"hermann Simon"

Soprano Robyn Allegra Parton and pianist Simon Lepper perform an album inspired by the burnished gold leaf and sensual contours of Klimt’s Art-Nouveau ‘Vienna Secession’ movement, with music reflecting that aesthetic including songs by Richard Strauss, Alma Mahler, Johanna Muller-Hermann, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alban Berg and Joseph Marx – a composer about whom Lepper recently curated a series at Wigmore Hall. These are works that occupy a fascinating realm between the romantic and the modern, so that sensuous, brooding and dark-hued atmospheres are blended with rich textures and radiant harmonies. Described by Opernwelt as ‘captivating, astonishing, overwhelming’, award-winning British soprano Robyn Allegra Parton specialises in this repertoire, and Simon Lepper is one of the finest song accompanists in the world.

The Passio secundum Joannem or St John Passion (German: Johannes-Passion), BWV 245, is a Passion or oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach, the earliest of the surviving Passions by Bach. It was written during his first year as director of church music in Leipzig and was first performed on 7 April 1724, at Good Friday Vespers at the St. Nicholas Church.

In an age of artistic conformity, Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) had a refreshingly individual voice. In his own time he was described as 'a reserved, bigoted Catholic, but also a respectable, quiet, unassuming man, deserving of the greatest respect'. His music earned Bach's respect for its serious contrapuntal procedures; today's listeners, though, are more immediately charmed by Zelenka's quirky turns of phrase and flashes of original genius. There are plenty of these in the Passion oratorio Gesù al Calvario (1735), one of the composer's three late oratorios.

When Schumann was offered the post of music director in Düsseldorf in 1850, his first main project was to perform the St. John Passion, which had never been presented there, in April 1851: “It is much bolder, more powerful, and more poetic than the St. Matthew. This one seems to me not to be free of diffuseness and to be exceedingly long, but the other – how compact, how thoroughly genial, and of what art!” Robert Schumann

A prize student of music theorist Simon Sechter and a good friend of Beethoven and Schubert, German composer Franz Lachner was appointed Royal Court Conductor in Munich in 1836 where he directed the Court Theater, the Court Church, and the Court Concert Hall for with pride, dedication, and professionalism for the next 33 years. However, the death of his patron Maximilian II and the ascension of Ludwig II, avid patron of Richard Wagner, effectively ended Lachner's career. Though he lived another 23 years, Lachner's music was rarely if ever performed.

Außerordent- lich lebendige, dramatisch gespannte Wieder- gabe durch ein kleines, stimmlich tüchtiges Ensemble. Gute Solisten sowohl im vokalen wie instrumentalen Bereich.