Strauss, J, II: Kaiser-Walzer, Op. 437 (Emperor Waltz)

The fascinating programme of waltzes and other short pieces chosen for this new recording by the chamber ensemble Diabolicus and its renowned musical director Dietrich Henschel has been given the title “A Nos Amours”, and endeavours to musically represent the full range of emotions that cover life from birth till death. There is the love of Richard Wagner for his wife Cosima and for their newborn son in the Siegfried Idyll, the love of a son for his dead mother in the Busoni’s touching lullaby, the Berceuse élégaique, as well as the joy of life and love so perfectly portrayed in the waltzes of Johann Strauss the younger. The Schubert lied Ständchen and the famous Neopolitan song Funiculì-Funiculà by Luigi Denza have been included to present the more light-hearted aspect of these “amours”. Apart from the Wagner piece, the music is here performed in transcriptions for chamber groups by Arnold Schoenberg and his circle of friends and pupils.

The chamber ensemble Diabolicus was formed in 2001 with a core of soloists from the Orchestre de Paris. The ensemble can be expanded as required, bringing together musical personalities encountered in a variety of extra-orchestral collaborations. In 2004 and 2005, Diabolicus swelled its number to thirty-five musicians for two performances at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, with Dietrich Henschel and Menahem Pressler respectively. With Dietrich Henschel, their working relationship did not involve the notion of an ensemble directed by a conductor, but was immediately established on the basis of a friendly collaboration in music.

Dietrich Henschel is acknowledged as one of today’s foremost interpreters of the lied. He is invited all over the world with the pianists Fritz Schwinghammer, Helmut Deutsch and Michael Schäfer. His substantial discography features lieder and song cycles by Mahler, Wolf, Schubert, Korngold, and Beethoven, as well as a complete recording of Busoni’s Doktor Faust (winner of a Grammy Award). His conducting career has taken flight since his triumph at the Châtelet in 2004 in a series of concerts with the ensemble Diabolicus, with which he has subsequently worked on a regular basis.