Written in 1799, at the same time as his First Symphony, Beethoven's Septet reflects the composer's ambition to gain a foothold in his new Viennese environment. The Septet is an experimental work with six contrasting movements - weighty as a symphony but also influenced by the lighter, more entertaining character of the serenade.

Recording on our partner label CAvi Music, pianist Sheila Arnold announces her upcoming album, on which she performs Brahms, Bach and Jörg Widmann on a special Blüthner grand piano from the early 1860s. As the piano is built with strings that are still straight and not overstrung, the registers are clearly different. The instrument has an unmistakable tone quality due to the unique way it is built, which provides an added layer of multidimensionality for the listener.

“Volume I with sonatas 2, 4, and 9 was reviewed by Mr Magil (S/O 2023), who called them some of the very finest readings of these works; and we can extend these same words to Volume II” (American Record Guide March/April 2024)

For the third installment in Adam Fischer's Mahler cycle on CAvi-music, he leads the Düsseldorf Symphony in a straightforward and polished presentation of the Symphony No. 1 in D major, assembled from several concert recordings in February 2017. This 2018 release offers a nearly flawless version of one of Mahler's most popular symphonies, and Fischer prudently avoids any anachronistic associations with the symphony's earlier form as a symphonic poem.

Die Kombination von Waldhorn, Klavier und Violine wurde von Johannes Brahms mit seinem op. 40 initiiert. Es gibt zurzeit nur sehr wenige Werke für diese Gattung, doch die modernen Komponisten sind fleißig dabei, Ideen hinzuzufügen. Zwei Weltersteinspielungen machen dieses ungewöhnliche Album nicht nur für Freunde des Waldhorns sehr attraktiv; die Klänge und Klangkombinationen sind mitreißend.

The first group of songs on texts by Ludwig Rellstab starts out in a relatively carefree, rapturous tone: a mood of spring is in the air. In Frühlingssehnsucht, “swelling desire” is colorfully illustrated by images of nature such as the silvery gurgling brook – an evocation of splendid vitality. But clouds soon darken the horizon: the brook becomes a raging torrent of negative emotions. Euphoria gives way to disappointment. The rapturous attitude is curbed: we hear of farewell, with a clear touch of bitterness. In the next group of settings of texts by Heinrich Heine, the story returns to its onset: now less rapturous, somewhat more aloof, and with even more bitterness at the end.

In 2019, Gadjiev joined the BBC New Generation Artists scheme, for the scheduled period of 2019-2021. including Gadjiev. Gadjiev won second prize, ex aequo, as well as the Special Prize for the Best Performance of a Sonata at the XVIII International Chopin Piano Competition in 2021. Also in 2021, he won first prize and six other prizes in the 2021 Sydney International Piano Competition.

The years between 1900 and 1914 are perhaps among the most exciting in the history of European music. It was during these years that what is today commonly referred to as musical modernism was formed. It is the period in which the great European "schools" of the musical avant-garde take shape in Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and especially in Vienna, and in which music fans out into a variety of aesthetics, styles, and genres that are reflected in the set of those terms we use today to try to get a grip on the art of this era: Impressionism, Expressionism, Art Nouveau, Neoclassicism, Folklorism, Late Romanticism / Post-Romanticism, Symbolism, etc. The program selection of this CD is grouped around two works written in Vienna in 1913, in this "summer of the century" (Florian Illies) that ends the long 19th century and heralds the dark 20th century: Alban Berg's Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano op. 5 and Egon Kornauth's Sonata for Clarinet and Piano. It is the year of scandalous premieres: Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, Berg's Altenberglieder, Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, but also the less scandalous ones of Debussy's Images pour Orchestre, Reger's Toteninsel, Sibelius Luonnotar, de Falla's La vida breve, and Strauss's Festliches Präludium.

Herbert Schuch ist bekannt dafür, Brücken zwischen zwei Komponisten zu schlagen. Nach seinem ersten Projekt "Bagatellen" und dem Folgeprojekt "Reflecting Beethoven" stellt er Klaviermusik zur Diskussion, die eine gewisse geistige Ähnlichkeit zwischen Franz Schubert und Leoš Janáček aufweist. Herbert Schuch gilt mittlerweile als einer der führenden deutschen Pianisten, der immer wieder eigene Konzepte und Projekte im Konzert und im Studio vorstellt. "Eigentlich ist die Idee zu diesem Album, nämlich Musik von Franz Schubert und Leoš Janáček miteinander in Beziehung zu setzen, in einer Art Traumwelt zwischen Wachen und Schlafen entstanden. Ich hatte mich hingelegt – und dachte an diese zwei Komponisten."

When I first heard Beethoven’s Sonata No. 15 in D Major, op. 28, the “Pastoral”, it immediately conquered my heart. The swaying, deeply resounding, velvety bass notes and the tender theme in the right hand continue to produce a melodious sense of well-being in me to this day. A series of slow, melodious arches alternating with incisive, characteristic insertions create the general mood in the first movement.

In the wake of World War I and the October Revolution, countless artists emigrated from Eastern Europe to Paris. Alexander Tcherepnin was soon welcomed and adopted by groups of artists such as the École de Paris, a loose gathering of emigrants from several countries that included Bohuslav Martinu and Romanian composer Marcel Mihalovici. Diyang Mei has held the position of principal viola of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra since the fall of 2019. In October 2022 he will start the position of principal viola with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

“Analysis obviously cannot seize the essence.[…] If my music has meaning, it does not lie in the musical material itself, but beneath it: in the artistic approach and its relationship with my world view.” (Walter Braunfels).

Boredom (in German: “long whiling”) is apparently what drove Wolfgang to compose one of his string quartets at the inn at Bolzano. And yes, he was doing well, as father Leopold assured Mozart’s mother in a letter dated 28 October 1772. How can we even imagine what boredom must have felt like for a 16-year-old genius? Was he sitting lackadaisically at the table with his father, scribbling counterpoint on paper and casually inventing the genre of Classical string quartet in passing? Or was Wolfgang just solving musical-logical Sudokus, as we all tend to do in such cases?

Alle Werke auf diesem Album stammen aus der Zeit zwischen 1945 und 1956. Es war ein gutes Jahrzehnt für Paul Ben-Haim, aber es repräsentiert nur einen Bruchteil der künstlerischen Laufbahn eines Komponisten, der der Nachwelt über 250 Werke hinterlassen hat.Dennoch waren diese Jahre für ihn von besonderer Bedeutung. Das Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs 1945 und die Gründung des Staates Israel 1948 gehörten zu einer Zeit der Hoffnung, des Aufbruchs und der Erneuerung, während der Schatten der vorangegangenen katastrophalen Ereignisse in Europa und die schmerzhaften Erinnerungen an Verfolgung, Vertreibung und Exil noch nachwirkten.

"Are Schumann’s late works the product of a household where a physically and mentally declining composer and his wife, who refused to admit that reality, were living in a stuffy atmosphere? Or was Schumann’s Düsseldorf circle a fruitful terrain that gave rise to magnificent masterpieces because these close, talented friends – Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, Albert Dietrich, Johannes Brahms, and Joseph Joachim – continually inspired one another?For this recording, Sophie and I have chosen a programme that attempts to answer those questions. All the chamber music works on this CD are from the period between 1849 and 1854, thus stemming from the Schumanns’ time in Düsseldorf.The personal and musical connections between Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and Joseph Joachim are intrinsically present in all these works. Those biographical relationships are interesting for us as interpreters because they give rise to special moods we can sense in the music. We want to fathom them, to feel them, and to make them palpable for the listener: this is one of the most exciting projects we have ever undertaken as performers.