Project Harmonia Mundi - Part 16

After more than a decade in which he wrote nothing for solo piano, Brahms returned to this repertoire in 1892, as his sixtieth birthday approached. All these pieces from opp.116, 118 and 119, whether he chooses to call them intermezzos, capriccios or ballades, have taken their place at the very peak of the literature for piano. These are compositions of quite extraordinary maturity, sometimes reaching out to the frontiers of Impressionism, all of them steeped in sublime melancholy.

Bach composed little for the lute, an instrument which - so it seems - he never played. Andreas Martin performs here four of the seven works known to be written directly for this instrument. The Suite BWV 997 and the Prelude BWV 999 are original compositions for lute while the Suite BWV 995 and the Fugue BWV 1000 were transcribed by Bach himself, respectively from the Cello Suite BWV 1011 and the Fugue from the Violin Sonata BWV 1001.

The release of volume I of the complete Beethoven sonatas by Paul Lewis was warmly and unanimously acclaimed by the international press:

"Élégance. C’est le terme qui revient souvent à l’esprit pour qualifier le jeu de Paul Lewis dans ces sonates." (Pianiste) • ‘I can scarcely wait to hear the rest of this deeply serious and sensitive young pianist's epic undertaking.’(Gramophone Editor's Choice) • ‘There isn’t a bar in any of these sonatas that seem ill-considered or hastily characterised; if tempos are generally on the measured side, Lewis's sense of structure and constant awareness of what the harmonic rhythm is doing allows him to generate tension in the most subtle ways.’ (The Guardian) • ‘This inaugural disc in Paul Lewis's cycle of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas is of such a high order that it promises to make the whole projected series a must for anybody who admires pianism at its most perceptive.’ • ‘Lewis has been living and breathing these sonatas in concert and it shows – he really does have something to say. (…) I, for one, can’t wait for the next instalment.’ (BBC Radio 3) • The Daily Telegraph: Best Classical Releases of 2005 • "Packende, luzide, dramatisch ausgefeilte Interpretationen" (Der Spiegel) • "Man spürt es vom ersten Ton an. Hier sitzt einer am Klavier, der hat das gewisse Etwas." (NDR)

A little more and I would have ended my life. . . . Only my art held me back’, says Beethoven in his ‘Heiligenstadt Testament’. Partly contemporary with this key document of summer 1802, these three sonatas open up the ‘new paths’ that were to enable the composer to surmount the prospect of almost total deafness. Paul Lewis has chosen to inaugurate his complete recording of the sonatas by plunging into the heart of this Tempest.

The four piano trios and the first of the three piano quartets cover a large part of the career of Johannes Brahms, from the youthful convulsions of the Trios op.8 and op. posth. (dating from 1854) to the masterpiece of late Romantic literature constituted by op.101 of 1886. A repertoire that is naturally close to the hearts of the Wanderer Trio.

Premiered in Vienna on 26 February 1899 under the direction of Gustav Mahler, Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony was never altered or revised by its composer, which shows his exceptional confidence in it. He was, indeed, especially proud of its compositional audacities, and nicknamed it Die Keckste (‘the cheekiest’). Right from its first performance it attracted attention for its visionary beauty.

120 years after its premiere at Leipzig (under the baton of Arthur Nikisch), Philippe Herreweghe provides an opportunity to rediscover the Seventh Symphony played on period instruments. This work was the first to bring Bruckner success beyond the borders of Austria, and was never subsequently revised. By dedicating his score to Ludwig II of Bavaria, the composer was also relishing a calculated insult to the Viennese press, still resolutely hostile to his music…

Performances of at least three of Bruckner’s symphonies always raise the same problem: which version is one to choose? In the case of the Third Symphony, at least three versions exist. The differences between them affect the musical material, the formal conception, the balance of the work’s proportions and its sonorities. It is the first version of 1873 – neither published nor performed during Bruckner’s lifetime – that Kent Nagano presents here.

Thanks to the cinema, Farinelli is now popularly seen as the archetype of Baroque vocal art. His timbre and technique were an inspiration to the composers of his time, and many opera arias bearing the mark of Farinelli have come down to us. A selection of these, many of them never recorded before, is performed here by the American mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux, one of the few singers capable of doing justice to this demanding repertory. Long acquainted with these virtuoso arias and the vocal technique they require, René Jacobs has provided specially written decorations for each of them.

A German Anthology. The pieces on this recording demonstrate the consummate art with which the German composers reconciled the new ideas imported from Italy at the very beginning of the 17th century (the principle of the basso continuo, accompanied monody, the concertato technique) with local traditions, thereby giving birth to works of a subtle beauty and an almost inexhaustible richness. This stylistic revolution paved the way to the flourishing of great forms like the vocal solo, the spiritual concert, the cantata, etc. cultivated by composers as different as Schütz, Buxtehude, Tunder and Erlebach: in the very heart of Baroque Europe the Germans were taking their place.