New Releases

Continuing their survey of Mendelssohn’s String Quartets, in Mendelssohn the Leipzig musicians are in their element: sovereign instrumental command, consummate sound design, and precision teamwork perfected in detail offer a dynamic listening experience in a special class of its own.

Liszt was the first, but pianists of later generations also journeyed through the gigantic cosmos of the Wagnerian music drama with paraphrases and transcriptions for the piano. Severin von Eckardstein has brought together the best of these on his latest SACD. The result is a fascinating look at the reception history of Wagner’s music.

Mahler initially had a hard time of it. When Das klagende Lied finally met with his own critical favor, he stated, “My first work in which I have found myself as ‘Mahler’!” Here it is heard in colorful contrast to the fragment from his last symphony and the “Blumine” andante originally intended for the first symphony. The Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn under its resourceful conductor Stefan Blunier is in top form on this fascinatingly detailed look at Mahler’s compositional techniques.

The English Renaissance master William Byrd and the Baltic innovator Arvo Pärt have much more in common than just one-syllable last names. Both draw on the compositional technique of the Middle Ages and Renaissance and are featured together on this recording by the Calefax Reed Quintet, a one-of-a-kind Dutch wind ensemble. Their music also finds a strong vocal advocate in this splendid performance by the countertenor Kai Wessel.

Captivating rhythms, profoundly moving melodies and winning hits with all-time-great potential distinguish the music of John Rutter. No great effort is required: he wrote his opera The Piper of Hamelin on the basis of the rat-catcher legend, and it was originally intended for a school performance.

Hard to believe but it now appears for the first time on CD with the ECHO award-winning children and young people from Bobbys Klassik and the Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn.

Despite its popularity, Rutter’s music is absolutely demanding and avails itself of means in keeping with its times. The piper’s iridescent leitmotif is based on a whole-tone scale and thus lends his appearance a touch of the mysterious and magical. The scenes featuring corrupt rat society are absolutely grotesque in their exaggeration; they are situated somewhere between march music and the hits of the 1920s.

A thoroughly engaging release recorded to MDG’s customary high standards.

The friendship between the poet Paul Éluard and the composer Francis Poulenc was more than just an artistic relationship. Éluard wrote to Poulenc, “It was first through your music that I really understood my poems”; and it was first through Éluard that Poulenc learned to express the deepest secrets of his personality. On this splendid new release in their Poulenc series, Holger Falk and Alessandro Zuppardo enable us to experience for ourselves the happy symbiosis formed by these two creative artists.

This is of course a disc of outstanding music, and it is shown in a new light by pianist Corinna Simon. She presents to us as yet entirely unknown treats from Gershwin’s magnificent piano world with selected songs from his papers – performed on the legendary “Manfred Bürki” Steinway of 1901, perhaps even qualifying as a New York Steinway.

Mompou was of Spanish and Basque background and as a young man associated with the musicians of the Groupe des Six in Paris led by Jean Cocteau, with Stravinsky and Ravel, and with Gide and Valéry. He performed his own works with some success in the Parisian salons without directly working toward this goal. The piano was his instrument, and Música Callada was his greatest and last cycle. Performed by MDG artist Steffen Schleiermacher.

It was billed as a battle of titans. Franz Liszt had invited the leading pianists of his time to compose variations on Bellini’s “March of the Huguenots.” The international keyboard stars Chopin, Thalberg, Pixis, Czerny, and Herz had agreed to compete, but they never actually performed together in Princess Beliojoso’s Paris salon. Claudius Tanski has now recreated this event with his master pupils.