Label: BIS SACD 1448
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NATHANIEL SHILKRET: Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra (1945)
FREDRIK HOGBERG: Concerto No. 1 for Trombone and Orchestra, ‘The Return of Kit Bones’ (2001)
*CHRISTIAN LINDBERG: Helikon Wasp (2003)

Christian Lindberg, trombone/*conductor
São Paulo Symphony Orchestra/John Neschling
Nathaniel Shilkret’s trombone concerto is something of a Holy Grail for trombone players. It has long been known that film and Broadway composer Nathaniel Shilkret composed a concerto for Tommy Dorsey at Leopold Stokowski’s request, and that it was performed in 1945 - but what happened to it afterwards? The score disappeared, as did the orchestral parts, and in the end it took more than 60 years before the piece was ever performed again in its original form. That performance is the opening of this disc - a lush and velvety concerto with influences from jazz and the golden age of Broadway - not to be missed! Continuing in the cross-over vein, Christian Lindberg and the São Paulo SO have recorded The Return of Kit Bones by Swedish composer Fredrik Högberg: the soundtrack to an imaginary Spaghetti western, in which the soloist is given free rein - including a license to kill! The finale is Lindberg’s own work Helikon Wasp, already released on BIS 1428, a portrait of Lindberg in the role of composer, which has received great acclaim from the reviewers. In different ways, all three works make unusual demands on the versatility of the soloist - demands that few other than Christian Lindberg could fulfill, with the backing of a São Paulo Symphony Orchestra sounding more glorious than ever in the Surround Sound version included on this Hybrid SACD.

Label: BIS SACD 1518
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SERGEI RACHMANINOV: Variations on a theme of Chopin, Op.22; Song Transcriptions - ‘Lilacs’, Op.21 No.5 and ‘Daisies’, Op.38 No.3; Piano Sonata No.2, Op.36
FRITZ KREISLER (trans. S. Rachmaninov): Liebesleid; Liebesfreud

Yevgeny Sudbin, piano
When we released Yevgeny Sudbin’s début disc earlier this year, it caused a sensation. Garnering top marks in a number of international magazines, the interpretations of the 25-year-old Russian pianist were compared with those of Horowitz and Pletnev in glowing terms. Gramophone magazine made the disc (BIS 1508) its Editor’s Choice and described it as ”arguably among the finest, certainly most enjoyable of all Scarlatti recitals." Now Sudbin - who earlier this year signed a 5 year exclusive contract with BIS - gives us the opportunity to experience his artistry in a completely different context. Taking on some of his compatriot Rachmaninov’s most demanding works for solo piano - Sonata No. 2 and the less well-known Chopin Variations - he mixes them with shorter pieces in a varied program. In his own liner notes the performer describes the works as “music, which always communicates at a deeply personal level and goes to the very root of human emotion.” For this recording Sudbin has taken as a motto Rachmaninov’s own words: ‘Music must first and foremost be loved, it must come from the heart and it must be directed to the heart.’

Label: BIS SACD 1519
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Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 61; Overture to ‘Scenes from Goethe’s Faust’; Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120 (original version); Julius Caesar, overture, Op. 128

Swedish Chamber Orchestra/Thomas Dausgaard
The dynamic collaboration between conductor Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra has been developing for 10 years and is increasingly recognized as one of the more interesting in the world of classical music. From the outset, Dausgaard and the SCO have been intent on exploring the outer limits of the chamber orchestra repertoire, and this disc - the first in a series entitled Opening Doors - is the fruit of these explorations. Schumann's symphonies were first programmed at the orchestra's Schumann festival in 1999, and have since become part of the repertoire that the SCO play on their international tours - to the BBC Proms, New York and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, to name but a few destinations. They will provide the backbone of the series, with additional repertoire by Dvorák and Schubert to follow. In the liner notes to the present disc, Dausgaard explains that he wants to ‘open the doors into the possibility of hearing this music in a different way’ and tells of how his work with the SCO has helped him gain new insight into the music, even when conducting it with larger symphony orchestras. The disc opens with the Second Symphony, described by Dausgaard as dominated by 'swings of mood: from being on top of the world to a sense of disintegration into the very heart of darkness.' It is coupled with Symphony No. 4, in the original version, which was actually composed before No. 2. Dausgaard feels that this version, especially when played by a chamber orchestra, allows the musical substance to truly come to the fore: 'It was a revelation when we performed it for the first time.' Also including two rarely played overtures, which to Dausgaard communicate 'a sense of imminent disintegration - as though the heart is about to stop beating', this disc will no doubt prove a revelation to many others as well.

Label: COVIELLO SACD 60504
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”the sealed angel”, Russian liturgical music based on Nikolay Leskov

Sophie Klußmann, soprano; Judith Simonis, alto; René Vosskühler, tenor; Lorenz Wüsthof & Richard Schwennicke, boys
The Berlin Radio Choir; Gergely Bodoky, flute; Stefan Parkman, conductor
Rodion Shchedrins’s Russian liturgy “The Sealed Angel” for mixed choir a capella, soloists and flute was composed in 1988 for the occasion of the Millennium of the Christianisation of Russo. It was first performed on the 18th of June 1988 by the Moscow Chamber Choir under the National Choir of Academies of the USSR under Wladimir Minin. Rodion Shchedrin, was born in 1932 in Moscow and become world-famous for his ballet music composed for his wife, the Russian prima ballerina Maya Plissezkaja (Carmen Suite, 1987; Anna Karenina, 1971; The Gull, 1979 amongst others). He came from a religious background. His grandfather was a priest. He received his first musical education between the age of 12 and 18 at the Moscow Choir School, where the pupils were introduced to the treat liturgies and vespers of the 18th and 19th Centuries with worldly versions of the tests. It had long been his wish to compose a piece, which would resume the tradition of Russian orthodox music that had been interrupted by the October Revolution. In the face of the Perestroika in the mid 1980s the time seemed right. However, the complications surrounding the premiere of his Stichira for the millennium of the Christianisation of Russia in March 1988 taught him otherwise. With his following work he therefore resorted to a tried and tested trick of Soviet times: Rather than calling the score Russian Liturgy as he had intended, he gave it the rather more harmless title “The stamped Angel” after a popular narrative by the great Russian realist Nikolai Leskow (1831-1895).

Label: COVIELLO SACD 30705
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Staatsorchester Braunschweig/Jonas Alber
Live Recording

Label: BIS SACD 1569
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Symphony No.1 in B flat major, Op.38 (‘Spring Symphony’); Overture to Schiller’s ‘Braut von Messina’, Op.100; Overture to the opera ‘Genoveva’, Op.81; Symphony in G minor, ‘Zwickau Symphony’ (1832–33); Overture, Scherzo and Finale, Op.52

Swedish Chamber Orchestra/Thomas Dausgaard
This disc includes Schumann’s very first endeavors in the symphony genre, beginning with the Zwickau Symphony from 1832-33. Of the two completed movements, only the first was ever performed in the composer’s lifetime. That is also the one recorded here, performed from a copy of the manuscript score. (The autograph score of the second, slow movement exists in private ownership, but a readily performable original material has yet to be produced.) Almost ten years after the ‘Zwickau’, Schumann finally completed a symphony, the ‘Spring Symphony’. Inspired by a poem by Adolf Böttger, Schumann nevertheless dispensed with the original movement titles before the symphony was published. Composed in the same year as Symphony No. 1, the Overture, Scherzo and Finale to some extent also belongs to Schumann’s symphonic oeuvre – a divertimento-like sequence of movements, which Schumann actually offered to a publisher as his ‘second symphony’, with the comment that it differed ‘from the form of a symphony in that it is also possible to play the individual movements separately’. The program is completed by two overtures: one composed for Genoveva (Schumann’s only opera) and the other for Schiller’s tragedy ‘The Bride of Messina’.

Label: NEOS SACD 10715
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“trail” Klavierstück 1 (1981); Klavierstück 2 (1984); Klavierstück 3 (1988); “up” Klavierstück 4 (1997/98); “Unter Segel” Klavierstück 5 (2007)

Rolf Hind, piano; EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO des SWR
The conductor and composer ROBERT HP PLATZ, born in Baden-Baden in 1951, studied Composition with Wolfgang Fortner and Karlheinz Stockhausen and Conducting with Francis Travis. Performances of his works and his conducting activity (more than three hundred world premieres) have taken him throughout Europe and to Japan and the United States. He has worked with, among others, both orchestras of the Südwestrundfunk, the DSO Berlin and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg. For twenty years Platz headed the Ensemble Köln, which he founded, and worked with composers such as Hosokawa, Huber, Stockhausen and Xenakis. Since 1990 he has directed a composition class at the Conservatorium Maastricht that is connected with a seminar on performance practice for New Music. He is a member of the Bureau du Directeur of the electronic studio of the “Centre de Recherches et Formation Musicales de Wallonie” (CRFMW) in Liège and is the principal guest conductor of the ensembles “Alternance” in Paris and “Musica d’Insieme” in Milan.

Label: CYBELE SACD 960501
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Machandelboom, a radio play after the tales of the brothers grimm

Christoph Anders, E-Guitar, drums; Karin Franke, harp; Heiner Goebbels, E-Guitar, acoustic guitar, violoncello; Alfred Harth, saxophones, clarinets; Karl Riehm, organ; Rolf Riehm, voice, various instruments and noises
There are times in one’s life when particular material crops up again and again. And now suddenly this fairytale (with which I had been familiar since childhood but had always passed over before, partly because I did not understand it,) is preoccupying me once again. I found that this fairytale provided an irreducibly clear portrayal of the way violence culminates in personal relationships. I was very impressed by the way it was depicted: tackled openly and without any sentimentality whatsoever.
It may sound trivial for me to make a sudden leap into the present, but my experience of current political events is a similar one. For example, when one hears Reagan’s speeches as he justifies his weapons policy before Congress, one wonders how someone with the power to decide on the use of weapons with such a gigantic destructive potential can put forward such naïve justifications. Surely he will come up with something more; but no, he doesn’t.
Another of my preoccupations has been the scenes involving Cohen, “father of the neutron bomb,” in Alexander Kluge’s latest film. This bomb’s special ability: it can obliterate every trace of organic life whilst leaving the architectural components of life intact, e.g. cities. Concealed behind the rhetorical euphoria about the technical brilliance of this type of attack, the man describes unimaginable scenes of devastation with an almost paternal air of bonhomie. This is also a kind of fairy story.
It is clear to me that far from being out of touch with reality, the fairytale conveys historical experience.
Of course there are many ways of interpreting fairytales: psychologically, sociologically, ethnologically etc. In retrospect I am glad that I gave so little thought to how one could interpret it all. My role was to listen rather than to explain, and I had no wish to pretend any “everyday” familiarity with this sphere. In place of my former knowledge of the metaphorical vocabulary of the fairytale, I gave my imagination free rein, carefully considering which cognates the fairytale used for which of the circumstances in which I find myself today.

Label: BIS SACD 1619
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Symphony No. 3 in E flat major “Rhenish”, Op. 97; Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120 (final version, 1851); Overture to ‘Manfred’, Op. 115; Hermann und Dorothea, Overture, Op. 126

Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Örebro/Thomas Dausgaard

For some years, Thomas Dausgaard and his Swedish Chamber Orchestra have been developing their project ‘Opening Doors’, performing symphonies and other orchestral works from the Romantic era with the smaller-than-usual forces of a modern-day chamber orchestra. It has been possible to sample the results of this approach in various music centers around the world during the team’s extensive tours, as well as on disc. The present disc is the fourth of their Opening Doors recordings and at the same time the closing disc of a ‘series within a series’ – a triptych featuring Schumann’s complete symphonies. Previous installments have been praised for the freshness of the interpretations. ‘A brilliant recording, which overturns common and oft-repeated judgments regarding Schumann the symphonist’ was the reaction of the reviewer on German website Klassik Heute, while the review of the second disc in International Record Review included the following prediction: ‘If the final disc maintains such excellence, this could well be the Schumann cycle to have.’ Here now is that final Schumann disc, which includes the ‘Rhenish’ Symphony (No.3) as well the fourth symphony in its final 1851 version. (The original version was actually composed in 1841 as the composer’s second work in the genre, and is included on BIS-SACD-1519.) Besides the two symphonic works this generously filled disc also includes two shorter pieces. The Manfred overture opens Schumann’s music to Byron’s dramatic poem: regarded by Clara Schumann as ‘one of the most poetic and most gripping of Robert’s pieces’, it is the only part of the extensive score that is regularly performed. In the case of Hermann und Dorothea, it was a work by Goethe that provided the inspiration. Originally conceived as an opera about two lovers in the confusion after the French Revolution, it was in the end reduced to a concert overture, which prominently features the Marseillaise.

Label: COVIELLO SACD 30806
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Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40; Tod und Verklärung, Op. 24

Brunswick State Orchestra/Jonas Alber

"It was a dance on the edge of a sword. The harmonic and rhythmic invention, the instrumental tempest, the dramatic intelligence, the will were tremendous. Strauss never shot the arrow of life higher than this." Richard Strauss’s friend, Romain Rolland, was still impressed by the great tone poem, Ein Heldenleben, after many years. Richard Strauss set the typically romantic poem to music – the story of a hero who must go through trials, endure attacks and setbacks, but in the end overcomes all opposition, triumphs, and finally finds his peace. Once again, Strauss displayed his brilliant command of the orchestra in Heldenleben. In sharp contrast thematically, but no less brilliant, is his Tod und Verklärung, a remarkable early work. Here as well, inner peace is finally achieved after a feverish delirium. Jonas Alber and the Brunswick State Orchestra recount both tales vividly.

Label: ARS PRODUKTION SACD 38034
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Fünf Stücke im Volkston, Op. 102; Adagio und Allegro, Op. 70; Drei Romanzen, Op. 94; Drei Fantasiestücke, Op. 73; Waldszenen, Op. 82

Matthias Rácz, bassoon; Yu Kosuge, piano
Bit by bit, Robert Schumann systematically explored each musical genre and form. After predominantly fragmentary experiments in various genres, he concentrated almost exclusively on works for solo piano until 1840, turning to Lieder later in 1840, symphonies in 1841, and chamber music in 1842 and again from 1847. During his years in Dresden (1844-1850), Schumann occupied himself with adapting the pianistic character piece to the domain of chamber music. Here too one is struck by the composer’s systematic procedure. After completing the “Forest Scenes” op. 82, Schumann opened this spate of chamber music pieces in February 1849 with the “Fantasy Pieces” op. 73 for clarinet and piano, and the “Adagio and Allegro” op. 70 for horn and piano. These were followed by the “Pieces in Folk Style” op. 102 for cello and piano in April 1849 and the “Three Romances” for Oboe and Piano op. 94. The current recording unites compositions from the close of the Dresden chapter of Robert Schumann’s life, and provides new and exciting sound prospects through their performance on the bassoon. As the age of 21 Matthias Rácz (b. 1980) was already the principal bassoonist of the Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne, and from 2003 he has had the same position in the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich. In addition he plays principal bassoon in Abbado’s Lucerne Festival Orchestra. Rácz is accompagnied by Yo Kosuge (b. 1983), one of the most respected young pianists in the world.

Label: ARS PRODUKTION SACD 38011
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Studies for the Pedal piano, Op.56
Sketches the Pedal piano, Op.58
Six Fugues on the Name BACH, Op.60
Canon D major, Op.124/2

Martin Schmeding, pedal piano (historical instrument by Pleyel)
The year 1844 marked a turning-point in Schumann’s life: a severe mental crisis, together with a complete physical breakdown, temporarily brought his creativity to a standstill. He abandoned, after ten years of activity, the editorial post of the “Neue Zeitschrift für Musik”, which he had created, and moved with his family from Leipzig to Dresden. During the following year, in his new abode, his health only gradually improved. The fact that Schumann, at that time, together with his wife Clara, dedicated himself with genuine enthusiasm to contrapuntal studies, might indeed be viewed as a special measure of self-therapy, a method of mental discipline. The products of this “fugue passion" as he himself called it, were a series of works in austere style, which also testify to his deep veneration for Johann Sebastian Bach, a veneration certainly dating from the early years when he analysed the “Well-tempered Clavier” or copied out the “Art of fugue” for studying purposes. The pieces presented on this CD, besides the “Four fugues” op. 72 for piano, belong to this series of works: the “Six Fugues on the name of BACH” for the piano or the organ op. 60, the “Studies” op. 56 and the “Sketches” op. 58.
The first recording of all these works on a pedal piano made by Pleyel solves most of the acoustic problems which forcibly arise from the now frequently practised interpretation of op. 56 and 58 on the organ. It also lets the BACH fugues, originally conceived for the organ, appear in a new light. The unique significance of these three works, which blend the spirit of Bach with the advanced tonal language of the romantic period in an ideal way, without any historicizing academic strictness or boredom, will thus perhaps be more clearly discernible.

Label: COVIELLO SACD 30901
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Vorspiel zum 3. from: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg*; Fünf Gedichte von Mathilde Wesendonck*; Waldweben* (from: Siegfried); Gretchen am Spinnrade* (from: Sieben Kompositionen zu Goethes Faust); Les adieux de Marie Stuart*; Siegfried-Idyll

Maria Riccarda Wesseling, mezzo soprano
Kammerphilharmonie Graubünden/Marcus Bosch
*arranged for chamber orchestra by Andreas N. Tarkmann
It is not only the great music dramas which display Richard Wagner's genius – in the Siegfried Idyll he impressively demonstrated that his music loses none of its fascination even with smaller ensembles. Wagner did not compose many works for chamber orchestra, but fortunately Andreas Tarkmann can remedy the situation with his arrangements. I n the Prelude to “Meistersinger”, he follows the traditional path of reducing a large orchestral score, while retaining all the essential timbres. The situation is reversed with the well-known “Wesendonck Lieder”; in Tarkmann's re-orchestration, the songs acquire considerable tonal refinement. Maria Riccarda Wesseling's lovely mezzo-soprano is accompanied sensitively and superbly by Marcus Bosch and the kammerphilharmonie graubünden. In the “Adieux de Marie Stuart”, the soloist also demonstrates her mastery of virtuoso parts.

Label: CYBELE SACD 860701
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aprikosenbäume gibt es, aprikosenbäume gibt es for doublebass clarinet, violin, trumpet, cello, trombone and voice (2004)
ahi bocca, ahi lingua for four vocal soloists (1991/1994)
Schlaf, schlaf, John Donne, schlaf tief und quäl dich nicht for violin, bass clarinet, accordion and keyboard (1997)

Theo Nabicht, doublebass clarinet
The Hilliard Ensemble; Ensemble Ascolta
Ensemble Recherche: Karmen Mikovic, voice; Jossif Brodskij, recitator
The three pieces heard on this SACD, each of them a commission from WDR (West German Radio) for the Days of New Chamber Music in Witten, are musical observations of literary sources: texts by Inger Christensen, Rainald Goetz and Joseph Brodsky. The fact that these compositions follow no poetic scheme and are not "set" to music is without question. Here, too, consistency is refuted: Riehm does not trim the music to conform to the semantics of the texts. Instead, speech and sound inhabit autonomous realms and every type of narrative doubling is removed.

Label: ARS PRODUKTION SACD 38052
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Susan Owen; Bodo Brinkmann; Wilja Ernst-Mosuraitis; Christian Franz; Jayne Casselman; Hans Georg Moser; Lona Culmer-Schellbach; Inga Fischer; Petra Schmidt; Marisa Altmann-Althausen; Gundula Schneider; Jeanette Schäfer; Joke Kramer; Elisabeth Hau-Villebois

Orchester des Staatstheaters Kassel/Roberto Paternostro

Based on live performances June 1999, Kassel
GMD Roberto Paternostro pricked the listener’s ears with an exquisite orchestral texture, full of details without ever losing the dramatic line of the music. Christian Franz appeared as a heroic belcanto Siegmund … In Susan Owen’s Brunhild the youthful and dramatic side, very suitably, was still stronger than the heroic one. Beside Bodo Brinkmann as a Wotan with sallow timbre and accurate articulation Wilja Ernst-Mosuraitis appeared as Fricka with non hysterical sonority and an expressive nobel voice. - (Frankfurter Rundschau)
It always indicates courage as well as remarkable artistic abilitiy and efficiency of organisation and technique when a theatre decides to mount the great four-part work "The Ring of the Nibelung". If then a theatre also prepares to quasi "conserve" the fully developed results of these great efforts by producing a CD recording, then on the one hand a broader public than only the audience can take part in this specific interpretation, on the other hand it is presented as a matter of importance, as a document of theatre history. My best wishes for the success of this recording. - (Wolfgang Wagner)
(4 CDs for the price of 3)