80th Birthday TRIBUTE

As Alfred Brendel celebrates his 80th birthday on 5 January 2011, Decca is marking this momentous occasion with FOUR major catalogue releases.

 

“Everything has its place yet nothing sounds contrived. Brendel is an intellectual but not, at the piano, a lecturer. He illuminates but never pontificates. Seldom has his capacity for symphonic synthesis found nobler or more stirring expression than in the present reading of the Brahms D minor Concerto...[The Mozart] had me wreathed in smiles of sheer delight.” --BBC Music Magazine, April 2011 *****

“Perhaps the biggest thrill is Brendel's Brahms First from 1985...Right from the thunderous opening timpani roll it packs a terrific punch...[Brendel's reading] never tr[ies] to lure the listener through sumptuousness of tone but instead offer[s] piercing intelligence and a sure-footed way through Brahms's mountainous landscape...[The Beethoven] is a reading of profound wisdom, pathos and tenderness that leaves you wishing for more.” --Gramophone Magazine, May 2011

“he is in absolute control throughout, technically flawless and with a characteristic clarity of texture. What especially distinguishes Brendel's interpretations is the way that the structure and the architecture of the work comes foremost...the playing [of Op. 110] is of unfailing beauty, with the final return to the tonic key a true apotheosis and a triumphant homecoming.” --International Record Review, March 2011

MOZART Piano Concertos Nos. 24 & 25

“Characterised by lively tempos, crisp articulation, taut rhythms and the ability to convey to the listener the joy of music-making, Brautigam's playing strips away the varnish to let you hear, as near as dammit, what Mozart's audiences woudl have heard...Even if you prefer, as I do, your Mozart on a modern concert grand, it's hard to resist Brautigam's period advocacy.” --Classic FM Magazine, February 2012 ****

“Playing on a fine, un-jangly modern copy of an Anton Walter instrument, with its silvery, singing treble and clear, percussive bass, Ronald Brautigam gives bold, invigorating performances of these contrasting concertos...this is exhilarating, often thought-provoking Mozart-playing” --Gramophone Magazine, January 2012

Ronald Brautigam (fortepiano)

Die Kölner Akademie, Michael Alexander Willens

Ronald Brautigam, with the congenial support of Die Kölner Akademie, under Michael Alexander Willens, here performs Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 24 and 25, both composed in 1786.

The C major concerto is in fact one of the most expansive of all classical piano concertos, rivalling Beethoven’s fifth concerto. Their grandeur immediately made them popular fare in the concert hall – Mendelssohn, for instance, had No.24 in his repertoire through the 1820s and 1830s.

On his copy of a fortepiano from 1795, and with orchestral forces corresponding to what Mozart would have been familiar, Brautigam creates a sound of which Mozart would have been familiar.

On the first release in the team’s traversal of Mozart’s concertos (BIS-SACD-1794), Brautigam was described by International Record Review as ‘an absolutely instinctive Mozartian, with… melodic playing of consummate beauty’, going on to congratulate him on finding the ‘ideal partners’ for the project.’

La PRIMADONNA

Opera Arias and Songs arranged for Oboe

Although the oboe repertoire is comparatively rich, Clara Dent wanted to record another musical programme, one that is customized for her. Fascinated by the direct expression of the singing voice in opera arias, she asked Andreas N. Tarkmann to arrange a whole program with edited arias for her. He set up pieces so suitable for oboe that it sounds as if they were composed for this instrument in the first place. One can listen to the very successful result on this new Coviello recording.
Release date: 9th Oct 2015

MOZART Piano Concertos Nos. 15 & 16

“The series's central sources of strength remains Ronald Brautigam's muscular yet sensitively nuanced command of of Mozartian discourse in every aspect: for instance, his straightfoward accounts of both concerto Andantes both show strong personal insight and moments of tender poetry.” --BBC Music Magazine, Awards Issue 2015 ****

In May 1784, shortly after completing the two piano concertos recorded here, Mozart described them in a letter to his father as 'concertos which are bound to make the player sweat.’ 

In his correspondence he also pointed out the particular importance of the wind instruments in the two works. This is obvious already in the first movement of the Concerto in D major, K 451, which opens the disc: for long stretches Mozart revels in the soloistic capabilities of the winds and elsewhere he builds up chordal textures in which the winds’ distinctive colours dominate.

In a similar manner, the winds take the lead from the very beginning of the B flat major concerto, K 450, with the strings answering. Throughout the movement, the woodwinds are absolutely vital to the narrative and Mozart playfully exploits the diverse colours of the winds, frequently featuring pairs of them playing in octaves: oboe/bassoon, oboe/horn or horn/bassoon. In the Andante the wind instruments are silent from start, but once they enter they again dominate in terms of colours.

The delicacy of the piano writing throughout this movement adds to the very special quality of the concerto, in which Mozart seems to point the way towards Beethoven. Previous discs in this series have earned distinctions such as Editor’s Choice (Gramophone), IRR Outstanding (International Record Review), ‘10’ (klassik-heute.de) and Disco excepcional (Scherzo). On their eighth instalment, Ronald Brautigam and Die Kölner Akademie have chosen to close the programme with a Rondo in D major, originally intended as a replacement finale for the Piano Concerto No.5, K 175. Offering a range of different moods and introducing a variety of quasi-operatic characters, the Rondo became greatly popular in Vienna and beyond, and was in fact sometimes published as a stand-alone work.

MOZART String Quartets K169, K464 & K589

An adventure for their anniversary: Mozart!

Every string quartet dreams of having its own Mozart cycle: for its 10th anniversary in 2016, the Armida Quartet plans to perform all 23 works in public. The composer was part of each one of their lives long before the ensemble was formed. Playing in orchestras, in chamber music and in solo recitals, the Armida Quartet’s future members already got to know and love Mozart.
Release date: 23rd Oct 2015

In their complete Mozart series, the quartet will not be presenting the string quartets in chronological order. Instead, in each recital, they will place Mozart, the young Wunderkind, alongside the mature composer; the carefree creator alongside the brooding master. “We want to show how modern his thinking was for his time. Many people have a fixed image of Mozart in their minds, as a musician who painted an ideal world with beautiful melodies. But inside, he was burning, struggling, seeking”, as 2nd violinist Johanna Staemmler contends.

Thus the Armida Quartet’s first Mozart CD features a selection of three works from different creative periods.

MOZART Piano Concertos Nos. 18 & 22

“Like most other period-instrument practitioners of Mozart's keyboard music, Brautigam plays a copy...of an instrument that post-dates the composer's death...Much more important than matters of strict authenticity, however, is Brautigam's stylish performance: nimble, fluent and subtle, with plenty of soloistic flair...The bubbly finale [of K482] is a delight.” --International Record Review, May 2014

“While Brautigam and Willens have sometims tended to favour tempos distinctly on the fast side, that isn't the case here: these are finely-judged performances throughout, in which every detail counts. Brautigam contributes an impressive cadenza to K482.” --BBC Music Magazine, July 2014 *****

Ronald Brautigam (piano) - Die Kölner Akademie, Michael Alexander Willens

The sixth disc in this highly acclaimed series combine two works in which Mozart's powers as an orchestrator come to the fore. Concerto No. 18 in B flat major, K 456, is sometimes referred to as one of the composer’s ‘military concertos’ on the basis of the march-like main theme of the first movement. But more striking is the variety of ways that Mozart employs the various groups of instruments: strings, wind instruments and, of course, the piano.

This aspect certainly didn’t pass unnoticed by a listener as initiated as Mozart’s father Leopold: in a letter to his daughter Nannerl he described how his enjoyment of the orchestral interplay had brought tears to his eyes. The performance that Leopold was referring to was by Mozart himself at a concert in Vienna in 1785, but the work is believed to have been written for the blind virtuoso Maria Theresia von Paradis to play on a concert trip to Paris, and the demanding piano part leaves us in no doubt about her abilities as a pianist. Concerto No. 22 in E flat major, on the other hand, is one that Mozart wrote primarily for his own use, completing it on 16th December 1785, and performing it later the same month.

It is the first of only three piano concertos in which he uses clarinets, to particular effect in the expressive Andantino cantabile episode of the otherwise ebullient Finale. The orchestra is on the whole unusually large, with trumpets and timpani, and horn parts which are uncommonly independent and important to the musical argument.

LIVE from Teatro Colón

Live from Teatro Colón captures the long-awaited reunion of legendary pianists Daniel Barenboim and Martha Argerich in their home city of Buenos Aires, in concert with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. Release date: 31st July 2015

En 2014 la pianista Martha Argerich y el pianista y director Daniel Barenboim, regresaron a su Buenos Aires natal para ofrecer un concierto monumental en el Teatro Colón fabulosamente acompañados por la West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. Tras una versión imperial del primer concierto para piano de Beethoven, el programa continúa con obras de Ravel, la primera suite de Carmen de Bizet y un animado tango del compositor argentino Mariano Mores.

HIGHLIGHTS Glenn Gould

In 1956 Glenn Gould’s first Columbia Masterworks release, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, took the music world by storm and immediately established the 23-year-old Canadian pianist as one of the most brilliant, original, charismatic and provocative classical performers of his time. Sixty years later, Gould’s prolific recorded output remains a stimulating presence, thanks to Sony Classical’s newly remastered collection of his complete authorized recordings in an 81-CD limited edition. The Sound of Glenn Gould presents highlights from this definitive presentation of the legendary pianist’s discography. Release date: 11th Sept 2015

LOVE'S Dreams

The most important composers of keyboard music are represented, including Felix Mendelssohn,  Franz Schubert,  Robert Schumann, Edvard Grieg, Claude Debussy, Johannes Brahms, Franz Liszt, Modest Mussorgsky and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. An even greater number of performers are presented, such as Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Evgeny Kissin,  Emil Gilels, Mikhail Pletnev, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and other important pianists.

The MOZART Album

The Perfect Mozart Team! Intuitive musical star-pianist Lang Lang meets the legendary pioneer of period performance practice and iconic Mozart authority Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

“Lang Lang makes his entrance with graceful tenderness, every note eloquently weighted, each phrases measured and expressive. There's a new maturity in his playing as he leads the orchestra with sweet suggestiveness...And his cadenza are models of their kind: exquisite displays of lyricism, but staying scrupulously within the bounds of Classical good taste.” --BBC Music Magazine, January 2015

“Of course the technique needs no comment; but the feeling is that Lang Lang has the measure of the music without approaching the impish playfulness of Brendel, the inwardness of Pires...He comes into his own, however, in the cadenzas. Here his touch is breathtakingly beautiful and, let off the leash, he is able to spin the same spells that make certain parts of his live performances so mesmerising.” --Gramophone Magazine, October 2014

“Lang Lang isn’t simply a showman. On The Mozart Album he actually seems almost too serious as he picks his way, often careful and reticent, through two famous concertos...But the ear adjusts and spirits rise, for overall these public performances convey much more of Lang Lang’s bouncy personality.” --The Times, 14th November 2014 ***

“At first sight, it’s an unlikely partnership, more a PR stunt than a meeting of minds. In fact, the 84-year-old Austrian Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the young Chinese virtuoso work together well...The performance of the enchanting, harmonically ever-startling G major concerto is a joy.” --Sunday Times, 16th November 2014