This is Reger at his most accessible. In both pieces there is plenty of atmosphere and colour. The Hiller Variations is possibly his greatest and most satisfying orchestral work and is indispensable. Reger was a prolific composer, and it has to be said not all that came from his pen was necessarily memorable. However, the two works on this disc are vintage Reger. He lived his short life as fast as he composed his music. His is a special and unique sound-world which offers great rewards to those who take the time to explore it. Radiant playing from the Concertgebouw under Jarvi and sound to match.
On her latest release, Flora Fabri interprets the highly praised sonatas and a fantasy by Ernst Wilhelm Wolf on a "tangent grand". The ingenious invention of this grand piano for the time around 1770 is an intermediate form of clavichord, harpsichord and fortepiano. When a key is struck, a wooden stick with a leather head is struck against the string from below, and a second stick dampens the string again. Wolf […] belongs not only […] among our classical and best composers in any subject, but is also original. More recognition seems hardly possible from the perspective of the Sturm und Drang: The introduction that Ernst Ludwig Gerber chooses in 1792 to his encyclopedia article on Ernst Wilhelm Wolf paints in a few words the picture of an original genius whose artistic uniqueness dominates a maximum of professional expertise. He was a pupil of Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. In Gotha he became acquainted with the music of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Carl Heinrich Graun, which strongly influenced him. Above all, he appreciated the works of Bach, with whom he had a lifelong friendship. At the University of Jena he was mainly engaged in music, and he was given the direction of the Collegium musicum, which gave him the opportunity to perform his own compositions.
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) is one of the most original italian composers of the first half of the eighteenth century. Born in Naples the same year as two other icons, Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel, Scarlatti's enormous output includes 555 surviving keyboard sonatas, and can be considered an encyclopedia of literature of all time for its vastness, invention, and variety of writing.
Ushering in a new golden era for the flute as solo instrument, Jean-Pierre Rampal secured his place in the classical music firmament as the greatest flautist of the modern era. Over 25 years (1954-1982), the French virtuoso’s fruitful collaboration with Erato grew into a truly exceptional achievement in recording history: an encyclopedia of flute music in vital performances that have remained the benchmark for generations. The first complete reissue of these recordings represents the most important collection ever dedicated to a single flautist. After all, it was Jean-Pierre Rampal that taught us to love the flute.