above all, a young musicians’ festival and some of the very greatest have appeared there, alongside Gidon Kremer, early in their careers – including players strongly associated with ECM: Kim Kashkashian, Thomas Zehetmair, Thomas Demenga, Robert Levin, Heinz Holliger and more.

The edition opens with unreleased recordings – from 2001 and 2008 – with Sir Simon Rattle and Roman Kofman conducting Kremerata Baltica in revelatory performances of Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen and Olivier Messiaen’s Trois petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine. The committed interpretations convey the spirit of Lockenhaus. (Kremer himself has described Rattle’s conducting of Richard Strauss’s music as “unforgettable”).

Discs two to five focus on music by César Franck, André Caplet, Francis Poulenc, Leos Janácek, Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich and Erwin Schulhoff.

Amsterdam Sinfonietta has combined a romantic masterpiece of the string orchestra repertoire with two wild compositions from the inter-war period. Dvorák, Haas, and Schulhoff hardly make a conventional mixture, but all three of these composers had their roots in a region which was known for many centuries as “Bohemia.” One can hear this common ground in the rhythmic diversity, the influence of folk music, and the melodic inventiveness that characterizes their music.

Amsterdam Sinfonietta occupies a unique position on the Dutch music scene as professional string orchestra. It is regularly invited to perform in concert halls throughout the world as one of the very few large-scale string ensembles on the international scene. What sets Amsterdam Sinfonietta apart from the ‘regular’ chamber orchestras is the top priority it gives to a ‘chamber music mentality’. Every one of its musicians assumes the responsibilities of a solo player. This approach gives a high level of involvement on the part of the musicians when they perform as an ensemble, resulting in performances of rare dynamism and intensity that involve the listener in a vibrant live music experience. Usually the ensemble plays without conductor under the direction of Candida Thompson, concertmaster since 1995, who was appointed artistic director in 2003.

The Amsterdam Sinfonietta’s Walton/Beethoven disc CCSSA23005 was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice in 2005.

The renowned Schoenberg Quartet was founded in 1976 and gave their final concert on 16th May 2009. To mark their last performances, Etcetera have released two boxed sets. This one features a wide range of repertoire taken from both exceptional re-releases and new recordings from their 33rd season.