Christian Poltéra Ronald Brautigam

Dutch pianist Ronald Brautigam divides his interpretive energies equally between the fortepiano and the conventional concert grand. Born in Amsterdam, Brautigam first studied with Dutch pianist Jan Wijn and later studies took him to the U.K. and to America, where he took classes with Rudolf Serkin. Brautigam first came to prominence in 1984 when he was awarded the Netherlands Music Prize, the highest distinction the Netherlands bestows on musicians.

The three works gathered here date from Sergei Prokofiev's last years. Despite his declining health as well as the oppressive political climate, the composer could count on the support of great musicians, in particular the cellist Mstislav Rostropovitch. The relationship contributed to the writing of works for cello.

Born in the vicinity of Cologne, only two years after and some sixty km distant from Beethoven, Johann Wilhelm Wilms was once a musical force to be reckoned with. In Amsterdam, where he lived from the age of 19, his music was actually performed more frequently than Beethoven’s at one period, and his orchestral works were played in such musical centres as Leipzig. Besides chamber music and solo sonatas, Wilms composed several symphonies and concertos, among them piano concertos for his own use.

Joseph Haydn once remarked: ‘I was not a magician on any instrument, but I knew the power and effect of all of them.’ This knowledge he used to good effect in his cello concertos, composed some twenty years apart for two different cellists in ‘his’ orchestra at the court of Prince Esterhazy. Both works are firmly established in the concert repertoire, but this has not always been the case.

Ronald Brautigam has been described as ‘an absolutely instinctive Mozartian… with melodic playing of consummate beauty’ (International Record Review), and he is once again supported by the period orchestra Die Kölner Akademie conducted by Michael Alexander Willens in a partnership which more than one reviewer has termed ‘ideal’.

These two exceptional works are here performed by Ronald Brautigam and Die Kölner Akademie, on their fifth disc of Mozart’s concertos - an ongoing series which has been described as ‘a lucky break and a true delight’ in the German magazine Piano News.

Sharon Bezaly and Ronald Brautigam are two of the brightest stars in the musical firmament, so BIS Records are indeed fortunate to have them on their roster of artists. From Carl Reinecke's Undine Sonata, composed in 1882, to Poulenc's 1957 Flute Sonata this disc brings together five central works in the repertoire for flute and piano, covering a wide range of styles and approaches.

Ronald Brautigam performs some of Franz Schubert’s most profound and beloved works: the eight Impromptus. Schubert’s name has become closely associated with this genre, often characterized by a lyrical melody and a free-flowing structure, with a sense of spontaneity. With it, Schubert seems to have found an ideal setting for the expression of his genius.

Carl Maria von Weber wrote music that has been admired by composers as diverse as Schumann, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky. But in his lifetime he was also recognised as one of the finest pianists of the period, with an exceptional technique and a brilliant gift for improvisation.

Ronald Brautigam presents two of Franz Schubert’s late masterpieces, the Sonatas D 959 and D 960. They are played here on a fortepiano built by Paul McNulty after an instrument from around 1819 by the Viennese instrument maker Conrad Graf and presumably similar to the instrument on which Schubert composed. Although it is tempting to see Schubert’s final works as the testament of a doomed artist who feels his end is nearing, the reality is quite different: the composer displayed vitality, optimism and a prodigious capacity for work. His last two sonatas also show that he had reached a new level, having successfully emancipated himself from the Beethovenian model.