Barnabás Kelemen

The Lockenhaus International Chamber Music Festival is regarded as one of Austria’s most prestigious festivals: it was created by the violinist Gidon Kremer to offer a new vision of chamber music and the opportunity to create musical exchanges in an intimate setting. The cellist Nicolas Altstaedt succeeded Gidon Kremer in 2012 and now continues the spirit of the festival. For this first recording in partnership with Lockenhaus, he is joined by experienced partners, including the Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang, the Hungarian violinist Barnabás Kelemen, the German pianist Alexander Lonquich – whose Schubert double album was recently released on Alpha (Alpha 433) – and the British violist Lawrence Power. Together they have selected two works, the Piano Quintet of Béla Bartók, a demanding composition, rarely performed even though it is considered an intensely personal work, and the String Trio of Sándor Veress, a former student of Bartók.

This is as complete a representation as humanly possible of all the music scored for violin and piano that Franz Liszt composed, arranged, or had some creative hand in. The 17 works span Liszt's entire career, from the young composer's elegant Zwei Walzer to his experimental late period (the two Elegies and the stark, foreboding La lugubre gondola).

Forty years have passed since Gidon Kremer created a little musical oasis in the Austrian town of Lockenhaus in 1981. The violinist’s open-minded attitude has left its mark on this event, which has become a must in the concert calendar, and the cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, who took up the torch in 2012, continues the same philosophy. For this fortieth anniversary, he has decided to call on composers who have come to Lockenhaus or had works performed there in the past ten years. Hence the programme contains two premieres – the cello concertos of Raphaël Merlin and Helena Winkelman – but also short pieces by Erkki-Sven Tüür, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Lera Auerbach, Patkop, Maja Ratkje, Matan Porat, Kurt Schwertsik and Johannes Fischer. Musical postcards that celebrate the anniversary while foreshadowing the next forty years!