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Hänssler Classic is proud to announce the latest release from the phenomenally gifted young cellist, Johannes Moser. This new CD is the first in a series intended to document the period between Johannes Brahms' move to Vienna in 1869 and the musical innovations that culminated in Arnold Schoenberg's "Method of Composing with Twelve Tones…" in the 1920s. In addition to a compelling performance of Brahms' Cello Sonata in F Major Op. 99, Moser has also programmed the works of Brahms' nearly forgotten protégé Robert Fuchs and the WORLD PREMIERE recording of the Cello Sonata by Fuch's own pupil, Alexander Zemlinsky. This important new release will not only delight the casual listener with new and unfamiliar repertoire but will also introduce music lovers to an exciting and important period of musical creativity.

The music of Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov is a unique and delicate tapestry of dramatic and emotional textures, that freely alludes to the entire history of music. "I do not write new music. My music is a response to and an echo of what already exists," Silvestrov has said. Beginning his creative career in the radical Soviet Avant-Garde, Silvestrov demonstrated an almost painful sensitivity to the intimacy that music can create between performer and listener. Silvestrov would later refute his modernist roots, saying “the most important lesson of the Avant-Garde is to be free of all conceived ideas, particularly those of the Avant-Garde” and began composing a series of works entitled “Postludium” that initiated the elegiac, poetic and highly personal relationship with silence which has come to characterize his most recent music. Haenssler Classic is proud to present pianist Jenny Lin in the World Premiere Recording of Silvestrov’s “Three Postludes”, a work composed especially for her.

Towards the end of the 16th century a musical development was in full swing, a development which moved away from strict contrapuntal textures to one dominated by a melody accompanied by a supporting bass. It was in this context that two new lutes were developed by elongating the neck of the instrument so that a second peg box allowed an extended bass register - these instruments were call the arciliuto, and the chitarrone. For this recital, master lutanist Joachim Held has provided a selection of the colorful - and often highly virtuosic music - composed for these "super lutes", including a selection of pieces composed by the brother of Galileo Galilei, Michelagnolo Galilei

The current program provides a fascinating overview of Bartók's chamber music for multiple pianos. The composer's own arrangement of the searing, expressionist score for his ballet, "The Miraculous Mandarin" reveals the audacity of Bartók's creative vision with a clarity that is often lost in the popular orchestral version. This rare recording of the two piano version will delight Bartók fans everywhere. Next, the Hernádi/Mocsári Duo is joined by a pair of percussionist in a thrilling performance of the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Arguably, one of the greatest chamber music pieces of the 20th century.

While best known for his popular arrangement of Bizet's Carmen for Percussion Ensemble, Rodion Shchedrin is a versatile composer whose works defy easy categorization. This new CD presents three chamber music compositions, all of which were composed in the mid-1990's and represent various contrasting facets of Shchedrin's work. The poly-stylistic Piano Terzetto of 1995, the monumental Sonata for Violoncello and Piano, written in 1996, and the Three Funny Pieces of 1997 - a set of arrangements of three of his earlier solo piano pieces for piano trio - the famous Humoresque (1957), as well as two pieces from the "Notebook for Youth" of 1981.

In addition to being an extremely valuable addition to the catalogue of Shchedrin's music currently available, this recording is doubly valuable in that it features the composer in performance of two of his own works. An essential release for all fans of contemporary and Russian music!

The so-called "Lord Nelson" Mass dates from 1798 when the composer was 66 and in the middle of an autumnal creative outburst that included "The Seasons", "The Creation" and the three great late Masses. Two stories explaining the origins of the popular nick-name for the dramatic Missa in angustiis (Mass in time of anguish) exist - one that the work was written at the time of the sea battle at Aboukir Bay, another that the great Admiral himself attended a performance in 1800. Haydn's Mass in B-flat Major, which he wrote in 1801 to celebrate the name day of Princess Maria Hermenegild Esterhazy whose husband, Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy, employed Haydn as his Kapellmeister. Written for orchestra, choir and soloists, this mass was nicknamed the "Creation Mass" because it quotes a few measures from Haydn's "The Creation" oratorio.