Emili Hirsch

"I feel Catalan through and through, but in my music I want to express what I feel, what I admire and what attracts me, be it Andalusian or Chinese." Enrique Granados. "I hope that this album will allow a deeper understanding of the Goyescas, drawing not only the most common images of Spanish folklore such as the sevillanas or the bullfighters, but also a more complete picture of a diverse country. It was the inspiration for an artist like Goya who was at once deeply local and universal. It is this fascinating mixture of tradition and modernity, of Spain and Europe, that Granados liked and loved in his illustrious predecessor." Enrique Granados

Mirko Hirsch is a German musician, singer, songwriter and producer. Besides his own songs, he has written and arranged songs for Ken Laszlo ("S.O.S.", "Hey Operator", "In the Night", "Fire & Ice"), Albert One, Aleph ("I'm On Fire"), Italove ("Rhythm of Love"), TQ (3) ("Let's go to Tokyo", "Kickstart", "Rhythm of Love"), Fred Ventura ("In the Night"), Linda Jo Rizzo ("Fingertips", "There's a fire", "Under Fire"), Tiziana Rivale ("Open Up Your Heart"), Retronic Voice ("Shot down"), Trans-X ("Video Night", "My Fascination"), Elen Cora, and other Italo Disco & Eurodisco artists. He also uses pseudonyms to release songs in slightly different styles (e.g. Rick De Moore for Eurodisco, Dario Silver for darker, more electro Italo Disco)…

One can occasionally puzzle over why some music of high quality is hardly noticed in musical life, only finding its way into the repertoire with difficulty, if at all, and this is case of the works of Roberto Gerhard. The works recorded here were all composed during the 1960s. In them, one recognises a musical handwriting with roots in the classics of modernism; it succeeds in forming the kind of synthesis, so pronouncedly realised by Stravinsky, of methods schooled by Schönberg with concertante elements and a rhythmical and sonorous sententiousness. “Dodecaphonic, but human and even a bit divine” – as Frank Harders-Wuthenow entitled an essay dedicated to Gerhard.

One can occasionally puzzle over why some music of high quality is hardly noticed in musical life, only finding its way into the repertoire with difficulty, if at all, and this is case of the works of Roberto Gerhard. The works recorded here were all composed during the 1960s. In them, one recognises a musical handwriting with roots in the classics of modernism; it succeeds in forming the kind of synthesis, so pronouncedly realised by Stravinsky, of methods schooled by Schönberg with concertante elements and a rhythmical and sonorous sententiousness. “Dodecaphonic, but human and even a bit divine” – as Frank Harders-Wuthenow entitled an essay dedicated to Gerhard.