Ferdinand

It is our good fortune that Ferdinand Ries bequeathed to posterity six remarkably beautiful Quartets for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Violoncello. These compositions sparkle like gems in the early Romantic chamber literature including the flute. On the present release, Vol. 2 of our complete recording, his Quartets in G major WoO 35, 2 and E minor op. 145, 2 as well as his remarkable String Trio in E minor WoO 70, 2 are heard. On the one hand, conventional elements verging on practically Baroque sequential processes stand out in the trio. On the other hand, here we also find innovative musical surprises and full-fledged, motivically organized development sections, above all in the fourth movement.

If the number of compositions written for a specific instrument is any indication of a predilection, then Ferdinand Ries did indeed have a soft place in his heart for the flute. He penned no fewer than six quartets for flute and string trio, a quintet for flute, violin, two violas, and violoncello, a trio for piano, flute and violoncello, and many works for flute and piano - more works than for any other wind instrument. His first Flute Quartet presents itself as a grand, imposing quartet in the affirmative key of C major and contains many surprising elements. Here too, as already in his symphonies and string quartets, Ries proves to be an entirely independent and original composer - despite his close association with Beethoven.

This recording is the first official release in any format of this once-in-a-lifetime concert performance featuring Dame Joan Sutherland and Fritz Wunderlich. In 1959 performances of Handel were just beginning to embrace the original instrument movement making this recording an invaluable historic record of performance practice. In addition to musicological interest, the CDs present Joan Sutherland at the beginning of her illustrious career in the full bloom of youth. She was flown in as a last minute replacement for the scheduled soprano and proceeded to give a virtuoso performance of the demanding title role. Full of Handel's gorgeous melodies and with vocal fireworks in bountiful supply, it is no wonder that Sutherland completely awed the German public. She is joined by Fritz Wunderlich, the acclaimed German tenor, in their one-and-only collaboration. He as well was a last minute replacement and rises to the exacting demands of Handel. His rich and pliant tone is perfectly suited to the technical and dramatic demands of the opera.

Five Piano Concertos and the Piano Sonata No. 32, opus 111, recorded in stereo in 1962 and 1964, respectively, by Wilhelm Kempff [1895-1991] and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Ferdinand Leitner [1912-96]. The sonata, the composer’s last, is certainly more than a mere filler, from the opening hesitancy of the ‘Allegro con brio ed appassionato’ to the extended closing section of the second movement.

Hits To The Head is a 20-track greatest hits collection spanning the almost 20 year existence of Franz Ferdinand. Alongside 18 classics the album features two brand-new tracks “Billy Goodbye” and “Curious” co-produced by Alex Kapranos, Julian Corrie and Stuart Price.

Conductor Ferdinand Leitner (1912-96), learning his trade from masters like Walter, Busch, Richter and Karl Muck (as rehearsal pianist at Bayreuth), gained the experience that lead to his being dubbed the "singers' conductor" by all who worked with him during a long and lustrous career marked by his tenure as Zurich Opera music director (1969-84) and some 300 commercial recordings. The 1970s-80s Bayreuth stalwart, bass-baritone Franz Mazura as Tamerlano and famed American lyric soprano Helen Donath as Asteria headline this 1966 Leitner-led performance of Handel’s Tamerlano.

This is the second disc devoted by the Chinese-German Trio Parnassus to the chamber music of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, the dedicatee of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3. The prince was an aristocratic patron for whom the irascible Beethoven actually had musical respect, noting that he played not "in a princely or royal manner but rather like a competent piano player." Ferdinand, who was killed by Napoleon's troops in 1806, in turn venerated Beethoven, but the strongest tribute to his talent is that as a composer he wrote music that neither aped Beethoven's nor took refuge in Classical models.

It is usually the big nineteenth-century opera sets that are bought for their singers; but with a line-up of principals such as we have here Handel too is swept into the golden net. Lucia Popp, two years into her career after her Vienna debut, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich, Walter Berry: that is a quartet which in its time may have seemed no more than standard stuff, but at this date looks starry indeed. […] The Orfeo, for one thing, is sung in German instead of Italian; it has cuts, though many fewer than the Mackerras recording in English with Dame Janet Baker; it has the solo voices recorded very close indeed (those that are supposedly off-stage are just about where many modern recordings would have them except when off-stage); and the orchestra sounds, to our re-trained ears, big and thick, with the heavy bass-line that used to seem as proper to Handel as gravy from the roast was to Yorkshire pudding. The roles of Caesar and Sextus, moreover, are taken by men, and there is not a countertenor in sight.