Dorothea Schupelius and Jelizaveta Vasiljeva, the winners of the 2022 Fanny Mendelssohn Promotional Prize, released their debut album entitled #Wunderkammer ("Cabinet of Curiosities"). The album is based on an innovative winning concept, which won over the jury of renowned experts for the concept prize for young classical musicians. With #Wunderkammer, the duo for violin and piano embarks on a journey through music history. Performing works by Kreisler, Ravel, Toch, Korngold, Weill, and Morricone, the young musicians explore the influence of the media on music.#Wunderkammer - the very title of the duo's debut album already reveals how past and present are juxtaposed in an exciting contrast. Exploring the history of music, the two up-and-coming musicians have selected pieces for their winning concept that impressively show the reciprocal influence between media and music, thus creating their own musical "Wunderkammer" - a term used by rulers and academics during the Renaissance and Baroque for their collections of all kinds of art and curiosities. Fritz Kreisler's Andantino for Violin and Piano, for example, recalls the year 1923, when Funk-Stunde Berlin AG first broadcast music. Maurice Ravel's Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano was also written in 1923 - at a time when jazz from the USA was also reaching Europe via gramophone records. The second movement, "Blues", of his sonata is Ravel's second adaptation of the jazz style. Ernst Toch was an autodidact in music and then became a professor of composition. He was a composer for radio and one of the first to recognize the possibilities of this medium. Kurt Weill also experienced the heyday of the new medium of radio in Berlin in the 1920s. Not only did he write for the weekly magazine "Der Deutsche Rundfunk", but he also composed for the radio. His Tango Habanera was initially an instrumental piece and only later was supplemented with lyrics to become a song and a popular hit. In this song, Youkali is the unattainable island of longing where all dreams come true - so to speak, an illusion. Korngold's 'Much ado about Nothing' Suite for Violin and Piano, op.11, from 1920 is a work by the musician and composer who, after emigrating to the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s, was a master of late Romantic opulence, defining the sound texture of the Golden Age in Hollywood. "Cinema Paradiso" is a film about cinema - a tribute to the medium and art form of film. Ennio Morricone wrote the music for this film - from which the duo has chosen the well-known "Love Theme" for their album.
