Carpentry, Floyd Vogt

Lars Vogt (1970-2022) early recordings collected here provide a document of an artist who always remained authentic, both to himself and to music. Lars Vogt never sought absolute truth, but truthfulness instead meant all the more to him. The man and the artist were always very close, never currying favour and never detached from the world. He was, instead, open and natural. / "It's incredibly gratifying when you notice that you can perhaps light a little spark, a little flame for music in people, and when music helps you to find the path to your own soul."

Lars Vogt continues his cycle of Beethovens Piano Concertos with the Royal Northern Sinfonia. On this second volume, the recording also includes Beethovens Triple Concerto where Lars Vogt is joined together with his longtime artistic partners Christian Tetzlaff and Tanja Tetzlaff. Vogts recordings of chamber music with the trio have gathered astonishing reviews and recording awards, including a Grammy nomination for the recording of Brahms Piano Trios (ODE 1271-2D). Beethovens Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Cello in C major, Op. 56 is a work radiant with joy, described by many as a concerto for piano trio and orchestra. The work, completed in 1803, has standed unrivaled in its genre.

Brahms (1833-97) devoted much of the 1880s to his three Piano Trios, having decided, as he told a friend, that there was “no further point in attempting an opera or a marriage”. They are among his less familiar chamber works. He originally wrote No 1 as a young man, overhauling it more than three decades later in 1889. All three works – the B major Op 8, C major Op 87 and C minor Op 101 – have a tender, shadowy intensity, without quite the same heart-on-sleeve fervour of the bigger chamber works. The string players here – brother and sister Christian and Tanja Tetzlaff – are regular quartet partners. Together with sensitive pianism from Lars Vogt, ensemble is alert, accurate, never forced: already a favourite CD.

Lars Vogt continues his series of concerto recordings with the Royal Northern Sinfonia with this new recording of Johannes Brahms (18331897) First Piano Concerto together with Four Ballades (Op. 10) for solo piano. As in previous albums, Lars Vogt conducts from the keyboard. The evolution of Brahms 1st Piano Concerto took several steps. Originally conceived to become a Sonata for Two Pianos through orchestration it was developed into a four-movement Symphony until reaching into its final form of a Piano Concerto in three movements. During the process, which lasted from 1854 to 1856, some movements were also discarded and replaced by new material.

Raphaël Sévère releases a new album dedicated to Mozart's concerto and quintet, in collaboration with the Modigliani Quartet and the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris conducted by Lars Vogt.

The early death of award-winning pianist and conductor Lars Vogt on September 5, 2022 shocked profoundly the international music world. Some 16 months earlier, already aware of his diagnosis and in the middle of his treatment sessions, the artist had an urgent desire to record a Mozart piano concerto album together with the Orchestre de chambre de Paris. He believed that performing these fantastic works that he so much admired would also be the best medicine for his condition. For this Mozart album Lars Vogt coupled two concertos: the early, exuberant Piano Concerto No. 9, ‘Jeunehomme’, written by Mozart in his early 20s, together with the melancholic and nostalgic Piano Concerto No. 24, which is considered by many as Mozart’s greatest piano concerto – a perfect closure to Lars Vogt’s final concerto album.