2 Cellos

Cream was a band born to the stage, a fact that the band and their record label realized the public fully understood by the number one U.S. chart placement for Wheels of Fire, with its entire live disc, and the number two chart peak for Goodbye, the posthumous release that was dominated by concert recordings…

Gidon Kremer - Edition Lockenhaus (2011) {5CD Box Set, ECM New Series 2190-94}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.22 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 679 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 42 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2011 ECM Records | ECM New Series 2190-94 / 4764509
Classical / Chamber Music / Concerto / Modern / Romantic / Neo-Classical

Five-CD limited-edition box set, issued in time for the 30th anniversary of the Austrian chamber-music festival. “Edition Lockenhaus” returns long out-of-print titles to the catalogue, with some of the finest musicians of the New Series, including Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, Heinz Holliger, Thomas Zehetmair, Thomas Demenga, Robert Levin, Eduard Brunner and many more. Gidon Kremer: “The artistic atmosphere in Lockenhaus soon has everybody speaking on the same wavelength.” The set opens with previously unreleased recordings – from 2001 and 2008 – with Sir Simon Rattle and Roman Kofman conducting Kremerata Baltica in revelatory performances of Richard Strauss’s “Metamorphosen” and Olivier Messiaen’s “Trois petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine”: the committed interpretations convey the spirit of Lockenhaus. Discs two through five focus on music of César Franck, André Caplet, Francis Poulenc, Leos Janácek, Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich and Erwin Schulhoff. Original liner notes, an interview with Kremer, and new texts complete a very special edition.

Though a pupil of the great orchestrator Rimsky-Korsakov, and in turn a teacher to the likes of Rachmaninov, Glière, and Scriabin, Anton Arensky himself is a composer often forgotten when contemplating the Russian greats. Productive in many genres, it is perhaps in his chamber music that this unduly neglected composer truly shines. His writing has much of the same textural sophistication and melodic beauty as his close friend, Tchaikovsky. In fact, the theme on which the Second Quartet's Variations are based is drawn from a Tchaikovsky quartet. Performing Arensky's First and Second string quartets, along with the Piano Quintet, is the Ying Quartet. This ensemble's playing is characterized by a surprisingly precise, consistent uniformity of sound and exactness of articulation, making it seem as if a single instrument were playing as opposed to four independent parts. All aspects of their technical execution are polished and refined, which only enhances their equally enjoyable musical effusiveness, rich, deep tone, and understanding of Arensky's scores that casts them in the best possible light.

When one thinks of the most iconic German musician of the Baroque era, the obvious name that comes to mind is that of Johann Sebastian Bach. During their lifetimes, however, Bach was decidedly less famous and appreciated than his contemporary Georg Philipp Telemann. Whilst Bach had been almost predestined to the musician’s career, as he was but one of the numerous musicians of his family (to the point that “Bach” had become a synonymous for “musician”), Telemann had had another path traced for him. He was encouraged to study law, and at first did obey his family’s orders. Soon, however, it became clear that nothing except music could satisfy his genius and his talent.

Among the finest performers of early music and arbiters of period practices, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques turn their attention here to the composer whose work inspired the ensemble's name and purpose. In this 2000 disc devoted to the music of Jean-Philippe Rameau, Rousset and his ensemble turn in vigorous and appealing performances that present Rameau's music in a new light. The chaste and sometimes severe Pièces de clavecin en concerts are dramatically transformed in these sumptuous versions for string orchestra and continuo.

This disc offers a trio of orchestral works by Dutilleux which are not otherwise available together, and it scores highly for including the first recording of the 1991 revision of Timbres, espace, mouvement (1978).