Felix Klieser, Herbert Schuch & Andrej Bielow - Horn Trios (2017)

Felix Klieser first began to take a serious interest in the Horn Trio of Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) at the age of thirteen. Back then he was just a junior student at the College of Music and Drama in Hanover. He bought several different recordings of the work, including one featuring the hornist Peter Damm, whom he was later to meet at a master class in Dresden. “I picked up quickly that Felix was extraordinarily talented. He was able to elicit from the horn a soft, warm sound, a distinctly Romantic horn tone,” says the former horn-player of the Dresden Staatskapelle in high praise of Klieser in the booklet text to the young musician’s new CD entitled “Horn Trios”, released on the Berlin Classics label on September 29, 2017. “The Brahms Trio is the pride of the horn literature,” according to Peter Damm, a view he shares with Felix Klieser. That led him to seek out other such works, perhaps even unknown literature from the horn trio genre. He came across the French composer Frederic Nicolas Duvernoy (1765–1838), who was hornist at the Paris Opera, Faure pupil Charles Koechlin (1867–1950) and the Mannheim-born Robert Kahn (1865–1951) who was hounded by the Nazis. The result is a programme of works spanning nearly 100 years of development of the horn trio, which bring Felix Klieser a further step towards his goal: to place the horn centre stage as a colourful and profoundly Romantic instrument. Such a plan requires the right chamber music partners, whom Felix Klieser has happily found: at the piano sits the outstanding and sensitive Herbert Schuch, while the violin is played by the Ukrainian ARD competition winner Andrej Bielow. “It was a wonderful experience for us to learn these pieces, some of them quite new to us, thereby expanding the scope of the chamber music genre in an exciting way,” enthuses Felix Klieser.

TRACKLIST

01. Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano No. 1 in C Minor: I. Adagio-Cantabile
02. Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano No. 1 in C Minor: II. Allegretto
03. Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano No. 2 in F Major: I. Adagio-Larghetto-Maestoso-Allegro
04. Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano No. 2 in F Major: II. Moderato
05. Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano No. 2 in F Major: III. Adagio-Allegro
06. Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano in E-Flat Major, Op. 40: I. Andante
07. Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano in E-Flat Major, Op. 40: II. Scherzo (Allegro)
08. Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano in E-Flat Major, Op. 40: III. Adagio mesto
09. Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano in E-Flat Major, Op. 40: IV. Finale (Allegro con brio)
10. Quatre petites pièces, Op. 32: I. Andante
11. Quatre petites pièces, Op. 32: II. Très modéré
12. Quatre petites pièces, Op. 32: III. Allegretto quasi Andantino
13. Quatre petites pièces, Op. 32: IV. Scherzando
14. Serenade, Op. 73: Andante sostenuto